I was a beta tester for Classic from the very beginning of testing. Even though I’m going to be Warrior in Classic, I figured for the sake of testing the game and checking for consistency with original WoW, I should play something I knew well from first-hand vanilla, non-private server experience. I was a rank 13 mage in vanilla, so I played a ton of PvP. Thus, I rolled mage and began testing all the types of interactions I remember from PvP.
However, I’m wondering whether I’m remembering early iterations of the game and perhaps what I recall was, at some point in vanilla, changed. Thus, I’m making this post. My recollection of Arcane Missiles is that, as long as you began channeling the spell when an opponent was in range, they could run as far away from you as possible but Arcane Missiles would continue channeling and keep hitting them.
However, this was not the case in any test iteration of Classic. The spell would cancel channel the moment opponents left range. Every time they made more fixes to the beta or put up a new stress test, I re-tested Arcane Missiles to see if they fixed the issue. Every time it remained unaltered from previous builds.
So, am I forgetting that they changed the way Arcane Missiles worked, or am I remembering it correctly and Classic is wrong?
P.S. It is properly continuing to channel when enemies leave line of sight.
P.P.S. For the record, another thing with mages that was different than my recollection was that Polymorphing an enemy player in water did not cause them to swim down. I know for sure that it did at least in early vanilla, but I’m unsure whether they changed that in later vanilla or in an expansion. I reported that as well, but I did not test it after the first time I reported it.
Dunno if this is a bug, but if a enemy is within 30 yards (the closest you gotta be to use this) and you start channeling it, this spell wont stop even if the enemy moves away more than 30 yards. You woulden’t be able to start using the spell on such a distance, but the magic missiles keep flying at the target anyway. That’s at least what I’ve seen. If this still works, I guess it’s a good way to reach runners to finish them off.
From patch 2.0.5
Other patches having something to do with this:
[Patch 2.0.3] (09-Jan-2007): Mages will no longer see line of sight errors if the target moves behind an obstacle after the spell “Arcane Missiles” has begun casting.; “Arcane Missiles” will no longer continue to channel after the target is dead.
[Patch 1.8.0] (10-Oct-2005): Should now properly report the correct “out of range” indicator on the action bar.
Neither specifically talking about this but close.
Hey yeah, thanks for finding that. So, it looks like it was still a thing by the end of vanilla if that person is correct in the post. I could have sworn they changed it in an expansion and not vanilla, but I can’t recall 100%. If it was, though, then this discrepancy needs to be addressed for launch.
I don’t remember much about classic channels. I hardly use arcane in classic in tbc it did cancel with distance but not line of sight.
I believe I remember channels working even when people out ranged it for a a bit then it cancelled past the spell range.
Maybe 5-10 yard away from your characters cast range when activating channel, been too long.
Yeah, it was. At least in early vanilla. I’d really love to find some definitive source of information about when it was changed. I’ve been watching old mage PvP videos and looking at patch notes and such, but not finding it yet.
Good catch, this is definitely a “non-Blizzlike” change, and probably unintentional. Have a bump for visibility. Devs, come take a look at this thread!
Arcane missiles could chase people around corners. In WSG, you would occasionally see a flight of them come into the GY and hit a spirit if the toon died before all the missiles hit. They would travel the full length of the BG.
OP, I played a fair amount of mage in Vanilla and my recollection coincides with yours. As long as you start the cast, it’ll continue even if the target runs out of casting range. I remember casting it on a mage who ran, blinked and was WAY out of range yet it kept channeling. And this was very late Vanilla.
I was also a Rank 13 mage during Vanilla. The primary use for Arcane Missiles back then was to shoot fleeing opponents since once you started channeling it would continuing casting regardless if the target was running away or ran behind cover.
I don’t recall exactly when it was changed, but I think it was after Vanilla.
Okay, several people are saying they recall it being changed after vanilla. There are no documented or undocumented patch notes within vanilla’s lifespan that seem to indicate it was changed, either, as far as I can tell.
The spell will still be useful for hitting people who go out of LoS, but yeah, I primarily used it to attack targets fleeing out of range, too. It was best for that.
[Arcane Missiles] It is no longer possible to cast this spell on an evading mob. In addition, the animation will now stop when the target is dead.
So, in 1.12, they made it to where it didn’t follow ghosts anymore, apparently. Says nothing about not making it follow living players from very far away, though. And, in fact, if they made it to where it stopped following far away players if they were dead, you’d think that logically that means it did still follow living players from far away. But, shrug?
Channeled spells were given range leeway and then you had the latency leeway. Those combined made it seem to shoot super far, but I know that druids and rogues could and would make my casts stop if they ran too far. There was a bug at one point in vanilla that let you shoot from max visual distance if you used a macro to play with the /target command.
Are you guys recalling it to be an infinite range once the cast is started or just an extra amount of leeway range plus latency?
I re-rolled mage and got to 60 about a week before BC but my thinking is that once the spell batch hits and figures out that you are out of range then the cast cancels.