6.0 Mage Speculation & Paranoia

[Obelisk Kai]

My question is if it's 20% from a class entirely, or just on a per-spec basis. They could easily spec lock the 3 primary AOEs if they modify flamestrike a bit, that removes 2 buttons from each spec, but none at a class level. Cooldown stacking also being a thing they were talking about, I could see MI being retuned as a talented DPS ability rather than a baseline one.

But we'll have to see what they mean.

I still think it's likelier flamestrike is up for the cut than the abilities being spec-locked. Arcane Explosion and Blizzard form two aoe niches for the Mage class, one spammable and mobile up close, the other channeled at range with a cc component.

Both abilities have been available to mages since the earliest days and most importantly, both work. Flamestrike is the clunky red-headed stepchild with it's long cooldown and cast time.

Spec identity and flavor is important, I agree, but we aren't going to improve it by limiting each class to a single aoe spell in each spec that may not be as good for a given situation as another.

[Jarion]

20% fewer buttons to press is pretty intriguing... Let's pick at this a little.

We indeed removed skills and abilities that didn't feel essential to the game, a lot of DPS classes ended up combining them in a macro to launch them simultaneously. A Warrior for example would create a macro with Recklessness and Skull Banner, this is why Skull Banner was removed and some of its effects added to Recklessness.

We removed about 20% of class skills and abilities, even if we will probably have to add a couple more. Players will probably ask for it during beta.

In the end, we want to reduce the amount of buttons required to play and make the game easier for players who come back. The goal is to make the game understandable for every player, each button must have a very clear goal.

1. It looks like they might have combined things instead of just getting rid of them. Maybe a combination of our nukes and bombs?
2. It appears that rotational abilities were the focus of the purge
3. Unclear confusing abilities are out. Alter Time? :/

[Libretto]

I am inclined to believe we'll be losing few abilities.

Classes like hunters will be losing a lot, necessarily so. Crap like trap launcher will become baseline, things like master's call and concussive shot will probably get the ax or get baked into other abilities, random pet maintenance like frenzy stacks will go. For a class like that, they have dozens upon dozens of buttons to press but few to press in an actual DPS rotation or even in a raid instance at all. For us we have a similar number of rotational abilities, but significantly fewer maintenance or utility abilities to worry about.

The abilities I can see us losing would be:

- Frost nova (could get baked into something else)
- Arcane intellect (becomes an aura like shamans have)
- Mana gem (becomes arcane only, or becomes akin to healthstones for the raid as a way to give us more needed utility)
- Conjure Refreshment (why does this spell exist when you can just create a table)

The rest I don't see going. Flamestrike works perfectly fine and is actually used relatively frequently in AOE situations. I use it in challenge modes and used it on a few raid bosses this expac. You can also pet nova shatter it as frost. Its cast time is the same as frostbolt's.

[Shangalar]

I'm thinking the following spells will be removed: Mana Gem, Fire Blast (Inferno will become Fire-only), Armor spells (removed and their bonuses integrated somewhere else).

Oh and I agree with citrique that Brilliance will probably become a passive aura.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

I'm not so sure on Brilliance. Auras have a downside in that you lose them if that player dies. Keeping it as a buff is quite valuable.

Also Dalaran Brilliance for life.

[Obelisk Kai]

I'm not so sure on Brilliance. Auras have a downside in that you lose them if that player dies. Keeping it as a buff is quite valuable.

Also Dalaran Brilliance for life.

Yeah they even tweeted about that downside to the idea of buffs going purely passive.

It's really hard to determine what's gotten the chop hasn't it!

[Shangalar]

Do you know what's not that hard to determine? How they're getting us artificially pumped for the info dump and the next expansion by not giving us information.

The only thing worse than being a victim of pure classic marketing is knowing that you're being a victim of pure classic marketing and still enjoying it.

[Obelisk Kai]

Do you know what's not that hard to determine? How they're getting us artificially pumped for the info dump and the next expansion by not giving us information.

The only thing worse than being a victim of pure classic marketing is knowing that you're being a victim of pure classic marketing and still enjoying it.

We can enjoy the anticipation now. Maybe this time 72 hours we be looking for blood, polarthief scaling the walls of blizz hq in anaheim waving a flaming torch.

...Just a flight of fancy.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

They seem to be getting more accepting of community concerns since the last beta. Don't lynch them on the first preview document. Make rational arguments.

Celestalon is fairly reasonable if you provide solid proof to back it up.

[Mumrit]

AoEs trimmed down.
Arcane gem gone.
Fireblast gone for frost/arcane.
MI either removed or no longer a DPS cool down (becomes pure utility)
Cone of Cold removed

That's my bet.

[LocNess]

I could see our Armors just becoming passive buffs like Warlocks have. Mana Gem I can also see leaving, but we will have to see how Mana is next expansion and such. Maybe make it Arcane only. Fireblast is basically useless. They should just get rid of Flamestrike IMO or make it not suck. Overall I am fine with all the things we have and don't think we have clutter, but meh.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Flamestrike I could very easily see being modified. Think a channeled fountain of fire that pulses blast waves. Should fire lose access to blizzard and AE, it'd make a ton of sense for it to go like that.

Also, in general, we don't know if that's 20% of all class abilities across all 11 are gone, or if that's per class, or per spec. It's also probably a rough estimate at best.

[voltaa]

Ice barrier became a talent, as did PoM and cold snap.

All of these were already talents though...mandatory talents, but talents nonetheless

[mrgreenthump]

My bet is...

Mages:

- Mirror Image has a new icon

[Kuni Zyrekai]

All of these were already talents though...mandatory talents, but talents nonetheless

Eh, sure, but at that point we get into the whole semantics of the old style illusion of choice versus today's (sometimes) actual choice talents. They were talents back then, but they weren't a choice. If it was a frost mage, it had those spells. These days they could be running g.invis/TS instead. They went from being iconic to the spec, to an optional talent shared class-wide. Saying that MI is iconic means nothing, as it's arguably less iconic than ice barrier used to be.

[mrgreenthump]

Eh, sure, but at that point we get into the whole semantics of the old style illusion of choice versus today's (sometimes) actual choice talents. They were talents back then, but they weren't a choice. If it was a frost mage, it had those spells. These days they could be running g.invis/TS instead. They went from being iconic to the spec, to an optional talent shared class-wide. Saying that MI is iconic means nothing, as it's arguably less iconic than ice barrier used to be.

Back then there was an optimal way to spec your talents, which changed on fight basis at times, but you had the same spec most of the time.. Nowdays, you have the same optimal talents most of the time with minimal change. The only difference being before you had 2-3 ways to spend your points and nowdays you have a 1 single way.

Now this is purely Mage PoV. But these are the Mage forums. The current talent system is no doubt better, it just has failed spectacularly for Mages.

[Volitar]

Eh, sure, but at that point we get into the whole semantics of the old style illusion of choice versus today's (sometimes) actual choice talents. They were talents back then, but they weren't a choice. If it was a frost mage, it had those spells. These days they could be running g.invis/TS instead. They went from being iconic to the spec, to an optional talent shared class-wide. Saying that MI is iconic means nothing, as it's arguably less iconic than ice barrier used to be.

Yeah it really bothers me that they sort of just gutted the best spells from some classes and made them a talent.

- - - Updated - - -

Back then there was an optimal way to spec your talents, which changed on fight basis at times, but you had the same spec most of the time.. Nowdays, you have the same optimal talents most of the time with minimal change. The only difference being before you had 2-3 ways to spend your points and nowdays you have a 1 single way.

Now this is purely Mage PoV. But these are the Mage forums. The current talent system is no doubt better, it just has failed spectacularly for Mages.

To best honest I felt like the only class that had truely awesome talent choices was ShadowPriest but I haven't raided since april and no longer keep up to date with all the hooplah of what people are speccing on each fight.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Coming from frost(lol pre-MoP PVE frost), you had an option of what chills were going to be more powerful, and if you could stand losing 6% mana on frostbolt. Not exactly an engaging choice. But I see where you're coming from.

Either way, there's no real boundries for non-rotational spells to be made talents or not.

Edited to add: Assuming 20% is what we're on board for, we're looking to lose 4, maybe 5 buttons depending on what you classify as buttons used in combat, ignoring talents. Fire blast, two non-spec AOEs, MI going talented, two non-spec armour spells, deep freeze, hell even evocation on the non-arcane specs. It's not like we're losing a lot, and we're almost guaranteed to be on the lower end of that estimate.

[Orrin]

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...55996791099393
I hope it refers to Mages too (RoP-like Meteor and Crystal), although the twit was about WW Monks and their Healing Spheres

[Imnick]

Intellect, Armours and Refreshment sound like fairly unlikely spells to lose as they said they're mostly focusing on abilities that players need to have keybound. Ones you cast once after dying don't really count.
Frost Nova too seems a little too iconic to get rid of. It's a pretty quintessential spell.

Mana Gem I can see removed not because it takes up keys but because it's to be honest fairly useless in general and I doubt they'd make it into a raid thing like Warlock healthstones (mana's apparently intended to be so useful to healers that it'd be hard to justify not bringing the class with free mana potions, and so useless to everyone else that it would be an odd spell).