BM hunters, WW monk and Demo locks got a buff, with the latter getting a 3% overall damage increase, yet absolutely nothing for the Arcane Mage.
I just do not understand. Help me understand Blizz.
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They are saving the big changes for patch 9.1
I’ll wait to read the notes before deciding on whether to continue my sub.
Because if nothing is in that patch, you can expect arcane to generally remain the same the entire expansion. That’s not acceptable to me.
I’m referring to PvP.
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Developers’ notes: This is a repeat hotfix, which was first made on February 4, but was unintentionally missing from patch 9.0.5.
It’s not new.
Concentration Aura again no longer incorrectly reduces the duration of Anti-Magic Shell.
- Developers’ notes: This is a repeat hotfix, which was first made on February 4, but was unintentionally missing from patch 9.0.5.
Your quote was talking about a pally aura affecting AMS for DKs. Not the classes that got buffed.
My bad.
I’ve already expressed my opinion (in other threads) on why Arcane probably wont get a buff or changes until 9.1; the people who can make it work are just too good with the spec. Not gonna go down that rabbit hole because this forum is swamped with those that think otherwise, and really this isn’t a place where one should teach others how to play or point out their flaws.
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a simple clearcast duration increase would be a massive boon for average players without really affecting overall potential throughput. It would just decrease variance in dps created by RNG, which would likely help with future balancing. The top potential of the spec would still be the same.
i dunno maybe i’m way off base here.
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You’re not off base.
Proc overlaps for totm is definitely a point of frustration. Sometimes it’s too frequent (which if frequent enough, you can dump early for pre-evo totm–huzzah!), and other times the clearcast buff will fall before procing again (make sure to consume).
Instead of increasing duration, I’d like to see mastery slightly increase clearcast procs, so higher mastery helps smooth that out (without procs getting too far out of hand) and increase the chance to totm early.
The other option is to have Evocation add time to Clearcast, so it’s not lost on a mana reset.
Altogether, Arcane isn’t bad. It’s just people choose not to play it when Fire is easier for slightly better results.
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Nothing slight about it. It’s massively better by any measure and in all types of content (except perhaps >15 keys). As for ease… it’s not necessarily easier per se because Combustion has to be executed perfectly every time but on the flip side everything else you do outside of that 10 second window every 2 minutes doesn’t overly matter as it doesn’t impact you DPS that much which in turn means you can make a lot more mistakes over the duration of a fight and get away with. Compared to the other two mage specs Fire is just objectively better at everything and it throws off the class balance completely. And that has been the case for years now which is incredibly frustrating.
All 6 of them. Meanwhile there’s 10,000 Arcane Mages across the 3 raid difficulties who are barely keeping their spot above the tanks.
But yeah, pretty big kick in the pants not to see any buffs for Arcane. I’m hopeful that this means actual big changes in 9.1 (increased proc rate, increased aura damage, increased AM/AB damage). Of course, that means Blizzard has to acknowledge that the spec exists.
As much as I love Frost, I think a 5th expansion playing it is just too much. I’m sure there’s other games to play out there.
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I guess against a backdrop of Frost, that’s a bit true.
Against Arcane though, where Touch of the Magi has to be executed properly in it’s 8 second window every 45 seconds plus timing with Clearcasting beforehand, managing the Arcane Phases before during and after the window, and also juggling Evocation and Arcane Power windows, I guess that’s where I was going “Wow, Combust is easier.”
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In fairness to the devs these aren’t major buffs. To my knowledge the hunter “buffs” are reverts over previous nerfs, and there’s a tiny note that says they’re not looking at this as like a major balance hotfix or anything.
The hunter “buffs” are in response to bug fixes aren’t they?
It just becomes kind of easy to ignore when people playing arcane cry for buffs to address the issues with the spec when the issues with the spec are how they have the gameplay set up and the long standing issues the spec has had for 2-3 expansions now.
I get it though: if a buff is all you can get then can’t hurt to ask for it. However, I can see the devs leaving it as is because:
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They’re previously stated that some specs always have to be at the bottom. While arcane is REALLY low compared to other dps specs by a not small margin, any buffs to it to make it less of a dumpster fire would have to be significant and they may not want to go there as then the “new bottom spec” would start crying for the same thing.
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They honestly don’t even understand the mechanics of the crapfest they’ve created so they don’t know what the actual implications of a buff to arcane would be. Aura buff to everything? Just a buff to mastery damage? Buff to TotM? They’d have to show an understanding of how the spec works and, let’s be honest: for 2 expansions now Arcane seems to be something designed last minute by the one dev who just wants to get through the work day and has to tick “make changes to arcane” off on his to-do list so he commits an hour of his time to it and then clocks out.
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Legion and BfA pretty much proved there is no one on the development team that has a passion for arcane mage. In the Legion rework the pretty much designed the spec around a new talent, Quickening, and when it proved too effective they removed it but changed nothing about the spec leaving us with terrible mastery scaling to haste. Still, the spec had a fluid gameplay and did good damage and only lacked in Cleave. BfA they created the one-button-spam arcane mage who had to choose between ST and AoE for an entire expansion even though it was a consistent complaint the entire expac. Produced meager numbers but wasn’t the worst dps spec in the game. Now we have SL with arcane possessing the most convoluted and mishmashed gameplay in it’s existence AND a trashcan damage doer even in the fights it’s supposed to be good at. That’s 3 expansions of consistent and constant issues (with it being the most immovable caster there all along).
Other specs have gotten torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. Arcane gets riddled with gunfire and the devs just try to cover the wounds with kid bandages.
TL/DR: No buffs. Probably won’t be anytime soon. They just don’t care about arcane cause they never really have.
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I keep going back and forth between “they don’t care” and “they just have no idea wth to do with it.” They have tried all sorts of iterations over the years and really none of them have worked overly well because, at least it my view, none of them addressed the core mechanic problem of reliance on mana.
It’s painfully obvious that they know what the issue is. First they tried to tackle it with the introduction of mastery by making it increase mana regen. But then they quickly realized that wasn’t gonna be anywhere near enough even with enormous amounts of mastery. So they changed tactics and introduced damage incentives for micromanaging your mana but that also failed to produce results and it annoyed a lot of people enough to just stop playing the spec.
More recently their focus has been on empowering ABarr over and over again in the hopes of making it so strong that it wouldn’t feel as bad when you use it but the ramp up component of having to build up charges again at a glacial pace is still there and it just feels awful.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if the entire rotation involved just building and spending charges (basically what the conserve rotation is now) and just make the damage adjustment necessary to make it happen. But when you add the burst phases (yes it’s phaseS now because of the TotM changes) into the mix as well as Evocation when all of the cooldowns involved have no built in protection in case forced movement happens it just makes the whole thing a complete mess.
Take Fire for example, a Fire mage can combust whenever the hell they want to without any regard for mechanics unless it’s something to do with boss immunity or vulnerability where everyone is affected equally in that they would have to hold their cooldowns accordingly. An Arcane mage on the other hand has to watch every single boss mechanic and timer to make sure they find a window during which they can plant down their roots and go into turret mode. The problem there is that with the way modern boss fights are designed this just doesn’t ever happen because there are alway mechanics flying at you left and right. So you either end up holding onto your cooldowns for too long or using them at a suboptimal time.
TLDR: The spec just isn’t well suited for the way the modern game plays and that’s objectively true. Blizzard recognize the fact but aren’t willing to commit to core mechanical changes and instead opt for bandaid fixes which just don’t work.
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I said that on another thread months back that they need to decide if arcane is a build/spender spec or a mana management spec.
I was immediately swarmed by the angry “mana management is what the spec is about!” crowd so I deleted the thread.
If mana is so important to the spec’s identity then why is the talent that actually rewards you for managing it not even the go-to?
When I read your post about there being PHASES now instead of phase, it just reaffirmed why I stopped playing.
Manage AP, manage TotM, manage your charges, manage your mana, manage your movement, manage your Covenant ability, fish for your procs before you do your opener and hope RNGesus blesses you … do all that in a convoluted button smash and congrats: You’ll be just above the tank on the meters.
The last time arcane felt epic was Legion. Your main goal was to get your three procs of missiles and plan to use them when it was most damaging. Arcane blast built your charges which buffed your missile damage. AE had a decent range and barrage was a good filler during conserve. Even had Mark of Aluneth in there for some extra deeps and a nice ranged spell. Sure cleave sucked but the rotation was smooth and if you played it correctly you were on the meters and holding your own (especially with that Nighthold tier set).
The BfA changes to missiles and clearcasting ruined the spec imo. Rather than go back they doubled down on it (cause they can’t admit they made a mistake, ever) and now you have the Shadowlands version of arcane.
Arcane now is a lost mess of a spec that has no identity anymore. It’s like a Frankenstein monster: a bunch of gameplay styles and mini-rotations and arcane themed spells stitched together to form something that resembles a mage spec.
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THIS! @Blizzard just make up your mind, for the love of the Titans! Enough with this hodgepodge mess. Oi vey! 
I would like to point out that they still haven’t fixed Arcane threat gen since legion. So you can cast a wet noodle arcane explosion and the tank still needs to put large effort into getting the threat back.
I get where you’re coming from, but I also don’t see why they can’t buff the lower half of the specs by 5-20% (depending on how low they are) and bring all the specs in line with each other. It won’t affect the competitive players because world 1st and MDI are done for this tier, and the top specs will still be top.
This might be true, but it’s not like the forums and top players haven’t provided plenty of suggestions. A minor aura buff, a buff to AM/AB and a substantial buff to CC proc rates would go a long way. Slipstream as baseline, or have it affect all AM would go a long way too. They could look at a larger overhaul later on, but this would at least “fix” Arcane for the remainder of this expansion.
A lot of people said that when they originally got rid of mana requirements for all other casters (and even Hunters), but at the end of the day every single one of them now plays much better. The Arcane purists would learn to live with it, and if designed well it could end up being a much more fun spec to play.
Ideally now would be the best time to start working on an overhaul and testing it out. Even if they create a separate PTR just to test the changes to Arcane. They could potentially spend 12 months making it into an amazing spec to play.
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Fair enough. A buff just to close the differential SHOULD be done. I was speaking more about any buff that moves it from the bottom to be anywhere but the bottom. That’s the buff I don’t think is going to happen.
I"ve seen all the suggestions players have put forward and while there are many good ones that would help the spec, how often have we gotten reworks of this type once an expansion is live?
IF (and it’s a big if) they were going to do it now would be the time while there’s still time left in this tier and the next tier is months away. Anyone (like me) who would consider trying arcane again would have time to switch covenants and do all the things.
I know my posts sound harsh-ish but it’s honestly coming from a place of frustration where I don’t enjoy playing my mage half as much as I did when I was playing a spec I loved and I LOVED arcane.
The other noteworthy difference is that a perfect Combustion cycle involves a string instant cast spells, meaning that you can still respond to mechanics that require movement after initiating your burst phase. Arcane doesn’t have that luxury; if you use AP or TotM at the wrong time and have to step out of one of your spell-casts to avoid dying, you’ve shot yourself in the foot.
While arguably, Fire is a more difficult spec on the level of button-pushing, once you learn that performance its incredibly resilient in nearly any encounter situation. As an Arcane Mage, the rotation might be simple, but if you don’t have supreme awareness of every single encounter and its mechanic timers in relation to your cooldowns (of which there are too many), then it’s impossible to perform at its best.
The higher you go in content the worse it gets, and the more awful and glaring the disparity becomes with a spec like Fire, whose job never gets any harder once you master it.
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Only one that comes to mind was the Frost rework back in MoP. From memory that’s when it stopped being a PvP/meme spec and became viable for PvE. That said, I’m not holding out for any big changes during this expansion and to be honest I wouldn’t trust them to do it right anyway. They’d half-butt* it to push it out in time for a raid tier/MDI and it would probably be worse than we currently have.
However I do think they need to start working in the background on a massive overhaul (not just for Arcane but for all Mage specs) and look to implement that in 18 months time when 10.0 releases. I think Arcane players can give up on this expansion, which is genuinely sad because it’s been so long since Arcane was good to play and it has so much potential.
*new forums pop up a warning when using a “bad” word now?
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