[Mage-WoD] Mage Beta Discussion

[voltaa]

@Northem, I think you and a few othera may be a little confused about what the level perks are intended to do. I see a lot of "this should be baseline not a perk" these perks are the baseline. This is just their way of implementing a new baseline for max level while also making it feel like a reward for leveling. Parents are going to feed their baby either way, but calling it here comes the airplane is more fun and seems like a reward.

You also mention zomgs post that mechanisms promoting choice shouldn't be used to fix specs. These don't promote choice, they aren't meant to, there are three ways they could have gone about these changes. Make the spells do everything these perks do by default when you learn the spell, dump all of this on you at 90, or the cirrent gradual implementation to at least give you SOMETHING while leveling.

[Frost1129]

You also mention zomgs post that mechanisms promoting choice shouldn't be used to fix specs. These don't promote choice, they aren't meant to, there are three ways they could have gone about these changes. Make the spells do everything these perks do by default when you learn the spell, dump all of this on you at 90, or the cirrent gradual implementation to at least give you SOMETHING while leveling.

This sounds in line with how Celestalon was describing perks in the recent interviews.

[mrgreenthump]

@Northem, I think you and a few othera may be a little confused about what the level perks are intended to do. I see a lot of "this should be baseline not a perk" these perks are the baseline. This is just their way of implementing a new baseline for max level while also making it feel like a reward for leveling. Parents are going to feed their baby either way, but calling it here comes the airplane is more fun and seems like a reward.

You also mention zomgs post that mechanisms promoting choice shouldn't be used to fix specs. These don't promote choice, they aren't meant to, there are three ways they could have gone about these changes. Make the spells do everything these perks do by default when you learn the spell, dump all of this on you at 90, or the cirrent gradual implementation to at least give you SOMETHING while leveling.

I think their announcement of the perks was handled a bit silly though. They are afterall spell changes they would be pushing through as .0 patch updates. They just decided to do them like this and just added some modifiers to leveling not to feel like your character power was decreasing further you got if you started levelling from somewhat relevant raiding gear. But their representation was like "most of these perks are like 30% to fireball" which they are. People just imagined the rest was something else than the usual QoL changes to make the specs works at 100.

[Pyromelter]

They will have a separate cooldown with DPS potions (but still only one health potion and one dps potion per fight, not counting pre-potions) so that you can actually use them.

Even if Amplify Magic is only situationally the best of all raid cooldowns (you're not easily going to convince me that it will be terrible), it's still going to get used in every healing cooldown rotation because 20% damage taken reduction + 20% healing is better than just the former on its own.

There's not even anything to bother replying to in the third part of your post except "I think you are too emotionally invested in this spell".

Appreciate the response regarding healing potions. I like that change. I agree it will be used in healing CD rotations, and I think it would be really good in an aura-type situation to help healers delay a raid cd. You won't convince me that overhealing won't be an issue though. It's tough for blizzard to have a raid AoE damage type thing where healers aren't trying to top people off.

Regarding RoP - I will never play a spec that requires that spell. Considering the loss of mages both raw numerically and percentage wise compared to other classes, I think that ignoring the terrible-ness of that spell is only doing more harm to the class, and to the game. I was never a huge fan of arcane, but I liked it well enough in Wrath and Cata. In MoP, it was completely unplayable for me, and it made arcane 100% unviable in pvp. I advocate for its removal for both my own preferences, and for the sake of the class as a whole, because it is that bad. Whenever a talent or a skill requires you to strategize your play around it, that's simply bad design (see: old-fashioned Lightwell).

- - - Updated - - -

That kinda is how it used to be prior to WotLK. Each class had one spec which was primarily focused on PvP. The sad thing is...people weren't happy with this and they wanted to have all their specs playable in PvE, which is actually what has led us to the problem we face today.

This is the one area where Rift gets it right, a spec dedicated specifically to PvP. (Note: I still think rift kinda sucks). But even though rift as a whole sucks, it felt right to have a spec dedicated to player versus player. The classes as a whole felt way more balanced in pvp than wow ever has.

Blizzard's refusal to create a pvp-specific spec just seems like a combination of stubbornness and laziness, to cling to an out-dated game design... I think this is one of the reasons wow has continued to trend down as a whole, out-dated game design decisions like a lack of a dedicated pvp spec, or lack of tri-spec (or even unlimited specs), has driven people who have tried other games away from wow.

[Alexand3r]

The thing that bothers me the most is that Arcane's only off-school spells are Frost Nova and, maybe, Cone of Cold (If I'm not mistaken and excluding the talent grid, of course). With Frostfire Bolt only available to Frost and Fire mages, maybe it's really time to give Arcanists something like Chromatic Bolt? So that we at least something that deals fire/frost damage.

By the way, maybe Arcane Mages could get one or two fun abilities to make them better in PvP.

Ideas:

Rune of Displacement:

Instant. 40 yd range.

You gain the Rune of Displacement: Vortex and the Rune of Displacement: Exit spells, which you can place on the target location.

The first enemy to approach the Rune of Displacement: Vortex will trigger it, causing all enemies within 8 yards to be teleported to the Rune of Displacement: Exit that you've placed. Lasts 1 min.

Placing both of them will trigger a 30 sec. cooldown.


This would be fun but it may prove to be complicated to implement and to use.

or

Spell Absorption:

Instant. 25 sec. cooldown.

When activated, the next spell cast against you will be absorbed and damage taken from that school will be reduced by 45% for 5 seconds.


I'm not sure casters are much of a problem for Arcane mages, but still.

I don't think they'll ever give us a Telekinesis spell, so I'll skip that.

Last one:

Dimensional Ward:

Instant. 20 sec. cooldown.

The next enemy to attack you will be teleported to a random location 30 yards away from you.

This would also be fun to use, although I'm not sure it's very practical.
All of these ideas fit Arcane's theme, I think. It's a pity Blizzard doesn't add more spells to Arcane's kit, considering that there's so much that they could come up with.



But anyway, I hope that in the next patch notes we'll see some improvements (does anyone know when they'll show them to us?) and I also hope they show us more glyphs, both minor and major.

[zomgDPS]

You also mention zomgs post that mechanisms promoting choice shouldn't be used to fix specs. These don't promote choice, they aren't meant to

And just to be clear, I never said the perks were meant to promote choice. I said that there is a massive disconnect in the "new-ness", creativity, and perceived effort put in to Frost's perks when compared to Arcane's.

That said, there is a limit. The Imp Arcane Power perk, imho, has crossed that limit. It literally goes from being a completely ass backwards CD, to a 'normal' CD that everyone has.

Its effect should be made baseline, and a "new", more creative perk should take its place.

[voltaa]

I agree with you on AP, it's no longer a gameplay element where you have to watch your mana, it's a double dip CD now and I don't find that to be particularly engaging or a design improvement.

[Pyromelter]

Regarding arcane... something that really confused me about the design of arcane. The thing where you spam arcane blast until 40% mana, then evocate to 100%, then do your "conservation" rotation. To me, that style was very refined. I will admit, it was too simplistic and boring, but the idea of burn phase/conserve phase always just seemed right to me. The arcane mastery completely obliterated that design philosophy - am I the only one who thinks the current arcane design philosophy is back-assward, and the previous "burn/conserve" style was superior both thematically, as well as in the fun factor?

I mean, I remember one specific decision I made while playing arcane that was one of those "yes! awesome!" moments. It was Icehowl in Trial of the Crusader, and of course people had been failbots and only about half the raid was alive, so Icehowl hits the wall, and I've got my stacks to 4, but I'm super low on mana, around like 25-30% or so, so I was squeezing in arcane blasts, and at around 20% mana, icehowl's daze timer is about to go off, and instead of clearing my stacks (at that time I believe arcane missiles cleared stacks), instead of clearing the stacks I fit in one last AB and smashed Icehowl with a 65k crit (remember this is in wrath, 65k was a huge hit), and then after that I evocated and went to my conserve phase.

With the way mastery works now, that is a situation no one would ever be in. The arcane rotation just feels so enclosed, like there's absolutely no choice, no human in element in rolling the dice in such a way. I think this is yet another reason why arcane is so bad in pvp as well.

I dunno, I just think the "keep your mana as close to 100% all the time" design philosophy really sucked all the fun out of arcane. It doesn't look like this is going to change in WoD, either, although someone correct me if I'm wrong there. I do love playing fire, but it would be nice if arcane had some of that type of wrath-style fun factor again for a change of pace - it would seem that they would have to completely re-do the mastery though to make that happen. Thoughts?

[Shangalar]

I hope that you mean Cata-style fun factor, not Wrath-style. Because Mastery didn't exist in Wrath so you could be at any amount of mana and it was just important that you don't run out of mana because you won't be able to dps.

With the introduction of Mastery in 4.0., Arcane got the meaningful burn phase followed by Evocation, followed by a conservation phase interjected with a mini-burn phase using Flame Orb. There was a moderate amount of decision-making required while dps-ing in order to stay on perfect mana levels.

In MoP this became impossible because of a change to mana regen and the fact that we needed Rune of Power to manage the conserve phase, but it blocked out our burn phase because it replaced Evocation. Using Invocation allowed for a fake burn phase and using Incanter's Ward still lets you have an actual burn phase, but a slightly weaker conserve phase. Thus, Rune of Power was Mandatory. This endless conserve phase allowed for more mini-decision-making phases than the gameplay in Cataclysm (even iz zomgDPS completely disagrees with me, but I've played Arcane all the time and it is now more complex in gameplay than in Cata, even if it might be less complex mechanically).

Now that the level 90 talents will no longer have mana regen and we'll get Evocation back, this might change, but it is highly doubtful. They would need to switch back some damage from Arcane Blast to Arcane Missiles which, if not done properly, could just make Arcane *mostly* mindless like in Wrath. With the damage remaining focused in Missiles like it was in MoP, we can have really meaningful play with the current presentation of talents and spell changes. And on top of that, we have the best Mastery in the game.

[Mastamage]

I agree with you on AP, it's no longer a gameplay element where you have to watch your mana, it's a double dip CD now and I don't find that to be particularly engaging or a design improvement.

That's because it isn't engaging anymore. AP in its current form is one of my favorite spells. In WoD it's just another button to press.

[Seneca]

Ok there are some "news" about the (WoD) state of arcane and fire.

The question was: "Frost mages got some discussion about changes with alpha notes. Very little/nothing for Fire/Arcane. Anything to come next time?"
The answer was: "The level 90 talent changes have significant implications for Arcane. Fire has gotten a little discussion, but is looking solid.

Source: Celestalon's twitter.

If I am not wrong, (enlight me if I am), basically he said nothing we didn't already know. Arcane won't be tied to L90 talents for its mana management. Ok, good improvement. We got it looking at the alpha notes. But what else? Is it the same gameplay but without caring about a mandatory RoP or there is more? Is there some mechanical improvement?

About fire, it is looking solid, he said. Nice, I am fine with that, really. But what about sharing some of this solidity with the mage community?

[mrgreenthump]

About fire, it is looking solid, he said. Nice, I am fine with that, really. But what about sharing some of this solidity with the mage community?

Or then he meant all there was about fire was that little discussion

Tbh they didn't say CM was removed, but they didn't say what is happening to it either, so surely fire changes are there.. We just don't know them yet.

[Imnick]

http://www.twitch.tv/panhalen

Apparently the beta has actually started if you were at PAX and got a beta key, this guy is streaming a horde mage right now.
This guy lives ten minutes from PAX and we've figured out that somehow his beta key is letting him to connect to the PAX server (he whispered someone to ask if they were at pax and they said yes), so uh... I'm not 100% sure what is going on there but he's still connected legally with a key Blizzard gave to him!
Not sure we'll see anything new because he's not examining mechanics particularly deeply but maybe you'll catch something interesting.

This isn't a sandbox, it's the actual beta, so please don't ban me for linking to illegal private server streams D:


e: Actually we did see something new!
The level 90 boosted mage starter gear!

There's a pretty badass skull hat and a staff made of floating shards of blasted rock. That's at least mildly interesting I suppose.

[Seneca]

Or then he meant all there was about fire was that little discussion

Tbh they didn't say CM was removed, but they didn't say what is happening to it either, so surely fire changes are there.. We just don't know them yet.

About CM, they said it will stay, but didn't add anything more, so it probably will be the same mechanic, even if the multiplier will change probably.

Lots of fire mages expressed their dislike for CM. Personally I don't know if it is good or bad to have it. I think that if it is too low, like 1.1, then there's no reason to keep this passive. If it is too high, like 1.5, then there will be lots of balancing problems and band-aid fixes, a middle ground is hard to find imo.

[Pyromelter]

I hope that you mean Cata-style fun factor, not Wrath-style. Because Mastery didn't exist in Wrath so you could be at any amount of mana and it was just important that you don't run out of mana because you won't be able to dps.

I did mean Wrath, although I'll admit the cata style was fun too. The thing was stacks cleared with arcane missiles in wrath (I don't remember if that change where AM didn't clear stacks came in MoP or Cata), but both the Wrath and Cata styles are far superior to the MoP style. The other thing that was really awesome about wrath was that your goal was to finish each encounter as close to zero mana as possible. Again this also had effects on pvp, because you could continue to empty your mana to finish off an opponent, while mana drains on arcane mages were a legitimate strategy in wrath. I always felt like if blizzard was able to incorporate that sort of gameplay and design from wrath, but with more buttons ala cata/mop/wod, that would be the best of all worlds (for me anyway... I guess as someone who is primarily a fire mage, this would devalue my opinion since I'm not looking to primary spec arcane, but as a mage that's what I'd prefer to seee).

Regarding the change to RoP, would this mean that burn/conserve would be back in for WoD? That would be really good news if so, plus if arcane orb gave another mini burn phase, that would return us to the Cata-style, which would at least give me some consideration to playing arcane again. At the very least, having a well-played evocation after a burn phase would bring some of the skilled fun factor that I remember being quite satisfying in the past.

[Elegiac]

I agree with you on AP, it's no longer a gameplay element where you have to watch your mana, it's a double dip CD now and I don't find that to be particularly engaging or a design improvement.

Ok, for the last time.

Will people stop saying that Arcane is a "mana management" spec? There's no management involved and hasn't been since MoP hit.

[Shangalar]

Ok, for the last time.

Will people stop saying that Arcane is a "mana management" spec? There's no management involved and hasn't been since MoP hit.

If you're going back to this argument again, I'll drop to the same level and say a) I must have been playing some different spec since MoP started and b) just try casting one Blast when you're not supposed to and come back and tell me how it's not a mana management spec.

I will, however, agree that the mana management style has changed. The conservation phase in Cata was Blast and Mana Gem + Missiles + Flame Orb and Missiles + Barrage. In MoP it's Rune of Power (both recasting it and standing in it), applying a bomb, Missiles and Barrage. I can spend several days here arguing that MoP mana management is more complex than Cata mana management, based on the sheer amount of spell combinations available now compared to before. You will never agree with it anyway.
___________

@Pyromelter - in WoD we won't have Alter Time mana management (fortunately) and we will have Evocation because the level 90 talents won't have mana regen anymore. However, as I said above, the only way that an Arcane Blast burn phase is possible is if the damage is shifted back into Arcane Blast. Currently Missiles are our highest damaging spell, this was implemented in MoP. A stroll down memory lane:

- Wrath - Blast is quite superior to all other spells, there is no Mastery, Blast increases damage of Missiles
- Cata - Blast is vastly superior to other spells, we have Mastery, Blast does not increase damage of Missiles, Missiles no longer clear stacks
- MoP - Missiles are strongest, we have Mastery, Blast increases damage of Missiles, Missiles also generate Charges

Gameplay:
- Wrath - cast as many Blasts without going OOM, Missiles hit hard, but they clear stacks
- Cata - Blast burn phase because Blast is the strongest spell, Missiles don't clear stacks and deal okay damage, Barrage is used for one reason only and that's to clear stacks, the point of the conserve phase was still to cast as many Blasts as possible, but not go under 90% mana because of Mastery
- MoP - we use Blast to build up Missiles, the goal is to be as close to max mana as possible to gain as much damage from Missiles as possible, Barrage is a hard hitting spell that we use to clear stacks to allow mana regen

Now, we have Evocation back so why don't we get the burn phase back? Because from the current state of the changes (there are no numbers yet of course), it will not be efficient to do a Blast burn phase because it's not our strongest spell. We could quite possibly be looking at something that might be the best of both worlds (kind of) - a burn phase that favors Missiles over Blast, meaning that we can still burn our mana while using all Missiles and just continuing a Blast + Missiles when they proc rotation all the way to 10-15%-ish mana after which we use our new Arcane version of Evocation to clear Charges and go back to 100% mana, starting a conserve phase that will look like the one we have at the moment, helped with new Missile generators in the form of the reworked level 75 talents.

I really don't want the damage to shift back to Blast because the Missiles management system is fun, engaging and visually more stimulating than Blast.

[Pyromelter]

Ok, for the last time.

Will people stop saying that Arcane is a "mana management" spec? There's no management involved and hasn't been since MoP hit.

There is mana management, it's just "camp 100% mana" management. I would agree with Shang that there is mana management happening, it's just way less interactive and fun versus the way it was in Wrath and Cata, when timing your evocation meant the difference between doing really well, and completely tanking your dps if your evo got interrupted.

I remember when evo was like 8 seconds long, and you were supposed to evocate with like 0.5-1.0 seconds left on bloodlust, because your evo would be hasted beyond the bloodlust buff.

It's little things like that that have been removed that provided hidden depth and skill that no longer are there. I kind of wish fire and frost were forced to manage mana as well - as much as I didn't like the "heat" resource and don't want a 100 mana energy system, I'd rather have something I need to keep track of you know? I mean, don't most FPS games have ammunition limitations, where you have to replenish them as you spend your bullets? It feels really off to not have to worry about our casting resource at all.

Meh, maybe I'm just being old and nostalgic, but I can't help but think for every good thing blizz does, they do one bad thing by taking something away that was really meaningful and engaging.

[Swizzle]

- Wrath - Blast is quite superior to all other spells, there is no Mastery, Blast increases damage of Missiles

Not really. This is true for the first two tiers, but after T9, AM surpassed AB in terms of raw DPS output.

[Deleted]

Now, we have Evocation back so why don't we get the burn phase back? Because from the current state of the changes (there are no numbers yet of course), it will not be efficient to do a Blast burn phase because it's not our strongest spell. We could quite possibly be looking at something that might be the best of both worlds (kind of) - a burn phase that favors Missiles over Blast, meaning that we can still burn our mana while using all Missiles and just continuing a Blast + Missiles when they proc rotation all the way to 10-15%-ish mana after which we use our new Arcane version of Evocation to clear Charges and go back to 100% mana, starting a conserve phase that will look like the one we have at the moment, helped with new Missile generators in the form of the reworked level 75 talents.

I really don't want the damage to shift back to Blast because the Missiles management system is fun, engaging and visually more stimulating than Blast.

I'm a bit confused with what you mean by missiles management because i don't see it necesarilly compete with the burn identity. Do you mean the management of always keeping high mana and not doing a burn phase?

For me I liked that the burn phase was impactfull in bringing a high burst identity to the class not just by cooldown. In MoP that identity was lost to me even when i went all out. Isn't their a way that it can coincide?