But the other 2 parts of a mage are terrible, Why do you keep rehashing the same crap over time. Make arcane best to play and leave the other 2 specs to will get to that later. This has been going on for what 4 expansions now. Fire is dead last on dps and frost is close behind. Its not the upping of the damage its the overall build. To much work to up your dps its not fun to play its constant work. This is what the mage class has become, if you would give achievements a global affect on characters i would quit the mage class but since i spent most of my time as a mage doing achievements etc its not really in the cards. So now i am forced to play an arcane mage since blizzard dev staff cant figure out how to build 3 specs for a class all who do damage but cant quite figure it out.
I wouldn’t say the other 2 specs are terrible, in fact I love playing Frost, maybe because its a BELF in the Talent tree like my mage, but it feels good with all the years that I have played it.
I tried Arcane, the rotation just didn’t feel right or if you miss something it requires a re-do for the damage. I’m not getting younger and the amount of skills in the combo.
All in all, will I be top DPS, probably not, but am I having fun on Frost, absolutely! And as they keep tuning it will get to a decent spot I am sure.
Lastly, I will say I agree with the last part, it’s interesting that as an only dps class no matter which spec, they couldn’t tune it better earlier, but at least Arcane damage is decent for people who can get the combos, and the combo isn’t as bad as the 23 skill Nether Portal Demo combo.
Arcane is actually in the middle of the pack judging by raid logs. I mean, it’s far better than frost/fire, sure. But it’s still half-specs below top
Mage is in a bad position right now, the best spec isn’t that great on execution/fun gameplay/dmg output, and the other two are dead.
/sadge
How is fire/frost now that the buffs have come through? I imagine frost will have a strong niche in m+ or aoe bosses due to the high cleave damage and big glacial spikes.
Fire receiving a 12% buff seems okay, yet to test it
No way to know, because of last week it’s an auto decline for every group activity.
Butcher and drift my Arcane rotation and cooldowns halfway through the fight and still significantly outdamage a well played Frost. It’s so sad.
A beast if played well. A wet noodle if not.
There are lots of other specs that can do comparable damage without the terrible rotation they’ve given Arcane and aren’t punished as harshly if you screw up slightly.
Personally, I miss Legion Arcane but if you like long ramp up with multiple damage modifiers to then roll the dice on an % chance to crit with little room for error I guess Arcane is your spec to play now.
My mage does ok dmg as arcane, but just ok. ilvl350 15 or so dps. The problem is the effort to do this while staying with the mechanics for me is very hard. Last night leveling my hunter is just so much easier. MOBS my mage cleared with difficulty simply get mowed down with the hunter.
I love this expansion, but as an old dude, the mage is getting too difficult to keep up. Especially if I can dust of another char and out perform the mage by planting my face on the keyboard.
Try maximizing dps with constant movement in raids mage spells the way its built has to stand still.
If i do the arcane mage max damage burst it takes some time to stand still and cast all the needed spells to make my damage to even compete with melee classes.
I used my ret paladin whos under geared 366 item level. Can easily keep 25k dps np and its not work its fun!
Big word here is fun mage arcane 380 item level it is work…Its not fun.
Cast this cast this cast this buff and that buff ok now cast arcane blast x 3 oh ya then use this and cast that then cast barrage., serious??? Ive been gaming in wow since Vanilla. I came back to play this to see well lets give them 1 more chance. What did they do the same thing they always do, they over think the class.
Add more buttons to smash to get dps where it has to be. No other class has to do all that crap to maximize output its a bad joke. Im not in my 30s anymore hell or my 40s this is straight up work.
Its even worse now. They took that and added more crap to push
I can face roll my keyboard as a paladin and outdps my mage quite easily, Fire is easy to play still but has no real output on damage. Arcane is all about setup and ramp up, fire is crit and instant casts but the damage doesnt ramp. Thats the whole problem with the other 2 specs. Blizzard devs failed at math 101.
Their math is fine against a training dummy that cannot move, has no shields/absorbes, Hots from a druid, silences/ fears, dispells or a brain to use any of those things to cut our damage output to 25% or less.
yea standing still dps is meh
they are way way down on the charts
the problem with arcane is that it doesn’t feel like there’s a fluid design to it. it just got lucky this patch that everything aligns to throw out some insane damage if you literally follow a 30+ step cast sequence, which if you have to move more than a foot or two gets screwed out of its damage.
I know how to make Arcane better. Blizzard needs to reverse the nerf to Arcane Missile damage they did in Beta. They took 26% damage away from it. in fact, reverse all the nerfs they did in beta to all mage classes. That should make mages viable again.
Let’s go with that as the first step. lol
They could give back all the damage they took from pyroblast, frost orb, and some of the talents like the one in the fire tree that made pyroblast only builds viable.
My mage alt, Mistwynd, averages approximately 35k dps with arcane at ilevel 387.
As an alt, my mage has pretty much only done LFR and a couple mythic+ so gear isn’t very good. I have 2-piece bonus and decent trinkets, but nothing else of note.
I gave up on the meta arcane spec. Too complex and requires too strict timing for me to try to execute under pressure. My reflexes aren’t what they were when I was younger and I hate split-second specs that require casting numerous different abilities in a specific sequence. I can play it with a castsequence macro, but it’s not fun and not flexible that way. This is also why I don’t play fire spec.
I use Snapex’s arcane build (no rune of power, harmony, or radiant spark).
- The downside is the damage output when played well is much lower than the meta spec.
- The upside is Snapex’s build is very easy to play and extremely mobile.
- My 35k dps may be crap, but I get about the same number on every single-target fight regardless of how much movement is needed. There are definitely benefits to playing a spec that is forgiving and easy to execute. Especially when you don’t have the reflexes of a hyperactive teenager.
This spec may not be suitable for high-end content, but for an alt doing casual content it’s fine.
That is more than my mage in mythic plus. i barely get 30K at ilv 393. But as for the incanters flow/rune of power debate, Blizz could just get rid of them both and do the final fantasy 14 approach. Where we drop a rune and it does not affect dps but spell casting speeds. Then they can readjust mage damage coefficients.
Did Blizzard secretly mess up arcane recently because it is just not the same anymore.