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
Abstração procs takes about 1 minute, which will be rather close to
Espelhos do Tormento and
Poder Arcano cooldowns with the covenant legendary effect being baked in for
Espelhos do Tormento and the added ranks of
Prodígio Arcano for
Poder Arcano.
4-Set Implementation Situations (click to read more)
If the free
Toque dos Magos is only castable when
Toque dos Magos is off cooldown (effectively demanding you use the free proc first before your normal
Toque dos Magos cast), Kyrian Arcane Mages will find some frustrations when using the free proc, as there is not only a need to get charges for
Fagulha Radiante (the cast time reduction on
Impacto Arcano is important for getting every spell inside the window). However, Venthyr Arcane Mages will still likely get a lot of value from this free
Toque dos Magos in this scenario, since they have less emphasis on a single hit and the added
Toque dos Magos uptime during
Poder Arcano will be more than welcome (though some preliminary findings may suggest its not worth casting
Toque dos Magos during
Poder Arcano to take advantage of this).
If the free
Toque dos Magos explosion contributes to the normal casted
Toque dos Magos, 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
Fagulha Radiante, free
Toque dos Magos, finishing
Fagulha Radiante, recasting
Toque dos Magos after
Salva Arcana so that the first
Toque dos Magos expires into it.
If the free
Toque dos Magos and normal
Toque dos Magos can be stacked, you would likely follow the same logic above, however you would want to cast both
Toque dos Magos’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
Fagulha 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
Toque dos Magos, 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
Abstração 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
Toque dos Magos cast won’t require
Toque dos Magos 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
Toque dos Magos reapply at the reduced duration after its explosion or just increasing the base duration of
Toque dos Magos, this would certainly help to alleviate what will most certainly be difficult theorycrafting ahead to determine the best uses for this set bonus proc.