Again, the vastly simpler solution here is to buff the CC proc’s damage, and leave the baseline alone. A more elegant solution which does not affect casuals so badly.
Yes we can agree on this.
I can agree with this too, though I think right now it is exacerbated by aethervision and very short-lived buffs like arcane tempo. I often feel like there isn’t enough time for all of the buttons I need to press, and I have 37% haste right now
I disagree here, casting missiles was way faster than building up arcane charges, for smaller mobs. It was the bread and butter ability for fighting a non-elite etc 1 on 1
I guess I don’t count as a part of everyone.
One could argue that they then would have an issue with aether attunement. In the key I just ran missiles was my 2nd highest damaging spell and that’s basically all from aether attunement
There must be a technical reason why they can’t do it or they would have done it for all channeled abilities. Perhaps the fact that there are talents that further augment AM by increasing the number of missiles and changing it would make the animation look weird? I am just guessing here but it’s usually the case that if the easiest and most obvious solution isn’t implemented there is something in the way, hopefully it’s not stupidity, lol.
This so much. Magi’s Spark is such a fun spell and cool down, but it doesn’t even work properly. It doesn’t even count the full volley of missiles, only the very first hit.
Yet, I’ve brought this up so many times in bug report, mage forums, and no one cares. Why? Ugh.
Biggest issue with getting attention on Arcane’s pain points is that it hasn’t been a popular spec for years due to the vicious design cycle it sat under.
Spec is good → spec gets changed or nerfed → people quit playing it → spec gets less attention because people don’t play it → people quit playing it
And so on.
Launch of TWW broke the cycle temporarily with Arcane not being just generally inferior to Fire or Frost, and the rest of the playerbase apparently decided that Arcane doesn’t get to be top for one season.
Kinda funny to see this, you are literally the first person I have heard say that they like where Arcane is right now.
People were really excited at the beginning of the season but I would say generally do not appreciate the more recent changes.
For me, watching all of my buffs roll off in between packs in a key is no fun. Stuff dies so fast in keys, then the buffs expire so fast, it’s really frustrating
I definitely like where Arcane is compared to past expansions, but I much preferred where it was in 11.0 compared to now. The removal of the double dipping, addition of Aethervision and the heavy-handed nerfs were all unnecessary.
I’d say it was pretty decently designed on 11.0 launch. Blizzard didn’t just throw nerfs at it, Blizzard changed some functions of the spec as this season wore on. It’s not quite 11.0 Arcane now.
I still enjoy the gameplay but the latest tuning feels really bad. I actually prefer spellslinger, so that was a good change, but the arcane blast/barrage nerf was way too heavy-handed
The other bit about arcane that feels weird design-wise is that it is an entirely proc-based rotation and to see the procs, you really need an addon like weakauras to track them. Clizzard doesn’t have an effective way to whitelist/blacklist buffs in the default UI, or move the proc locations, or customize them in any way.
So, essentially, they’ve made a spec that to play well completely relies on an addon. This is what the spec is balanced on.
Yet they said they wanted to move away from addons being necessary and made some auras like magi’s spark private. They do have graphical indicators for some of this stuff but it is very hard to see when a lot of spells are going off. Weakauras or something similar is essentially required.
I would prefer that they not make the auras private/hidden personally. But I also think someone who doesn’t want to use addons shouldn’t feel like they need them. Having both options is good
And this is exactly why the base game UI is trash. The game has relied on third party software and addons to make it playable for years now and the devs are content to let others handle it for them. Those of us who have been around forever know how to deal with it but can you imagine a new player or someone who just doesn’t use addons for whatever reason? The game’s base UI is completely inadequate and can’t track buffs or even many basic procs. No other game could get away with that but WoW, lol.
I don’t disagree and I wish for Blizzard to improve their UI all the time even though it’s never going to allow the level of customization that AddOns do.
So, can all of you confirm something I’ve suspected for a while now post-nerfs? If you don’t have the god-tier trinket of godliness aka spymaster’s, arcane is pretty weak now?
