Mage in Legion pretty... boring?

[Deleted]

Wouldn't giving it yet more mobility be a good thing? It has crit on it now so at least you get your preferred stat now. It's not as useless as Belo'vir's Final Stand or Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus since they give absolutely no dps gain.

at least they give you a lot of valuable stats and a shield that helps for survival.
if I had the choice I would pick belovir or prydaz in place of norganon's 100% of the time.

[davesignal]

maybe with spell animation upgrade on 7.3, arcane will become a bit more funny.

I already enjoy arcane a lot, but yeah, the spell animation upgrades in 7.3 can't come fast enough.

[Deleted]

maybe with spell animation upgrade on 7.3, arcane will become a bit more funny.

I absolutely agree, Arcane is by far the coolest of the three specs in terms of thematics and class fantasy, and for the longest time the main spells in the Arcane rotation have been supremely underwhelming.

Yet I dare say that even with the 7.3 animations and spell effects, Arcane Blast should still have been a projectile.

Nevertheless all in all I'm super stoked and I can't way to unleash arcane fury on Legion forces.

OT: I will say, on the topic of mages being boring, that I disagree, and despite what my post on the first page might say I've come to love Arcane, however I do feel that Arcane in particular could do with some of the spells from the talent tree becoming baseline instead. Arcane Orb, Nether Tempest, and Supernova are great spells, their spell effects look incredible and they're satisfying to use, however, if the player wants to optimize their damage output, the passives are more often than not better.

I mean come on, who can resist a 60% damage increase?

[Fayenoor]

@OP - it depends on what perspective. I have leveled multiple toons as well. Mages are one of the slowest levelers by far, lacking any self-heals of any kind (and why is spell pushback still a thing?). Leveling my lock (as Aff), Druid (as Guard), Warrior (as Fury, then Arms) was way faster than leveling my mage (fire, and then frost).

For raids, mages are amazing. I have been playing a mage at various levels of casualness/hardcoreness as my main since Molten Core without a break. I do miss Evanesce from WOD a lot. But it was seriously OP. The artifact weapons are solid. Strong lore. And everyone loves a trash talking weapon. Dont look at the raid DPS numbers for a class to judge how fun it is. Raid DPS position is temporary; FOTM changes every patch. Love of your class is permanent.

Mages have gone through cycles of OP-ness (uber combustion spread, arcane meta OPness in SSC) to sheer abysmal DPS (Sunwell, parts of Legion). Legion mage (specially fire) suffered from the curse of early blooming. In early legion, certain fire mages got certain legendaries which made then so powerful that everyone complained in General Chat. Blizzard wrecked them (because apparently Gen Chat feedback is more important than actual testing).

That being said, fire is still a lot of fun even though it is a shadow of what it I have seen it as. Wish Cinderstorm was still viable. It was crazy fun spell while it lasted.

Frost takes a bit of gear to get to the fun part. Frost DPS at 920+ (with soft crit cap) is a lot of fun. At lower gear levels when you dont have as much crit, frost is bit of a snoozefest.

Arcane is fairly balanced and has a higher skill cap than the other two. There are mages in this thread who are ready to go to war to defend Arcane. So I shall let them be the champions of the Arcane Mage cause. But, who doesn't like an Artifact weapon than trash talks to you non stop.

That being said the core concept of a Mage is pretty solid and a lot of fun. If you arent having fun as a mage, then you haven't jumped off a cliff and blinked at the last moment to save yourself; or you haven't cast slowfall on yourself and jumped down from Lumber Mill to Black Smith or havent Ice Blocked key mechanics which lesser specs tremble to soak.

[davesignal]

I absolutely agree, Arcane is by far the coolest of the three specs in terms of thematics and class fantasy, and for the longest time the main spells in the Arcane rotation have been supremely underwhelming.

Yet I dare say that even with the 7.3 animations and spell effects, Arcane Blast should still have been a projectile.

Nevertheless all in all I'm super stoked and I can't way to unleash arcane fury on Legion forces.

OT: I will say, on the topic of mages being boring, that I disagree, and despite what my post on the first page might say I've come to love Arcane, however I do feel that Arcane in particular could do with some of the spells from the talent tree becoming baseline instead. Arcane Orb, Nether Tempest, and Supernova are great spells, their spell effects look incredible and they're satisfying to use, however, if the player wants to optimize their damage output, the passives are more often than not better.

I mean come on, who can resist a 60% damage increase?

Are we dreaming about 8.0 changes? Because I'd like Supernova to be baseline, but I'd want it to be renamed Gravity Lapse ala Kael'thas. Arcane Orb in 8.0 should be replaced with the Mantle of the First Kirin'Tor effect, with the proc rate buffed to like 15% per Arcane Charge, and remain a talent.

Buff Nether Tempest, put it in Arcane Familiar's spot, and make Arcane Familiar baseline. I'd like to have Navi following me all the time, but Amplification is way too good to pass up.

[JaoStar]

As far as free casting goes I like elelmental shaman rotation and talents the best, however in PvP and questing hey are extremely tissue for me. The last pass over to arcane mages really helped that spec out a lot, especially the increase to misille speed and casting animations. Haven't tried frost yet but fire is a bit boring to me. I know I was the minority but I liked the rh feel it used to have. Feels to contrived now.

[schwarzkopf]

Arcane is absolutely the most fun - so many toys, tricks and stuff to do.

Fire is the most boring of all the specs, and feels like whack-a-mole and no fancy toys for out in in the world exploration.

[davesignal]

Displacement is such a fun spell. "Blink back to where you Blinked from" seems like such a minor thing when you first see it, but there are so many potential applications and it just feels so Arcane to be constantly teleporting back and forth.

[Myztikrice]

What tricks does Arcane have besides Displacement?

[davesignal]

Greater Invisibility, for one. An instant combat drop with a two minute CD (and 60% DR while it's up) is really handy for a lot of things. You can juke Kil'jaeden's Focused Dreadfire with it, canceling his cast.

[nickseng]

You can juke Kil'jaeden's Focused Dreadfire with it, canceling his cast.

You can also do it with normal Invisibility. The timeframe is just slightly tighter, is all.

[Zenfoldor]

The only way you're doing 4m burst as frost is if you get 20 il procs off of one orb, which isn't going to happen.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

Seem to be doing fair with the CS helm, still no bracers. As mentioned Vargoth makes 4m possible outdoors, took some time to get that, sorry about the necro.

[davesignal]

That's a real good name for a mage.

[Amsden]

I really like how Frost plays this expansion. Hell I just started working on getting my Ele Sham to 110 and Mages really don't have much to complain about.