Patch 5.2 PTR Mage Changes

[Polarthief]

It's basically as if Blizzard had made Shadow's Edge or Branch of Nordrassil a legendary, though these items are slightly more powerful relative to the others that can be obtained than those are
I guess I can see why they might as it makes them more obvious "steps" to acquiring the final real legendary when split over multiple patches than if they had merely been epic but I can't deny that it's a bit of an odd decision

Sadly, unless we get to put the meta AND sha-touched gem into this weapon, I don't see the point of even having them in the game at this point. There's no build-up to the legendary, it's just "do irrelevant quest A, do irrelevant quest B, then get legendary on quest C", whereas with Shadowmourne, Dragonwrath, and Fangs of the Father, they all had build-up. You'd start by crafting the first weapon, (especially with Shadowmourne), then you had to upgrade it to its next form (with Shadow's Edge, collecting souls to make it Shadowmourne), then you had to upgrade it one last time using an item from the final boss of that tier to turn it into the legendary.

With this though, you get a gem that only works on T14, then a prismatic socket that also works for T15, but we don't know if it'll work for T16. We get a Meta gem in T15 along with a socket that we don't know where it will go, but this meta gem replaces our current one. Who knows what stupid shit we'll get in T16?

[Imnick]

I don't think they're irrelevant questlines, Wrathion is pretty obviously gathering artefacts of power.
He's got Sha essence from T14, he's gathering Titanic power from T15. In T16 he's either going to be finding a means of combining the two or adding the third and final element, which will form our legendary weapon.

The things he gives us to tide us over are side-effects of his process rather than the ultimate goal.

[Polarthief]

I don't think they're irrelevant questlines, Wrathion is pretty obviously gathering artefacts of power.
He's got Sha essence from T14, he's gathering Titanic power from T15. In T16 he's either going to be finding a means of combining the two or adding the third and final element, which will form our legendary weapon.

The things he gives us to tide us over are side-effects of his process rather than the ultimate goal.

I meant more or less the items are pretty irrelevant. Rather than us building up something, it's us playing errand boy for what COULD be the ultimate evil on our planet (as we still don't know Wrathion's true agenda, and keep in mind, Nefarian and Onyxia were his siblings and Deathwing was his father. Going by family track record, chances are 1,000:1 that he's not a good guy and masking his true intentions very well) and he's giving us a few trinkets for our hard work.

While the quests themselves aren't irrelevant to the whole scheme of things, our rewards and our work sure feels irrelevant.

[Deleted]

For Wrathion being the big bad guy for 6.x, it's really possible.
It's also possible that he knew that some threat (in 6.x) will come to Azeroth (Burning legion, etc) that compromise is plan and that he want to put an end to the war between Ally/H2 before.
We won't know before the end of 5.4 (possible cliffhanger) or 6.0 (prepatch).

Back to mage: Like a lot here, I'm very ambiguous or the Legend Meta.
Ok, 10s of BL/hero every minute is very awesome but at the same time, it devalues the BL/hero's spell and it will devalues haste a lot.

Just imagine a proc while under Bl (huge probability with ppm):
haste raid buffed: 30% + 30% (BL) + 30% (legend meta) = 119.7% !!!
It make Frostbolt under GCD and Fireball at 1.13s cast. Go spam Pyro !!!

edit> SimC have push a first PTR beta. is someone have test it yet ?
http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/ReleaseNotes

[Polarthief]

Hey guys, here's PROOF that the whiners always get what they want:

- Glyph of Evocation now causes mages with Invocation talent to gain 10% of your health (was 20%) upon completing an Evocation.

So the glyph is now worthless for 2 out of 3 L90 talents, up from 1 out of 3... Now to find a glyph that's moderately useful in some way to replace it...


... Oh wait... All our glyphs suck.


Edit: I know it's not "officially" confirmed, but what could the translation have messed up? If Evocation is mentioned, it's ONLY going to be a nerf. They wouldn't BUFF the glyph that whiners are already complaining about.

[Deleted]

Hey guys, here's PROOF that the whiners always get what they want:

- Glyph of Evocation now causes mages with Invocation talent to gain 10% of your health (was 20%) upon completing an Evocation.

So the glyph is now worthless for 2 out of 3 L90 talents, up from 1 out of 3... Now to find a glyph that's moderately useful in some way to replace it...


... Oh wait... All our glyphs suck.


Edit: I know it's not "officially" confirmed, but what could the translation have messed up? If Evocation is mentioned, it's ONLY going to be a nerf. They wouldn't BUFF the glyph that whiners are already complaining about.

It have 0 cd, so it was actually pretty powerful , considering Invocation also reduces Evocation cast time by alot :P Justified nerf imo.

[Deleted]

Last time I checked Evocation with the Invocation talent and the glyph has 10 seconds cooldown... yeah, just checked again. So there's that.
Well, that's one glyph I may not be taking anymore... Although, we don't have any other interesting glyphs so .... fuck.

[Soulstrike]

Hey guys, here's PROOF that the whiners always get what they want:

- Glyph of Evocation now causes mages with Invocation talent to gain 10% of your health (was 20%) upon completing an Evocation.

So the glyph is now worthless for 2 out of 3 L90 talents, up from 1 out of 3... Now to find a glyph that's moderately useful in some way to replace it...


... Oh wait... All our glyphs suck.


Edit: I know it's not "officially" confirmed, but what could the translation have messed up? If Evocation is mentioned, it's ONLY going to be a nerf. They wouldn't BUFF the glyph that whiners are already complaining about.

you sound like that glyph was game changing, i know you dont pvp much but its not going to affect pve alot but i agree the nerf was bit unnesscery

[Deleted]

Actually it's gonna change PvE, a bit. I may not be taking that glyph anymore and that's one of the ways, besides the tier 2 talents and actively avoiding damage etc., of helping the raid, helping the healers. I sometimes use that, currently, 40% heal when I take a lot of damage due to raid mechanics to help the healers a bit.

[Shypanda88]

Wow, HUGE nerfs to arcane. I'm actually excited to see more buffs to frost. Arcane has been beyond boring to play.

[Zavri]

Seriously wish they would just revert arcane back to cata style. At least it had a "identity".

[pyrostorm9001]

Actually it's gonna change PvE, a bit. I may not be taking that glyph anymore and that's one of the ways, besides the tier 2 talents and actively avoiding damage etc., of helping the raid, helping the healers. I sometimes use that, currently, 40% heal when I take a lot of damage due to raid mechanics to help the healers a bit.

Yeah im not convinced evocation is as helpful to the healers as it once was in PvE. It would be rare for me evocate outside of the debuff timer falling off or low mana. The question is... what to replace it with?

[Polarthief]

you sound like that glyph was game changing, i know you dont pvp much but its not going to affect pve alot but i agree the nerf was bit unnesscery

You sound like you don't PvE ever.

I used it on Live for a heal ALL THE FREAKING TIME. While it wasn't game-changing, it was by far our best glyph to date, and is now our most useless unless you use RoP (in which case, it's decent at best). Also, if you haven't noticed, we have SHIT for glyphs atm.

Yeah im not convinced evocation is as helpful to the healers as it once was in PvE. It would be rare for me evocate outside of the debuff timer falling off or low mana. The question is... what to replace it with?

At a 20% heal with a 2.2s cast timer, I would have used it every time I got pretty low on HP when we're not in a tight DPS situation. Now, I won't get to test that because 10% isn't worth my cast time.

What to replace it with? NOTHING. I might actually run with 2 glyphs because our glyph selection is so fucking inferior.


TBH I'm getting increasingly frustrated with how boring (and shitty) our minors are compared to others, and even moreso, our majors being pathetic.

As Fire, I'll pretty much always be using Inferno Blast, Combustion, and Armors because there's literally nothing else I could use. I could use FFB, but since it doesn't actually help me in any way, it's pointless.
At least with Armors, I'll have a +16% physical resistance (up from +6%). Hopefully ToT is like HoF in that it has a lot of Physical based AoE.

---------- Post added 2013-02-19 at 04:45 AM ----------

Wow, HUGE nerfs to arcane. I'm actually excited to see more buffs to frost. Arcane has been beyond boring to play.

I thought these were all expected and known though.

The only exception being the scrapping of Evocation glyph.

[Shypanda88]

I've been reading MMO-Champion, I don't remember seeing the specific % nerfs to arcane. I was a little disappointed about the Evocation glyph originally too, but at the same time I use RoP as Arcane. Am I the only one who thinks Arcane is beyond boring? I chose to play it after the huge nerf to fire and it was really what they said it was, a four button spec. (If that)

[Polarthief]

I've been reading MMO-Champion, I don't remember seeing the specific % nerfs to arcane. I was a little disappointed about the Evocation glyph originally too, but at the same time I use RoP as Arcane. Am I the only one who thinks Arcane is beyond boring? I chose to play it after the huge nerf to fire and it was really what they said it was, a four button spec. (If that)

Arcane's been boring. Forever. I mean like WELL BEYOND forever ago, it's always been boring.

The % Nerfs to Arcane were there. You must have missed it somehow because I remember seeing them about a week or so ago.

[Deleted]

Last time I checked Evocation with the Invocation talent and the glyph has 10 seconds cooldown... yeah, just checked again. So there's that.
Well, that's one glyph I may not be taking anymore... Although, we don't have any other interesting glyphs so .... fuck.

you do realise this is the 5.2 patch discussion right? /shrug.

and for any one saying evocation heal "nerf" is big in Pve (dragon) please bitch slap your healers.

oh and about glyphs.. as arcane i chose from 5 different glyphs on a regular basis(evo, AE, blink, AP, fireblast), i dont know why you think they are useless. Its not like other classes got big dps gains from glyphs either. and why are you whining about minor glyphs? no one got anything other than vanity.

[Polarthief]

and for any one saying evocation heal "nerf" is big in Pve (dragon) please bitch slap your healers.

oh and about glyphs.. as arcane i chose from 5 different glyphs on a regular basis(evo, AE, blink, AP, fireblast), i dont know why you think they are useless. Its not like other classes got big dps gains from glyphs either. and why are you whining about minor glyphs? no one got anything other than vanity.

In situations where DPS isn't the biggest issue, it's nice to have. Now it's useless.

Excluding Evo, you have 4. I'm honestly curious why you use Blink or FB though. With the exception of heavy AoE (where NT+Glyphed FB would be a DPS gain) FB glyph is worthless. With Frost Bomb, its damage is halved. With LB, you save HALF a global (assuming it spreads to 3 targets, otherwise, you LOSE half a global). With NT, you gain some AoE DPS, assuming it's AoE (and the net gain isn't as much as, say, using Barrage cleave at 6 stacks with Frost Bomb, much like I do on Heroic Wind Lord).

The extra 5 yards on Blink for PvE is pointless. It just changes the distance you need to remember.

AP is a gambit and I don't worry about it because half the time, I don't get 30 uninterrupted seconds and I'd prefer to use it when I do have my spare 15 seconds. It's not like Combustion where once you use it, you click and forget it. I'd say it's a decent glyph, but it's more or less a per-fight glyph. (e.g., it's great on Spiritbinder).

AE glyph flat out sucks, but it sucks less than the others, which is why I use it.

Honestly, when we're using glyphs that "increase the radius of your close-range AoE" because we have nothing better, I think that's a fucking joke. Have you SEEN other class glyphs?


As far as minors go, Momentum is nice, and Loose Mana is for Arcane, but all the others just suck, and I'd like a cosmetic one without a horrible drawback (30m cooldown, 2m duration on Illusion) or ones that I can actually use more than never (Polymorph modifiers... I already have like 7 Polymorph spells...). Something like changing the color of my spells, making my mirror images transform into random characters rather than me, changing my Water Elemental to something else (like a Pandaren Water Spirit or a Frost Revenant), or making Fire spells light enemies on fire. Fuck, I don't know, all I know is for our "fun"/situational-non-battle-efficiency-helping glyphs, our Minors are not very fun (with the exception of Momentum, and Loose Mana for Arcane). I don't consider HALF of my minors being more Polymorph spells as fun, especially when: I next to never use Polymorph in PvE, and when I DO use it in PvP, it generally gets dispelled or broken instantly anyways. No time to appreciate it.

[pocharlies]

I'm trying to read the chinese patch notes with google translator and traduction is confusing me...

Arcane
Arcane Mage wake of its recovery within 6 seconds 40% (formerly 60%) of total mana and Arcane charge effect of energy consumed. Total mana each layer of Arcane empowerment effect consumption recovery increased by 10% up to 80% of maximum mana recover within six seconds. Flame and frost spells wake effect unchanged.
Arcane Blast damage reduced by 22.2%, mana cost increased to 1.66667% of base mana (from 1.5%).
Arcane Missiles damage is reduced by 22.2%.
Arcane Barrage damage reduced by 13.6%.
Arcane Charged up now superimposed on the layer (layer 6), and the damage increased by 50% (from 25%), mana cost increased by 150% (from 75%).

chinese ptr blog say that Arcane Charge damage increased is 50% and mana cost increased is 150%, and it doesn't say anything about 4 charges or 6 charges.

on the other hand it say the nerf of arcane spells and evocation new feature.

[Polarthief]

I'm trying to read the chinese patch notes with google translator and traduction is confusing me...

Arcane
Arcane Mage wake of its recovery within 6 seconds 40% (formerly 60%) of total mana and Arcane charge effect of energy consumed. Total mana each layer of Arcane empowerment effect consumption recovery increased by 10% up to 80% of maximum mana recover within six seconds. Flame and frost spells wake effect unchanged.
Arcane Blast damage reduced by 22.2%, mana cost increased to 1.66667% of base mana (from 1.5%).
Arcane Missiles damage is reduced by 22.2%.
Arcane Barrage damage reduced by 13.6%.
Arcane Charged up now superimposed on the layer (layer 6), and the damage increased by 50% (from 25%), mana cost increased by 150% (from 75%).

chinese ptr blog say that Arcane Charge damage increased is 50% and mana cost increased is 150%, and it doesn't say anything about 4 charges or 6 charges.

on the other hand it say the nerf of arcane spells and evocation new feature.

The bolded part was already in the PTR and well known. The "Arcane Mage wake" is most likely referring to Evocation based on the numbers and constant use of "Mana", which was also known.

The % Arcane nerfs and ABL mana cost increase was known (and the mana increase was already put in too). All of this stuff is old news that they're just now putting into the PTR (Even the 52% increase to Frostbolt. It was originally 24(?)% and then they increased it an additional 25(?)% or something around that). The only new change is the 50% nerf to Invocation's heal when glyphed.

[Shypanda88]

Must have missed it, which I'm surprised. My friends always like to rub it in my face when I get nerfed. I've only been a mage since Pandas. Before I was a Hunter. I do recall Arcane spec being lol'd at forever though. It's always been the 123 spec. I was hoping they'd make it more fun rather than just nerfing it dead.