Disagree. Even with sun kings blessing, outside of combustion your still spamming firebolt and your dmg profile plummets.
Arcane and Sunfury feedback:
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Currently Siphon Storm is pretty much a mandatory talent, which requires another talent, Evocation. Evoction is gated behind Presence of Mind, a niche utility talent that in many situation just adds another button to arcane mage’s already crowded action bars.
Presence of Mind itself is gated behind Impetus, and Impetus behind Arcane Familiar.
This means that every build will have to dump a lot of talent points on talents it doesn’t necessarily need/want just to get to Evo&SS. -
Please make Arcing Cleave baseline. Arcane’s spec tree is already constrained as it is.
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Mana Adept was not a powerful talent, and therefore almost never picked.
So why was it actually nerfed instead of buffed?
Please consider buffing it to 8%-10% instead of the nerf. -
There’s a huge dissonance between the ST and AoE rotations. In ST you quickly build to and stay at 4 arcane charges for as long as possible, arcane blasting a lot. And only cast Arcange Barrage when Arcane Harmony stacks to 20.
In AoE on the other hand you build to 4 arcane charges and immediately cast Arcane Barrage, with the rotation centering around casting as many of these 4-charges barrages as you can. -
Spellfire spheres for Arcane: Currently you generate those spheres by casting either Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage 6 times. The issue is that in single target you will get a sphere after 6 casts, but in AoE you will need to build arcane charges before casting barrage and thus require more casts. Worse, it incentivizes you to cast Arcane Barrage with less than 4 charges.
Perhaps make it that instead of requiring 6 Arcane Barrages, it would require 6 Arcane Charges to be consumed. This will still play worse in AoE than in ST, but less so. -
Lessons on Debilitation is an extremely weak and niche talent. And yet because Gravity Lapse actually nerfs your Supernova, it will still get picked.
1 Like
Nerf living bomb damage in pvp by 40%
Gotta say, Frostfire has me pleasantly surprised. I think I might actually play Mage for once.
Spellslinger feels kind of weird for frost in single target. Or I’m doing something wrong. It’s way better and more fluid for Arcane.
I feel like Frostfire works great for Fire and Frost. Feels fun and the graphics are cool. The only thing I hate with a passion is that new Frostfire Bolt icon lol. I’ll probably create a macro just so I can use the old one
I cannot emphasize enough that we do not want to be casting frostbolt more. This change could incentivize a playstyle that wants you to cast Frostbolt 10 times than do your normal rotation. This is a rather degenerate style of play and is not desired.
Please reconsider Death’s Chill as a whole and replace it with something not associated with ramping damage. This can only hurt frost’s damage profile.
9 Likes
So we’re doubling down on frostbolt being more powerful, despite the feedback that we don’t want a deathborne-like playstyle. Frostbolt is now essentially a maintenance buff with the Death’s Chill changes. We’re also making frostbolt more powerful during our 2 minute CD. I seriously don’t understand the motivation to do any of this. I can’t imagine how many procs we’re going to waste trying to keep frostbolt up. This philosophy around frost is seriously hurting the spec. I was so impressed with the 10.1.5 changes, and now it seems we’re erasing all of that progress.
12 Likes
Essentially the only feedback here regarding Death’s Chill, Fractured Frost, and Cold Front has been the need for them to be reworked. To see you double down on the talents is disappointing.
If there is absolutely 0 chance for them to be shifted to a combination of flurry and ice lance, then for this playstyle to not feel horrendous to play Fractured Frost needs to be available in a limited manner outside of Icy Veins.
8 Likes
I do. And not only Fire Blast, but Scorch too.
Frostfire is about using both Fire and Frost schools, and we barely use a single fire spell as Frostfire Frost…
Like wise, Fire would need more frost spells for the hero spec to work.
If button bloat is an issue for some, this could also be achievable without button bloat by having some spec spells change schools and/or become “frostfirey” as well.
Like having a “Cold Wave” instead of “Scorch” for fire, Fire Lance for frost etc.
Make it an optional talent in the hero tree to appease spec purists.
TBQH Frostfire should be a spec on its own merit, as it kinda once was back in wrath/cata.
And again: this was a missed opportunity to also make the hero tree care about thermal shock, similar to balance druid’s eclipse mechanics, but different enough to not be the same thing.
While I think that was your intent with the mastery buffs, it was kind of a miss since no one wants to track even MORE buffs in the UI.
P.S.: Death’s Chill is degenerate, please rework it.
1 Like
extremely loud incorrect buzzer noise
7 Likes
Opinions can’t be right or wrong.
But your disagreement has been noted.
Death’s Chill
Much about it was already said above but I feel like we need to press on this issue even more now. This talent isn’t interesting, it isn’t healthy and it isn’t wanted. This latest change just made this talent into a chore; pop Icy Veins, cast Frostbolt x10 and then start doing damage.
Adding ramp to our kit is already bad enough, but the overreliance on our filler spell makes it even worse because it forces us to ignore our core mechanic procs and other active skills to get the buff to max stacks as soon as possible. Not to mention it’s just a stronger Slick Ice, making it almost a copy paste talent and we need to path through one right after the other.
Fractured Frost
I was hoping that Fractured Frost would include more spells into its cleave mechanic to make it more interesting, like maybe also making Flurry cleave to 2 additional targets and possibly even increasing the spells affected by Splitting Ice to cleave an additional target. But instead, it just doubled down even more on Frostbolt, which much like Death’s Chill, if this is the optimal choice, it just conflicts with almost the entirety of the spec’s toolkit, prioritizing a filler spell over core procs and pushing other active skills further down the priority list while Icy Veins is active.
These changes aren’t good. Doubling down on Frostbolt spam isn’t healthy for the spec and also not something the majority of your players want to see.
7 Likes
I agree here. Frostfire feels like it just missed out on that weaving theme.
That can come from two different approaches, though. It can come from active use of our currently available fire abilities, or it can come from more combo triggers that thematically weave spells from both schools within our standard rotation, like with Imbued Warding, Isothermic Core, and Excess Fire/Frost. Both would be best, in the form of choice nodes, but that gets super difficult to manage/balance and it’ll get complicated QUICK.
Speaking of Excess Fire - I kinda dislike that the spell used here is Living Bomb. Figure it would look way cooler if it were Phoenix Flames or something. Iconic Fire mage ability that would pair well with Flurry’s spell effects, especially since it would fly out amongst the flurry particles and all that.
2 Likes
One thing to keep in mind is whether you have Fractured Frost. In ST, then yes you need to frostbolt 10 times for Death’s Chill. However in AOE, you only need to frostbolt 3-4 times to reach maximum stacks as it increases on each instance of damage. This means you can ramp the aoe fast and then get to flurry/ice lance/AOE rotation. Granted, I only do frostbolt cleave testing in Frostfire as getting the instant cast triple frostbolt that does an AOE explosion is very satisfying
One notable bug that has yet to be resolved:
If you play Time Anomaly and get the Icy Veins proc… all of the frostbolt talents work perfectly. However, if you use your OWN Icy Veins during this window, none of the frostbolt talents will work for the entire window (30 sec)
1 Like
I suppose it also matters as to whether ‘damaging an enemy with Frostbolt’ triggers when you hit something with the splash from Frostfire Empowerment. Could stack up quick in that case. I can’t test it tonight, unfortunately.
I’ll test that out rq (I’m Adraxus, forgot to switch character). I’m loving Frostfire and I wish I could love Spellslinger, but it drains me looking at dps recaps and seeing 3% of my damage is the sum of every splinter talent (even with the new mastery inclusion). I hope it gets some well deserved buffing
Edit: Death’s Chill does NOT proc from frostfire empowerment AOE
Also, please revert the Ice Nova/Ring of Frost choice node. Frost mage will lose ring of frost and it serves no purpose.
7 Likes
Arcane Feedback 06/25/2024
In general, I think we may have gone a step back here. Some nodes are interesting, and baseline orb is an okay thing to make baseline, but much like the first iteration of fire there are so many things and a lot of them seem redundant.
Gate 1 Problems
Currently we’re going to need to take 9 points minimum in the top gate in 90% of situations, if not more talents in the top gate. Again, making cleave baseline or removing the 3% blast/mana talent and making it so 8 points is what we want is better. Tempo and 2nd orb are really strong and great talents.
I’ve also noted this before, but Arcing Cleave really should be baseline.
Gate 2 Reorganization
There are some talents here I just don’t think make a lot of sense with how arcane functions.
Dematerialization
- I don’t mind this, but I don’t think that this is what arcane needed . It didn’t need a dot, it doesn’t need ignite or serpent sting, it’s not it’s identity as a spec for the last few expansions. If it’s tuned well, we’ll take it. I’d rather have the spells be buffed accordingly and have the talent point, or drop the point and put it somewhere else. I get the idea behind it, it just seems different to what arcane was before and what it is trying to be.
Big Brained
- Feels a bit odd considering we’re meant to rain in clear casting, and be focused on our burst. It’s a fine talent, but just seems tacked on to the side of the tree without any other supporting talents around it. Neat idea, but not a fan of it in the arcane tree overall.
Energy Reconstitution
- This talent seems really out of place. Dematerialized is cool, some lingering damage (again, an odd thing for arcane), but having an explosion which does middling damage at 50% effectiveness just feels not worth it.
Static Cloud
- Arcane Explosion is used as a filler, and is not a fun button to press. I get that this talent is meant to make it better, but spamming explosion for damage is not fun.
Crackling Energy/IAM
- Again, these are decently strong nodes but not fun to take. With how many new nodes added, I’d be fine if these nodes were cut and the other nodes added to replace them. That would at least free up some talent points for more fun talents.
Resonance vs Familiar
- Reverberate would be in more of the AOE part, which seems to the the right hand side. Why not move it where Big Brained is? That would also make it not in competition with Arcane Famililar. I did like the old routing where familiar was always taken. I like the bird just from an aesthetics point of view, but now it won’t be chosen if it’s not a DPS upgrade, which is a shame.
Chronoshift, SlipStream, Mana Adept
- Our utility is still competing with throughput, and we won’t be able to pick them with the bloat we have in the middle section. That was the main complaint people had, was that things were too competitive for our utility, not for more talents to compete with them.
Concentrated Thoughts
- This talent is still bad, giving 5% increased chance to a small chance is bad, and this talent should just be removed.
Gate 3
It’s now harder to get to harmony and debilitation and prodigious savant are still 2 point nodes, and previous mid-tier nodes were moved down. Rather than make more interesting cap-stones, the old ones are harder to get and the new ones are old talents we had prior. With how everything is positioned, we have to spend at minimum 6 points at the first row of this gate, which makes the actual talents below it hard to get and feels bad, as Porom said below.
Debilitation/High Voltage/Time Loop/Harmony Line
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Arcane Harmony is a great capstone, but Debilitation, voltage and time loop are not great talents. Debilitation is fine, but 2 talent points is a lot. And 3 total points to get to harmony is a huge investment to what was going to be a very interesting portion of the Sunfury Hero Spec
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Initially I had doubted High Voltage, but it has grown on me. It’s one of the more interesting talents. Time loop is still bad though and an RNG proc on an overpriced talent (debilitation) is bad. I do think time loop should be changed. But High Voltage is improved form where I had it before.
Enlightened/Aether Attunement
- It feels bad that these were mid nodes now capstones. They were strong but not buffed to compensate. With how tight the points are it’s hard to take them. Consider moving them into the harmony side and making debilitation 1 point, and replacing Time Loop/Attunement.
- Missiles is also very weak in comparison to the other spells which have gotten substantial buffs to the point where I’m not sure it’ll be worth it to spec in to any Missile talents in keys, making Aether Attunement worthless. This is a shame. This would be much better buffed, and not as a capstone. Perhaps where Improved Arcane Missiles was?
Magi’s Spark/Munitions
- Magi’s spark has a cool animation and rotation, but doesn’t feel great in AOE/Keys. Likely won’t be played. Nether Munitions likely won’t be used either as it is outside of the burst/ToTM. Consider reworking them or buffing accordingly.
Bombardment/Orb Barrage
- This is probably fine. Bombardment was a very strong talent and previous capstone point
Prodigious Savant
- This is a very strong talent. I like having mastery matter more, but having 2 points here, much like 2 points in debilitation feels bad. We have a lot more talents to choose from now rather than before. Consdier making it 1 point.
Leydrinker and Concentration
- Both of these talents are still undertuned. Leydrinker is a proc off of a proc which feels bad and undertuned. Concentration is more or less meaningless when mana is not an issue, and should likely be removed.
CONCLUSION
The tree feels like the first iteration of the fire tree. There’s a lot of bloat, and a lot of ideas that just seem unfinished and odd. A lot of nodes need to be pruned, and points free’d up.
Again, like the first rework, I feel like we took a step back from the last tree. Sometimes stuff was okay with the previous iteration. There was tension within the previous tree, but at least it had more cohesive ideas than this. We still lack chrono shift, are forced to pick slipstream.
There was a lot of feedback given during the last build, and it seems rather than take it in to consideration, it was more or less discarded. Rather than focusing in on passive talents and making QOL better or giving more meaningful choice, there’s random AOE talents that don’t make senseor Missiles or explosion talents added in, and point taxes in the last gate making an already cumbersome tree that much harder to navigate, and we lose fun talents because of it.
I see some of the things that they were going for, but much like the initial arcane rework, I’m disappointed.
11 Likes
Regarding the latest Arcane changes (having tested several different builds and done a couple dungeons):
Overall, these changes are good, and the newest talents introduced today are (mostly) on the right track. I am having a lot of fun playing Arcane now, especially AoE-wise. However, the talent tree is still very bloated and disorganised, (both of) which this build exacerbated, unfortunately. Moreover, it really needs pruning and several talent redesigns. If these issues are corrected, then Arcane will be in an excellent spot for TTW (note that the following adhere to no particular order):
Talents
1.) I am pleased that Arcane Orb is now baseline, which frees up an additional point. The irony, though, is that the incentive to select the new talent Resonating Orbs is high enough, so that we effectively do not gain the extra point at all. Flat damage increase talents are boring and unnecessary in most cases, and Resonating Orbs is an egregious example of one. Please just remove it.
2.) On the subject of flat damage increase talents, I am truly perplexed as to why Crackling Energy and Improved Arcane Missiles not only remain in the tree, but were also nerfed this week. I understand that the affected spells might otherwise be too powerful if the bonus stays at 10%, but this is really not the issue; rather, the problem is that these talents should NOT exist under any circumstances. Just taking these out would very much improve the talent tree bloat situation. Now nerfed, they serve even less purpose than before.
3.) Arcane Tempo is still as dead as before. At this point in development it should just be removed.
4.) Dematerialize is brilliant: Arcane has long, long needed a DoT and this fulfills that need perfectly. Please keep it but buff its damage. As for Energy Reconstitution, this is likewise superb (though it needs to do more damage and proc more often; I would also like to have some control over it). Big Brained is OK at best; I do not care for talents like this and would prefer to see it pruned.
5.) Static Cloud is great: Arcane Explosion finally feels meaningful to press. My only suggestion is to make the talent also increase Arcane Explosion’s casting speed by a small amount with each successive cast, as AE casts are too slow at the moment.
6.) While I understand the intent, High Voltage is nonetheless niche and should be redesigned.
7.) Prodigious Savant really needs to be one point or changed: it’s lacklustre and extremely dry.
8.) Leydrinker is still in need of a buff, and Nether Munitions is both underpowered and poorly designed: it occurs after the burst window. Please replace it with something much more powerful and interesting. Talents of this kind are boring and subpar.
9.) Magi’s Spark now functions correctly and deals good damage. In my opinion, though, it would be best to buff it more, given its capstone position and its being tied to a 45 sec CD.
10.) If the utility nodes are here to stay (even though they shouldn’t), then at least allow Chrono Shift to be baseline, so that we have yet another much needed point.
11.) PLEASE, PLEASE just make one of the Arcane Barrage nodes baseline. There is simply no point in having three separate talents.
12.) Finally, Evocation should be baseline and Siphon Storm removed. The latter’s presence is stifling build diversity, and the former is so fundamental to Arcane that it has no business being a talent, especially not so far down in the tree.
Spellslinger
1.) Unerring Proficiency needs a buff: increase the stack count and make reaching the maximum stacks reset the CD on Supernova.
TLDR: consider the above suggestions and prune unnecessary, flat talents (straight damage increases, especially) wherever possible. It’s disappointing to have to pass up particularly fun options because I have to pick certain arid, but mandatory, talents. Even with this new build I still feel starved for points.
4 Likes