The more I play mage the more frustrated I become with arcanes tuning and kit. I dont think I’ve ever played a spec where one of its core abilities just isn’t used. You dont ever touch explosion now or, at least if you do its not meaningful in a way that adds to your rotation. I made a post during TWW beta about how survival hunter had a lot of bloat with butchery and I suggested making it more of a cd then just a spam ability. Butchery ended up becoming a 45 sec cd that bled targets. I think similarly arcanes talent dematerialize should effect arcane explosion in a way that can add throughput out of its burn phases. Touch of the magi seems to need a slight buff as well. Its sad i cant remember arcane being good. I thought it had a shot this xpac but it just keeps getting gutted.
Arcane Explosion was never really meant to be a main rotation ability at any point in time… sure it saw some life as the main filler back in Cata, MoP, and WoD… and even remained fairly popular as a filler in Legion, but it wasn’t ever intended. The skill has always been meant as a tool for solo questing, to deal with swarming enemies. Its current design is fine…
Touch of the Magi however… yeah… that skill needs some love…
I’m just going to post this snippet from the Arcane Made rotation guide from Wowhead, just because I find it really funny.
I don’t know. Arcane just feels really proc heavy and the rotation reads off like a Powerpoint presentation. Once CDs are pumping it has wild burst but during that downtime you absolutely feel it. And it don’t feel great.
I’ve parked my arcane mages in TWW. I tried, got them to 80 and it’s just doesn’t work for me. Loved Arcane. Not any more. Maybe someday it’ll be decent again.
Isn’t arcane like S+ tier right now?
Fire Mage is, according to IcyVeins. Arcane is sitting at the lowest point of B tier, which also happens to be the lowest tier.
That’s one source, but I’m more going by my own personal experience of Arcane where it just isn’t that fun waiting for Clearclasting and Intuition procs while also memorizing a grocery list of priority requirements.
You should get on frostfire then. Easily the best hero tree in the game. I prefer the frost version by fire is also good fun.
Nope lol
Fire is
At first I was all pumped up for arcane because of the creators making videos about it. Then we get here actually and nobody is arcane. 
My bad, I didn’t realize I wasn’t on the arena forums, arcane might need some help in pve
Arcane was nasty last patch too.
I’ve played it but never at the level that mythic raiding would be. I really enjoy shooting arcane missiles and chunking out barrages. I’m not a fan of arcane blast or arcane orb though
I feel like single target could get a little love 
I had planned to main arcane in tww. It was SO much fun at the start but now it simply blows.
My mage is parked and I doubt I’ll play it again with the state things are in.
Your overthinking the most braindead mage spec…
Hell no. Fire mage is sitting pretty as S+.
That’s funny, last season I saw more Frost Mages followed by Arcane.
Now Arcane is the red headed stepchild, hilarious how the balance swings from season to season lol.
And people think I’m delusional when I tell them that these wild balance swings are intentional… its been a constant pattern… perform good turns into performs bad, performs bad turns into performs ok, performs ok goes either way.
Arcane was fun in TWW beta, then Blizzard made changes so it was less fun when it went live, then they made more changes to make it less fun and do less damage mid season 1, then they made more changes to make it even less fun and do even less damage for season 2.
explosion is only powerful in conjunction with two other perks during very key moments when it procs and only in group content. And then when you follow that up with shifting power, it’s actually very useful for replenishing your arcane abilities. Unless you’re just farming, old dungeons, and you run through spamming explosion to one shot everything.
I really tried to like Arcane this expansion, but it just feels so clunky to me.