So are they ever going to fix the game-breaking Arcane bugs?

Classes Mage
1

Seriously, it’s ridiculous as this point. The Arcane Charge indicator is STILL constantly desyncing, Cascading Power’s first CC proc is STILL not registering correctly, Mana Adept says it gives you 2% mana back but the tooltip for Arcane Barrage says 1.5% (which is it?), and people are reporting problems with Time Anomaly left and right. On top of that there are a plethora of more minor problems which are still quite significant namely things that are clearly overlooked like Incantation of Swiftness STILL giving Arcane a substantially lower speed bonus even though now all 3 mage specs have access to Greater Invisibility, and Mana Gem not acting like Healthstone. This probably isn’t even a comprehensive list of all the problems and bug either!

And to add insult to injury none of these have been acknowledged by Blizzard even though they have been reported on for weeks and months on end. It’s beyond unacceptable! Like seriously, who put this spec together for DF’s launch, an intern on their first day during their bathroom break!??

At this point just tell us you don’t want us to play Arcane and move on or fix this mess!

21 Likes
2

Yeah it’s really annoying. I have never used weak auras but maybe that would solve the issue? I am going to look into it.

3

Between not getting hardly any communication at all during beta about our awful talent trees, and now seeing all these classes getting bug fixes pushed through every 2 hours while our mess of a class remains untouched, I don’t think a single developer at blizz plays mage

The class is dead

6 Likes
4

idk. See also: combo points, chi, evoker essence, and i think even DK runes break sometimes too.

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Yes, it’s ALL combo point indicators not just Arcane Charges. They totally broke that part of the UI with their revamp. Just like the hundreds of broken talents from the talent trees revamp. The game should never have been released with this many bugs, some of which are enabling people to exploit and cheat while the rest of us have to pay for that because Blizzard have to (1) constantly disable various aspects of the game like loot drops and reputation turn ins while they fix the bugs enabling the exploit; and (2) have no time to fix the slew of other game-breaking bugs like what I listed in my original post.

I have been playing WoW since it launched 18 years ago and I have never seen an expansion launch this utterly broken!

I also don’t like having to use third party software for basic game functionality but there’s no other way around it now. Btw, there is also a WeakAura that restores the old Clearcasting visual cue that they STILL haven’t re-enabled for YEARS now. If you’re going to be looking into these might as well get that one too.

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I was just looking at the mage hub recommended dungeon talents at level 70. I would need to add 4 more spells to my bar lol. I just can’t deal with all this. Maybe I’ll just go back to my Spriest even though it is a button bloated mess as well. Going back to classic is starting to look like a good option as well. Heroic+ is being added.

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If it helps, these are the specs I am currently using. The first is a very simple and easy to manage sustained dps spec. It doesn’t deal with any of the Harmony/Spark/Touch BS. It will do ok dps on a boss fight the longer the fight goes on but for short fights (like leveling) or when you want to solo a rare it’s not great.

Arcane “Simple” spec:

As much as this spec is the way I want to play, it’s not the one I am currently spending most of my time in. This spec does, however, allow you to spend virtually all your time casting Arcane Blast and Arcane Missles. As long as you make judicious use of your Mana Gem and Evocation, you almost never touch Arcane Barrage or drop your stacks unless Temporal Anomaly procs too much Time Warp and not Enough Arcane Surge but that’s very rare. The Impetus talent is the only one I would say is “negotiable”. Since this spec stays at 4 charges all the time, any procs from Impetus result in 10 seconds of 10% more damage which isn’t bad.

This next spec is the one I am using the most right now. It’s far more bursty, but it plays close enough to how I want to play to be acceptable. It’s not exactly what I want to be playing but it’s effective enough without the play style feeling too cumbersome.

Arcane “Bursty” spec:

With this spec, when dealing with bosses or soloing rares, I pre-cast Presence of Mind, open with Arcane Surge, hit my macro that combines Touch of the Magi and use of my Mana Gem, then spam Arcane Missiles until all my clear casts are consumed. Then it’s my two instant Arcane Blasts, and cycling clearcasted Missiles followed by two Blasts (due to Nether Precision). It’s just Arcane Blast spam without clearcasts.

I really don’t want to use Rune of Power, I despise it, but the stacked burst with Arcane Surge is just incomparable to Incanter’s Flow. I don’t hate Touch as much now that it’s instant cast and the missile spam + echo into it with Surge/Rune equals some worthwhile burst without requiring too much “thinking”. You Surge, hit the Touch/Gem macro, Missiles, Missiles, Missiles, Blast, Blast, and after that clearcasts determine what happens next.

Again, the Impetus talent is the only one I would say is “negotiable”, and like the previous spec, I stay at 4 charges virtually all the time, so any procs from Impetus result in 10 seconds of 10% more damage.

I hope this is somewhat helpful.

2 Likes
8

I’ve been doing normal dungeons trying to get gear for heroics and these are the most annoying dungeons I have ever seen. I did skip BFA and SL though so I can’t compare them. A boss fight is basically get RoP up and Surge then there is crap all over the ground and I have to move or I get silenced/stunned and my burst is gone. There are classes easily doing double my damage. I am near the bottom. AoE is pathetic as well with the Barrage cap. Arcane is just bad no matter what talents you take.

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Here’s a fun one.

Arcane Tempo says “Consuming Arcane Charges increases your Haste by 2% for 12 seconds, stacks up to 5 times.”

Poorly worded, but I interpret that to mean that we should get 2% haste per charge spent.

How it ACTUALLY works atm, you get 1 stack of the buff every time you cast Arcane Barrage. You don’t even have to spend charges you can cast it on empty and still get the buff.

4 Likes
10

You shouldn’t need to cast Rune of Power before Surge. If you have Rune talented, casting Surge will drop a free RoP at your feet. The “castable” rune can be used after Surge ends. But yea, there’s a whole lot of moving out of bad in encounters the past several expansions. Getting to stand still and free cast for any significant length of time is a rarity these days.

I’ve been running Mythic 0’s the past few days with similarly geared guildies and I seem to be holding my own as Arcane for now. I’m not saying myself or my guildies are the best players, but we’re all also not the worst either. I know I can’t handle the “proper” arcane spec, but the spec I am using right now works for me.

On some boss fights I even manage to top the meters, but I expect this is more due to the shorter duration of the boss fights than any kind of skillful play on my part. The faster the boss dies, the better I look on the meters. I have no idea how good or bad it will end up looking on a boss fight that lasts 6-10 minutes or more, but I expect to fall way behind.

For now, my current spec let’s me put out enough dps to compete with my peers in M0 content. I wouldn’t expect that to last too long though when factoring in gear scaling, long duration encounters such as heroic/mythic raid bosses ,or high key mythic+ dungeons, but I won’t know for sure until I do any of those… if I do any of those.

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I’ve been playing all day trying to get 342 for heroics and I am getting better. It has a steep learning curve but hopefully I will become more comfortable with it. I am using the entire toolkit. Spark, harmony, shifting power and icy floes. Learning how to use those has made a big difference.

1 Like
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I asked someone in beta if it meant consuming 4 arcane charges grants 4 stacks. They said yes. When I actually tried it in the pre-patch, I died inside when I saw that was not the case at all. Either it is bugged or some people in beta really sucked at actually testing. It is an awful talent.

13

You tell em hunty

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14

It is great to see Mythlos still at it.

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15

That’s exactly what I and probably anyone who has ever played Arcane assumed. It could have been an interesting way to encourage more ABarr casting by somewhat alleviating the debilitating ramp up after dropping Charges but instead it’s just a boring 10% haste maintenance buff that is only ever possible to keep up in an AoE scenario. Even then by the time you get it to 10% the pack of mobs would be dead and the buff will likely fall off before you get to the next one because the duration is so short. Just another example of the shortsighted and lazy design that went into creating most talent trees. It’s an across-the-board problem but Arcane is a particularly egregious case.

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The rotation you should use on boss fights: Evocation before the fight begins, if you don’t have 4 arcane charges cast arcane orbs, if you don’t have 20 stacks of arcane harmony cast missiles.

Radiant spark, Blast, blast, blast (3 stacks of spark now). Cast Surge, then cast barrage and touch of the magi right after (your barrage will be in the air when you cast touch).

I usually get 2 to 3 clearcasted missiles in touch, along with 2 PoMd blasts now that my haste is higher. Try to finish your Touch window with an arcane barrage.

After touch fades cast cast shifting power. You’re now setting up for your next combo of radiant spark into RoP into barrage+touch. After that your evocation will be back up and you can repeat.

GL! I’ve found myself always at the top of the meter this expansion, feels SO good!

1 Like
17

well at least for dungeons shadow priest does not have that many buttons.

18

nice rotation, I was always using surge at the start, will try yours as it sounds better, btw, are you using nether tempest?

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Yep that’s exactly what my rotation is. It’s all starting to click now. I’m top damage on most boss fights. I’ve noticed that frost mages are doing good dps as well. They’re definitely beating me on trash AoE and very close on ST.

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You want Surge to get the 30% buff from Spark and Barrage to get the 40%. Totm is used to refill charges. If you choose mana gem over harmony, you can macro it with totm and start pumping CC missiles. I know your question wasn’t directed at me but I don’t use NT. Not worth another button imo.