That would be a great solution - I’m just as open to that. In fact, I think allowing glyphs for other classes’ abilities (like Shadow Bolt, whose animation could not be worse) would be a fantastic idea. That way everyone would be happy. Why Blizz has not introduced such glyphs already is very odd to me; although not quite the same concept, Warlocks got the ability to change the look of their demons, in a few cases dramatically so (e.g., Infernal to Abyssal, which used to be a summonable demon back in WoD).
1 Like
Please tune arcane explosion to not be terrible. With arcane it feels as if every spell that is not arcane blast, missiles, and touch/AS are massively undertuned.
If arcane explosion is going to be our aoe builder, it needs to not be so terrible we want to avoid casting it even in aoe. Alternatively, you can reduce the cd of arcane orb and tune up arcane orb damage in single target and aoe as well.
I also want to be able to cast arcane barrage in single target instead of just turreting arcane blast over and over with the occasional missiles. Please work on securing rotational variety. It is not fun to just press 2 buttons on single target.
1 Like
Arcane’s problems really began in BFA. Legion arcane was by far the best iteration of the spec in WoW’s history, and is widely regarded as such. The best solution would be to restore the old system from Legion whereby Arcane Missiles and Arcane Explosion scale with Arcane Charges. This would make both spells very powerful in their own right once again, and it would work well now that AM cannot be used without Clearcasting and the old artifact trait Rule of Threes - with adjustments - is built into the talent tree. The AM and AE scaling with Arcane Charges option could even be a capstone selection (competing against Nether Munitions, which, frankly, is incredibly boring and rather lacklustre, or Arcane Harmony, for example) in the talent tree to accommodate those who may not want to play that style of Arcane. The spec’s entire design and redesign has been a total mess since BFA because of the abrupt, unnecessary shift away from its philosophy and play style in Legion.
The changes to Arcane in TWW so far are generally going in the right direction (I am overjoyed, for example, that Radiant Spark is gone and has been replaced by Magi’s Spark, which is great and should stay in the tree no matter what), but for reasons already stated above by others there is still a lot of untapped potential and major need for improvement. To reiterate (note, however, that this list is not meant to be exhaustive), with some new ideas of my own:
1.) there is no reason for Evocation to be a talent, especially not so far down in the tree. As it is essential to Arcane’s functionality, it should be baseline. I would also like to see Siphon Storm removed - it is wholly counterintuitive in that one is incentivised to cast it at full mana, which makes no sense. It serves only to stifle build diversity and strain what is already a point-starved talent tree.
2.) that there are several different Arcane Barrage nodes that should be coalesced into one or maximum two talents is perplexing and frustrating. This must be fixed.
3.) Crackling Energy and Improved Arcane Missiles should be baseline; they are a waste of points. As others above state, Slipstream and Chronoshift (or even Presence of Mind, so that both the latter and Wizened Wit can be selected) should take their place.
4.) Concentration is certainly useful, but the proc rate is a little too low, and without further incentive (such as increasing the damage of your next Arcane Blast or a different benefit) it will lose out to other choices in the tree. We have very few talent points to spare to begin with.
5.) the new capstone are certainly much better than their predecessors; however, a couple of them are very unimaginative, boring, and lacklustre. Nether Munitions is the most egregious example, for it is as uncreative as talents come, not to mention of mediocre value, since it occurs after the burst window. Arcane Harmony seems at this point to be a relic of a now defunct model of Arcane that revolved around Radiant Spark to achieve massive Arcane Barrage damage. It is comparatively feeble in AoE, as Clearcasting procs in AoE scenarios will be used on Arcane Explosion to maximize Arcane Orb production through consistent casting of Arcane Barrage, which will only rarely have the time to build to 100% damage, except through Aether Attunement and burst windows with a lot of Clearcasting procs. What is more, we seldom use Arcane Barrage in ST. I am not proposing that this talent be deleted; instead, the PERFECT solution would be to put it on a choice node with a new talent that makes Arcane Missiles scale with Arcane Charges. I personally love Leydrinker (and its animation) but it simply does not proc enough at the moment - either the proc rate has to be reasonably increased or the proc condition altered with the same talent functionality.
8 Likes
Regarding the changing positions of Arcane Cleave and Charged Orb for the update on 06/11/2024.
For Spellslinger mage this does make talent points very tight. We are now forced to use 9 points in the top gate to have AOE. It also makes a good quality of life point in Charged Orb much harder to access with the limited capstone points we have, and it doesn’t truly feel powerful enough as a capstone.
For Sunfury, with Glorious Incandescence still having a 12 second duration, it still can fall off with orb being on CD. Having Charged Orb, even in single target, was a great way to ensure the proc was not wasted, and again a great quality of life point.
I would again love to just see Arcing Cleave be learned passively, as it would massively help both specs.
As far as bugs go, Prodigious Savant is still bugged, with it being a 2 point talent, giving the same bonus at each rank. This has also been reported. Making Savant (and arcane debilitation) both one point nodes would be massive for the tree in freeing up options.
Looking over the changes as well, I do think Spellfrost Teachings was doing quite a bit in AOE for both specs, but nerfing the damage of it for Arcane means that again, it does very little in terms of interactions in single target. There is less incentive to do anything but blast or missiles.
I do like that you are moving cleave earlier. But again just make arcing cleave passive and move charged orb back to where it was
2 Likes
Arcane
Why do we provide feedback about how absolutely crap this spec tree feels? What is the point? The Arcing Cleave change is possibly the worst change you could have made out of an array of bad choices to make. This is completely out-of-touch with the feedback you are getting over how the spec tree feels to build and play with. Additionally, the spec is still painfully crying out with a litany of other issues:
- Still stuck with 2-point nodes that have no business being 2-points, Prodigious Savant and Arcane Debilitation.
- Still stuck with utility in the spec tree, Chrono Shift, Slipstream, and Presence of Mind are all at risk of just not being picked.
- What was us sacrificing Arcane Orb in AOE and feeling bad has now become yet another point tax on our already strapped cleave/AOE builds. The tree is simply garbage, there’s not enough to feel good picking and we are actively being forced to sacrifice fun things because the talents are in awful positions.
This kind of change makes the community feel like feedback is not being valued.
22 Likes
Arcane
- Feedback: The biggest nerf I see here is the Spellfrost Teachings chance to reset decreased from 3% → 2%, especially from an M+ perspective. Similar to what Eila wrote a couple of posts ago, I do wonder if you would be willing to consider making Spellfrost Teachings’ Arcane Orb reset guarantee 4 Arcane charges on your next Arcane Orb cast so that the reset would gain value in single target. Just something to think about. Obviously the number tuning on Orb and Splinter damage is based on performance (although Frost’s nerfs seem very sharp, but we’ll see).
- Switched the position of Arcing Cleave and Charged Orb
- Feedback: I don’t know that this changes anything, you’re still guaranteed to have access to both for both Spellslinger and Sunfury given Prodigious Savant is mandatory to pick up for Leysight (NP does 10% more damage increase talent). Maybe I’m missing something here? This feels like if you switched the positions of Arcane Orb and Nether Precision (i.e. wouldn’t really change much)
- Improved Arcane Missiles, Crackling Energy, Chrono-Shift, Presence of Mind and Slipstream
- Feedback: I do kind of agree with a lot of the posters here that you could definitely remove Improved Arcane Missiles and Crackling Energy and replace them with 2 of the 3 talents listed above (maybe Slipstream and Chrono-shift?) This would make those talents mandatory, given Arcane significant utility and feels-good-ability. Note that giving us these two utility nodes would not impact damage output to any significant extent, but it would make our rotation feel so more better. Come on Blizzard, I know you can do it!
- Sunfury damage (in Dungeons)
- Feedback: Ok, I will admit that Spellslinger damage was a little steep in dungeons; fine; it needed the nerfs. But I don’t think Sunfury does enough damage for Arcane at the moment. I was wondering if you were willing to look at Sunfury’s damage in dungeon settings specifically. Something like maybe increasing Mr. McNugget’s (the bird)'s AoE damage spells? Or maybe buffing Arcane Harmony? Just a thought
4 Likes
Just wanting to highlight this again… Mixing Hyperthermia into Sunfury with the awkward clash it brings with Sun King’s Blessing adds unnecessary friction to the rotation and impacts our ability to be flexible with our talents.
When the Sun King’s Blessing / Unleashed Inferno choice node is the main determining factor in our playstyle and damage profile, it feels especially bad being forced into picking one or the other due to a massive damage difference (as there has been historically), or due to awkward interactions such as HT and SKB.
5 Likes
My arcane mage rotation is Arcane Missiles for single target. For multiple targets I use arcane orb then use arcane missiles then use arcane barrage. I will also use arcane tether sometimes. The beta changes change everything about arcane mages in my opinion.
Arcane Talent Tree Feedback pt. 2
Did the development window for Arcane end with the start of beta? Before a significant number of people could give feedback due to no access? It seemed there was intent to finish this rework, but it feels like Arcane will come out half-baked at this rate.
There is no reason for Crackling Energy and Improved Arcane Missiles to exist. They take up pseudo-mandatory node positions for pathing that could be dedicated to core abillities for Arcane, such as Slipstream and Presence of Mind. Crackling Energy and Improved Arcane Missiles could be placed anywhere on the tree, and they would still be mandatory. What is the point?
Even if Crackling Energy and Improved Arcane Missiles have to exist in the tree, it can still be improved by reducing Arcane Debilitation and Prodigious Savant to 1-point nodes. This change would serve the same purpose of removing Crackling Energy and Improved Arcane Missiles by allowing for picking the more niche nodes that are currently not selectable in any content for any reason. These talents include:
- Slipstream
- Arcane Tempo
- Chrono Shift
- Mana Adept
- Presence of Mind (assuming it gets untangled from Wizined Wit)
- Time Loop
- Leydrinker
- Concentration
We are practically already halfway there because the Prodigious Savant node still requires a 2-point investment despite the second point still not doing anything other than tax Arcane mages a talent point for no reason if they want to get to Leysight and Leydrinker. Arcane is also still unnecessarily taxed with utility nodes in its tree that somehow have to compete against other nodes that enable Arcane as a specialization to function. Why can the lessons for utility nodes in other specialization trees, learned over two years of having these trees, not be applied to Arcane?
Presence of Mind is still dead on arrival for The War Within as long as it is a choice node with Wizined Wit. Presence of Mind is a utility spell, and Wizined Wit is a (strong) throughput effect. How is Presence of Mind supposed to compete? If Wizined Wit is the “less complex” but “slightly worse” alternative to Presence of Mind, it has completely missed the mark. The consequence of this decision is that Arcane will lose an iconic spell for the specialization for almost 20 years.
It is great that Charged Orb was moved to Gate 3 to replace Arcing Cleave, which I even suggested. However, placing Arcing Cleave in Gate 1 is stupefying. Charged Orb is not a fundamental node for Arcane AoE to be functional. Arcing Cleave is. The primary problem of Charged Orb was its position, and now Arcing Cleave, a much more fundamental effect for Arcane, has inherited that problem.
How are we supposed to make a build that goes all in on an AoE build? There are simply not enough points available after getting taxed by four points with Crackling Energy, Improved Arcane Missiles, Arcane Debilitation, and Prodigious Savant. Why is the functionality of Arcane Barrage split into three different nodes (Arcing Cleave, Mana Adept, Resonance) and spread all over the tree?
Unsorted Comments:
- Aether Attunement is still not properly increasing the damage of Arcane Missiles on neither the primary target or the secondary targets.
- There is still no reason for the Improved Touch of the Magi version of Nether Munitions to exist. Just pick Enlightened instead and you get a stronger effect.
- Mana Adept, Slipstream, Presence of Mind, and Arcing Cleave should all be baseline or be required for pathing in the tree.
- There has to be a more inspired alternative to Time Anomaly than Inspired Intellect, ironically.
- Swap the positions of Cryo-Freeze and Frigid Winds.
- The Mage class as a whole needs defensive parity between the three specializations.
15 Likes
Taking power out of mana addict and putting in to codex instead would be a great change. Codex being a dps loss is weird haha.
3 Likes
So I heard Frostfire bolt got a new icon, can anyone tell me if the actual spell effect has changed?
Sunfury for Arcane feels incredibly fire-leaning aesthetically and definitely dilutes the Arcane Spec aesthetic.
Spellfire Spheres while in Arcane would look a lot better with a blue flame instead of an orange one, and our Arcane Phoenix would look a lot better if it was the blue and pink variant that was added with The War Within but never used yet. It seems like there was an original plan to have different colored abilities depending on your spec for Sunfury similar to Spellslinger’s Splinters, but as time goes on it feels like that idea may have been scrapped since that Arcane Phoenix recolor is sitting in the game files.
Arcane lacks travel animations for a lot of its abilities so whenever our Phoenix is out casting we look more like a Fire Mage than we do Arcane, which definitely detracts from Arcane’s spec aesthetic. A lot of other players and myself play Arcane for its aesthetic so if it looks like a Fire Mage then we should just play Fire Mage, since it’s the more popular spec compared to Arcane and Frost.
15 Likes
You have to be joking, right?
4 Likes
Please revert Sun King’s Blessing back to 8 charges. The ability to extend/chain combustions through this talent is severely diminished by increasing the hot streaks required to 10, and this is even more noticeable with the loss of temporal warp (double lust). It’s clear that SKB was overtuned relative to other fire capstones, but there are other ways to solve this problem without affecting gameplay. This in my opinion should be done in the form of reducing the initial hard-cast pyro/FS damage amp, which would not affect the feel of the spec.
1 Like
Frost:
Controlled Instincts is now extremely awful and barely worth bothering with at 2% SP. At least make it functionally irrelevant to keep active by letting it linger on time since last blizzard tick.
Temporal Anomaly is still bugged on Brain Freeze, not giving a charge.
Splinterstorm can still somehow bug out and fire as low as one splinter out.
Other mages can still proc your splinters while you afk with Winter’s Chill on target. Funny combined with the above as it just infinitely resets itself.
Spellfrost Teachings still doesn’t glow the Orb button on reset.
Frozen Orb is firing Splinters at random targets, not targets hit.
The Excess buffs in Frostfire still proc the glow on action button, which is extremely weird when you don’t want to push them without their relevant proc/are not ABLE to push Flurry without a charge.
2p is both stacking on non-FoF lances, and only applying to one target of Frozen Orb, making it extremely lackluster in AoE.
3 Likes
Fractured Frost/Death’s Chill/Slick Ice all encourage Frostbolt/Frostfire Bolt spamming under Icy Veins which is counter to literally the entire point of the spec to date. Nobody wanted this playstyle back, and the only reason it worked in Shadowlands was because Deathborne was regularly 1:10+ in duration, and could stack the bonus to absurdity. It was not fun, it was simply strong.
If you want a simplistic Frost to be an alternative it needs to hinge on Ice Lance. Pushing the procs out of rotation is stupid.
3 Likes
I second this post with the utmost enthusiasm - please do not leave Arcane in an unfinished state as it was in 10.1.5. It would be disastrous.
Another point I’d like to bring up is that, in the Spellslinger hero talent tree, Unerring Proficiency (which is great, as I have always advocated for Supernova becoming part of Arcane’s dps toolkit once again - though, admittedly, that is not really Blizz’s intent with this hero talent, since supernova was, after all, moved to the class tree) really ought to RESET the cooldown on supernova upon reaching 30 stacks. I find that I reach 30 stacks very quickly (primarily during burst windows and with the right RNG) with supernova still on a 20 sec cd, which is frustrating. If not a reset of the cd, then let the talent at least grant an extra charge of supernova. Alternatively, the number of stacks (say, from 30 to 40) could be increased. For this talent to be more competitive against its rival, Volatile Magic, I think such a change to be very important. No matter what, however, please keep Unerring Proficiency, as I love the fantasy and contribution of it.
1 Like
I feel like some/all of my feedback may have been said above, so sorry for duplication, but here is my feedback.
Overall, I find Sunfury Fire in a great spot and had a lot of fun with it. I don’t have any specific pieces of feedback for it. My feedback largely focuses on Arcane.
Arcane Sunfury
Glorious Incandescence
I found Arcane Sunfury fun at first, but the more I played with it the more frustrating I found it. Trying to trigger meteorites using a long cooldown such as Arcane Orb was annoying at best, and it made it hard to actually use it when you wanted to use it. On fire, you could spam spawn them during combust quite easily. I don’t think Orb is the right trigger for this ability.
Sphere generation
I found generating sunfire spheres to be quite slow (frustratingly so) on Arcane vs Fire. On Fire, I could quickly generate a few before I went into a combust opener that felt good. On Arcane, I drain all of my mana trying to get it before using Evocation and going into my opener and sit with 1 sphere. The generation on Arcane is too slow comparatively to Fire, and it feels bad.
Ignite the Future
This feels like the choice node where it’s the easier one of the two - where you don’t have to play around generating as many spheres? I guess? I honestly don’t really understand the choice here. It seems like a weaker choice and doesn’t really offer an easier/different gameplay.
Arcane Soul
This feels rather clunky and not very rewarding. When exiting combust and having a predictable immediate hyperthermia, when you’ve just exausted your fire blasts, feels good. Having Arcane Barrage just give back charges and do damage, that isn’t really better than just spamming Arcane Blast, feels bad. Maybe make it so Arcane Blast casts faster and/or has zero mana cost for 5s instead?
Mana Addiction
Reasonably happy with this talent. It is what initially made this tree feel better for me.
Theme and visuals
The theme of Sunfury is top notch, but definitely favours fire over arcane. The orbs are a mix of Fire and Arcane already but seem more fire than arcane. It’d be great if it was more arcane than fire in Arcane spec. I’d also love to see an option to hide the spheres out of combat - maybe a glyph?
I saw it above, but I second the notion that having a recoloured arcane bird would be nice, too.
Spellslinger
Spellfrost Teachings
As the name may imply, spellfrost teachings really feels like a better talent for Frost. Having Frozen Orb resets feels amazing in both AoE and ST situations. Having Arcane Orb reset feels sometimes ok in AoE and negligible in ST. Having an RNG reset on something isn’t really a great feel for Arcane in general, to be honest.
Unerring Prophecy
I don’t love that it’s pushing a clear utility ability into a damage usage ability. I’ve been talenting into Volatile Magic because of it.
Force of Will
Seems uninspired.
Splinters and Splinterstorm. Theme and visuals
Overall, these are great to use. The clearcasting from splinterstorm feels nice, assuming you don’t overcap because of it. My only thought is that the visuals are a little too tame. I originally had to struggle to even see the splinters - now that I know what to look for I see them, but I think they could use some more flair.
Spec Tree
Slipstream
This ability is very iconic for arcane and it feels bad to not have it. Right now, you have to go out of your way to get it. This would be better placed in a path towards something big - or better yet, make it baseline.
Pathing
Currently, you are locked into a ‘side’ after the 5th row. On Fire and Frost, it’s the 8th row. This severely limits choice. Choice is even further handicapped by the amount of throughput options in the tree, which loops back to making it hard to pick Slipstream.
Charged Orb
I feel pressured into taking this in Sunfury ST for the added orb to spawn meteorites (I have no idea if that is actually better, but it feels right). I don’t think that’s right. Choosing charged orb seems like it should be an AoE choice.
Evocation and Siphon Storm
These are a very strong cooldown that is shoved off to the side of the tree. Given their power in both AoE and ST, they should be more central.
Class Tree
Time Anomaly, Temporal Warp, Inspired Intellect
I am glad Temporal Warp is gone. That is a good change. It felt bad not being able to use lust on pull and miss out on uses. Time anomaly isn’t great, and inspired intellect is ironically uninspired. I’d love it if all 3 of these talents were removed, and you put Cauterize here as the capstone. Having a cheat death gives Fire an edge in progression and high mythic plus that limits spec choice and freedom.
Shifting Power
Shifting Power felt great on Fire Mage in the first season of Shadowlands because it made you a minute mage. It does not feel good on Arcane. More often than not, it desyncs your cooldowns from your trinkets and then you either have to pop your trinket like 10s before your first CD usage and then part way into your second usage, desync your CD and trinket or hold your CD or trinket. All of those feel bad. Delete shifting power.
6 Likes
Nerfing Spellslinger makes no sense for arcane when it is already lagging behind Sunfury.
Why in the hells did they do that?
5 Likes
i.horizon.pics/ZiIUG6ckst.gif
i.horizon.pics/egbdQQcJRh.gif
Additionally, while the new Frostfire Bolt icon is pretty nice and representative of the animation, I feel it’s missing something. Most of our icons have some form of ambient glow so that it’s not just on a black background.
2 Likes