WCL rank 1 arcane mage on why arcane is "weak"

Classes Mage
1

Hi Blizzard,

As you know, arcane mages are suffering at the moment. As one of the highest level arcane players, I want to share my thoughts on why this spec “sucks”.
First of all, I got to say that arcane can be as good as fire, but the cost is huge. You need to practice a lot more than fire mages and your dps requires perfect execution. For example, I was rank 2 among all classes on sludgefist, with a 8930 dps. You might not believe it, I practiced this boss for over 400 times. I had to plan every single global cooldown, even gcds before pull. Everything has to be exact. This is not something that ordinary players can do. And in my opinion, this makes arcane fun for skilled players, but it sucks for ordinary players. If you don’t plan everything, you suck. Meanwhile, fire mages just need to press combustion. To be honest, I like how arcane works at this moment. However, if you want to help most people out, something has to be done. For example, maybe add a new legendary that reduces the cooldown of arcane power to 100 seconds? This significantly lowers the difficulty of arcane, since it makes cooldown management way easier. We all know that arcane only has three legendaries. It would be good to have another choice.
RNG also plays a very crucial role here. As a fire mage, you do exactly the same amount of damage during every combustion. On the other hand, arcane relies on crits and clearcast procs. I don’t think this is a balancing issue, but it makes people feel very bad if they don’t have procs. Therefore, I suggest a new ability that extends the duration of clearcast, or an ability that gives you an extra charge of clearcast. Or just simply increase the base duration of clearcast by 5 seconds, it makes a huge difference. The extra 5 seconds means you can start building your clearcast charges earlier without worrying about losing them before the burn phase.
Maybe arcane is gonna be good in the next patch, when we have more secondary stats (especially mastery). Maybe this is the reason you don’t want to buff arcane?
Something has to be done, but please don’t rework arcane. It is an amazing spec. It just need a few changes that make it playable for most people. Trust me, increasing the duration of clearcast makes a huge difference. And this change doesn’t directly increase your dps. It gives you more control.
Here is the sludgefist video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-mB20OA9KE
Edit: the new legendary I suggested might be too strong. But something that helps cooldown management is needed.

15 Likes
2

Thank you for sharing! I agree with your views

Its taken a few threads to gather up that the focal points are not being in direct control of the execution of dps. What I mean by this is, not being in control of procs, in harmony with cds. They wouldn’t have to rework arcane with a few key changes, specifically just take a page from Fire’s notebook and copy some mechanics, such as being able to manipulate rng in your favor. Just like fireblast gives you a free crit, we can have spells either generate clearcast or tip the clearcast generation more favorably. I’ve had some very light change ideas that would work immediately to account for these factors, without having to overhaul the spec:

Arcane barrage cast at 4 charges will always generate 1 clearcast charge
Arcane explosion has X% additional chance to generate clearcast charges (pref 30-50%)
Arcane orb clearcast generation shifted to damage (as opposed to the cast), with 10% additional chance to generate clearcast, per target hit.
When Alter Time ends, clearcast charges on the mage will refresh in duration.

These are just a few abilities that can be used tactically to help generate clearcasts more predictably with some clearcast maintanence thrown in.

3

Likely need to increase the proc chance of clearcast as well. Or make POM give clearcasting so we don’t need to fish for CC procs prior to bursting.

4

Ive been Arcane since the game launched- here are my thoughts <3

we have 1 school of magic - Decrease the duration of silence effects on us

Currently Every defensive we have can be purged - can we fix that ?

Slow should automatically apply with Arcane Blast

Spellsteal- should be able to STEAL ANY SPELL/ buff or totem cast in the last 2 seconds

I understand Mirror Image is a defensive but they should still do some decent dps -_-

Arcane Orb Should slow all enemies with Chance to stun - not unlike Earthquake

POM should Work on ANY spell like it used too

Remove “Travel time” of Arcane Barrage

            or

If the Target Dies before Arcane Barrage lands it will

A- Hop to the Next Closest Target
B- Refund the 4 Arcane Charges

Arcane Missiles

If the Target dies before the channel finishes it will
A- Hop to the next closest target
B- Refund the “Clearcasting” consumed

Increase the amount of mana refunded though a Mana gem to 50% or remove the cooldown

Allow mages to Set their OWN destinations for a Portal
24hr- 48hr Cooldown on changing the location

Extend the Duration of Mass Invisibility to 5 Sec from 3 Seconds

Rework Arcane Explosion to be instant-cast at a distance for 4 ticks

New Spells- maybe one of these!

Chrono Stasis
Stuns Target 3 Seconds and Prevents all healing for 3 seconds
Instant Cast
4 Min CD
cooldown reduced per Arcane blast

Arcane Push Similar to Typhoon - Knockback players with wave of Arcane Magic.

Masterful Polymorph
(NO longer Heals Opponent)

Invocation of Aluneth : Levitate, Tearing space time, Decimating the area with Arcane Meteors for 15 seconds
Slows all targets in the area by 60% for 5 seconds
Channeled cast
5 Min CD
Depletes ALL MANA!!!

Conjure- Arcane Elemental- Conjures an Arcane Elemental that lasts 1min, 10% chance of Stun the enemy for 2 sec and Provide 40% Damage Reduction after the stun fades for 4 Seconds

Arcane Resurrection- Battle rez within ONLY Within 10 seconds of death by using a sequence of spells with the player targeted -like mad wizards scroll.

COSMETICS
Glyph of Levicorpus/ Suspended Animation)
Arcane Levitation (Mount to fly with casting animation)
Glyph of Chrono stasis Replaces Frost Nova (roots with arcane look)
Glyph of Mass Polymorph …Replaces Frost Nova
Glyph of Arcane Burst Replaces Fire Blast

5

Hi Apmbillion,

To improve my own arcane gameplay, I’d like to review your armory to see what you wear as arcane for raiding. I noticed you logged out in frost spec.

Would it be possible for you to log out in arcane spec with your raiding gear on?

Thanks!

1 Like
6

I am just curious, what other spell would you use it on? Literally the only other spell it could effect would be Polymorph (and I guess Frostbolt now but why would you ever use it on that instead of AB).

PoM working on any spell made sense back in the day when every mage spec had access to spells from every other spec and we had talent trees instead of tiers but that’s obviously not the case any more. Also remember that back then it only worked on one spell. I would argue that the current iteration of PoM is just about the only decent change they’ve made.

1 Like
7

Just logged out in arcane gear. However, my gear (crit/mastery) is for arcane harmony and temporal warp. For arcane bombardment, you want crit and haste. And night fae is the best choice for most raid bosses. I am just trying kyrian for fun.

2 Likes
8

I think POM should work similarly to Thunder Focus Tea. Give us several options to empower a few spells.

1 Like
9

That’s different, I like it. Could be interesting if for example they let us choose between instant ABs or CC procs. That way it would be useful in an AoE situation as well.

10

He’s right. Arcane is much more difficult than Fire to pull off. You can be mediocre with Fire and still do good DPS. You don’t have that option with Arcane.

11

intresting opinion, but i think leaving it open to player discretion is best, weather it be for a quick mana gem or, food, poly wile invis… portals, umm thats all i can think of, its really more about the agency to do what you want