Just what the title says. There are three contenders: (1) Temporal Warp; (2) Arcane Harmony; and (3) Arcane Bombardment. I should note that currently only the first two are available to obtain with Arcane Bombardment locked behind the Torghast rotation as it only drops from the final floor boss in Skoldus Hall layers 3+. This may or may not be available next week and since you will be crazy not to craft a legendary right away it could be out of contention.
Temporal Warp is theoretically the best but that’s misleading because it relies on your group using hero at the start of a fight when you can line it up with all of your other cooldowns and when you can reliably expect not to have to deal with any boss mechanics that might disrupt your initial burn phase. And of course that there is another person besides you who can hero. This shouldn’t be an issue in a raid (although it could be) but may well be a problem in a dungeon run since Time Warp is virtually the only utility an Arcane mage brings to a group. Additionally, the item is absolutely useless in solo content of which there will be a lot in this expansion, Torghast most notably.
Arcane Harmony used to be the best but then it got nerfed, then nerfed again, and after that nerfed some more so now it’s not BiS for either single target or AoE and not the preferred legendary for raids or M+ (Temporal Warp being the preferred raid legendary and Arcane Bombardment the M+). That said it is still very close behind both of the others, in some cases as low as 1-3% and in a few even comes ahead in single target and sustained cleave although the latter is not something Arcane excels at anyway.
Then we have Arcane Bombardment which, unlike the other two, requires no setup beyond getting 4 Arcane Charges and is very reliable for single target while being the best for AoE. Not to mention that it gives Arcane an execute which its never had (aside from the window of about a few weeks in BfA when the Azerite trait on which this legendary is based was viable). Of the three it is probably the most well rounded legendary and usable in all types of content. Which will make it all the more vexing if it continues to be unobtainable going into next week.
So with all that in mind what do you guys think? Personally I am leaning more towards Arcane Harmony with all things considered and the uncertainty around the availability of Arcane Bombardment. Temporal Warp falls by the wayside for me because while extremely powerful the scenarios where it can truly shine are limited. If it gave you a separate ability that only affected you and wasn’t on a 5 minute cooldown it would be another story entirely.
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I believe the temporal warp one is a bit different from the legion one. As I understand it, You could get double time warp to stack this time. As in you get someone else heroism for 40% haste and then you time warp for another 40% haste.
So you can just use it anytime your raid team does not just at the start to get 2 time warps unlike in legion. The only condition is to have another person hero.
I kinda worry about mana though if that’s the case.
Oh I know it works differently than it did in Legion. My point was that if the group decides to use it later on in a boss fight it’s power inevitably diminishes because of a host of other factors that could be in play by then, such as the state of your cooldowns and the mayhem which often ensues in later boss phases. And let’s face it you could also be dead by then. The other two legendaries, Arcane Harmony in particular, would have contributed a lot of overall damage on the front end of a fight whereas if hero is held back for a final 20% burn or something like that you may not be able to take full advantage of Temporal Warp. I think all of those real life, so to speak, situations need to be taken into account rather the ideal conditions which sims assume and that rarely play out in reality. And of course my point about it being absolutely useless in solo content and dubiously useful in M+ stands.
I’m personally going to go with Arcane Harmony for raid and Arcane Bombardment for M+ possibly. I really do feel that while Temporal Warp may seem better in sims its not going to have perfect timing once really used. Any time that I may be the only one with lust are possible or that a fight might require waiting till later in the fight to use it might decrees its usefulness a bit.
While Arcane Harmony might have been nerfed heavily its still looking like a really close call as a BiS item. I find myself still using AM a lot of the time in M0 right now as opposed to AB just due to constant movement affecting cast times as well with my change to overall dps not being much different, and some buffed up Barrage shots might even out the numbers there to but will have to wait and see on that one imo.
Finally I feel that Arcane Bombardment will work out better in M+ due to a higher amount a uses than Arcane Harmony in faster paced runs. The build up needed to make Harmony shine will not be as common in M+.
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I would say it depends on what sorta content you want to primarily focus on to start. if its raiding, then I would go with temporal warp, since you will “almost” always have someone else to lust for you, letting you take advantage of it.
if your primary focus is going to be on M+ then i would go with arcane bombardment, since week 1 is going to be fortified so you will want the BIS for aoe, especially since thats the week you are going to want to push hardest and your gear is going to be the weakest. by the time week 2 tyrannical rolls around you will have more gear and that first weekly chest under your belt making it not “quite” as important to have your BIS. (this is assuming skoldus halls comes up by then, which it “should” even if you have to run it that same week)
now if you are wanting to split your attention between both, then i’d say go for arcane harmony, since it will still perform “okay” against raid bosses, but isn’t going to be useless in m+ (this is the option i’m probably gonna go with… if i get get it to F&$*ing drop.)
as for pvp… I have absolutely no clue, i’m not a pvper.
ultimately though, its looking like we will probably want to get all 3 “eventually” (i just hope soul ash ends up being abundant enough that it doesn’t hinder us TOO much in keeping up our legendary levels)
Yeah I am leaning that way too. Btw, you can farm for memories that drop from dungeon bosses on normal. That’s how I got mine to drop. It didn’t drop on mythic and didn’t drop from any of the heroic last but finally dropped from the first normal run I did.
yeah, thats my plan for whenever I decide to hate myself enough and grind it out.
I’ll be going Harmony first. It’s the most generally versatile of the big 3 as far as having one good for both raids and dungeons.
I like that it changes the AoE rotation a bit so less time in melee just spamming Explosion. Also good that it buffs cleave a bit (which is the best it’s ever been for Arcane but still not as good as Frost or Fire).
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Yeah and it makes Arcane Echo more viable for AoE which is a bonus because I love the visual.
P.S. Replying to you is weird, I feel like I am talking to myself. 
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lol. Love this mog … though I was playing around with a few new ones on the weekend.
Quick question about Harmony, so would you just be throwing out more barrages than usual on a boss then? So far on most M0 bosses I don’t even get to a point where I need to worry about a conserve phase. I usually run with friends and the bosses have just been melting. Would it just be casing AM without Clearcasting until you get the 30 stacks and then barrage, and then having to build up stacks again even in burn phase? Or just using the Clearcasted Missiles for it?
So that you aren’t wasting Harmony stacks. Would the barrage buff make up for having to rebuild Blast stacks all over again?
Sorry I’ve been so set on Bombardment that I haven’t even thought about how Harmony would be used.
I am currently using temporal warp as night fae. I spam shifting power on cd, only 1 min. The cd reduction for all my abilities is pretty impressive and yes it effects temporal warp. Pretty much getting temporal warp to a 3min cd, roughly. I can cast lust quite a few times in a dungeon run. I have it available for all boss fights and big trash pulls. I do benefit from double lusting, and I can tell you as arcane it devours mana. I like it. The legendary also benefits from working with all specs. I have yet to try the other two specs.
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It’s 15 stacks now so two fully channeled clearcast AMs will generate the max number of stacks. You definitely don’t want to use it every time especially not during the burn phase. You still want to burn through your entire mana bar at the start and then use Evocate like you would normally. Right now CC procs are so infrequent you probably won’t get more than 2-3 anyway. At this point you want to ABarr when you can regain your charged back immediately with TotM and when AO is ready. Arcane Harmony is more of a buff to your conserve phase than your burn phase. And of course for AoE you will use your CC procs on AMs to power your ABarr instead of spending it on AE.
As a point of reference at full Arcane Harmony stacks with ~180 ilvl ABarr crits for around 12k and that’s without Resonance.
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Hit 37.5k crit with AP/ROP/Enlightened/Resonance/Pelagos/RSx4 on ST lol
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Pelagos!? You betrayed Lady Moonberry and went with the angel edgelords!? cue GoT shame nun
I was talking about a completely unbuffed hit. If only they gave Resonance some sexy visual I’d use it more often, but alas. LOL
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I’m going with Bombardment so I’m kinda glad its not available yet, I’ve been taking my time with Torghast so I don’t feel I have to rush through it to get my legendary.
Temporal Warp just seems like a no brainier all around good legendary for every spec in PVE. Especially for a Night Fae mage (which is obviously the best choice at this moment).
In raids having a second bloodlust every boss will be the best for any spec. Additionally, which I don’t see anyone talking about is the M+ value. You have a bloodlust every 5min. That’s pretty much 3 to 4 per dungeon and pretty one per boss. Very powerful stuff.
I of course went Firestorm first because I really wanted to try this one, and so far it has just been amazingly fun.
@Kylasi With shifting power ability from night fae you have bloodlust every 3mins not 5mins. That is without the shifting power conduit as well which adds another 5secs in reduction time when the power is used.
Another thing I do not see mention in regards to double lusting. Could you theoretically cast Drums for the party and then lust for yourself to get the double bonus? I haven’t tried it, but I can see that working in a dungeon situation.
Drums were substantially nerfed with this expansion so you would be gimping the rest of your group and the overall DPS for the run. Also, if you’re constantly casting Time Warp for yourself on cooldown you run the risk of not having it up when the rest of your group loses the debuff which will again severely tank the overall DPS and may even lead to not timing a key. It really is a legendary best suited for a raid environment not to mention that purely number wise it sims horribly for AoE and as we all know M+ is one big AoE fest. It’s a great legendary but it’s also kinda the most selfish one and requires a lot of coordination and your entire group working around it which obviously isn’t ideal unless you only run with a dedicated group and never PuG. Lastly, a 3-5 minute cooldown means that it will be up at the most random times and very unlikely to line up with every boss pull and keep in mind that it’s a whopping 40 second duration which also means it will last way longer than a trash pull so if you pop it then a good chunk of it will be wasted while moving on to the next. And none of this is even addressing the massive toll on mana that this will be, something that is already a struggle for Arcane in M+.