Here is an example of the casts arcane does on mythic volocross. They are 100% right.
imgur. com/a/62H6wcT
It’s neither hard to learn nor difficult to master but it’s annoying to boot. Glad you took the time to write it all out but you clearly missed the part where the opener alone is an entire paragraph! Now it’s all subjective of course but in my book that’s too much. I will grant you that Devoker may be too simplistic but I see nothing wrong with that. Whereas convoluted and bloated specs like Arcane and Shadow for example are all kinds of wrong, at least as far as casual players are concerned.
I actually agree with that. Arcane Power for the entirety of its existence was a very poorly designed and envisioned spell. Arcane Surge is much better in that regard but it’s also undeniable that an instant cast self buff is far more practical than an ability with a long cast time that does terrible damage and whose real value also comes from the buff it applies to you. So while I wouldn’t want to see AP return I can definitely see why people are lamenting it. If they buffed the damage component of AS it might justify the ridiculously long cast time.
Most of them already are and there is good reason for that: they work. While Arcane may be unique it’s also incredibly dated and just doesn’t mesh well with the type of encounters the modern game throws at us. It has also consistently lost parts of that uniqueness over the last few expansions as we have slowly but surely moved away from mana management as the central theme of the spec, and I would argue has only gotten better because of it. The changes just haven’t gone far enough. As far as I am concerned the ripcord on mana management should have been pulled a long time ago. So yeah, in this particular case I think homogeneity is actually the right path.
At the end of the day there are only 3 DPS archetypes: melee, ranged, and caster. It’s completely futile and counterproductive to try and force diversity for its own sake when it will inevitably lead to a less enjoyable gameplay. There is frankly nothing wrong with Arcane being purple Frost or Fire being orange Arcane, etc. They will always feel distinct based on the visuals alone even if the mechanics are similar or even overlap, they already are and do anyway.
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I get that there are folks like yourself who genuinely enjoy the added complexity but I think you will find you are in the minority. Just like people who enjoy solving complex mathematical equations as a hobby. Most of us just want to plop our keisters on a couch and watch TV. Or to translate the metaphor in WoW terms: log on and mash some buttons and make things go splat (without having to reference a multi-page online guide).
But I personally have no problem with leaving in the complexity and even rewarding it with extra damage so long as there is an alternative for the rest of us. It’s just that right now, for most specs, that just isn’t the case. And no, telling people to go play a different class or spec isn’t an answer because many, if not most, players choose a certain class or spec for the fantasy and aesthetic and are currently forced to take everything else it comes with. It’s high time that changed.
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The main issue with that is that it winds up being a bit non-synergistic (I’m not going to say anti-synergistic because it’s still working). Nether Precision wants us to alternate between one CC proc and 2 blasts. RS wants us to just cast 4 blasts.
To be fully honest with you, I like radiant spark for the most part. However, as it stands right now, I don’t find it terribly enjoyable to use. Conceptually it’s neat, but in practice it’s just another spell. It’s one item in a list of a list of cooldowns, and it’s the shortest lived one at that.
When Arcane is all about sending out one really big barrage, this spell is amazing. It works really well with Arcane Harmony. Without it, however, it doesn’t really pack the same punch. If we don’t remove it, I’d rather see Spark moved to the right side of the tree to align better with Harmony and have something else put where it is now.
Hard disagree. The mana regen might be higher, but Arcane surge is not an enjoyable button to press. It’s a long cast time that drains our entire mana pool and tries to compensate for it by also being a damage buff and a mana generator.
The long cast time makes it susceptible to all kinds of issues like knockback mechanics or your target moving out of range / dying before the cast completes. Arcane Power also wasn’t always off the GCD if I recall correctly. But I could cast it whenever I wanted to, and it didn’t take an additional 2 seconds of buildup to do it. (Yes, I do know how to deal with said mechanics, but it’s an additional nuisance to have to worry about)
The damage it does is laughable. It often competes with Nether Tempest for me in terms of raw damage, but at least the Tempest procs are triggering Arcane Echo. I’m not going to pretend to be a hardcore player who does all the most optimal damage outputs everywhere, but something with a 2 second cast should hit harder than our filler spells.
The full mana drain is an incredibly awkward mechanic to work around. Our rotation right now has us casting barrage immediately after surge, but even after they made it so that it refunds a certain portion of our mana immediately after cast I still occasionally get told I’m oom on my next cast if I want to cast something that costs mana. Yes, it’ll give us one clearcasting charge, but it also runs counter to the Enlightened talent. Enlightened encourages us to burst at full mana, but Surge takes that away from us. The interaction between the two is definitely anti-synergistic this time. Yes, I know we can skip the talent, but it’s worth pointing out.
The damage increase and the mana regen are the only redeeming qualities of the spell - which means it’s effectively doing the same thing that Arcane Power was but with extra steps. If you wanted to make Arcane Power better, by your own standards, all it should’ve done was convert the mana-cost reduction into a mana-regeneration effect and grant us a charge when activated.
Arcane Power - as simple as it was - was always something I enjoyed pressing. It meant it was damage time. It meant I didn’t need to think about mana. Also, friendly reminder, the ability to cast arcane missiles wasn’t always tied to the amount of mana we spent. That was something they introduced in BfA. And even in BfA there was no point to generating clearcasting while arcane power was up because missiles were incredibly undertuned. I believe that - if you had infinite mana - it was a DPS loss to cast missiles no matter how much you buffed it. It was only useful because you could use it to save mana without sitting on your hands.
Arcane Power was a perfectly well-designed ability. The problem was that they kept shifting Arcane’s priorities and design without considering the way existing abilities worked. In Dragonflight, Arcane Surge isn’t enjoyable. In Shadowlands and BfA, Arcane Power was anti-synergistic to generating clearcasting. But before that, there weren’t complaints about the spell. If you think Arcane Power was poorly designed it just means you don’t remember what arcane was like before BfA made everything awkward. (And that’s not something I can fault anyone for. I only remember because I’m stubborn)
And yes, I do think that Blizzard should go back to what arcane was before BfA. The iteration of this spec that existed 6 years ago was better than the one we have now. It would need to be modernized, obviously, but I miss managing my mana. I’m tired of robotically watching my cooldown timers. Arcane used to have a very unique “rotation” and playstyle, but that uniqueness goes away more and more with each update.
I see it otherwise, providing further options because each will be buffed as compensation. For M+ you will do what other specs do, and go AoE for fort week, and cleave or ST for other weeks depending on the dungeon. Seems a better option to me. As for raid, not hard to swap to pre-set specs between trash and a boss.
But I do get your point, it’s hard to take stuff away without affecting something. The thing is, we need something. Frost is looking better than it has for years, but it is still only a pile of band-aids after near a decade of hotfixes rather than rebuilding the spec.
I think most of these issues with conflicting opinions about Mage specs can be solved quite simply - via more choice nodes in talent trees (as Mages actually severely lack such nodes). Here are several examples.
Example 1 - Some Mages like using Nether Tempest and some don’t and want it to not be mandatory or play without it at all.
Solution: Move Nether Tempest to a more optional position and make it a choice node with some other AoE focused talent, maybe even passive.
Result: People who want to play Nether Tempest or perform Arcane Echo shenanigans can do that and people who want nothing to do with it can play the alternative instead.
Example 2 - Some Mages like to play with Siphon Storm and some Mages dislike Evocation being an offensive CD and miss old mana management playstyle.
Solution: Make Siphon Storm a choice node with passive that increases damage done based on remaining Mana (like old Mana Adept Mastery).
Result: People who want to continue playing Siphon Storm can do that and people who want more mana management based playstyle can take the alternative and use Evocation for mana restoration instead.
And so on. While likely some of these alternatives would provide better average results, if they are tuned properly to be around 0.5-1% difference between each other, many Mages would not even notice it and just play the way they like more.
Nether Tempest is only useful in two situations.
- Proccing Arcane Echo during Touch
- Preventing combat exit in PvP
The first is unnecessary. It’s just a bit more damage, and it can be made such that Touch automatically procs every 1s . The second is just convenience.
Honestly, either remove it or make it so that it gets extended on Arcane Missile cast so it’s less annoying to deal with. Though I don’t think anybody plays Arcane to manage a dot.
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As someone who literally never used RS before (because my biggest gripe with it was that the angelic edgelord visual stood out like a sore thumb and was immersion breaking) I found that an awkward adjustment. I had really gotten used to the NP cadence and it felt good. Adding RS into the mix disrupts that and can potentially even lead to overcapping CC procs, albeit rarely.
It’s really unfortunate that they keep shifting the priority rotation from one expansion to the next because they really have no idea what they’re doing with the spec and don’t seem to have a clear vision or direction for the future. It leads to all sorts of clashes between various talents that oftentimes have a clear counter synergy. That is something which should be immediately spotted by the devs and addressed but it always seems to fall through the cracks. Arcane is by no means the only spec with these inherent flaws in the talent tree but it’s one of the worst offenders.
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Despite the fact that im pretty sure you dont main arcane, and that a screenshot without context is never evidence of anything, that picture doesnt even support your assertion mathamatically lol. The percentages are litterally right there.
There is almost never a simple solution to a design problem - especially when multiple sets of players want different options.
One of the biggest things: no matter how many choice nodes you provide, one will almost always be better and create a specific meta. For your first example with Nether Tempest, if it’s the stronger option, the same people will complain that they need to use it to be optimal. If it’s the weaker option, the players who wanted it will complain that it’s not strong enough to be meta.
Blizzard will not be able to make everyone happy - a fact I’m sure they’re well aware of. What I want them to do, however, is pick a direction and stick with it. Every expansion after Legion arcane has felt like they got halfway through an update and pumped the brakes. Now that we’ve hit Shadowlands, the spec feels like the result of trying to go on a road trip but randomly changing directions every time you fill up your gas tank. By sheer happenstance we wound up in a town where arcane is strong, but nobody knows where exactly that town is on the map.
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These arent real issues though, more than any other spec mage is immune to this because of their choice of shimmer/ice floes at any given time. And if the mob was dying before the cast completes well it wouldn’t have been a good time to use arcane power either.
Idm complaints about its cast time, but 2s just doesnt matter, and if you are doing keys where it does, then the upfront dmg of surge is far superior to arcane power’s effect there.
Its a decent powerhouse in AOE, especially now that it actually does dmg past 5 targets, just looking at a random +19 dungeon I have that was logged in Nov it did double the overall of NT.
Generally speaking the specs that you see that have to do this, like ret paladin, don’t end up being top dps in st and then top in AOE when they swap all their talents. They are just balanced like normal and end up weaker than average in the other column when fully specced one way without any advantage in what they are specced into. Course ret was just buffed significantly so its st should be out of this world.
Its fine if they reduce some of our bloat, for frost that would mean ray getting the axe since it doesnt have a reason to exist, and then them consolidating our freezes (making ice nova replace frost nova etc). Glacial Spike is just necessary to prevent the 3 button rotation in ST, and introduces amazing variety to your flurry combo, and comet storm is not very intrusive in the st rotation.
Congrats, 80% is hyperbole. If you remove defensives/mobility, reduce shifting power to its actual count (since wcl counts ticks separately from casts) and trinkets, that still has arcane blast at 56.4% of your overall casts (105/186). If you were to remove off gcd actions like totm and mana gem it then becomes 59.3% of your overall casts (105/177). Feel free to look at any log, this was just the one I had freely available.
That is why I wrote about minimal 0.5-1% difference between the two choices in node, so that it would be marginal and barely affect performance. While top people would still be likely to pick the better performing / simming option, majority of playerbase would just play what they like more.
Though I do agree with your statement of them getting a direction for Arcane. Its complexity might be different and even appealing for different people, but its design is kind of a mess. It has mana management (kinda), ramp-up, builder-spender playstyle and even a DoT management attached. Its proc does lower dps than a spammable ability and gets cancelled early for dps increase etc. Hopefully Arcane would get attention to these issues and better direction in War Within beta and beyond.
If theres anything we learned from shadowlands its that the majority just play whats better. And I don’t think its realistic to expect choice nodes to be that well balanced, it just doesn’t happen at all consistently with blizzard’s track record.
I agree with you completely and I’d rather have a class thats too complex with options than a class that’s been pruned to hell like in WOD
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There needs to be a line drawn between complexity and mere annoyance. There is no reason why the rotation for any spec should consist of half a dozen damage multipliers, each attached to a different ability with vastly varying cast times and cooldowns. It’s a meme at this point. Like Millhouse Manastorm taking 5 minutes to guzzle potions and buff himself before he joins the fight after you free him in Arcatraz. Mages have become a caricature of the spellcaster archetype.
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Pretty much this.
Been playing my mage a lot more and ended up trying out Arcane (combo of really not enjoying Frost now since the changes, will not play fire while SKB is required, and the AoE missiles has been a dream since I was an arcane main).
Between Siphon Storm, Radiant Spark, Nether Tempest, Surge and Mana Gem it just seems like needless tedium which does nothing but buff TotM and create button bloat and a waaaaaaay too long ramp up to actually do damage. It’s not a complex rotation … the script is the same … but it just seems needlessly convoluted having FIVE damage modifiers in one spec.
Wasn’t that what led to the Ret Pally changes!? Why is Arcane not privy to the same attention?
Still playing it cause I’ve rediscovered my love for Arcane thematically (and AoE missiles and Orb Barrage are fun) but REALLY hoping for a rework in War Within that cuts down on the button bloat and actually bring me back to being an Arcane Mage main again.
Other than the modifiers, I’d really like to see the tier set become a talent and personally I’d like Nether Precision removed. It adds clunkiness to the rotation and, as a die-hard Legion arcane player, would bring some more viability back to Arcane Missiles. I feel the same about having to clip missiles for NP as I do about proc munching for Frost Mages.
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Right!? Like wth, Blizz? How can they see the same exact problem in one spec but not in another? Oh wait… it’s because that other spec is melee and melee can’t possible get saddled with a rotation that isn’t a 2 button zug zug smash smash because they’re such good boys and girls and Blizz luuuuuuvs them so much! 
If you remove all the damage modifiers/combine them except for surge and totm, and remove nether precision, what is left to do in the spec? Mana isnt much of a concern atm, but that would leave you with no rotation at all really lol. Just spamming blast and pressing missiles whenever.
The only thing that fits this bill is radiant spark. Surge and Evo align, and ToTM aligns every other use to them. Which fits quite well (and you definitely dont want only 1.5 min cds, then you have nothing to do in the interim. Its what makes fire so boring without skb). If people want siphon storm and radiant spark removed, thats fine, but arcane needs a little bit of an extra layer added after that.
I mean it’s not like they couldn’t introduce other things if they removed the 47 damage modifiers for Arcane. Doubt many people would complain if those were literally removed, the actual spells buffed to compensate, and 1-2 (say 1 more ST, 1 for AoE) more abilities that actually did something were introduced as it would still be a simple rotation. Alternatively, they could make mana actually matter again for Arcane.
This is why a lot of people are saying all 3 specs are in desperate need of a full rebuild. They’ve been patching and band-aid fixing the specs for a decade or more, which is why the base mechanics are still on paper the same (especially for Frost, which until the talent rework was virtually unchanged from TBC).
Break the specs down entirely, and start again with new baseline mechanics, abilities etc. Force Blizzard to decide what the identity of the specs actually are, and how they want them to play. That way we don’t end up with these hodge-podge specs that are partially resource-based, partially proc-based, and partially build/spend, while still relying on ideas from 20 years ago. The 12-month wait between DF and the next expansion would be the perfect time.
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I don’t disagree that we should have something to do in between major cds. The 45 and 90 sec cadence is fine although it could just as easily be 30 and 60 or 60 and 120 if necessary to allow for balancing. The problem is what those abilities are. In the case of Arcane we have a bunch of different spells that were haphazardly introduced over the course of nearly 20 years that just don’t mesh well together and the toolkit you can build with them just doesn’t feel cohesive.
As you point out RS and Evo/SS are the biggest offenders atm, now that RoP is finally consigned to the ash heap of history. If they decide to pull the ripcord on mana management all the way then Evo ceases to have any purpose and the SS effect can then easily be merged in with Surge. Then you have RS and NT which exist solely to empower the TotM window, again no reason not to simply combine their effects into a single button (or even eliminate them altogether if TotM is changed or replaced itself). That brings us to the TotM window.
It’s just not what I want to do every 45 seconds. I dislike the very notion of having a brief window in which to cram as many things as possible, I just don’t have the reflexes for it and don’t enjoy getting sweaty palms. Too much can go wrong and I am not the kind of person who puts all of their eggs in the same basket. That’s the Fire/Combustion fantasy and that’s one of the main reasons I don’t play Fire. I would much rather have it be replaced with something like an Arcane version of Comet Storm or Meteor.
Lastly, by eliminating the outdated concept of mana management it allows for the spec to be streamlined and fully committed to being a builder/spender which gives it a clear identity instead of the current messy tug-and-pull between mana as a spender and a pseudo combo point system. Add a new ST Arcane Charge spender, redesign AB to serve as a builder only, and you have a much smoother and more intuitive (and I would argue more enjoyable) ST rotation that also mirrors the AoE one.
And before anyone says “but that would just make Arcane into purple Frost” so what? Also it really won’t because Frost isn’t fundamentally a builder/spender spec unless you take GS. Which everyone takes now because it’s tuned very well and tied in with the current set bonus but hasn’t always and probably won’t again at some point in the future. Arcane will also be differentiated from other caster builder/spender specs like Balance and Shadow which are DoT based or Destruction which is pet based, etc.
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