Mages. Glass Cannons. What happens when you remove the cannon? Well, you’re left with glass. And boy does it shatter when hit.
I solo quest all the time. That’s my game time. Solo’ing content.
Arcane Missiles was the foundation of my spell rotation because it was the hard hitter. Burned down mobs fast enough that it kept me out of trouble and alive, even if a surprise mob or two ran in and ganked me from behind. Then it was turned into proc usage only.
I just ran through some DF content, and holy flippin’ what… I was literally using every spell in my arsenal to make up for the deficit and it was insufficient!
If I had to take on more than one mob at a time, try as hard as I might to survive the fight, I could barely make it because I couldn’t kill them fast enough to avoid excessive damage. Get three mobs on me in tight quarters, nowhere safe to blink, You have died. Over and over and over. And I don’t seem to have Mass Polymorph anymore to get me out of a pinch. I tried to take on a named NPC for the last quest of a small quest chain, not a boss, just a named NPC; I couldn’t even come close to killing it before that NPC caved my face in. You have died. Six times over, with a looong journey back from the grave yard, and I finally gave up. I was so frustrated with the difficulty level, it drained every ounce of enjoyment I could have had with the content.
Then I tried the same DF content out on my Druid. Bear Tank. Same level as my Mage. Slightly worse gear starting out; No. Problem. At all. Was just another Wednesday afternoon in pixel land. Even took on that same named NPC that painted the walls of her ice-cave with my Mage’s blood six times over. My Druid decimated it.
While on my Druid I watched a Shadow Priest solo questing. ShadPriest was still melting faces and taking names - fast enough to avoid taking much damage at all. Did an ‘Inspect’ to check out their gear. iLvl roughly around where my Mage’s was.
Please put Arcane Missiles back the way it was and put the enjoyment back into solo questing my Mage. That’s a lot of invested game time I have in that character to not want to play him anymore, due to him comparatively sucking.
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Mercanix you hit the nail on the head. I was so angry about this I switched all my mages to Fire Spec. Not as efficient, for sure. Good thing I only do daily quests as my game play.
BTW I do not think Blizzard is going to change it back.
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Man, were people really out there using Arcane Missiles with no clearcasting?
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Guilty, it’s a alt. Don’t use it for anything other than it was a race and specialization I didn’t have. I currently have three mages: one of each school and a different race for each. I liked the simplistic of the Arcane tree especially with Arcane Missile, but now it’s more of a chore to play it.
I haven’t touched my Fire mage in like 2 months, and mostly play my frost mage which also had changes but not too bad as my Arcane mage. And yes, I have all 24 of my retail characters wearing 490-506 gear, so I do play them all weekly.
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You know you’re just supposed to be spamming Arcane Blast at 4 Charges 90% of the time while out soloing, right?
Using Arcane Missiles without clearcasting is super inefficient.
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Stimulates the 'tism centers in my brain, though. Also, it is kind of weird that there is a single level where you just straight up can’t cast Arcane Missiles if you make a new mage. Feels like a weird oversight, there.
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So pop presence of mind and finish it off, idk. When playing my Mage I never run into situations where I just need Arcane Missiles.
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I can kinda see where you’re coming from, but it’s not like you don’t have other options to kill enemies with at any given time. And you can just…hold onto clearcasting procs for situational use, if it’s that important.
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Again, it isn’t a main, so I don’t know how to play it efficiently. Heck I can’t even play my main efficiently anymore. I learned to play games mostly as a healer and tank. When I came back to World of Warcraft after a 9-year hiatus I got in a bunch of toxic groups on my healer that I finally after 20 years of gaming made my 1st DPS (current main).
Now with finger amputations and a two-button mouse the simpler and dumb-downed things are the better. Button bloat is something I’ve always been against even when I had full use of my mouse hand (I’m a clicker).
But back on target, if something lights up on my taskbar that’s when I knew to click it for maximum efficiency, otherwise it’s spam what’s not on cooldown and Arcane Missile was more efficient than single shot arcane ability for me. Could using a DPS rotation helper be in the cards, tried a few but then I am not learning the class, I am just watching what it tells me to click not knowing why.
Not like anyone talks anymore in game to help people learn to be better. Asking a question is either crickets or fear you’re going to be reported.
And when people say world content is too easy, can we remind other people of this post? lol.
Imagine…
I don’t mean to try to tell you how to play the game, but Arcane is all about stacking Arcane charges with Arcane Blast and getting as much damage from full stacks as possible.
Arcane Missiles exist as a combo extender, mostly, and since at least Legion era it has been very inefficient to use Arcane Missiles by itself without clearcasting active.
Don’t be afraid to run your mana bar down to zero spamming Arcane Blast. You have evocation as a backup.
And be sure to conjure food to regen mana quickly between pulls if need be.
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For sure. It’s certainly not ruining my life. It’s just one of those changes I scratch my head about. I guess it makes it easier for people to understand the right time to press it since there’s no longer a wrong time to press it.
That’s my interpretation of the change. Being able to cast it without a proc was basically a noob trap that distracted from Arcane Blast spam.
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In BFA - all my mage used was arcane blast - one shot on full charges everything dead. I skipped most of shadowlands so can’t remember that but DF - I mostly just used missiles and blast on occasion.
I am guessing I haven’t played my mage this week because I sure would notice this change if I had.
If all you were doing is world content it was faster than the long cast of arcane blast. It never used to do as much damage as it did in DF. Blizzard created the problem because of course people are going to use spells that are more fun to use. Spells with long cast times aren’t.
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Before you could click the ability at any time. Now it only becomes available to use when you have clear casting up. So, it remains greyed out ability to use and because of its location on my task bar it’s a bit annoying.
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Yeah, I looked it up. Like I said I must have not got around to playing my arcane mage this week. I ran 8 others through the weeklies but I think that one was geared up so it got pushed back in order. I really didn’t notice much change in the other classes (well I take that back SPriest changed) but I just have no interest in the constant relearning of rotations that blizzard has been doing since MoP so I just click what’s available now and is the quickest. If that doesn’t work the character just doesn’t get played much.
If you’re questing at 70 at Ilevel 322, you are definitely going to have a hard time.
Gear up to 400 or so and you’ll find things go much better.
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yeah i gave up on the mage I use to paly fire in pvp
be for the patch now I hit like a wet noodle
