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  1. #1
    Old God Swizzle's Avatar
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    Swizzle's Crazy Mage Discussiorama!!

    Okay, let's talk shop here for a second folks. With 5.3 on the PTR already, and 5.4 being the SoO, I have a sneaking suspicion that many of you are generally dismayed with the state of the Mage class midway through MoP. I get that, I really do (I survived the Sunwell days...I lived through Ulduar, I WAS THERE WHEN THE FIRST BOSS OF TWO RAIDS IN THE SAME TIER HAD OPPOSITE IMMUNITIES TO TWO OF OUR SCHOOLS FORCING A RESPEC EACH DAMN INSTANCE UNTIL YOU HAD TWO PIECE T5 AND WERE ABLE TO GO ARCANE), but my understanding is not the point of this thread.

    I'm here to tell you to stop thinking about radical changes for MoP: they simply aren't going to happen. All we're going to get now (since I understand the Blizzard patch cycle all too well, I know that they're already half done with the 5.4 work and have started conceptualizing the next expansion) are tweaks and balancing changes. I'm not telling you to not complain, what I'm telling you to do is complain construcively. Instead of worrying about how we're going to do in SoO, we need to figure out what went wrong with MoP and focus our attention on fixing the class in whatever expansion 6.0 brings us.

    What I'm doing now is giving us a nice venue to do just that! Instead of 4039248029384092834092783986287562873462983479234 different idea threads that only serve to give me high cholesterol, let's just narrow it down to one...this one!!

    I'll put my ideas in here when I come up with something good (that functions in WoW and is actually viable mathematically) and keep the OP updated with what I find to be the best ideas. If we all try hard enough, we can approach Blizz before the start of beta with a solid list of suggestions that would be free of any MVP involvement (just to keep you guys happy) and move forward to making sure we're both super fun and actually balanced next time around.

    So there you have it, now get cracking!
    BfA Beta Time

  2. #2
    Void Lord Aeluron Lightsong's Avatar
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    I can only speak for Mages alltogther and not Fire. A certain mage will strangle me if I do anything against her vision of Fire Mages.
    #TeamLegion #UnderEarthofAzerothexpansion plz #Arathor4Alliance #TeamNoBlueHorde

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  3. #3
    Void Lord Elegiac's Avatar
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    Well, I'll start with a few of the most frequently cited.

    Level 90 Talents

    Probably the most glaring issue at present; these talents hinge around mana management, which as we know only Arcane cares about. I am of the mind that Arcane's tools need to be baked into the spec itself - the problem is that without their mana components, Invocation is a boring maintenance buff with a garbage heal component if glyphed, and Rune of Power offers exactly the same damage as Invocation at the cost of further mobility.

    After heavy consideration and testing, I've changed my mind about Incanter's Ward. Without its mana component, it becomes a relatively interesting cooldown that might actually merit a slot in the Level 90 tier, assuming its "theme" revolves around various damage increasers. Of course, I feel it definitely needs a new spell animation to make it more flashy as befits an ultimate talent.

    What I feel the Level 90 tier should offer is three different modes of damage boost; one should boost sustained damage, one should offer increased burst, and the third perhaps should offer increased execute phase damage.

    Level 75 Talents

    I don't like the Bomb tier at all, for a couple of reasons. First off, I don't feel that DoTs merit a place in the Frost spec, much less Arcane. The second is that they offer rotational abilities which are essentially out of spec (aesthetics is important to me ). Removing Living Bomb from the Fire tree was a mistake, I feel, since it diluted Fire's flavor as a "bursty DoT" based spec.

    One aspect of this tier that I feel should be capitalized upon is its choice in effectiveness in different types of AoE scenarios: Frost Bomb being good for a large group of low-health adds, as opposed to Nether Tempest being good in cleave situations. Perhaps this tier should improve our AoE ability in different ways; for instance, removing Barrage's baseline cleave and the Ice Lance glyph, and baking them into a talent designed to offer increased cleave damage.

    Fire

    I'll start with Fire out of the specs, because a basic "fix" for it would be the simplest. Fire's issue is that has a two-faced problem of being gated behind X gear level, and then once that gate is passed it scales too effectively. Fire's RNG needs to be independent of its stat weights; basically, Hot Streak needs to proc off a flat percentage chance rather than being based on crit.

    Arcane

    Arcane's problem is more complicated; as discussed several times, the healer style model of mana management doesn't work for DPS since there is no impetus to "conserve dps", as opposed to having to conserve healing so that you don't overheal or expend a limited mana pool. I actually feel that the Cataclysm model of Arcane was superior in that you could achieve high levels of stationary burst damage during the Burn phase. That isn't to say the spec hasn't improved in certain ways - I like how they have made Barrage more important to the rotation by making it the charge-clearer.

    Utility

    Regardless of what certain people have said, I don't regard personal utility as raid utility; I feel that at least one "raid CD" aside from Time Warp is merited.

    What I would like to see is a spell in the vein of Mana Tide totem, called Brilliance Aura: a raid-wide CD that increases mana regeneration by some factor or coefficient. It is not an entirely new mechanic, meaning that it would not be impossible to balance, and also has a precedent in the WCIII Archmage spell.

    Visual Appeal

    As I said earlier, aesthetics are important to me. I feel that Mages, despite being a flashy class by nature, are somewhat lagging in the graphical department compared to others like Warlocks and Priests. A few of our key spells need updates, namely our main nukes, and I feel many of our talented spells could use something other than recycled animations.

    I would also like to see more delineation between specs, so that Fire isn't having to rotationally cast a Frost spell or vice versa.
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  4. #4
    Old God Swizzle's Avatar
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    I just want to bump this by saying that the old forbidden topic of a Phoenix pet is STILL forbidden. Saying this preemptively.
    BfA Beta Time

  5. #5
    Fire having CM in its current iteration needs to go. We don't need something that guarantees a nerf later on in the coming expansions. That is wasted development time and creates another issue in the future that will possibly distract from whatever other issues we have then. I really like the idea of CM itself scaling up or down based upon your current crit chance to achieve something that would make it playable at any gear level but also putting the brakes on it a little bit at super high levels of crit. I'd also support a flat modifier that scales with nothing such as 5% on pyro, fireball, scorch etc but I feel like the first option I listed would solve a lot of the gear gating issues if done correctly.

    Frost needs to have its soft caps in PvE removed somehow or significantly raised its not very interesting knowing that a spec is doomed scaling wise if the expansion goes for so many tiers. The water elemental needs to go or play a more significant role in our rotation its just boring right now outside of a few encounters where you try to get some cheesy FoF procs on adds. I also think this spec needs to have something that devs can adjust damage wise that does not affect PvP at all. PvP and PvE really clash here for this spec.

    Arcane is just not my cup of tea anymore I suppose but here we go. Mana management? Nonexistent in MoP. Fairly static rotation you really cant deviate from if you appreciate good dps. I suppose you could call that management if you really wanted to but seriously there isn't anything going on for real. Why is that a problem? Well the spec is designed to be something where you manage mana and it turned into stand still as much as possible, perhaps more than is even enjoyable, and spam a pretty static and uneventful rotation. It feels like you're fighting your character more than the boss and to me and it just isn't fun. That's all pretty subjective though. I feel like this spec needs to be completely and entirely rebuilt again.

    Aesthetics are pretty lacking for all specs especially Arcane Blast.

    Bomb tier is pretty awful in its current iteration wouldn't mind seeing it replaced entirely.

    Level 90 talents are a failure in my opinion. They feel like a penalty as soon as you hit 90. A maintenance buff. A movement restricting talent for two of them. One of them extremely movement unfriendly. Required to be kept up to a high degree to have good dps. I don't care what Blizzard says when they say we aren't expected/tuned to keep a high up time on them because we're going to or we will get smashed by the other dps if they are skilled players. Boring. Annoying. Frustrating at times. Balancing nightmare for arcane.

  6. #6
    Deleted
    I'll try be very brief as I'm not a super hardcore player but my two main things I hope will be changed for the better are:

    1) As many have said already: level 90 talents. I think firstly they should be offered to the player a lot sooner than 90 if they are to be kept and two they need to be changed so they don't feel like a punishment than a power up. Not to mention they are seriously boring, well to me atleast. Very lackluster in visual appeal.

    2) I really hate the way frost and fire; two opposites are overlapping and frost mages are taking fire spells and vice versa. I think the talents available should be ambiguous as to what spell school they are or just general mage spells. Right now it feels like you might aswell make fire and frost the same spec and just have a minor glyph that makes your spells frost or fire looking (bit of an exaggeration but you see what I'm trying to say).

  7. #7
    ok ill evcaluate arcane for now

    firstly lvl90 talents were interesting in some ways and bought us whole different level(lol) to gameplay i understand people hated thsi concept and i personally it was ok but negative side was YOU CAN ONLY USE ROP (and invocation if you went full haste) and it was rather hard to figure out when to place your rop down with minimal movement DURING progression (at the end of tier you just learn this stuff and max your dps for wolk ranking :P)

    what can be change??

    i would like to see something along the line of having BOTH burn phase and conserve phase while doing a HUGE burst during burn phase just like in cata

    rune of power concept was a thing that caught my attention when playing arcane was, people complaing about arcane mobility...... i mean i dont recall us having amazing dps while moving since cata scorch talent thing. id like to see blizzard remove 400% passive mana regen(?? or 200% cant remember zzzz) and add something like sniper training mana style thing while doing 5-7% extra damage for this duration

    so say you gain more mana for standing still but you lose regen when you have to run(maybe like 3s buff after moving and takes 5s to concentrate to get mana regen back) the idea is to have something like ROP but less punishing and more rewarding if you are standing on one spot

    arcane mastery- i would like this mastery to be changed to flat damage bonus per arcane charge. so as your arcane charge is higher the higher the mastery benefit from its effect something like that instead of "at full mana" 1% damage increase at 1 charge, 2% at 2 charge, 3% at 3 charge and 4% at 4charge (maybe 1,2,4,6 i dunno number can be solved later :P) so basically the idea behind this mastery is the bigger your mana at the start of burn the bigger the burst damage you will do, oh and you dont even have to keep your eye on DO I HAVE CLOSE TO 100% mana stuff :/ (and obviously evocate back to full mana for the conserve phase 2min cd or even 1.5)

    since this mean less barrage casting we can add something like, casting 3 consecutive arcane blast/arcane misssle beyond 4 arcane charge you have 100% chance to blast your enemy with arcane barrage for free (doesnt consume arcane charge) with 4charge effect, so there, you can instant cast barrage during your burn phase (we all love seeing high damage with arcane barrage as arcane right???). this also attracts the mini burn during conserving phase since its a free barrage after 3 AB/AM with some risk, so you do need to watch your mana when your evocation is coming back cd. (or even have automatic barrage casting after 3AB/AM)

    level 75 talent. hmmm im starting to doubt this talent after the huge stealth nerf of fireblast spreading living bomb maybe just make nether tempest baseline or even just remove them (which is shame because NT looks pretty)

    oh and bring back clearcasting :/ even though it was a random proc but i liked it

    another thing we need to watchout for is burn phase+arcane power.... now this will be hard to balance since arcane power is REALLY!! powerful (zzz) so maybe adding some penalty for using arcane power...... say... you consume 20-50% current mana(????) but does increasing damage based on HOW MUCH you consumed your mana or we can keep the 20% damage 10% more mana but yea... arcane power is something i would like to be toyed around with

    finally all the numbers ive mentioned CAN be change this is just my idea of arcane being more interesting gameplay, feel free to discuss/yell at my ideas :P
    Last edited by Soulstrike; 2013-04-04 at 02:16 PM.
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  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Didactic View Post
    Fire's issue is that has a two-faced problem of being gated behind X gear level, and then once that gate is passed it scales too effectively. Fire's RNG needs to be independent of its stat weights; basically, Hot Streak needs to proc off a flat percentage chance rather than being based on crit.
    ^ This.
    Seriously. As a person who keeps playing a mage because I want to enjoy the fire spec,
    the spec really needs a fix. Although we probably can't expect a fix during this expansion =/
    Major problem right now is that only players with normal to heroic raiding gear can fully enjoy the fire spec.

    Who ever designed this spec has no talent in game designing.

  9. #9
    I've been toying around for some time with ideas for total overhauls to mage specs, talents, and glyphs, although I haven't fully consolidated all of my thoughts yet. I generally agree with most of the points that have brought up so far, but here are my thoughts in particular from the perspective of someone who is NOT in a cutting-edge guild.

    OVERALL
    The devs have stated that mages were where they wanted us to be for a long time, all the way back to Wrath at least. Some of their ideas (mages being the premier AoE class) have been scrapped since then but the primary role of mage as an exclusive DPS has never wavered. We haven't always been glass cannons, but we have always been damage dealers and there seems to be little reason to change this core design of mages.

    In the personal utility department, we have more tools in our kit than every other class except arguably rogues. This means that we have always been versatile in PvP, with enough tools to be able to play our class in a highly tactical manner, and has been strengthened somewhat in Mists by making some of the formerly Frost-only items available to all mages. We can turn ourselves invisible, use an immunity shield, exert a great deal of battlefield control through our wide variety of snares, roots, and stuns, have positioning tools (hi thar blink), good defensive tools, offensive dispel and a decurse, and a great many of our abilities can fill more than one niche. We have also lost some tools (Amp/Damp Magic, our execute). Overall for personal utility and toolkit, it seems that mages are in a good place and likely to stay that way indefinitely.

    In terms of raid utility, mages provide food, crit, spellpower, defensive curse dispels, offensive magic dispels, and Time Warp (and, in highly situational instances, Slow Fall). Our personal survival tools and utility also translate into raid utility when insta-death attacks need to absorbed (H Ultraxion; H Elegon). However, all of our raid tools are redundant - food has now been taken over by feasts, while crit, spellpower, curse dispels, Time Warp, and even Slow Fall are all provided by at least one other class. So it seems that mages do not have any unique features or abilities to bring to a raid, and while Time Warp is a very powerful raid CD, we have none other for either offense or defense. Nor do we bring any raidwide tools for miscellaneous purpose. In raid utility, Mages can probably use some love.

    In terms of gearing, all three of our specs emphasize different secondary priorities. This means that we have to play the reforge Tetris when switching between various specs - can't see this becoming better when tri-spec is introduced.

    By Spec: Arcane
    Formerly the little brother spec that mages only took when they couldn't play the elements (Vanilla, BC), Arcane turned into a viable raid spec in Wrath and took on its signature playstyle in Cata. I tend to agree with most people that Arcane has become a badly designed spec. This is not because of any single overriding problem - none of the problems with Arcane are fatal by themselves - but they tend to compound and amplify each other. To wit:
    - The devs have a vision of Arcane being the one DPS spec that has to stress about mana and seem determined to force it onto the game, shutting off any playerbase attempts to find loopholes or deviate from this vision.
    - Arcane has to manage three radically different resources: Mana, Arcane Charges, and movement. Mana and Arcane Charges mutually affect each other, while movement is the "resource" that punishes the player for having to move.
    - Arcane's mana management problem bleeds over into the talents, as the talents are used to prop up the mana management game at level 90.
    - Because Arcane must mind not only its instant mana but also its total mana due to its mastery, a bad mistake can hobble your DPS.

    Taken altogether, this means that there's a formidable competence floor for Arcane (one-button wonder stereotypes notwithstanding, it takes experience to play Arcane well) and a very high skill ceiling where the player must manage mana, movement, buffs, mana restoration items, and often make snap decisions on the spot while taking half a dozen different things into consideration. If this is what you like, more power to you, but it also means that Arcane is an exceedingly difficult spec to manage in both PvE and PvP. There's a lot of movement in PvP and movement penalizes Arcane very heavily, not to mention that many of our utility spells are in the Arcane spell and being spell-locked out of the Arcane school leaves a mage in a desperate position. In PvE, Arcane tends to excel on a single type of fight - a single-target Patchwerk fight with minimal movement, minimal mechanics, that allow the DPS to stand-and-deliver. If the DPS specs should work better in some situations than others, surely this is Arcane's niche.

    My thoughts are that Arcane needs to lose either its mana management game or its heavy movement penalties, preferably the latter. A second consideration for PvP could be to make Arcane less dependent on the Arcane school for utility, although the movement issue seems to be the most pressing in both PvE and PvP. Arcane charges could probably use a little more complexity in their management in order to deepen the mana interaction scheme. In PvP, Arcane seems that it would fill a much-needed niche for a spec that fights ranged casters and hunters.

    By Spec: Fire
    Ah, Fire. The spec that has been very crit-heavy ever since BC, gained the theme of "burn everything in sight" in Cata, and then lost much of its spec identity in Mists. While no longer the king of AoE that it was in Cataclysm, Fire still boasts very strong gear scaling, decent mobility, and powerful damage-over-time. However, its formerly supreme AoE and multidotting ability has now been overshadowed by some of the other classes because ... apparently fire doesn't spread past a certain number of targets in close proximity. Maybe some of the wild bushfires in our world need to get the memo ...

    My personal opinion on Fire is that Fire feels too similar to Frost now, where there's little difference between the two specs except for ... the color of your spells. With the amount of multitarget power that some of the other classes have, it doesn't seem justifiable for Fire to have target caps on Inferno blast or Living Bomb, while Flamestrike doesn't really hit hard enough to justify using. Also, having Critical Mass nerfed every patch feels extraordinarily heavy-handed - like chasing a finish line that keeps receding with each patch. Fire's excellent scaling has also been a problem in the past, where Fire started every expansion feeling underpowered and finished the expansion as one of the best specs; witness Wrath where Fire mages were the only class capable of matching Fury warriors wielding Shadowmourne. Much of this problem lies in the way Hot Streak scales so well with crit, while the secondaries of Fire mutually feed and benefit each other.

    Blizzard's stated design goal for Hot Streak was that it should feel like a bonus when up rather than a penalty when not up. However, they have never succeeded in this goal; Pyrogunning Alysrazor is fun, but dry streaks feel agonizing, and a good streak of chain Pyroblasts almost feels mandatory now for a decent Combustion.

    The addition of Scorch as baseline to Fire has improved Fire's viability in PvP, although with how high resilience is, even Pyroblast! sometimes feels like it doesn't hit hard enough. Furthermore, in PvP instant damage upfront is more valuable than a DoT that sticks on the target and gives a healer some all-important seconds to heal up your poor victim. As Fire, you need dispel buffers to prevent your best DoTs from being ripped off.

    By Spec: Frost
    The king supreme spec of PvP, as well as the only viable PvE spec back in the days when bosses had total immunity to Fire (*cough*MOLTEN CORE*cough*BLACKWING LAIR*cough*), Frost has a strong tradition of high control and powerful crits backed by its strong instant casts and large toolkit. Recently, the devs have also tried to make Frost viable in PvE and the goal seems to coming closer and closer with each expansion. While Frost wasn't really viable until Cata, Cataclysm made important progress towards making the spec usable in a raid setting, although it did fall off in the later tiers and seems as though it will lag behind in Mists as well.

    In PvP, a skilled Frost mage is a dangerous opponent and can tie up multiple melee opponents (ever kill a warrior in BC with rank 1 Frostbolt? It would take half an hour but he couldn't do anything about it). Shatter combos allow a Frost mage to suddenly dump on a ton of burst damage, forcing an opponent to spend valuable concentration watching the mage. In PvP then, Frost mages have always been in a very strong position (many non-mages have argued that it is TOO strong).

    PvE attempts to replicate the PvP feel of the Frost mage somewhat, with two separate procs that grant instant casts as well as making Shatter applicable to raid bosses via Fingers of Frost. With the removal of Freeze generating Fingers procs on bosses, however, the Water Elemental now feels like a glorified DoT and Frost feels like blue Fire with the addition of a Frozen Orb and different damage CDs (Icy Veins vs. Combustion), with slight variations on the procced insta-cast spells. To me, Frost feels too much like fire, as though the elemental specs are two variations on a single identity rather than having separate identities of their own. It has also been mentioned that Frost has a PvE problem in that it hits secondary stat plateaus; after the Shatter soft cap, crit is rapidly devalued. Haste does not benefit the insta-casts very well, and only its interactions with Nether Tempest and Frostbolt save it from being consigned to the scrap heap while the Icy Veins glyph is practically mandatory. Mastery is the only stat without a soft cap, but its lackluster scaling makes it unattractive. For Frost to remain viable in PvE then, it seems that the scaling issues must be addressed sooner or later. Frost's AoE has also suffered since Wrath, when Fingers of Frost would interact with Blizzard. Frozen Orb, while very powerful, is on a one minute CD and Blizzard isn't worthwhile to cast unless if mobs are present in massive numbers.

    Talents
    Mage talents can be separated into six demarcations:
    Tier 1 - Mobility
    Tier 2 - Defense
    Tier 3 - Control
    Tier 4 - Defensive utility
    Tier 5 - Terrorism
    Tier 6 - Superpowers

    Of these, the first four tiers do have some talents that are less attractive than others (Flameglow vs. Ice Barrier; Cold Snap vs. Cauterize) but nothing really bad. However, the bomb tier and the final tier both have significant problems. My opinion: bombs feel awkward in both Arcane spec and Frost spec, which have traditionally NOT been about damage-over-time effects. The bomb is just another cooldown to manage in Arcane and has no interaction whatsoever with the rest of the spec, while its interaction in Frost is minimal (proccing Brain Freeze). So I think the bomb tier needs to be scrapped entirely, with Living Bomb being made baseline to Fire and the rest discarded. Unfortunately, given that the devs buffed our bombs by 40% after patch 5.2.0., this doesn't seem likely.

    I've heard a lot of criticism of the final tier. I don't agree with all of it, but I do agree that they often feel more like penalties for non-use than bonuses for use (need to move? Try again with Evocation or recast your Rune. Didn't take a hit with 'Canter's Ward up? Enjoy losing both the active and the passive). I also agree that they need to be divorced from mana upkeep, an obvious concession to the Arcane playstyle which nevertheless feels like trying to shoehorn a square peg into a round hole. Evocation forces a break from combat to maintain its buff, Rune nails the mage down to two specific spots, and Incanter's Ward only gives its full benefit when damage is incoming or taken. With the glyph nerf to Evocation, both Invocation and Rune feel practically useless in PvP combat, leaving a mage to take Incanter's Ward because ... there's no real choice otherwise? Oh wait, Incanter's Ward was nerfed too! Enjoy having it dispelled! After removing the current tier 5, it seems that tier 5 would be a good place to either locate the current tier 6 (so that mages can have easier access to DPS-increasing talents while leveling) or placing a raid/battleground utility tier (I think Brilliance Aura was mentioned earlier as a candidate).

    An example of a replacement talent for tier 6 that would (hopefully) address all of the current problems would be:
    <i>Clearcasting</i> - "Passive: Your direct damage spells have a X% chance to generate a single Mirror Phantasm that will duplicate your spellcasts on your target for 10% damage. Stacks up to 3 Mirror Phantasms. Lasts 25 seconds. Active: Sacrifices your Phantasm with the least remaining uptime for a spec-dependent resource. 10 sec. cooldown" (So, an Arcane Charge for Arcane mages, a stack of Heating Up for Fire mages, and a Finger of Frost charge for Frost mages. Not the same as Mirror Images.)
    Last edited by TacTican; 2013-04-04 at 03:53 AM.

  10. #10
    I really dislike having to use a talent that doesn't fit the theme of the spec. Like Ice Barrier as Fire, it just really erks me .

    Probably not a problem very high on the list of people who main their mage but still would like to see a glyph or something to make everything suit your spec more aesthetically .
    Hi Sephurik

  11. #11
    Ghost crawler likes you guys, but i dont think hes ready for a commitment. Like some of the things you listed. Especially doing something to the bomb tier!
    I play many games. WoW, Rift, D3, PoE, SC2 I will not criticize your game choice if you don't mine.

  12. #12
    Void Lord Aeluron Lightsong's Avatar
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    My suggestions are not very descriptive, that and my mind is clouded right now so it's going to be minor.


    Arcane: Uhhhh.... give it a little buff that and don't over buff so we don't have the same over nerfing issue again. Secondly do something with the spec still being very powerful but not like it is now. Like a Arcane Storm spell for a little Aoe Potential with the theme instead of using Living Bomb or Flamestrike(I don't use Nether Tempest because the sound is obnoxious it makes me want to mutilate virmin).

    Fire: Uhhhh fix their damage and something with their crits like someone mentioned above. Not much else because this spec is a little sacred and I'm too scared to fix it.

    Frost: Maybe make it not necessary to have an elemental or maybe add WATER SPELLS since the Elemental has it why not Mage?

    Mage in general: Fix the Level 90 Talents for hells sake. Rune of Power is strong..but obnoxious. Invocation is not my style so no comment. The Ward one I like for the extra Mana Regen but maybe make it baseline for Arcane and add something superpowerish. Lastly either get rid of Alter Time and make something more interesting or improve it or keep it and add something else.

    I'll bookmark this thread to contribute more. This would be more in detail but my mind is clouded so it's not my best so I apologize in advance if it's not superb.
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  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Aeluron Lightsong View Post
    Lastly either get rid of Alter Time and make something more interesting or improve it or keep it and add something else.
    To be honest, I think Alter Time is one of the most provocative spells we've got, so I couldn't disagree more. It can be either used offensive as defensive, in PVE aswell as in PVP, so what's your point exactly?

  14. #14
    Deleted
    So many (good) things already has been said, I just want to add some things from a open minded progression point of view:

    Scaling:

    Arcane and Fire both scale very good with gear. Fire a tiny bit better. For hardcore guilds, it is not really a problem to give the mage the needed ilvl to compete properly. For all the rest, it is really frustrating. By time the majority of the player base will obtain a good ilvl (530+), I have a feeling blizzard will throw out another CM or similar nerf to fire and maybe arcane.

    Frost is the opposite: Gives you pretty good damage in the beginning of an expansion and is doomed to reach caps by the end of an expansion.

    With thunderforged items and cheaper upgrades in 5.3, blizzard will run into a pretty huge scaling nightmare. I decided to play frost, because I saw the legendary meta as a chance to compete at higher item levels. I finished legendary scenario yesterday and found out, that I have to wait another 1 or 2 weeks, till I can start to collect another 12 needed items. So in 4 - 5 weeks I will get my hands on that meta gem. If my guild found their way back to serious progression and I get myself some gear, I will have around ilvl 530+ and 9 - 12/13 heroic bosses down. Progress nearly finished and I was not competitive anymore compared to my fellow fire mages the last 3 weeks due scaling (yes, I`m 5 weeks in future here )

    I´m at ilvl 525 already, having 48.26% haste raidbuffed. Frostbolt cast time under BL with T15 2p 1.01s already. Found out to cap crit around 5000/5500 (22 - 23%) and reforge to mastery at that point is more viable than reforge to 25% or even 28%. With legendary meta gem, I will have Bloodlust 50% of the time and the profit from the real bloodlust is close to zero. What should come with upgrades and thunderforged items? I nearly already capped Hit, Haste and Crit.

    Fire Mages will have around 47 - 50% before CM, depending on their luck with Hit/Crit thunderforged items and the upgrades coming in 5.3. What will they do in 5.4? Throwing out items with Int and SP only on it? Blizzard has to adress scaling NOW and not in 6.0!

    Sorry for wall of text, but that is what is bothering me for while now. Yes, there are many many more things that has to be fixed or reworked, but scaling is one of the biggest issues at the moment, in my humble opinion.
    Last edited by mmocc7076034c2; 2013-04-04 at 07:34 AM.

  15. #15
    Herald of the Titans Shangalar's Avatar
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    People who don't PvP that much don't see the potential in Alter Time. It's an amazing spell and noe that I'm back to casual Arena farming I am starting to see it more and more. I wouldn't touch it in any way. Plus all three specs use it in a different way in PvE so that makes me happy.
    My magic will tear you apart.

  16. #16
    Deleted
    First, I think can won't see big change before 6.x. We will see some little for 5.3/5.4 but to hotfix some recurrent scaling problem.

    Globally, I think something interesting can be done. My idea isn't new, it was my optimion at the end of MoP's beta when raid testing begn to show that L90's talent feel bad to play.

    On talents :
    I feel like very little change can make it :
    • 15 - mage's armor (mage / molten / frost)
    • 30 - movement
    • 45 - defensive
    • 60 - survivability
    • 75 - AOE control
    • 90 - mage's bomb

    Armor is very good talent. Each spec use what is better all the time but sometime another one is needed. Blizzard don't want them to be switch on the fly/in combat too.
    Mage's bomb are very good talent but the 40% buff just made them a little out of control (NT's multi-dotting). They have to be at the same damage level than in 5.1, if not lesser. It's also need some more interaction with spec (I will detail later).

    Incanter's ward can simply made baseline without it's passive and with a low damage's boost. It will give mage a little shield to use with Fire Glow.

    On Utility :
    I can see 3 things :
    • add some exotics Portal to make this useful.
    • make refreshment's table attractive by making it very quick to restore heal/mana, give a buff to resource (+10% to mana/energy/runic power/...)
    • make mana's stone. Healer and Arcane mage will love it.

    For Fire :
    The easier is to give CM a "diminish return" formula to make crit value the same even with more gear.

    For Arcane :
    The remove of Invocation/RoP make it back to 4.x.
    But I think it need a quick spell to restore mana more than Evocation, like a Mana drain that do little damage but restore a lot of mana. It can be use to refill after a burn phase or to help in movement.
    Maybe making AM castable while moving can help too

    For Frost :
    My trough on this :
    • change Brain Freeze that, every ~10s, it reduce the FFB's cast time by 1s and allow cast on the move.
    • change Ice Lance to use the mini-bolt's system : more haste give more mini-bolt but with less damage's for increased the total's damage.It can help a lot for PvP.
    • give a big damage (DF-like) on a cooldown shared with freeze to the Water Elemental.


    On Mage Bomb's interaction :

    My idea is simple : all spec need an passive interaction with bomb.
    • Fire - pyromaniac is good (+10% haste).
    • Arcane - a debuff that give mana depending on the damage done to the targets
    • Frost - the actual Frostbolt's debuff.
    I also think that spreading Living Bomb was good but it need to be a new spell separate from Fire spec.
    Last edited by mmocccfbebbec4; 2013-04-04 at 09:06 AM.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Nathyiel View Post
    • make mana's stone. Healer and Arcane mage will love it.
    That would be neat... like the warlocks stone, but for mana. It could even replenish Energy/Rage/Runepower for the classes with no mana.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nathyiel View Post
    For Fire :
    The easier is to give CM a "diminish return" formula to make crit value the same even with more gear.
    Honestly that would diminish fire mages motivation for gearing up. I think changing CM into a flat for example +10% crit should be enough.
    Last edited by Milamber; 2013-04-04 at 10:19 AM.
    Sha of *Gay* Pride!

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Nathyiel View Post

    For Frost :
    My trough on this :
    • change Brain Freeze that, every ~10s, it reduce the FFB's cast time by 1s and allow cast on the move.

    Very good idea, but if you calculate it like that (assuming 50% haste).

    2.75 : 1.5 - 1 = 0.833s cast

    But if you reduce the cast time and GCD always to 1s (like living bomb), it would devalue haste a fair bit
    Last edited by mmocc7076034c2; 2013-04-04 at 10:47 AM.

  19. #19
    Deleted
    @Citizenpete : More like Early Frost : (2.75-1)/1.5 = 1.16s
    The idea is to have it longer than Instant but shorter than FB for feeling bursty.

    @Milamber : Yep, more like Energy's stone in these case.
    For CM, +10% or *1.1 are the same. It's actually how it's work.
    "Diminish return" curve could be made in manner that at low level, the multiplier is creat (like *1.5). And at high level, the multiplier is lower (like *1.1) but the curve isn't really linear So bonus won't nearly decrease at hight haste (like at 10k crit you CM=1.2 and at 12k, CM=1.18 but at 8k, CM=1.3).

  20. #20
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Nathyiel View Post
    @Citizenpete : More like Early Frost : (2.75-1)/1.5 = 1.16s
    The idea is to have it longer than Instant but shorter than FB for feeling bursty.
    Ah, very nice! I miss early frost! Would that FFB benefit from shatter? If not, you have to rework FoF aswell (in terms of crit).

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