Most promising spec in Legion?

[Deleted]

Going to roll for mage instead of a warlock in Legion but don't know which one is the currently most promising one. Which one of these 3 specs is the most similiar to destro lock I used to play?

[Orwell7]

Noo, it doesn't matter which mage spec, it won't be as satisfying as any Warlock spec. I guarantee it!

[Shadow Fox]

Noo, it doesn't matter which mage spec, it won't be as satisfying as any Warlock spec. I guarantee it!

I dunno... Removing the RNG from Fire alone makes Fire VERY attractive, and not so penalizing if you have sub-%60 crit.

[Deleted]

You can not know what does the most dps (not tuned yet). You could only look at mechanics. What mechanics are most similar to locks, I do not know, probably not arcane.

[Bushtuckrman]

I want to play DH as my melee but I am torn as well on range to play. I have always been hunter and sometimes lock and priest. But fire mage looks so sexy in legion but then so does spriest and all lock specs.

[Prothynyas]

fire mage looks quite good

[Deleted]

Fire>arcane>frost

[Summer]

Arcane has the best good defensives with greater invis. AoE is clunky if we actually have to use AE and I'm not a fan of the RNG-burst that's being baked into the spec.

Fire is pretty simple and might get boring but for now fun with very satisfying graphic updates for my inner pyromaniac.

Frost haven't touched and won't unless forced to, hopefully not.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

most promising one

Tuning dependant and much too early to tell.

similiar to destro

I guess the closest in terms of thinking Destro being "build up embers, dump on huge nuke," is probably Glacial Spike Frost variants, although unable to be saved for trinkets like you could with Embers. None of them really have a Shadowburn style spell, Splitting Ice is as close as you can get to Havoc but it's a cleave instead of target independant, and I guess you could argue Arcane Barrage+Arcane Rebound is as close to any form of FnB as we get.

Not too many direct analogues to Destro honestly, it had/has a pretty good kit on live.

[Deleted]

It's very likely that the very general design paradigm will remain the same. Arcane will be the hardest to play, with the highest rewards on perfect use but with a steep rewards/performance ratio and punishing on disorganized strategies, long fights and high movement. Fire will likely be the highest AOE (though trimmed compared to now), good mobility but with a penalty at single target damage (maybe higher damage compared to now). Frost will likely remain the averagely good spec with the best rewards/effort ratio or it might return to being mainly a PvP spec but that's unlikely since they moved from that and they want to make all specs viable now.

It's very likely that we will see across the game a Blizzard effort for all specs per class to perform similarly, for similar goals with a similar effort needed. That might be good or bad depended on how you look at it. It might be good if it brings balance to the game that was needed, or it might be bad if some specs are pruned down to boring specs (e.g. an Arcane that does mediocre burns in order to become good sustained dps like others).

Then again it's also likely that all specs will be unlocked in no time (for instance if it takes 3 to 4 weeks to fully unlock a second spec with no penalties it's no time) so we would return to the current state. We will likely though see a restriction to one spec at end-game raiding for some time at least. The relic items may give 10+ ilevels to the weapon which would make the use of another spec prohibitive in most cases.

[Deleted]

It's very likely that the very general design paradigm will remain the same. Arcane will be the hardest to play, with the highest rewards on perfect use but with a steep rewards/performance ratio and punishing on disorganized strategies, long fights and high movement.

I don't have access to alpha, so i only checked some gameplay videos on YT and according to those alpha testers it was a talent (Quickening) that made arcane great - DPS wise. So i'm quiet sceptic about arcane's raid performance since it seems quiet easy to lose those stacks due to boss mechanics like transitions, no dmg phases, etc. Or is there another viable arcane build that i missed? How big is the dps loss if one has to rebuild those stack, etc. many questions that need to be anwsered. On the other hand fire seems really good for progression since it is an easy to play spec in Legion with good burst, and maybe the most important thing, that fight mechanics have almost zero effect on its rotation, similarly to live's frost. If arcane's dps relies too much on Quickening then I think that spec is not an option for fights with many 6sec+ phases with no valid dps targets.

[Deleted]

Arcane becomes less rotational than it is on live servers - mainly because the change to mastery. You no longer gets benefits by staying at 90% + mana, it now just grants more mana to use for burn stage of bosses. Arcane also gets some crazy movement stuff to use, and the AM procs now deal more damage than AB, which is a good change.

Fire is more dynamic (imo) than the two other specs, and it is more about feeling the flow when pressing buttons. Fire have always been my favorit, and it also seems fun in Legion.

Frost have always been the spec that I avoided when I could. However they will have the possibility to keep splitting ice, which was my favorit thing about frost mages.

I am in the alpha, but haven't spend much time on mages yet, but so far my bet would be, that fire is the spec most people gonna chose

[Deleted]

the AM procs now deal more damage than AB

When weren't they?

[ErothTV]

felo'melorn!

[Deleted]

Arcane becomes less rotational than it is on live servers - mainly because the change to mastery. You no longer gets benefits by staying at 90% + mana, it now just grants more mana to use for burn stage of bosses. Arcane also gets some crazy movement stuff to use, and the AM procs now deal more damage than AB, which is a good change.

Don't forget they reworked the talent "Words of Power" - no idea how beneficial it is to gain 4% bonus chance on AM procs by staying above 80% (or 5% bonus with 90% mana if Arcane Familiar is chosen), the "Quickening" build dumped its mana, and refreshed the haste buff with Nether Tempest mostly. I guess Blizz nerfed that build. Overall I find the new arcane options wierd with tons of non-raid friendly talents (they are working against target switching - Erosion and punishing no-dps phases - Quickening). I also think that these 2 talents are extremely hard to balance... on petchwerk-like fights they are way too OP (like +10% damage...) but on more difficult bosses with many target switchings, disables, transitions, etc. they can turn totally useless. I never liked the "faceroll on boss for a great log, while others will handle adds" nature of arcane (this gamestyle was so rewarding that even RLers let 1 or 2 arcane mages to do so). And these new talents encourage players to follow this bad manner, since a flat 10% dmg boost might worth letting 1 or 2 arcane mages faceroll the boss and negate even some prio adds.

Yes, fire with its new animations is awesome

[Dizzeeyooo]

Frost will likely remain the averagely good spec with the best rewards/effort ratio or it might return to being mainly a PvP spec.

frost is currently the worst mage spec for pvp in legion by far, so good luck with that

[Obelisk Kai]

Some negative opinions on arcane which I find concerning as it is currently the spec I am leaning towards playing. Are these opinions based on playtesting in the beta?

Arcane has on demand burst, spammable aoe, good cleave, instant invisibility...

[Champagne Supernova]

I'm sure tuning hasn't happened yet, i'm also sure arcane will most likely come out the stronger spec with the mastery change and for me, has the more interesting artifact talents for pve and pvp. Though, played Fire from Wotlk and looks like it's an overall improved spec with less RNG and the updated spell effects certainly help, And mainly the flame orbs would be a nice effect for the red colour tier 19 set, so gonna be a waiting game for me to see how well fire performs in the early endgame in a last minute beta before launch as a deciding factor

[Dizzeeyooo]

And mainly the flame orbs would be a nice effect for the red colour tier 19 set

the flame orb effect was scrapped a few patches back

[Obelisk Kai]

I'm sure tuning hasn't happened yet, i'm also sure arcane will most likely come out the stronger spec with the mastery change and for me, has the more interesting artifact talents for pve and pvp. Though, played Fire from Wotlk and looks like it's an overall improved spec with less RNG and the updated spell effects certainly help, And mainly the flame orbs would be a nice effect for the red colour tier 19 set, so gonna be a waiting game for me to see how well fire performs in the early endgame in a last minute beta before launch as a deciding factor

I wish fire worked, but in my opinion they have shortchanged it in one too many places for me to truly get behind. Things like a strong Ice Barrier that both frost and arcane get, or the greater invis that Arcane gets strike me as more useful and fun tools to have and Fire is denied them. I also have a strong objection to cauterizing blink which I think is a dumb ability. I genuinely thought it would be removed but it looks like it is here to stay...so I'll resolve that little conflict by taking one of the other two specs. Fire is simply...and for the first time in a long time...clearly not for me.