Mythic +, the Explosive affix

[testacular]

Hello,

wanted to ask how do you deal with the new Explosive affix in M+?
For those unfamiliar with it - while in combat, enemies periodically spawn a Fel orb thingie which explodes after some time (4 sec?) for 50% of HP to whole party. Now, they summon multiple of those (even better with teeming) so you need to kill them ASAP.

They only have about 200k HP each but the catch is, you cannot harm then with any kind of AOE.
Not arcane explosion, but not even Barrage (which I believe should hit at least the main target, but it doesn't seem like it).

From my experience, I usually have to hard cast Arcane Blast, which might take us 2 sec to cast and it will cost us non-trivial amount of mana (as we are likely to be at full charges and have no time to discharge).
Another way are missiles ofc, but you don't always have some not to mention it is maybe even worse DPS loss overall.

Also casting AB takes way to long considering how many explosives may spawn at a time, not to mention other party members are likely to kill the one you target before you finish the cast.

Any ideas/experience/suggestions?

[blazingink]

Just kindly ask your tank and the other dps roles to deal with this affix. Most of the time I run M+ with guildies and we had no problems with that. But when I do pug, I always let everyone know that I play arcane and the only way for me to kill orb is either a 2-sec cast or a random proc, which both hit for 1m+, so that I won't be dealing with orbs unless it's necessary.
Tank and one dps is enough for most small packs. For some large packs like the wyrms in CoS, I'll preemptively use Presence of Mind before my MoA + AE casts, so I can insta-kill any orb that is about to explode.
In short, not all dps are supposed to be on orbs. Just do what you do the best as an arcane mage, and kill the mobs before they spawn a second wave orbs.

[testacular]

Would that it would be that easy.
I am being discarded as it is on a spec accusation basis - because I am arcane.
"Fire?" "No, Arcane" [no invite]

Explaining this to them in any 10+ mythic is an almost instant replacement if you aren't running with guildies exclusively :-/

Anyway, thanks for answer, this confirms my suspicion that its better to restrain from M+ on this week and wait for different affix.

[Naustis]

Just do not talk about it. Go in dungeon and do your job. I was boosting multiple +10 dungeons as Arcane this week, and even with pugs this affix was no problem.

[reid8470]

Been running in carry groups all week and we quickly realized that it is rarely if ever worth focusing orbs as Arcane. Enormous DPS loss to shoot slow missiles or a 2 second AB channel when most of the time someone else will kill the orb before I even hit it.

Basically decided tank, melee dps (or shadow priest), and the healer if it's a healer w/ a quick single target handle all of the orbs while I tunnel the trash and bosses. If it's a large group with 4+ orbs, I kill one. Good luck convincing any PUGs to do that, though, so just don't mention it to them and try to kill orbs with missiles where you can.

[maynord]

IMO it's bullshit that Barrage doesnt kill them if you target them with the Barrage. I would really like them to hotfix this.

I tried using NT in a +12 explosive BRH this week instead, but TBH it often wasn't fast enough and I normally had to cast AM + clip the last few missiles, or save PoM for bigger packs.

I'm all for using different talents or creative uses of CDs to break orbs, but I would really really like if they fixed it so Barrage hits them if we target them.

[Suda]

Like mentioned above. I have done a ton of 9-12s this week. Just make it clear... You are an AOE BOSS. Let other dps focus on the orbs. Only focus on orbs if there are multiple and u have several arcane missile procs or POM active to throw out a POM Blast or two. People get it. Things went smoother once that standard has been set. I just aim to have one good quick melee dps that can switch targets. Just burn/aoe mobs down and that means less time for them to spawn as well