I could see this spell like the new Convoke (but not after 0.5sec…)
I’M not even geared and hit a 33k hp and a 35k hp around 26% vers for 23k non crit with Power + circle. Full gear I could see a 30-40k dmg one shot.
The problem is to set up a 4 sec cast time for a one shot wombo combo, any idea how Arcane and set this up in 2’s ?
Beats me. That was my primary concern as soon as it was announced and I still don’t see a way around that long a$$ channel time. On top of that, unlike Convoke, this is a skill shot and while it is fast moving and has a rather long range it’s quite narrow so when you couple it with the long channel time it’s not exactly going to be hard to dodge.
Lots of people were talking about channeling it out of invis but at least from what I’ve tried on live atm it breaks invis as soon as you start channeling it so I am not sure how that would help at all.
Ironically, the strongest point of the spell might well be the fact that it’s VFX is absolutely puny and it’s actually hard to see. People might legit think the Arcane mage channeling it isn’t doing anything and ignore them and the almost invisible globe of death hurtling towards them. 
stack crit to 20%+
use korayn for 10% bonus dmg and 25% bonus crit chance
you can be 60 yards away
you do not have to actually fully channel the spell so stop before you get kick
invis drops combat to reset 25% bonus crit
think about how fire mages got off greater pyroblasts
you can shoot through los so always make sure your casting behind it
make a dk friend to keep people together
you can do a 22-40k dmg sphere then 25ish seconds later a 15-30k dmg sphere if you get full casts off and run the groove conduit
this will probably be nerfed simply because its 1 button that can 1 shot multiple people and if you have more then 1 arcane mage they dont even need to crit it will just wipe teams
battle grounds will devolve into who can bowl better as arcane mage.
It’s 100 percent in the nerf category … dosent seem to be too bad in arena but it’s ridiculous in BG’s . Going through LOS , 60 yard range , high damage …
I’m expecting the damage to get nerfed, but hopefully the knockback gets buffed. The knockback at the moment is pathetic.
It’s been truly the best thing of all time in WM Korthia. Other faction got the rare you wanted? Pop everything at 40yd and fire into the crowd. I’ve done this quite a lot by this point and actual oneshots are not as common as you’d think, though. Usually the bulk of the crowd survives at ~30-50%, with only the very undergeared or low HP members dying right out.
Although, I have noticed that even in WM it’s very hard to get off a solid hit if someone notices you trying it. Arenas are, naturally, even harder. If you can land a poly or a ring of frost you might be able to cast one right out, and you can also use it to stop someone drinking. But actually womboing someone would take a lot of good planning.
I initially thought it would be OP in the PTR, but in real-world practice I actually don’t think it’s as ridiculous as I was expecting. It can be interrupted by pretty much anything, and even if it does go off you can often dodge it before it lands. To my mind, that means in most situations it’s not really any worse than convoke or divine toll as far as “subjective overpoweredness”.
The one nerf I can see very realistically happening would be adding a target cap, because I do think there’s some real potential for abuse in epic BGs. It wouldn’t even have to be a low one.
I have a lot of arc mage friends who are coincidentally kyrian and they’re stacking a lot of the on-use dps trinkets and so on for the one shots. Since I’ve been NF since release, i’m trying to go against the grain, use weird talents etc, high haste and more kiting, so I try to use arcanosphere multiple times in a fight by prioritizing my positioning for shifting power - i’m not getting great dmg with arcanosphere, like 15k on average with 20-25k crits (and i have incanters flow and time anomaly) - so i’m the worst person to ask about one shots since i prefer drawing out a fight. My results - TERRIBLE! theres a reason no one runs the talents i do, because hybrid healing and shielding/draings etc are all countering me, etc. But yea, that one shot is definitely a thing, my buddy mechagnome is kyrian and uses all the on-use trinks etc and he wrecks me with it. I’m curious though; I notice you’re also NF and priotizing haste gear, how are you getting 23 non crits and i’m getting 11k? Must be something I’m not seeing :o
Bowling for boomkins in Eye of the Storm was glorious last week.
Expect damage and / or going through LOS to be nerfed . Just saw a mage take down the FC through the wall in a WSG. Sorry that sort of thing is just BS. You can’t interrupt or cc through LOS so really no way of stopping this .
You can pop damage mitigation or try to avoid it by running out if it’s path.
There are ways to prevent taking a big hit.
There are many factors you’re leaving out and there are many ways to prevent the 1 shot. The ability take 4 seconds to cast and doesn’t 1 shot unless you’re bursting AND it crits AND you didn’t pop any damage mitigation.
It’s the equivalent of being slapped with a deathbolt really.
Was rated and it was a geared Prot warrior holding the flag . And he had a healer with him along with 2 DPS, the issue was we did not see the mage casting from beyond the wall as he had other players who were in front of him who ran into the room and engaged . It hit for 40 K so technically not a one shot as the FC was not at full health but still ridiculous.
Look I know that’s it’s a fun ability for mages but this is begging to be nerfed . It’s even worse than convoke as convoke could be interrupted and also grounded .
It does
Pvp isn’t really balanced around bgs. I’ve seen teams of 10 sub rogues win bgs easily…
True but when teams start cheesing RBG’s with meme spells , then Blizz takes notice.
And 10 rogues are not winning anything above 1400 if that .
The casting animation and orb look lame to me:pensive:
They should make arcane orb baseline and create a pvp talent that causes arcane orb to knock back players.
That may not be balanced but it could be fun
you don’t get the crit chance from korayn on the first instance of damage
alright, you don’t even know the cooldown of arcanosphere so please stop posting
can’t help you with 2s, but in 1v1 situations you can bait out trink with RoF and then wend blind into a full 4 second sphere. pretty dope combo imo
Having played a solid ~hundo or so arenas this week, I have a few extrathoughts on Arcanosphere:
Using it against anyone who knows what it is is very hard. Most good players already expect if they encounter an unusual Arcane mage you’re going to try to 'sphere em, so they’re good about watching for it and it’s very easy to interrupt. Most good teams won’t let you cast an Arcane school spell for 1.5s, let alone 4. As far as I can tell, stuns/incaps also cancel the ball being released, so you really need to be proactive about letting it go if you don’t think you’ll finish the channel.
That said, teams that leave you alone can get slapped really hard. I had multiple games where the focus was on our 3rd on the other side of a pillar and I dropped a sphere straight through that 80-0’d their healer. Granted, being really dangerous but easy to pressure has kind of always been arcane life.
Quickly casting for a quick knockback can be really useful against melee teams. I actually didn’t expect this to be as helpful as it sometimes is. Pity that you really need Arcane orb so much, because it would be pretty funny to have this and Supernova both.
Overall I think it’s in an alright place, as far as I can tell. I’m not stoked persay that we got this instead of some better PvP utility like so many other classes (or even specs) have, but it’s definitely better than nothing, and it’s a fun ability to use. Far as I can tell there are also tons of ways to play around it (juking, interrupts, mitigation) that work well, so I don’t think it’s as OP as I initially thought it would be.
That’s all that needs to be said about Arcanosphere, really. If you do manage to miraculously get off the entire channel without getting interrupted and it happens to hit more than one person then either you got extremely lucky, like Hail Mary level lucky, or you are playing against a team that… well let’s just be nice and say you would have won against them anyway even without Arcanosphere.
Just like with pretty much everything else about Arcane, Arcanosphere too is great on paper but not really in practice.