Seems more aesthetically pleasing, is it really a doomed spec?
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It simply can’t compete with Sunfury in the current season. Spellslinger provides no support for AM and AM accounts for 50% of your DPS. The only reason it worked well last season was because it was all about AO and it’s the hero spec that supports it. Also Sunfury’s key talent Pyrocosm which has been bugged for literally years finally got fixed as well and is a massive CC proc engine which in turn feeds the PBolt roulette.
Last season Sunfury was 30% behinds Spellslinger, this time around Spellinger is probably 40% behind Sunfury. Blizzard just can’t balance for 
.
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That’s a shame, I wish there was a way to hide those those fugly Sphere from Sunfury that keeps clipping in my staff.
I’m really enjoying Spellslinger, especially because we’re finally casting Arcane Missiles again. I feel like I’m playing one of the best versions of Arcane Mage we’ve had in the last few years.
If Sunfury is currently stronger, that doesn’t matter much to me. Numbers can be adjusted very easily, and there’s nothing stopping me from doing content as Spellslinger. It’s not like I’m struggling to deal damage, I’m still doing plenty of it.
What really mattered to me was fixing Spellslinger’s gameplay, especially the fact that Orb Mastery pushed one of our main abilities out of the rotation. After the changes, things have improved tremendously, and Spellslinger is just really fun to play now.
On top of that, Spellslinger has Archmage’s Wrath, which increases our chances of getting Clearcasting. And because the spec has a much more frantic gameplay through the Arcane Splinters, I’m not having any issues with Clearcasting generation either.
I’m really liking what I’m seeing right now. Both the gameplay and the damage of Spellslinger feel very good.
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I 100% agree, Spellslinger is awesome right now, most fun I’ve had on mage in years. I mostly just PVP with it, but you really have the best of both worlds with missiles/orbs and near constant clearcasting procs. I suggest OP just try both.
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Is it actually effective however? I do love some PvP but I usually play my rogue for it. Do love mage tho but I feel it’s lame to try PvP with with just 1 blink / shimmer now. We get melee chained so much.
You and everyone else, lol. It’s the single most requested thing with literally hundreds of threads about it over the last few years but for whatever reason it’s fallen on deaf ears and the devs just stubbornly refuse to give us an option to hide them. Oracle priest are in the same boat with a big ahh all seeing eye stuck to their foreheads. Blizz just have no consideration for the fact that players love their transmogs and don’t want random visual clutter to mess with their aesthetic.
Numbers can definitely be adjusted but Blizzard aren’t adjusting them, lol. So that’s very much a reason to stop you from doing any kind of higher end content with Spellslinger.
That’s just vibes though and isn’t backed by any real data. I suppose if you’re not doing anything beyond the most casual content it’s fine to play Spellslinger but then at that level you can play without any hero talents selected.
I know it’s why I ain’t making one. Took 8 years to have ice spears to fade away when out of combat. I don’t why the devs couldn’t think “OH MAYBE I SHOULD THE SAME WITH THOSE NEW OVERHEAD THING!” Like this is not caring for the player base.
I don’t think its THAT far behind, maybe like 5-10% behind based on quick search that varies wildly on target count. I’m not sure those numbers have been revisited since they front loaded the damage away from AM into ALL arcane abilities, so SS should do a little better in large AOE then it did before and just fine for M+
A few quick sims (just for ball parks.)
1 target boss :Percent difference between 145,104 SS and 164,154 SF is about 12.4%.
4 target boss : The percent difference between 424,307 SS and 431,695 SF is about 1.74%
Dungeon Slice:
The percent difference between 243,996 SS and 251,559 SF is about 3.10% .
I don’t think its doomed, but it might be a while before they revisit the talents again. If they adjust the splitters damage it would be competitive again. They nerfed it by 50% in the beta trying to find a place Pbolt fit in.
It’s worse than that - it’s about 20-30% worse. You can do the math from logs filtering by Hero Tree. And of course apples to apples, so using heroic raid logs since Spellslinger has no mythic logs and using same lower key level since Spellslinger max is +16.
I’m not sure about that specific claim, but a 30–40% gap is enormous. An average player, performing at an average level, is not going to experience a 30-40% overall damage loss in Mythic+ by going spell slinger.
Yup that’s been my experience with it in PvP as well.
I tried both hero specs, over the course of a BG I found I do more damage and have more fun with it as spellslinger. The CDR on orb and increased CC procs make the spec flow soooo much better. As sunfury I found myself out of procs and needing to hardcast blasts alot more, as slinger almost never need to press blast, just missiles and barrage the whole time, ofc with prismatic in there when it procs.
I do think for arena specifically sunfury is better, it does give more oomph to the CD window with the phonenix and arcane soul. But in a longer engagements like bgs, which is mostly what I do RBGs with my guild, I’ve had much more fun and done more overall damage as slinger.
Tuning is entirely a Blizzard thing and has nothing to do with what players can do with it. Again, if my math is correct it’s 20-30% difference currently, so not quite as bad 30-40%, but still bad enough you’re gimping yourself pretty bad to play Spellslinger [in PvE].
As to hero trees being 30-40% difference, while it doesn’t look to be the case here, I would be very surprised if they haven’t had a gap this big for at least one class/spec/tree since hero trees were introduced. It’s entirely possible their tuning could this far off.
Sunfury is clearly the stronger pick overall. My guess is your numbers are getting inflated by single‑target double‑damage phases, while I’m looking at performance strictly from a Mythic+ perspective / overall. Point is, IF any Splinter tuning shows up in the notes tightens that gap on the damage at least. Sunfury will likely always be better this tier, due to its single target burst.
My numbers were based on M+ total run damage and raid boss damage for multiple bosses and dungeons. Nothing cherry picked. The logs show the difference.
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Best spec for speedmaxing legacy dungeons/raids, but that’s all I can think.