[Mage] What if...

[KalarMage]

It's apparent that our AoE capabilities are not what they used to be in days of old (limitless combustion spreading, blastwave/flamestrike combo, etc.).

What if they changed our Blizzard worked? Let's say Blizzard is changed from a channel to a cast. Let's say 2s base cast time with an 8 second duration(and obviously an 8s CD). This would allow us to drop a Blizzard and then add in other AoE spells while Blizzard is doing it's magic, and maybe make blizzard feel more useful again.

This could even be implemented in a glyph or talent.


Idea for talent tree could be Blastwave, Improved Blizzard, Improved Arcane Explosion. (improved AE would maybe add a debuff to the targets increasing magic damage taken by a small amount for a small time frame)

The real idea is changing the way Blizzard works... the talent tree idea just popped in my head as I was typing this.

Thoughts?

[Deleted]

I don't know about balance issues, but Blizzard has been channeled ever since WarCraft II. Would be sad to see such an iconic ability be remade.

[mrgreenthump]

I don't know about balance issues, but Blizzard has been channeled ever since WarCraft II. Would be sad to see such an iconic ability be remade.

Plus we already have Flame Strike atm that has a cast time and similar mechanic that is described. Though 1 could argue that current implemention of blizzard just does not work in the game, they would need to buff it a lot, but then you are forcing tanks to tank within those areas..

AoE as a whole has been really meh for a long time, I don't really remember a point during Cata that I felt AoE was good unless I was Arcane, but even then it was full spam of AE mostly.. Nowdays you still have pretty much the same problem, Arcane has decent AoE due to Mastery scaling, but the mechanics feel outdated.

[Deleted]

AOE spell is good if they are:

1. cast with a cooldown (Flame Strike, CoC)
2. spam (AE) or channel (Blizzard)

That give you:

• cast #1
• cast #2 until #1 is ready

Actual problem: bomb, cleave, etc make it just chaotic without definite rotation.

[Polarthief]

What if they changed our Blizzard worked? Let's say Blizzard is changed from a channel to a cast. Let's say 2s base cast time with an 8 second duration(and obviously an 8s CD). This would allow us to drop a Blizzard and then add in other AoE spells while Blizzard is doing it's magic, and maybe make blizzard feel more useful again.

So basically like Flamestrike and Affliction's version of Rain of Fire?

Here's how to fix our AoE:

Arcane - Massively buff AE's damage output
Fire - Instant Flamestrike. This was the most fun thing about being Fire in Cata besides Infini-spread Combustion. Why the fuck is it still gone?
Blizzard - Instant Blizzard; similar fashion to Destruction's Rain of Fire


Edit: Actually, when I finished typing this, I came up with an idea to make AE interesting.

Arcane Pulses
Passive
Requires Arcane Specialization

Upon casting Arcane Explosion, the pulse effect will stay with the Mage, pulsing another Arcane Explosion every second for 8 seconds. Arcane Explosions that pulse from this effect will not generate nor refresh Arcane Charges duration. If a pulse hits 3 or less targets, the damage is reduced by 75%. None of these effects affect the original Arcane Explosion that triggered Arcane Pulses

- This makes it a "passive" AoE that only requires one global, similar to the above Flamestrike and Blizzard
- Would be a pretty fun way to use AE
- The -75% damage on 3 or less targets is to keep players from casting it once as a DPS gain on single targets (in a similar fashion to how on Live, Destruction Warlocks are casting Rain of Fire on single target as an Ember gain, and therefore, a DPS increase)
- The effect would look similar to a normal Arcane Explosion, just pulsing every second and without any cast animation from the player model

[Saegno]

Simple change for arcanes AoE.
Either let it baseline scale with stacks with/without the mana scaling increase or have a major glyph that lets it scale with stacks but not produce any stacks(still refreshes).

[Deleted]

So basically like Flamestrike and Affliction's version of Rain of Fire?

Here's how to fix our AoE:

Arcane - Massively buff AE's damage output
Fire - Instant Flamestrike. This was the most fun thing about being Fire in Cata besides Infini-spread Combustion. Why the fuck is it still gone?
Blizzard - Instant Blizzard; similar fashion to Destruction's Rain of Fire


Edit: Actually, when I finished typing this, I came up with an idea to make AE interesting.

Arcane Pulses
Passive
Requires Arcane Specialization

Upon casting Arcane Explosion, the pulse effect will stay with the Mage, pulsing another Arcane Explosion every second for 8 seconds. Arcane Explosions that pulse from this effect will not generate nor refresh Arcane Charges duration. If a pulse hits 3 or less targets, the damage is reduced by 75%. None of these effects affect the original Arcane Explosion that triggered Arcane Pulses

- This makes it a "passive" AoE that only requires one global, similar to the above Flamestrike and Blizzard
- Would be a pretty fun way to use AE
- The -75% damage on 3 or less targets is to keep players from casting it once as a DPS gain on single targets (in a similar fashion to how on Live, Destruction Warlocks are casting Rain of Fire on single target as an Ember gain, and therefore, a DPS increase)
- The effect would look similar to a normal Arcane Explosion, just pulsing every second and without any cast animation from the player model

It would be totally OP or these new AE need to do 8 times less Damage and or give it a cooldown.
AE and Blizzard are filler spell. FS isn't.
you use AE and Blizzard while other spell are on cooldown.

With the change you propose, we will only have Blizzard as a filler.

I will pointy out that AOE is against 5+ targets and there damage is already tuned so there dps are always inferior to main spell if there's less than 5 targets.

[Raugnaut]

It would be totally OP or these new AE need to do 8 times less Damage and or give it a cooldown.
AE and Blizzard are filler spell. FS isn't.
you use AE and Blizzard while other spell are on cooldown.

With the change you propose, we will only have Blizzard as a filler.

I will pointy out that AOE is against 5+ targets and there damage is already tuned so there dps are always inferior to main spell if there's less than 5 targets.

Arcane AoE is pretty much "spread Tempest to all targets, repeat ad infininum". AE needs some sorta buffs. Personally having it benefit from Charges again, like during Cata, would be best bet- work up to 4 charges then consume for Barrage burst.

[Deleted]

Another strange Frost things is Blizzard generating FoF. It's good for ending the fight but what use did we have of them during the fight. The same is true with Arcane charge. And Fire is completely ignored here.
On pure damage, it's not like I can pull more damage than the tank on trash before Iron Qwon (1.2M+ peak dps). And it will end with 5.4.

For me, improvement should come from better defining the deference between Cleave/Spread and AOE, and spec integration.
For less than 4 targets : normal rotation + cleave/spread
For 4 to 6 targets : idem + Flame strike
For 6+ targets : FS + fillers
Actually, if we multi-dot, we don't use fillers. If not, we use Frost bomb that have a CD that don't match anything else.
If they keep us a multi-dot option (in a AOE talent row by example), it need to do the same DPS (or a little better) than a blizzard ticks so he a wast of GCD under full multi-dotting situation.

And AOE rotation need integration with Spec.
Arcane : tied to mastery ok. make Filler generate charge and use it.
Fire : not tied to ignite. Make FS/Fillers first tick on Ignite ?
Frost : not tied to Icicle. Blizzard generate FoF but mastery change. Filler generate Icicle and CoC release them? Fillers damage increase by mastery?

[voltaa]

Arcane AoE is pretty much "spread Tempest to all targets, repeat ad infininum". AE needs some sorta buffs. Personally having it benefit from Charges again, like during Cata, would be best bet- work up to 4 charges then consume for Barrage burst.

not really, arcane explosion as arcane does MASSIVE amounts of damage, on lei shen ball lightning I do over 1mil per global using AE

[mrgreenthump]

not really, arcane explosion as arcane does MASSIVE amounts of damage, on lei shen ball lightning I do over 1mil per global using AE

That is due there being so many low hp targets so you wont have time to even dot NT or to let it tick and AE on the other hand does instant damage to all targets in the radius, but 2-15 targets which wont die in few secs you are better off dotting them with NT as Arcane. You always need to let NT tick for at least 75% duration for it to do it's damage on the target. On many occasions that ain't possible, so AE is the right choice then. But arcane multitarget damage and AoE damage are fine atm, it's the other 2 specs that are suffering with em, frost in lesser extent due it stacking haste and having Frost bomb, but fire AoE and Multitarget(outside of cleave), is just horrible. Though atm fire doesn't really need it, due to the redic single target and cleave damage it has. But still the problems are there and when fire gets nerfed, they will destroy fire for raiding.