Yeah it should, that’s my problem with NT. Weaving all CC procs one after the other is more fun than doing AC>AB>AC>AB>… cause every AB can generate another CC proc and I got a feeling of an infinite loop.
Yeah it’s also outlined in the OP how it’s awkward that there is definitely a situation where you constantly proc CCs (which is good) but you end up overcapping if you don’t take the Improved Clearcasting talent and it feels wasted if you ignore NP to spam them.
In my opinion, NP should just buff 1 AB by x% and have it stack up to 3.
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Honestly, I think Nether Precision not stacking is a good thing for us. Not necessarily because it gives us more damage, but because it gives us a degree of agency and gives us a pretty clear baseline of what our rotation should be.
The fact that it doesn’t stack means there’s a hard and fast rule of “To do more damage, you MUST cast two blasts NOW.” If it was allowed to stack, we’d end up saving all of our NP procs for our touch windows. Which means we’d be trying to fish for however many CC procs we’ll need to generate the right amount NP stacks to cast nothing but Blast during our burst windows. To me, that doesn’t sound like fun gameplay (unless we drop our existing buff stacking in favor of proc banking - but that’s another conversation). It feels like I’d be trying to fish up a fish that has already fished up another fish - all before my boat runs out of gas.
In SL I remember that one of the issues arcane often had was “I didn’t get enough CC procs”. If we’re allowed to bank NP procs, that’s going to happen again. We’re going to get into situations where we feel like we aren’t getting CC procs fast enough to burn through the procs to get the better NP procs to use during our burst. Right now, we don’t really have that problem. Sure, there are moments where I feel proc starved, but NP helps spread out their effectiveness over longer periods of time, which feels a lot better.
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This doesn’t make sense because we generally want to use AMs into Touch to proc Echo so there isn’t really a reasonable situation where you’d want to bank NPs as you’d just get them back anyway by naturally casting AM into Touch.
That being said AM is somewhat undertuned now but normally CC AM should be the best dps option we have.
Unless I’ve fallen behind in rotational changes, NP procs are significantly better for your Touch bursts than CC procs, even with Arcane Echo. You don’t want to shoot all your CC procs into touch at once.
In fact, Nether Precision is so much better that you actually don’t even want to finish your Arcane Missiles channels (unless you’ve got the 4 set and are firing off the empowered missiles). It’s better for DPS to clip them short because casting Arcane Blast is that much better.
If the balance of spells changes, that logic (and the logic of my previous post) all goes out the window. As it stands, I believe the order of strength is:
Missiles (no proc) < Blast (no proc) < Missiles (CC proc) < Blast (NP proc) < Missiles (CC proc with Arcane Battery)
I’m not sure where “Arcane Missiles With Arcane Battery Without Clearcasting” falls in that list, but I think it’s safe to say we don’t want to do that if we can help it.
Personally, I like this order of power - and I’m especially hopeful that Arcane Battery becomes a permanent change. And I’d honestly rather see Arcane Echo removed in favor of actually making missiles (and tempest) stronger.
That’s true and it’s rather unfortunate because I really miss the Legion playstyle of banking CC procs and unloading them back-to-back like an arcane gatling gun into a TotM (which was a random proc back then).
On the other hand there is something very pleasing knowing you have a set rotation and that you cast 2 ABs after every CC. There is a nice flow to it and it breaks the monotony of the endless AB spam.
That said, I would much rather forgo all of that in favor of a true builder/spender rotation where the default is building up 4 Arcane Charges and spending them with a new dedicated single target nuke in ST situations or ABarr in AoE/Cleave as we do now. That way every ability has a clearly delineated purpose rather than forcing just two (AB and ABarr) abilities to do everything.
AB is your spammable but also a builder (because it generates charges) and also a spender (because it drains your resource) and a nuke. Then ABarr is a spender but you really don’t want to use it because AB at four charges does way more damage than an ABarr and then you have to rebuild charges at a torturously slow pace. All of this somehow made sense when mana figured into the equation but that’s become almost inconsequential now.
Then you have Nether Precision, Arcane Harmony, even Radiant Spark and all other abilities like that which temporarily buff the damage of the next skill you cast that are a very dated and gimmicky mechanic which can, frankly, simply be replaced by a passive damage increase with a lower value.
There is just so much conflict and lack of synergy in the Arcane toolkit which is the product of years and years of new ideas piled on top of each other without any clear direction or overarching theme.
All of this could be streamlined!
I get people call for a rework, but even correcting a few of these QOL things would help alot with the flow of the current play state. All great point.
I see NT as the biggest problem. Its right in the middle, and seems like it would be a very important skill slot. You should have a few options in this middle area. If i was a new player, i might think that central skill is our capstone.
NT is always paired with TOTM. This isn’t a new concept, before we had TOTM as it is today, we had charged up and totm, both with different use cases that top players used to its maximum potential, but most players macroed them together. Blizzard changed that to accommodate the masses. I think this is the same current state and its a macroed ability for the most part.
Seems like it was left over from when they had a choice node in that spot. I would like to see this turn back into a choice node with passives for ST or AOE, perhaps orb barrage synergy, maybe a trigger effect for CC on Arcane Explosion, i am sure the community has endless ideas.
Personally i do not want to manage a DOT in AOE, and dot management does not even fit, we are already managing, mana, charges, Nether Precision, 2 pc stacks, executes, CCs , the list goes on…
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Pretty much. You make a great point on how it’s not very intuitive just how lackluster the skill is considering how central it is to the whole spec’s talent tree.
And yea, if it’s entire purpose is to fuel Echo then it should just be a passive effect baseline (or an upgraded talent) for Echo, not a standalone spell.
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Yup, all of that. And for the love of the titans change its visual to at least resemble a “tempest.” Gimme an Arcane Tornado!
and we got both, ha
I want to play arcane so bad! but its terrible. If I have to move unexpectedly and I dont have clear casting …!$#@!%. Then after playing perfectly and thinking oh yeah. Of course I couldn’t even look at details, then when the dust settles and the fight is over, the BM huntard with 2 buttons doubles my damage. Bliz you SUCK!
It should be enjoyable, simple even.
Ok there are two problems here:
First, learn to ice floes. It is one of your most important talents.
Second, you’re not going to beat BM or most melee specs on trash. But you will on ST.
Yeah, removing it and just buffing damage overall (probly not by much) would be ideal. I don’t hate the rotation as is, but a lot of you make great points that would be great. But I’d be fine if at least RS was removed. It’s the most irritating part of the whole rotation.
I like the rhythm of CCAM → ABx2, feels pretty nice. But being forced to cast 3-4 ABs in a row when you’re trying to beat the timer of your CC proc, or especially buffs from new 4pc, feels unfun.
Or keep RS and change it to spell “casts” not spell “hits” and let me use AM without using up all 5 slots of RS.
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100% true Arcane needs reworked. Rng sucks and nothing makes sense. Evocation used to be for mana but now we cast it while we are full? Makes sense? Do the devs even play an arcane mage? Its just a total mess of a spec.
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100% agree with you we need a rework like ret. new tree with streamlined rotation.
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Damn, this thread is still popping. Glad to see people are agreeing that Arcane has an arcane rotation. It’s mostly RS, but also it’s just not intuitive on Single Target. A spec that needs an API to inform a rotation to do remotely reasonable DPS is not well-designed. I’m still shellshocked I performed very poorly doing a harmony build that was pumping in +20-24 dungeons (even on ST bosses in tyrannical). There’s no reason our ST build should have only one viable configuration (maybe two on some bosses where you delay Time Warp).
I see what you did there… well played.
I would have said “byzantine” but this is funnier. 
Ive been taking 2/2 improved clearcasting and time anomaly lately.
Its been helping a lot keeping the 2pc bonus up, generating arcane battery procs, and random arcane surge is really nice for famine part ofs the rotation.
I know im losing out on a second lust every five minutes but ive been finding more consistent dps on single target and basically have 10% spell power 70% of the time in dungeons.
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