So so bad it does! Even if you spend the 2 talents in improved missiles (which is a total talent sink as is), they are just way under tuned.
And if the fight ends before your next burst phase you’re still stuck with DPS just above the tanks even if you played flawlessly the entire time. But that’s a more widespread problem that affects other classes too, mages just feel it more keenly, especially Arcane.
Having to dump four (4!!!) talent points into passively increasing the damage of AM and AE and losing out on fun utility talents (like Chrono Shift for example) in the process is, frankly, a crime against humanity! It was so obviously done because they couldn’t think of what else to add to the tree to fill it up and it just drives me crazy! Having to choose between throughput and utility is not a choice we should ever be forced to make and is simply bad design.
1 Like
While we’re on the topic of missing bursts / feeling slow when cooldowns aren’t up, I’d like to see Temporal Warp removed. Not reworked. Not fixed. Removed. We told Blizzard from the get go that we didn’t like it but they keep trying to strongarm us into it.
My main issue is that on fights where hero is popped on pull, our damage - more so than other classes - is absurdly front loaded. As the fight wears on, we start falling behind. If the fight lasts less than 2 minutes, we’ll be on top. If it’s 3, we’ll be top 5. If it lasts 5 minutes, we’re struggling for top 10. But then, because TW is back up, at the 6 minute mark we’re competing for top 5 again.
And on fights where we don’t pop TW on pull, we struggle even more because a huge part of our burst is just gone, and there’s no potential to get it a second time. The only time this works out in our favor is if we’re saving TW for a damage increaser phase. (Example: on normal Gnarlroot this week, I wasn’t even in the top 10 for damage until the extra damage phase, at which point I skyrocketed from at least 11th to 1st for damage).
1 Like
I didn’t bring up talents in the Mage Tree because they’re not issues necessarily unique to Arcane, although if I were I’d bring up how Shifting Power is annoying to use with Arcane with how many cooldowns it has to manage on top of SP not reducing trinket cds.
I’m running Time Anomaly in M+ right now and it feels a lot better to use especially with the tier set.
5 Likes
This bugged me so much I made a whole thread about it. 
1 Like
I refuse to not slot in 2 points in Improved Arcane Missiles because it just feels wrong not to. I’m stubborn that way.
2 Likes
All arcane spec must be reworked.
Look how frost and fire mechanics are and what arcane is right now.
Arcane gameplay is overwhelming AF. A simply little mistake and your dps is dead.
Not to say (my opinion) spec is lackluster, complicated. IDK maybe i just hate the spec right now
1 Like
Well no the base toolkit is fine actually.
Our talents just need to be looked at. We have way too many spell damage modifiers in the tree that need to be baked into the class with talents adding some conditional damage or other forms of damage modification like crit.
Siphon Storm, Radiant Spark, Gem, Nether Tempest, and a bunch of other passive talents need to be removed or reworked, or consolidated to one point.
Good talent: Nether Precision. Makes your AB deal 20% damage after CC AM. This encourages weaving.
Good change: Now stacks to 6
Bad talent: Crackling Energy. Raw 10/20% damage to AB/AE.
Good change: Arcane spells have a 20% increased crit chance during Arcane Surge.
7 Likes
I think the biggest problems are still utility talents competing with damage talents, making it so that utility is rarely, if ever, picked instead of more deeps. This problem was resolved with the Havoc tree but it seems like it was just skipped for Arcane.
Some other stuff that should be addressed is how many [Arcane Barrage] talents we have to make it a functioning spell. Some of those should just be combined entirely, like having one that increases how many targets it can hit and a separate one that increases damage per target hit and another one that restores mana per charge and another one…
2 Likes
Oh I agree as I said a lot of passive talents need to be consolidated. Arcing Cleave is one of them.
The biggest passive talent offenders imo are:
- Arcing Cleave
- Improved Clearcasting
- Crackling Energy/Improved Arcane Missiles
- Illuminated Thoughts (should not be a 2 point talent)
Arcing Cleave should be baseline. Why do we have to talent a historically charge dump and aoe talent into AOE wtf? It’s like if Divine Storm had to be talented to be AOE.
CC should always have 3 stacks and the UI should reflect that. I dont want to use a WA anymore.
Crackling Energy/Improved Arcane Missiles are terrible talents. They need to do something else and be 1 pointers. Crackling Energy should improve ability crit chance. Improved Arcane Missiles should maybe make AM cleave or something.
Illuminated Thoughts is weak in t3 for two points. Prodigious Savant is actually fine (has an interesting mechanic) but should be 1 point as well.
1 Like
“1 - Siphon Storm is too strong and Evocation’s purpose is weak.”
I think a good starting point would be to have it max out at 10% and work from there, cutting it in half might just end up creating a dead talent. I think Gem should become a 45 sec cooldown with no charges on it, you just conjure it once and have it for the rest of the session as a way to both remove the annoyances of resummoning it every pull/between trash packs, would likely also give Cascading Power a reason to exist in PvE without needing to change anything about that talent (I list both abilities in the same point as they fundamentally serve the same purpose.
I’ve mentioned Arcane Harmony being able to be spent on Arcane Surge’s damage either instead of or alongside Arcane Barrage, could replace Illuminated Thoughts and Concentration with 2 more Harmony based talents below Harmony itself that let you invest in to this in a way that makes sense and move Harmony up to IT’s spot
“2 - Illuminated Thoughts has high investment for little return, and limits the ability to grab Harmony and Arcane Concentration.”
I think maybe replacing IT altogether and readjusting the mana costs of Arcane’s rotational spells would be a better way to go about fixing this talent, or just buff it to 15/30%.
“3 - Radiant Spark feels boring/terrible to use with current Arcane”
Agreed, but also because Spark fundamentally is designed around being paired with Arcane Harmony in theory and when Spark, Harmony and Bombardment all exist and can be taken together all 3 get tuned down to keep Arcane Barrage being so strong it’s all you ever care about which kills the flow of the spec and turns us in to Kyrian crit gamblers.
RS is controllable in AoE and is probably the only place where it still fits the design intention regardless of tuning but that’s because our AoE is already designed around Barrage before RS existed.
Delete Spark.
“4 - Harmony should build off of Clearcast Arcane Missiles and stack more efficiently.”
Yes.
“5 - Improved Clearcasting makes no sense”
As a talent I am fine with this existing and also fine with it not existing, just don’t remove the functionality of it from PvE and turn it in to a PvP talent like they did in BfA.
“6 - Nether Precision needs to stack”
Yes, 1 stack per CC spent, stacks up to 3 times.
It also sucks when you have a Battery proc ready at the end of your burst but need to spend your 2 NP stacks first so your Battery buffed Missiles falls just after burst ends.
“7 - Nether Tempest is required for 5 other important talents when it should be Touch of the Magi”
Pathing issue, NT not being extendable through playing the rotation issue. Change these two things and it’s GG for all sides of the debate (me vs everyone else basically because I like NT and always have).
NT damage isn’t weak this expansion though.
“8 - Improved Arcane Missiles and Crackling Energy are massive point dumps.”
I believe a lot of specs in the game have similar kinds of talents to this that are 2 point investments, Feral has a talent that just adds 6%/12% to Tiger’s Fury’s damage bonus in the final section of the tree and Rogue has a +% vers talent in the main tree that is either 1 or 2 points total. I don’t personally care if these talents exist or not but they exist to help keep talent trees from overloading spec kits with rotational buttons.
“9 - Rule of Threes is weird”
Honestly this was always your best idea for the spec and I’d change nothing about it personally.
1 Like
Conjure Gem should just be an active you use on a cooldown like Rogue potion if I’m being blunt. The class fantasy of using a conjured item should not supersede the frustration of having to maintain an item by constantly conjuring it in small stacks.
While I also think that Arcane has way too many direct spell damage modifiers (and not enough modifiers that provide other bonuses like crit and such), I don’t have a problem with Siphon Storm.
I just think it would be better off if it were a passive that maximized surge damage and added to the damage modifier surge provides as you end up in the exact same situation anyway. Might as well reduce the effective of cast time of Surge from 4.5s to 1.5s.
1 Like
Personally it never bothered me if there was a spec that had stacking modifiers if it wasn’t the norm for most specs (like how builder spender became the overwhelming majority for spec designs in Legion), I personally enjoy how massive our burst is this expansion due in part to us being one of the last true burst specs.
Gem I don’t mind either way, I generally just try to solve a problem in a way that can keep a theme alive without it being annoying or unhealthy.
THIS! The one time they go out of their way to cater to class fantasy they pick the most annoying thing. Mana Gem should just be a cooldown, period.
A lot of good points here!
As I suspect that Blizzard does not read Mage forums much (if at all), I created a Mage suggestions thread on 10.2.5 PTR. If you want, post your suggestions there as well:
2 Likes
I just want variety in those modifiers. They should be more spell specific (like Arcane 4pc or NP) or provide alternate benefits like crit or crit damage.
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with modifier stacking, but as arcane they’re pretty samey and uninspired. Almost all of our modifiers can be described as:
Press button. (optional cast or channel time). All spells do more damage.
The only slight exception to that rule is Touch of the Magi - which largely does function the same way, it just echoes the damage instead of doing it flat out. But Siphon Storm, Radiant Spark, Arcane Surge, and Mana Gem can all be described (more or less) by that same single line. When all of your modifiers do the same thing, why do we need to have 5 of them? They should either be compressed into just one or two spells or changed to function differently.
When it comes to different functions, I think what some players - not all - might be looking for are feedback loops. Something like “During Arcane Surge, Nether Precision’s damage increase is doubled” and “When you hit an enemy effected by Radiant Spark, gain one charge of Clearcasting.” Things like that would certainly make it feel like arcane was designed to be a real spec and not just 3 buffs in a trench coat.
1 Like
Having just acquired the 4pc I can say without a shred of doubt that this needs to be a talent in the next expansion. Possibly the most fun tier set I have ever seen. The interaction with Harmony alone is perfection.
2 Likes
For the 2 pcs of the tier, do you AB after consuming all CC procs or after each proc?
2pc just makes it so that consuming CC gives you a stackable spell damage buff.
If you are referring to Nether Precision, if you are talented in it (you should be), you want to generally use 2 Arcane Blasts after each Clearcast Arcane Missiles on ST. The NP effect does not stack, unfortunately. It really should, and I outlined that as part of the OP.