Mage Ability Bloat-What's for the Chop

[Obelisk Kai]

I've not seen a topic for this so forgive me if I have missed it.

Recent tweets by Ghostcrawler seem to suggest that something Blizzard will be tackling in the next expansion will be ability bloat.

Quite frankly, we've too many buttons. All classes do, and some streamlining would definitely help.

As I see it, there are two primary ways they can deal with this. The first is to straight up remove abilities that are rarely used. The second is to parcel more abilities into specs, meaning they become spec locked and only available if you're a Fire Mage or an Arcane Mage.

So what Mage abilities will be affected?

I'm going to give my suggestions but I'd like to hear what other Mages think.

*Conjure Mana Gem*: As Mists has gone on, I've noticed that I have never had to use my Mana Gem in either Fire or Frost spec. When I had to go Arcane, I did. Conjure Mana Gem should either be entirely removed, with Arcane adjusted to compensate, or made an Arcane only spell.

Flamestrike: The red-headed stepchild of our AOE rotation. Arcane Explosion is good for when we are cheek by jowl with a pack of mobs. Blizzard is excellent for us when we are at range. Flamestrike is just bad, with it's cumbersome cast time. Our AOE has been a mess this expansion. Remove Flamestrike I say, and roll any beneficial effects it may have into a resurrected Blast Wave, either a talent or a Fire Mage spell.

Those are my two suggestions actually. Those are the only two spells I wouldn't mind seeing purged.

Surely there are more spells we can do without?

[Zenny]

The level 90 talents can go, conjure mana gem as well. Maybe streamline our AoE abilities, we have a bit too many - cut it down to 2 spells.

Other then that, nothing I can think of, we don't really have that much in the first place.

Removing things like invisibility and de-curse just removes what little utility we have.

[Deleted]

I sort of have a feeling we could do well without the armors. I mean just give each spec their respective defensive bonus passively and balance us around not having a double raidbuff and that's 3 buttons gone (that are fairly uninteresting to use).
Another option would be to make the armors more interesting and make them a talent tier (replacing 90 talents or whatever).

Actually I would also love it if we didn't have Alter Time, it's to much of a handful in PvE at least to have your combustions/bursts entirely dependant on a somewhat bugged ability which can easily wipe a raid and leave you with debuffs you can't control.

Other than that I do have to think a little more.

[Zenny]

I'd like to see a bit more self healing. Doing solo content on a Mage can be a pain.

[Deleted]

There's 2 subject in one:
- spell that a rarely used: mana gem, fire blast, some TP/portal, refreshment ...
- too many spell

#1
spell that are RP/lore spell like Tp/portal, wont be touched or modified.
spell that are obsolet can be simply remove or reforged/integrated

#2
It's the question of how many spell is needed for having a good rotation. What the sweat point between too much and too many.
Actually, L90 make it too much. But, 4.x arcane was too many.

The problem is the actual talent design can help by making similar talent on the same row.
MoP a show 2 things: utility are good (PvP, survival, etc) but damage talent are less good (L75/L90). Specificaly if the do more than 10% in total damage.

I think some good things will result of this : better rotation single/multi target.

[Obelisk Kai]

Is Fire Blast needed for non Fire Specs?

Is Ice Lance strictly necessary outside of Frost?

Is Armor design obsolete? For the most part, people simply run in the armor for their spec (although I believe high end Fire Mages are switching to Mage Armor for maximising combustion, but given how that cooldown recently got gutted it's debatable whether such armor switching is worth it I guess).

Bloat could be partly managed by locking more spells behind the spec walls, especially if the abilities are useless to the other 2 specs.

A bit more extreme would be the removal of the bomb tier. That tier has a serious affect on playstyle, making the specs more samey than I think is healthy.

Minor off topic suggeston. Remove Flamestrike. Remove Nether Tempest (we are not multi-dotters). Make Living Bomb Baseline for Fire. Restore Blast Wave in the fifth talent tier along side Frost Bomb. Frost Bomb Secondary effect could be to slow. Blast Wave to stun briefly.
Devise a new AOE talent, perhaps one that knocks back.

The fifth tier becomes an AOE focussed tier.

[Erolian]

AoE spells could be trimmed and also buffed a lot.

Armors baked into the spec or a passive talent choice to replace lvl 90 talents

Mana gem has out lived its usefulness for everything but arcane so much that it should probably be an arcane only spell now just like evocation (minus invocation) most of the time, something should probably be done here

[Akraen]

Alter Time is the best mage spell, it should be decoupled from DPS so it can be strictly utility.

[Tehterokkar]

Imo, they should put certain spells to certain specs only.

Ice Lance - Frost
Fire Blast - Fire(Until Inferno Blast)
Arcane Explosion - Arcane
Flamestrike - Fire
Blizzard - Frost
Conjure Mana Gem - Arcane

[Terahertz]

Tbh they shouldn't remove too many abilities overall. At least not only the ones that aren't used frequently, just all in general.

[Shepherd57]

They could get rid of teleports. I know clicking a button than a portal is time consuming but we don't technically need both.

[Jesikins]

Am I the only one that doesn't thing that mages have that much "bloat"? I certainly wish some of our spells were more useful, but at least the way bloat was defined (something you feel you need to keybind even though its rarely used) I don't think mages have much of. Mana Gem doesn't even have a spot on my bars these days, let alone a keybind. I have Molten Armor on my bars, but I just click it if ever needed.

Flamestrike is a prime example of something that I wish was more useful, not something I want to go away.

The only spell I would genuinely wish away is the lvl 90 talents.

Sometimes I wish we still have frost ward/fire ward/mana shield. =D

I do feel like I'm always running out of keybind spots on my ele shaman alt though. That's an example of where there is a lot more that needs to be bound, even if only used situationationally. I like the complexity personally but I could see how it would feel overwhelming to some.

[Deleted]

I read alot of remove mage armors, yet as Arcane there are 2 ways to play: Mastery or Haste, maybe Haste is not as good as the Mastery Spec but it's not bad.
Armors should be a Passive talent we choose (like Flameglow or Cauterize) so we don't have to cast the armor again.

As for useless Spells: Flamestrike & Mana Gem should be gone.

With the recent Combustion nerf, I'm wondering if the spell should just be removed and maybe replaced by another dps cooldown? Something like what scorch use to do before: For X seconds, you Fire spells do % more dmg?

As for other fixes, I hate the entire buff mechanic, I'dd rather just be it like Auras: Shadowpriests & Boomkins give Spellhaste when in Shadowform / Boomkin form.
Why not do the same with intellect once a mage has selected an Armor Talent?

And I wouldn't stop with just mages, do it for every class! The only problem I forsee with this would be Paladins with their ability to buff both stats & mastery. On that note I would simply remove some of the buffs we have an make them personal. Something in the line of:
Healers, Shadowpriest & Boomkins get 5% Spellhaste Bonus
Melee dps & Mages gets 5% Crit Bonus
Tanks Specs, Warlocks get 5% Mastery Bonus
(This is just an example)

Last of all: The level 90 Talents, they're just bad. Remove them completely, this will be hard for Arcane Specs, but i'm sure someone can come up with a nice idea for Arcane.

[Orangetai420]

I sort of have a feeling we could do well without the armors. I mean just give each spec their respective defensive bonus passively and balance us around not having a double raidbuff and that's 3 buttons gone (that are fairly uninteresting to use).
Another option would be to make the armors more interesting and make them a talent tier (replacing 90 talents or whatever).

Actually I would also love it if we didn't have Alter Time, it's to much of a handful in PvE at least to have your combustions/bursts entirely dependant on a somewhat bugged ability which can easily wipe a raid and leave you with debuffs you can't control.

Other than that I do have to think a little more.

Armor isn't a major keybind for me so I'd rather see flamestrike reworked or removed and blizzard buffed to compenstate. oh and fire blast could be removed as well, I rarely use it.

- - - Updated - - -

They could get rid of teleports. I know clicking a button than a portal is time consuming but we don't technically need both.

I believe the objective is to get rid of abilities that players feel they must keybind. I don't think teleport falls into this category.

[Akraen]

I just don't see bloat with mages. We already had too many fun spells taken away from us.

I want more spells, just not spells that you use in DPS rotations.

[Methusula]

I just don't see bloat with mages. We already had too many fun spells taken away from us.

I want more spells, just not spells that you use in DPS rotations.

I disagree. there are spells that are outdated and rarely used or inefficient. Removal of those things makes room for new stuff that actually might get used.

[GhostPanini]

We don't have a big bloat of spells, but there are some stuff I never use so I wouldn't mind them going. Things like mana gem and fire blast.

[Akraen]

I disagree. there are spells that are outdated and rarely used or inefficient. Removal of those things makes room for new stuff that actually might get used.

And why does it hurt to have those spells?

You know there were situations when using your BF on a fireball made sense last expansion? There were also times I just had fun messing around with some other spells. Remember detect magic? Focus magic? Amplify and dampen magic? The list goes on.

The more we strip away from the mage class, the less wizardly the class feels.

I caution the playerbase against demanding such streamlined spec toolkits. Sure, for raids you won't notice any difference-- but the heart and soul of the class itself starts to become so compartmentalized with the variety and cool factor of a preacher's wife's underpants drawer.

And if you're too stupid to know that you shouldn't be using arcane blast as your main nuke when you're a fire mage, well... I don't think online games are for you.

[Deleted]

I just don't see bloat with mages. We already had too many fun spells taken away from us.

I want more spells, just not spells that you use in DPS rotations.

I agree with this. I don't experience the same skill bloat I experience on characters like my Warlock, Prot Warrior, Hunter, Druid, etc. I'd like more fun nonsense, I wouldn't want more stuff taken from us.

[Magemaer]

I don't see any bloat. We should have more spells, not less. Let retri pallies have 2 spellbook pages, we should have 8. We're mages after all.