Comments on flameglow make me laugh :D

[Mormolyce]

IMO a talent being passive is a perk in itself.

[huth]

* I don't know the exact squish, but for the sake of simplicity, let's just assume the squish is 90%. Even if the squish was 40%, we'd still end up with around 30-40% of our live spellpower instead of the post-squish 60%. Basically, while MOST stats are involved in the general ~90% squish, Spellpower is getting a roughly ~94-95% squish instead, and I believe Attack Power is the same, but fuck AP, we're Mages.

Wasn't the entire squish around 94%? That would neatly eliminate your entire issue.

The only thing not squished that much is health because they intentionally massively increased health scaling.

[Polarthief]

Wasn't the entire squish around 94%? That would neatly eliminate your entire issue.

The only thing not squished that much is health because they intentionally massively increased health scaling.

Except I said ASSUME 90%. If it's 94%, then assume the squish is 94% and the SP squish is ~96-97%. SP will be squished further than other stats on gear because it's going to be worth a lot more in WoD.

[pyrostorm9001]

Indeed. We're looking for design look and feel at the moment. So far the only real complaint along those lines is that it makes us lose our minor defensive cooldown.

I would like to see an effect to show FG did something. If any of you have played an FF game you may recall the spell Protect that gives you a visual every time you are struck with the spell active.
http://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy...FX_Protect.PNG

[huth]

Except I said ASSUME 90%. If it's 94%, then assume the squish is 94% and the SP squish is ~96-97%. SP will be squished further than other stats on gear because it's going to be worth a lot more in WoD.

I think you're confusing AP and SP there. SP isn't changing much, but AP is worth four times as much as before. On current 6.0 alpha gear, SP is relatively the same as it is on live(including SP from int).

[Polarthief]

Didn't they say they haven't done a numbers pass yet? That could mean the current coeff on flameglow isn't accurate and it could get buffed

Totally possible. Didn't rule that out; was just saying it's going to NEED one.

I think you're confusing AP and SP there. SP isn't changing much, but AP is worth four times as much as before. On current 6.0 alpha gear, SP is relatively the same as it is on live(including SP from int).

AFAIK, SP was getting the same treatment. Perhaps they chose to not go through with that.

Then again, INT is losing Crit, meaning that they have to compensate either in Crit Rating (most likely) or Spellpower.

[MrExcelion]

Hey a mage survivability discussion, always a fun topic. As much as I enjoyed Temporal Shield, I think they felt it was too good. Almost impossible to die with Cauterize, TS, Ice Block, Blink, and 6/16% physical damage reduction (if Fire). The ability to cheese and survive certain mechanics has been one of our intended raid niches, as confirmed by the devs. That being said, while we do lose TS, we get Evanesce in tier 1, though it comes at the cost of Ice Block and Ice Floes/Blazing Speed. Ice Barrier is just as good as Temporal Shield, especially later in tiers with gear scaling, it's just we don't want to give up a GCD every 25s. Alter Time isn't on the GCD and should be fun to play with as a pure utility spell, but it does retain its 90 second cd. The fact it has a 15 second duration might have creative applications with positioning and improves the overall ease of use. Flameglow will also be a very popular option on fights with constant damage if it maths out to anything significant. One thing I just noticed now is they subtly nerfed Cauterize. It brings you to 35% hp, burning 28% as a dot, as opposed to starting at 50% and burning 40%. Still an amazing talent.

Personally I plan on switching my tier 1 and 2 talents up a lot depending on the fight, but I'm really looking forward to the new 15 second Alter Time and getting to use Blazing Speed when possible. I'm not too terribly happy about giving up Ice Block for Evanesce but I know I'll take it to ignore certain mechanics, depending on what it works on. Would it stop something like, ionization on Jinrohk like Ice Block did? That'd be cool. It seems to be some sort of pseudo-deterrence though, and I don't think it's going to stop dots already on you. Definitely don't see myself taking it on every fight if I can get away with Blazing Speed.

In terms of purely maxing damage, you could take Flameglow, but Alter Time allows you to go beyond that and save movement GCDs, especially if you take Rune of Power. I used Ice Barrier on a few specific fights this xpac to get the frontloaded mitigation (Empress, LS, Paragons), and it'll still be my go to for anything outside of raiding.

[Deleted]

What I am wondering concerning Evanence is it sais it can be cast while casting. Does that mean it also makes you unable to cast anything else during it's duration?
Cause then I am predicting it's going to be overly broken in PvP and have very limited uses in PvE (as it results in a DPS loss)

[Polarthief]

What I am wondering concerning Evanence is it sais it can be cast while casting. Does that mean it also makes you unable to cast anything else during it's duration?
Cause then I am predicting it's going to be overly broken in PvP and have very limited uses in PvE (as it results in a DPS loss)

Nono, it's gonna work like Icy Floes; it just lets you use it while you're casting so you don't have to be locked in an Ice Block and can continue casting.

[Deleted]

Nono, it's gonna work like Icy Floes; it just lets you use it while you're casting so you don't have to be locked in an Ice Block and can continue casting.

Then we have one cooldown of 1.5 minutes with 15 second duration (basically negating all damage for those 15 seconds). On top of that Greater Invisibility for 90% damage reduction. And then on top of that 45seconds for a 100% damage reduction? Are we getting MAJOR defensive buffs. Our ability to cheesy any type of soaking mechanic just went through the roof.

[Imnick]

As alter time doesn't actually reduce damage taken while active, calling it a cooldown with a 15 second duration is a little misleading. Realistically you're really just going to use it to heal yourself up after big hits and activate it manually, else you're just wasting healer mana.

[frymastermeat]

I'd rather see it turned into a passive health regen. It would be useless in Mists raiding, but would work with the new healing model. The benefit is practically the same, except now it's worth isn't severely hampered on fights where damage is done in a few big hits over many small ones.

[Deleted]

Wouldn't it though be the case that in a coordinated group you can tell your healers. Alter Time is up don't heal me. Ye indeed it is quite misleading and I am sorry for that but the uses of it can be absurd. Still i believe 100% damage reduction on a 45 second cooldown is quite powerful!

[mrgreenthump]

Theoretically the "heal" from AT is up to your max hp minus 1. Realistically it's as low as you dare to go before cancelling AT. That being every 90 seconds.. So yeah, if max effiency is to consider.. unless they buff FG and IB by quite a lot, AT should be quite good.

But as IB is an absorb and FG is damage reduction, they both still have their strenghts for fights with high spikes and constant fast ticking damage. But as the high spike damage should go away(from what Blizzard says) I don't see much use for IB as it still has a GCD to burden itself with.

[MrExcelion]

Yeah I don't look at using the max duration much either, but it could in the right situation I suppose. It just improves the ease of use more than anything. Hit it before big damage, then hit it again after its over. However the duration is so long that its going to have some creative dps increasing applications, that's for sure. It's possible they'll design WoD fights so that we can't cheese with AT too much, but using MoP for some examples:

-Megarea's Ice Beam and Laser on Blackfuse, AT back halfway through the duration
-Blade Lord Pre-P2 Wind Tunnel
-Dino Kiting on Horridon
-Instantaneous use for not taking damage from Sparks on Will or Mines on Jugg (Blink does this too)
-Jumping down to a Ji-Kun nest, killing it quickly, and ATing back up on the platform
-Baiting a desecrate
-Saving yourself movement GCDs in between high stack Thok kites
-Set to blow on Spoils or other get out of the raid mechanics
-Lei Shen P3
-Staying alive while kiting a berserk-ed boss scenario (ie: Paragons)
-Easier mass resses (certainly more welcome now that we might not take Mirror Image)
-Getting back to your old Rune of Power

AT is sort of a pseudo-dps cooldown in a survivability tier, and I felt the same way when Blazing Speed was in it too. Movement augments can increase dps, especially when off the GCD like this. The good thing is that the cooldown is long enough to balance it out, and you really could be giving up a lot of survivability to not take Ice Barrier. It'll really depend on the fight, but AT is definitely the talent I want to take. The ceiling is high for thoughtful and skillful play. <3 new AT. It's one of the things I'm looking forward to the most about WoD Mages.

[Polarthief]

i'd rather see it turned into a passive health regen. It would be useless in mists raiding, but would work with the new healing model. The benefit is practically the same, except now it's worth isn't severely hampered on fights where damage is done in a few big hits over many small ones.

Omg this. I want Ysera's Gift.

[MrExcelion]

Passive health regen would definitely improve its uptake outside of raiding, even if it's just 1% every 2 seconds

[Polarthief]

Passive health regen would definitely improve its uptake outside of raiding, even if it's just 1% every 2 seconds

Even inside raiding it would be pretty nice. RoP's Evo glyph was 1%HP1 and I'm assuming the Evo glyph is going away (New Ice Block glyph), so it would be a nice passive talent choice over crappy old FG. Not to mention, it would be more helpful all the time rather than just when you take damage.

[nickseng]

Wouldn't it though be the case that in a coordinated group you can tell your healers. Alter Time is up don't heal me. Ye indeed it is quite misleading and I am sorry for that but the uses of it can be absurd. Still i believe 100% damage reduction on a 45 second cooldown is quite powerful!

Sorry to dampen your enthusiasm, but it does NOT block all damage. It works like deterence.
Still, a pretty cool ability.

[huth]

Sorry to dampen your enthusiasm, but it does NOT block all damage. It works like deterence.
Still, a pretty cool ability.

Yeah, it makes you unhittable, not immune. Attacks that cannot miss will still work. AT on the other hand will not do anything against attacks that exceed your health pool.