A word to Blizzard

[Artistry]

I pretentiously speak for the Arcane community when I say: Blizzard, hear our cry. We are not many, and sometimes we go unnoticed. However, it is time for us to unite, for the sake of our spec, and reach out to the Blue above. Blizzard, please, reconsider the 7.1.5 PTR changes you have made to arcane. Let me explain.

We of the Arcane pride ourselves in our play. We absolutely relish the high risk, high reward style. We are always looking for ways to improve, ways to master our spec, and for a way to squeeze out just a tiny bit more DPS. Arcane mages push it to the limit, to the very edge of death or a DPS downfall, in order to maximize our performance. This is why Quickening was so important. Broken? Yes. Do the playstyle and talent choices need changes? Yes. But please, Blizzard…not like this.

Currently, on the PTR, Arcane has been slowed down. Not *just* slowed down, but for the lack of a better term, “dumbed down”. To me, personally, it’s heartbreaking. I started Legion as Arcane because it wasn’t mainstream, because it wasn’t the flavor of the month as they say, but because it provided a challenge. It was a deep spec, with a high skill ceiling and a low floor. Now, the spec has been completely revamped for the worse. There are no mechanics for us to constantly weave and monitor, there is no complex rotation with demand for adaptability. The PTR shows us a watered down, basic, “entry level” spec that overwhelms us with the feeling of boredom more than anything else. It’s uninspired, and it doesn’t speak to our community.

We WANT that high risk, high reward spec. We want a difficult playstyle, with DPS consequences for making mistakes. Arcane is not a spec that is meant to hold your hand. Our community does not want permanent training wheels; a tight corridor style of play with hardly any room to push the limit, to play “outside” the box. Quickening, while seriously flawed, provided the opportunity for advanced play and theorycrafting. The mechanic of Arcane that gives us high DPS and the satisfaction of knowing we played perfectly, while severely punishing us for making mistakes, has been removed. And that, Blizzard, is what I want back.

I don’t want to feel like I can do a simple rotation and get max DPS. There is no depth to the PTR changes because the difficulty of arcane has been removed. The flavor and personality of our spec is now gone. I feel like these changes, at least some, have been done simply because of PvP, and the PvE consequences are becoming appallingly apparent.

Blizzard, let’s rethink this. We aren’t the type to just give up, to just reroll, or switch to another spec. We chose Arcane just as much as it chose us, and we want it back. Let’s come together, players and developers, to arrive at a correct conclusion about the best path for arcane. Consider adding an altered version of Quickening back, or give us a different combination of talents. I don’t have a simple solution that is going to fix this spec, but I speak for all of us when I say: We need to change the direction this is going. It’s slow, boring, too easy, and uninspired. Work with us, and give us our advanced, complex playstyle back. For anyone still reading, I thank you.

Make Arcane Great Again
Artistry - Stormrage

[x1xruex1x]

Please take the "plea to Blizzard" to the official Blizzard PTR forum. This has no place to be here as it's not constructive to what we're trying to accomplish.

If you really cared about the Arcane Mage, you would understand that we are adaptable to all the changes in both positives and negatives to our spec.

So please, take this off of it as it has no place on Altered-Time.

[LeoneNZ]

Agree, they completely ruined what made it fun for me with that single change. Also just got a third utility legendary. Could be time to reroll for a chance at a free 110 bis legendary. The changes to arcane take out any of the effort of maintaining mana through the fight, especially considering how soon most of us will have 4 set with constant evo's. Also makes the new legendary useless as no one needs a second evo when you attack that slow.

[Mage]

OP makes it sound like blizz took away some core gameplay that has been a staple of arcane mage for years, while in reality the quickening playstyle is around for 12 weeks.
Myself I didn't like quickening, therefore glad to see it gone.

[Artistry]

You clearly seem like the one who doesn't belong here. I have posted this to several other forums including battle.net. I'm posting this for exposure and because I CARE about this spec. This is an arcane mage community and it definitely DOES belong here. You didn't even read it, obviously, and your toxic attitude isn't contributing anything to this place. How about you try something positive and constructive, instead of wasting mine and everyone else's time?

PS: It's obvious people hate the current quickening, I addressed this *specifically* in my post.

[Tipsey]

Quickening was a lot like the Samsung Note 7. Very nice and shiny, but prone to blow up in your face and had to be recalled. While I enjoyed quickening immensely, I do not mind seeing it go. I would however like blizzard to say that they are not happy with where arcane is right now, and that the current iteration of it is a placeholder until they can "get it right".

NOTE: If you are asking Rue to post something positive and constructive, it really shows how little time you spend on these forums.

[Kintoun]

I thoroughly scour these forums and read every post for Arcane and Fire since I'm an avid researcher. OP's "we" is misplaced. From what I have gathered, most Arcane mages on here do not want Quickening. They understood it was bad design leading to bad game play and are glad to see it go.

[Solidpat]

Quickening was an abomination of our spec. Honestly, you don't speak on my behalf in your rant. Plus arcane and tier gear is very promising on the ptr.

[seoh]

As OP said, the big thing about quickening is it inflated the skill gap. It was a way to manipulate your burn phase, making it longer or shorter while also changing how high the peak was. On top of this, you can also manipulate quickening to delay or accelerate your next burn phase, and subsequent burn phases. All of this may be flawed in some sense, but the core of it is that it adds skill to the class.

In my experience, I have dedicated a lot of time to understanding quickening. Throttling and understanding when the boss will die, and how much to throttle have allowed me to parse higher than those who, frankly put less effort in. It has allowed me to beat arcane users with vastly better legendaries, and other classes/players. Without that understanding of how my class works, I wouldn't be able to do that. In other words, my skill has more influence over my dps than my gear at similar ilvl (within 6-8 ilvl), which I fundamentally believe is good for a spec. Far too many decisions in this game are made for you because of gear, not ability, though this isn't to say that ability is irrelevant because it is still core.

I find it troublesome that Blizzard wants to make us in a glacial spike frost mage. It's mindless and drastically shrinks the gap in skill that can be displayed through arcane mage. Quickening needs an alternative, and I believe it needed some nerf. But to remove the ability to manipulate your burn cycles, outside of rng orange loot, I believe is net worse for the spec than simply adjusting quickening. I think Blizzard's current trend will be overall worse for the spec, making it overly easy to play, while deciding parses for players simply by their gear, and not their ability or mastery of a spec.

[Mage]

I doubt anybody has a problem with specs rewarding skill, a lot of people simply do not enjoy quickening playstyle, its that simple.
And the OPs fuming reaction to the post stating my opinion on the spec is hilarious.

[Frosted]

This post is garbage, go take this bleeding heart crap to bnet or reddit.

[x1xruex1x]

For everyone who cares about the Arcane Mage, or Mage in general, let us depart this thread and banish it to the nether it belongs to. We are better than dealing with this drama.

Aside of it all, 7.1.5 is shaping up to be real fun with variety ^_^

[Questo]

Temporal Flux looks like a similar, streamlined, and fixed version of Quickening, and the other two talents are now worth taking. I think your opinion is pretty arrogant if you assume all arcane mages want quickening to stay as is.

[Komma]

As many posters have mentioned, petitions to Blizzard are out of place in this forum. You'd have better luck bringing your complaints to battle.net.

Locked.