Things you loved way back about mages and stuff you really dont miss (nostalgia/fun)

[obc]

Before i start this just a little preface: this is intented to NOT be a whine thread or how blizzard has ruined everything. this isnt about the state of mages at the present nor is it about pvp imbalance. I know most of this will probably have been mentioned in various threads over the time but i'd just want to read everything in a consice thread with maybe some nostalic stories.


1. CoC being able to root enemies.

This was a god send during questing and pvp aswell as raiding at times.

2. Deep Freeze being able to damage mobs.

Oh, it was so much fun to pop it and see a huge number blow up. Also the threat managment at the start of a pull and more importantly the first time you realize that it doesnt freeze an sepecific add. Casting Deepfreeze right the second Cho'galls adds spawn for the first time and getting aggro was hilarious. It was always funny and rejoicing to see the cooldown come back up. The CD wasnt so long that it became a rarity but it was long enough for it to be special.

3. EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE + my Fire/Frost Battlegrounds build.

Having a lot of spells of every element was amazing. it made me feel like a mage and made me become a better mage. like when you realize that even if you are specced into fire you can still use frost for its lower casttime and slowing. Also it provided me with enough fun utility. I was better in battlegrounds with this build during wrath compared to frost while having soooo much more fun. Breath + CoC + Nova + Blazing Speed + fast pyro when below 35% and disarm + Hot Streak and THE HIGH HIGH CRITCHANCE ON EVERYTHING and even more so on Scorch +

4. BLASTWAVE

omg do i miss it. i miss it. i miss it. i even miss the last incarnation when it lost the targeting potion. such a "simple" spell added so much depth. it was glorious.

Which brings me to stuff i dont miss, like at all:

1. Flameorb. Though it looked neat, like really neat at times, it was very forgetable and unlike Deep Freeze wasnt special enough in a raid setting to be something more than ordinary. Compared to Deep Freeze, it looked way better, but it was still very boring. It was also so much more boring than Blastwave.

2. Not having a Table. Seriously, casting 20000000 breads before a raid and trading it manually was a pain in the ass.

3. Only having one managem and precasting 2 to 3 different levels of it.

4. levels of bread xD. During Vanilla there were different levels of bread and each one could only be used by players at certain levels. And i almost always cast the wrong one. remembering which one was appropriate for which level was always a pain in the ass coz once you learned a new level of bread you quickly forget about the last one.

5. WAND SPECIALIZATION. even during my ultra n00b vanilla days i never specced into it and saw it as the stupid talent it was and thank god its gone.

[Deleted]

Things I miss :
1: Vanilla days and doing absolute mass AoE farming, dozens and dozens of mobs at a time using carefully timed cone of cold roots along with slowing blizzard and frost nova. You could probably do it now too but it actually felt like some form of accomplishment at the time.
2: Attunuation and amplification, pretty boring buffs but still added some flavor and thought into the upcoming combat.
3: Blastwave. Both versions of them. I'll always miss the bump from naxramas 2.0 days, knocking people off to their certain death.
4: I do miss the rank 1 frost bolt but would probably useless in today's wow. Kiting in PvP has become somewhat non-existant.
5: Fire during Wotlk. In so many ways.
The first goes down to the wonderful crit rate you could reach (I believe I was around 60% during ICC). Juggling pyros living bombs was just so much fun to me regardless of the crazy damage it delt.
Tier 8 was so much fun to fire, chance to proc a free pyro along with the huge numbers of pyros we got was just so much fun. Whenever I proced my heart would smile.
Living bomb on infinite adds and LB procing pyros.... Oh were those sweet glorious days. Walking into freya's room, doting up all those plants and just wait for armagedon. Your screen would just LIGHT UP with numbers and your pyro procs would never dissapear from your screen.


Things I don't miss:
1: Crafting water, for the entire raid, 4 stacks at a time. Omg was this not the biggest pain in the ass. I would take you about 10 minutes just to get ONE stack of water for all casters in the 40m raid. Craft 16 bottles + drink/evo. Good ridance.
2: Frost being litterally 99% frost bolt and 1% other in pve.
3: Runes of teleportation. Running out of those in un'goro was no fun. Farming feathers for slow fall also.
4: Blinking through the floor. Still happens every blue moon but during vanilla and BC, especially during raids this could be infuriating.
5: 1% non-mitigable hit chance. I applied to a very top end guild during BT. I was assigned to counter-spelling the boss that healed when my raid leader called it out. Not once, but twice in a row I got a miss. I got replaced instantly and was refused from the guild. I was very angry at the dice that night.

[obc]

oh other things:
1. every spec having the "elements shield". either version, the frost/fire or all in one were kinda cool. It was also good flavour. "I am an master of frost and fire and the arcane, i should probably know how to shield myself from it/mitigate damage from those as i have studied them". It also added another thing to do in battlegrounds.

2. Mana: I am not talking about arcane here but that mana would be important to control. one couldnt just willy nilly cast something but think ahead on sustaining mana throughout the whole fight and being at below 10% mana at the end of the fight was a good sign as you clearly cast a lot. also this also meant great joy when you could defeat a boss/fight with that last bit of mana you still got floating around. It was not super frustrating nor too difficult for newbie raiders but it added a bit depth to the fight. do i cast that blizzard or not? Will i be able to spam some AE here? Mana was also great in Battlegrounds where desperatly holding on to some area in arathi basin while casting off fumes.

3: Runes of teleportation. Running out of those in un'goro was no fun. Farming feathers for slow fall also.

I dont mind the runes so much as i always had lots of em but the feathers were really aweful as one had to farm em and only at certain places during vanilla....i kinda get the flavour part but it was pretty annoying though as they werent as easy to come by. Maybe having more type of birds drop them would have been nice.

1: Crafting water, for the entire raid, 4 stacks at a time. Omg was this not the biggest pain in the ass. I would take you about 10 minutes just to get ONE stack of water for all casters in the 40m raid. Craft 16 bottles + drink/evo. Good ridance.

oh yeah, i forgot all about water/bread being seperated and not being one item to use for both health and mana...

2: Attunuation and amplification, pretty boring buffs but still added some flavor and thought into the upcoming combat.

the worst thing about em was that only mages could do it i think but that you had to cast it on everyone individually. and during vanilla 40 man raids it was quite aweful to do so (see paladins)

[Deleted]

What I miss:
*Blade of Wizardry and Mystical Skyfire Diamond proccing for some lolmode Arcane Missiles.
*Being able to use spirit for regen
*The 31/41/51 point talent trees

What I don't miss:
*Reagents for portals, tables and teleport
*The one-button spam that was fire and frost in classic / tbc
*Having to trade water to everyone

[LocNess]

I miss:

Dampen/Amplify Magic
Focus Magic
Wall of Fog/Frost (forgot name, whatever it was before they canned it in Cata Beta)
Not having Mastery as a stat
70% Fire Crit in ICC
51 point Talent Tree

I do not miss:

Reagents
Arcane Barrage being useless
Making food like I was Gordon Ramsey

[Deleted]

I think a lot have covered the pro's/con's

The thing i DONT miss is fights where 1 of our specs is completely useless.

Fire through most of outlands - hit 60, switch to frost as fire does nothing.
Kara - Curator, immune to arcane.
I believe the welly might have been immune to frost in SSC.

Etc etc.

Reagents was a pain in priest even more than it will ever be as a mage. I happened to be a 23/38 priest as well as a mage, back in MH i was the only priest in raid for 2 nights consecutively, that was 300 candles a night I went through

And its not mage, but all classes i miss the big talent trees, it gave people a chance to be individual, however it also become a bit silly anyway, as everyone would discover the cookie cutter build and just roll it, now its the same, its just 3-4 standard and 2 dealers choice, same % just with less options.


And the 1 thing I miss the most, Karazhan, getting the big groups and aoe nuking them down

[Cloud2038]

As a Warrior the main thing I miss about old mages: Being able to kill them. Scratch that, being able to touch them lol...

[jetriot]

Polymorph used to last 60 seconds in pvp. You could literally drown someone with polymorph if you did it under water.

Many more things sucked for us, for example our damage had no way to increase after we hit lvl 60 as there was no spell power stat and int only increased mana and spell crit chance.

[obc]

As a Warrior the main thing I miss about old mages: Being able to kill them. Scratch that, being able to touch them lol...

I remember it being way easier to kill a warrior during vanilla and even at times in wrath with my mage then now.

51 point Talent Tree

i've seen this mentioned twice now and i just played around with a wrath talent calculator and yeah i miss em kinda. the new system is ok but back than there was still an option to goof around or just make something stupid for the lulz.

[jimbojonez]

This will be unpopular, but I miss Ice Block being restricted to frost mages. It was a great perk for the lowest dps spec.

I do not miss reagents. Or AQ20 and having to wand a JoW'ed mob for mana.

[spaace]

Pom/pyro with double use trinkets...
blast wave..
spirit for crit..
31/41 pt talent trees
ap/dampen

unlimited fire spread,
polymorph drowning...
(not totally mage.. but..)epic ground mount(even flying at one point) really was epic.

[Imnick]

Wasn't wall of fog just ring of frost but a line instead of a ring

[DEATHETERNAL]

Real talents, a decent crit chance (by decent I mean 60%+ ), and having to make both food and water without the aid of a table.

EDIT: I forgot the best thing of all. Spellstealing mounts midair.

[Boricha]

I miss:
CoC freeze
AoE farming
Permafrost
Frostbite

I don't miss:
Ice barrier abosrbing one auto attack from a 2h in wotlk
Water ele being a cd
Frost being terrible in PvE for the longest time

[Jimm3]

Focus magic

nough said

[Deleted]

As a Warrior the main thing I miss about old mages: Being able to kill them. Scratch that, being able to touch them lol...

You are bad, and you should feel bad about it.

What I miss:
Doing decent DPS with at least one spec, lol!
Now seriously: Blast Wave, hybrid building in the TBC (although the most hilarious hybrid talenting were Restokin and Shockadin, still going Arcanofire/Frostfire felt like being original) CoC freeze and yea, insane amounts of crit.

What I don't miss:
Reagents. Everyone is mentioning Table/Portals but even raid buffs needed them. *chills*
Also, Blessing of Salvation.

[Deleted]

Pom/pyro with double use trinkets...
blast wave..
spirit for crit..
31/41 pt talent trees
ap/dampen

unlimited fire spread,
polymorph drowning...
(not totally mage.. but..)epic ground mount(even flying at one point) really was epic.

The bolded parts are nothing but pure and utter nostalgia. PoM-Pyro with double trinkets would be OP and nothing else, the Fire DoT spreading as well. Polymorph lasting for 60 seconds.. I don't think that even needs a comment.

[obc]

The bolded parts are nothing but pure and utter nostalgia.

thats what this thread is about

[Alphamage]

60 seconds polymorph was epic. Could go get a beer and return for the kill.
I also miss dampen and amplify magic.
I miss the times when other classes begged us for portals.
I miss the Mana shield and its 12 yards knockback on breaking.
I miss the Instant Flamestrike.
I miss the Glyph of mirror Images giving you 5 mirrors. Happy days with 5 player arena teams with 5 mages glyphed with it (do the math).

I don't miss the Reagents(runes/feathers)
I don't miss the need to make food for all.

[Deleted]

Yeh, Deep Freeze as a huge nuke on non-stunnable targets, miss that :s

But I do not miss the reagent cost for buffs, portals and refreshment table.