The reason being that in WoW, the payoff for arcane is doing mediocre instead of terribad DPS. More complex playstyles that require a lot of skill to execute should come with a reward.
I’m not doubting you but just looking at the rotation for Arcane it doesn’t seem super complex. Am I missing something with the rotation? Just want to understand the specs better!
The rotation itself isn’t, but generally with arcane you want trinkets with temporary int buffs, and at the beginning of a burn phase with AP you want to pop everything (POM, RoP, the trinkets) and squeeze out as many ABs as you can. That’s a lot of buttons to press just to pull off the pinnacle of your DPS rotation.
Arcane hits for nothing outside of burn phase, and not much in it, so you’re trying to squeeze everything you can out of temporary power you can get during an AP window.
Ah! Ok, thanks 
But, arcane used to be somewhat similar with maintaining buffs and pumping huge damage, which only really lasted in WoD, but it worked. Not so much now though.
O I barely missed that iteration. That’s too bad.
Out of curiosity, what is it you enjoy about RoP?
- Is it the damage output it allows for, and would you still run it “because it’s fun” if it was nerfed to a 20% increase? 15%?
- What do you feel that RoP brings to Mage that wouldn’t be better handled by any other spell type (for example another dps spell to weave into your rotation)?
- How do feel about general % damage increases, cooldown stacking and how would you feel if they just outright removed that talent row with 10.0 and baked that damage into baseline?
Mmmhmm. WoD Arcane is the only time I really enjoyed the spec. It had its moments in Cata/MoP too but let’s not lie and pretend it wasn’t basically just AB spam, or NT spam for AoE in MoP. Amazingly, despite the hate it got WoD had decent retention all things considered outside of the Blizzard flight decision and susequent sub losses. It lacked content, and yet most players were having fun because the specs were actually great to play.
Here’s hoping that 10.0 looks into what made previous expansions work and what didn’t. They’re already doing away with borrowed power and dozens of systems (so they claim). All that’s really missing is the realisation that fun gameplay and fun specs is what keeps a lot of players engaged, not having 100 things they “have” to do each week to stay afloat.
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State of mage? Average to low at best.
You will usually see mages in the center, sometimes 1 spec will creep into top 5 for a bit, then people cry and they get nerved. You will always see 1 or more mage specs in the gutter. With 29% class balance, it is unfortunately the world we live in today.
Something to play around/think about. It requires some positional planning rather than just lining up cooldowns, which we’re doing regardlesss.
No I wouldn’t pick it just for fun. If IF simmed even slightly better for a given spec I’ll take it.
The positional awareness mentioned above. I wouldn’t be mad at all if it were just another dps cooldown, I’m not dying on this hill or anything, but it does require an additional layer of planning sometimes. And the current alternative is a passive which is incredibly boring.
I enjoy cooldown stacking, lining things up and seeing a big payoff is nice. I don’t think I would enjoy an even flatter damage profile than frost already has for example. And if fire/arcane became less bursty I don’t know that I’d enjoy that either.
There are limits though. Right now kyrian arcane feels like maybe one button too many to setup, idk. The payoff is still nice. But it can be frustrating if you have to press too many buttons before you get to start doing damage.
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Mage has pretty much always been relevant in every form of content. Raids, dungeons, or PVP. They may not always have been the top specs, but they almost always are, and they are always brought.
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I think mage is fun to play. Ive been fire for a long time (I miss Frostfire!!), and Ive always enjoyed the fact that my burst damage can blow through mobs in PvE while Im questing. I feel like Ive been able to solo rares fairly early into an expansion/patch as well. Learning the rotation for your setup just right and then pulling it off smoothly in a longer fight always feels good.
Utility wise, I like that I can port myself around in seconds (really hate not having that ability on my mules). Mana buns are fun to hand out, and I’m a big fan of liberally giving out Intel buffs and anyone and everyone. Lust is also a bonus.
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