History of Mage T17 Set Bonuses

[sidelsky18]

So I found a revision history of mage T17 set bonuses which go all the way back to WoD beta which I found pretty interesting and decided to share (these are ordered from earliest to latest, by spec). If no 2P or 4P is listed for a build, then nothing was changed for the other:

Frost

Build 18379
2P - Increases the damage of Frostbolt by 10%.
4P - When you active icy Veins, you also gain Arctic Power. Arctic Power increases your Multistrike damage by 10% for 20 sec.

Build 18443
2P - When you active icy Veins, you also gain Arctic Power. Arctic Power increases your Multistrike damage by 10% for 20 sec.
4P - Frostbolt critical strikes have a chance to strike the target with an Ice Shard, dealing (100% of Spell power) extra damage to the target.

Build 18471
2P - When you active icy Veins, you also gain Arctic Power. Arctic Power increases your Multistrike damage by 33% for 20 sec.
4P - Frostbolt has a 10% chance to surround the target with icy spikes that all converge, dealing (100% of Spell power) extra damage to the target.

Build 18522
2P - While Frozen Orb is active, you permanently have the Fingers of Frost effect.
4P - Each Ice Lance cast while Frozen Orb is active generates one stack of Ice Shards. When Frozen Orb ends, Ice Shards reduces the cast time of Frostbolt by 25% and increases the damage of Frostbolt by 30%, consuming one stack each cast.

Build 18537
4P - Each Ice Lance cast while Frozen Orb is active generates one stack of Ice Shards. When Frozen Orb ends, each application of Ice Shards reduces the cast time of Frostbolt by 5% and increases the damage of Frostbolt by 5% for 10 sec.

Build 18663
4P - Each Ice Lance cast while Frozen Orb is active reduces the cast time of Frostbolt by 5% and increases the damage of Frostbolt by 5% for 10 sec. Stacks up to 10 times.

Build 18950
2P - Whle Frozen Orb is active, you gain Fingers of Frost every 2.5 sec.
4P - Each Ice Lance cast while Frozen Orb is active reduces the cast time of Frostbolt by 2% and increases the damage of Frostbolt by 2% for 10 sec. Stacks up to 10 times.


Fire

Build 18379
2P - Reduces the cooldown of Inferno Blast by 2 sec.
4P - Increases the damage of Pyroblast by 10%.

Build 18443
2P - Casting Inferno Blast grants you the Firestarter effect. Firestarter reduces the cast time of your next fireball by 20%.
4P - When Hot Streak activates, you have a 10% chance to gain the Pyromaniac effect. Pyromaniac causes all Pyroblasts to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes.

Build 18471
2P - Casting Inferno Blast grants you the Firestarter effect. Firestarter reduces the cast time of your next fireball by 25%.
4P - When Hot Streak activates, you have a 100% chance to gain the Pyromaniac effect. Pyromaniac causes all Pyroblasts to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes.

Build 18522
2P - Inferno Blast now has 2 charges.

Build 18537
4P - When Hot Streak activates, you have a 100% chance to cause all Pyroblasts to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes for 6 sec.

Build 18594
4P - When Hot Streak activates, you have a 100% chance to cause all Pyroblasts to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes for 6 sec. (Approximately 1.50 procs per minute)

Build 18850
4P - When Pyroblast! activates, you have a 100% chance to cause all Pyroblasts to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes for 6 sec. (Approximately 1.50 procs per minute)

Build 18950
4P - When Pyroblast! activates, you have a 100% chance to cause all Pyroblasts to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes for 4 sec. (Approximately 1.00 procs per minute)

Build 19551
4P - When Pyroblast! activates, you have a 100% chance to cause all Pyroblasts to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes for 4 sec. (Approximately 0.70 procs per minute)


Arcane

Build 18379
2P - Increases the damage of Arcane Blast by 10%.
4P - Increases the damage bonus of Arcane Power by 10%.

Build 18443
2P - After using Evocation, you gain the Arcane Affinity. Arcane Affinity reduces the cast time and mana cost of Arcane Blast by 10%.
4P - When you gain an Arcane Charge, you have a chance to gain the Arcane Instability effect. Arcane Instability increases the number of missiles your next Arcane Missiles will fire by 10.

Build 18537
2P - After using Evocation, the cast time and mana cost of Arcane Blast is reduced by 10%.
4P - When you gain an Arcane Charge, you have a chance to increase the number of missiles your next Arcane Missiles will fire by 5.

Build 18594
2P - After using Evocation, the cast time and mana cost of Arcane Blast is reduced by 25% for 8 sec.

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Personally I think the Frost 2P iteration where each Ice Lance gives you one empowered Frostbolt was the best idea, it would be a lot better than the current bonus.

[Imnick]

Your list of iterations doesn't include any iteration where the 2P did that, only the 4P. Which also does that on live servers.

[sidelsky18]

Your list of iterations doesn't include any iteration where the 2P did that, only the 4P. Which also does that on live servers.

Whoops, I meant 4P! Build 18522 is what I was referring to. And it was not for a set amount of time, it was a flat bonus for a flat amount of casts (4 Ice Lances = 4 buffed Frostbolts).

[Deleted]

The icy veins one with 33% MS, god that would have been hilarious when enchants procced and glyphed icy veins xD

[Deleted]

The icy veins one with 33% MS, god that would have been hilarious when enchants procced and glyphed icy veins xD

It's actually a setbonus for survival hunters now. They got it when mages lost it. It would've been a divine bonus for frost instead of the junk we have now.

[Deleted]

Blizzard logic.

The frost set bonus starts out great and get's worse each iteration until we are left with the utter dogshit tier sets we have now.

[Acidbaron]

yeah really unhappy with frost bonus, means you're pretty much forced to swap specs.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Blizzard logic.

The frost set bonus starts out great and get's worse each iteration until we are left with the utter dogshit tier sets we have now.

I can't defend the current 2p, but the 4p's fine. The original iteration of it was horrible to play with. The 2p should probably be brought back up to 4% or so. Just because Fire's set bonus is massively overtuned doesn't mean it should be the norm.

The biggest issue with buffing the 2p is preventing lance spam being the better DPS over playing properly.

[Hasted]

I can't defend the current 2p, but the 4p's fine. The original iteration of it was horrible to play with. The 2p should probably be brought back up to 4% or so. Just because Fire's set bonus is massively overtuned doesn't mean it should be the norm.

The biggest issue with buffing the 2p is preventing lance spam being the better DPS over playing properly.

The Frost 2pc itself isn't exactly conducive to good gameplay as it is. It creates a situation with unintuitive choices between casting Frostbolt and using procs after FO is over. Further, a portion of the synergy with the 4pc is lost in the fact that we gain our final FoF proc as FO ends; meaning we can only accumulate a single FoF charge over the next 10 seconds (assuming we casted an IL at the very end of FO) without munching a charge or being forced to dump it. The situation is further exasperated by the fact that it is relatively likely that Water Jet will come off cooldown shortly after FO ends, meaning were also losing time on Water Jet cooldowns.


I have no idea how Frost set bonuses got released in the state they are in currently. Having MI nerfed in 6.1 as well is a slap in the face considering Frost is debatably weaker than either Arcane or Fire (granted I felt as though Frost was perfectly viable on any fight pre 6.1).


Feel free to correct me if any of my interpretation of the Frost setbonus mechanics was incorrect.

[Mazaxist]

Fire set bonuses started good, then got worse, worse and worse. now its absolute shit. fuck blizzard.

[Janir]

Fire set bonuses started good, then got worse, worse and worse. now its absolute shit. fuck blizzard.

2p is AMAZING you just need to know how to use it. 4p is fine.

[pfbe]

2p is AMAZING you just need to know how to use it. 4p is fine.

4p needs to activate the aura graphic for hot streak, instead of simply highlighting the toolbar button. Other than that, yeah, fire bonuses are just fine.

[Ponk]

4p needs to activate the aura graphic for hot streak, instead of simply highlighting the toolbar button. Other than that, yeah, fire bonuses are just fine.

This is such a minor thing to complain about. Show some initiative and make a weak aura.

[pfbe]

This is such a minor thing to complain about. Show some initiative and make a weak aura.

I will, next PTR cycle. Until then, maybe some dev could click the 2 or 3 checkboxes needed to implement this for every player out there.

[nickseng]

I will, next PTR cycle. Until then, maybe some dev could click the 2 or 3 checkboxes needed to implement this for every player out there.

With that statement, I can tell you know nothing about development environments.