So I’ve always loved mages. Ever since vanilla. Hell, I’ve loved mages since D&D and final fantasy. Now lets get real. Arcane is a dull spec. It was horrible in Vanilla, and barely get any better over the years. I think they just kept adding bandages, but never really fleshed it out. Why not turn it into a astromancer spec? Arcane energies come from many different sources. We also have many numerous astromancers in the lore, most notably Star Augur Etraueus and High Astromancer Solarian. A astromancer based arcane mage would probably be better fleshed out. You could also get sources of power from many different sources, including the void and the fel, as well as the stars. Imagine space-time based spells(which we already have some, and they can expand on it), void and fel based spells(maybe a void abberation form, although I’m not too big on forms, if they do it right, then it could be awesome), as well as arcane spells(these would be more empowerment spells, since arcane empowers their users). What do you guys think? Would you like to see arcane actually be fleshed out? Or do you guys want to stick the boring arcane spec we have right now?
Eh, it’s just aesthetics. Give me good mechanics and purple glowy stuff and I’m good.
“Dull” is highly debatable. Several specs in game are fairly simplistic and arguably boring. Spamming frostbolt 5 times then hitting GS and flurry with the occasional IL thrown in depending on build isn’t exactly thrilling either.
But you are correct: there is plenty of lore in-game and several arcane-like mage bosses who the spec could steal from. That being said, we’ve been asking for more spells for years now so don’t get your hopes too high.
What will be interesting is the “un pruning” project for arcane will look like. If I remember correctly blizz is supposed to be giving more mages cross spec abilities. Remember when Arc mages had fire blast, cone of cold, and ice lance? it will be interesting to see what directing they will take arcane in as its always been a bastardized spec.
A fun new ability for arcane mages would be a special spell that regenerates mana based on the damage output. It could be like, Temporal beacon - turn your target into a temporal beacon for 5 seconds, with all dmg being returned in mana. It could have a penalty like, if you dont deal X dmg in 5 seconds, you lose 20% of your mana bar (if they wanted pvp balance). You could also have another school of magic so you won’t always get 100% locked out of your abilities when silenced. More than anything arcane needs better mana-management tools. Just having barrage is terrible. You have to choose between a single AB costing you 12% of your mana or using barrage and then dropping your dps by 15k instantly. If they had a way to maybe get arcane charges and then lock them in place for a duration, like 3 charges, you cast a spell and it locks in 3 charges until you remove the lock, or something to that effect, it would be awesome. Also, something else besides arcane blast…
Arcane is close to being fun it needs an on-use proc or some sort of high skill ceiling ability to use to push it over the top.
Would love to see the Prophecy of Fear trinket be an on-use ability for Arcane to use. Gaming that proc was super fun when the stars aligned for Arcane. Being able to control it would make the spec a lot more fun imo.
I don’t often contribute to necro’d threads knowingly but…
Having spells that actively contribute to the restoration of mana would certainly be a big step forward for the class, I believe; accelerating the fluctuation of the mana bar, and perhaps also the charges, and eliminating the stagnation felt in the current rotation.
Arcane is in desperate need of a redesign. The spec has been stagnant and ignored since legion. I don’t think even Blizzard knows what they want from Arcane anymore.
I’d like a redesign that decouples Arcane’s power from its cooldowns a bit. One that makes its damage less restricted to huge burst once every 1.5 mins.
I think it could work with a redesign of arcane charges. It could be turned into an actual resource bar that is built up by casting arcane spells. Then its burst and mana regeneration could be focused around utilizing this bar with 2 mutually-exclusive toggle spells.
- Invocation: Power - Increases spell damage by X%, but halts your natural mana regeneration. Drains Y arcane charge every second.
- Invocation: Mana - Increases your natural mana regeneration by X%, but also reduces the amount of arcane charge your spells generate. Drains Y arcane charge every second.
Of course this would require a slight redesign of arcane’s spells, but I think it would be worth it to give arcane a bit of flexibility of when it can tap into its on-demand burst, and it would allow the mage actually recover if its burst is interrupted by a randomly targeted mechanic instead of what we have now where a single mistake during cooldowns can be unrecoverable.
I like arcane. It’s a fun simple spec and still features its signature mana management aspect.
I don’t want it to be redesigned.
That said, arcane was considerably more fun last expansion with 15-yard radius arcane explosions, Slooooow Dooooown, and the shoulders that spawned free arcane orbs on casting barrage.
Of course this would require a slight bit of creativity from Blizzard which they seem to be devoid of in recent years.
Fix Arcane Missiles and the spec will feel a thousand times better.
Bring back either WoTLK arcane, MoP arcane or Legion arcane and we’re good.
Honestly if they just reverted class design to WoTLK or MoP the game would be 100000x better.
I’d play Arcane if they made it more like it was during BrF in WoD (with the tier set bonuses baked in of course) and wasn’t 100% reliant on RoP.
I get that RoP is what it is and some people enjoy that, but it would also be nice not to lose 10% or more realistic dps (not theoretical) just for a single talent.
I want prismatic crystal back 
Gaaah!!!
I really hated prismatic crystal and found it very awkward to use. So much constant retargeting needed. I found it much more awkward than Rune of Power ever was.
I’m glad we only had to deal with Prismatic Crystal for one expansion. I hope it never comes back. 
I’d like to see an arcane redesign, something with more time based spells would be nice. it’s hard to feel like a competent magic user when you just spam 1 spell most of the time.
We’ve been asking for 10 years now; given the current developers apathy and laziness, it seems even less likely than ever.
I want arcane missiles to matter. Bring back legion AM, but also let CC procs still be spent on free explosions or bake TotM into AM and detonate at the end of channel.
I liked Legion arcane. Well, aoe with the right gear was fun. Zooming around in arena was fun too.