How are Arcane Mages preforming currently?

[Sly]

Thats far from true.

I think Frost has much more potential to change the outcome of a game than arcane. My main problem when playing Arcane is the lack of control / snares. FFB is the only slow, and even if you PoM cast it a druid will just shapeshift out of it and peace.

In terms of on demand burst, though, Arcane is the clear winner so long as you can build up stacks.

Edit: grammar.

 

[Deadvulcano]

Again, arcane is superior to frost--especially since 5.2 with 26% spell miss on nova's and fireblasts.

Arcane can hardswap targets instantly, frost needs to rebuild frostbolt stacks.

Arcane has superior movement, frost needs to take ice flows to be viable.

Arcane relies on 1 spell with 26% miss chance for shatter which hits over 1k. Frost relies on 2 spells with 26% miss chance for shatter which hits under 1k.

If druids couldn't just shift out of roots and hit rating was fixed then frost would be an ok spec. Ok because it would be better at protecting your healers/fcs compared to arcane.

As for outcome of a game, arcane is superior for both pugs and premades. In a pug, you need to swap to whatever targets your bad dps decide to hit--arcane can do that now, frost can do that 6 seconds from now. In a premade, you need to swap to whatever target is called--again arcane can do that now, frost can do that 6 seconds from now.

 

[Hue]

I'm just going to focus on frost mages since I believe that they are the superior spec in this patch when playing a support role, which is where mages really shine in 5.2


I agree with a lot of what you're saying however in my opinion frost is superior in terms of cc and peels and if you're saying that ice flows is the go to viable talent for frost then I'd have to disagree with you, and say that blazing speed is the superior frost Mage talent since it gives them absurd mobility and control. The mobility gained is simply absurd It's great for any Mage on offense or defense, it's perfect for bugging out when things get messy and every prot warrior and their mum is on your ass, or it can be used to catch up to that efc that's 100yrds away in order to poly/freeze/slow but let's say you're stuck in combat so mounting up isn't an option blink+blazing speed will give you enough mobility In Order to catch up to the efc so that you will have the chance to cc them.

I understand that doing damage is what most people favor however in 5.2 mages are better suited to cc and peeling however due to the hit cap scaling causing poly/nova and cs to become totally dependent on your RNG I can understand why you seem to be more focused on the damage aspect thus favoring arcane. But I would like to add that frost adds a more steady and consistent source of damage that also acts as a type of cc due to the movement speed debuff.


Well that's all I can think of saying about frost mages for the moment, I'd rather not delve too deeply into the world of tactics and other things regarding mages because honestly I'm not that great at playing my Mage and I'm greatly outclassed and outmatched when compared to a known Mage/tinker such as deadvulcano but I really wanted to share my personal opinion on this subject.

welp that's that,
~~cheers



(wrote this on my phone so please excuse the typos and fragmented or redundant sentences, I will try to fix them after work tomorrow)

 

[Xanseyy]

Even with good gear, 4-stack ABarrage crits for 700-750 hp inside battlegrounds. That's nothing to write home about - other classes can do more damage without / less build-up time.

Additionally, mages have low armor and no self-healing or defensive abilities except blinking / blazing away. Prepare to die a lot, unless you have a pocket healer.

tl;dr: arance mage sucks as a pugger

actually, when you get 4 stacks of arcane charges, the whole burst thing starts from there. 4 stacks, after the 4 stacks you frost nova them, then you cast another arcane blast WHILE spamming arcane barrage at 4 stacks. If they both crit, GG. As you can see in my video on the first page, I 3 shot a 24 shaman.