A new Alpha build went out today with fairly massive changes to how Arcane will work in TWW but the feedback thread with Blizzard’s reasoning was posted only on the Alpha forums pretty much ensuring that almost no one will see it and even fewer players will be able to actually provide feedback. I firmly believe that you don’t need to have access to the Alpha forums to weigh in on these changes so I am creating this thread here on the Mage forums for greater visibility and to encourage discussion. Please refer to the two links below for the full versions of the relevant posts as I will only quote the portions I wish to provide direct feedback on.
Link to the changes:
Link to the devs’ reasoning behind the changes:
My Feedback:
First and foremost, I want to highlight this portion of the explanation which really resonated with me and made me feel heard and validated for all the years I felt like I was screaming into the void of the forums but that was apparently being registered even if it was not acknowledged in any way.
That not only speaks to me, that is me! I am the player who “engages with the spec because of its visuals and fantasy, not its inherent complexity.” The fact that they acknowledge this is monumental and represents a shift in thinking that I firmly believe was long overdue. Specifically, taking into account that the vast majority of people playing this game aren’t “sweaty” and don’t want to be but merely wish to log in every once in a while to press buttons and kill stuff, and crucially providing us with viable alternatives.
This is another huge change for the better and something that has been suggested over and over again for years now. Arcane Missiles just work better as a proc and Legion Arcane demonstrated that unequivocally. It really never should have reverted to being castable at will precisely for the very obvious reasons they outlined and it definitely shouldn’t have taken this long to go back but at least we are back on the right path again and that is a major win in my book.
Again, it is very encouraging to see that they’re actively monitoring feedback on this but from reading the reply it doesn’t seem like they’ve done enough to alleviate the concerns around Clearcasting proc rate. I am also really confused by the statement which says that Sunfury provides increased rate of Clearcasting because it does not aside from Arcane Soul which is incredibly underwhelming, especially as a capstone node and will only have an uptime of a few seconds every 2 minutes or so. This will in no way solve the abysmal Clearcasting proc rate issues we have now.
This is the one area I take issue with and which is in total disconnect with the rest of the post and their stated goal of reducing complexity. The “skill expression” of Arcane should not revolve around “lining up various buffs and effects” to use in a brief burst window. That is precisely what all but the most hardcore “sweaty” players dislike about Arcane, even long time Arcane players like myself. Cooldown stacking or what they call “lining up various buffs and effects” is not compelling gameplay, its odious and very punishing if you get it wrong. It’s also the very definition of “scripted gameplay” which is exactly what they said they are trying to move the spec away from. As I said, I see this as a massive disconnect from everything that they said up to that point and that concerns me deeply.
Lastly, I want to briefly mention some specific talent changes. The biggest thing that immediately stood out to me is that they flat out removed almost everything that was flagged as problematic, things like Mana Gem, Radiant Spark, and Nether Tempest, rather than even attempt to fix it. That’s problematic in of itself in my view at least because a lot of these things could have been salvaged, though some more easily than others. The Radiant Spark removal in particular, and its lumping in together with Touch of the Magi (which to be fair is what we always did anyway) just screams of the most low effort solution possible. Same with Nether Tempest which could have easily be reimaged as a Fury of Elune type spell but with a distinctly capital letter Arcane flair. Mana Gem’s removal I am fine with although it could have simply been turned into a cooldown that was off the GCD but apparently that’s one low hanging fruit they choose to ignore.
I am also not a fan of the doubling down on Arcane Familiar and Nether Precision.
Arcane Familiar just looks incredibly dull, it’s literally just a floating blob that occasionally shoots out these tiny, ineffectual sparks at your target. It needs an incredible amount of reworking to turn into a proper feature of the spec, not just a couple of purely passive talents. For starters, it needs to look like an arcane elemental, like the ones seen guarding the Mage class hall and used by Khadgar and Kalecgos, and also potentially be turned into a guardian type cooldown like shaman’s Fire and Earth elementals.
Nether Precision on the other hand simply needs to be rejiggered to no longer have the inherent tension between wanting to spam Arcane Missiles but needing to cast other spells to consume Nether Precision procs. Until that tension between Clearcasting and Nether Precision procs is resolved this will continue to be a problem area and so far none of the changes really tackle that in a meaningful way.
Please, please sound off below with your own thoughts and feedback! They seem to finally be listening and now is our best shot to get heard and to hopefully contribute to improving our favorite spec!
