1. #1

    Lightbulb How would you improve your mage?

    As the title says, how would you (or Blizzard) like or hope to improve upon your Mage?

    I've been a fan of the "glass cannon" arch-type for as long as I can remember. I am currently playing my 3rd mage (Lv86 and rising); I deleted my first maxxed out mage when Arcane had 2 spells (early Wrath). During Cata, I really enjoyed Arcane's "burn/manage/burn" phase gameplay and the introduction of the bomb spells in early Mists was refreshing, but the changing of the Arcane playstyle and the Lv90 talents really turned me off. With the QoL fixes in said talents though and Vol'jin's promotion to Warchief (Troll ftw!), I decided to have one more go as a Troll/arcane and I've had a blast (badum-tss) leveling my char.

    With that out of the way, there are a few things that I didn't/still don't like:

    -Until you get your Mage Bomb spell, I found leveling slightly boring. Arcane Missiles! proc was cool until about Lv30, then the fun starts to subside again.
    -Speaking of the bomb spell, it sucks that as Arcane-spec, I have to choose Living Bomb for maximum results. I know that I'm still not max level and I'm not a hardcore raider by any stretch, but it just seems off. I like that Arcane uses mostly Arcane spells, Frost uses Frost spells, etc. I like conformity (or there's another word for it). My OCD just won't have it!!
    -I still do not like the Lv90 talents, and I'm sure most of you guys don't like it as well, though I do want to avoid speaking for the majority. Arcane is still a stationary turret, and I know Icy Floes kind of fixes that but Arcane =/= Frost and Icy Floes and conformity and ARHHGHHH!!~
    -More beef with Lv90 talents. For new players, it's another new thing to learn at such a late stage in the game, though I acknowledge the fact that the game doesn't really start until you hit max level. Still, I think they should move it to where the Lv75 talents are, and make completely new Lv90 talents (more on that below).
    -I'm pretty biased as Arcane. I believe Blizzard should just make Arcane Charges as a 4-orb resource, similar to Spriest's 3-orb thing they got going. I know it'll make the classes less distinguishable (than they already are), but AC being a debuff is kind of weird, and thinking as a new player, it would be somewhat of a pain to track without add-ons, etc.

    SORRY TLDR

    With bitches/moans/complaints out of the way, here are some of the things I hope they implement for (you guessed it) Arcane in the future, and my rationale:

    *With the exception of Nether Tempest, the numbers are more or less in-line with live numbers*

    Arcane Charge - New resource for Arcane Mages. Generated by Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles. Increases single-target Arcane spell damage by 50% and Arcane mana cost by 125% (down from 150%) per charge. Each charge dissipates every 10sec while not in combat. 4 "Orbs" or charges.

    Arcane Blast - 749-869 + (SP x 0.81) Arcane damage, 2sec cast, 1.5% mana cost (>3.375%>5.25%>7.125>9%), +1 Arcane Charge, Lv10
    *Basically, the same old AB other than a slight reduction to mana cost.

    Impulse - Releases all stored Arcane Charges at once, dealing 936-1086 + (SP x 0.75) Arcane damage per Arcane Charge, and deals 25% damage to any enemies within 5yds of the target. Instant cast, no mana cost, 3sec CD, Lv12
    *This is my new Arcane Barrage, its almost the same thing, hoping for a new animation (think Final Fantasy X Bahamut-style Impulse): blueish-white
    orbs (depending on # of charges) are hurled and an explosion upon impact, like the underwater Thunder Kodos in Durotar.

    Arcane Missiles - 217 + (SP x 0.20) Arcane damage x 5 wave, 2sec channel, 2.25% mana cost (5.0625%>7.875%>10.6875%>13.5%), +1 Arcane Charge, Lv20
    *This is one of the bigger changes. Arcane Missiles would be castable at any time but at a slightly higher mana cost than AB (but slightly more powerful).
    Damage reduced a little due to...

    Barrage - Your damaging spells have a chance (30%) to make your Arcane Missiles cost no mana and deal 20% more damage for 20sec. Limit 2 charges. Lv22
    *This is basically the Arcane Missiles! proc we have on live right now. Like what it says, it makes AM cost no mana, but also make it deal more damage.

    Arcane Flash - Hurl a bolt of energy at the target, dealing 674-782 + (SP x .72) Arcane damage and granting one charge of Barrage. Instant cast, 10sec CD, 1% mana cost (2.25%>3.5%>4.75%>6%), replaces Fire Blast, Lv30
    *This spell would allow us to fish for a Barrage proc for those times when we're just unlucky, and also good during movement; would retain live ABarrage's animation, and should hit faster (e.g. Paladin's Hammer of Wrath).

    Arcane Explosion - Same old, but a glyph that I thought of that I think would make it interesting:
    Glyph of Delayed Explosion: Allows you to cast Arcane Explosion in a target location anywhere within 40yds and increase its damage by X%, but delays the explosion by 3sec.

    Nether Tempest - 2247 + (SP x 2.43) Arcane damage over 15sec (up from 12sec), deals 50% of damage dealt to a random target within 10yds. Instant cast, 1sec GCD, 1.5% mana cost, unaffected by Arcane Charge, Lv50
    *Reduced its damage but increased its duration to 15sec; also it would be learned passively at Lv50, completely removing the bomb talents! Arcane gets Nether, Fire gets Living, Frost gets Frost, and OCD people happy everywhere! Hoping that it would also get the 1sec GCD treatment.

    Mana Feed - Each time your single-target Arcane spells deal a critical strike, you gain 3% of your total Mana. This effect has a 6sec cooldown. Lv44
    *This makes the critical strike stat atleast a little more interesting for Arcane. Not sure about the 6sec trigger, maybe it could be lower...?

    Mastery: Mana Adept - One thing I would like changed is that one retains full Mastery damage until mana drops to 80%. This would give a little bit of leeway, so one can hover around 65-79% mana and still do ok. Would also help new players, and vets can go even harder. In light of this change though, the bonus damage would be nerfed a bit (live is 16% base [2% per], so maybe 12% base [1.5% per]).

    Netherwind Presence - Charges you with Arcane energy, reducing the mana cost of your spells by 75% for 15sec. Instant cast, 1.5min CD, Lv58
    *Remember this (imo) crap talent back in the day? It provided a passive 1/2/3% haste. This spell would replace Arcane Power as its short CD burst, allowing us to spam AB/AM with 4 charges.

    Rune of Power - Places a magical rune on the ground. While standing within 5yds of the rune, your spell damage is increased by 20%. Lasts 20sec. 1.5sec cast, 3min CD, Lv91
    *I believe that RoP is still a pretty cool spell, it just seems misplaced to me as a talent/spell we have to manage. In this version, it would be Arcane's main CD during burst phases; best stacked w/ NwPresence.

    Still with meh? Sorry if its a long read. And now, my proposed changes for Lv75 talents:

    Invocation - Fire/Frost: Removes the cooldown of Evocation and reduces its chanelling period by 50%. Completing an Evocation increases your spell damage by 20%, but passively generate 50% less mana, for 1min.
    Arcane: While Invoker's Energy is active, your mana regeneration is increased by (100-150%) when your mana falls below 80%.
    *For Fire/Frost, its basically the same deal except for a +5% damage increase (because you channel that shit for 2~ish seconds every min). For Arcane, its a different beast. The increased mana regen below 80% would allow one to cast additional AB/AM with 4 charges so that we can fish for Barrage procs; basically with this I'm hoping to bring back the burn-manage-burn gameplay that we once cherished. That, and it would make Invocation viable for Arcane. This talent would be best for short fights.

    Arcane Power - Empowers you with Arcane energy, increasing your spell damage by 15% and regenerating 2% of your total Mana every 3sec for 30sec. Instant cast, no GCD, 10sec CD
    *This is my new incarnation of Arcane Power. It's basically another spell to manage, kind of like Slice n' Dice or Inquisition, for those who like to keep their fingers busy. The spell damage is slightly lower than Invocation, but only because it's off the GCD. This talent would be best for any fights with movement and/or longer than a minute; same animation as live (Super Saiyan 3!).

    Familiar - Summons an elemental Familiar based on your specialization. The Familiar mimics certain spells and restores Mana (1.5% - Haste%) when dealing damage:
    Fire - Conjures a Flame Familiar, dealing 30% of the direct damage of your Fireball, Pyroblast, Scorch, and Combustion spells. Lasts 1h.
    Frost - Conjures an Ice Familiar, dealing 25% of the damage of your Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, and Ice Lance spells. Lasts 1h.
    Arcane - Conjures an Arcane Familiar, dealing 25% of the damage of your Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Flash, and Impulse spells. Lasts 1h.
    *I thought of this talent while playing my Wizard on DIII. This is a great talent for beginners who don't want to manage anything. You cast it just like any buff before a dungeon, and it'll follow you for an hour. Now, my explanation on the numbers. For Fire, its at 30% because it would only mimic direct damage, so one would be missing out on alot of DoT damage (might have to be 35%, or even 40%). For Frost and Arcane, its at a slightly lower 25% because Frost spells have generally high crit chance, I think, and the only spells it wouldn't affect is Frost Bomb and Frozen Orb, and Arcane would only lose out on NT damage.
    This talent is also weaker because, other than it's passivity, it won't buff AoE spells. So, easy-to-manage talent, but weaker than the other two.

    Still unsure about Lv90 talents, but that's it. Sorry for the long read, but I hope you enjoyed my insights/prayers. What would you like changed?
    Last edited by Terminal Lance; 2013-11-02 at 11:17 AM.

  2. #2
    Ice flows - cost 100 mana - allows the mage to move while casting. lasts 1 hour. has a 59 minute cooldown.

  3. #3
    I like the idea of RoP as a dps cooldown, instead of a bleh/mer/argh maintenance buff.

    The level 90 talents just need to be completely destroyed. End of story.

    I think you're out of your mind wanting to change the arcane barrage graphic, it's pretty much the only awesome looking spell mages have, and it does look freakin awesome.

  4. #4
    Actually, the Arcane Flash idea will, or would, retain ABarrage graphic.

  5. #5
    longer beards, perhaps growing and shrinking in correspondence to mana level

  6. #6
    Legendary! Firebert's Avatar
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    Reduced cast time on Frostfire Bolt for Arcane Mages to increase the viability of weaving, Icy Floes passive but reduces movement speed, buff to Incanter's Ward to make it the go-to choice for raiders instead of the two lock-down abilities.
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  7. #7
    Herald of the Titans Advent's Avatar
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    I like your ideas for arcane. In the past I disliked how it played and enjoyed fire much more. But it's great now, these ideas seem to push arcane back into the micromanagement spec.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    For all i care about mage - PLEASE PLEASE remove DoT spells from mage's spellbook. It really does zero sense to me to have a DoT spell and even in the way we have it now... I can be speced Arcane and have frost bomb on or fire bomb on... this feeeeeeels veeeeeery stupid....
    We, the mages, never had a dot ever before (not counting fire spec with fire bomb) and that was the cool about it you could have focused on nuking without managin DoTs uptime on the target. I remmeber Wotlk and Cata raiding as arcane. When the raid leader yells in Vent "KILL THAT ADD/s DAMIT!" or "ADD/s COMING KILL IT/THEM ASAP" all i did was just tabbing and nuking the shit out of it, or in the case of many adds - nukking the biggest and baddest
    Now when that happens... well i think we all know what we do... we first DoT everything that moves up and then we start nuking. Does it sounds fammiliar? Well for some mages might not (not before MoP ofc), but Boomkins Spriest and warlock are quite fammiliar with it. I. DON'T. WANNA. FEEL. LIKE THEM! Thats why i rerolled mage 4 years ago

    On toppic
    I really like how Arcane flash, Netherwind Presence and Mana feed,all tho it sounds a bit like Master of the elements tallent back inthe days. Also the reworks on Rune of Power and Arcane power. Just sweet! I would love to play arcane whith these spells even more :P
    Last edited by mmoc0c907153ea; 2013-10-31 at 02:19 PM.

  9. #9
    you butchered arcane and left fire and frost to die.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Not Againnn View Post
    you butchered arcane and left fire and frost to die.
    Lol how did I butcher it? "Left fire and frost to die"? Why do you have to make things sound worse than they seem? lol
    Actually, I'm Lv89 now and switched to Frost because there's that drop in mana regen from 85-90 and I'm really enjoying it. Other than the slightly low proc from Fingers of Frost via Frostbolts, I think the spec is perfectly fine. I really dig the Glyph of Icy Veins but sadly have no room for it because there are more important glyphs to fill.
    Three things I hate about Fire spec: It's unplayability in the early levels, its mastery, Ignite and Combustion. Unless you have a respectable amount of crit (which is near impossible during the leveling process), Fire just felt bland to level up as. I have alot of reasons to hate Ignite, and Combustion just seems too hard to manage and having to mandatorily (?) glyph it is bad design.

  11. #11
    Reduced cast time on Frostfire Bolt for Arcane Mages to increase the viability of weaving, Icy Floes passive but reduces movement speed, buff to Incanter's Ward to make it the go-to choice for raiders instead of the two lock-down abilities.
    Dat FFB glyph, but still 0.5sec less castime on top would be nice for the weaving tactics - however, it's usuable as it is now, during meta/lust with around 1sec casttime Also without, but it's not really adviceable from my own experience as of now (been toying a lot with this ffb in rotation lately)

    PLEASE PLEASE remove DoT spells from mage's spellbook.
    Frankly I have a hard time crasping this statement - it's fair that YOU, personally, don't like dot/dots for mages, but to me and a load of others, it's makes playing a mage more complex and versatile and adding another aspect of tracking and maximising dots on st and mt. I would never complain about that, and I embrace it and enjoy it to the fullest. But we're all different.
    The mental understanding of mages not having a dot, because we havn't had it earlier (what about lb and ignites/combust however?) is fair enough, but blizzard changes a lot of things nowadays, and not all of that is near logic. However, it's surely not easier to play a mage when u have a dot to calculate into your rotation and optimize (not saying it's a lot harder either), thats the only argument I could see, as to why we should not have a dot. And why would anyone have something, not very complex in itself, become even less complex - i need a better understanding of that, for now I just plain out disagree
    I think it's sad however, that these sentences are uttered here (for gm's etc to view and perhaps take into account for the future), since it's a personal preference, and surely not a common view.
    Then everyone who loves dots should make a post saying how much they love the mage bomb as well? Welcome changes, instead of hating w/e new stuff we get. Atm theres a AT hate post, a post that just complains about mages in general, furthermore at post about how much bombs and our llv 90 talents suck balls. I agree that lvl 90 talents are not optimal, but they are still fun and adds something else to maximize, just like the magebomb (and often kan show difference between avarage and above-avarage players). Would it be fun just to throw ab/ab/ab/ab/am/am/ab/ab/am/ab/am for arc - fb, ffb, il, fb, fb, fb, fb for frost and fb, fb, pyro fb, pyro, fb combust for fire? I would not be playing for long in that case, that's very boring imo additionally, it would make trinket procs etc less complex as well - no optimising of dot/dots.
    Last edited by Hasufer; 2013-11-02 at 11:38 AM.

  12. #12
    Legendary! Firebert's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hasufer View Post
    Dat FFB glyph, but still 0.5sec less castime on top would be nice for the weaving tactics - however, it's usuable as it is now, during meta/lust with around 1sec casttime Also without, but it's not really adviceable from my own experience as of now (been toying a lot with this ffb in rotation lately)
    With the glyph it moves the cast time a lot closer to AB and with IW's passive it's mana neutral. It just needs a bit of love I think. :3
    37 + (3*7) + (3*7)
    W/L/T/Death count: Wolf: 0/1/0/1 | Mafia: 1/6/0/7 | TPR: 0/4/1/5
    SK: 0/1/0/1 | VT: 2/5/2/7 | Cult: 1/0/0/1

  13. #13
    idd It's quite a cool strategy actually, if it had same casttime as ab, it would be weaved in always I belive

  14. #14
    Level 90 talents are boring, replace asap. PLEASE

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