I lnow that the usual consensus on Arcane Mages is bad to boring but I loved playing this class. The main ability that I loved using was Arcane Missiles. But went to play my mage toon and now I can’t use Arcane Missiles unless Clearcasting activates. This happened before and I don’t know why and does anyone know why it’s happening now?
Arcane Missiles was redesigned in the pre-patch. It is now a proc-only ability. You can only cast it if you have a clearcasting proc. This is intended.
Before the stupid change, Arcane Missiles was my go to spell. Proc only Arcane Missiles stupid because it makes it harder to take down enemies quickly. For ranged classes, it’s important to take down enemies quickly without them getting in your face. Because of the stupid change, enemies can easily get right in your face and thus take down your shields. Sure you could use blast wave, but that only slows them down and then they just get right back in your face. Thanks Blizzard for making it harder to take down enemies quickly.
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Arcane Missiles was reverted to its MoP/WoD/Legion design where it can only be cast through a proc. It wasn’t really a nerf so much as a design change that Blizzard implemented. There reasoning was so that they could balance the spell better, but I’m not sure they really did any balancing of it after the change…
If you were using Arcane Missiles without a proc previously, it wasn’t going to help you take down enemies quickly in any way, shape, or form. It was a good way to finish off an enemy that was low, but spamming non-proc arcane missiles was really not advisable as it was pretty low damage. I know a lot of people liked being able to machine gun missiles, but it wasn’t the best way of killing anything as arcane.
If you’re struggling to kill enemies before they reach you, I can promise you it has nothing to do with not being able to cast arcane missiles without a proc. But if you are struggling, Frostbolt, Ice Nova, Ring of Frost, Cone of Cold, Slow, and Blast Wave (Volatile Detonation optional) can help a lot with that. Not everyone is a fan of casting spells that are outside their school of magic, but pulling an enemy with Frostbolt and then switching to your normal arcane spells can actually help quite a lot in solo / world content.
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I disagree. From my experience, non proc Arcane Missiles allowed you to take down enemies quickly and efficiently. You did a ton of damage with the spell. Most of the time, enemies never reached you.
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Arcane Missiles spam was always lower dps than using the proper rotation which includes AB and AM only on proc.
It’s not a big problem only being able to cast AM on proc. Doing so forces players to use the proper rotation.
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Define proper rotation. May be true that there is a set of abilities to be used in any given encounter but playstyle should not be forced on players because someone said so. That is literally telling casual players they’re not allowed to play casual.
Current Arcane is the most enjoyable I’ve played in maybe 10 years.
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From my experience, the dps was good for non proc arcane missiles.
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I can only assume, then, that you were severely outgearing the content you were doing previously. Spamming Arcane Missiles without clearcasting was not a very good way to do damage in any of the previous 3 expansions. It was easy, yes, and casting it once or twice when a mob was almost dead was useful. But casting it over and over and ignoring the rest of the kit was simply not a good idea.
Right now we’re all undergeared. The content we’re doing is content that’s appropriate for where our gear is at (or possibly the content is harder than we’re prepared for). If you think the standard rotation is weak right now, I can assure you that spamming missiles would have been even worse.
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It was still so much easier to take down enemies. I bet, if they didn’t make the stupid change, us Arcane Mages would be having an easier time of killing enemies even with the current gear. Plus the casting is much faster instead of having to spam Arcane Blast.
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Programs and guides exist that calculate the mathematically highest theoretical dps for players to achieve, including stats, gear, talents, and rotation. Missile spam was never the recommended strategy because its damage output was objectively lower than a standard rotation, provided the rotation was being performed properly.
That said, if the rotation was done improperly, or with talent choices that worked against the rotation, then Missile spam could have been better dps than those scenarios. And it is certainly the easiest way to get the most visually pleasing damage.
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“Playing casual” is usually considered to mean not doing hardcore content, like raids, mythic+ or ranked PVP.
It isn’t usually considered to mean ignoring intended game mechanics to kill things by spamming a single button.
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I don’t think you understand how math works.
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So why do shadow priests keep mind flay?
I only know from experience how effective it was.
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I think people have different content in mind. I have to say if I was just out in open world content or farming I would absolutely find myself missiles spamming to fish for procs. No point in proper openers to kill a couple non-elites lol.
That said, if it’s open world content we are talking, I don’t mind not having missiles spam so much as I mind not having chrono shift…
Got into battlefields before. Not geared and I was at all and at the end I was in the middle of the rankings. I could imagine if I got geared how I would do. I think someone mained a character that took many arcane missiles, was put in charge of tww in some way, and decided that it needed a nerf.
I’m only interested in PVE not PVP. I only do dungeons and world content.
It’s not really a nerf when it wasn’t worth using outside of Clearcasting before.
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