Right now, Arcane doesn’t have much to make it stand out from the other two specs, particularly in regards to utilities that are granted to the spec automatically.
- Fire has Cauterize, a passive get-out-of-jail-free card that lets you escape dangerous situations with a powerful burst of speed.
- Frost has Cold Snap, which allows you to use the best defensive in the game more often, rendering Frost particularly tanky.
- Arcane has nothing, unless you count Presence of Mind which is purely offensive and personally a little awkward to use.
Arcane used to have Greater Invisibility as such an exclusive, but since it was moved to the class tree in Dragonflight, there has been no substitute.
My thoughts: perhaps we could see the return of Mana Shield in some form, which would provide a unique defensive kit while maintaining the “glass cannon” archetype that Arcane is seemingly meant to fulfill.
2 Likes
Maybe if your Mirror Images are out when you die, you take over one of their bodies (or something) - might as well do something interesting with the spell.
Much as I love accidentally pulling stuff for a 20% DR that doesn’t make any thematic sense.
I hadnt really thought about it since im content with prismatic barrier, mass barrier, alter time, icey cold and mirror images.
You do make a good point that fire and frost get a little extra.
I personally would love to see them expand on alter time. It could be something lazy like being arcane reduces its cooldown by half. Or it could be something more interesting. Like after you snap back the old timeline you stays whete you were and is now a mirror image (reducing damage taken by 20%)
How about a self rez.
Flavor text could read
“when you die, return to a time when you were alive”
2 Likes
Prismatic Barrier. (the other two shields don’t do anything in PvE, they may state they have secondary effects but in reality they add zero to Fire and Frost)
1 Like
A mana armor would be nice. like mana shield used to be but a passive version of it
Improved alter time
Also adding to the post itself. From my perspective I feel like I don’t need a defensive specific to my spec. What would help us survive, especially in M+ , is if our rotation wasn’t as convoluted as it is. I keep seeing people report that arcane mages can’t be trusted because they get one shot by every type of mechanic, even the ones that can’t be avoided. I end up abandoning rotations to chain defensives in the hopeless attempt that I’ll live only to have them all on cooldown and get killed but the unavoidable ticking damage meanwhile my damage is just hovering above the tank because I’ve been running for my life instead of casting. If my rotation wasn’t 50 buttons, which I’ll admit is muscle memory now, I’d have an easier time surviving.
2 Likes
That’s what I always thought Alter Time should be. They could add a new spell and call it Alter Fate or something like that. I envision it as something between Reincarnate and Cauterize.
1 Like
They should expand on Greater Invisibility for arcane:
- Cooldown Set to 90 seconds (cannot be lowered)
- Damage reduction set to 90%
- Removes all bleeds and magical effects
Before people claim it is too OP, remember that it used to remove 2 magical effects, damage reduction was 90% and rid Cooldown was 1.5 minutes. All this does, brings it back and now removes all bleeds and magical effects.
On a different note, I really wish they expanded on Presence of Mind, instead of instant cast arcane blasts, let our next two spells be immune to KICKS and interrupts, but not silences.
Arcane desperately needs this, since our one school affects everything from damage, cc and utility.
1 Like
yeah it would be cool if it removed all debuffs off the caster. or atleast make us immune or not break on damage. (DoT damage)
Arcane is supposed to be the ones who meddle with time… So perhaps a soak mechanic that swaps health with your future self and reduces the damage you take momentarily as you partially phase out of time. At the end you receive a portion of the damage back slowly. Call it Temporal Exchange or some such.
Dks got some major anti magic love in their talents. I think arcane should be a little similar with being highly anti magic.
Or upgrade mirror images would be cool.
I keep seeing this thread pop up, are y’all crazy? Prismatic Barrier is the Arcane spec specific defensive and it’s very strong.
The issue is that prismatic barrier doesn’t feel like an arcane-unique defensive. All 3 mage specs get some form of barrier but the other two have access to Cauterize and Cold Snap as well. And, unless I’m mistaken, it won’t make a difference at all if the damage you’re trying to prevent is physical.
Plus I’d be willing to bet that, for the average group, it’s not blatantly obvious which mage has the better shield, but it will be obvious which mage can survive more lethal hits without dying.
It’s less about the raw numbers and more about the actual identity in which we exist. I know that when I see another mage shield out, my thought is “I have that, but in purple!” not “Mine is stronger against magic!” But seeing a fire mage survive a hit that would have killed me does make me kinda jealous.
I mean, I just want them to give us a choice node of Cauterize vs Prismatic Barrier, so we can choose a passive cheat or a stronger active barrier. I don’t see the need for more fluff in the game though, we have too many defensive buttons as it is.
I’m with you 100%. We have too many defensives. I’d rather see more options to forgo one defensive altogether in order to make the ones that remain stronger / more interesting.
I’d love to have ways to drop Alter Time to boost Diverted Energy on fights where the damage profile is more rot damage than big hits. I’d love to be able to give up my barrier to reduce the cooldown on Greater Invisibility on fights where I just need more DR. I’d love to make Mirror Image feel good to use. Blizzard just isn’t giving us a talent tree that’s capable of giving us that level of choice.