[Mage] Legion: General Information and Discussion

[Obelisk Kai]

Both of those statements are incorrect. Agnostic people in many cases not religious at all. Also it does not mean that they are undecided since a lot of the time they may be very firm in the position of being agnostic.

To be on topic, I wasn't talking about a 4th spec there but that we have a lot of discussions that redesign a spec or make up new mechanics. Those aren't bad but in most cases are not useful at this stage. This stage is mainly bug fixing and changing something on the current direction, while big changes would usually receive a response of "best left for the next Expansion'".

I don't believe Mage doesn't receive attention. At least not much less than others. If it received little attention it would not be changed from WoD mage.

To be fair there really isn't a good time to talk about redesigns or fourth specs. When they usually become a topic of conversation, it is in the lead up to an expansion announcement when NOTHING has been announced and therefore anything can be suggested. However, by the time the buzz for a new expansion announcement begins reaching fever pitch on the forums...the parameters for the expansion and the classes themselves have pretty much already been set.

Now I've gone on record in the past stating my view that part of the issue Mages face are innate to the class. The fact we have three specs when three were never needed. The fact that all our specs are ranged nuking specs. These are decisions made YEARS ago, in complete sincerity that they would not make now if presented with the same options again. But you cannot unring some bells so to speak.

Right now though, I agree. Now is not the time to be talking about major redesigns or fundamental paradigm shifts for any of our specs because there is clearly no time left for anything like that to be attempted.

In our defense though, our conversation HAS narrowed down to areas in which Blizzard CAN make a change and yet on which we are not receiving much feedback.

Is the Mage in Legion improved over the Mage in WoD? Yes. Could it be better? Again, yes...and substantially so.

As for the complaint that don't seem to be receiving any attention...I can understand that within the current design parameters Mages are mostly fine. And some of the things we are complaining about are issues Blizzard themselves may feel they are ok with.

But the level 75 tier is indefensible. It has no overarching theme and seems to be a dumping ground for talents Blizzard doesn't want to get rid of but cannot think of anywhere to actually put them. It looks and feels unfinished. The fact it hasn't been updated in months is staggering.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

But the level 75 tier is indefensible. It has no overarching theme

Spacing talents.

[Sarm]

Weren't they trying to move away from having themed rows anyway?

[Obelisk Kai]

Spacing talents.

I'm gonna say that's an immense stretch Kuni to the point where it feels like an argument made for argument's sake.

We have gone over the level 75 talents enough though that I am not going to rehash everything said here.

Only that it is a pretty poor tier of limited use. They would be better off making Ice Floes baseline for Frost and Arcane (Fire has scorch) and then building the tier into a proper CC tier rather than sandwich in a clear mobility talent with CC talents.

[Deleted]

To be fair there really isn't a good time to talk about redesigns or fourth specs. When they usually become a topic of conversation, it is in the lead up to an expansion announcement when NOTHING has been announced and therefore anything can be suggested. However, by the time the buzz for a new expansion announcement begins reaching fever pitch on the forums...the parameters for the expansion and the classes themselves have pretty much already been set.

It's not easy to help that. Blizzard appears to act as a designer that has a vision that must be followed at the main core of it and the players can mainly give feedback for the moderate and for the minor changes, not the big picture. Or rather, you could plant a vision to their heads in theory, but that must be done either very early or/and very gradually or/and you must really have a strong impression on them with a very strong argument if the argument is made late.

I agree row 75 is crap. PvErs will get 1 most of the time. PvPers have choice but only they do.

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Weren't they trying to move away from having themed rows anyway?

That statement was ..how can I put ..probably something they had in mind before they started touching the specs at all (right before/at Blizzcon) and then they soon realized it was just bad. It doesn't make any sense. If you do have a row of talents, if they do not have any theme at all, then the gameplay of having a talent row in the first place is completely meaningless and at the very least messy.

[Obelisk Kai]

It's not easy to help that. Blizzard appears to act as a designer that has a vision that must be followed at the main core of it and the players can mainly give feedback for the moderate and for the minor changes, not the big picture. Or rather, you could plant a vision to their heads in theory, but that must be done either very early or/and very gradually or/and you must really have a strong impression on them with a very strong argument if the argument is made late.

I agree row 75 is crap. PvErs will get 1 most of the time. PvPers have choice but only they do.

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That statement was ..how can I put ..probably something they had in mind before they started touching the specs at all (right before/at Blizzcon) and then they soon realized it was just bad. It doesn't make any sense. If you do have a row of talents, if they do not have any theme at all, then the gameplay of having a talent row in the first place is completely meaningless and at the very least messy.

In all honesty, while I do support the idea of a fourth spec I'm also well aware of why it won't happen. I usually regard it as a fun exercise whenever the discussion starts.

I think something like multi-classing or sub-speccing (instead of selecting a second class, why not a single spec from a class?) would be much likelier than fourth specs...but that is a discussion for the next cycle. Not this one.

As you have said, this topic has to be about the parameters Blizzard has clearly laid out for this. There will be time for speculation again in the future.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

At least the tier has a use, at all. I'd rather the current form than say, druid 60, pally 45, and shaman 45. It's a significant gain from the live L45 version, and maintains minor PVE choices for soloing, potentially CMs, and any raid event that involves holding down a bunch of adds.

[Deleted]

Spacing talents.

It can be an "avoid damage" row in PvP very clearly. Either by freezing them or running away easier. What I don't get is how that fits in PvE at all, UNLESS, they give us this kind of NPCs in raiding, which is possible but unlikely.

[Imnick]

PvE has plenty of freezable NPCs and always will, it's just raiding that doesn't.
PvP talents are not accessible in dungeons or quest content, and it seems sometimes people are repeatedly forgetting that in this expansion more than ever before Blizzard have stated those are still going to be important even at the end game level.

[Obelisk Kai]

At least the tier has a use, at all. I'd rather the current form than say, druid 60, pally 45, and shaman 45. It's a significant gain from the live L45 version, and maintains minor PVE choices for soloing, potentially CMs, and any raid event that involves holding down a bunch of adds.

But it's the most naked example of a tier with a correct option and non-correct options. You pick Ice Floes. Fire might have some kind of choice given that they have scorch, but the alternatives are simply not worth the effort.

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PvE has plenty of freezable NPCs and always will, it's just raiding that doesn't.
PvP talents are not accessible in dungeons or quest content, and it seems sometimes people are repeatedly forgetting that in this expansion more than ever before Blizzard have stated those are still going to be important even at the end game level.

I have no problem with a CC tier. My issue is that they've put a mobility talent on the same level as the CC tier. If it is to be a CC tier, remove Ice Floes and let it BE a CC tier.

[Imnick]

Arcane has traditionally had poor aoe but that didn't make the aoe boosting talents always the correct choice.
Not every fight requires ice floes.

just to be clear I am kind of being a devils advocate here, I think you are over exaggerating the issues but at the same time, would also be happy to see something else there
It is worth recognising that these talents do have a reason to exist and aren't necessarily as useless as you might think though

Ice Floes is a weird thing to trade for more control, but it is not your only mobility tool (or even your only mobility talent) and I can see some sense in putting such an extremely powerful tool against something that isn't similarly a purely "movement" ability, as in that case I honestly see little that could knock it from its pedastel.
While Ice Floes is obviously a premiere kiting tool, there are times when being able to just freeze a single powerful mob three times gives you more burn opportunity than kiting it with three spells, and similarly there are times where freezing a large group will be better than being able to cast at them on the move (especially for Frost which has little mobile AOE ability, other than Frozen Orb).
As talents are now easier to swap between as necessary than ever, having a talent I pick most of the time and a couple I take situationally does not seem a huge sin to me.

[Polarthief]

PvE has plenty of freezable NPCs and always will, it's just raiding that doesn't.

Maybe, just maybe, that's what should change (especially for Mythics since that was their original intent for them).

Think about it. We used to have plenty of boss fights that required either CCing mobs or a third tank (usually in 40/20/25 sizes), or some other form of "Crowd Control". MoP even had a bit of it in Heart of Fear, Wind-something-or-other (forgot his name, too lazy to look it up, it was the boss immediately after Garalon).

Anyways, Mythics were intended to "have every class" and even fine tune mechanics to "having certain classes around, such as Priests for Naxxramas's Razuvious fight". Why is that not a thing anymore? More raid fights should have CC or other things than just "avoid bad, DPS harder". Avoid Bad, DPS Harder is all raiding has boiled down to, and honestly, it's not a very fun meta. I really don't care what people have to say about HFC; I've completed it on Heroic, have no intention of doing it on Mythic, and man, it was not as fun as people say it is. Better than Highmaul, on par with BRF, but it's still a pretty mediocre fucking raid to me.

But yeah, my original point being, why don't we have CC in raids anymore? Whether you enjoy them or not, I always found council fights to usually be either interesting or fun. While ToC is one of my least favorite raids, I actually did end up liking the bosses, especially the "PvP Arena mess" that was the third boss event. Sure it was really short, but it was very memorable. Same with Magister's Terrace (yes, a fucking DUNGEON). I barely remember the bosses in there except for, you guessed it, the third boss who was a council-esque event with CC.

[gallamann]

Probably poor wording with attention to get at a point.

I'd argue what mages have seen, every class has seen in some form (we got an apple, shaman got an orange, etc) for legion. Leaving what we haven't seen, any movement on 3 common tiers.

To me it is simple, Blizzard is moving away from that on trees, else we would see a majority of classes sharing 2+ tiers. Further, not a chance they reduce mages to one common tier this expansion.

Do think we had a shot at having one addressed, and 75 looked to be the largest offender. Believe that is gone because the vocal few (aka us) can't even find common ground on the subject. As a dev looking at feedback they see "Joe, Bob and Bill are good with tier X" while "Sue, Jen and Lily are not fine with Tier X" therefore we don't need to spend resources here as we have 50%+ who are ok with it.

So we will get to go with the Floes for Legion

Hopefully they will find the time next expansion to make mage talent trees more unique.

[Rothex]

Maybe, just maybe, that's what should change (especially for Mythics since that was their original intent for them).

Think about it. We used to have plenty of boss fights that required either CCing mobs or a third tank (usually in 40/20/25 sizes), or some other form of "Crowd Control". MoP even had a bit of it in Heart of Fear, Wind-something-or-other (forgot his name, too lazy to look it up, it was the boss immediately after Garalon).

Well that's the thing though, the actual fights that require CC actually requires specific single target, long(er) duration control; Poly, Hex, Ice trap, etc. That's usually because it's intended to involve constant CC for the entire fight (or at least a lot of it), not 5-10sec short term mass CCs. I can't think of any fight where mass, short-term CC was relatively pivotal to the design of a boss. The closest I can think of is maybe Maloriak when we used lots of mass-CC on some of the larger waves of adds but even then it wasn't entirely designed around needing CC. The vast majority of the fights have never really required short-term mass AOE that Frost Nova or Ring of Frost provide.

The only time I ever remember using RoF this entire expansion was for the ghosts on Socrethar when our construct player messed up the fire charges but when that was done correctly we never needed any CC.

[Polarthief]

Well that's the thing though, the actual fights that require CC actually requires specific single target, long(er) duration control; Poly, Hex, Ice trap, etc. That's usually because it's intended to involve constant CC for the entire fight (or at least a lot of it), not 5-10sec short term mass CCs. I can't think of any fight where mass, short-term CC was relatively pivotal to the design of a boss.

Someone didn't do Blackwing Descent then. (I type up my responses in real-time to when I read them lol). Slowing-and-kiting/CCing Maloriak adds was definitely part of the fight (when relevant/not outgearing it). Also the semi-hard mode of Iron Council in Ulduar practically required a Frost Mage with maxed Frostbite/Improved Blizzard to stall those adds.

The closest I can think of is maybe Maloriak when we used lots of mass-CC on some of the larger waves of adds but even then it wasn't entirely designed around needing CC.

But it was an option, as was slowing/kiting them. Of course, a well-geared tank that takes little damage can overcome that need, but giving us a talent tier that's useless and devoid of choice in most raids is just horrible design (not to mention it boils all fights down to "Avoid Bad, DPS Harder", which I'm sick of the current raiding paradigm being).

The vast majority of the fights have never really required short-term mass AOE that Frost Nova or Ring of Frost provide. The only time I ever remember using RoF this entire expansion was for the ghosts on Socrethar when our construct player messed up the fire charges but when that was done correctly we never needed any CC.

Exactly why I argue WoD is extremely overrated in the raiding department. I prefer MoP over it a hundred times. You can make a fight complex or have a lot of difficult-to-avoid mechanics such as trains on Tho'gar or Hanz-and-Franz, but both those fights are "avoid bad, DPS harder". That paradigm fucking sucks and it's part of the reason why raiding is getting very stale to many players, not just me.

I mean really, everyone here will be unlikely to remember more than 1 or 2 bosses from both T17/T18 because of how blah the fights are.

[Rothex]

but giving us a talent tier that's useless and devoid of choice in most raids is just horrible design (not to mention it boils all fights down to "Avoid Bad, DPS Harder", which I'm sick of the current raiding paradigm being).

Tbh the paradigm has never changed and has remained pretty constant for the vast majority of the game's existence. This isn't entirely a bad thing as long as original and complex mechanics are introduced for both bosses and classes; it's just that didn't really happen in WoD. Blizz obviously want to stick to the current paradigm, which is fine, but if they want to do that then they need to give classes appropriate abilities to add complexity and fun to gameplay and tier 75 is definitely not living up to that standard right now for PVE.

Although, if, somehow, Blizz surprisingly design a fair few bosses in Legion that make use of RoF and IW to the point where I feel they are actually useful then I'll gladly retract (some of) my criticism. Not just that 1 token CC boss per expac, but a solid number of them. However, I highly doubt this will ever happen.

Side note: I found Tho'gar and Hanz/Franz to be probably the most memorable fights this entire expansion. Not because they were complex (they weren't) but because their "avoid bad" mechanics were hilarious and fun in general. I barely remember anything from Highmaul already and will very likely forget most of HFC in the coming months.

[Deleted]

Ring of frost should move to the Frost pvp tree tbh. It's been useless since forever in PvE

[Erolian]

Typically nobody really enjoys roots during raid encounters except for maybe the people feeling useful by casting them. Reason being is that any random person standing in melee range when the root goes out is dead if the tank isn't also standing in melee range of all mobs.

[Polarthief]

I didn't mean for this to turn into a mini-rant/wall of text, but it just happened to do so. I know I'm rambling a bit towards the end, but I still think my points are valid.

Side note: I found Tho'gar and Hanz/Franz to be probably the most memorable fights this entire expansion. Not because they were complex (they weren't) but because their "avoid bad" mechanics were hilarious and fun in general. I barely remember anything from Highmaul already and will very likely forget most of HFC in the coming months.

Exactly my point, though I will probably also forget Tho'gar and H&F eventually as well. Those fights may be entertaining, but mechanically or how good of a fight they are is not why you'll remember them. That's poor design.

I can go back to my first raid (Karazhan) and pick out a few examples of fights that had some interesting or neat mechanics. Moroes was a revolving council fight, Opera changed weekly and had a council fight (Oz) and a rather interesting mechanic fight (LRRH) (the third one is dumb and forgettable though). Illhoof you had an immediate priority target as well as a Warlock tanking the adds. While not too interesting to a Mage, it was still pretty awesome to have a non-tank class tanking (if you were the Mage tanking Krosh Firehand in Gruul for example, you felt amazing to be able to do that).

In a more recent example, you had Lei Shi in Terrace of Endless Spring who would summon elementals in semi-random locations (she'd randomly pick elementals from all their bracers), and you'd need to immediately CC, snare, etc all but one of them and nuke down one to get past them. In addition to that, she also had the whole hide-and-seek thing, which while seems pretty blah on the surface, is still an awesome idea on paper.

I guess what I'm asking is that I'd like to see more council fights like Gruul and Moroes (especially if the members are shifting), I'd definitely love to see more non-tank tanking fights (Illhoof in Karazhan, Krosh Firehand from Gruul's Council, etc), and I want to see more Priests having to mind control stuff to do the fight correctly (Instructor Razuvious Naxx 25/40). Those are just a few examples, but they can still happen (for the most part; dunno what's up with Priest MC nowadays, now it's a talent or some shit? Idfk).

Seriously though, how awesome would it be with Legion's animations, updated models from WoD, and just everything looking prettier and the game itself being cleaned up a bit with talents, rotations, artifacts, yadda yadda, and you ended up being a fucking tank on a council fight? Or not even a council fight? What about being the one responsible to keeping a group of mobs locked down so your group doesn't get utterly destroyed? I didn't originally play WoW thinking "I totally want to be the one with the highest numbers", I played it because it seemed like an awesome fantasy game where you could do some pretty cool shit, and I don't classify "pretty cool shit" as "just spamming your rotation constantly and avoiding bad things". Almost no other fucking games does that. Know why? It gets boring and leads to us having a pretty shitty class fantasy. We're the "masters of the arcane" and we "control the battlefield by freezing enemies in their place", so why the fuck aren't we doing that?


I just, idk. Tired of the game being one big DPS circlejerk. I want to see mechanics and interesting fight designs being the reason why I play this game, not to jerk off to being "top deeps" like the game has become. I became Mage back in BC because it seemed like a fun spellcaster class that got a bunch of neat utility/convenience spells (teleports, making food/water, Spellsteal <3<3<3 [it's still my "5" keybind btw!]), but it's been bogged down by poor game design and everything turning into "DPS HARDER OMG WHY ARE YOU BOTHERING TO CC THAT?! FUCKING JUST KILL IT!".

(TL;DRish) I'm going to end this mini-rant with one last fantasy tidbit that I pretty much stole from D&D but I think it applies to WoW as well: Health damage (generally) does not decrease your ability to fight. Sure you could weaken the bad guy's health, but as long as he's got at least 1 health left, he will do just as much damage, if not more in a dying final attempt to kill his foes, as he did when he had full health. It should be smart, tactical, decisions that wins fights, not brute strength.

[Rothex]

As much as I agree with some of the points you make, I'm gonna rain on your parade and say that it will be foolish to believe they'd bring back interesting class-specific mechanics for bosses now. Those were originally designed for 25+ player raids when it was expected that you'd have multiples of every class. But nowadays it's entirely plausible to have a 10man raiding guild with solely melee DPS, or even a handful of class variation (yes it's not optimal but it's possible). They can really only create those cool mechanics for Mythic with the larger raid size otherwise you'd end up with the WotLK 10 vs 25 Naxx situation with Razuvious where they had to add in crystals as Priest-substitues. If Blizz suddenly include a fight requiring a caster tank, Priest MC, or interesting stuff like that then it could be punishing to smaller raid sizes or guilds; hence the now standard boring mechanics that are doable by any raid size.

As a result, they will probably not be able to create super interesting/unique mechanics like they did in the past because they're limited by raid size/composition. Thus RoF and Nova will become stagnate in their raid usages bar the now-typical "here comes a flood of adds, stun/CC and AOE them down" mechanic, which is really getting old. Half the time players don't even CC and just go straight for the zerg, which further nullifies the usages of RoF/IW. Hence the reason they need to remove them entirely, or shift them to the PVP talent tree where they're more remotely useful.

In a more recent example, you had Lei Shi in Terrace of Endless Spring who would summon elementals in semi-random locations (she'd randomly pick elementals from all their bracers), and you'd need to immediately CC, snare, etc all but one of them and nuke down one to get past them. In addition to that, she also had the whole hide-and-seek thing, which while seems pretty blah on the surface, is still an awesome idea on paper.

You actually CC'd them? We never used CC for Lei Shi at all. Although we did that tier as a 10man guild, so maybe CC was required for 25. I dunno, but I don't recall ever using CC in any of MoP's raids bar Wind-Lord, which was pretty mandatory. We did occasionally use CC as an aid for fights like Mythic Nazgrim and Immerseus but that wasn't because they were designed like that mechanics-wise but moreso because we weren't geared enough to just ignore the mechanics or zerg through the adds. RoF just sat on my bars for most of MoP relatively untouched.