Your description of how Arcane struggles on the Sire fight perfectly illustrates what the underlying issue is: the spec is outdated and cannot function in the modern setting of the game. For years now the majority of boss fights have required a tremendous amount of movement and a turret spec like Arcane simply cannot compete with its counterparts like Fire which has completely unrestrained mobility not only during the entire duration of its major DPS cooldown but also in execute range which is precisely when boss mechanics get out of control and begin to dangerously overlap.
Right now there is literally nothing Arcane can do that Fire can’t do a thousand times better and, frankly, for the most part with much less effort and struggle. Hotfixes and incremental changes are little more than bandaids and will not make a difference in the long run or even in the immediate future.
The only time Arcane feels good in the mobility department is when AoEing but of course even then there are major problems related to being in melee range for which we have no real answer in our toolkit (Frost Nova is useless because it immediately breaks in an AoE scenario and Alter Time is pathetic compared to what other classes/specs get). If you’re going to force a spec to be in melee range you have to give them tools to survive and mitigate the damage they are bound to incur. This is an area where hotfixes can actually address the issue (for example make shields stronger based on how many mobs are in close proximity to you, or make AE debuff targets making them deal less damage to you, or simply get an aura that reduces incoming damage if there are mobs close to you, etc.) but of course the developers actually have to do a deep dive into how the spec works to spot the problems areas and address them. They just haven’t done that… ever!
Arcane missiles should always be able to cast while moving, if talented into split stream, it shouldn’t be only if it is a clear casting proc. This would probably solve the mobility issue.
Fire is almost always better on final bosses since it was a mobile execute. However, Arcane sucks on Sire in particular not because of mobility, but because of the frequency of Hand of Destruction. There is not sufficient time to gain Clearcasting stacks AND use AP/TOTM before being interrupted.
This is pretty much the /mic drop for any thread on arcane. Sadly, it has been for the last several expansions. Until it’s completely re-designed (which would require someone at Blizzard to care about it - ie: don’t hold your breath), this will continue to be the standard response to any comment or question about the spec.
I agree with you. I don’t pvp as much but when I do jump in it just feels HORRIBLE to get locked out. I mean we technically have frostbolt now so I guess that’s something but there’s too many quirks like you said standing still and lockout and it’s SO frustrating how barrage has DR on slow =(.
I still love my arcane mage and I went necrolord too which is not the optimal covenant. I still frequently hit #1 in damage by wide margins but I’m running no higher than +5s and an occasional +6. Haven’t done any raids.
I’ve played in the 1400 PvP bracket in RBGs only and do very well. I’m a bad judge at arena because unless I’m paired with a very good player I’m just not practiced enough for any real arena play.
If you look around on YouTube for Brofessor arcane mage videos you’ll see him doing very well in pretty much every area of content, including arenas!
The idea that arcane is a dead broken spec is quite a bit of hyperbole. It’s not optimal and it’s not what players consider the meta. Plenty well say, “yes, but if he was playing fire spec think of all the extra damage he could be doing”. /shrug think of all the players with meta specs that could be doing extra damage if they could figure out how to follow mechanics.
Arcane spec isn’t the doom and gloom everyone makes it out to be.
Arcane is fine in low to mid keys but outclassed by fire on both bosses and on packs in high keys. Raiding is, yet again, a sh*tshow on any boss that requires much movement. When you actually do the content you’ll see what people mean.
Is it completely unplayable? No, but as was already stated by Kerathras, there’s nothing arcane can do that fire can’t do better and with less effort/work. Play it if you find it “fun,” just don’t expect to top the meters and plan on lots of “decline” messages for m+.
You can’t accurately claim a spec has no problems when you’re not doing any of the challenging content where said spec struggles, especially if the only content you’re doing are keystone dungeons that are missing half the affixes.
As has been repeatedly said before, Arcane is decent in M+, but its design is completely incompatible with Blizzard’s modern raid fight design. Just watch a video of the heroic Sire Denathrius fight and try to imagine playing Arcane during that second phase.
To be honest, I don’t see where the issue with arcane is in M+, but maybe that’s because I’m only at the 13-14 range right now. My AoE burst is insane, and I get it every 45s basically, which can be stretched to a 3rd smaller burst window if I really wanted. Using Echo and Harmony, I do Magi, AP+Darkmoon, Missiles until ~1s on Magi (usually 2 sets), barrage, Orb. Depending on CC procs, I can even tag Orb into the Magi before AE filling. This combo is crazy damage and even translates into phase 1 Sire, and its nothing new. The second phase is same as the first except you cast rune instead of AP and then shifting power after orb unless you need to stretch to another pack for some reason in which case you just AE fill. The third window is just double orb with shifting power, which is really just part of the second window.
CN is totally different. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a 99% parse god, but I feel confident enough to say that I am above average in most fights. Sire and Inerva are my weakest because I’m still getting timing down on Sire, and Inerva we haven’t done in a bit since we started skipping to Sludge. Even when I’m doing well, my damage is middle of the pack, but it’s usually consistent. What would help me? I think slipstream and arcane orb should be baseline. I would even go so far as to say that Evocation and Missiles should always be castable on the move. Missiles is less DPS than 4 charge blast already and virtually nothing changes with clearcast missiles. Problems might arise in pvp, so an alternative would be to make Barrage not feel so terrible to use. How about making it a only use a single charge? Actually, I think that would fix many problems with our mobility, which would still come at a cost.
Arcane does reasonably well in lower level content M+ and the 1400 PvP bracket is… I don’t want to sound mean so lets just say the pee wee leagues. Any class/spec combination is viable at that level, frankly this is where most people’s alts are. You also state that you haven’t touched the raid which is the biggest problem area for Arcane. In other words your personal experience has colored your opinion, as is the case with all of us, but realize that your experience is very limited and not at all representative of end game content.
There isn’t an issue, especially when it’s fortified week because we excel at AoE burst, as you point out. But that’s literally it. That is the only niche Arcane can fill at the moment and there are plenty of other specs that fill it just as well if not better (see Fire) and also bring A LOT more to the table as well. This means that due to how incredibly competitive M+ slots are Arcane mages are simply not going to get invited and it’s a shame because as I said this is the one area of content we actually do reasonably well in.
Exactly. Almost every boss fight in CN is either primarily single target or has high mobility or both. Mobility is Arcane’s Achilles’ heel, no more needs to be said about that. Sustained single target is also a weak point and our outdated burst/conserve rotation and reliance on mana and the abysmal proc rate of CC means our overall DPS output is just not consistent. Couple that with the dynamic nature of virtually all boss encounters in recent years and you can see why Arcane’s outdated play style simply isn’t well suited to the way the modern game plays. This is why the spec needs an overhaul.
At this point we’re not going to get an overhaul until at least 10.0 (yes I managed to type that with a straight face) so I think the best we can hope for is that they will buff the CC procs to at least 2x what it is now. Failing (or in addition to) that we can probably expect a small aura buff. Anything else is highly unlikely.
It wouldn’t be as much of an issue if we were trading our mobility for something else valuable, like damage. But we aren’t. And the “quality of life” changes to the spec have actually reduced its viability.
For example, Arcane Power. Into shadowlands we received an increased duration (10s -> 15s) and reduced damage (40% -> 30% / 60%->50% with Overpowered), combined with nerfs to the scaling of Arcane Blasts.
The intention here was to make Arcane Power more forgiving to use. It was difficult to fit very many spells into a 10 second ability (combined with set-up and a global cooldown), so if you stepped out of a single cast you lost a large amount of your DPS.
But 10s of burst was a lot easier to manage than 15s of burst, the amount of damage it contained was more impactful, and it came off of it’s cooldown more frequently (I used vision of perfection, too) without the need to sync up with TotM.
Those changes actually exacerbated our need to stand still, instead of soothing it. I had a great time in Ny’alotha because I could time my conservation phases with responding to mechanics and then unload a large amount of my damage between ability timers. It was possible to make mistakes and lose damage, but it was also possible to learn and avoid them.
That just isn’t the case in Castle Nathria. It’s not because Arcane is hopelessly outdated. It’s because of changes in the 9.0 patch that rendered us clumsy and weakened our response to mechanics. (plus nerfs to shimmer and losing displacement, our mobility is suffering more than it was a patch ago)
I see it backwards. Any minor changes they make are going to continue to exacerbate the underlying problems with Arcane rather than help address them because the spec’s core mechanics are so outdated no amount of tinkering with cooldowns and talents is going to make any meaningful difference.
Agreed. It’s not as big of deal as the balance issue, but I’d also like to see visual animation improvements. Arcane blast is the most boring looking spell in the game. I don’t like what they did to arcane missiles and barrage looks like a nerf gun pellet… It’s been ignored overall as a spec since WotLK.
For real though… and adding insult to injury they know exactly what the spell ought to look like, just take a look at what their Hearthstone artists have done!
Some of the affixes can be very rough for Arcane, especially if you’re used to be able to stand at range and dodge things. The stormnado things were just horrible to try and deal with (I feel the melee pain), and on weeks where your group doesn’t have a quick melee or ranged with instant casts you can forget about trying to Arcane for explosives. Outside of that though, it’s decent enough.
Sadly you’re right, and that’s if Blizz feels like it. Would not surprise me if they outright ignore Arcane again or give it minor changes. A 9.1 hotfix is definitely needed to significantly buff CC rates, or Arcane will just not be played in later tiers. I’d like that to be coupled with a small aura buff, as we do OK in M+ at the moment. Increasing CC chance and even CC AM damage would go a long way to making it ST viable in raid, though as you said our main concern is that Arc suffers extensively in current movement-oriented fights.
They’re making it loud and clear that if one or two out of the three specs for a pure DPS class “works” then that’s good enough for them and they couldn’t care less beyond that.
