[Mage] Which Spec Deserves a Revamp? - Mage Edition

[LocNess]

Fire. It is absolutely appalling to play, and hard to find fun besides the thematic elements of it.

[Polarthief]

Fire. It is absolutely appalling to play, and hard to find fun besides the thematic elements of it.

You're just saying that because you want to personally revamp Fire!

... Also because it's 100% true, lol.

[nickseng]

Huh.

I must be the only one who like how Fire feels, but I have a nice amount of crit.

[Crackleslap]

Should probably explain, that Fire needing a revamp has nothing to do with it's performance, it is crit dependant sure.. And if it got revamped it probably would be less dependant which is good. But as is, I find Fire a terribly boring spec to play, Meteor helped some bit with extra things to do, but most of the time you still spam till heating up and repeat. It has no actual meat in the rotation, nothing to really make you think.

Now sure Blizzard simplified most specs when WoD came, which I think was a terrible mistake for some classes, seeing they are suffering the Fire Mage syndrome atm, drooling at their keyboard after 100th pull of some boss

Really? Because I enjoy the shit out of Fire. I just love the general explod-iness of it. I voted fire simply because of how it performs in early xpacs. Though currently setting my main spec for Fire now.

[Selah]

The design and feel of fire, as well as the other specs, are fine. They're all unique and play in different ways. The biggest problems are just tuning. You get the tuning down for fire and the class is fine.

[Fiska]

Fire doesn't need a revamp. The only issue with Fire is the crit reliability. It's purely a number tuning issue. Fire has a fun and coherent playstyle where you're spreading dots and fishing for large Combustions.

Arcane is the only spec which could use anything remotely close to a revamp, although a revamp is too strong of a word. Warlocks received a revamp in Cata. Arcane doesn't need anything like that. The main issue with Arcane is that it's tough to learn, easy to master. Arcane Charges aren't particularly interesting and are poorly displayed. There's not a lot to do at 4 stacks besides emptying your Arcane Missile procs and shooting Arcane Blast. The latter ability feeling more punitive than rewarding when you use it. Prismatic Crystal is largely a problem for Arcane. So much damage is tied into it. You feel overpowered when you use it, weak without.

In general it's annoying that the "ultimate" AoE class has so many ground-targeted AoE spells. This application is the worst kind, and is subject to not seeing the targeting circle in massive AoE, missing your targets due to movement, and in general slow application since you need to move the targeting circle to the desired spot. It would be better if it was target-based like Mind Sear. And that includes Arcane Explosion. I don't see why Mages should have to move into melee range in order to AoE. And personally I would love if Frost lost the pet.

[gallamann]

Personally I think all 3 need a revamp, and said revamp starts with moving mages to using a resource and each spec generates said resource differently.

Fire - its obvious they can't find the means to address crit scaling, been an issue for a long long time

Arcane - only damage spec in the game that manages mana, give up the friggin ghost already... tell those that desperately want to manage mana to try a healer... this spec alone cost us an entire expansion of a horrid 90 tier due to friggin mana management, I suspect the only reason RoP still exists is because Arcane mages couldn't see past their own numbers to do what was best for the class and just say NO

Frost - constantly is over shadowed by Fire/Arcane as an expansion progresses, in MoP and prior that was due to stat capping... they supposedly addressed that in WoD, yet all Sims show Fire/Arcane exceeding Frost in BRF (once geared) and their first pass for 6.1 nerfs Frost

My order would be Arcane first because supporting that mana play style is hurting the other two specs, then fire due to never ending issue caused by crit with frost almost tied with fire, its needs to stay viable for end content the entire expansion (aka not outpaced by fire/arcane due to gear).

The flip side is also true, no spec should be the clear winner early in the expansion (like frost now). At the end of the day, all we can do is DPS, all 3 specs should always be viable through out an expansion.

[Imnick]

Mana doesn't cause any issues for the other specs though, it's a complete non-issue if you aren't Arcane.
Rune of Power hasn't been kept "because of Arcane" because Rune of Power hasn't had any effect on Mana since the new talents were added.
Being the only spec in the game that cares about mana is a good thing, it's what makes the spec unique. Managing a resource is a good and valid thing for the spec to revolve around.
Do you want them to change it to "Arcane Power" and make the bar more purple, would it be good then? It wouldn't functionally be any different from how Rogues have to manage energy and Hunters have to manage Focus and Demonology Warlocks have to manage Demonic Power and Destruction Warlocks have to manage both Embers and mana (wait shit I thought that was only us!).

[Wrathorian]

Fire is fine because its actually fun to play. They can change it as long as the playstyle is the same. Maybe make it mastery based instead of crit to make it less dependant on gear... so they dont have to nerf it every last patch of the expansions because it gets out of control.

Now Arcane is pretty boring to play. It needs a revamp. If we could actually alter time and dimensions ( to an extent ) instead of shooting purple magic (which is pretty dull in design, the main nuke ability of the spec doesnt even have a animation ) it could be a bit better for the eyes. And to be completely honest I really dislike the mana managment. I dont know how it plays out now since I havent touched the spec since Firelands, but I dont like to feel limited by mana. I dont know how would they change it or what they would do to make it more interesting.

Frost is ok. Not super fun or boring, I dont mind playing it.

[mrgreenthump]

Really? Because I enjoy the shit out of Fire. I just love the general explod-iness of it. I voted fire simply because of how it performs in early xpacs. Though currently setting my main spec for Fire now.

Dunno, maybe it's just me playing Fire whenever it's been viable choice as a raiding spec(over 550 days /played on my Mage so yeah ;P). And it has been somewhat the same for most of the time. Now sure in Vanilla it didn't have hotstreaks and stuff and nor in TBC if I remember correctly, but since WotLK it's been somewhat the same. The thing that annoys me the most I guess is that every Mage spec works of a priority list and procs, sure most specs kinda do that now, but I dunno, if there was a Mage spec that didn't do that.. It would be sooo nice.

Maybe it's just us veterans that are utterly bored when playing it for a long time(it still takes me like 100+ hours to get bored of it each time, but that racks up in a week almost for me), but still I should love the spec, not endure playing it.

Now sure maybe I've grown past having fun playing WoW, but when I play something like a Sub Rogue I still enjoy the rotation, while hating everything else

[Amsden]

I voted arcane because I personally hate playing it.

Frost is fine, if they made a way to sac the pet that would be great. (I mean come on the actual pet classes can, why not us)

Fire is fun once you get the gear for it, making it work better at lower crit levels earlier in the expansions would be nice.

[Fiska]

Actually shocked Fire is this high up in this particular poll when Arcane is so utterly boring. :P Doing 5 man dungeons as Arcane is pretty awful at times. I tried going with Arcane Orb in hopes that it and Arcane Barrage would do a lot of cleave damage, but they're both so lackluster. Arcane Barrage does a little bit of burst, but at that point you're down to no Arcane Charges, and by the time you've built up to 4 the other dpsers have out-damaged you.

And not having Prismatic Crystal for boss fights is a big dps loss since it's incredibly powerful for the short duration boss fights have in 5 mans. You effectively end up respeccing several times during a run until you learn that Prismatic Crystal is the best option for the entire run. Just gotto make sure you don't have it on cooldown by the time you reach a boss.. Oh, and hope the tank doesn't pull the mobs out of Prismatic Crystal on trash pulls.

As we most know, burning mana down to ~50% and replenishing it with Evocation is one of our "cooldowns". So in 5 mans I keep trying to do that as often as possible. Rotating between Evocation and drinking after pulls. It's been the most efficient, but when pulls are fast and non-stop you're going to run into issues.

[Nitros14]

Arcane is fun, I like its design a lot.

Frost is alright but it's mostly pressing things that come off cooldown and I hate the stupid pet.

Fire needs a total rework. Hot streak and Combustion are mechanics that should never have seen the light of day.

[ssviolett]

Definitely Fire. This is the most random and broken spec in the game. It must be obvious even for Blizzard since they buff it or nerf by about 50% almost every patch. It shouldn't be so.
Arcane is weird too. I still cant understand why did they reduce ABarr damage so bad. Arcane cleave is awful, I remember ABarr doing nice chunk of my damage in MoP and now it hits like wet noodle. Also, even despite all things Arcane received to help with mobility issues this spec still lack it so bad. Maybe if you could cast AM while moving would solve this problem?

[Deleted]

Fire, in my opinion. To those claiming that "it is just a tuning issue!" - that's the problem. It is always overly dependant on tuning, being too weak early on and too strong in the later patches of an expansion. The system is flawed itself.
Talking design, I too vote for fire. While it is still fun to pump out pyros, that is literally everything left to the spec. No useful tricks up our sleeves anymore. That's a personal complaint... anyway, the crit based design should be reworked.
Arcane could also use a rework to be honest. Although I think smaller improvements to their charge system should suffice. They've got a good foundation.

[Agzarah]

it has to be fire really.
nerfing a spec because it is OP is one thing, but nerfing a spec every time a new set of gear comes out is insane.
keeping the top1% in order is fair enough, but when it comes at the cost of every other firemage in the game being weak as hell is just mean.

I played firemage from late vanilla all the way upto Mop (with the odd exception like heroic spine), then rolled Holy pala because i couldn't keep my gear up to scratch with all the nerfs. Everytime you get close to that magic ilvl/crit % a new hotfix would come out to balance those in bleeding edge gear and raise that magic number by 5% keeping it always just out of reach to be viable for progression.
That is the sign of a terrible design flaw and why fire needs a major overhaul. by all means keep our reliance on crit, so long as we dont need re tuning every other week and screwing over those chasing that magic number

[Deleted]

It would be really nice to have Fire spec without changes in every patch (normally nerfing because is a broken spec since ever).

Normally is: 99th percentile of fire mages were lucky as hell with crits and they are top1 dps by huge margin, let's nerf it! meanwhile common mages with average luck are shit.

[mrgreenthump]

It would be really nice to have Fire spec without changes in every patch (normally nerfing because is a broken spec since ever).

Thing is.. most of that is from their balance team for some reason thinking big Pyro hits feel awesome. And because Fireball is a filler, it can't hit hard. Which leads to this thing we have atm. Fire getting constant adjustments, when you could have just buffed Fireball in Beta and nerf Pyro a bit and scaling wouldn't have gone this out of hand, but guess they like the drama for some reason.

[Deleted]

My choice would be Arcane due to one simple reason: it feels underwhelming to play. As Frost, you have cool frozen orbs and icy bolts flying at the enemy. As Fire, you have fireballs, huge pyros and even a friggin meteor raining down upon your enemies. Meanwhile as Arcane, your main spell doesn't even have a real animation and missiles do look good, but not nearly as great as fire/frost spells.

[Deleted]

My choice would be Arcane due to one simple reason: it feels underwhelming to play. As Frost, you have cool frozen orbs and icy bolts flying at the enemy. As Fire, you have fireballs, huge pyros and even a friggin meteor raining down upon your enemies. Meanwhile as Arcane, your main spell doesn't even have a real animation and missiles do look good, but not nearly as great as fire/frost spells.

How awesome the specs look compared to each other is debatable. Mage as a whole needs some new visuals. Frost is not too bad over all except their mein spells, Ice Lance and FB. Fire's firebolt looks old and so do DB and Blast Wave (come on, why the old model?). For arcane it is AB and maybe the missiles too. Practically all the iconic spells.