A Compilation of Proposed Changes

[Elegiac]

So most of these changes are aimed at making Mages stronger than they already need to be, and cause them to become ridiculously more overpowered in PvP?

Hmmm yeah no.

Changes like these would not and do not exist in isolation. Of course the numbers would be rebalanced.

The point of these was a list of mechanic changes in order to improve quality of life and address some of the deeper issues facing the class.

[schwarzkopf]

All of these are basically iterations of the same talent, Rune of Power; the point is to provide mechanical diversity when it comes to different spells, and these do not strike me as varying enough to meet that goal.

They are sort of like RoP, however each gives diversity in how one moves during a fight. RoP is a stand still or else mechanic, the three I've designed allow for flexibility in how one can move around.

The fire one even encourages some level of movement to gain the buff, the frost one is aimed at segmented movement and the arcane one at the more straight forward avoid the front of the boss movement.

There is going to have to be some level of 'sameness' of the mechanic (as there currently is in the l90 talents) or Blizzard wont budge on it. What I've done is taken a mechanic they are happy with (RoP) and tried to make something useful in 3 varieties.

[Elegiac]

From my understanding, the level 45 tier is pretty special.

If you notice, it is the one tier (apart from last) which does not follow the Arcane-Fire-Frost spread that the other tiers do.

My understanding is, the reason for that is shatter and (yet again) deep freeze.

Blizzard needed 1 tier of "talents that let you freeze sh!t" so as to bring the specs into line as far as answering the "how useful is deep freeze or shatter to you?" question.

Frost has 4 ways to make use of shatter/deep; nova, petnova, FoF and [insert level 45 talent here].

Arcane and Fire have, at minimum, 2; nova and [insert level 45 talent here]

If there was a talent row which had 2 ways to make use of shatter/deep + 1 random utility talent, then there could exist a possibility that some mage out there would have only 1 way to make use of shatter/deep. Meaning the spread between frostmages and that mage would be 4 to 1, which, in blizz's head, was too large a spread.


The level 45 tier ensures that at minimum, every mage out ther has at least 2 ways to make use of shatter/deep, which, as we can see, was important to blizz, since they designed the class into focused burst during shatter/deep for all three specs.


I get your point though, I'm just Verdict: Perhaps-ing because I'm not sold yet.

And as I have said, I am not nor have I ever been convinced that Shatter was a pertinent mechanic to either Arcane or Fire. Rather than copy-pasting a mechanic that works for Frost into the other spec, what should have happened was an effort to address Fire and Arcane's own issues and try and build PvP viability from their existing mechanics, based off the nature of the spec.

If they wished to make shatter viable for Arcane and Fire, the answer (to my mind, at least) would have been giving them spec specific tools in order to take advantage of the shatter mechanic, not wasting a tier of talents on it which have little to no use outside of PvP.

[Super Kami Dende]

Changes like these would not and do not exist in isolation. Of course the numbers would be rebalanced.

The point of these was a list of mechanic changes in order to improve quality of life and address some of the deeper issues facing the class.

You mean the way other classes can counter you? by increasing your movement and ability to heal and reduce the damage dealt to you?'

Mages are one of the FEW classes that have quality of life Issues. These Mechanic changes are little more then "I want to be able to counter everything" changes.

Also the Reason Counterspell has a longer CD is because It is usuable at Range by a RANGE class. Sure you can have the same CD as Melee when you have to run within 10yrds to use it.

[Elegiac]

They are sort of like RoP, however each gives diversity in how one moves during a fight. RoP is a stand still or else mechanic, the three I've designed allow for flexibility in how one can move around.

The fire one even encourages some level of movement to gain the buff, the frost one is aimed at segmented movement and the arcane one at the more straight forward avoid the front of the boss movement.

There is going to have to be some level of 'sameness' of the mechanic (as there currently is in the l90 talents) or Blizzard wont budge on it. What I've done is taken a mechanic they are happy with (RoP) and tried to make something useful in 3 varieties.

And they are all, in essence "stand here or at least move around in this space to get a buff". As with Rune of Power itself, while good in theory, in practice it's boring and restrictive.

---------- Post added 2012-12-28 at 11:40 PM ----------

You mean the way other classes can counter you? by increasing your movement and ability to heal and reduce the damage dealt to you?'

The mobility increase is currently a necessity in PvE for all specs. If you don't like that, blame Blizzard.

The survivability increase comes from a specific location; namely that Mages being a pure class possess very little in the way of self healing outside of Evocation. Contrast this to every hybrid spec in existence.

Also the Reason Counterspell has a longer CD is because It is usuable at Range by a RANGE class. Sure you can have the same CD as Melee when you have to run within 10yrds to use it.

Wind Shear. But as said, Wind Shear is imbalanced in of itself.

[jtmzac]

There's a lot of good ideas here and while I'm not a fan of pvp either you can't just say screw you to pvp and do whatever you want with pve.

There needs to be a simple solution to break the link between pve and pvp. For mages at least I don't see why we need 3 pve specs and the simplest way to keep things balanced is to go back to a 1 pvp, 2 pve specs. My other idea that I've suggested before is have the core mechanics of the spec the same but have a way to change the duration, cooldowns, damage etc. of the spec depending wether it's being used for pve or pvp.

I made my account on here when 5.0 was rolled out just to say that the homogenisation of the specs was a bad route for blizz to take and I still believe it's greatly lessened the fun of mages. At the very least we should have a choice to change the look of moves to match our spec.

We need more talents and spells that are more entwined with the encounters. Back in 4.3 every fight I was a little better with arcane because you were always learning from experience but since 5.0 the chance for improvement from the player seems absent from my point of view playing frost at least.

I wish I could provide some actual suggestions at how to change the class but I'm just not good at coming up with ideas from scratch.

[Elegiac]

There's a lot of good ideas here and while I'm not a fan of pvp either you can't just say screw you to pvp and do whatever you want with pve.

There needs to be a simple solution to break the link between pve and pvp. For mages at least I don't see why we need 3 pve specs and the simplest way to keep things balanced is to go back to a 1 pvp, 2 pve specs. My other idea that I've suggested before is have the core mechanics of the spec the same but have a way to change the duration, cooldowns, damage etc. of the spec depending wether it's being used for pve or pvp.

I said back when 5.0 was rolled out that the homogenisation of the specs was a bad route for blizz to take and I still believe it's greatly lessened the fun of mages. At the very least we should have a choice to change the look of moves to match our spec.

We need more talents and spells that are more entwined with the encounters. Back in 4.3 every fight I was a little better with arcane because you were always learning from experience but since 5.0 the chance for improvement from the player seems absent from my point of view playing frost at least.

I wish I could provide some actual suggestions at how to change the class but I'm just not good at coming up with ideas from scratch.

No. All three specs need to be viable. (Not all 'amazing', just viable).

[zomgDPS]

And as I have said, I am not nor have I ever been convinced that Shatter was a pertinent mechanic to either Arcane or Fire.

I'm with you there. Though there is little we can do about it now. Thats next expo talk.

You mean the way other classes can counter you? by increasing your movement and ability to heal and reduce the damage dealt to you?'

Mages are one of the FEW classes that have quality of life Issues. These Mechanic changes are little more then "I want to be able to counter everything" changes.

Also the Reason Counterspell has a longer CD is because It is usuable at Range by a RANGE class. Sure you can have the same CD as Melee when you have to run within 10yrds to use it.

No. CS has a longer CD because it has a longer lockout, it has very little to do with RANGE!

Mages are designed around a long lockout, what mages aren't, it seems, designed around, is having a blanket silence, which is why that is on the chopping block.
I do not think it will work though. Removing the silence from CS will do a few things:

1) Increase the value of FrostJaw
2) make killing healers borderline impossible.

1) is a problem coz ice ward is already suffering. RoF is being taken left right and center. 2) is a much bigger issue.


And no, the classes that counter us are not the 'deep issues' of the class.

The mage as a class, as a whole, is at a critical moment in its history. Warlocks just had their entire class re-written (practically) for MoP, I wouldn't be surprised if mages are next. But this is the last chance for mages to prove the can serve the 'stand and nuke' role. So there is a battle happening at the very core identity of the class itself. Play a mage, you'll see it all around you.


Quality of life is something a lot of people bring up. Do I think there is no class out there that is worse off than mages? Probably no. Rogues are, well, lost as a class right now. There are few specs out there that are also wavering.

But mages are a pure caster class. That means a lot. They cannot just go from boomkin to feral and be ok. They need to have some spice within the class so as to not make the whole "here are 3 specs of your class" thing superfluous for them.
It is a crisis that almost all pures are having right now (though warlocks seem to have preemptively dodged it with their changes).


I know that is hard to understand when your coming from the perspective of having been pwned by some mage in a duel outside org, but rest assured, mages have some very deep rooted issues right now.

[jtmzac]

No. All three specs need to be viable. (Not all 'amazing', just viable).

I did provide a second suggestion for a reason :P

My other idea that I've suggested before is have the core mechanics of the spec the same but have a way to change the duration, cooldowns, damage etc. of the spec depending wether it's being used for pve or pvp.

I would prefer all the specs to be viable in pve and pvp as well but it's hard to imagine blizz doing anything very complicated (like my suggestion above) to seperate pvp and pve.

[Elegiac]

I'm with you there. Though there is little we can do about it now. Thats next expo talk.

-stamps foot and pouts-

---------- Post added 2012-12-28 at 11:54 PM ----------

I did provide a second suggestion for a reason :P

I would prefer all the specs to be viable in pve and pvp as well but it's hard to imagine blizz doing anything very complicated (like my suggestion above) to seperate pvp and pve.

Blizzard's excuse for this is that 'we don't want people having to learn a new rotation for PvP'. It's almost as good as their 'everything is balanced around level 90, so low level pvp doesn't matter' cop out.

[jtmzac]

Blizzard's excuse for this is that 'we don't want people having to learn a new rotation for PvP'. It's almost as good as their 'everything is balanced around level 90, so low level pvp doesn't matter' cop out.

Don't forget my favorite excuse! "We can't do it because we don't have enough time and our standards are too high to hire more people."

[zomgDPS]

Don't forget my favorite excuse! "We can't do it because we don't have enough time and our standards are too high to hire more people."

Oh god i remember this one. I /sighed so hard.

Its like what makes them think some really talented individual wouldn't read that and say "shit, MY standards are too high to get hired by someone like you".

Really, sometimes I think blizz is just shooting itself in the face sometimes.
It will come back and bite them in the ass very hard.

[Elegiac]

Oh god i remember this one. I /sighed so hard.

Its like what makes them think some really talented individual wouldn't read that and say "shit, MY standards are too high to get hired by someone like you".

Really, sometimes I think blizz is just shooting itself in the face sometimes.
It will come back and bite them in the ass very hard.

Can you imagine the uproar if Microsoft pulled this sort of crap? :P

[jtmzac]

Oh god i remember this one. I /sighed so hard.

Its like what makes them think some really talented individual wouldn't read that and say "shit, MY standards are too high to get hired by someone like you".

Really, sometimes I think blizz is just shooting itself in the face sometimes.
It will come back and bite them in the ass very hard.

Blizz are just extermely lucky the competition hasn't got it's act together yet. The other mmo's have got various single good elements but WoW is too well established and polished to be beaten until some game that gets nearly everything right but close enough to WoW comes along.

[Elegiac]

Blizz are just extermely lucky the competition hasn't got it's act together yet. The other mmo's have got various single good elements but WoW is too well established and polished to be beaten until some game that gets nearly everything right but close enough to WoW comes along.

The problem is that WoW has set the bar; its model has proven so vastly successful that the only way to compete with it is to follow its example - which basically just results in WoW clones that are more often than not, less good.

But the result has been that the developers seem to think that they can get away with ignoring and abusing the trust of their customer base. Perhaps the real proposed change should be to kick the devs in the ass and make them understand that we pay for their luxury.

[jtmzac]

Can you imagine the uproar if Microsoft pulled this sort of crap? :P

Microsoft are worse than blizz in some ways. Who had the idea to design an entire os around touch screens...

[zomgDPS]

Microsoft are worse than blizz in some ways. Who had the idea to design an entire os around touch screens...

lol! oh man dont even get me started on 8.
---------- Post added 2012-12-29 at 01:07 AM ----------

Can you imagine the uproar if Microsoft pulled this sort of crap? :P

Oh dude... it would be brutal.

Onto better things though...

[jtmzac]

The problem is that WoW has set the bar; its model has proven so vastly successful that the only way to compete with it is to follow its example - which basically just results in WoW clones that are more often than not, less good.

But the result has been that the developers seem to think that they can get away with ignoring and abusing the trust of their customer base. Perhaps the real proposed change should be to kick the devs in the ass and make them understand that we pay for their luxury.

I would say the problem is that the other mmo's haven't been enough like WoW to take it's place. Not that they are too similar.

As for the devs ignoring players well that's hardly new. They should just shut down the official forums so they can actually spend their time reading the good ideas elsewhere.

[Elegiac]

Oh dude... it would be brutal.

Onto better things though....

One thing I would like to discuss is the issue of Frost's control, which we mentioned earlier. I agree with the statements you and others have put forward; Frost was a very elegant spec that rewarded timing and skill.

The problem, however, is that in order to make Frost PvE viable, its damage potential had to be upped in order to make up for the fact that its control was not necessarily desirable or even usable.

Since then it has transitioned more to a spec focused around proc management rather than rewarding good control. So there are two options; either divorce Frost's control from its damage potential entirely, or alter the nature of its control to make it viable in a PvE setting. It would be vastly easier to accomplish the former; but I would like to hear some ideas upon the latter.

[zomgDPS]

either divorce Frost's control from its damage potential entirely, or alter the nature of its control to make it viable in a PvE setting. It would be vastly easier to accomplish the former; but I would like to hear some ideas upon the latter.

I would start by questioning why would you even want to divorce the two in the first place?


The idea inherent to "dps through control" is not one to give up on so easily, imho. As a concept, its sound, but why doesn't it work?


As you mention, frost was in a bitter place pre-mop. One benefit of lhivera's 'fervor' was that the spec got some attention.

And yes, frost now is pretty much all about proc management, like you mentioned (though some label it "proc 'control'"), which could work.


The real butchery with frost was the 'spreading' of its core mechanic, shatter. At least, that seems to me to be part of consensus.

Shatter as a concept should have been expanded and be made a core mechanic for frost. Many things could have been done to make this happen. (Similarly, I believe 'Time' as a mechanic should have been added and expanded into Arcane. I have some other posts about that. After all, Arcane was billed as the 'controller of time and space' spec).


But the real core of frosts question always seems to boil down to the same thing.

What is the real value of 'control'?


Does the fact that there will be some encounter where there will be many many adds that need to be 'controlled' (as apposed to say, just aoe burned down) increase the value of 'control'? And if it does, then is that even a good thing?
Again, as you mentioned, you can't CC a boss.

And that is where frost failed. The real 'value of control' was being tested, it was found wanting, and so frost was reformed into the mage spec all about "procs".


That is, im sure partially at least, why 'control' was something that was made 'talented', since blizz concluded that it was something all mages can get. But all that really did was 'spread frost around'.

Though some argued that the 'spreading around' of Arcane had already happened in early wow, with things like blink and polymorph and such, and so they premised that there has to be some mixing. They were right, it was an eventuality (born of 'homogenization').

But frost really needs to go into a deep dive and figure out what it is now. Master of Procs? sounds lame.




Seperately
It would be cool to shatter a boss. Like actually shatter it. You can even have the fancy freeze graphics on that shatter outwards making it look cool.
Say a stacking buff, that keeps stacking as long as you pump FBs into it. Then you have

Shatter
1.5 sec cast

Consumes all shatter stacks, dealing X (based off stack) damage to the target, stunning it for 0.5 seconds

Shatter stacks above 50 can stun bosses.




And there you have it.
Frost becomes the first spec in the game that can interrupt boss mechanics. It needs a high shatter stack, so you cant just spam interrupt (tunes to once or twice a bossfight), but at least it gives something 'special' to frost. (i dont know if welly is enough tbh. personally, i cant stand it. If i wanted perma-pets, i play my lock. my demolock is beast)

But then everyone out there would want a special cookie too and probably a pony on top as 'compensation'.


Mages need to evolve.