Arcane or Frost?

[Deleted]

Ohh the forums will be fun once the fire nerf comes in and after people have invested so much AP into fire. Even though I'm most likely going to stay with frost I've been banking my AP the last few days waiting for a tuning pass. You never know Blizzard might go full derp and nerf frost...

Unless their is a ridiculous scaling or mechanic difference between dungeons and raiding i doubt Fire needs a nerf. Right now it's a strong ranged spec but in dungeon several melee specs are dominating. Add to that that Fire has very little utility.

If they'd nerf it they probably have to nerf those outlier melee specs a lot or the mythic + class performance will be ridicoulesly unbalanced.

[Swizzle]

Unless their is a ridiculous scaling or mechanic difference between dungeons and raiding i doubt Fire needs a nerf. Right now it's a strong ranged spec but in dungeon several melee specs are dominating. Add to that that Fire has very little utility.

If they'd nerf it they probably have to nerf those outlier melee specs a lot or the mythic + class performance will be ridicoulesly unbalanced.

They're looking at nerfing the overly strong melee classes (notably WW and DH), but I think the problem in Mythics (at least from my experience) is that the mechanics punish ranged much more than melee since most won't even target melee if there's a ranged. Most mythics feel like ass if I'm running with a Warrior, DH, Monk, and Holy Pali. YAY EVERYTHING ALWAYS ON ME!!!!

[The Archmage]

I think Legion is the first expansion where "mechanic distribution" is a problem that Blizzard needs to take into account. The discrepancy amongst melee and ranged players is SO huge that i am the only "ranged flagged" class more often than not... and that makes it so i always have to handle such things, making it almost frustrating sometimes.

Of course, in a raid i think the situation will even out somehow, even with the majority of melee players there will always be some other ranged with whom to share the pain... but in a dungeon it's almost painful.

[Ham on Rye]

Unless their is a ridiculous scaling or mechanic difference between dungeons and raiding i doubt Fire needs a nerf. Right now it's a strong ranged spec but in dungeon several melee specs are dominating. Add to that that Fire has very little utility.

If they'd nerf it they probably have to nerf those outlier melee specs a lot or the mythic + class performance will be ridicoulesly unbalanced.

My guildie is already sporting 62% crit as Fire and is shitting on everyone single target. H e could very well have 75% crit by the time this expansion is over. Add that to their very good cleave and it's easy to see why it needs toned down.

[Swizzle]

My guildie is already sporting 62% crit as Fire and is shitting on everyone single target. H e could very well have 75% crit by the time this expansion is over. Add that to their very good cleave and it's easy to see why it needs toned down.

That's nothing new, though. At the end of ICC I was sitting around 85% and higher Crit on Fireball and our cleave was even stronger in those days with LB being an absolute AoE monster. Fire was stronger than any spec, even granted that all Strength users had a legendary in tow. It's the problem of scaling so well with a percentage based stat.

[Obelisk Kai]

They explicitly said that due to the investment of AP, they will be reluctant to mess with the hierarchy of specs. You can safely bet that fire will remain top dog for now.

I'd say it's more likely Arcane will be tuned to rise alongside Fire, giving us a choice.

They'll wrestle with Frost but they'll never succeed due to it's scaling issues.

[Ham on Rye]

That's nothing new, though. At the end of ICC I was sitting around 85% and higher Crit on Fireball and our cleave was even stronger in those days with LB being an absolute AoE monster. Fire was stronger than any spec, even granted that all Strength users had a legendary in tow. It's the problem of scaling so well with a percentage based stat.

It's nothing new? It's the START of the expansion, not the end of it, genius.

[Swizzle]

It's nothing new? It's the START of the expansion, not the end of it, genius.

H e could very well have 75% crit by the time this expansion is over. Add that to their very good cleave and it's easy to see why it needs toned down.

Well at least some parts of these forums haven't changed in my prolonged hiatus.

[Ham on Rye]

Well at least some parts of these forums haven't changed in my prolonged hiatus.

Oh I get it, you were responding to the "not new" part instead of the "stupid ridicuclous and deserves discussion" part. And here I was giving you the benefit of the doubt for being semi-intelligent and wanting to talk about the things that merit talking about them.

Just another forum hero that wants to jump on anything people say, instead of actually talking about the problems and issues. If the forums haven't changed, you're the constant.

[Deleted]

I think Legion is the first expansion where "mechanic distribution" is a problem that Blizzard needs to take into account. The discrepancy amongst melee and ranged players is SO huge that i am the only "ranged flagged" class more often than not... and that makes it so i always have to handle such things, making it almost frustrating sometimes.

Of course, in a raid i think the situation will even out somehow, even with the majority of melee players there will always be some other ranged with whom to share the pain... but in a dungeon it's almost painful.

Having this experience as well. Weirdly i never had this feeling in other expansions. Blizzard has only been adding melee classes and promoting them more to make em just as good as ranged in raiding. It does feel blizzard has been cathering to melee in pvp a lot. I think this combination probably lead to this group dynamic we see now.

Although i love the dehomogenisation and understand some specs are undertuned and other overtuned. I'm not okey if their is a flaw between melee vs range since it's a broader scope that they specifically looked had and is hard to change once expansion is launched. Mind you this also hinges on my personal gripe. Mages had to understandably sacrifice their OP dps status of vanilla. This is the biggest sacrifice any class can make. But at the same time mages also got weaker in everything else outside of raiding in comparison. (also our pvp kiting thing was sacrificed).

It feels odd that when the changes they made to help melee in raiding would make them too strong in dungeons and than they created those encounters. Mind you ti also brings some fun but also unbalances it further. The reason behind it is probably similiar to why pvp is the way it is now.

- - - Updated - - -

BTW on nerfing here are is one old argument.

Fire mages have the lowest utility i've seen sofar, all it brings is it's DPS and Timewarp....while nice in dungeons it doesn't stack in raiding.
Arcane is probably the best kiting spec of the 3 (although probably hard to do you dps management than), and might have soaking with Ginvis.
Frost might have support burst slows......i can't kite for that it's too sluggish but can support.... perhaps.

While ranged is overal weaker on support i've seen a bit more more utility to a minimum of arcane lvl. How should this factor in balancing dps?

Another is how should blizzard go about buffing and nerfing classes because of the artifact. I think it's fine to buff/nerf compared to other classes but they need to be very carefull with doing that with connection to competing specs in the same class.

[pkm]

Having this experience as well. Weirdly i never had this feeling in other expansions. Blizzard has only been adding melee classes and promoting them more to make em just as good as ranged in raiding. It does feel blizzard has been cathering to melee in pvp a lot. I think this combination probably lead to this group dynamic we see now.

Although i love the dehomogenisation and understand some specs are undertuned and other overtuned. I'm not okey if their is a flaw between melee vs range since it's a broader scope that they specifically looked had and is hard to change once expansion is launched. Mind you this also hinges on my personal gripe. Mages had to understandably sacrifice their OP dps status of vanilla. This is the biggest sacrifice any class can make. But at the same time mages also got weaker in everything else outside of raiding in comparison. (also our pvp kiting thing was sacrificed).

It feels odd that when the changes they made to help melee in raiding would make them too strong in dungeons and than they created those encounters. Mind you ti also brings some fun but also unbalances it further. The reason behind it is probably similiar to why pvp is the way it is now.

- - - Updated - - -

BTW on nerfing here are is one old argument.

Fire mages have the lowest utility i've seen sofar, all it brings is it's DPS and Timewarp....while nice in dungeons it doesn't stack in raiding.
Arcane is probably the best kiting spec of the 3 (although probably hard to do you dps management than), and might have soaking with Ginvis.
Frost might have support burst slows......i can't kite for that it's too sluggish but can support.... perhaps.

While ranged is overal weaker on support i've seen a bit more more utility to a minimum of arcane lvl. How should this factor in balancing dps?

Another is how should blizzard go about buffing and nerfing classes because of the artifact. I think it's fine to buff/nerf compared to other classes but they need to be very carefull with doing that with connection to competing specs in the same class.

I don't think arcane can soak shit with G invis anymore, it's reduced down to like 60% or something? Definitely can't soak things like xhul black hole anymore but still enough as a personal cooldown (although somewhat of a dps loss too)

[Deleted]

I don't think arcane can soak shit with G invis anymore, it's reduced down to like 60% or something? Definitely can't soak things like xhul black hole anymore but still enough as a personal cooldown (although somewhat of a dps loss too)

I probably agree with that when i looked at it my thoughtline was as followed:
Using this cd would leave our us to a similiar healthpool as if a tank would soak it without CD.
So if tanks are occupied and their is no melee dps with higher hp or cd, than mages and shadowpriests might be soakers. We can also shield our selfs meaning more personal coordination than before.

[Sw1tch]

They have specifically said in posts (you can see on this website) that they are going to make a big tuning pass after EN/mythic+ has been out for a week or so. They do not want to make critical balance changes little by little. They would rather do a broad stroke, see the effects, then revisit.

Anyone who says they arent balancing for the sake of AP is full of it. That's the whole purpose of getting more AP as the expansion progresses, so you can fill out your traits more easily. Honestly, EN will probably be the only raid where you will only have 1 artifact filled in. After that, it will be pretty easy to switch between specs. I would say balance is MORE critical because of AP. What about the frost/arcane mages who invested their AP? Just screwed from the start? Even blizzard wouldn't do that. They did a good job balancing the specs in WoD, i'm confident they'll do it again.

Lest we all forget, everything is always horribly balanced in the beginning of the expansion. They usually get it in line within 5-10%. And at that point, MOST (key word) players will do better with whatever spec they've mastered. It's only when the difference is like 15% or greater that your spec preference begins to mean less and less for your numbers.

[Verzen]

I'm topping charts as my arcane or at least in the top 4.

People who claim fire is better don't know what they are talking about. It's equiv and it is HEAVILY gear dependent based on crit rating.