Arcane Mage in the War Within Reviewed - Guide Writer Feedback

Posted 2025/02/01 at 11:50 AM by Porom

Our Class Writers share their expert opinions based on rigorous testing and theorycrafting in hopes of contextualizing the changes coming in future patches of the War Within. Check out all of our released articles in our Editorial Section.

Wowhead Editorials

The Arcane Dream and the Development Nightmare

Despite having a great set bonus, Arcane has repeatedly got change after change that has set the spec back with little to no compensation for the gameplay we're losing and a note stating that the developers are happy with where Arcane is in TWW:
Developers’ notes: We’re happy with where Arcane’s gameplay has landed after their 20th Anniversary Celebration update changes. Our primary goal in Undermine(d) is to simplify the number of variables one has to consider when casting Arcane Barrage.

not happyNether PrecisionArcane BlastArcane Barragebecause they know bestAethervisionAethervisionToo Much Complexity!AethervisionArcane BarrageArcane BarrageArcane BlastArcane BarrageArcane BlastArcane BarrageArcane ChargeArcane BarrageArcane BarrageOne of the Weakauras being used to help players due to how complex Arcane Barrage conditions are, this will likely get more involved and more mandatory now with the removal of Aethervision.Arcane BarrageEnlightenedArcane BarrageBurden of PowerArcane BlastArcane BarrageBurden of Powerunpopular changeArcane BarrageArcane SoulAethervision11.0.5 articleAll Work, No RewardAethervisionArcane BarrageArcane BarrageAethervisionIntuitionArcane BarrageArcane Barrage r/CompetitiveWoWthe manyof threadson theirown forumsWhat would I do?

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Comment by SilverdevilboyIt's almost trivial to capture the benefit of the double dipping on nether precision while also making it clear for new players who don't read theorycrafting.

Consuming both stacks of nether precision gives a buff to your next Arcane Barrage lasting 1 second.

Done.

Now you get the benefit to the extra spell if and only if barrage is cast instantly after an arcane blast consumes the 2nd stack of nether precision. Exactly the same way double dipping works, but in a way people can understand from the tooltip.

If there's any unintended behavior with very high haste (in lust, for example), you can drop the duration even lower.Comment by TanoshiiDouble dipping is dumb and impossible for the regular player to fully grasp. Only the sweats enjoyed it and Blizzard rightfully changed it. Their changes haven't been great, but hopefully they come up with something good.Comment by Alandris17Double dipping is dumb and impossible for the regular player to fully grasp. Only the sweats enjoyed it and Blizzard rightfully changed it. Their changes haven't been great, but hopefully they come up with something good.Comment by PeacemoonDouble dipping is dumb and impossible for the regular player to fully grasp. Only the sweats enjoyed it and Blizzard rightfully changed it. Their changes haven't been great, but hopefully they come up with something good.Comment by ManatherDouble dipping is dumb and impossible for the regular player to fully grasp. Only the sweats enjoyed it and Blizzard rightfully changed it. Their changes haven't been great, but hopefully they come up with something good.Comment by KaeldrathDouble dipping is not &*!@#$ive without being explained how it works. When you have to go to a third party website to figure things out, you have lost. Was it fun after you learned it? Absolutely. But we need to have something that is both fun, and makes sense on the surface. I want to let them cook, but this yo yo of back and fourth every patch, or mid patch changes that upend all the work I did to learn it in the first place isnt it.Comment by MythicRaidRMTBooDouble dipping is dumb and impossible for the regular player to fully grasp. Only the sweats enjoyed it and Blizzard rightfully changed it. Their changes haven't been great, but hopefully they come up with something good.Comment by GingerPACFor people saying that it is was confusing or wasn't explained, there are many convoluted, un(or counter)^&*!@#ive mechanics in the game, mage notwithstanding. I will also say, Double dipping was a consequence of how spells work. It has even been used for Arcane since Shadowlands, and was a core part of its rotation then as well.

For frost, it isn't explained anywhere that if you queue a frostbolt/GS into flurry, that the travel time for the projectile will allow it to benefit from the WC stack of the first flurry hit, and leave 2 WC stacks on the target. Casting flurry after, and not queued will not. It's not explained anywhere how to scorch into a double pyro for fire mage. It's not explained anywhere that charge blast for Dev evoker will benefit all 3 pyre's from Dragon Rage, but those work as well.

For many specs, there are multiple quirks that aren't explained or hard to track with weakauras. Some DOTs don't pandemic or aren't explained, and most classed other than warlock don't explain the pandemic mechanic at all. For Feral, which DOTs snapshot and don't? You really need a WA to track that.

I agree that it wasn't great for it to not be added to a tooltip. That being said, lots of classes still double dip (and some arcane mechanics still can). Not all tool tips or mechanics are explained, how many tool tips don't give accurate information for your spec? (hint its a lot of them)

I will say, explaining on Blizzard's end is easy to add, or make it a talent. "After consuming your last stack of NP, casting barrage within 0.75 seconds also benefits from nether precision." This can be a talent or tool tip. This is what we've been asking for.

For those saying it wasn't ^&*!@#ive or "you shoudln't expect people to have to read a guide to play optimally," both Aethervision and the current rotation without any replacement for double dipping will necessitate a weakaura and guide to play it optimally, making it more confusing than just queueing a barrage after a blast.

Also, people are free to play a class not optimally. Double dipping was not required to get AOTC or do a weekly key, but for those that did wish to play optimally was an easy and pretty fun way to play, and once known didn't require tracking multiple buffs or having external weakauras to tell what the optimal rotation is, where as Aethervision and the new rotation will.Comment by FitzbanAgree with almost everything here. Blizzard needs to take Arcane back to how it was at TWW launch. The midseason patch was very disruptive and made the spec worse to play. It's no surprise that, after years of playing second fiddle to fire and frost, so many people were flocking to Arcane at the start of the expansion. It was fun! Now we're right back to square one. At least Aethervision is gone but we need double-dipping back!

How is it possible for a spec to be so directionless since Classic? Can Arcane please be good (and fun) for once?Comment by danae7188When you have to go to a third party website to figure things out, you have lost.Comment by skybornxleoI’ll personally say I’ve wanted to love arcane for multiple expansions and finally locked in at TWW launch and had to watch multiple videos to understand double dipping when it came to sunfury arcane only for it to go away lol. Which was annoying but i will say I’ve never had to lock in so hard for any other spec I’ve tried. I don’t think it is easy to learn the way tooltips and just reading a guide was. Only when watching multiple videos over the course of a casual month did i sort of get it finally and still needed addons to know exactly when to press it because of how many buffs and debuffs there are to keep track of. So in the end i am relieved they took it away because i dont find it beginner friendly and dont agree you need to be sweating THAT hard for your rotation. Albeit i do enjoy feeling smart and #$%^&*ive when it comes to a rotation unlike how BM hunter was in shadowlands where i could fall asleep and be top DPS. the changes seem to be in a forward friendly direction but are disappointing still in the sense that now i feel like barrage is obviously not as $%^&*!ive and strong and feels good to press like it was. Would like to see continued changes for arcane and all classes more so we are actually aligning the hero talents with each other and can become more flavor than damage needed.Comment by AlustrielSince 2009, I have played a mage, frost at first, making it to one of the top 3 in the realm was fun, but arcane and its mysteries were a lure I could not refuse and switched to it in 2011. Complexity makes sense if it yields powerful damage and there is something all players who chase after arcane enjoy: a challenge.

Unfortunately developers like making challenges of their own that damage code rather than actual execution. We also have had new generations of players who are for lack of a better expression, are "Simple" they do not enjoy rotations that build power and just want to press a button or two to get results immediately just as they have in other games before migrating to Warcraft.

Porom has made a lot of valid points. The devs are unconcerned with how Arcane spec has finally been made great pre-TWW, and likely the complaints from the "Simple" generation and as well from other classes that see dps number higher than their own, has caused devs to mess with arcane to cause their version of "more balanced game play".

This is bs and needs to really be checked. I'm not a multi class player (as in gearing up alts to play each and every one of them through content), never have or ever will. When my arcane mage gets code scrapped to the point I am running epic 634 item level gear and one of my profession alts, a blacksmith paladin in 558 rare item level gear kills groups of mobs faster, rares quicker, there is a serious problem! I'm using the majority of talents provided here in Wowhead's build guides so what is wrong? Too many changes, that is what is wrong. Fix things the right way and stop messing with it once it works just to keep non-arcane mage classes from being jealous of how another player's class is doing on the battle field compared to their own.

I'm not going to switch specs, nor play as my main as another class, my message is clear, to the point: fix it right, leave it alone. we do NOT need constant changes applied every single expansion to disrupt performance just to entice 'new' players to try the game. That is how many see these changes over the last 20 years. With upgrades to hardware, video cards, hyper threading in cpu's more memory available, it is always good to take advantage of such equipment facilities to make any program run better and provide more detail and realism to the content it is executing for the end user. What comes with that is some people's ideas of how to make things better beyond just taking advantage of extra hardware improvements. Those "ideas" are what should be carefully reviewed before throwing them in the batch to get sorted out and applied to the game. Community player feedback is available for a reason, because we care about how our many years of enjoyment of a specific class and spec we play in World of Warcraft has evolved.

If you're not going to listen to us, why are we bothering to play your game? Most of the time it is in the 'hopes' that you might get it, but I think it really is you don't care what we have to say and do what you want.Comment by exper1mentOneWhy is the word "i-n-t-u-i-t" being censored in $%^&*!ive?Comment by weywoyI rarely comment on wowhead because 90% of the comments are hogwash but as a mainly arcane main I felt I would say thank you porom for the work you've done for the spec and these articles.

To the people saying "double dipping was to hard to understand for my casual brain"..... Blast blast barrage thats all you needed to know. Should bliz have made it a tooltip and baked it in yes. However, EVERY class has some weird mechanic in one of their specs that interact with the servers in a weird way and none complain about those. So I find it curious people came out of the woodworks to complain about it when arcane was strong. Its already been mentioned here but Frost has flurry spell queing and fire has double pyroblasts. Yet none complained about them despite them both being in the game for at least more than 1 season. If you complain that you have to go to a third party site like Kaeldrath then why are you on a third party site reading this right now? Not to mention every person wanting to do well on their class goes to a "third party" site to learn the rotation so you can #^*! right off with that complaint.

TLDR: Bliz please just give us double dip back in so the spec is playable again. I played this spec when its rotation read like a dictionary in DF S3 and it was breath of fresh air to have the rotation we did with small complexities but overall 5x rotationally less complexComment by acrodobeDouble dipping is dumb and impossible for the regular player to fully grasp. Only the sweats enjoyed it and Blizzard rightfully changed it. Their changes haven't been great, but hopefully they come up with something good.Comment by PesachI can't take this post seriously when the author is trying to protect degen behavior in the rotation as "good design". Double Dipping is never good, if the result is intended it shouldn't be designed as double dipping in the first place.Comment by KoxySo far, not a single person in the comments who says double-dipping is bad seems to understand how Arcane works or has worked. It would be helpful to read the guide and understand how current Arcane works, but based on what I've read, that might not be an option due to varying levels of literacy.

Double dipping meant that you send Arcane Barrage right after 2 Arcane Blasts if you have Nether Precision.
No double dipping means that you send Arcane Barrage when the results of the 11+ different damage bonuses and maintenance buffs cause Arcane Barrage to be a damage increase.

This is what you people are arguing about. Read a guide.
It's fair to argue about "degenerate design" when the other design is less degenerate which is not the case but obviously none of you understand this because you have no core concept of how current arcane works (or even the one on PTR).Comment by GingerPACPeople also fail to understand that double dipping isn't also unique to arcane. It wasn't some bug introduced with NP specifically in TWW. It still exists, and has always existed as part of Blizzard's base gameplay. Blizzard didn't fix double dipping with a buff and a queued and cast spell, but just fixed this one interaction for arcane.

Arcane used this for Radiant spark in shadowlands as a core part of it's rotation. Holy uses this still to get double CDR on it's holy words with lightweaver. Blizzard specifically fixed this interaction for Arcane, but left tons of Double Dip interactions still in the game.

To say "I can't take this seriously because it's bug abuse" ignores that Blizzard knows that this exists for plenty of other specs, had it be known to Arcane's rotation for expansions previously, but chose address this one instance of it while not addressing others.Comment by FrankzuThere are too many buffs to track now, im just staring at weakauras & the game is losing its appeal.. just feels overly complicated for no reasonComment by KurlsDouble dipping is dumb and impossible for the regular player to fully grasp. Only the sweats enjoyed it and Blizzard rightfully changed it. Their changes haven't been great, but hopefully they come up with something good.

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