Mage 90 Talents are terrible

[Firebert]

What a cop out. Your stance boils down to: Unless we can have every single Mage player accounted for and posting their discontent then there's no proof that these are unpopular talents, and therefore I will dismiss your opinion as a result! Derp.

Only one over half the Mage population are required.

Plus, you're doing it wrong.

[Imnick]

The problem with your stance, Ellsian, is that there's clearly a significant number of players even in this topic who are fine with the talents as well as ones that aren't. You can't make any extrapolation from that and say "this side is clearly the majority" because there is actually no clarity at all. There are plenty of people on both sides of the fence.

[Deleted]

I reread it, all seemed fine to me. You pointed out your point was that "some people." Some people = a low amount of the population

Apologies on my part, was meaning to simply answer the question that the poster had asked. 'Does anyone find these fun...' Yes, some do, was my answer.

What a cop out. Your stance boils down to: Unless we can have every single Mage player accounted for and posting their discontent then there's no proof that these are unpopular talents! Derp.

No, it's really not. My stance is don't post your opinion as fact, even if it's shared by others. It's a discussion forum and I'm all for everyone having their opinions (hell I'm posting here, aren't I), and yeah, it's pretty clear from this thread so far that people don't like the talents, but that also goes for the reverse. If, say, forums represented 5% of the playerbase (I don't know actual number) and EVERYONE said 'I hate these' that's still only 5% of the playerbase, and you simply can't therefore assume that the other 95% agree with you. It's just one of the things that annoy me when people post it as fact, however assuming that they post it as fact is probably something more on my end. My bad.
I don't mean to post what I say with condescending undertones, just comes off that way 'cos I'm at work and not in the greatest mood because of it. My bad (again) on that front.

[Ellsian]

The problem with your stance, Ellsian, is that there's clearly a significant number of players even in this topic who are fine with the talents as well as ones that aren't. You can't make any extrapolation from that and say "this side is clearly the majority" because there is actually no clarity at all. There are plenty of people on both sides of the fence.

I just think it's wrong to dismiss peoples opinion because of a lack of polling.

And frankly, there's more than a fair share of people panning these talents on the official mage forums, and even on this forum there have been many posts/threads from beta about the same issue.

[Gamdwelf]

I think both rune of power and incanters ward are fine, I have yet to try invocation.

[Deleted]

Invocation will gradually get better though as we get better gear and more haste and thereby a lower channeltime on Evocation.
I personally Always channel before a boss fight and never during trash because trash pulls are just Frost Orb + Pet Freeze + Blizzard = 120k+ dps.
On bosses though I channel it before the fight and then if its about to run out while I have 2 FoF and a BF Proc I channel it again. When that is done I proc Icy veins my trinket and Alter time and get a shitload of burst out of 2 free FoF and a free BF that deals damage 3 times and has invocation buff.

[Kiry]

I use Invocation. It gives us a nice damage boost, and the price we pay is timing it's use. I want to experiment with IW more, but I feel that won't really happen until I raid. Rune is a bit of a meh, I dont know that many fights that we stand in one place for that long.

[Elegiac]

Personal opinion that they're broken in terms of their QoL, just pick Incanter's Ward if you don't feel the other two options fit in with your playstyle. T6 is all about mana. Instead of trying to "fix" them, why not suggest an alternative spell that all mages use that that tier should focus on instead?

I did, several times. Clearly you haven't been reading my posts.

The problem with a tier about mana is that only one out of the three mage specs relies on mana management in any significant way; Arcane. The way Invocation and Incanter's Ward are designed make it a hassle to use either of these spells with the spec; the former forces the Arcane mages to spend a massive amount of time channeling in order to maintain mana and the spellpower buff, the latter hinders dps and mana gain while the spell is on cooldown. While Rune shines over the others, it is clunky to use owing to its cast time and cooldown.

Hence, the best idea is simply to change the focus of the tier from mana management to simply various styles of dps increase.

To some people fun is finding the challenge out of maximising DPS, regardless of what the playstyle is.

Your opinion does not equal fact.

Likewise, your opinion that catering to this niche in the ultimate tier of talents is a good thing also does not equal fact.

---------- Post added 2012-10-02 at 11:20 PM ----------

Use the other options? Stop acting like Rune is the only choice. I'm going to avoid it like the plague cuz frost already has to place an AoE on the ground for the normal rotation.

Perhaps he plays Arcane.

[Emberess]

when i first saw these talents , compared to what we first had ( polymorph tier any1?) i was like hell ye these are going to be much better, but with invocation being the go-to talent for frost i have changed my stance , i actually like rune of power abit , felt like i was my own mage power house ( like shamies used to toss totems around them selves ) , but too bad it didnt really scale wtih haste , currently i have switched to invocation , but ive realised the game is much more dyanamic than this talent allows us to be, just dungeons atm , it feels kinda crap to have to channel everytime the buff gets low i liked someones idea of moving channel and over time build up thing, but i feel really silly standing there for around 5-6 seconds knowing that anything i do/press could cancel the cast and laeve me with wasted time/dps , when i see ele shamans dominatiing movement and having good burst and stuff now, i feel like swapping to it and making it my main, but i like my mage so much i dont know what to do

[Zenny]

Rune works OK. As long as you know where to put two down you can get 80% up-time on it easily. I hate Invocation though, spending 5 seconds standing there is hardly fun.

[Deleted]

when i first saw these talents , compared to what we first had ( polymorph tier any1?) i was like hell ye these are going to be much better, but with invocation being the go-to talent for frost i have changed my stance , i actually like rune of power abit , felt like i was my own mage power house ( like shamies used to toss totems around them selves ) , but too bad it didnt really scale wtih haste , currently i have switched to invocation , but ive realised the game is much more dyanamic than this talent allows us to be, just dungeons atm , it feels kinda crap to have to channel everytime the buff gets low i liked someones idea of moving channel and over time build up thing, but i feel really silly standing there for around 5-6 seconds knowing that anything i do/press could cancel the cast and laeve me with wasted time/dps , when i see ele shamans dominatiing movement and having good burst and stuff now, i feel like swapping to it and making it my main, but i like my mage so much i dont know what to do

Totems had a 40 meter radius, the rune is only 5 wide, or even less. It just can't compare.
I ended up mostly using my Shaman now since Mages have become a serious liability in the majority of instances. Ascendance and EleBlast blows anything mages have out of the water.
Arcane especially, only has wet noodle AOE capabilities, which doesn't even keep up with half the dmg of the next worst AOE class (afflilock?), and is mostly immobile if you don't take Scorch.

[Deleted]

Totems had a 40 meter radius, the rune is only 5 wide, or even less. It just can't compare.
I ended up mostly using my Shaman now since Mages have become a serious liability in the majority of instances. Ascendance and EleBlast blows anything mages have out of the water.

Not entirely sure what you mean by this, so just going to ask, how on earth are mages a liability in instances? While playing Frost, I've not been out-bursted by any class/spec combo I've come across so far. If I played Fire with my current gear I'm confident that I would probably get even stronger burst off a decent Combustion.

[Deleted]

Not entirely sure what you mean by this, so just going to ask, how on earth are mages a liability in instances? While playing Frost, I've not been out-bursted by any class/spec combo I've come across so far. If I played Fire with my current gear I'm confident that I would probably get even stronger burst off a decent Combustion.

I meant Arcane Mages, as you didn't mention Arcane either it is obvious that this spec can't keep up with any other class and spec, neither singletarget, nor AOE.
It is a dead spec now, but unlike Frost was before, it is dead for PvE AND PvP. They bring absolutely nothing to the table either, as the 3% dmg buff and Focus Magic is gone.

[Deleted]

I meant Arcane Mages, as you didn't mention Arcane either it is obvious that this spec can't keep up with any other class and spec, neither singletarget, nor AOE.
It is a dead spec now, but unlike Frost was before, it is dead for PvE AND PvP. They bring absolutely nothing to the table either, as the 3% dmg buff and Focus Magic is gone.

I actually didn't mention it because I haven't played it, nor do I have any intention of bothering to learn it, either. I levelled as Frost, so am playing that at the moment while keeping Fire for any fight where it might perform better or until I get enough gear that it outright pulls ahead of Frost on DPS. All 3 specs are very similar in single target DPS, with sims actually showing that Fire is *currently* behind both Arcane and Frost. AoE I'd agree it's probably behind both Fire and Frost, but I have absolutely no data to back that up.

None of the specs bring 'anything to the table' via your logic; all mages provide the exact same buffs to the raid, regardless of spec. Considering mages provide BOTH 10% SP and 5% Crit, in 10man comps they're pretty valuable.

[Elegiac]

Not entirely sure what you mean by this, so just going to ask, how on earth are mages a liability in instances? While playing Frost, I've not been out-bursted by any class/spec combo I've come across so far. If I played Fire with my current gear I'm confident that I would probably get even stronger burst off a decent Combustion.

Challenge Modes; Invocation and Rune of Power are in theory inviable for the fast-paced nature of the dungeons, while Incanter's Ward doesn't provide enough of a buff to merit taking a mage in a CM comp.

[Ninsew]

Play a warlock and then you're allowed to whine.

[Bombkirby]

Challenge Modes; Invocation and Rune of Power are in theory inviable for the fast-paced nature of the dungeons, while Incanter's Ward doesn't provide enough of a buff to merit taking a mage in a CM comp.

I was certain the boost you get from the shield (30%) was enough in most cases. Does it have to deal with its CD? Is that why it's buff isn't "enough"?

[Elegiac]

I was certain the boost you get from the shield (30%) was enough in most cases. Does it have to deal with its CD? Is that why it's buff isn't "enough"?

No, the fact that on the majority of trash pulls you won't or rather shouldn't be taking enough damage to keep the buff up. Not to mention the 10 sec between the buff expiration and when it comes off CD when the passive isn't active.

[Deleted]

Challenge Modes; Invocation and Rune of Power are in theory inviable for the fast-paced nature of the dungeons, while Incanter's Ward doesn't provide enough of a buff to merit taking a mage in a CM comp.

Put Invo up before you accept the queue to enter the CM, continue as required from there, no downtime bar on boss fights (considering the fact that most CM speedruns attempt to ignore as much trash as possible).
Alternatively take IW, passive 6% buff for trash that you have to pull, use on bosses in conjunction with Ice Barrier (IW is absorbed first) and 'soak' some damage to keep the buff up.

Don't see why either of the above wouldn't work.

[Heartfrost]

Put Invo up before you accept the queue to enter the CM, continue as required from there, no downtime bar on boss fights (considering the fact that most CM speedruns attempt to ignore as much trash as possible).
Alternatively take IW, passive 6% buff for trash that you have to pull, use on bosses in conjunction with Ice Barrier (IW is absorbed first) and 'soak' some damage to keep the buff up.

Don't see why either of the above wouldn't work.

Because then they would have to skill.