ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Earthen Missiles is just plain better as an Arcane Combat proc than fire or lightning. The 4th talent in stone gives both it and your weapon a damage pen boost you can't get for flame or lightning. But, since you need to wait for level 10, you have to chose between point-juggling to have a working proc till that point, not having a proc, or being stuck having half your procs be weak. Arcane blade is the ONLY class that encourages point-juggling to this degree. And worse, it makes not investing in the otherwise very appealing options deeper down the trees like fireshock a no-brainer.

To fix this, I would propose letting Arcane Blades disable spells from being chosen for the proc. This would make the fire and lightning trees actually matter for more than holding over till you can get stone.

I agree, something really should be done with the procs. Ever try fighting a Radiant/Luminous horror with the flame skill learned? It's a huge pain. There's so many other scenarios where the current method causes problems.

The only solution I can think of besides the one you listed would be to make the proc a 'smart proc' and have it choose the skill that will do the most damage to the target, factoring in resist/increase damage/etc. It could also potentially look behind the target and see if there are other enemies in line for the beam so that it can decide between flame/lightning and Earthen Missiles.

It really should be changed, this is easily the most annoying thing about Arcane Blades currently.