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