Hello, Mage community. I’ve been struggling with making this post for some time, now! It always ends up too long and convoluted. Apologies if it still is. I put the questions in front to save reading.
Are you excited for Arcane Mage in Shadowlands?
I’ve not really been a huge fan of Mage. But, I did enjoy Legion Arcane. As you can see, I wasn’t even able to level up to 120 on this character in BfA. But, Arcane has me kind of interested again for Shadowlands.
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Is Arcane Explosion still heavy in the AoE “rotation”? I really dislike that ability. I would even suggested it’s my most disliked ability in the game. I feel silly spamming it and it looks silly. I noticed that while Arcane Orb still isn’t baseline, Touch of the Magi is and is now an active. With the new passive, Arcane Echo, and Arcane Orb, would it be enough to push Arcane Explosion out of use? I would love to never use it except in open world “finish off this already almost dead mob” situations.
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Are there any fun Arcane Legendaries coming? I did just a quick read on them. Fire is going to be calling down extra meteors and having 5s of instant cast Pyros. Frost can turn Ice Lance into an AoE or call down Frozen Orbs. If so, sounds pretty fun! Arcane are just increased damage or stats. Nothing really visually fun such as calling down meteors. The gameplay affects seem to only be in certain situations such as turning Arcane Barrage into an execute. WoWHead states when a Legendary has either an Original Source or Inspired By. Arcane is the only spec where all of its Legendary powers existed before.
So! What are you excited about for Arcane Mage in Shadowlands? Apologies for being so long-winded. I’d very much like to hear your thoughts because I’m on the fence and I keep tipping to either side of it. I’m currently bouncing around on the PTR to try and get a better feel. But, I’m not good enough at Mage to really get a clear idea for it. Thank you.
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Hey, I can only talk about the base stuff such as the new rotation. Which basically gets me to my answer, yes, I am really excited.
They fixed one of my main gripes about Arcane - You either are heavy AoE or heavy ST. With Arcane Orb being one tier above and you get free reign over choosing your “Augmentation Talent” Such as Overpowered, Time Anomaly or Enlightenment, you still do some heavy damage during dungeons boss fights as well as monstrous AoE.
Touch of the Magi being a cast that gives you 4 Arcane charges is also huge in that regard and really helps with the flow of the class, both and AoE and ST I quite enjoyed opening up with the spell to accelerate the rotation.
Rune of Power being cast in joint with Arcane Power is also amazingly good, especially since if I am not mistaken, Arcane Power is off the GCD, so it feels so much better to play than retail.
Now, you mentioned Arcane Explosion, while yes, it still your AoE focus, it’s not that bad once you get into it, the Arcane Explosion x4, Arcane Barrage is quite the addicting gameplay loop and now with Touch of the Magi also supplementing your AoE rotation, it is not bad at all, at least for me.
Of course all these are based on my personal taste, so again, I am pretty damn excited to play the new Arcane.
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Thank you very much, Laudrian. I read all of your thoughts. I do really wish they would make Arcane Explosion useful only for finishing off low life mobs. But, I do think that perhaps based off what you said that maybe I can get more into the flow of using it. Maybe I should stop mashing spacebar while exploding all over the goons, too… Ha.
I keep feeling this pull to Arcane Mage. It’s the quintessential spec of “love the idea, not sure about the execution” for me. Even though I’m not a huge fan of mage, I still feel like I could even just pseudo-randomly main it in Shadowlands for some reason.
Trust me, I’ve been there. Some old posts of me include me asking for things such as “Mana-Storm” as an heavy AoE cast to fit in more the mage caster fantasy, but the more I got into playing this spec, the more I started to love it.
Start with Arcane Orb, then unleash Arcane Barrage. Then go for Arcane Explosion 4x, unleash Arcane Barrage. Repeat this step once more and then Arcane Orb will be off cooldown and you can start over again.
It’s this really satisfying loop, I actually recommend that you get the ClassicNumbers addon for added satisfaction >.>
But yeah, the gameplay is looking really good, if you get used to the Arcane Explosion gameplay, you will definitely fall in love with the class.
OBS: Unless you are running King’s Rest, to which case unless you have a priest or a decently geared group Ring of Frost is really useful against the little shadowy boys, grab Chrono Shift and run around really fast like a headless chicken while doing your rotation, makes it 10x more enjoyable xD
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Ok, so here’s the deal: I’m very excited!
I never cared for frost or fire, ever since I created this mage I always meant for him to be arcane.
However, I’m a Legion baby and since I started this alt arcane has always been very very very subpar in endgame content.
Always wanted to be a caster, tho, but I have beef with locks being too evil, priests being too zealoty and druids being too hippie. Also I like purple.
My biggest problem with Arcane in bfa was the whole pidgeonhole talents in either aoe or st.
Now, in SL, we’ll be able to talent Overpowered, Orb, Resonance/Echo (for M+ and raiding respectively) AND Rune! We finally get to have our cake and eat it too!
Also Echo looks soo pretty and missiles seem to be hitting pretty hard, and Amplif. + Legendary that buffs missiles may be good.
I used to be in a casual RP guild, and in January I joined a casual heroic raiding guild for the first time (we even killed hc n’zoth together in our own progression <3) and it feels great! I want to reroll arcane (currently i play fury warrior) to raid with them in my favorite spec and not be a deadweight - and SL seems to be providing this opportunity.
My only issue is covenants RN as I can’t decide wich one I want. Otherwise, I’m veeeery hyped and can’t wait to enter the shadowlands 
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Thank you both very much. This has been a very beneficial thread. Hearing from people that the talents are more lenient on the whole “ST vs AoE” thing is great news. I’ve read many posts about how annoying it has been. It’s also really enjoyable to read some enthusiasm.
When pre-patch hits, I think I’ll be giving a lot of attention to this Mage. I don’t have my addons on the PTR and I know being able to see Details and have my bars back will help. I’m still iffy about Arcane Explosion, but much more optimistic about it than I was before. I’ll be giving it a real go in pre-patch. Arcane Legendaries still don’t seem interesting to me. But, if the base spec is interesting, then that’s not really a big deal.
Again, thank you both for answering. I’ll be reading this thread and the others talking about Arcane. Such as the ones about Clearcasting procs.
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Being only a melee dps player like myself, I’ve always loved the idea of Arcane mage and mage in general. Would you say this is an easy class to play and do decent enough for raiding content?
It’s simple in concept, but hard to play correctly. As for the type of content…I dunno. Historically it sucked every time damage wise, but I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt this time due to the positive changes in talents and gcd.
However, the main reason ppl frown from arcane in high end content is that it relies on lining up multiple cooldowns for burst damage - wich means the longer the fight, the worst you perform as all your cds will be spent and you’ll be out of juice for half the fight. This is still a reality. If you can bear this and enjoy the other aspects (and your RL is forgiving) then go for it, play what you like 
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I exclusively play arcane so for me its less of a feeling of excitement and more… once more into the breach
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…Yes?
We are all brothers and sisters in the eyes of our lord and savior Milhouse Manastorm
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And for some perspective: Arcane has always been “good enough” for Heroic content since Wrath. As a person who has played almost exclusively arcane for 12 years, you can absolutely top charts occasionally even when the “meta” is stacked against you.
You don’t have to play the “optimal” spec if you aren’t pushing the hardest content. Play what you love and let the sweaties be salty. 
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Clearly you forget about WOD and our two broken trinkets from HFC 
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I WAS excited but as more people play it, there are things about it that make me think I’m likely going to go frost:
- CD’s are all misaligned leading to a chaotic play style
- Flip of arcane blast spam in BfA to arcane missile spam in SL (apparently at rank 5 of the conduit you’re better off just to spam missile in AND out of clearcasting)
- A lot of emphasis on mana management mechanics leading most to say you never run out of mana
- Never actually getting 3 stacks of clearcasting (which, considering how OP they’re making missiles again, I can’t see them changing that)
I was hoping for something resembling Legion arcane and while I applaud the changes they’ve made, I just don’t know if I’ll enjoy the spec like I once did.
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Im going to be playing mage for the first time in Shadowlands and im really liking the look of frost but id be lying if i didnt say arcane looks super fun gameplay wise and thematically. I know Shadowlands is supposed to be more alt friendly i hope that translates to offspec’ing as well because id really like to play both depending on my mood
That would be a nice feeling as someone that has predominantly played Elemenatlist or Feral throughout her WoW life. I’ve spent many an hour with a negative stigma against my class/spec.
Aw, I hope you’re able to find enjoyment in the spec you do end up playing. Frost, as you mentioned, does look like it would be quite fun in Shadowlands. Freeze those conniving goons, Aedred! The Fire and Frost Legendaries look to be fairly fun and depending on difficult it ends up being to craft them relative to my pacing, I hope to at least dabble in the other specs.
I’m happy to hear that another will be enjoying Mage in Shadowlands! I hope to see you in the study hall. Hitting the books! Maybe even literally in some case. Nice choice in shoulder armor, as well!
This thread has been very insightful. I was worried that it would come off as complaining rather than curiosity. The Mage community is once again showing to be very helpful.
I definitely wouldn’t complain if Arcane is our top spec, but I’m secretly hoping that frost pulls ahead. I simply don’t want to play fire again…
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You missed the part where I pointed out my legion baby roots. I didn’t play wod, so historically by my experience, Arcane has been very unimpressive in the meters
Meh. Mana management isn’t fun to me.
No, I didn’t miss it. And this is again incorrect as arcane was noticeably strong in Antorus on aoe fights like Freya and the 3 commanders. It was also the go to for certain mythic bosses in Uldir that had bonus damage burn phases like Fetid Devourer or whatever that thing was.