Mage Tier 90 Talents Rework Incoming - Ideas?

[Mini]

Master of the Elements (passive) - Each time you score a hit with a single-target Arcane, Frost, or Fire (mage) spell, you gain a buff which increases the damage of the next spell of a different school by 10%, stacks up to 10 times. (e.g. if you cast Fireball, you gain 1 stack of 10% Arcane Bonus and 1 stack of 10% Frost Bonus).

This would really mix up the typical mage rotation by introducing spells from other schools as occasionally very strong. Like Fire casting FFB as a super-nuke. We would need a spell that's an arcane/frost or arcane/fire hybrid since there's no Arcane spells which are accessible as Fire/Frost atm.

[Alexand3r]

Master of the Elements (passive) - Each time you score a hit with a single-target Arcane, Frost, or Fire (mage) spell, you gain a buff which increases the damage of the next spell of a different school by 10%, stacks up to 10 times. (e.g. if you cast Fireball, you gain 1 stack of 10% Arcane Bonus and 1 stack of 10% Frost Bonus).

This would really mix up the typical mage rotation by introducing spells from other schools as occasionally very strong. Like Fire casting FFB as a super-nuke. We would need a spell that's an arcane/frost or arcane/fire hybrid since there's no Arcane spells which are accessible as Fire/Frost atm.

I like your suggestion.

[zomgDPS]

Friendly critique. (just to keep the ball rolling)

Khadgar's Subversion
Transform surrounding spellcasts into an additional source for your own power. Whenever you or a raid member casts a spell in combat, you gain a charge of Khadgar's Subversion. At 5 stacks, you gain Khadgar's Annihilation, increasing damage by 10% for 30 sec. 5 sec ICD.

I'm not sure about this.. I don't really see how this will really "add" anything other than what really amounts to 'passive damage' to the class.

Like.. where is the actual interactivity or 'gameplay'. It seems like it will just be a buff that happens whenever its off ICD and just kind of buffs the mage's damage. What's worse, is that unlike existing "damage bonuses", you cannot actually control how this one 'activates' since you cannot really stop casting or ask others to stop casting. So you don't even really have any control over the buff in the first place.

For all their failures, at least you can say that the existing level 90s allow you to choose when to apply their damage, even if they end up being "we need the damage all the time".

Flames of Kael'thas
Invoke a vengeful mantle of fire, increasing your damage by 20% and causing your spells to deal an additional 30,000 Fire damage and reduce your cooldowns 2 minutes or above by 2 seconds per strike. Lasts 20 sec. 2 min. cooldown.

One of the things I am weary of (and from Blizz's latest posts about mages, it seems they are worried about it too), is how to prevent whatever "new" stuff mages get from just ending up in some ability you just use with all your other cooldowns in your "macro of DooM".

I, for one, don't want to have yet another cooldown that I ust add to my macro and forget about.

Edict of Kel'Thuzad
Wear the robes and headdress of a powerful Lich, increasing the effectiveness of several area of effect abilities. Arcane Explosion, Flamestrike, and Blizzard damage is increased by 30%, Nether Tempest splashes to 3 enemies instead of one, Living Bomb explodes every time it deals damage, and Frost Bomb may be cast on 2 targets.

Apart from purely increasing throughput (which alone is a reason this cannot work), I don't see any gameplay here. Its just a straight damage buff that sounds cool in tooltip form.

I would prefer talents that add new gameplay.

Master of the Elements (passive) - Each time you score a hit with a single-target Arcane, Frost, or Fire (mage) spell, you gain a buff which increases the damage of the next spell of a different school by 10%, stacks up to 10 times. (e.g. if you cast Fireball, you gain 1 stack of 10% Arcane Bonus and 1 stack of 10% Frost Bonus).

A while back a mage friend of mine posted (maybe on another forum I can't remember) a concept around a 'Prismatic Mage'. I really like the idea of a mage spec that deals with all the schools of magic and has them synergize with each other.
So something along these lines will be cool.

I especially would like something to happen to FFB. It currently just fades away for 2 of the 3 specs after level 10, which sucks.

In short, lets build on this idea.

Dual Casting:

You are able to cast two spells at the same time, but their damage is reduced by 35%. In addition, silencing and interrupting effects are 30% less effective.

Lasts indefinitely.

Can be deactivated at any time.

Yes. 'nuff said.

Arcane Empowerment:
10% of base mana.
Instant. 45 sec. cooldown.

The effects of your next spell are greatly improved.

Again yes, though on a similar note...

Metamagic.
For those who know/remember, in original DnD, wizards had access to "metamagic" feats. This concept could be incorporated into the mage class.


The quoted ability from Alexand3r can serve as the "Empower spell" version. PoM can be "quicken metamagic" and we can have similar things for other DnD metamagic feats (e.g. extend spell, still spell, etc etc).

We could think about bringing metamagic, aka, the ability to manipulate the fabric of magic itself, and add it to the mage class for some very nice new mechanics.

---------- Post added 2013-06-01 at 03:15 PM ----------

I just had a pretty lol brainwave...


*new* talent


Gandalfs Grip
passive
Allows the mage to wield 2H staffs in one hand.



I think its time mages got something that allows some dual staff wielding pwnage. Or you can go gandalf style with a staff and 1h sword!

[Nightfall]

Zomgdps, I see it as you've already created for yourself an image of people that sit at the monitor with red faces and smack their keyboards in rage. =) That's rarely a case despite the stereotypes I presume. I wrote a lengthy post regarding your Ley Lines talent just because it's an interesting idea, which could work despite being a little bit too complex. However its limitations are too strict to be useful in many scenarios. I'm not bashing your idea.

You insist that it's just a new mechanic, everyone will adapt. That doesn't dismiss the likeliness of mages becoming absolutely mandatory in many raid settings. You say there's no need to bring more mages as the single mage can put lots of ley lines all over the boss room which all will last for 5 min. But compare all those 5-10% lines to one specifically stacked to 40%. Two of those if 2 mages are present, 3 if 3 mages. Three 40-yard 40% zones are undoubtedly better than many lesser ones. Think about all the melee - they want damage increase too. Will you as a raid leader put a mage in melee for that purpose? Or will you take 2 mages for melee and ranged? If there are distinct movement patterns like on Ley Shen, will you take 2-3 mages to start building up zones in different sectors or will you prefer to take 1 mage and put up with less powerful zones? What if you raid in 10-man? 2-3 mages on Ley Shen is a hefty requirement.

I'm not going to ramble about all the points mentioned throughout the conversation, but I'd like to draw your attention to non-raid environment. You say the talent is passive and you will gain damage bonuses whether you strive for them or not. But is the 2-3% damage increase worth it? You won't stand still much during levelling and dungeons. It is very likely that other options will prevail due to very strict limitations of Ley Lines. More so in PVP - Resilience won't even let you proc the lines due to at least 65% damage reduction.

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Dual Casting:

You are able to cast two spells at the same time, but their damage is reduced by 35%. In addition, silencing and interrupting effects are 30% less effective.

Lasts indefinitely.

Can be deactivated at any time.

I'm not sure how can this work, but it sounds awesome! =) I don't think Blizzard will allow casting 2 spells simultaneously as it will require macroing the spells or ignoring GCDs, which are intended for server stability. What if that talent wasn't an on/off toggle, but a cooldown and mixed with Frost1129's Circle Casting idea?

Multicasting - for the next 10-20 seconds any non-instant spellcast will summon a mirror image that will cast that spell with the exact same effects as if you cast it yourself. That effect will trigger a GCD. So you can cast Pyroblast, Pyroblast, Flamestrike, Blizzard, Polymorph, Evocation but remain mobile and have a damage burst due to significantly reduced cast times? You target AOE, choose targets for spells and receive benefits and procs from these spells, just don't cast them yourself. The images disappear as soon as they finish their cast. In PVP this talent can be countered by killing/CCing/silencing the images or LOSing.

That spell reminds me of the last scenes with bullet dodging and bomb disarming from "Next" with Nicolas Cage. =)

[zomgDPS]

You insist that it's just a new mechanic, everyone will adapt. That doesn't dismiss the likeliness of mages becoming absolutely mandatory in many raid settings.

Oh no, you are absolutely correct. Don't get me wrong, I have no delusion that ley lines wouldn't make taking at least one mage totally mandatory. It most certainly will.
But is that really a bad thing?

Maybe it is, but only because there are now more classes than there are raid spots, so true parity is hard to achieve.
Though at the same time, maybe it isn't since you can consider passing this 'buff' around to other classes, but then again we will just end up at the situation we are in today.

Overall though, I am a firm believer that something major needs to change, specifically in the context of raid buffs and raid utility. Mages really are in a bad place with raid utility right now (by blizzard's own admission).

Perhaps even, that change needs to be a change in what we all (players, pundits, and devs) see as the "ideal situation".

Currently, the 'ideal' is that every spec/class is at parity with each other, not only in the context of performance throughput, but in the context of what utility they bring as well as in the context of how mandatory a spec/class is to a raid. "no one should be mandatory, everyone should bring something useful, bring the player not the class".
I think we can all agree, that while this 'ideal' sounds nice and fluffy on paper, Blizzard has been notorious with their inability to actually achieve this goal. Perhaps it is time to consider the goal unachievable and then, reassess what the new goal should be.

I say this now, since it seems that in accomplishing this goal, mages are the class that seems to be getting reamed (after all, someone had to). I do not think this is ideal. Blizzard say that they don't care that much about the fact that the class is floundering only because they see representation numbers are good. I detest that mindset. That something broken or useless should be left as such because the ignorant masses are placated.
It is a huge failing of design philosophy imho.



Either way, I understand your point that my idea will be very disruptive to the current status quo, but then again, that is precisely what I am trying to accomplish, since it is exactly what I think is needed.


That being, things really need to change up a bit. The goals, ideas, policies, decisions, directions, and executions of blizzard so far are just not working according to plan.
What's worse, is that these 'ideal goals' have now devolved from real goals into 'propaganda' that Blizz uses to get around addressing issues, e.g. "we cannot fix mages utility issues because then everyone would want a special pony too!" Its all just excuses now.

Something must change.

[voltaa]

It looks to me that people are a little too hung up on getting some sort of OP raid utility like warlocks got, lots of things based on movement and whatnot. The thing we should think about with getting some sort of external raid CD or utility is at what cost would it come? It seems to me that (with the exception of OP should be nerfed locks) more raid utility is balanced with less personal utility and while raid utility is better a lot of the time, there are times when personal utility trumps raid utility. Take for example Lei Shen, mages have great personal utility and can soak nearly every static shock we get solo, do helm of command without outside assistance as well as pull great dps, where shaman have great raid CDs but my guild sits all five shaman because of lack of personal utility.

That being said I would love to see our 90 talents be some sort of raid CD (ha didn't think I was gonna go in that direction after what I said did ya?). Maybe something like a choice between mass ice barriers, a fire CD similar to stormlash (makes attacks explode like living bomb) and maybe some sort of arcane themed speed boost (like a druid roar)

Basically not enough to make mages mandatory like warlocks, but enough that we have a little bit of utlity (covering all bases offense defense and movement) without risking any loss to our personal utility for being too powerful all around.

[SodiumChloride]

I just want something cool. They are lvl 90 talents after all.

Raid utility is the most obvious choice, since that what we are lacking. I'm ok with another DPS CD though.

As long as its cool.

[Deleted]

I have to agree with Voltaa, L90 talent's for Warlock will be nerfed, especially KC.

Actually, I would ask what will be our new level 95 spells.
We have talent every 15 levels, so we will have baseline or spec based spell for 91-95. Maybe one for each spec at 92/93 and one baseline at 95.

[zomgDPS]

Take for example Lei Shen, mages have great personal utility and can soak nearly every static shock we get solo, do helm of command without outside assistance as well as pull great dps, where shaman have great raid CDs but my guild sits all five shaman because of lack of personal utility.

But where do we draw this arbitrary line?
The line that separates real "personal utility" from "cheesing very specific fight mechanics that works for 1 out 20 fights".

If it is 'survivability' you speak of, then I'm not sure if mages can be considered the ones with "better self utility" compared to say, locks (who I think really do have "good self utility"). I would put mages more in the camp of "a class that can cheese specific mechanics, but only rarely and on specific fights". Is there value in being able to cheese the mechanics of 1 fight out of 40? Does that make you a valuable member of the raid?
I think it is not enough.

Raid utility isn't the only thing mages need, but it could be a good start, as long as it is relatively unique. Lock gates are really just such a fantastic example of unique raid utility.

Now, I might be a bit bias, but I actually don't think lock gates are too OP, on the contrary, I actually think they are the right direction blizz should go with "unique utility".
That being said, I do not think movement is the only dimension of raid utility that you can give mages, though if it were, something such as the following would probably suffice


Mass Teleport
2 sec cast (yes, it can be PoMed)
20-100 yard range
30 second cooldown
Teleports the mage and up to 6 allies within 10 yards to the targeted location.


Short, simple, sweet.
Mages should have had this by default.

[Nightfall]

voltaa, I find it hard to disagree with you due to your avatar. =)

zomgDPS, I think you're right. Mage utility is too heavily tied to cheesing very specific mechanics. However the Mass Teleport spell can be pretty annoying if used by a bad or trolling mage (in a random BG for example, where people often don't care about others). I think the solution might be to enhance the utility of Symbiosis spell that every class gets when a druid casts Symbiosis on them. When a mage in your group/raid casts Mass Teleport, your Symbiosis icon becomes active and allows you to teleport to the destination the mage chose within 10 seconds. The destination could be highlighted with some arcane-looking ground effect. That way mages can provide raid utility, not be intrusive with it and don't bloat other players' keybinds. Would be a great spell imo!

[voltaa]

@zomg (not gonna quote since in on my phone and my browser will crash) I agree with you that we are in the camp of cheesing rather than survivability, and that's exactly what I meant by personal utility, as far as survivability goes, we could for sure use a buff, cauterizing due to aoe pulse damage is just rediculous.

As for getting more external utility (including group movement) much like locks have, at first I was strongly opposed to it as you would be able to cheese encounters, but after a little more thought I realised that with this increased utility blizz could design more fights based around the fact that you will have all of these portals/teleports/sprints/timeslowing bubbles/whatever else in your raid and come up with some really unique encounters

[SodiumChloride]

Crazy (and probably OPed) but somewhat derivative idea,

Reality Marble

Alters the reality within 45 yards of the mage for X sec. While inside the sphere of altered reality the mage is invincible.

Any player (including the mage) in the sphere will see a "different" environment depending on the mage's spec (Frost = Frozen Wasteland, Fire = Hell like place, Arcane = Space?).

People outside can't see in, people inside can't see out - it's kind of like smoke bomb. You can escape it by walking out of the sphere.

The environments could also be apply debuffs (Frost = chilled, Fire = DoT, Arcane = ... ) or buffs (e.g. increase Frost/Fire/Arcane damage).