Shadowlands Arcane Mage NEEDS some changes

Classes Mage
1

Hey all,

Hope Blizz and its developers get to read this, as I personally think the Arcane Mages won’t be competitive in SL even with the upcoming changes, just like the whole BFA expansion, as they don’t address the deep issues of the class.

Here’s why:

  • Single target damage during conserve phase (most of the time considering the nerf on AP) won’t challenge fire/destro/others spec one. Adding ‘Enlightened’ which gives 8% more damage won’t ever be close to the damage than Fire’s rotation full of crits and ignite can provide. Making TotM an ability won’t do as well, it has like 45s CD and GCD.

  • AoE is boring, clunky, mana inefficient and low in damage compared to the other classes, even buffing it with 10% increase. Do you seriously think that the clunky rotation of ‘AEx3 + ABlast + ABarrage’ with this buff (plus all the mana drain) challenges ‘meteor+insta-flamestrikes+ignite spread’? or ‘cataclism immolation spread’+hellfire?

  • Arcane mages have (and will have) to pop like 6 GCDs to start doing damage with the optimal talents build i.e. ‘RoP+TotM+Charged UP+Mirror Images+AP’ (disregarding the current essence use and the future covenant abilities). You can’t just make all of the CDs be GCDs, it just doesn’t feel right, makes you lose a lot of DPS and its clunky.

HOW TO SOLVE THE SINGLE TARGET DAMAGE ISSUE?

  • Make mana management more rewarding than 8% damage increase
  • Buff arcane missiles damage or make it proc some buff when used, so it is worth casting it, because right now it is better to just spam AB.
  • Remove at least one of the GCDs so the CDs are really instant. AP would be a good target for this.

HOW TO SOLVE THE AOE DAMAGE ISSUE?

  • Make Rule of Threes talent consider AE too to deal with the mana inefficiency
  • Make Arcane Orb baseline to deal with the boring AoE rotation and low damage

As a general rule, please deeply test the class and compare the AoE and single target meters with the rest of the classes in simulations of 5 minutes at least, to go through the conserve phase and all.

Arcane mages are supposed to be the most powerful such as Medivh or Khadgar, not the alt class to do quests…I think the 3 specs of the mage should be viable and competitive, not just fire.

Regards.

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