I’ll start this off by admitting Ive only played TWW pre-patch for a single day. I have, however, mained arcane mage since the start of Legion. (Mainly in PvP, so I’ll keep most of my criticism relative to that)
Some of my criticisms took place in Dragonflight, others are new to The War Within.
Firstly, the uniqueness of Arcane has been completely diminished. Arcane had a few unique aspects to it that made it more interesting to play when compared to Fire or Frost.
- Mass Invis
- Chrono Shift
- Greater Invis
- Displacement
- Time Anomaly
Every single thing listed here is now in the generic mage class tree, apart from Chrono Shift which to my knowledge has been completely removed.
This is beyond disappointing to me, arcane has one major weakness compared to the other two specs, being that your main CC is on the same school of your damage. Ill admit they’ve added some options like Ring of Frost or DB to use, but neither are as impactful as still being able to Sheep after being interrupted on damage.
Arcane was always the quick, sneaky, mobile annoying caster. With the removal of chrono shift, we not only lost the Arcane Barrage slow debuff, but also the movement speed gain. In a reality where both DHs and Dragons exist, as well as all melee having infinite mobility, I genuinely dont understand the thought process of removing Arcane’s.
Mass invis requires a talent and pvp talent to be impactful and even then is nerfed compared to its original form where you could get one cast off.
So whats special about arcane anymore? Its just about the type of damage you deal now?
One more thing I’ll add about being disappointed about is that you can no longer cast missiles without a proc. This was an amazing way to bait kicks and now thats also been removed. Time to hard cast some arcane blasts!