Ok, been running orbs and it could be SO AWESOME. A very easy fix, would be:
Thank you in advance.
It should simply be a copy and paste of the Legion legendary item:
[Mantle of the First Kirin Tor] “Arcane Barrage has a 10% chance per Arcane Charge consumed to launch an Arcane Orb in front of you.”
Couldn’t be simpler and it baffles me why the devs didn’t do it especially given how popular the original item was and how much feedback there has been asking for it to be reintroduced in some way ever since. Including on the DF PTS and Beta forums.
This would also be a good add as well, but I still would like a 3rd charge if I’m going to specialize in this tree.
I’d rather it shoot an orb at the end of every clearcast missile so it can be a real pressure version.
I agree orb barrage needs something. I never really understood the use case for ORB barrage, its an AOE skill, but you need to use single target to trigger it?
I have tried a few variations of it in M+ and never found any good use for it. Something based on charges dumped would work and I don’t think the capstone even needs to be focused on Arcane orb. ( Didn’t they split it up in Beta to the orb node?)
It could be anything that is based on Arcane Charge consumed (without RNG) and fit into may different playstyles. I see the use cases being spamming AB and Dumping, Spamming AE Dumping, harmony dump and radiant spark dump.
I don’t think it is that simple, My thoughts on that would be its too random, as orb is not something you want to fire without aiming it.
I could see it working in may ways, one suggest could be “Arcane Barrage has a 10% chance per Arcane Charge consumed to grant a charge of Arcane Orb up to “X” charges.”
I think the tricky part was they wanted something that will fit in with harmony and this doesn’t seems too, but who knows till the number guys look at it.
It worked really well in Legion but the problem with the Legendary is it doesn’t fit into the new (and awful) Arcane playstyle. Back in Legion, your filler was a 4 charge barrage into trash packs. Now you’re saving it up until you have your precious Harmony stacks (ugh) so your % proc chance on the Legendary would be too small to make a difference.
I agree, the capstone should be weighted outside of harmony, but still have some considerations towards it.
Would you rather have the passive RNG option or have the optional charge as OP suggested ?
I think it’s very simple. The only complexity comes from what they’ve introduced since Legion and their ongoing efforts to try and shoehorn the awful ideas from BfA and SL into the spec when they clearly don’t fit and don’t work.
Orb Barrage in particular is further hampered by their pitiful attempt to make it viable in both AoE and ST situations which of course leaves it in a subpar state for both. It is ridiculous to tie in an AoE spell like AO to a ST one like AM, it just makes no sense. Same with tying a cleave spell like ABarr to AM spam.
These are just bad ideas both on paper and definitely in practice and yet they keep doubling down on them to the detriment of the entire spec. The moment Arcane starting being overshadowed by other specs people dropped it like a hot potato and the population size in VotI plummeted dramatically. No one wants to play Arcane because it just doesn’t feel good, the numbers don’t lie. The only people who can’t seem to see it are the devs or they’ve just given up on it and left it to rot.
Personally I think the Legion version would work perfectly fine as an AoE talent, which it was always meant to be. The only time aiming AO becomes an issue is in ST situations especially on bosses that move a lot. It’s also particularly frustrating when the proc condition is tied to stacks of AM that you have to track. If you take that out of the equation and commit to the talent being an AoE one the Legion version works just fine. I am not opposed to having it give you a charge instead of immediately launching the orb but part of the appeal of the Legion version was that you didn’t have to use up a GCD to fire the orb. That’s always the trade off between instant procs and procs that reset a cooldown or refresh a charge.
Bottom line, it doesn’t really matter which way they do it but I think we can all agree the current version is simply terrible and needs to change.
Your first paragraph describes the current state of arcane perfectly. BFA and SL did no big favours to arcane mage design but they currently dominate it.
You really should specify that you are talking about PvP because that’s not nearly the case in PvE anymore.