The new set bonuses for 9.2 have been announced for Arcane Mages!
The first of these is simple and a welcome bonus to our in-cooldown damage. It looks to be a solid increase in damage (~8-9%), and while it is not a very interesting bonus, in conjunction with the 4-Set it could have some gameplay implications. The 4-Set, however, is the more interesting discussion. The 4-Set could go many different ways depending on how it is implemented in-game that trying to quantify it now is fruitless. It is important to note that 8
Lancio Istintivo procs takes about 1 minute, which will be rather close to
Specchi del Tormento and
Potere Arcano cooldowns with the covenant legendary effect being baked in for
Specchi del Tormento and the added ranks of
Prodigio Arcano for
Potere Arcano.
4-Set Implementation Situations (click to read more)
If the free
Tocco del Magus is only castable when
Tocco del Magus is off cooldown (effectively demanding you use the free proc first before your normal
Tocco del Magus cast), Kyrian Arcane Mages will find some frustrations when using the free proc, as there is not only a need to get charges for
Scintilla Radiante (the cast time reduction on
Detonazione Arcana is important for getting every spell inside the window). However, Venthyr Arcane Mages will still likely get a lot of value from this free
Tocco del Magus in this scenario, since they have less emphasis on a single hit and the added
Tocco del Magus uptime during
Potere Arcano will be more than welcome (though some preliminary findings may suggest its not worth casting
Tocco del Magus during
Potere Arcano to take advantage of this).
If the free
Tocco del Magus explosion contributes to the normal casted
Tocco del Magus, this will certainly necessitate casting one and the other before the first explodes, this could make the rotation very clunky, specifically for Kyrian as you would need to do some odd behavior of ramping
Scintilla Radiante, free
Tocco del Magus, finishing
Scintilla Radiante, recasting
Tocco del Magus after
Sbarramento Arcano so that the first
Tocco del Magus expires into it.
If the free
Tocco del Magus and normal
Tocco del Magus can be stacked, you would likely follow the same logic above, however you would want to cast both
Tocco del Magus’s back-to-back. Likewise, if none of the above are true scenarios, this lends itself to a 2nd smaller cooldown window which could be particularly interesting for Mikanikos in aoe with the shorter
Scintilla Radiante cooldown.
It's important to note that there are many implementation situations apart from the ones listed above, I just wanted to give provide some examples to show the scope of how important the implementation is for the 4-Set bonus for Arcane.
Overall, the tier sets as they stand now should provide large bonuses in ST and AOE, though the 4-Set will rely heavily on how it can be leveraged. Personally, I am a fan of how the set bonuses focus on
Tocco del Magus, as a universally good spell. However, I am not a fan of the 4-Set’s potential restrictions. There is also currently a lot of buggy behavior baked into
Lancio Istintivo procs and powers that interact with the buff, which is why I anticipate potential issues with this set bonus in that regard.
My hopes currently are that the free
Tocco del Magus cast won’t require
Tocco del Magus to be off cooldown, whether it stacks in some way or not I am indifferent on, although I doubt Blizzard will let us achieve that level of burst. Among the suggestions I have read recently that might help would be to have
Tocco del Magus reapply at the reduced duration after its explosion or just increasing the base duration of
Tocco del Magus, this would certainly help to alleviate what will most certainly be difficult theorycrafting ahead to determine the best uses for this set bonus proc.