To be fair, Arcane has not had a true “aoe rotation” since I started playing it. After the specs I came from, it is more of an aoe filler. It is one of the only specs in the game that is almost completely hard target capped.
It was a lot better in DF, I remember I could do passable aoe damage outside of cooldowns.
The real issue here is that arcane barrage was nerfed into the ground at the start of the season, making it a button that is not worth pressing on its own. In the current rotation, it is such a casino that often I don’t want to bet. I know I’ll move the key forward doing a funnel rotation instead of the pure aoe rotation.
What I’m saying is that the current “aoe rotation” is effectively useless. It is just pad damage. In the majority of cases today, one is just doing it to bring overall numbers up but it is not moving the key forward in any significant way. The funnel rotation will move the key forward in most cases, but look horrible on the meters.