How does everyone feel about 8.0 Arcane?

[Fitzban]

Hey everyone, just wanted to get an idea of where everyone else is at. I've been seeing a lot of Arcane jokes on reddit lately but personally I've been enjoying the spec so far. I've been playing Arcane since the end of MoP and don't see that changing anytime soon. What are your opinions (ignoring dps) on the state of our spec in BfA ? If you could change one mechanic what would it be?

[roldy]

Running Overpowered+Time Anomaly albeit only for a very short time was intriguing other than that the spec is basically dead to me. Not touching it unless it gets drastic changes for 8.1.

About things that need changing there's a whole list.
- Mana Management: So far it has either been irrelevant or overly punishing. Everything that made mana a nonfactor made the spec more enjoyable (MoP RoP, Kilt, Overpowered, etc.)
- Arcane AoE: Everything about it.
- Arcane Missiles: The way they worked in Legion was almost perfect only thing that needed to happen was to give them some kind of relevance in AoE situations. What they did to them for BFA is a disgrace.
- Arcane Cleave: Can be talented for but all talents supporting it suck.
- Improving the baseline kit: Something on a medium CD to freshen up the rotation i.e. Arcane Orb/T20 2pc/Nether Tempest (less clunky version) baseline.
- Arcane Charges: Slight facelift wouldn't hurt. Maybe something that would encourage building/spending, the old temporal flux they baked into the charges is nice, but maybe they could make it more interesting. I could also imagine something along the lines of shadow priests, where you'd trigger burns at high arcane charge.

That's about all I can think of right now. Maybe a whole team of class developers can come up with something better in an afternoon of work. Though I kind of doubt it considering the changes we have seen lately.

[Fitzban]

I agree with most of your points (especially the part about Kilt) but our AoE is definitely not lacking. I usually top every trash pull in M+, and if you cheese with the Tomb tier you can still run "Charged Up" and resonance at the same time. Curious to see how it goes as we move into BfA though. I think baseline Arcane Orb would help a lot. Thanks for your post.

[roldy]

I agree with most of your points (especially the part about Kilt) but our AoE is definitely not lacking. I usually top every trash pull in M+, and if you cheese with the Tomb tier you can still run "Charged Up" and resonance at the same time. Curious to see how it goes as we move into BfA though. I think baseline Arcane Orb would help a lot. Thanks for your post.

Don't get blinded by the great things you're now (still) able to do. Arcane AoE is great fun and incredibly powerful with the right tools. Just run the legendary shoulders + kilt + resonance + reverberate and any combination of tier sets - your damage is going to be insane and quite fun. Remove it and you're going to have a clunky mess, where you're constantly running out of mana being forced to switch between Arcane Blast (on AoE!) and Arcane Explosion to conserve mana and so far we neither have seen class changes nor azerite traits adressing this situation.

[magictricks]

I agree with most of your points (especially the part about Kilt) but our AoE is definitely not lacking. I usually top every trash pull in M+, and if you cheese with the Tomb tier you can still run "Charged Up" and resonance at the same time. Curious to see how it goes as we move into BfA though. I think baseline Arcane Orb would help a lot. Thanks for your post.

Don't get blinded by the great things you're now (still) able to do. Arcane AoE is great fun and incredibly powerful with the right tools. Just run the legendary shoulders + kilt + resonance + reverberate and any combination of tier sets - your damage is going to be insane and quite fun. Remove it and you're going to have a clunky mess, where you're constantly running out of mana being forced to switch between Arcane Blast (on AoE!) and Arcane Explosion to conserve mana and so far we neither have seen class changes nor azerite traits adressing this situation.

Arcane AOE is great fun?, are you joking?, it consists of ONE rotation, 4 AE, ABr, if you do ANYTHING else you will get less damage. there's literally NOTHING to do other than that rotation.

[roldy]

I agree with most of your points (especially the part about Kilt) but our AoE is definitely not lacking. I usually top every trash pull in M+, and if you cheese with the Tomb tier you can still run "Charged Up" and resonance at the same time. Curious to see how it goes as we move into BfA though. I think baseline Arcane Orb would help a lot. Thanks for your post.

Don't get blinded by the great things you're now (still) able to do. Arcane AoE is great fun and incredibly powerful with the right tools. Just run the legendary shoulders + kilt + resonance + reverberate and any combination of tier sets - your damage is going to be insane and quite fun. Remove it and you're going to have a clunky mess, where you're constantly running out of mana being forced to switch between Arcane Blast (on AoE!) and Arcane Explosion to conserve mana and so far we neither have seen class changes nor azerite traits adressing this situation.

Arcane AOE is great fun?, are you joking?, it consists of ONE rotation, 4 AE, ABr, if you do ANYTHING else you will get less damage. there's literally NOTHING to do other than that rotation.

Shoulder procs are fun. Doing insane damage is fun. Going from ooming all the time playing beta to having a functioning rotation is a positive.

[Sosaria]

Without the legendaries (because they're useless in BFA once replaced), Arcane's downtime is really really punishing.

So much so that I'm thinking of switching back to Fire or Frost.

You really really need to know the fight to somewhat optimise your burn phases, which is going to suck when entering the raids first time (especially if you need to impress the rest of your guild with your dps numbers to secure a perm raid spot).

I mean this is probably true with Arcane since vanilla, but the legendaries mitigated Arcane's glaring weakness a lot... Probably in a rude surprise for people going into BFA first raid tier as Arcane.

At the moment can't tell whether the Arcane weaknesses will be mitigated by the BFA artifact traits either...

[Fitzban]

I've played with it a bit on beta and can see where you're coming from. However, it has always been extra important to know the fight as arcane. Once you know when to burst during a fight you can pull off some huge numbers. I'm looking forward to raiding as arcane like I have been since MoP. That being said I do hope we get a few buffs or bandaids to help us along.

[testacular]

Personally I would like to see more interaction with Arcane Charges.
Now that AE and missiles aren't by default affected I feel somewhat cheated - charges now feel only partly important whereas before it was bread and butter.

Another thing is mana in general, the flow of it and the way it is based on mastery/int (depending on expansion).
With this it basically means you have huge mana issues and have to heavily invest in the beginning of expansion and it becomes a breeze as the xpac nears its end. That's somewhat clunky to me.

AoE was good as it was in Legion, we had beastly AoE but it should have been more mana punishing (with Kilt it was too easy) and I like the fact that we had to stay in proximity to monsters. I am not sure how it will work out now without Kilt and without AE scaling with AC.

Cleave was always non-existent or not worth the hassle and I ain't missing it. You should not have an all-round character. Ever.

As for AM changes, I don't really see any. Honestly, you are still going to use AM when you get the procs. Albeit I think they should change AM to deal significantly more damage on that proc compared to fully charged AB because as it stands, you are pretty much better off casting AB only. But that will likely change soon or maybe with that Azerite thingie.

[Bucky]

Personally I would like to see more interaction with Arcane Charges.
Now that AE and missiles aren't by default affected I feel somewhat cheated - charges now feel only partly important whereas before it was bread and butter.

Well, with War mode on, the Arcane Empowerment does increase AM damage per clearcasting stack. Granted this won't work in dungeons/raids but for world questing/leveling it might be ok.

Additionally, Azerite traits such as Anomalous Impact and Arcane Pummeling may bring back some of the damage buffs back to AM. Granted I don't think the actual numbers work out very well unless all 3 Azerite Armor pieces are empowering the same trait.

[Fitzban]

Has anyone seen the Brainstorm trait? Damage % increase after evocating. Seems like that could be really cool if you save your charges going into evocate like you're supposed to

[testacular]

Has anyone seen the Brainstorm trait? Damage % increase after evocating. Seems like that could be really cool if you save your charges going into evocate like you're supposed to

Actually way better with just Arcane Anomaly I would say?

[Richard397]

Removing the stacks of arcane missiles was an awful deicison. It makes the rotation feel so clunky and makes slipstream unreliable. I didn't even use slipstream, but I can't understand the reasoning behind the change.

They also made mana management easier, which I feel was one of the things that made the spec interesting. It actually required a modicum of skill to play without kilt. We have basically become the 'brainless 1 button spec' meme

Arcane was fun to play in Legion. I don't find it fun anymore.

[Fitzban]

After playing BfA and getting my mage to 330, I can happily say I'm having a blast. (Get it?)

The execute trait is SO fun in PvP and M+. Nothing like being neck-and-neck with another dps and blowing them away with one crazy 60k crit at the end. I'm having more fun in pvp that I have in a while with my double invis. Mass invis into a rune of power cast can open up a lot of cheese. Incanter's flow is still the way to go outside of PvE though. Loving BfA so far!

[Sosaria]

I was playing Arcane in BFA until I tried Frost (I was always Fire in Legion)...

I think Frost blows Arcane out of the water in almost all situations in PVE right now in Mythic dungeons.

There's a lot more disadvantages playing with Arcane over Frost:
- If you're playing with Shimmer, your dps is screwed if your evocation or magic missiles is interrupted
- If you're playing with Slipstream, you can't blink while casting (meaning you need to run out of the circle but losing your cast time)
- In long fights, your dps will drop off after the initial burst and in conserve phase; you will be overtaken by Frost
- Arcane Pressure is nerfed and now Galvanising is the single target Azerite trait. This means you have to gear specifically for Single Target, or gear for AOE. Frost doesn't have this problem as their BIS traits works with Single target or AOE.
- Using Arcane Power at the wrong time or pull means you don't have it ready for the next pull.. or didn't get the full use out of it.
- Mana issues, especially burning Arcane Explosion or Arcane charges to keep up with dps meters
- To fully optimise... need to know the fight inside and out.

Whereas Frost advantages are:
- Insta casts, no damage drop off when moving especially with Shimmer
- Does equal, if not more, AOE damage with current Glacial Spike cleave builds and Frozen Orb. Not to mention, they bring slow/freeze utility which is sometimes a lifesaver in Mythic dungeons.
- Consistent strong single target damage with no damage drop off throughout the fight.
- No mana issues
- Can yolo first time fights because they're so mobile and lose no dps and no chance of severely screwing themselves over like a broken evocation

I'm interested to see what the numbers are like in Uldir raid... I've always liked Arcane and thought it was going to be my main spec but the recent runs in Mythic / trait nerf / pigeon holed ST or AOE gear/talent building made me go to Frost (Jack of all trades, Master of all besides burst)

[Darkeayras]

Everytime I que for a dungeon I can't imagine myself playing anything but arcane. Still on the lower end of gear but have been blowing every class out of the water on AoE.

Can't play without that on demand burst AoE I think. Will agree that it is monotonous and a simple rotation, but the dynamic of it is perfect for me.

Haven't met a frost or fire mage that can beat me yet on AoE.

[roldy]

Everytime I que for a dungeon I can't imagine myself playing anything but arcane. Still on the lower end of gear but have been blowing every class out of the water on AoE.

Can't play without that on demand burst AoE I think. Will agree that it is monotonous and a simple rotation, but the dynamic of it is perfect for me.

Haven't met a frost or fire mage that can beat me yet on AoE.

Than you haven't met the right frost mage yet. In terms of burst AoE nothing beats Frozen Orb into Comet Storm+Pet Freeze. And you can actually maintain a pretty high dps with blizzards and successive Frozen Orbs. Though Arcane seems to catch up a bit after that. Only played with one decent Arcane Mage yet, who could keep up on some pulls. You can do insane damage in both specs though you have to be careful since the tank threat changes. In that run the other mage and I basically had more aggro than the tank on most packs. And while I was standing fairly safe in the back he got smacked to death multiple times, while AEing.

I was actually looking forward to playing Arcane before they announced the changes for BFA. What they did to Arcane kind of ruined my hype for BFA, but tbh Frost feels a lot better in dungeons than ever before and I am really enjoying it. A lot of your damage shifted from your Procs to the casts you can control (Blizzard, Frozen Orb, Comet Storm) and leads to an in my opinion really interesting rotation (even on single target). You should really give it a try.

Still looking forward to playing Arcane some time though right now I don't really see the point. WQs are incredibly easy as frost with warmode and in dungeons the dps is up there and the perma slow helps tanks a lot.

[Neuroburner]

While fire is near death with current stat budget and crit being worst stat, I had no other choice but to spec arcane(frost is pvp only, ofc). And it is surprisingly good. I took Time Anomaly insteed of Overpowered to deversify my rotation(static burn-conserve is too monotonous). Well, I am god of ST and close competeter in AoE(2 GB traits and 1 Incite the Pack). 95% of the fights, even in mythics, is over before second AP, but I don't think there will be problems on longer fights, I still can manage my mana to enter second AP with ~40% + clearcast and Anomaly evocs.

[Clutchykins]

Removing the stacks of arcane missiles was an awful deicison. It makes the rotation feel so clunky and makes slipstream unreliable. I didn't even use slipstream, but I can't understand the reasoning behind the change.

They also made mana management easier, which I feel was one of the things that made the spec interesting. It actually required a modicum of skill to play without kilt. We have basically become the 'brainless 1 button spec' meme

Arcane was fun to play in Legion. I don't find it fun anymore.

Can't agree with this, especially in PvP. Keeping AM damage static is a great idea, especially on more movement intensive fights or of course in PvP, it also creates an option and decision on if I should stand and turret AM at something when an Arcane Blast would not be possible, and shedding stacks with barrage might be a bad idea. Whereas before we had no decision, it was entirely tied to a proc. Your thinking is that it still is because of clearcasting, but we are not computer algorithms playing these toons perfectly, and sometimes we have to make choices that are less than optimal.

I played the first week of BfA as Frost and have since switched to Arcane. My damage with Arcane was kind of lackluster until I stopped using Rune of Power, because having Arcane Power on the global cooldown destroys RoP optimizing and slows Arcane down too much during burst phase, it was incredibly clunky. Once I figured out not to use RoP, I stopped using charged up because it also takes another global cooldown and Supernova is an AoE interrupt in Mythics/PvP which is invaluable. Time Anomoly is more than a fine replacement and charged up is not nearly what it was because of one thing: Arcane does not have to shed stacks nearly as much with Time Anomoly and the extra Arcane Power procs are incredibly useful, remember that it adds on to the AP buff if it procs while your cooldowned AP is active.

I was hoping to come to this forum and never read a complaint like "they shouldnt do this or do that" or "complain complain I can't play Arcane" because that is what the WoW forums are for.. Instead, let's discuss how we can optimize Arcane to it's potential, because I have been taking this spec and destroying meters in Mythics, it's as good as it has always been.

[Vaniela]

Very interesting takes. I think this mix of talents is also good for M+, as it has strong AoE, but does not neglect singletarget (like I feel you would by taking Arcane Orb)

Time Anomoly is more than a fine replacement and charged up is not nearly what it was because of one thing: Arcane does not have to shed stacks nearly as much with Time Anomoly and the extra Arcane Power procs are incredibly useful, remember that it adds on to the AP buff if it procs while your cooldowned AP is active.

Is TA really that good? I would think Overpowered is better and more reliable. How do you find it?
In a simulation situation I can imagine TA very good, because no matter when it procs, it's useful. But in M+ it could come at a bad time, such as when a pack is dieng.