7.1.5 Spell Changes UPDATED 30/11

[seoh]

Evo cast while moving should be baseline. It simply doesn't make sense to have a cooldown as important as evo require a talent to be "safe" to cast, when if evo is clipped you may cease to function as a dps class.

Overall these changes seem to shift and shrink the skill floor and ceiling of the spec. Blizzard's addressing of arcane and spriest seems to be pretty extreme, favoring deletion or over-nerfing of interesting mechanics in favor of simpler ones, without adding diversity/choices to compensate.

Edit: misread mana cost changes

[Fatekeeper]

Apparently it's just a tooltip error/bug, basically the mana cost is the same and they still nerfed Overpowered not sure how to feel about that. source https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs/status ... 7985187840" target="_blank new level 15 talent and 30 talent seem to be no brainers to take at all times.

[Acaila]

Update 30/11/16:

New level 15 Talent, Amplification: Arcane Missiles deals an additional 15% damage per Arcane Charge.

Updated level 30 Talent, Mana Shield: Prismatic Barrier has no cooldown, but your mana is drained by 20% of the damage it absorbs.

Updated level 100 Talent, Overpowered: Arcane Power now increases damage by 70% and reduces mana costs by 70%.

Updated level 30 Talent, Slipstream: Arcane Missiles and Evocation may be channeled while moving.

Temporal Flux moved to level 100 Talent.

Words of Power updated: Grants 1% increased chance to trigger Arcane Missiles per 20% of your mana you have unspent.

Arcane Blast updated: Mana cost increased by 60% (was 125%) per Arcane Charge.

Arcane Explosion updated: Mana cost increased by 60% (was 125%) per Arcane Charge.

Presence of Mind made baseline.

Prismatic Barrier updated: Lasts 60 seconds (was 30) and is on a 25 second CD (was 30).

Overpowered nerf expected, doesnt seem to harsh.

Slipstream looks mandatory

[Laniarty]

Choosing between Shimmer and Slipstream is an actual choice now. Shimmer is so good, but having knockback protection via Slipstream is enticing. This seems to be the only talent that will reward good play (take Shimmer if you're confident in your ability, Slipstream if you want mistake prevention). On that tier, Mana Shield is too much of a dps hit for what it offers.

Props to the art team for Prismatic Barrier, it looks amazing.

It's a shame though, because the spec is so boring now that I won't be playing it if this is how it goes live. They've tipped too far to the conserve playstyle, you literally wait for your AP window and throw everything at it, and then wait until you can do that again. They said they wanted to get away from that with Fire, but they've inadvertently created that exact scenario with Arcane.

None of the changes have addressed the issues I had in the previous build. It feels like a worse, dumbed down, version of the current live build fire mage. Just change the names and the graphics and that's what Arcane is on the PTR atm. Nothing to distinguish good players from mediocre. I really want to be wrong, I love arcane, but the heart feels ripped out of it right now.

[Naaldira]

Nothing to distinguish good players from mediocre. I really want to be wrong, I love arcane, but the heart feels ripped out of it right now.

This is whats killing me. Arcane has been a middling spec all expansion but some of us have been able to do very well by working hard and mastering the Quickening mechanic. It had a good skill ceiling and rewarded effort (I did none of the avoiding casting, standing there hitting AE bullshit and I have parse in the high 90's).

Now it's just super stale. It's like the base cookiecutter of a caster before they add anything unique or interesting. One filler spell, one proc to press, and some dps cooldown. Done. Nothing interesting, no area for skill in the actual spec. Mana management is an illusion - as long as you don't blow all your cooldowns right at OOM you're fine. Even going oom without Evo is basically no punishment unless you blow all your cooldowns just then. (Even then its not bad...) Just... the ultimate expression of blandness in this game.

[Deckzor]

Even without Quickening its still lot to master which seperate the good from the bad.
when to bank missles for movement when to use for dmg what to fit into artifact proc. when to use mark, when rune.
Dont whine about Quickening that playstyle was just stupid

[Xanato]

Another thing to keep in mind while people are crunching the numbers in their head is that on the current PTR, you have 10% less Mastery.

Live: 40% Mastery

PTR: 30% Mastery

I posted a reply earlier in this topic denoting the loss in mastery from our passive armor change. It was around 4%. Not sure where the rest has disappeared right now, it's late and I'm tired.

[Mythlos]

Finally had time to test Arcane on PTR.

Arcane's AoE and PvP potential have definitely improved.

Patchwerk ST took a hit though. I'm testing on the dummy and I'm dealing 350K-420K DPS (average of 380K) with an Amplification/ST/Erosion/OP build. My stats on PTR are 21.65% Crit, 16.42% Haste, 7.43% Versatility, and 35.40% Mastery. I also have ilvl 889 and Rhonin's Assaulting Armwraps.

The variation is completely contingent on your AM proc luck, as well as your crits during AP. I even tried one build with 27.6% Crit, 18.73% Haste but 4.59% Versatility and 30% Mastery and I still had around 380K DPS on average.

As a result, I don't think Mastery loses its place as top stat even if Crit is valuable during AP, but the variation is smaller now.

I also don't believe Haste has significantly higher value because you can only cast so much during AP. The soft cap will likely be 1 extra cast of AB or AM which is around 18% Haste on average. If you have AP duration relics, this may change.

If anything, our stats are closer together in value now. Simulations will be needed for specifics. With the OP build, I expect Haste (18%) > Mastery > Crit > Vers > Haste. Keep in mind that having more mana legendaries may reduce the value of Mastery.

On live I can deal up to ~420K-440K DPS with the Quickening throttle build on a 5 minute Ursoc fight (if I don't fk it up). On a 5 minute target dummy test, it can go up to 460-480K depending on RNG. I also have slightly less Haste and much more Mastery on live.

However the PTR build is more forgiving and better on fights with phase changes. It's also better for on-demand burst and short 90 second fights (M+).

Still, it appears our DPS ceiling has been lowered while our floor has been raised. Every fight will be the same now, and you can't really do anything special to increase your DPS outside of AoE phases.

I think the one major counterintuitive change from the basic rotation on live is that you want to use AM during AP now as the damage boosts to AM outstrip the benefit of having more mana to work with.

So while we lost the Quickening mini-game which often made the spec exciting, the spec is more reliable now. I also believe many of the changes take NH gearing into account, as AM will proc more (and as such contribute more to our damage) with 2pc and we'll be able to burst more with lower Evocation cooldowns with 4pc.

Overall I think we're in a better place, but the spec feels a little slow.

[Melondwarf]

I feel as if these changes overall are pretty good, and if someone is on the PTR, does Chrono shift stack with Slow...cause well..if it does holy slows Batman, if it doesn't what's the point?

As for the Shimmer vs Slipstream, why would you go for slipstream realistically? we get 2 blinks that do not stop casting and Displacement ontop of that, so you've got a useful move while Evocating talent, or something that allows us to almost spam teleport and not have our casts interrupted, the only viable point I feel Slipstream would be useful would be against knockbacks, that arent that huge of a problem with the removal of Quickening

Also why the balls do we have an entire tier dedicated to slow/snare and why is Rune of Power still the same untouched annoyance it's been since forever?

[Rintohsaka]

I went from doing about 380K sustained on PTR to about 350K sustained after the change.(6 minute runs) I think the thing that I dislike the most is that with out temporal Flux combined with OP the spec feels very slow and is not nearly as fluid as it was before. I would be happier if they just baked temporal flux in and re-added a modified quickening or some other ability and adjusted damage accordingly.

Mythlos's view pretty much matches every thing I am seeing and is really spot on.

[Naaldira]

I still had around 380K DPS on average.


On live I can deal up to ~420K-440K DPS with the Quickening throttle build on a 5 minute fight (if I don't fk it up). I also have slightly less Haste and much more Mastery on live.

I'm surprised by these numbers. I'm 882 on live with the legendary legs and a 906 weapon. I don't do any cast-delaying with Quickening, and I do about 450-470 sustained on a dummy.

On the PTR with my character copied - so basically just about 4-5% less mastery - I am doing about 290-330 sustained on a dummy.

I definitely feel like my raid performance is going to be gutted because as you said, theres no way to 'be better' anymore. I don't particularly mind class balance and I have played arcane from launch for the fun, but obviously it is nice to be able to do well. I had hoped that Arcane would be good in the new patch and that would maybe balance out the boredom of no Quickening. But at the moment I'm not seeing it.

I'm going to force myself to log into the PTR today some more and do more testing, but it just feels like there really isn't much to figure out. There is nowhere to optimize, it's just so slow and bland now. It feels like a mould for a starter caster that was never fleshed out.

[Mythlos]

I should have been more clear. The live DPS I used wasn't patchwerk it was on Ursoc, and my guild clears it in just a bit under 5 minutes. On a target dummy my DPS is around 470K.

[Artistry]

I've gotta say guys, I really do not like where arcane is headed now. This spec has been the best thing about Legion for me, until now.

These new changes make the spec feel slow, uninteresting, and like anyone could pick it up and pull the same numbers as a veteran. I wish I knew what the hell Blizzard is thinking here.
I used to be extremely motivated to test and theorycraft on the PTR, but with the way these changes are headed, I barely have the heart to even log in and sim run. Idk boys.

[Mythlos]

Sure it's slower, but I wouldn't say it's uninteresting. Quickening was only one part of it.

The mana management aspect of Arcane remains and that's what ultimately makes it unique among other specs. The fact that its legendaries all revolve around mana as opposed to damage boosts should make that clear.

For example, knowing how to weave ST and AoE on most fights can make a huge difference. Knowing when to drop charges to spend your mana at just the right time to cast Evocation is another skill. Mana management in M+ will remain a fun hot mess.

Also 7.1.5 drops around the same time as NH. The tier bonuses will be invaluable in making the PTR build play better.

[Naaldira]

Sure it's slower, but I wouldn't say it's uninteresting. Quickening was only one part of it.

The mana management aspect of Arcane remains and that's what ultimately makes it unique among other specs. The fact that its legendaries all revolve around mana as opposed to damage boosts should make that clear.

For example, knowing how to weave ST and AoE on most fights can make a huge difference. Knowing when to drop charges to spend your mana at just the right time to cast Evocation is another skill. Mana management in M+ will remain a fun hot mess.

Also 7.1.5 drops around the same time as NH. The tier bonuses will be invaluable in making the PTR build play better.

I'm not seeing how mana management is at all a thing. In WoD, if you spent too much during conserve, your burst would be shorter and your conserve dps would be lower. With Quickening, if you timed things out wrong with mana, you'd end up building less stacks during ur burn and would scale less on that cycle, or you time out evo wrong and dont evo+maintain quickening etc.

Without either of those... how are we punished if we 'mismanage mana'? Obviously if you're 100% oom and mash all your cooldowns so you can't cast the whole way through them, that's a problem, but otherwise...? I'm not seeing where any thought goes into this. There is no benefit or detriment to your % mana at any time, the only factor is making sure you can cast through the duration of your cooldowns when you hit them. How is that mana management? How does that reward skill at all?

[TurkeyOne]

I don't really think anyone would be upset if Temporal Flux was baseline. Arcane just feels slow right now and for me that has nothing to do with Quickening being removed as I haven't really been playing Arcane main spec enough to be used to it. It feels a little bland. Weaving between ST and AE might be the only interesting aspect on PTR for me as it is.

[Causese]

blink seems to cancel evocation even with slipstream talented

[Deckzor]

I am a Little bit suprised about the ST dmg loss.
Whats the big dmg loss change from this patch to the one before? Before yesterday almost everyone said they had a dps increase on ptr in comparison to live.
Sure Quickening is gone but u could do just little less dps with barrage rotation and i thought that got buffed by buffing our baseline spells, buffing overpowered and introducing ampflification?!

I will test on ptr myself but just curious.

[Sura]

blink seems to cancel evocation even with slipstream talented

What did you expect? Blink is just a spell like any other if shimmer is not chosen. Of course evo breaks if you start a new spell ^.^

[Causese]

blink seems to cancel evocation even with slipstream talented

What did you expect? Blink is just a spell like any other if shimmer is not chosen. Of course evo breaks if you start a new spell ^.^

sure, technically it is but I expected blizz to not forget about blink -> evo explosion (aegwynn's ascendance) -> displacement

but blink is also movement so yea.. might aswell allow it.

with certain haste levels it might be awkward to get to the boss in time w/o being allowed to blink (since haste reduces cahnneling time)