I hope you’re right, I just have very, very low expectations at this point.
Oh I know … I had hoped for DF with the new talent system we’d get something different than spark and/or harmony/SL gameplay.
Clearly I did NOT get what I was hoping for … but I’m allowing myself to believe a little bit this time lol.
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I am really curious to see how they plan to change Radiant Spark. Are they just going to turn in into another TotM or simply fix it so each tick of AM no longer consumes a charge? And how are they going to make it a choice node without also changing the capstone talent that comes after it? Or will the “competitive alternative” come from redesigning another talent or the addition of a completely different one? So many questions, lol.
But yeah, ultimately the big picture problem is the bloat of useless setup cooldowns and the ridiculous ramp up they create. You’re absolutely right, it’s not a fun gameplay loop and a very dated design that doesn’t seem to take the mechanics of the modern game into account.
I would expect (and hope) to see Harmonic Echo completely removed or changed.
Harmonic Echo was introduced as a band-aid in Shadowlands where a big issue with Arcane was cleave damage. But even the first iteration of the legendary (if I recall) didn’t affect the current target, only subsequent targets. There were enough complaints that it made our Unity legendary useless in single target that they adjusted it for us.
Honestly I’d like Radiant Spark removed all together (the spec just plays better without it). But I think there are a few good options/ideas. In either case, they just have to get it out of the burn phase.
I think having it replace Shifting Power and be a more powerful version of that might be good. Something like reduces the CDs based on each spell hit during its duration (and so you want to arcane missiles it for lots of hits). It’d still justify that central capestone talent slot but not be something you necessarily want to use during the burn phase.
Alternatively maybe having it interact with Nether Tempest. Nothing in the spec actively interactions with that in a major way other than arcane charges.
My speculation is the consolidation of Radiant Spark with it’s sub talent and the inclusion of arcane battery capstone talent.
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I like what I read about “rotational simplification”. Arcane’s rotation is too complex. Trying to line everything up while watching mana feels like a bit of a chore. I miss the arcane of previous expacs where the rotation felt much more natural once you mastered mana management.
I’m also looking forward to a rework and option to skip Radiant Spark. I hate that talent.
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God, I really hope so! Not that virtually any capstone talent in the game rn is particularly interesting but Harmonic Echo has got to be hands down the most bland and inspired one. In fact, it feels like it’s in the capstone position accidentally purely by virtue of being a modifier for Radiant Spark which is the true capstone (and also incredibly lackluster and undeserving of capstone status).
For me at least, the whole transition from talent tiers to back to trees lead me to expect something cool to be at the end of those trees (like used to be the case with the original trees) but of course that never happened and it was a real let down. Since they don’t seem to be interested in further expanding on the talent trees either and are instead going back to adding new systems with every expansion (that are supposedly going to be “evergreen” now, whatever that means), they really should at the very least be looking at overhauling them and actually making them interesting.
They should start with straight up removing all the clearly filler talent nodes and baking them back into the skills they modify as was the case before the talent trees were re-introduced in DF. And if that means no longer having a new point to spend every time you level then so be it. I never understood why they thought that was particularly interesting anyway, especially with how quickly you level early on and having to constantly interrupt what you were doing to mess with the talent tree.
Simplify rotation? Other than arcane they’re already pretty simple. Most classes/specs are already too simple and get boring pretty quickly. I really hope they don’t oversimplify.
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I’m really curious how they’re going to approach this simplification. Current Frostfire Fire has to track over 10 buffs, meaning a lot of WeakAuras are pretty much necessary for optimal play. Frostfire Frost’s rotation also gets extremely busy with how much stuff needs to be tracked and how many cooldowns need to be managed.
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Rotational complexity doesn’t just come from having too many individual buttons to press, as is the case with Arcane, that’s just the most common form. There is also added complexity from having to micromanage numerous buffs and respond to procs quickly both of which require a level of physical and mental dexterity that many players simply aren’t capable of anymore, if indeed they ever were. Not to mention that the game’s native UI is completely inadequate to manage all of this and there is something to be said about how hard a game is when you need to resort to third party software to play it.
The fact is WoW is a 20 yo game that most of us started playing in our teens. Since then it has gotten more and more complex while our reflexes have only gotten worse due to age and other factors. Blizzard have to keep their base in mind and that is increasingly made up of an older demographic. Besides, they aren’t talking about removing the more complex playstyles but instead about offering simpler yet still competitive alternatives. Of course that’s no mean feat and only time will tell if they can manage it.
TL:DR Get off my lawn, you whipper snapper! /shakes cane menacingly 
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I really want to play an arcane mage , but its is so complicated , with alot of gooble goook… frost is much simpler and fire is just fun… so aas a casual player … I want to try arcane…just dumb it down and make it powerful and we will be happy
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They’ve at least acknowledged that’s the case and said they want to make it simpler for those less sweaty among us but I don’t know that the changes we’ve seen so far achieve that goal. But at least it’s on their radar and they’re trying to do something. I guess we will see in a couple months.
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I watched Venruki’s video and I’m kinda struggling to notice the difference, I am guessing it’s the choice node between Magi’s Spark and the other one that simply makes TotM increase the damage of your spells by 25%, so it’s basically big damage window with Surge and TotM/Small damage window with just TotM or the current playstyle, except Radiant Spark is now included in TotM when you grab Magi’s Spark which already significantly decreases the difficulty of current Arcane if you ask me, but also means that both these talents do essentially the same thing except one is stronger? I am sure someone good at theory crafting would probably be able to understand this one better than me, because I am unsure how much that changes the gameplay really? Wouldn’t the rotation remain mostly the same?
They gave the choice to just passively do more damage with TotM or the one where it explodes when hitting the target with Barrage, Missiles and Blast. Tbh, I don’t see much difference between the two because we would hit it with those spells regardless, but I guess it was a good compromise to removing Spark even though I didn’t really mind it to begin with.
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See, that’s what I found weird, Magi’s Spark fuses Radiant Spark with TotM to basically preserve the current playstyle in a more organized manner, so I struggle to see what’s the use of the Improved Touch of the Magi, since the rotation would remain largely the same.
Yeah, this I what I meant when I said that I didn’t think the changes made much of a difference. Sure, it’s a nice little QoL change to merge Spark and TotM since we already did that anyway, but that’s just the point: we did that already. Meaning nothing has changed. It’s still one big burst window where you stack everything every 1.5 min and one small burst window where you stack fewer things every 45 sec. They even continue to refuse to axe Siphon Storm which is basically the new RoP, lol. Maybe in another 10 years they’ll get around to removing it (after the dev whose passion project it is finally retires, lol).
To my mind, making Arcane simpler means cutting down or altogether eliminating the cooldown stacking and the annoying lengthy ramp up that goes along with it. But they’re not doing that.
On a side note, I am a little concerned that with the removal of so many things like Nether Tempest, Mana Gem, etc. we are going to be underpowered. Don’t get me wrong, they were all problematic and good riddance to them but they have to give us something to compensate for their removal. Otherwise we will be in the same boat we were in when RoP was finally removed, may it rot in the Maw forever, with our burst significantly neutered. Of course all of this can be easily addressed with a damage aura tuning but they are notoriously over-cautious with those.
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My guess is that they are betting on the Hero Talents stuff to “compensate” for the removal of those abilities. But yeah, it all depends on their overall balancing.
But yeah, I guess it won’t be until quite some time yet for people to start figuring out what Arcane will be like in TWW.
It’s a great change in my opinion. Some of the core gameplay remains but hopefully with the improvement to clearcasting, now you’re going to be skipping the scripted 3-4 arcane blasts and prioritizing your spells based on what’s available or the situation.
The removal of Radiant Spark and Nether Tempest plus the indication that CC’ed Missiles will be a priority without clipping for Nether Precision was like opening your best gift on Christmas morning.
I must have missed that. What indication? Because the tension between CC and NP procs really is the biggest problem area right now.
I am heartened by the change to Arcane Soul in the Sunfury tree, though. It went from “meh” to “chef’s kiss” haha.