Arcane Wishlist for Dragonflight

Classes Mage
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This post is coming from a post that I previous put into the 9.2.5 PTR forums where we brainstormed some ideas for Arcane. I’ve also added a couple of things here. Here is the original post: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/arcane-suggested-changes/1244740

TL;DR:

:star2: Wishlist / changes suggested for Dragonflight: :star2:

  • Touch of the Magi now deals reduced damage after 5 targets (up from 1 target), square root scaling (like current)
  • Mastery: Savant now increases ALL Arcane damage (instead of just Arcane Missiles, Explosion and Orb) by 8% (+1% per 35 Mastery points, like current version), removed scaling with Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage per Arcane Charge
  • Clearcast is no longer consumed by Arcane Explosion
  • Haste now reduces Evocation’s cooldown (similar to Fire Blast)
  • Spells cast during Arcane Power no longer have decreased chance to proc Clearcast (due to decreased mana use from Arcane Power)
  • Add in a new spell / talent option for a Venthyr-style Arcane build that does not rely as much on random chance as the current Venthyr build. A great start would be the Arcane Laser talent, which I’ve suggested here: New Spell: Arcane Laser

:wave: Hey guys, :wave:

This is a post that is looking at Arcane’s performance with the recent set of buffs and certain aspects of the spec that I would like to address moving forward into Dragonflight.

:one: Starting off, let’s take a look at the Single target, with Skolex as an example fight: :one:

  • Skolex, 95th percentile, pre-buff: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#dataset=95&boss=2542&region=1
  • Skolex, 95th percentile, post-buff: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#dataset=95&boss=2542

As you can see, the buff had the intended effect (yay! :smiley:), where Arcane when from bottom 3rd spec to right in the middle. At this point, I would say that Arcane is acceptable for single target. However, given Arcane’s low scaling with increasing secondary stats (described below with math), this problem is likely to recur in Season 4.

:two: Now lets take a look at funnel situations, such as Xy’mox (with the platform adds on Mythic) and Anduin (where you funnel into the Lich King): :two:

  • Xy’mox, 95th percentile, pre-buff: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#dataset=95&boss=2553&region=1
  • Xy’mox, 95th percentile, post-buff: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#dataset=95&boss=2553
  • Anduin, 95th percentile, pre-buff: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#dataset=95&boss=2546&region=1
  • Anduin, 95th percentile, post-buff: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#dataset=95&boss=2546

On Xy’mox, Arcane was already pretty good pre-buff (as expected), since the platforms are basically a guaranteed 5ish target funnel (technically 6 but who’s counting?). This is because of the way the Resonance talent works, which really beefs up our Arcane Barrage. Unsurprisingly then, our position has not moved in that fight (still top 5 DPS), and the 95th percentile DPS has not really changed (increased by 51, which is negligible).

On Anduin, Arcane had actually been beaten by Frost mage, who gets significant funnel with Frozen Orb + Ice Lance (Fingers of Frost proc) on AoE, due to the frequency of procs (as seen in Damage done to boss category as well). The buff did bring Arcane back up, but it is still below Frost in damage dealt to boss. Arcane is also good in the downstairs portion where it can nuke the big Anduin add, which is harder to represent in logs but should be noted.

Taken together, these results essentially show not much change, which is to be predicted since Arcane Barrage or Touch of the Magi (our main 2 funnel abilities) where not directly changed by these buffs.

:three: Lastly, let’s take a look at AoE scenario, which doesn’t really have a great raid fight for, but can be assessed with Mythic+ performance: :three:

  • Subcreation overall performance for Fortified, Bursting, Storming, Encrypted (Week of 5/30, last week): https://mplus.subcreation.net/fortified-bursting-storming-encrypted.html
  • Subcreation overall performance for Tyrannical, Raging, Volcanic, Encrypted (week of 6/6, this week): https://mplus.subcreation.net/index.html

It should be pretty obvious that Arcane isn’t doing too hot in Mythic+. I don’t want to undersell it’s value: in certain dungeons on certain weeks, Arcane can be useful (i.e. Bolstering week in Halls of Atonement to nuke the Shards of Halkias before they bolster to infinity and kill everyone).

However, their funnel alone does not justify their use. Unlike a Sub Rogue, which can also funnel, Arcane does not have the utility to back up their DPS spot (Arcane cannot stun, it cannot blind (only Polymorph, which can only be on humanoids or beasts, unlike blind), it does not have Shroud of Concealment, it doesn’t have a Soothe (although it does have a decurse), etc.)

Taken together, I would say that:
1) In single target: Arcane is average
2) In 5-target funnel situation, Arcane remains strong
3) In AoE, Arcane is pretty weak.
4) Utility wise (for M+), Arcane is weak due to lack of stuns / consistent slow (unlike Fire (Dragon’s Breath) or Frost)

Below, I address some of the reason for why Arcane is so weak in AoE, why it fell so hard in raiding (single target) relative to Sanctum of Domination, where it was pretty good. This leads to the wishlist seen at the end (and at the beginning) where I detail some of the changes I’d like to see either in Season 4 or in Dragonflight.

:gem: Loss of Domination Gems and the Primary Stat Bloat :gem:

A lot of the spells that do huge damage for Arcane scale very well with intellect, but scale poorly with Mastery, namely Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage. To put some hard numbers to those claims, consider the following (assuming 0 Mastery or Versatility for these examples):

  • Arcane Blast (4 Arcane Charges) does 180.7% Spell Power with 1.53 second cast time
  • Arcane Barrage (4 Arcane Charges) does 167.1% Spell Power, instant cast
  • Arcane Barrage (4 Arcane Charges + 18 Stacks of Arcane Harmony + Resonance 1 Target) does 468.9% Spell Power, instant cast
  • Pyroblast does 155.2% Spell Power (with the Controlled Destruction Conduit iLvl 278 and the Fire Mage talent debuff of -6% to all spells)
  • Pyroblast (during :fire: Combustion :fire: w/ 2 Infernal Cascade + RoP): 567.1% Spell Power
    • As you can clearly see, these two spells, especially Arcane Blast (which is a simple filler spell for Arcane) have very high base scaling relative to other specs. This means that in a world where you get a lot of primary stats (i.e. Domination sockets pieces) and no secondary stats, Arcane should theoretically do very well.

However, once you remove those sources of primary stat, a spec like Arcane will severely suffer.

:cold_sweat: Poor Mastery scaling on Hardest Hitting Abilities :cold_sweat:

I mentioned that the abilities above don’t scale well, but let’s take a look at how they scale with some stats, starting with Mastery:

  • Arcane Blast (4 Arcane Charges) gets 3.4% Spell Power per 100 Mastery points
  • Arcane Barrage (4 Arcane Charges) gets 2.6% Spell Power per 100 Mastery points
  • Arcane Barrage (4 Arcane Charges + 18 stacks of Arcane Harmony + Resonance 1 target) gets 7.0% Spell Power per 100 Mastery points
  • Pyroblast (hardcast) gets 3.3 % Spell Power per 100 Mastery points (per target Ignite spread to)
  • Pyroblast (Hot Streak instant cast) gets 6.6% Spell Power per 100 Mastery Points (per target Ignite spread to)
  • Pyroblast (Hot Streak, during Combustion, RoP and 2 stacks of Infernal Cascade) gets :exploding_head: 24.3% Spell Power per 100 Mastery Points (per target Ignite spread to, more than 3 times the scaling as for Arcane Barrage for a single target!) :exploding_head:
    • Details and Math for the Mastery values above are at the end of this post.

Now let’s talk about Haste. As we all know, Haste is a Fire Mage’s best stat overall, and an Arcane Mage’s worse stat. But why is that? Theoretically, a 100% Haste to both specs should result in double the number of spells casts, thus increasing both spec’s power equally.

However, the problem is that Arcane would almost immediately run out of mana, making haste almost never viable, no matter the expansion.

So what does that leave us with? Crit and Vers. It should be no surprise that those are currently our preferred stats for raw damage throughput, with a bit of Mastery in there to keep our mana pools going.

However, what that means in the long run is that in the situation where Primary stats are decreased and secondary stats are proportionally increased relative to last season, Arcane will suffer because it scales poorly. Remember, last season we had primary stat bonuses in raid of 300 - 900 Intellect thanks to the domination sockets, putting us far above what we have even now.

:wheelchair: Arcane is a turret mage. Any movement and its damage will die :wheelchair:

In the Fire Mage arsenal, there are basically 6 damaging spells for single target:

  • Fireball, cannot cast while moving
  • Scorch, can cast while moving
  • Fireblast, can cast while moving
  • Phoenix Flames, can cast while moving
  • Pyroblast (Hotstreak), can cast while moving
  • Pyroblast (Hardcast for Pyroclasm or SKB), cannot cast while moving
    • Note that of these 6 spells, there are only 2 spells you cannot cast while moving (Fireball and Hardcast Pyroblast)

By comparison, in the Arcane single target rotation, there are 5 spells:

  • Arcane Blast, cannot cast while moving
  • Arcane Blast (Presence of Mind), can cast while moving (3 charges, 1 minute cooldown)
  • Arcane Missiles, cannot cast while moving
  • Arcane Missiles (clearcast), can only cast while moving if talented into (Slipstream)
  • Arcane Barrage, can cast while moving but severe DPS loss to spam (removes all arcane charges)
    • In these 5 spells, you can only move under certain conditions (i.e. 3 GCDs for Presence of Mind Arcane Blast, then 1 minute cooldown, or talent for Clearcast Arcane Missiles, which is proc dependent). In a situation without Presence of Mind (or longer than 4.5 seconds needed to move) or without Clearcast procs (which are random), Arcane does 0 damage.

This means that in a situation where you have fights that require a lot of movement (which is a lot of fights this raid tier), Arcane will suffer. To address this, you need to address Arcane’s lack of damage during movement phases and how to make it better in the regard (change suggested at the end).

:exploding_head: Arcane is still hard target-capped. :exploding_head:

This argument pertains more to Mythic+, but is relevant nonetheless. Throughout this expansion, Arcane has remained in the D-tier for Subcreation’s ranking. This means that the lb_ci for Arcane, the lower bound of the 95th percentile of keys completed with Arcane spec were between 16th and 20th DPS spec overall (for the ENTIRE expansion).

Why is that?

Arcane has two spells that are uncapped: Arcane Explosion and Arcane Orb. The problem is that those spells combined are usually between 8% and 15% of your overall damage in a dungeon, and between 15-25% of your total damage in a large AoE pull.

In short: those spells are not by any means the largest source of damage for Arcane in M+. The #1, #2 and #3 source of damage is usually (in order): Arcane Barrage, Touch of the Magi and Harmonic Echo / Arcane Blast / Arcane Missiles, depending on the dungeon

  • Arcane Barrage is HARD capped at 5 targets.
  • Harmonic Echo is HARD capped at 5 targets (Arcane Blast / Missiles are single target)
  • Touch of the Magi has reduced damage after 1 target (square root scaling)

To give an example of how bad this is, if your tank pulls 8 mobs, then pulls 1 more mob (9 total), he will increase a Fire Mage’s damage by 12.5% for that pull (Flamestrike, Flame Patch and Shifting Power are all uncapped). For an Arcane Mage, that damage will increase by about 4.94% (6% increased damage from Touch of the Magi (~30% of total damage), 12.5% increased damage from Arcane Explosion / Orb (~25% of total damage), 0% damage increased from Arcane Barrage or Harmonic Echo).

In short, this makes Arcane bad in any pulls above 5 targets, since their Barrage and Harmonic Echo cannot hit anything above that.

:face_with_monocle: How to address Arcane’s problems at present :face_with_monocle:

I don’t want a blanket 4% buff like you did for Beast Mastery Hunters, because it fails to encompass the reason for why Arcane is so bad in certain areas but better in others (i.e. Anduin fight, it outperforms both Frost and Fire). Instead, I want changes to address certain areas where Arcane is weak to make it stand on its own for once during this expansion. Here are the following changes that I would suggest:

  1. Make Touch of the Magi do reduced damage after 5 targets
  2. Make Mastery: Savant scale with ALL Arcane damage, including Arcane Blast and Barrage, and remove the “per Arcane Charge” scaling of those two spells
  3. Clearcasting procs are no longer consumed by Arcane Explosion
  4. Haste now reduces Evocation’s cooldown (similar to Fire Blast)
  5. Spells cast during Arcane Power no longer have decreased chance to proc Clearcast (due to decreased mana use from Arcane Power)
  6. Add in a new spell / talent option for a Venthyr-style Arcane build that does not rely as much on random chance as the current Venthyr build. A great start would be the Arcane Laser talent, which I’ve suggested here: New Spell: Arcane Laser

:one: Point #1 is there to address Arcane’s weakness in AoE in M+. To give an example: if you have 8 targets at present with a 100,000 damage Touch of the Magi (which is a LOT of damage, definitely not every pull), it will hit for a total of 347,000 damage (approximately). With this change, it would hit for 606,000 damage, which would increase the TOTAL damage of the Arcane mage by about 41% for that pull (again, you’re not going to get a giant Touch like that every pull).

:two: Point #2 is meant to address a much deeper issue with Arcane that has been going on for quite a while. Blizzard wants to make the spec have some fantasy with its stats, which is cool and all, but it results in a massively overcomplicated Mastery that has 4 different variable scaling values (the highest of all specs in the game currently), and at the same time makes Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage scale poorly for absolutely no reason / justification.

:three: Point #3 is a point that was brought up in the comments in the 9.2.5 PTR post, and is more of a quality of life thing. There is almost no point to consuming Clearcast procs with Arcane Explosion in an AoE setting because you Arcane Barrage copiously after your Touch of the Magi fades, letting you get mana back. Those Clearcast stacks are better spent on Arcane Missiles, and it would be nice to be able to pool them without fear of consuming them. In fact, I know Blizzard agrees with this point since they made this very thing into a PvP Talent.

:four: Point #4 is meant to address Arcane’s poor scaling with Haste. Ignoring Mana consumption for a second, Haste is not a bad stat for Arcane. It increases the average DPS by that same amount that it would Frost or Fire mage in a given time window. The problem is that you need to make your mana bar last a whole 90 seconds (hard-capped) in between Evocations. This is nearly impossible with high haste, at least without having to Arcane Barrage, then building back 4 charges and Barrage over and over until that 90 second cooldown is up (which is a huge DPS loss). This change would allow Haste to be a viable stat for Arcane, giving them Haste as a viable choice of talent moving forward.

:five: Point #5 is another thing that was brought up in the comments on the 9.2.5 PTR forum post. The fact that this exists makes absolutely no sense in practice. For those who don’t know: our big cooldown (Arcane Power) increases our damage but also decreases our mana cost for spells during its active window. The problem is that Clearcasting, which increases Arcane Missile DPS significantly (+60% total damage in -20% time for a total of 100% increased DPS) has decreased proc chance during Arcane Power (our big damage window) because it’s proc chance is based on mana spent. This makes no sense whatsoever. Think about it: that would be like if Combustion increased the cooldown of Fire Blast by 50% during its window. I don’t believe Blizzard devs actually intended to have this, and it is likely just another oversight by Blizzard on Arcane.

:six: Point #6 is described in heavy detail in the forum post here: New Spell: Arcane Laser. To briefly explain, it would consume 3 Clearcast procs (which you would get from a Mirrors of Torment-like talent granted upstream of it to instead cast an Arcane Laser. This laser consumes mana but acts like a continuous stream of Clearcast Arcane Missiles (even though it looks like a laser), damaging enemies at the same rate as Clearcast Arcane Missiles (once every 0.25 seconds, important for Arcane Echoes and AoE damage), but gaining in strength the longer it channels, with channel time limited by mana expediture. This fits in perfectly with a high mastery build, and big cooldowns like Arcane Power would fit in great with this, since it would consume less mana and thus channel for longer, thus gain even more damage amplification. The details are all in the forum post linked above, as well as explanation of why I prefer this over the Venthyr build in my experience.

:nerd_face: Math for Mastery Calculations: :nerd_face:

For Arcane Mage, Mastery: Savant increases Arcane Blast damage by 1% of base damage (not total damage, i.e. 50.3% SP, not 180.7% SP) per charge per 58.32 (4% increased base damage at 4 Arcane Charges) Mastery stat points , and by 1% increased base damage per 116.64 Mastery Points for Arcane Barrage (4% increased base damage at 4 Arcane Charges). This means the following:

  1. For Arcane Blast (at 4 Arcane Charges): 4% base damage per 58.32 Mastery = 6.85% base damage increase per 100 Mastery. 6.85% of 50.3% Spell power (base damage of Arcane Blast) = 3.44% Spell power.
    • Therefore, every 100 points of Mastery increases Arcane Blast damage by 3.44% Spell Power (at 4 Arcane charges, even less at lower Arcane charges, down to 0% bonus damage at 0 Arcane Charges)
  2. For Arcane Barrage (at 4 Arcane Charges): 4% base damage per 116.64 Mastery = 3.42% base damage increase per 100 Mastery. 3.42% of 72.8% Spell Power (Base damage of Arcane Barrage) = 2.50% Spell power.
    • Therefore, every 100 points of Mastery increases Arcane Barrage damage by 2.50% Spell Power (at 4 Arcane charges, even less at lower Arcane charges, down to 0% bonus damage at 0 Arcane Charges)
  3. For Arcane Barrage with Arcane Harmony and Resonance (1 Target), simply multiply the value by the modifiers: 2.44 for Arcane Harmony legendary and 1.15 for Resonance (1 target). Therefore: 2.50% Spell power per 100 Mastery * 2.44 * 1.15 = 7.0% Spell Power per 100 Mastery
  4. The absolute maximum scaling for this ability, counting Arcane Harmony, Radiant Spark, Arcane Power, Rune of Power and Resonance (5 target bonus) is the following: 2.50% Spell power per 100 Mastery * 2.44 * 1.84 * 1.5 * 1.4 * 1.75 = 41.25% Spell Power per 100 Mastery. Remember: you only throw out a single barrage like this every 90 seconds.

EDIT: People have asked me for Sims to prove this math above (since it is proving that Mastery gives less raw damage for Arcane Blast and Barrage than Versatility), so I have constructed a sim that demonstrates these findings. The sims below are very simple: it is a 5 second sim where the mage has 1000 intellect and 0 in all secondary stats except either Versatility or Mastery (where mage has 100 in on are the other). He then casts Touch of the Magi (to get 4 Arcane Charges), then Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage (5 second window sim so TotM doesn’t blow up and interfere with the sim):

  • Arcane Blast Sim: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/76yxjTCop7sMeMbA2ErqjZ
  • Arcane Barrage Sim: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/jQpBXGaCQmSbLHhVfTYXJT

For Fire Mage, the Mastery: Ignite increases damage dealt by spells by 1% per 46.66 points, doubled to 2% per 46.66% for Hotstreak Spells (like Pyroblast and Flamestrike). This means that it increases base damage by 2.14% at 100 Mastery points, doubled to 4.29% for Hotstreak spells per 100 Mastery points.

  1. For Pyroblast (Hard-cast): Base damage is 151.71% Spell Power, increased by 8.8% by the Controlled Destruction conduit, but decreased by 6% by the Fire Mage Aura Modifier. Therefore, the actual base damage of Pyroblast is 151.71% Spell Power * 1.088 * 0.94 = 155.2% Spell Power. Thus, Mastery increases this damage by 155.2% SP * 2.14% per 100 Mastery (if Hardcast, not Hotstreak) = 3.32% Spell Power per target (similar to Arcane Blast).
  2. For Pyroblast (Hot-streak): Multiply the above by 2, which gives us 6.64% Spell Power.
  3. For Pyroblast (Hotstreak, cast during Combustion with 2 Procs of Infernal Cascade): take the above value, multiply it by 2 (guaranteed crit by Combustion), then multiply it by 1.4 (Rune of Power), then multiply it by 1.305 (2 stacks of Infernal Cascade). This gives us: 155.2% Spell Power * 2 * 1.4 * 1.305 = 567.1% Spell Power for direct damage, and 6.64 * 2 * 1.4 *1.305 = 24.3% Spell Power per 100 Mastery (per target Ignite spread to).
    • Note that unlike that Barrage, you throw out at least 8 Pyroblasts during your combustion, raising that Mastery scaling to 194% Spell Power per 100 Mastery, or nearly 5 times as much scaling as the Arcane Barrage (with only 1 target). At 8 targets (Ignite Spread cap), this becomes :exploding_head: 1552% Spell power per 100 Mastery per Combustion (i.e. for 8 Pyroblasts spreading to 8 targets). :exploding_head:
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These could help arcane a ton, but I would have 2 suggestions.

For the arcane charges, they should add a boost to damage for all spells as well and not just blast and barrage, maybe even independent from mastery. Clearcasting should proc independent from mana. Mana is a whole nother issue which would still need to be adressed concerning it’s role in the design for arcane even with your suggestions.

Everything else described is thought out very well.

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i would like arcane missiles play a more desisive part in pvp, it is arcane’s iconic spell, having it chanelable while running would be great for the spec, even if it comes with a damage reduction tax.

clearcasting is a meh buff with 20% haste in it, they will likely make it purgable in dragonflight again, they better make it more powerful like 100% more damage stackable and spend all the stacks in arcane fat missiles. it will be purged anyway else is a good punish.

the other BIG problem with arcane in pvp: kicks, to many kicks for a spec that have to cast almost everything(outside mind presence), touch of magic should be instant.

a stun on top with 30secs to secure kill will be fine too, something like a time frozen spell.

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Now you might be correct, but I don’t PvP at all (like not at all), so I can’t really comment.
I don’t even know if Arcane is good or not in PvP.

That being said, what you’re saying makes sense to me.

That would be cool, but it would require tuning on both the mana cost and damage of things like Arcane missiles. I’m not disagreeing with this idea, just pointing out that it might take a lot of tuning.

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These are all good points, and I think I can get behind most, if not all of them. I agree with Arkinov, though, that I’d like to see more scaling with arcane charges rather than less. I’d really like to see a style that lets us control how many charges we have a little bit better. Being able to activate something that lets us coast on 3 arcane charges instead of being stuck at 4 or resetting to 0 would be very interesting (if done correctly).

An alternative to reducing Evocation’s CD with haste could be to add a talent that lets our mana regen scale with haste (like it used to, a long long time ago). We’re temporal mages, you’d think by now we’d have learned how to apply haste to mana regen… If it scales correctly it would minimize the negative effects haste currently has on us. It would also make external buffs that grant haste (like Time Warp / Vy buff / Power Infusion) less painful if we get them without cooldowns up because it should hopefully boost our regen as much as our spending. (Also, sidenote while we’re on the topic, I LIKE the fact that arcane still uses mana, and I would prefer to not see that go away).

I’ve seen your post about Arcane Laser, and it sounds intriguing, however, if we’re going to get a new spell, I’m not 100% sure if that’s what I’d like it to be. We already have a way (albeit not an interesting way) to spend our mana, and we’re already having trouble fishing for CC procs when we need them. I know there are lots of ways to work around this, but it makes me hesitant to sign up for this.

What I’d really like to see is a better single-target Arcane Charge spender. Barrage just isn’t typically a great single-target spell. Yes, we have the Kyrian-Harmony absurdity right now, but I’m not sure that should stick around. It’s a lot of fun, but it doesn’t really feel like the arcane style to me. If we go back to the burn / conserve style of play, I’d like to see a spell that feels better to cast as a charge spender when we transition into the conserve phase.

If we do get something like the laser, I’d like to see something that can help make it last even longer. Getting a random proc of Time Anomaly for Evocation while channeling the laser would be a big damage increase, and Enlightened might outscale Overpowered for this spell since it would keep us casting it much longer. But if we want to find another way to passively increase mana regen (since Evocate would cancel the cast) it makes me think of something like Touch of the Magi, but instead of accumulating a percentage of the damage you deal, it instead accumulates a percentage of the mana you spend and then grants it back to you over a small window (something that Mana Gem could do instead of being almost useless).

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Completely agree. It would be cool if Arcane Missiles and Explosion scaled with Arcane charges. The only reason I didn’t include it in the post is that I would have to calculate not only the damage difference (which is easy), but also the mana difference per Arcane Charge (while making sure that you can still not only cast the same number of spells, but also do the same amount of damage).

It’s definitely doable and I am for it, but from a math perspective, it is cancer to calculate.

I completely agree and would go one step further to say: increase mana regen AND decrease Evocation CD (since those are inherently tied together). I actually don’t like getting PI because it outlasts my Arcane Power, and makes me OOM so fast, and Vy buff is even worse for that.

Also yeah, if they take away mana from Arcane, I’m outright quitting the game. Most fun mechanic I’ve seen thus far, just needs some tweaks.

Thanks for reading that post! I appreciate it :slight_smile:

And I agree, we do have ways of spending mana, but this is more of a way to directly get benefits from total mana. Something like the Enchant we currently have that increases intellect by 20 AND grants 6% maximum mana would be viable if not BiS for that build.

Also, since the laser does drain mana, it should also have a high chance of generating Clearcasting procs (near the end). Something to give us some free casting time once the laser ends and we have 0 mana and thus can’t cast anything.

I was wondering about that too, like if they gave us a mini-Evocate you could spend Arcane charges on to get mana back (more mana than Arcane Barrage, but without doing damage). I’m not sure.

I do like our current playstyle, but I can see others liking different things.

Well that’s the other thing I’ve been thinking about: currently Time Anomaly only grants 1 second of Evocation. One way you could massively buff this laser is by letting the proc grant you like 3 seconds of mana regen instead of just 1.

But this entire plan (and whether or not Time Anomaly can even be used) hinges upon this laser, since you should have good enough mana management that you shouldn’t rely on random Evocates here and there to grant you bursts of mana, even if we did run Time Anomaly.

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Really well put together list of suggestions. Don’t know of Blizzard would take any of them to heart or work to implement anything even similar to these ideas but it’s nice to see someone so passionate about their class. A lot of care and attention was obviously put into all of this. Really just blown away by the work this write up must have taken. Although much of the balancing is probably off slightly it’s nice to see you considering balance when making suggestions as well.

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I technically get paid to do math during the day. I don’t want to do it at night too. Say no more.

I like this idea, but I don’t want mana management to become trivial like it is in Kyrian right now. We both like having mana, but if we get too much regen, it’d be almost the same as removing it (unless of course some kind of spender like the laser is added).

To be fair… I skimmed over big chunks of it… But I think I got the gist!

Finding a way to use those procs while the laser is firing would be pretty interesting. There are other buffs in the game that, when cast, completely change certain abilities. Who’s to say that, while channeling the laser, Blast and Missiles can’t be replaced by abilities that cost a CC proc to either regenerate mana OR make the laser do more damage? I suppose at that point it starts becoming a bigger ability than Arcane Power, so maybe I’ve gone too far…

But still… this is a post for ideas, right? Something like this could be a great way to double down on both our mana management and our “stand still to do damage” idea. I know you suggest letting slipstream make this a channel-while-moving spell, however, doubling down on the concept that you have to stand still, or increasing our own damage taken per tick, can put a different spin on our risk-reward playstyle. This spell could even go so far as to replace arcane power, letting this be our big cooldown (and opening the door for more things, like ability replacement while channeling).

But again, that may be a bit much…

What I was really going for with the better single-target spender was damage, but more mana would be good too. The mana regen on barrage is nice. Not great, but nice. But what I’d really like to do is put out one more big hit to signal the end of my burn. Until Kyrian came around, I mostly considered Arcane Barrage to be the wet noodle of the kit.

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I’ll admit that I didn’t read anything past the tldr, because I’m lazy and technically at work.

I’ve never liked TOTM or whatever it was called in Legion. I understand the concept of it but I think it’s just poorly done, and am not a fan of the current “stack all the things” style of many specs and it felt bad to use in SL. Depending on what they do to AoE caps in DF, I’d almost like to see if designed specifically for 2-3 target cleave where it ‘stores’ damage for X seconds (or until target dies) and explodes dealing 20% increased damage to the target and 1-2 others.

Yeppers. Something needs to be done for the Mastery, and not just for Arcane.

Yes remove it from AE and CC should be % proc chance like it was for WoD rather than based off mana used. Not only did the proc rate seem much smoother and better for WoD, but we never had the issue of it proccing less during our burn. If it’s going to be a poor proc rate, I’d like it to significantly boost AM damage too even if that means base nerfs to AM so we don’t use it outside of CC.

For sure. Haste needs to do something for Arcane. Either Evo cooldown rate proportional to increased mana use, or just straight up increase mana regen. Specs should never ignore a stat because it doesn’t work for them.

I would be perfectly happy to have all covenant abilities stricken from the record forever (same goes for BfA necks and talents taken from legendaries). They never felt good to use and were always so generic. Design the specs properly.

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Overall great excellent ideas, I have played Arcane for a while and explored many if not all the borrowed powers and play styles. From my perspective, I am excited to see the new tree and synergies. As being able to use a few powers that we never had at the same time in the past would dramatically improve arcane.

The meme beam in BFA worked extremely well on arcane as it scaled on vers and crit with no target caps that I know of and no stat caps. Not a lot of classes have that stat priority in abundance. I think a huge laser would fit in well if done right.

From my experience, arcane barrage feels best when used as an execute ability. I was excited when they announced double leggo, but a bit disappointed when you couldn’t use both the current ones. I feel if barrage had an execute ability, it would certainly help the feast or famine on the crits and give the spec more of a niche as frost has sustained damage and fires burst. We saw a glimpse of this at the tail end of BFA, with AM being extremely strong ST and you could use the borrowed power on AM and Execute.

I see arcane as more of an hour glass, Heavy damage on the top and heavy on the bottom. Fitting for a Time Wizard.

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You have no idea how sadge I was when I found out were weren’t gotten the execute lego for the double legendary combo. That could’ve made Arcane the best execute class in the game, but was killed before it could take root. Man, such a waste…

The worst part of it is: I feel like the talent tree is going to force us to pick between Arcane Harmony OR Arcane Bombardment in a choice node just to prevent this awesome combo…

Sad days indeed.

I’m forever gonna call it the meme beam, what a great name.

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I hope that’s is not the case, I understand why they didn’t do it, as on some classes it would have been crazy. For arcane I feel it would have been a healthy spot. I’m sure it would be powerful in harmony, but realistically its only on a few combos. It would fit into every build, but I know what you mean, to date, that has been the line in the sand.

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So there are many small suggestions in this that are mostly wonderful.

I’m going to speak from an M+ perspective.

I find the main problems with arcane are:

  1. Having to front load damage means you pull aggro. Running in with 18 harmony stacks and dropping arcane power is a surefire way to pull aggro. Unfortunately, if you don’t do it this way… you do abyssmal damage. Grief the tank or get out DPSd by him.

  2. TOTM has an incredibly small radius. It needs to be much larger.

  3. Arcane explosion is a terrible spell and should no consume CC procs. It is also incredibly underwhelming. Even with a Rune of power down it’s general damage is just bad.

  4. Clearcast procs still just magically vanish sometimes with slipstream. They just don’t work when you’re moving. Then when you stop moving and try to use it the proc just gets consumed.

  5. I would like arcanosphere to be a point blank BOMB that explodes around you. Make a PvP talent that makes you launch it but give it to us baseline. It could be an AoE finisher that costs 4 charges.

  6. Add spell effects to TOTM. I’m convinced tanks grief us because no one can see it. I know, I know, people still grief Wild Spirits but at least you can see it on the ground.

I’m sure there’s more.

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I’m not a fan of current Kyrian Arcane. It takes what I loved most about Arcane away, and that is the synchronicity/rhythm of the spec. I almost think peak Arcane (in terms of playstyle) was Legion.

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Honestly, I wish they’d go back to Legion-style arcane and address the two main issues it had: keep some version of TotM that gives some cleave and let mastery scale better.

It was the the terrible decision to change Arcane Missiles that ruined the spec for me.

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One thing i just read about on the dk forums that actually made me think more on this is that they may end up keeping prodigy as a thing in the talents for arcane which, will be an awful idea from them instead of just reverting ap back to being 1:30 by default.

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I’d like for them to figure out what they want to do with the spec thematically. Either make it a spec that trades mana for power and go all in on it, or just get off the pot and stop this weird mana hungry spec that doesn’t offer anything in exchange for draining your mana bar.

None of our mana using spells hit hard enough to warrant the fact that they use any mana.

Personally, I’d love if it were a convoluted spec about managing your mana to maximize damage, but in it’s current state it’s not. It’s just expensive to cast spells that don’t hit very hard (which is why kyrian harmony is the only way to make them do anything of note).

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Agreed.

In that light, Arcane Laser addresses this very point. The more mana you have, the longer you channel and the more your laser power up to do damage (since the bonus damage and mana spent increases per second spent channeling). It also scales with Time Anomaly talent (which is almost never used) since if it procs evocation during the channel, you get a burst of mana back and thus channel it for even longer.

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That would certainly make Arcane better, but it’s still such a dated spec and in desperate need of a complete ground-up overhaul. The player-friendly version is to dump mana as a resource and give Arcane a rotation back. The other option is to go ham on mana and make it a resource worth managing. Knowing Blizzard they’ll do neither, and make it more reliant on mana management while keeping it weak and boring.

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Agreed. If they want to keep mana management a “thing” then they should look at going back to the WoD version where you did more damage if you managed your mana well.

I’ve said since BfA that it’s the joint nature of what they’ve made arcane: a mana management spec and a build/spender spec that hurts it.

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