Patch 5.2 PTR Mage Changes

[Sw1tch]

I can't help but feel that all the effort into theorycrafting is moot because of blizzards stance on big changes outside of an expansion. A shame really.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Though can they do this? Tech wise?

From my understanding, AM is different from other 'channeled' spells since its actually a script that fires 5 individual waves, each treated as its own missile. This is different from say the drains of a lock or a spriest, which are basically glorified channeled dots.

I don't see why it couldn't be rigged. You'd have the script just trigger a different missile spell for the last tick, one that's set to break DF but is functionally the same in every other way.

[Imnick]

Arcane Missiles grants an Arcane Charge when the channel ends not when it begins, you could just use that same trigger for the Deep Freeze (which also stops you from cheating it by casting AM, cancelling before the last tick and casting a second).

[Elegiac]

Arcane Missiles grants an Arcane Charge when the channel ends not when it begins, you could just use that same trigger for the Deep Freeze (which also stops you from cheating it by casting AM, cancelling before the last tick and casting a second).

Sounds a little difficult to implement...I still feel that the Shatter mechanic is not particularly pertinent to either Arcane or Fire, and that their potential should be improved in other ways.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Arcane Missiles grants an Arcane Charge when the channel ends not when it begins, you could just use that same trigger for the Deep Freeze (which also stops you from cheating it by casting AM, cancelling before the last tick and casting a second).

Yeah, if it grants the charge regardless of if it's cut short, you could use that as the DF removal trigger as well. Probably easier to work it in like that.

[Imnick]

Yeah, if it grants the charge regardless of if it's cut short, you could use that as the DF removal trigger as well. Probably easier to work it in like that.

I'm not sure if it grants the charge if you are interrupted, but it does if you cancel it yourself by moving or... cancelling it. So it seems to be pretty much exactly what we need already.

[zomgDPS]

if( volly of arc missiles < 5 )
then
applyShatterBreak = false;
else
dont;
end

I see it, it would be easy, but that ^ is just ugly. If-then-else 'special cases' make me squirm.

I raged when they did the Deep Freeze as a 'on bosses, do 10zomgillion damage, everything else = stun;' thing when they tried to 'patch-fix' frost's pve viability.

It just never works, ends up as = bad, and has to be redone in the end anyway.


There is something to be said about 'elegant' design. Though today, i guess we're past that point. /sigh

fml

[lillbrorsan]

Fire needs some serious love.

[Deleted]

Ok lets stop and think for a second shall we? I have seen ghostcrawler (and others) saying, since cataclysm, they want to balance mage specs so it is a matter of a player's preference and not a matter of what spec does more damage. Since september till 28 december there was an obvious gap between fire and arcane beeing fire better. Blizzard realized that and made changes at 29 December and now that gap is even higher beeing arcane much better now in fights without damage multiplier or multi target witch is like 12/16. They made changes to balance specs and now they are even more unbalance and they are happy with it? Doesnt make much sense does it? Would like to know what he has to say about this. Thank you.

[Zoros]

I think that replace glyph of fire blast for a new mage spell could be a good idea. It would be the same but with no Fire Blast damage, different cooldown and versions.

The spell could be arcane, fire or frost depending on the bomb option. So for example, for Nether Tempest the spell would be Nether Storm with 20 sec cooldown, making Nether Tempest fire its secondary damage to nearby targets 3 times. For Living Bomb the spell would be Living Flames, with 10 sec cooldown, and the current spreding effect. And what Blizzard decides for Frost Bomb.

I think that is a sad thing to lose glyph of fire blast, for me it's not a glyph, is a fun spell, so why not let Fire Blast aside, and make it a new spell?

[zomgDPS]

So PTR is up, but its buggy as sin.


A few notes from messing with it a bit (though honestly, almost nothing works):

* Invocation is still 5.1 style.
* 10% extra AB mana will need careful watching, the Arcane nerf shows.
* Scorch kills arcane 'camping'
* Deep is still 5.1 style (isn't breaking on damage)
* Rogues changes are pretty OP

Though until they fix many of the things, I don't think much testing is possible.


Probably next build. Hopefully more real changes will be on the way.

[Zathrendar]

* Rogues changes are pretty OP

That was expected I guess. By the time 5.2 comes they will hopefully be toned down to be reasonable. I hope they keep DF as it is.

[Deleted]

If you check for me, I'm on Nathyiel @brill-eu.

The result of my quick test:

• Invocation isn't changed. I have tested it ~4.2s cast and ~+25% damage upgrade (21.5k Vs 26.9 on dummies w/o proc/trinket, ...).
• Blazing speed on use is interesting, like a 2nd Blink but less powerfull. Need a better boost or a longer one. 25s Cd.
• Frostbolt's debuff is implemented. It now only increase damage for IL and Water bolt. They can just remove it and nerf IL on player by 15%, like Frost Bomb.
• Frost mirror image hit for 2.5k now.
• Cold snap is nerfed to 15% heals.
• Ice flows have a 45s CD but still don't work with Invocation.
• Rune of Power is nerfed to 75% mana
• Freeze don't proc FoF on target immune to root
• Glyph of Inferno blast spread to 1 additional target. Spread LB is lost.

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 12:36 PM ----------

and also, 64 bits client don't work. Portal don't work and Deep Freeze isn't changed.

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 12:39 PM ----------

In fact, thay only implement what on the patch-note and remove what was datamined

[Kuni Zyrekai]

I have a nagging feeling that the datamined notes are a later build. Maybe something didn't work out and they revered it a couple of versions, but it seems off. There's too many changes, not just ours, unaccounted for to be simply removed I think.

[mrgreenthump]

The result of my quick test:

Blazing speed on use is interesting, like a 2nd Blink but less powerfull. Need a better boost or a longer one. 25s Cd.

Frost mirror image hit for 2.5k now.

Ice flows have a 45s CD but still don't work with Invocation.

Glyph of Inferno blast spread to 1 additional target. Spread LB is lost.

Blazing speed is a fun talent allways has, But it does not belong in tier 2 of mage talents.. it can never live up to Ice barrier or Temporal shield.

Mirror image is still puny damage, sure its prolly now worth popping on cd again for small overall damage benefit rather than waiting for the "oh shit" moments..

Ice flows is still too long cd to work on any real raid encounter. Its a nice idea, but colossal fail on implementation. Needs to be much smaller cd to really work. Same goes for PoM really, but that would make PoM much more of an dps increase. So I think they should just move PoM for all mages and put Blazing speed in tier 1.

I shall miss my inferno blast spread on cleave, was really nice benefit for fire, and really the only thing keeping it on the raiding scene for me, as on cleave fights you just didnt have to multidot with fire. But if that goes, I guess they will see a decrease in fire mage damage. Again, and that coupled with the invocation nerf(which might not come) I guess fire will get buffed or then its going to be really dog next patch until gear scaling

[Deleted]

They can work like this :

1. content change (quest, etc) with minor class change
2. class change with minor content change
3. content
4. etc

So we can expect to have bigger change for the next patch (in a couple of day ?) with some that we actually don't now.

For gearn I think we will have to wait for 1 or 2 weeks. For Blazing Speed, you can be true, or it's Ice barrier that need to be baseline but they won't make it

[Shangalar]

Bumping this thread to keep the discussion on the PTR changes localized.

[Rogabr]

I'm no person to judge mages because I dont have one but when I see streams of Mages 1v2 teams at fairly high ratings while they are hardly even concentrating I feel something might be wrong.

The nerfs still seem a little excessive though.

ziqo is 8 times rank 1 glad; when you have that much experience under your belt you make anything look easy.

[Sw1tch]

I'm not sure what to make of the FoF proc chance increase. I want to believe it's simply because blizzard recognized that Frost's rotation hits a boring and tedious dry spell when Freeze and Frozen Orb aren't up, but another part of me thinks this might mean Water Jet isn't coming.

However, if this is the case, I'd like to see if a 3% increase amounts to an extra charge every 24 seconds.

[mrgreenthump]

I'm not sure what to make of the FoF proc chance increase. I want to believe it's simply because blizzard recognized that Frost's rotation hits a boring and tedious dry spell when Freeze and Frozen Orb aren't up, but another part of me thinks this might mean Water Jet isn't coming.

However, if this is the case, I'd like to see if a 3% increase amounts to an extra charge every 24 seconds.

Like I said in the other thread, I'd much rather have steady stream of FoF's than localized groups that become allmost full spam of instants