Arcane Missiles

[Syphonize]

Praise it or hate it, I was interested in people's opinions on the skill! Half the fun (to me, anyway) in replaying through vanilla is trying out things that I never got to try out the first time. What are the good and bad parts of the skill? Is it ever worth spamming Arcane Missiles for DPS? If so, when? Could a pure arcane mage be a conceivable idea? There are certainly some advantages to being pure arcane. Please note that I am not necessarily talking about this from a raid's perspective.

Hope I see some interesting ideas!

[Ana]

They're obnoxiously OP in pvp here, since they keep shooting even when the target is already 50 yards away.

[ShaqPack]

As the guy above me said, they are great in certain match ups when an enemy is trying to escape or in AV when a ranged enemy shoots a few attacks and then runs back to an npc. Once the missiles lock on, all of them *will* fire even if the enemy is on an epic mount and running away, so you won't have to worry about escape.

Of course, there's a good reason why they aren't used often but they work well if you're spell locked out of your main school, not good for some sort of spec that just focused on arcane tho. There's a few reasons for this, it's an expensive ability, you have to channel it, so if there's aoe, you could essentially end up just losing a lot of mana. More importantly, the arcane tree doesn't have many abilities that buff the spell, no extra damage to crit or anything like that. Even worse, arcane missiles puts an invisible debuff on the enemy - that's how they work the way they do. If you ever start a fight with arcane missiles, you'll notice the enemy aggros you before the first missile hits, the reason why is because of that invisible debuff, so in a raid environment when the boss already has 8 debuffs on, that will just mean your arcane missiles won't finish the cast, because it will wipe off a previous debuff, then on top of that it will probably get knocked off by another debuff itself.

[Aunstic]

If you ever start a fight with arcane missiles, you'll notice the enemy aggros you before the first missile hits, the reason why is because of that invisible debuff

You get targeted by a player as soon as you start a cast on any harmful spell that requires a target. If you don't believe me, duel someone and tell them not to target you. Cast frostbolt and you'll see them automatically target you with a possible 0.5 second delay in order to grab the target of target from your target.

Periodic triggers are not the same as debuff nor invisible debuffs. Arcane missiles won't take up a debuff slot.

[ShaqPack]

If you ever start a fight with arcane missiles, you'll notice the enemy aggros you before the first missile hits, the reason why is because of that invisible debuff

You get targeted by a player as soon as you start a cast on any harmful spell that requires a target. If you don't believe me, duel someone and tell them not to target you. Cast frostbolt and you'll see them automatically target you with a possible 0.5 second delay in order to grab the target of target from your target.

Periodic triggers are not the same as debuff nor invisible debuffs. Arcane missiles won't take up a debuff slot.

This is not true, for example if you cast frost bolt on any npc really, it won't target you until the frost bolt hits (unless you are entirely way too close). If you're talking about in pvp, yes an enemy can see you when you cast, but that is not really the point I was discussing.

Arcane missiles will definitely take up a debuff slot, try it yourself in a place like MC, tell all your mage friends to cast arcane missiles on a unit, when it already has 8 debuffs and you'll see that your cast gets cancelled very quick (possibly before you even land one hit). At some point this was fixed on retail, can't remember if it was in vanilla, but as it stands right now on the server, this is how that spell works.

[Syphonize]

If Arcane Missiles does take up a debuff slot, it is not working correctly. I don't remember it ever taking a debuff slot. Also, AoE should not cause you to lose mana because if you spec into Improved Arcane Missiles you would ignore any pushback from damage.

[Ana]

It's an invisible debuff slot. Supposedly, anyway. Missiles are kinda broken in pve in various funny ways (you'll see for yourself when fighting Vael or Chrom or even the vulnerability trash packs).

Can anyone confirm whether missiles keep shooting after target breaks LoS?

[Dreez]

It's an invisible debuff slot. Supposedly, anyway. Missiles are kinda broken in pve in various funny ways (you'll see for yourself when fighting Vael or Chrom or even the vulnerability trash packs).

Can anyone confirm whether missiles keep shooting after target breaks LoS?

They do and they should, same as debuff slots

[ShaqPack]

If Arcane Missiles does take up a debuff slot, it is not working correctly. I don't remember it ever taking a debuff slot. Also, AoE should not cause you to lose mana because if you spec into Improved Arcane Missiles you would ignore any pushback from damage.

The push back portion is true, what i mean though is for example, rain of fire, if you get out of it, you cancelled the cast yet still paid all of the mana for it. You can of course stay and finish the cast, but then you'd end up taking a lot of damage by being in the rain of fire.

[Syphonize]

The push back portion is true, what i mean though is for example, rain of fire, if you get out of it, you cancelled the cast yet still paid all of the mana for it. You can of course stay and finish the cast, but then you'd end up taking a lot of damage by being in the rain of fire.

This is true, it is certainly a drawback. The DPS loss would be less because you might get a tick or two off before you have to move while expending the full mana cost.

As a sidenote, does each tick of Arcane Missiles have a chance to proc Clearcasting? I do believe this is the case, but I suppose it would be good to verify this!