An 8 yard radius is hardly being “anchored” to the spot.
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It’s more anchored than any other caster including Frost, healer, hunter or melee.
Of note I remember when they removed the Hunter passive that increased damage the further away you were that Blizz stated they disliked the idea of any player having ‘positional restrictions’.
It’s gotten to the point where I actually am starting to believe that at some point GC was mean to Ion and he’s been vindictively ruining or ignoring Mages since.
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For 10 seconds at a time it is more anchored yes. But 8 yards is a lot bigger than the rune picture so you can move within it, and outside of it mages are the most mobile caster. Having to be farther away from your target and choosing when and where you place your rune is extremely different.
I don’t enjoy it. I find it ridiculous to have to buff myself while in the middle of a pull. I already have to have food, flask, and prepot but now i gotta buff myself while the encounter is ongoing. I don’t see it as a learning curve I see it as boredom. I love running around and doing damage as a caster because it’s fun af. Having to stand still is boring and not fun.
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There’s just too much, right? There’s your pre-pull buffs and the CDs you gotta pop on the DBM pull timer, plus your azerite essences somewhere in there. Then throughout the fight, when your dps CD is ready again (Combustion/AP) you have to cast an additional buff before you can use it, while also timing the placement of that buff around mechanics. This is also where you may be using your second battle pot, so that’s two things you gotta cast before your dps CD, and that’s three things before you can dps again.
Maybe that’s where I’m just getting a bit exhausted and lean towards Incanter’s Flow, just because it’s one less button I gotta press to prep my dps.
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I enjoy the idea of it.
But the cooldown is too short, and it shouldn’t be a cooldown on top of a cooldown.
It should just replace arcane power (as a talent or baseline) and be a 2-3 minute cooldown / 20~ second duration.
I’d also love to see them steal FF black mages leylines idea, and let us teleport back to the center of our RoP instantly with no cooldown.
It really shouldn’t exist for fire or frost, they already have iconic cooldowns and it just waters them down.
No but it gives hardcore mages who want to believe they are using a brain cell a reason to feel like they’re engaging some mechanic within Arcane’s dry husk of a rotation so I appreciate its existence at this time.
RoP and the Bracers, but Rop more so, are the reason i don’t play fire despite being at the m raiding lvl and losing dps. Arcane also has this issue but on top of that it just doesn’t have a good aesthetic reward to it with its spell animations (RoP, AP, and then spam arcane blast which has no real animation and a tiny noise i like to describe as as a fairly quiet pshh. Hence i play frost, which for the most part I like, cept for how ice lance’s dmg is so low that the NO IL build is top atm and the orb build seems poised to overtake it in 8.3. Mages need some fixes now, not in the Shadowlands pre-patch blizz, and it isnt a complete redesign, just some talent and spell coefficient tweaks beyond a measely 20% ice lance buff.
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I’m interested in seeing how the Orb build does. It was the funnest build I tried this expansion after leaving arcane.
I tried fire and while I was doing well in raids (with bracers), I can’t seem to get the rotation down in dungeons. I’m defaulting back to frost where I know what I’m doing. To your point, fire suffers from the same thing arcane does for me: lack of really interesting spell animations. It’s all just a different version of a fireball. Not very dynamic really.
Just need a pair of 450 shoulders with Packed Ice and I’ll be good to go when the buff to IL comes in 8.3.
I’d be happy though if the buff to IL means the No-IL build isn’t the go-to and the standard GS rotation goes back to being the norm. While I do hate sitting on a GS waiting for a BF proc, it is nice seeing those GS’s crit for big damage.
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In a word? No.
Rune of Power has been in a constant, weird shift in every expansion since its introduction almost. It started off as this really good buff that was -REALLY- tiny and impractical for use, got a radius added and it was -sort- of okay, but most people took Incanter’s Ward because of all the mobility heavy fights. You were able to lay out two of them at a time, but they didn’t last long.
WoD I think was when they added the longer duration and it was okay, just that the damage increase was still small in comparison to the average + mobility that the new Incanter’s Flow talent provided. It’s weird cuz at this point I remember calling for it being a cooldown and that happening, but it created a new problem where it became TOO good and therefore mandatory for pretty much every spec. The second charge makes it awkward for some burn phases, especially fire where using it outside of combustion really doesn’t feel…rewarding at all, but it’s still the optimal way to play by not sitting on a charge.
Rune of Power could be a lot better if it went back to its old playstyle, where you could set two up that last awhile and it was balanced around that. Also, I feel like it’s more of an arcane flavor than fire or frost. I don’t like it in either of those specs, and I like it begrudgingly in Arcane in its current state. If they did add it as an arcane only mechanic, maybe a row of talents dedicated to its playstyle changing it to one of the previous iterations, like the one that can be laid out twice at a 1 minute duration, or change it into a stronger cooldown that removes one charge but increases the output by another 25% or something.
Also it shouldn’t be a talent. Like, again, make it something baseline for arcane and replace the damage tier with different talents. Balance the specs around something other than what they choose for that tier. Remove it from fire and frost cuz it really doesn’t feel like it belongs with those specs at all.
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Maybe give it some utility like allowing up to X members of party to stand on it giving them % spell power. Arc mages already have another steroid ability in ArcPo so having another with positional requirements just sounds like a bad idea.
I absolutely hate Rune of power it goes against everything a mage should be I made should be in Mobile Castor especially as fire able to bounce around and do damage Rune of power just locks you into one location and if somebody so happens to run some bad in your direction or mechanics happen RNG well there goes your Rune of power
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I hate ROP. I never use it anymore. Nothing more frustrating than being nailed to the ground in an environment that demands constant movement. I’m tired of wasting cd’s.
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I have hated ROP since it was introduced. Even when it was required on fights or spec… I rarely took it due to being confined to a certain space.
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RoP makes me stay away from Arcane. Even if Arcane was top, it’s still awful to me.
And yet, Blizz thinks it’s so cool.
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It’s nice to be reminded that I’m not alone in my hatred every time this post gets revived!
It’s the only thing that keeps me from really loving the mage class. I honestly hate it with a passion, worst ability in the game. It’s feels really bad to be punished just to do the same damage as other classes who don’t have limitations like that.
Nothing in this game feels worse than dropping a rop and then getting randomly targeted with a raid mechanic and have it completely wasted.
Im bewildered it has been left in the game this long.
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I hate it with the fire of a thousand stars.
I’ve wanted it gone since it was added in MoP.
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I used to not like it, but I enjoy it now more than IF now. I find it engaging and the payoff on using it at the correct times in a fight.
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For years and I means year, players have asked for Rune to be taken out and nothing ever happens. These are paying customers, that have been requesting this and Blizzard does nothing about it. It isn’t like a handful want the change, It is a a huge number of players and for many years. They just don’t have the creativity for a replacement although during that time players have provided many alternatives for it in the forums over the years. Arcane has been in such a dumper for so long design wise and the Foamers just can’t come up with a solid overhaul and design.
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