Oh look - Another mage with an opinion!
Hey everyone - since we’ve been filling up the mage forums with wishlists and ideas, I thought I’d add my 2 cents to the mix (instead of just hijacking other peoples’ threads). Arcane is my favorite of all the WoW specs, and with Dragonflight approaching, I wanted to talk about a few things.
My main wish, no matter what happens, is to have choices to make. I don’t want rows of dead talents. I don’t want 1 cookie cutter build that does everything, all the time. When we put down a codex in raid, I want there to be a reason for me to want to swap to a different build based on the fight. That’s my wish. A rework could be nice, but just having access to choice will make me a happy mage.
I wanted to do things a little bit differently here. Instead of poking around at all the spells and abilities our spec currently has access to and what we think we want, I want to look specifically at the borrowed powers that have come and gone over the years. I’ve often felt like Blizzard has gotten half-way to making an amazing spec out of arcane, but they always stop before it’s really finished. With the new talent trees coming up, I think it’d be a good idea to take a look at the powers we’ve seen throughout the years. There are a LOT of spells and abilities floating around in the Nether that we could use to cobble together some really interesting playstyles - using ONLY things that have already been put into the game!
I don’t want this post to turn into a book (listen, it’s already a book, I’m sorry I lied to you), so I may not explain my reasoning in great detail for all of them. I’m trying to avoid looking at current talents and spells (as there are already like 8 posts about those) but I did include covenant spells. I also tried to genericize their numbers (like damage and percentages) since numbers can be changed, but playstyles and effects are pretty locked in. I’ve divided them into three catgories: powers I want to see again, powers I don’t want to see again, and powers that you could probably convince me to be okay with.
I tried to get everything I could between Shadowlands, Battle for Azeroth, and Legion, but I probably missed something here or there. Feel free to fill in the gaps in my knowledge / research and feel free to mention things that were older (like Glyph of Evocation). Also, I excluded anything that was just “Increases X by Y% damage” or “Reduces X’s cooldown by Y seconds” because I don’t think they’re worth discussing right now. Spells that buff damage or reduce cooldowns because you did something else were included because they’re much more interesting than just “It happens more.” Once we get a first pass at the trees, we can talk about balancing with CD reduction and damage increases.
I’m also not going to attempt to decide whether certain utilities should be in the general tree or just the arcane tree. For right now, it’s just “Do I want to see this? Yes/No/Maybe.”
Powers I would like to see again:
Radiant Spark and Arcane Harmony
Conjure a radiant spark that causes X Arcane damage instantly, and an additional Y damage over 10 sec. The target takes Z% increased damage from your direct damage spells, stacking each time they are struck. This effect ends after 4 spells.
Each time Arcane Missiles hits an enemy, the damage of your next Arcane Barrage is increased by X%. This effect stacks up to 18 times
This is the current meta (at least in raid / M+, as far as I can tell). I think it’s a lot of fun, and I thoroughly enjoy it. However, I don’t want it to be the only choice, just a choice. I would like to see the base damage of the spark either removed or buffed, since it’s pretty negligible at the moment.
Shifting Power and Heart of the Fae
Draw power from the ground beneath, dealing X Nature damage over 4 sec to enemies within 18 yds. While channeling, your Mage ability cooldowns are reduced by Y sec over 4 sec
Shifting Power can be channeled while moving. Each enemy hit by Shifting Power grants you X% Critical Strike and Haste, up to Y% for 15 sec
(Alternatively, remove Heart of the Fae and put the movement ability on Slipstream)
This is the cooldown reduction for Arcane that I like. It does everything all at once. I think there’s a good place for this among our abilities, as long as we change the damage type to something that fits our damage types better.
Nether Precision
Consuming Clearcasting increases the damage of your next 2 Arcane Blasts by X%
This was honestly what I was most excited for coming into SL before they nerfed it. It offers variation in our rotation and may help us deal with the “Not enough missiles for TotM” issue and does just enough to shake up our old rotation. The big thing about this conduit compared to our current playstle is that it prompts us to not try to bank Clearcasting stacks, which is one of our biggest complaints.
Cryo-Freeze
While inside Ice Block, you heal for X% of your maximum health over the duration
I cancel most of my Ice Blocks immediately, but there’s definitely a use-case for “Oh no, my healer is dead or preoccupied! Let me just sit for a few seconds to help them out”
Diverted Energy
Your barriers heal you for X% of the damage absorbed
HEALING! We can HEAL! Sort of… But I like being able to heal!
Tempest Barrier (/Belo'Vir's Final Stand) / Cauterizing Blink
Gain a shield that absorbs X% of your maximum health for 15 seconds after you blink
Activating Blink heals you for X% of your maximum health over 5 sec
Both provide a nice heal / shield utility, but I don’t want to get both. I think that’d be too much. I’d lean more into the Tempest Barrier as mages are more shield-oriented than heal-oriented. If we also get Diverted Energy, it’d be some good synergy. But I could see this being a choice node.
Incantation of Swiftness
Greater Invisibility increases your movement speed by X% for 6 sec
Maybe just… more movement speed for arcane? Something actually noticeable perhaps? It’s a nice bit of utility that could fill out a talent slot without feeling clunky. Outside of PvP I’m not sure I’ve ever used this, not because I didn’t like it, but because the bonus speed just never felt like enough to warrant blowing such a powerful defensive.
Arcane Bombardment / Arcane Pressure
Arcane Barrage deals an additional X% damage against targets below 35% health
Arcane Barrage deals an additional X damage per charge against targets below 35% health
As long as we cannot stack it with Arcane Harmony. It’d be way too strong and would get things nerfed pretty quickly. As it stands now, one is a 130% damage increase and the other is a 144% damage increase. A 274% damage increase as an execute, while juicy, would not be healthy.
Rule of Threes (as it was in Legion)
33% chance to cast 3 extra Arcane Missiles
If we get Arcane Prodigy back, this is an immediate no go. It’d be WAY too much RNG attached to our Clearcasting. If we don’t get that back, this would pair nicely with things like Arcane Pummeling and provide a Missiles-Centric playstyle that has a little bit more RNG involved (but not too much) for those who like to roll the dice a bit more.
Everywhere at Once
Increases the window to activate displacement by X sec and reduces the cooldown of Displacement by Y sec
This is honestly just my plug to bring Displacement back. We don’t really need this talent if get displacement, but I want displacement back. Please bring it back.
Time and Space
When you cast Arcane Explosion, Aluneth will echo the Arcane Explosion for X% of its damage, at the location of your previous Arcane Explosion cast within 6 seconds
Provides a bit more oomph to our Aoe, but also requires us to use just 1 extra brain cell while running around in melee trying to not die. And it’s just a nice little flavor as the “Master of Time and Space” class.
Runebound Regalia - Tier 21 (Antorus)
2 set - Each Arcane Charge you spend increases your damage dealt by X% for 8 seconds
4 set - When you generate an Arcane charge, you have an X% chance to increase your haste by Y% for 6 seconds)
These two tier bonuses make our arcane charges a more interesting toy to play with. It may help prompt some variations in rotation based more around building and spending faster rather than burning and conserving / Radiant Sparking like we currently do. I think we sorely lack interactions with our Arcane Charges and this could be a nice way to fix that.
Rhonin's Assaulting Armwraps
Arcane Missiles has an X% chance to make your next Arcane Blast cast within 6 seconds cost no mana
This would synergize really well with Nether Precision, in my opinion. It would possibly also be a replacement for our CURRENT iteration of Rule of Threes, or be a choice node instead. I like the idea (if you couldn’t tell) of going back and forth between Missiles and Blasts instead of banking all our procs to blow on cooldowns.
Mystic Kilt of the Rune Master
Arcane Barrage grants you X% of your maximum mana per Arcane Charge spent
Yes, I know this is currently built in, however, I can easily see this becoming its own talent (essentially removing the built in aspect and making us take it separately). It may make us slightly weaker overall, but it means that if we build in such a way that we don’t need the mana from this talent, we don’t need to take it. It gives us choice, which is what I’m striving for.
Powers I DO NOT want to see again
Mirrors of Torment and Sinful Delight
Conjure 3 mirrors to torment the enemy for 25 sec. Whenever the target attacks, casts a spell, or uses an ability, a mirror is consumed to inflict X Shadow damage and their movement and cast speed are slowed by Y%. This effect cannot be triggered more often than once per 6 sec. The final mirror will instead inflict Z Shadow damage to the enemy, rooting and Silencing them for 4 sec. Whenever a mirror is consumed, you gain Clearcasting. 1.5 min cooldown
Consuming Clearcast reduces Mirrors of Torment's cooldown by X sec. If Mirrors of Torment is dispelled the cooldown is reduced by 45 sec
I’d make an exception for PvP, I just don’t find the spell interesting or thematic in any way. There’s also waaayyy too much going on in one spell here. From what I understand, part of the benefit of this spell is that it isn’t arcane, but I can’t see us keeping such a shadow / death themed spell like this going forward. If we do get to keep this, I feel as if Sinful Delight should be baked into it OR its cooldown just naturally reduced.
Siphon Storm / Brain Storm
Evocation grants X Arcane Charges, and while channeling Evocation, your Intellect is increased by Y% every 1 sec. lasts 30 sec.
This was touted as the “way to flip the rotation on its head” but I think that we need to FIX our rotation before we can consider flipping it on its head. It has its place, but I don’t think we’re ready for it to be back yet.
Disciplinary Command
Casting a Frost, Fire, and Arcane spell within 10 sec of each other increases your Critical Strike damage of all your spells by X%. This effect can only occur once every 30 sec.
I don’t think we should encourage the “cast spells from other specs” mentality until we’ve managed to figure out a good way to play our regular builds. As arcane, we don’t have access to many spells from other damage types. I’m sure we’ll get more next expansion, but I don’t want to jump into that concept too deeply just yet.
Triune Ward
Casting any barrier spell grants the effects of Blazing Barrier, Ice Barrier, and Prismatic Barrier. Each absorb shield has X% (reduced) effectiveness
I’d make an exception for PvP. Otherwise it’s just a little too much and I’d rather see Tempest Barrier or Cauterizing blink to fill this role. The PvP talent could easily buff those two abilities or grant both of them (if it’s a choice talent) instead of Triune ward. I know a big part of it is the “purge protection” but I’d argue that we should be looking for other solutions to that problem instead.
Arcane Prodigy
Each wave of a Clearcast Arcane Missiles reduces the cooldown of Arcane Power by X sec
Just give us back our 1.5 min default Arcane Powers. The double-dipping on our one proc further extends the difference between lucky fights and unlucky fights. If they want something like this to come back, I’d encourage considering putting the CD reduction onto something like Evocation instead (like the Nighthold T19 4 set bonus, which I’ll mention below). This ability would become especially problematic if we add in things that increase clearcasting procs or the number of missiles launched, as it would slowly create a cookie-cutter build that REQUIRES this to be taken. Of all the things on my Bad list, this is the number one “DO NOT WANT” for me. I think we just have more interesting options elsewhere.
Galvanizing Spark
Arcane Blast deals an additional damage and has a Y% chance to generate a second Arcane Charge
I just don’t think it provides quite enough to be competitive, and I’d rather see other things on the list before this. The exception I’ll make is if we get the Tier 21 set bonuses back as an option, the second part of this (the extra Arcane Charge) does become more interesting.
Mark of Aluneth
Create a rune around the target, inflicting X Arcane damage over 6 seconds to all enemies within 6 yds, and then detonating for Arcane damage equal to Y% of your maximum mana
I don’t think this offers enough interesting interactions with other spells / skills UNLESS we have more ways to increase our maximum mana outside of 1 talent (arcane familiar) and mastery. I miss my sassy staff, but this ability has been essentially replaced by Touch of the Magi, and I don’t think we need a second “bomb” type spell like that.
Cord of Infinity
Each time Arcane Missiles hits an enemy, the damage of your next Mark of Aluneth is increased by X%. This effect stacks.
Wholly replaced by Arcane Harmony, and you can’t really buff a spell that no longer exists. Sure, we could change the spell it buffs, but it plays too much like the Radiant Spark / Arcane Harmony build that we already have, which I think works out a lot better than a change to this would.
Gravity Spiral
Evocation gains 1 additional charge
It’s a great concept, but since Blizzard has been introducing cooldown reduction more and more, I’d rather see the T19 4 set bonus (explained below) over this.
Powers You Could Convince Me To Accept
Harmonic Echo (Kyrian Unity)
Damage dealt to enemies affected by Radiant Spark's vulnerability echo to your current enemy target and 4 nearby enemies for X% of the damage dealt
For the SOLE REASON that I want the Harmony build to be a Single Target only build, prompting us to take different options for AoE. However, I recognize there will likely still be a place for this in certain content. I’d just rather not see it so that I can AoE with a different build than what I use to AoE. If it is included, I’d like it to be a hard choice compared to what we have to give up to get it.
Deathborne and Death's Fathom (but make us liches instead of skeletons)
Transform into a powerful skeletal mage for 25 sec. While in the form of a skeletal mage, your Frostbolt, Fireball, and Arcane Blast hit up to 2 enemies near your target and your spell damage is increased by X%
Your Fireball, Frostbolt, and Arcane Blast have a chance to grant Deathborne for 8 sec. While in the form of a skeletal mage the spell damage granted is increased by X% for each enemy hit by Fireball, Frostbolt, and Arcane Blast
These two were, as far as I could tell, relatively underepresented as they weren’t the best for DPS. But now we can put them in the tree and actually make use of them, and I think it could help us overcome our lack of cleave damage (if done correctly). It’s not the most thematic for mages, with the exception of the fact that Lich’s have historically been some pretty powerful mages / magic users.
Temporal Warp / Shard of the Exodar
While you have Temporal Displacement or other similar effects, you may use Time Warp to grant yourself 30% haste for 40 sec.
Your Time Warp does not cause Temporal Displacement on yourself and is not affected by Temporal Displacement or similar effects on yourself.
It has some good uses, and is sometimes risky as arcane. A perfect decision to be able to make from fight to fight, but I’d still rather see some of the other powers instead.
Grisly Icicle
Your spells no longer break Frost Nova, and enemies damaged by Frost Nova take X% increased damage from your Fire and Arcane spells for 8 sec
This would be a great solo / open world talent (that I’m guessing people in war mode or general PvP would appreciate too)
Expanded Potential
Your Fireball, Frostbolt and Arcane Blast have a chance to give you Expanded Potential, which cuases your next Hot Streak, Brain Freeze or Clearcasting to not be consumed
If we get this, I think it’d have to be pretty far down the tree, possibly even one of our capstones.
Norgannon's Sagacity / Norgannon's Foresight
Casting a spell grants Sagacity, stacking up to 10 times. When you move, you are able to cast while moving for 0.5 sec for each stack of Sagacity
Standing still for 6 sec grants you Foresight, allowing you to cast while moving for 4 sec. This duration begins when you start moving
We’ve seen several variations of this, and arcane could use the mobility. If they don’t provide anything else to help in that department (like ice floes, better slipstream, blazing speed, etc.), this could work for fights that require a lot of moving, and either variation of it would be useful.
Arcane Pummeling (if we get more ways to increase the number of missiles we cast at a time)
Clearcasting procs X% more often, and each wave of Clearcast Arcane Missiles deals Y more damage than the previous
It’s just more damage, however, if we don’t have more ways to increase our missile count (like the Legion Rule of Threes), this is sort of a wasted talent. The extra chance to proc clearcasting could easily be its own talent, but the increasing damage per wave would be neat if we had more options / RNG to get more missiles per wave.
Artifice of the Archmage and Explosive Echo
Your Arcane Barrage has an X% chance to grant 2 Arcane Charges
Arcane Explosion deals X more damage. When it damages at least 3 targets, it has a 10% chance to deal an additional Y% damage to them
These two could be useful in AoE situations, but I’m not yet sure how I feel about them. They have some good synergies with each other and with some of our other existing talents
Equipoise
While you are above 70% mana, Arcane Blast deals X additional damage. While you are below 70% mana, Arcane Blast's cost is reduced by Y
Enlightened is the “better version” of this, but I could see this being put in in addition to that talent, as something that connects to it to further emphasize the playstyle and double down on the burn / conserve. I’m not sure it’d be great to put both in (one that affects all arcane and one that does JUST arcane blast), but it’s something that could happen.
Aegwynn's Ascendence
When Evocation completes, it explodes for Arcane damage equal to 25% of the mana it restored
I’m always torn about adding extra things to evocation. Of all the things they’ve tried to do, this one at least prompts us to use it as a mana restore FIRST and a DPS increase SECOND. I don’t think we have much to lose with this talent (EXCEPT that it requires us to be in melee more than we already are).
Arcane Rebound
When Arcane Barrage hits more than two targets, it explodes for X additional Arcane damage to all enemies within 10 yards of the primary target
It’s extra damage, but I’m not sure if it has a place right now. We have similar talents already. I could see this as a way to double down on the AoE rotation, but I don’t know if it’s our best option.
Sloooow Down
Slow applies to all enemies within 5 yds of your target
Just adds some nice QoL to Slow, which we don’t use often anymore. Not everything needs to be about damage, even if we don’t pick the talent often. PvP mages might also be happy to see this as an actual talent and not just a PvP talent. I know there’s a PvP talent called “Torment the Weak” that does the the same, but I’d like to be able to use it in dungeons as well.
Regailia of the Arcane Tempest - Tier 20 (Tomb of Sargeras)
(2) Activating Presence of Mind grants 4 Arcane Charges and increases your damage by X% for 6 sec
(4) Casting Arcane Missiles reduces the cooldown of Presence of Mind by X sec
I’d rather just have Charged Up back, and I think PoM has been buffed a bit since Legion.
Regalia if Everburning Knowledge - Tier 19 (Nighthold and Emerald nightmare)
(2) Your spells have an additional X% chance to activate Arcane Missiles
(4) Casting Arcane Missiles reduces the remaining cooldown on Evocation by X seconds
This is just another variation of Arcane Prodigy. I’d rather see this over prodigy, but I do think prodigy has it right in the sense that “every time the missiles do damage” we should get the bonus (maybe this was like that too, I don’t remember).
Conclusion
To wrap it up, we have had a lot of interesting spells, effects, and bonuses come and go. There are some powerful possibilities - like Nether Precision + Rhonin’s Wristwraps + The Old Rule of Threes or Artifice of the Archmage + Arcane Echo + Runebound Regalia. I’d love to see a bunch of these come back, and it wouldn’t require a full blown rework to make some of these worth taking.
Feel free to share your thoughts. Add some spells I forgot. Create your own combos. Rip me to shreds and tell me my ideas are dumb and all this stuff should stay dead.