I do appreciate the 6% buff given to Arcane, but it wasn’t enough. Arcane isn’t viable in any endgame content. It is a one button spec. at the moment and I don’t like that either. Arcane missiles proc. Oh just ignore that it’s a DPS loss. It has a great opener probably the best in the game for about 5 seconds. You can keep decent dps while you have mana but on cooldown or sustained damage it is horrible. In mythics it is useless you can keep up some on the first pull of adds and then it’s “wait everybody I have to eat”. I am not downing rogues but their stamina regens in like two seconds. I don’t know what should be done but the spec. needs a big overhaul. Really the whole game needs a balance check and every spec should be usable in any situation. We will never see that though. Oh I am glad to see Warlocks Destruction spec. get a buff. It needs more too.
I tried to stick out with arcane myself and have basically resigned myself to fire fulltime. Even when you do a 90% parse it’s probably just 40-50% of another spec that is relevant (fire for example). I will admit I exaggerate a bit on the percentages, but my point is hopefully clear.
For m+ you have to time your drinks and evocation occasionally as well. You can do pretty decent as arcane in m+ however you are just outclassed by frost and fires amount of cleave and damage without mana management.
It definitely needs mechanical changes, as has been discussed on these forums for a while. We have to wait for next expansion for major rework to become viable.
I do miss the shoulders + time warp ring arcane had in Legion, was nuts for m+.
If they’re trying to make Arcane the burst spec then the burst needs to be ridiculous to make up for the down time. The burst right now is good, but it’s not enough to keep up with classes who can burst a little lower and also do much better sustained damage.
Exactly, you basically hit like a wet flaccid noodle outside of an AP + RoP burn phase. Not to mention having to have 3 equipose is basically required.
Arcane is great dps, its where the cleave happens that fire and frost take the cake. Maybe buff arcane explosion or barrage. Leave Blast as it is, it’s a very powerful single target spell.
I think they should make charged up base line and replace it with missile cleave. Missiles should also build up charges unless clear-casting is up.
Then you have something other than arcane explosion and barrage to do distance multi target damage. Arcane blast will do more damage on single targets… missiles will do more damage in cleave and Explosion more in 4+ targets. Cut evocation channel time in half.
They should give arcane mages the legendary shoulder effect from Legion baseline.
40% chance when you cast a 4-stack Arcane Barrage to get a free Arcane Orb.
I think you meant Arcane Barrage rather than Arcane Explosion. That certainly was one of the more enjoyable legendary items mages received.
Oh yeah. I meant Barrage.
Not really. We’re not even top tier ST dps on Patchwerk fights anymore. Even fire’s ST is at least equal. Arcane short of perhaps pvp is flat-out not good right now. As I’ve said on these forums before, if you’re going to allow the spec to have no cleave and unsustainable aoe, it HAS to be the top ST spec in the game and it’s not close.
Pvp it’s decent.
During the burn, yes, otherwise no, especially with one pummeling trait which you want to have for the 10% bonus proc.
Not anymore lol. We did, but even that’s gone now.
Not useless, but it’s far more work for far less results than frost, fire or almost any melee.
We’ve been saying that for years. Blizzard unfortunately doesn’t seem to be listening.
In some ways yes, but really they need to stop designing specs that require complete turreting and fights that cater to spread cleave if several specs don’t have it. Like literally 75% of the bosses in the last 2 raids.
Agreed but are you asking for “usable” or “good?” Because we’ll never see every spec “good” in every situation, but to have a spec like arcane be poor in raid and affliction bad in mythic+ is simply just lazy design.
I think Fire spec’s opener is better if the fire mage has Lucid Dreams and the bracers from Mechagon. I’ve heard of fire mages pulling 90k+ openers. On my arcane mage, I’m lucky if the opener does about 60k (though admittendly, I’m not using Rune of Power or an activated trinket).
ZOMG! For shame! 
I sim 2k DPS higher with Rune of Power than I do with Incanter’s, but in actual practice I get worse results with Rune. Even in a Patchwerk test against a target dummy my average sustained dps is lower if I use Rune.
My best activated stat boosting trinket is an ilevel 400 Balefire Branch. I sim lower with it than if I wear my 430 and 450 passive proc trinkets.
Sadly, I’m getting nowhere near my simmed DPS even on the dummy though. In testing, my best sustained target dummy dps is only around 28-30k. Compare that to 39k simmed dps with Incanters or 41k with Rune.
Is your dps on the dummy with flask, pots and lust? Because I’m sure the sim is factoring those in. Of course it doesn’t factor in the asinine movement in TEP. And I’m still noticing a crit issue where it’s around 5-7% lower than what I’m supposed to have; could just be more bad rng.
Good point. My usual routine for dummy testing is to not use any consumables or Timewarp.
I hit arcane power, do the initial burn to low mana, then evocate and then do a normal conserve/burn rotation for the 2 minutes until the next evocate.
Also don’t forget too that the sim is probably factoring in the crits during your burn phase that correspond to your actual crit %. If you have “bad burns” where you don’t crit much or at all, it wrecks your dps.
Blockquote[quote=“Tempestwinds-hyjal, post:11, topic:253249”]
Arcane isn’t viable in any endgame content.
Pvp it’s decent.
[/quote]
In 1v1 or arena? I find in BGs I’m stunned and then silenced/counterspelled alot , and with melee being able to close the gap with their charge/leap/death grasp it get problematic.
Shimmer and watch the melee cry; as for interrupting and spell lock yes, it’s asinine how susceptible we are, but you have to do a lot of “fake casting” to trick them into wasting their interrupts. But you also have to remember arcane pvp plays nothing like arcane pve. You’re basically an affliction lock in pvp, not a turreting ion cannon.
If barrage got unnerfed that happened to it back in the day due to pvp. got a decent damage buff/coefficient off charges, that would improve our AOE damage and also our conserve phase damage.