Provide your opinion 
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Depends if you like obnoxious setups and big numbers pew pew!
It’s certainly more punishing than fire or frost though if you mess up the rotation.
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I don’t enjoy the incredible amount of CD stacking and setup you have to do. And I hate RoP, which is absolutely mandatory to do any decent damage with arcane.
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No. Its entirely predicable. You just press buttons in a predefined order. And extreme penalty for getting even 1 wrong.
You cant pull it off during mechanics, so its just hold CDs until theres time to burst. Or hope mechanics arent on you. Lame.
Your only actual choice is when to use NP procs to conserve or burn mana
Trash spec imo
Frost/Fire are both S teir fun at least
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This.
The short answer is: “arcane mage is NOT fun.”
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As someone that loves harder to play specs arcane is just not fun.
It’s only fun in a farming heroic but for any type of progression it’s not fun at all.
Mained an arcane mage till BFA. Did try it in BFA, when SL started, and then after Harmony build became a thing. Spent 2 days last week trying out the new rotation on target dummies in Valdrakken … can definitely say the last time Arcane was fun was in Legion.
Sure you had little to no cleave but you had strong ST banking your missile procs and strong AoE just in Explosion spam into 4 charge Barrage (with some added bonuses like Echo relic or the Legendary Shoulders), and you weren’t harshly punished by movement or insane ramp up times to do your damage.
I just can’t imagine how they thought the current version of arcane would be something people would enjoy playing … or maybe “how people enjoy the game” is no longer the metric for game success.
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Arcane Mage has been a spec that divides people for as long as I can remember.
I’ve typically fallen onto the side of yes, it’s a fun spec.
It never used to be flashy (these days it is, which is a nice pro) but it used to limit test the hell out of you. It still does.
People say it’s easy, and at face value it is. It is easy to perform at a C or B grade performance as Arcane. But to perform at an A+? That is hard. Mage has so many limit testing moments. Such as:
Knowing when to Shimmer (at the last possible millisecond).
Knowing how aggressive / conservative you need to be with your mana bar.
Anticipating boss mechanics so you don’t have to move during ROP phases.
That is what makes Arcane Mage a fun spec.
The more punishing the spec is, the more enjoyable it is to do well at it. It’s why I fell out of love with Arcane going into Legion, they adjusted the mastery to not be as impactful.
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Aren’t all mages stuck with RoP for PvE?
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Yes, which is why I’m not playing mage.
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Its fun, but being on one spell school and rune of power on arcane are not that enjoyable. Everything else about it is fantastic though.
Kubzy played incanters flow in the AWC.
Ranking al 3 mage specs I’d say fire>arcane>frost for me. Arcane defiantly has the best visuals so I’ll give it that. The rotation isn’t even all that bad but I don’t like how evocation is a damage buff and radiant spark has such a short window 1 quaking your miss your burst.
Fun to play? Definitely not, at least not in its current iteration. Fun in terms of fantasy and visuals? Absolutely.
What’s holding Arcane from being “fun” in terms of gameplay are talents like Rune of Power, Radiant Spark, Siphon Storm, etc. which are not only extremely clunky and clash with the design philosophy of the entire game but are also all mandatory picks if you want to do competitive damage. Take those out of the equation along with some other relics of the past that are inexplicably still somehow part of Arcane’s kit and it will be one of the best specs in the game.
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600K ABarr is FUN !
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Yes it is pretty good
No.
/char10
I had a ton of fun early in DF, was definitely the best it’s been on a long time. Then when you start getting into the “end game” of needing to be a competitive M+ runner, it’s less fun. I think I’m finally where I can keep up with most other DPS classes, but with a lot of work and items/timer tracking/stacking and memorizing dungeon mob/boss line ups so I don’t use cooldowns when they are least effective, or not have them all up at the start of a boss fight. It is fun to see that burst go off perfectly and melt a boss for 20 seconds and out DPS like all other players combined…but it’s only for those 20 seconds, then it’s a thinking man’s game, movement, secondary rotation and watch as all the other players catch up on the DPS bars. Then hit that second burst to try and keep up.
800k-900k on a good night!
Loved arcane throughout SL. Got half my ports as Arcane this season before I basically put it in hiberation for fury war/prot pally alts. It’s the least fun it’s ever been to me. Long setup + constant ground swirlies and movement + packs with lots of low hp mobs that die before your burst goes off = failed gameplay for mages. Meanwhile, my fury war needs 2 gcds to do max dps and can still do max dps while moving/dodging mechanics
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