Best mage spec on BETA currently?

[H3ll]

What mage spec is currently performing the best on beta?
Im currently having a hard time deciding which spec i want to play in legion. Normally this hasn't been a problem, but with artifact weapons and artifact power, this is an important thing to know before starting the expansion.
Please don't give me the 'play whatever you like' advice, that is not the information im looking for.

[MatthewOU2015]

Fire is what I see players use in raid testing.

[Torian kel]

There's like ten threads going on at this moment about this topic on the front page, how lazy are you?

[Lebanese Dude]

Fire is what I see players use in raid testing.

Which is annoying because beta testers are supposed to be testing all specs properly. I have barely seen any documentation on Arcane, let alone Frost. People complain about Blizzard not responding to beta comments, but when 90% of mage beta players zerg Fire because it's the l33t thing to do, then the only natural response is to nerf Fire rather than lift other specs.

[bowchikabow]

Which is annoying because beta testers are supposed to be testing all specs properly. I have barely seen any documentation on Arcane, let alone Frost. People complain about Blizzard not responding to beta comments, but when 90% of mage beta players zerg Fire because it's the l33t thing to do, then the only natural response is to nerf Fire rather than lift other specs.

That's not it at all. WE all ready did the spec testing for the others. We tested all 3 specs in leveling, in dungeons, in raids.. and they are simply left wanting. We did push for feedback in relation to frost and Arcane.. and we go it.. but it just wasn't enough. It's not even a matter of fire being the OMG L337, whatever 12yr old keyboard smash talk u kids come up.. spec. It's about stats, stat allocation on gear, and the value of stats against not just other stats, but as values against their value in other specs. Pure damage potential is important, and that is something that blizz needs to work on... but that is on them. We did the legwork back in Alpha and start of beta.

[Deleted]

That's not it at all. WE all ready did the spec testing for the others. We tested all 3 specs in leveling, in dungeons, in raids.. and they are simply left wanting. We did push for feedback in relation to frost and Arcane.. and we go it.. but it just wasn't enough. It's not even a matter of fire being the OMG L337, whatever 12yr old keyboard smash talk u kids come up.. spec. It's about stats, stat allocation on gear, and the value of stats against not just other stats, but as values against their value in other specs. Pure damage potential is important, and that is something that blizz needs to work on... but that is on them. We did the legwork back in Alpha and start of beta.

I don't believe that is entirely true. It's true that various people tested all specs for a while. But there is also obviously a meme to go fire now no matter what so even those in beta are usually not even testing others.

I think there is also a utility advantage to fire when it gets to early content because arcane is more penalized if it messes up timings.

[gallamann]

On the Frost front, they have had info Frost was significantly behind Fire from beta players for a couple months. Just how many times do they need people to post before they actually take a look and either balance it or explain what they have their internal sims doing that is placing Frost next to Fire.

Personally I keep coming back to there must not be a dev playing Mage on Beta, because if there was, a simple visit to the Order Hall and seeing Fire outnumbering Arcane/Frost 50+ to 1 should be a fucking HUGE red flag. Even being hugely generous, percentages at best in Order hall would be 94% fire, 3% frost, 3% arcane.

At those kind of numbers you have spectacularly failed at balancing the mage class.

[Sarkol]

There's like ten threads going on at this moment about this topic on the front page, how lazy are you?

It actually takes more effort to make a new topic. It is kind of silly though when the same thing gets asked day after day. People need to do just a little bit of research before clogging the forum.

[Alvito]

On the Frost front, they have had info Frost was significantly behind Fire from beta players for a couple months. Just how many times do they need people to post before they actually take a look and either balance it or explain what they have their internal sims doing that is placing Frost next to Fire.

Personally I keep coming back to there must not be a dev playing Mage on Beta, because if there was, a simple visit to the Order Hall and seeing Fire outnumbering Arcane/Frost 50+ to 1 should be a fucking HUGE red flag. Even being hugely generous, percentages at best in Order hall would be 94% fire, 3% frost, 3% arcane.

At those kind of numbers you have spectacularly failed at balancing the mage class.

It is a sea of PF orbs spinning around in there.

[Neoxx]

On the Frost front, they have had info Frost was significantly behind Fire from beta players for a couple months. Just how many times do they need people to post before they actually take a look and either balance it or explain what they have their internal sims doing that is placing Frost next to Fire.

Same for Arcane.
People saying there are mana issus, cast times suck and more for months now. But iirc the last important changes to Arcane in the last 3 months are several nerfs to Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles. It's like ... really?

[Deleted]

On the Frost front, they have had info Frost was significantly behind Fire from beta players for a couple months. Just how many times do they need people to post before they actually take a look and either balance it or explain what they have their internal sims doing that is placing Frost next to Fire.

Personally I keep coming back to there must not be a dev playing Mage on Beta, because if there was, a simple visit to the Order Hall and seeing Fire outnumbering Arcane/Frost 50+ to 1 should be a fucking HUGE red flag. Even being hugely generous, percentages at best in Order hall would be 94% fire, 3% frost, 3% arcane.

At those kind of numbers you have spectacularly failed at balancing the mage class.

The game is unreleased. They have no obligation to tune it right now or inform you for when they will tune it and the prepatch is more or less a joke that few care about. For all we know the tuning might be heavy and significant and it may happen before the first mythic bosses go down.

[Neoxx]

For all we know the tuning might be heavy and significant and it may happen before the first mythic bosses go down.

With the amount of time they put into tuning now I really believe they try to balance everything before Legion releases. Everything else would be retarded anyways since you have to decide which spec you wanna play weeks before the raid officially opens. It's not a rushed WoD Expansion where they started balancing 2 weeks before they put an unfinished beta build on live servers.

I totally expect a big balance patch this week.

[Deleted]

With the amount of time they put into tuning now I really believe they try to balance everything before Legion releases. Everything else would be retarded anyways since you have to decide which spec you wanna play weeks before the raid officially opens.
It's not a rushed WoD Expansion where they started balancing 2 weeks before they put an unfinished beta build on live servers.

There's still time to see tuning before the release. Also the first week (or two) doesn't matter much anyway since that kind of AP can be taken later way too easily.

[Skul]

There's still time to see tuning before the release. Also the first week (or two) doesn't matter much anyway since that kind of AP can be taken later way too easily.

I would hope Blizz would push massive balance shifts BEFORE we all start leveling artifact weapons.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Personally I keep coming back to there must not be a dev playing Mage on Beta, because if there was, a simple visit to the Order Hall and seeing Fire outnumbering Arcane/Frost 50+ to 1 should be a fucking HUGE red flag. Even being hugely generous, percentages at best in Order hall would be 94% fire, 3% frost, 3% arcane.

Just for the record, this is a fantastically horrible way of gauging specs. Mages, probably more-so than any other class in the game, will jump ship for the tiniest perceived differences. Fire's 2% ahead? Shit, better go Fire. We're terrible at it.

I mean it's not a wrong result, don't get me wrong. Even if we've gotten the Frost sim pretty close to Fire, Fire just has hilariously OP AOE and outstrips anything when an add so much as glances at the Ignite spread range. But poor methodology.

[Lebanese Dude]

I would hope Blizz would push massive balance shifts BEFORE we all start leveling artifact weapons.

Well it's a balancing act. (pun intended)

Beta is a good way to pre-emptively tackle the most glaring problems, but often it is better to ship the game and patch it up later when you have more data and feedback at your disposal.

Not that it's happening that way right now. I don't claim to be a professional game designer, but many of their design decisions have been baffling to say the least.

One example is giving melee more gap closers while simultaneously forcing casters to stay still to do damage. That makes no sense and is quite dissonant.

Another is claiming to want to remove stacking damage modifiers while simultaneously making casters have to do that to effectively burst.

The one that pisses me off the most is reworking resources for most casters such that they no longer use mana for their offensive abilities, but simultaneously forcing Arcane Mages to use their resources for both offensive and defensive casting. No other class has to pay both a GCD and a DPS resource to cast defensive spells. None.

[Deleted]

Well it's a balancing act. (pun intended)

Beta is a good way to pre-emptively tackle the most glaring problems, but often it is better to ship the game and patch it up later when you have more data and feedback at your disposal.

Not that it's happening that way right now. I don't claim to be a professional game designer, but many of their design decisions have been baffling to say the least.

One example is giving melee more gap closers while simultaneously forcing casters to stay still to do damage. That makes no sense and is quite dissonant.

Another is claiming to want to remove stacking damage modifiers while simultaneously making casters have to effectively burst.

The one that pisses me off the most is reworking resources for most casters such that they no longer use mana for their offensive abilities, but simultaneously forcing Arcane Mages to use their resources for both offensive and defensive casting. No other class has to pay both a GCD and a DPS resource to cast defensive spells. None.

In the past they gave the impression that they ignore Beta to some extend when it gets to tuning. It appears to be mainly the venue of major bug fixes and major imbalance fixes (like the broken OP Flame Patch). For the regular tuning and fine-tuning I think we were seeing it after the launch in the past.

[Lebanese Dude]

In the past they gave the impression that they ignore Beta to some extend when it gets to tuning. It appears to be mainly the venue of major bug fixes and major imbalance fixes (like the broken OP Flame Patch). For the regular tuning and fine-tuning I think we were seeing it after the launch in the past.

Yeah. It's why I am forgiving regarding Arcane's performance. Most of my criticisms are mechanical in nature.

Although I'm disliking how Arcane is ironically the most RNG dependent spec right now, not in terms of gameplay, but in requiring the legendary pants in order to solve its glaring mana recovery problems. I don't get why they don't just halve the effect, make it baseline, and "upgrade" the effect to full with the pants.

Problem solved, and still makes the legendary pants worth it.

[Deleted]

requiring the legendary pants in order to solve its glaring mana recovery problems

That's conjecture. Arcane Charges don't have to be high during conservation and the pants aren't necessarily obligatory. This is mainly a total tuning issue (not a mana issue or pants issue).

[Lebanese Dude]

That's conjecture. Arcane Charges don't have to be high during conservation and the pants aren't necessarily obligatory. This is mainly a total tuning issue (not a mana issue or pants issue).

It's very much a "fun" issue too. Arcane already lacks spell effects and impact feel. Forcing Arcane Mages to dump at less than four charges feels horrible, and isn't even intuitive for most people.