Why exactly was this removed? Although I preferred it when double dipping was in the game, AV was at least some kind of compromise that lead to pretty good, rhythmic gameplay once you got used to it.
Now the Barrage conditions, especially for Slinger, are even more complex, and Slinger now has no determinative Charge refunders at all. Slinger is now playing around execute and Arcane Harmony, munching Nether Precision stacks for refunds with Missiles, building Charges back up painfully slowly etc. So the outcome of this patch was a less fun, more convoluted spec?
Who was actually asking for the removal of AV? This is probably the worst iteration of Arcane that we’ve ever had, after all that development time…
I believe it was an attempt to make it not complex. It’s basically like any other proc now and intended to just send it when it lights up, rather than to try and hold it for a combo. Sometimes it will line up, other times it won’t. It was replaced with Intuition, that does refund charges, 4 charges every time to my understanding.
Intuition damage bonus increased to 50% (was 20%) and its duration has been reduced to 3 seconds (was 6 seconds).
Developers’ notes: Intuition’s buff duration has been reduced to 6 seconds in an effort to help motivate less min-maxing around its usage and free up some cognitive load. If we feel Intuition is not accomplishing that goal, we will adjust it as necessary.
Aethervision was a garbage talent and heavily disliked by virtually everyone and it had plenty of negative feedback because of it. The bad thing is that they removed it without putting anything else in its place.
The idea behind Aethervision was to simplify the rotation and remove “unintended interactions” (double-dipping) from the gameplay.
The execution of the talent wound up actually making the rotation significantly more complex than it was before. Blizzard had an idea of a simple rotation, but they didn’t seem to consider the possibility that the simpler rotation they were intending wasn’t going to be the best rotation.
To put it simply, when complaints came in about it, someone here posted “Why is everyone complaining? It’s just X-Y-Z for rotation now” and the response was “that’s exactly why it’s bad. It looks like it should be X-Y-Z, but it’s actually not.”
I will admit that there were a lot of things about Aethervision that felt good, but there were a significant amount of unintended consequences that came with it. Part of that was a pretty big changeup in how the hero trees are played. To me, Aethervision makes both hero trees feel really clunky. The old double-dip was smooth and flowed really well. Aethervision starts this weird process of trying to understand when to hold procs, when to munch procs, and when to consume procs that most players simply don’t enjoy.
Yes, we could ignore a lot of that and play the “simple rotation” that Blizzard developed, but then we’ll always be behind the ball in terms of damage output.
Because people couldn’t leave well enough alone…
Aethervision was by no means perfect but it was a solid compromise meant to offer compensation for the removal of the unintended double dipping playstyle. However, the min-max crowd found ways to get around Blizzard’s intended playstyle and the general consensus amongst the content creators who publish build guides was that this incredibly convoluted new rotation relying on a whole suite of WeakAuras to track ABarr usage conditions was optimal. This then lead the majority of Arcane players to try and emulate that new playstyle even though it was incredibly cumbersome and frustrating. Blizzard, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the best way to end this degenerate gameplay loop was to remove all possibilities to game the system and that meant removing Aethervision altogether.
As you can see in their developer notes even they themselves aren’t convinced Intuition will accomplish this (it won’t) but they’re going ahead with it anyway because evidently they can’t come up with a better solution, even though the had months to do so given that this was the second longest .0 patch in the game’s history. Only time will tell if they will be true to their word and actually monitor the situation and make adjustments accordingly. I for one won’t be holding my breath.
The bottom line with Arcane is that it is a hopelessly outdated mess and a jumble of conflicting ideas that needs a complete rework. Until that happens the devs’ half baked fixes will achieve nothing and only force players to try and come up with ever more outlandish ways of making a broken spec work with the limited tools at their disposal. Sadly, this can only end in frustration for everyone involved just as it has in the past.
I think you might be referring to me. I stand by what I said then, it was X-Y-Z, but people chose not to go along with it and to instead needlessly convolute the rotation, sacrificing functionality for performance which was never going to be truly optimal anyway, not least because the spec was nerfed into the ground on top of all the mechanical changes.
That seems to be their philosophy for design in general these days.
I’m not sure I’d go far enough to call it “solid.” I found the “rotation” way more complex and annoying after the first rework in addition to seeing it as very counter-intuitive. In fact, I was often confused on what to do because there were almost TOO many ways to regain charges via barrage and too many times the game seemed to be screaming “Barrage NOW dummy!!!” even when it seemed like it was disadvantageous to do so. We had the cast 6 AB/ABar (can’t keep track of all the new spell/proc names), the tier set and aethervision and my “you have a bonus barrage” button seemed to be constantly lit. I get the rotation and the priority key, but (for example) AB does way more damage during the burn phase than ABar unless it’s execute-phase-buffed but the guides and game all want me to Barrage. Then there’s the wonky interface with Harmony where you’re supposed to save your Barrage for 18 or more stacks, but with the game constantly giving you procs, you rarely got there.
Well the counterintuitive rotation wasn’t the one the devs intended but rather the one that the guide creators came up with to squeeze out a little more damage. It was indeed very confusing and frustrating but submitting to it was a player choice. Imo, the payout was simply not worth the hassle and so I never subjected myself to it. If you played the basic rotation and didn’t try to game the system Aethervision was indeed solid. After the massive baseline nerfs Arcane simply wasn’t a top contender anymore so there was really no point in trying to optimize a poorly performing spec, especially when it meant having to jump through so many hoops.
While the devs certainly made a lot of bad choices in this situation the players also contributed quite heavily in deteriorating it even further. But again, the root of the problem here is that Arcane is simply an outdated spec that needs a complete redesign. Until then these half measures by the devs will only lead to more frustration as the players try to work within those constraints and end up creating an even bigger mess as a result. You can’t fix what’s broken beyond repair.
Good game design happens when a game designer has a vision, and creates their vision.
What you describe is a sailboat with its sail flapping in the wind. It’s directionless.
The “community” will never agree. Someone with vision who really deeply understands the spec needs to go in and make a real rotation.
(or, tbh, they could just roll back to either the beginning of TWW, or the end of DF, and have a great spec)
I can’t count the number of times I’ve posted an opinion in the wow forums and then someone else says “last year you people were asking for the opposite!!!” But -I- wasn’t asking for the opposite, the person is unable to distinguish me as a separate person from the other people on the forums. This is kinda what you’re asking blizzard to do – because people have differing opinions. You can’t please everyone.
There is a lot of truth in what you’re saying but in this particular case the introduction of Aethervision, its subsequent removal, and the recent changes to its replacement, Intuition, were all a direct result of player actions that the devs were actively trying to subvert because they were not intended. I agree that this is no way to design a game and that’s why I proposed a complete rework because anything short of that will lead to the same friction between the competing visions. What the players want out of the spec is simply not possible with the tools currently at our disposal, no matter how many hoops you’re willing to jump through, because Arcane’s toolkit is hopelessly outdated. It lacks synergy and cohesion and even has direct counter synergies with many of its talents which only get more pronounced when the devs try to fiddle with the spec. The only way out of this mess is a massive overhaul.
Blizzard has the absolute final say. They can decide whatever they want to put in the game. They can consider the opinions of us players, but what they do with that is ultimately their responsibility.
Us players are similar to children under the responsibility of a parent in that regard. If my kid goes out and does something really bad, ultimately I am responsible.
The same thing applies here to Blizzard. Since they have full control, if they find players are doing something they don’t want, they can change it. Players will ALWAYS do what is best, numbers-wise.
If blizzard made a spec with only 2 buttons, one button does 1 damage and the other button does 1 million damage. They both cost the same, have the same cooldown, the players will ALWAYS press button 2. they will only press button 1 by mistake. they will not even put button 1 on their bars.
You absolutely cannot expect players to instead use button 1 because it is more ethical. This is a departure from reality.
This may be true. It is in a rough state. But it is absolutely not the fault of the community. It is 100% on Blizzard. They are the adults.
Just want to add to the “Blizzard makes the final call” concept:
Blizzard was told within 24 hours of the introduction of Aethervision that it was going to cause problems in the rotation. I’m not sure if that PTR thread is still around anymore, but someone (whose name I sadly no longer remember) predicted - in Blizzard’s official PTR forums - almost exactly what ended up happening.
That should be the point of betas / PTRs - to identify issues and resolve them before the changes go live. The players in the PTR identified the issue but Blizzard was adamant that this change was what they wanted, despite the players pointing out its flaws.
Blizzard deals the cards. We choose how to play them. If they don’t like how we’re playing the cards, they need to deal us new ones. (Which, to be fair, is exactly what they’re doing. They just keep finding ways to deal progressively worse cards…)
Well clearly not always, I am testament to that, lol.
I understand the point you’re making here but this is a massive exaggeration. The difference in DPS output between the simple rotation intended by the devs and the complex one put together by the content creators was not nearly as vast as you’re suggesting.
Furthermore, if a player’s sole consideration is performance, to the exclusion of everything else, then they had no business continuing to play Arcane after it was nerfed. It’s harsh but it’s the reality they chose to put themselves in when deciding that they want to min-max. And therein lies the problem.
An enormous amount of new players flooded to Arcane at the start of the expansion thinking that it would be one of the top specs, which it was for a time at least, only for Blizzard to then pull the rug out from under them. Those are by and large the people who were upset by the changes and actively tried to get around them only prompting the devs to double down. Not the long time Arcane players who want to see what’s best for the spec, for the most part anyway.
At any rate, there is no point in passing the blame around for this. The fact is that neither Blizzard nor the community at large can get a handle on Arcane’s rotation and find one that is satisfactory for the largest amount of players. Hence why I keep saying we need a rework, nothing short of that will fix these fundamental issues in the long term.
But in general, the people who you say caused this are going to do it. Every time there is an exploit people do a mad dash to take advantage of it. It is what it is. One can either complain that it’s raining out or put on boots and a raincoat.
Agreed, I made it completely simple and massive to avoid it from getting derailed.
I agree, but a lot of the people that played and then swapped have spent time on mage previously and would happily play it if the meta weren’t such a big deal or if mage were better.
I’m an example! I used to be a FOTM chaser somewhat, and I still get a couple of toons geared-ish at the start of a season. However a while back I realized Arcane was the only spec I truly felt at home in and realized I had changed, I was more chasing fun than score.
And I can tell you, when the guides all say play a certain way for max dps, the vast majority of players who participate in group content do exactly that.
I largely agree here as well. One major problem arcane has is that most specs have a couple of viable builds that have a different rotation but the way arcane was streamlined means there really only is the tryhard version of playing, unless one is ok with feeling like they are getting carried when they do group content.
Maybe the trick is to not try to please everyone with one specific rotation but rather give a couple rotation options. I’m willing to bet it comes down to them lacking people.
I avoid using the word “devs” as a pejorative because I know they are a passionate group of people who really want the game to be fun and work hard at it and a great part of this probably comes down to corporate BS that they all have to deal with. learning arcane mage at a high level is uncommon and since it isn’t used much in keys it doesn’t get a lot of attention either (and I’m willing to bet nobody on the blizzard balancing team is a hardcore arcane mage)
