Good feedback guys, keep it coming (and if possible, lets focus on feedback rather than back and forth checking of facts in this thread, thanks! It'll just make my job easier lol :P )
So here is some of my feedback. After an entire night of raiding, playing and testing on live, not much has changed from the feedback I can give from beta.
Arcane is pretty borked. Fire and Frost work very well in raids.
Some PvP feedback I think would also be worthwhile.
Last night I focused primarily on the second tier talents, the survivability tier; Ice barrier, Blazing Speed and Temporal Shield.
As far as PvP is concerned, it just seems like nothing can beat Ice Barrier. Temporal Shield is almost completely useless (though, as many of you know, it rocks for PvE), and Blazing speed just needs something more to make it even mildly comparable. I think I've narrowed down the issue to the fact that Ice Barrier works against any type of opponent (melee, casters and hunters) whereas Blazing speed is only really useful against melee.
As far as specs go, having spent a considerable time PvPing as all three, I can safely say Arcane is a total and complete joke for anything outside of random BG spamming, and given the total nerf to Arcane's burst, even that is not possible anymore (i.e. chaincasting into a target will actually make you go OOM before you kill the target).
Fire is the surprise entry to the PvP arena for Mages. It has fantastic control and absolutely lethal on demand burst. Frost, as always, is working very well.
I will try to make a more focused PvP analysis soon. I already have a thread out here going into very fine grain detail into why Arcane PvP has pretty much failed in MoP, but I'd like to do a "why Fire is working" one soon too.
Your thoughts?
Fire has been great for PvP most of this expansion, even in some high end 5v5, not sure for the other brackets. On Beta there have been reports that it's great in pvp, but I haven't tested.
As far as raiding goes, I've tested all three specs on dummies, got 36-37k single target with Frost, 39k as Arcane with NT and Barrage cleave on one additional target (Ironforge) and 46k as Fire with one additional target sucking the dots spread by Inferno Blast.
Tried Fire in LFR Siege of Wyrmrest, was fun, but it's really easy getting high damage with 32% crit raid buffed plus the multiplier from the spec. Trying to get a Fall of Deathwing queue to try Arcane on Ultraxion, so far all I've been getting is to the last boss where I did 67k.
My personal opinion is that currently at 85 Fire is the weakest spec regarding complexity. Arcane damage depends on knowing when to hit that extra Blast and when not to and when to time Power, use a mana gem or evocate. Whatever you might feel, Arcane is still the spec that requires the most input from the player. Fire is beyond simple, not that it's ever been complicated. Frost is very very fun and I enjoy the feel of it, but follows a relatively simple pattern which can be picked up really fast using 'Needtoknow' timers.
I believe that with the addition of Alter Time and level 90 talents, all 3 specs will become even more engaging, especially Frost because I think it will have the most work to do with precisely timing alter time. Arcane will have more to deal with based on the level 90 talents.
I'm sorry zomgDPS, but I really can't agree with your continuous bashing of Arcane. Your comments are just not what I see and do in practice.
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EDIT: I know that Fire is currently top of the three specs, most of my comment is not about numbers.
Last edited by Shangalar; 2012-08-29 at 09:22 PM.
I just solo cleared all coilfang instances in Outland as Frost. (a) AoE loot rules (b) Frozen Orb is OP, you can just pull the entire instance, throw one of those, profit!
Loving my afflock so far. Got so sick of ignorant people bitchin' about low DPS on trash. Afflocks were always low on trash, high on bosses. The trash DPS is way up, just hope we didn't sacrifice too much on bosses.
but but but.. we're in the mages section.... whats a lock doin here? blasphemy!!!
Wrong thread
Last edited by Zavri; 2012-08-29 at 09:19 PM.
Eh posted in the wrong thread, meant to post in the arcane one.
Some more PvP feedback.
I extensively tried Fire vs Arcane in PvP. Fire wins hands down no contest. It beats Arcane in every single category.
In general, Arcane just has no answer to the sheer amount of pressure and burst Fire can put out on demand and at will. The fact that Fire's burst can be executed while also being totally mobile is just icing on the cake.
Relative to fire, Arcane takes what seems like YEARS to 'ramp up' its burst. But the real nail in Arcane PvP coffin is the not only the fact that to burst it has to be completely stationary (the only mage spec that needs to do this) or the fact that it takes over 15 seconds of chain casting to actually be at a position to burst, but also the fact that after all that effort, the burst is so very easily shut down.
Unlike Fire's burst, which comes through a series of instant casts, Arcane needs to stand there and channel a double AM stack, which basically puts a MASSIVE sign on the mage's head saying "interrupt me please". There is just nothing the Arcane mage can do about this. The more I play and the more I compare the more I am baffled on what exactly Blizzard was thinking giving two of the mage specs instants and short duration cooldowns as their method of burst and giving the third the completely unworkable "stand there for ages casting and channeling".
This would make sense if to facilitate this "stand and channel" method of burst that blizzard actually gave the Arcane mage something that allows him to create an opening where he can do that, but all Arcane mages get is slow, probably the weakest of the 3 specs' spec abilities.
Anyone else have any PvP feedback?