Mages - How the arcane fix caused the arcane problem

Arcane, since WOTLK, has been the go-to spec for arena at almost all levels of play.  Between its insanely high burst, not relying on cast time spells, and utility of tongues spamming healers it offered almost too much.  Cries of nerf came from both sides of the fence on this one.  “Older” mages were upset that it simplified their beloved class, while non-mages were upset simply because “bad” mages were able to walk all over them with seemingly little difficulty.

How did Blizzard think they would fix this?  They took away the mindless 1-button-spamming effectiveness of arcane barrage and made the issue so, so much worse.  While, truly, the exodus of lower skilled mages seemed to be at an end they forgot about the other half.  By bringing arcane blast into the mix, and thus reliance on cast time spells, the “better” mages now were the ones who stood to run arcane specs.  And now coupled with before unseen levels of burst potential and the “good” mages finally stepping away from frost and trying their hands at arcane mages have become what looks like an unstoppable force.

Is there an immediately visible solution to this?  Not really.  From my understanding there was a hotfix to rectify this issue, but to be quite honest I have no idea what they changed.  Things are seemingly the same.  Arcane barrage, however skill-less as it may be, now doesn’t seem quite so bad in comparison to arcane blast.  The arcane blast glyph, which adds an extra 5% of damage to each arcane blast debuff stack, only makes the problem that much more apparent.  A simple solution may be to scale back arcane blast’s damage while keeping the debuff bonus the same.  A little increase in damage to arcane barrage on top of that would keep arcane strong but still insist on using arcane blast to make your arcane barrage more effective, without the absurd damage of arcane blast itself being the biggest concern.

A note to some mages who are wondering what your highest possible damage output is as arcane - this video illustrates the best rotation possible to get your damage out:

http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=100281

On the topic of arcane glyphs I have personally chosen to use Evocate, Polymorph, and Arcane Blast.  There’s some wiggle room here with Arcane Power and, given your choice of spec, Icy Veins.  Personally, though, I’m looking forward to mage specs becoming a little less pigeon-holing and returning to frost.