[Mage-WoD] Mage Beta Discussion

[gallamann]

I'd like to see Blizzard clean up Blink and Orb pathing. Both can be annoying as hell. Blink, currently in raids is something you learn not to use in certain areas and instead mash blazing speed. Orb, sometimes this just hangs up, never reaching the target... oh joy popped my 1 minute cool and its not going to do shinola for my damage.

[Akraen]

And that's how productive feedback goes, I think it's reasonable enough to get a mention to Celestalon.

[Elegiac]

Just to go back a few points here; people actually have a problem using a targeting reticule? When has this ever been an issue? If you could survive Anub'arak, you can survive anything. Does anyone here remember having to cast two different ranks of Flamestrike to get two DoTs ticking since same ranks didn't stack?

It's the primary reason why Freeze is no longer an integral part of the Frost rotation. Also why Black Arrow and Explosive Trap share a cooldown.

Blizzard's design philosophy has been that using targeting reticles rotationally should not be a thing.

- - - Updated - - -

If all the talents are equal though, doesn't that make them boring? I kind of like the bomb tier design mindset, maybe if it was just a bit more fluid it would be better.

Not at all. A good example of how talents -should- be is the Priest level 90 talents; Halo, Cascade, and Divine Star have situational strengths but from a healing standpoint provide a fairly even amount of healing - enough so that people can take it based on their preference and skill level without gimping themselves.

[Deleted]

[...]
Incoming scratchpad of an ability:

Prismatic Crystal
40 yard range

Places a crystal nearby your current target that lasts ~20 seconds. All damage dealt to the target and all targets within 10 yards of the target will instead be redirected to the crystal. After 10 seconds, the crystal will no longer redirect attacks and instead attack the original target and all targets within 10 yards of the target for 13% of the total damage redirected to the crystal, split evenly among all targets every second for 10 seconds.

[...]

That takes the whole thing to far in my opinion. Then we could also start calling it familiar and have it fire a 30% copy of every spell cast during its duration. Also it would not be that different from T100 right (Arcane Orb, Meteor and Comet). The placing of the crystal should matter. If split second target switching should have an effect on the output is debatable.
Also it is still unknown how the crystal works on the end of its duration. Does it simply despawn and any spells in flight are wasted? Do we get a grace period in which the crystal still works for spells in flight but cannot be target for additional spells?

---------- edit (added later to avoid a double post):

It's the primary reason why Freeze is no longer an integral part of the Frost rotation. Also why Black Arrow and Explosive Trap share a cooldown.

Blizzard's design philosophy has been that using targeting reticles rotationally should not be a thing.

Though we have had RoP for the whole of MoP. I would see Frequency as the deciding factor and the fact that you can choose two other talents instead. You can choose not to use targeting recticules.
Also Freeze is not a good example since you would not use it on cooldown in most encounters and Freeze had additional problems with being an aimed ability from a pet. You could not simply pull Freeze out of your spellbook and bind it to a key, that was something that always bothered me. As stated multiple times by Blizzard, the need to use macros should be reduced.

Not at all. A good example of how talents -should- be is the Priest level 90 talents; Halo, Cascade, and Divine Star have situational strengths but from a healing standpoint provide a fairly even amount of healing - enough so that people can take it based on their preference and skill level without gimping themselves.

I always lived under the impression that in different situations one of these talents had a higher throughput than the other two. And for dps you would always default to the talent that provides the most dps in the given encounter. The bomb tier actually did that, which in itself did not seem to be bad at least for me. My impression was, that the reason for scrapping the bomb tier was more based on the fact, that Blizzard wanted to make DoTs a choice for mages and not part of the basic rotation. .

[Elegiac]

Though we have had RoP for the whole of MoP. I would see Frequency as the deciding factor and the fact that you can choose two other talents instead. You can choose not to use targeting recticules.
Also Freeze is not a good example since you would not use it on cooldown in most encounters and Freeze had additional problems with being an aimed ability from a pet. You could not simply pull Freeze out of your spellbook and bind it to a key, that was something that always bothered me. As stated multiple times by Blizzard, the need to use macros should be reduced.

We had Rune of Power for the whole of MoP - and look how well that turned out.

I always lived under the impression that in different situations one of these talents had a higher throughput than the other two. And for dps you would always default to the talent that provides the most dps in the given encounter. The bomb tier actually did that, which in itself did not seem to be bad at least for me. My impression was, that the reason for scrapping the bomb tier was more based on the fact, that Blizzard wanted to make DoTs a choice for mages and not part of the basic rotation. .

They do have situational strengths, as I said, but their are sufficiently on par with each other that the vast, vast majority of players can select what they like. The Bomb tier in its original incarnation also accomplished this; but as said, it forced Mages into a DoT playstyle.

The new level 75 tier has in fact accomplished this goal in that it presents an array of talents without an obvious 'best' but still retaining situational strengths. My only criticism of that tier is the Supernova/Blast Wave/Ice Nova talent in that it strips Arcane and Fire of a fairly critical CC tool while also being a dual AoE/CC talent - I would like it a lot better if that talent was shifted to the level 45 tier and replaced with something else.

[Terahertz]

It's going to be interesting to see how Frost Bomb and FFB will work out for Frost PvP. Currently FFB (I believe) has a .5 sec longer cast than Frostbolt does, which means IF we do get FFB procs, in PvP we'll NEVER be able to cast FFB simply because of the cast timer and the potential damage it will be doing.

[Elegiac]

It's going to be interesting to see how Frost Bomb and FFB will work out for Frost PvP. Currently FFB (I believe) has a .5 sec longer cast than Frostbolt does, which means IF we do get FFB procs, in PvP we'll NEVER be able to cast FFB simply because of the cast timer and the potential damage it will be doing.

No more than Destruction warlocks are never able to cast Chaos Bolt. It simply has a higher skill threshold to use correctly.

Frost Bomb will likely remain the same functionally - as in, it will be applied during Deep Freeze or when there are several charges of Fingers of Frost.

[Polarthief]

So yeah, we want another "Press button, get dps" talent? Good to know.

Funny how Arcane got a half-negative ability, Frost's has been awkward for the longest time, and we all know how amazing Fire's has been. Have we once gotten an ability that is "Press button, get DPS w/o penalty" EVER? (With the exception of MI in Tier 10 armor) Would it really be that bad?

Also, like I said, that was just a scratchpad. You can tweak it how you want (removing the range for example), but honestly, making an "attackable crystal" just causes WAY too many issues. Double-padding on meters, target-swapping problems, firing up a cast-time spell as its about to disappear; there's NO point to these stupid problems for the sake of a gimmick, which is what it is: another stupid gimmick to throw at us; like we haven't had enough of those already.

[Deleted]

Things should be drawn or redirected to the Crystal automatically like grounding totem, imo.

Prismatic Crystal
40 yard range

Places a crystal nearby your current target that lasts ~20 seconds. All damage dealt to the target and all targets within 10 yards of the target will instead be redirected to the crystal. After 10 seconds, the crystal will no longer redirect attacks and instead attack the original target and all targets within 10 yards of the target for 13% of the total damage redirected to the crystal, split evenly among all targets every second for 10 seconds.

Sorry if that was a bit hard to understand; I wanted to try and make it like an actual Blizzard tooltip. More info below:

- Crystal is no longer attackable and instead redirects all damage you deal to your primary target, and all targets within 10 yards of your primary target.
- Crystal deals 130% of total damage it absorbed from all targets over 10s (13%/s) to primary target. If other targets are within 10 yards of primary target for a tick, all targets take 13%/(N+1) damage per tick (where N is the total number of additional enemies in the 10 yard range of the Primary target).
- No need to place the crystal with a targeting reticule (Since this is an issue for some; the removal of Freeze points to that), no need to worry about target swapping (since everything is redirected), and no more worrying about bosses moving, idiot tanks being idiots, or any other issue. The crystal will attack the target you cast it "on" regardless of range between the boss and the crystal.

NOW the only problem becomes wtf to do with the other "wonderful" choices on the L100 tier.

It does solve all the annoying bits, like the casting a spell and midway the crystal disapears or the position constrained. But it as greentump probably meant with his snide comment turn into another damage increaser cooldown and nothing else.

I'm trying to figure out how I feel about it and how it would look in thematic sense. The way I imagine it, the spells you launch at a target gets redirected to the focusing crystal and then focusing crystal launches a barrage of misiles at the area of the target. Possibly the crystal follows the target. This is different visual than blizzard currently intents. The way i'm describing it now it actually functions as the Focusing Iris that amplifies your spell(lore).

The problem I see with it is that you put out a delay, having the spel be 20 seconds is really long, in PVP arena it might be bursty. But it could also be as followed: Mage uses crystal > opponents focus on mage for 10 seconds. That would actually be good!!
How do you feel about it having no real delay?
Would it still be a fun ability or will it be just a more visual Arcane Power?
What if the crystal still does it's damage on its placed location but bases it on the damage you deal of the initial target creature?
If the targeted creatue dies what should happen? Nothing the crystal disappears it was useless or will it randomly select a new nearby target (the focusing shows what it’s targeting)

While staying more true to its current design you could just make it last 14 seconds and become untargetable after 10 seconds so any spell your still casting or finished will still hit the crystal with its bonus damage. That does mean you still have the positional problem and then it becomes a question of do you want that problem to stay or not? Take the version appropriate to this answer.

Going further you can have the original crystal slowly follow a random target after it has been placed.

[Alroxas]

I was wondering if anyone know what's going to happen with the glyph of combustion since it's pretty much a mandatory glyph for every single encounter in MoP, and is a vital part of our damage, even more so on cleave fights. It really worries me that we are getting perks reducing the CD and extending the duration of combust though, since that pretty much translates to a spell that hits like a wet noodle (even worse than it is on live), and if that makes it to live theres no real difference between a good/decent fire mage and someone thats just spamming random stuff since the amount of combustions you get per fight will compensate for alot of shitty combusts. It'll also remove the fun part of being a fire mage which to me is stacking up my ignite really high with trinkets procs and smashing the target with crazy amount of fire damage :'(.

Oh and the level 90 talents? Meteor is the only one I approve of, the others seem shitty. (FIX IT BLIZZ)!

Depends on how it works out with Readiness. I would assume that if you had gear that had a good amount of readiness then unglyph combustion could be better as you can have it up more often. Granted this could throw a huge wrench into theorycrafting/sims as the variables to determine best play style gets thrown up in the air. And since there is no reforging, it would seem that either you would have to customize rotations/spell priorities to the gear people have.

The "fun" part you mentioned is actually the problem that Blizzard is trying to solve. It becomes unrewarding for "lesser skilled" or makes addons required for "proper" game play. Honestly, it's the same reason why changes are being made to remove "snapshotting" of DoTs.

[Deleted]

"We" wanted a raid cooldown. Now we got it and a rather decent one too. So yeah, guess it's impossible to please us.. No wonder Blizzard doesn't listen us most of the time.

It's ok, could be better since dmg reduction isn't tied to how skillfull your healers are... amp magic is still gonna be crap to have if your healers are crap

Not to mention they'll want it to be done at their convenience cause of their cooldowns...

[Erolian]

It's ok, could be better since dmg reduction isn't tied to how skillfull your healers are... amp magic is still gonna be crap to have if your healers are crap

Not to mention they'll want it to be done at their convenience cause of their cooldowns...

I'm not going to complain at all. I wanted something like this the entire expansion because my mage felt like a 1950s show car that was actually infinitely worse than my new model warlock. I play a warlock now. I REALLY hope all of the complaints about it come from people who said nothing previously because if that isn't the case I weep for the mage community

[Elegiac]

New tweet from Celestalon; Evanesce will not clear debuffs.

[Frost1129]

New tweet from Celestalon; Evanesce will not clear debuffs.

I wonder if it will prevent their application? Will it differentiate between stuff like Iron Prison and the immerseus debuff in terms of protection (if it protects at all).

[KurenaiXIII]

RE: Targeting reticles, Freeze and RoP

I think the major difference in those cases, at least for me, is that when I'm playing I almost always have my mouse cursor on or near the target/in the 'field of play' (for targetting other mobs, etc.), so placing a reticle at or near a mob is a trivial thing. For RoP, I have to get my cursor under me with some measure of precision, then back to the target--which doesn't sound like a lot, but when there's a lot of mobs/a lot of visual clutter, it can be annoying.

[Frost1129]

On how Evanesce works:


Celestalon ‏@Celestalon

@Frost1129 Depends on the ability. Some abilities pierce avoidance (which is what Evanesce provides). Identical effect to Deterrence.

So you basically are choosing between the long CD ice block, or the short CD deterrence.

[Deleted]

[...]Also, like I said, that was just a scratchpad. You can tweak it how you want (removing the range for example), but honestly, making an "attackable crystal" just causes WAY too many issues. Double-padding on meters, target-swapping problems, firing up a cast-time spell as its about to disappear; there's NO point to these stupid problems for the sake of a gimmick, which is what it is: another stupid gimmick to throw at us; like we haven't had enough of those already.

We should as a community should voice our concerns about the Prismatic Crystal (I share them btw) but I think it is too early in the development cycle to abolish the idea of the crystal. Maybe they come up with elegante solutions to the mentioned problems. Giving charges to the crystal may be a thing.
Another idea is to have crystal spawn on top of you absorbing all targeted damage spells for its duration and then firing them at your current target at the end of its duration similiar to icicles. With an option of course to abort this ahead of time similar to Alter Time. Though that has issues on its own, but I find the idea of storing a part of our damage for later use interesting. I do see that this may cause issues in PvP.

Depends on how it works out with Readiness. I would assume that if you had gear that had a good amount of readiness then unglyph combustion could be better as you can have it up more often. Granted this could throw a huge wrench into theorycrafting/sims as the variables to determine best play style gets thrown up in the air. And since there is no reforging, it would seem that either you would have to customize rotations/spell priorities to the gear people have.

The "fun" part you mentioned is actually the problem that Blizzard is trying to solve. It becomes unrewarding for "lesser skilled" or makes addons required for "proper" game play. Honestly, it's the same reason why changes are being made to remove "snapshotting" of DoTs.

Readiness takes a percentage of the CD and not an absolute value. If I unglyphed cd is 45s and glyphed cd is 90s, then reducing both cds by 33% nets 30s unglyphed and 60s glyphed which still holds the same ratio. For Combustion I would be more concerned with Kindling in T100.

Readiness is not an issues for the simulations at least, as the huge majority of the uses priority lists. You do not have to change anything. Its just that one item in the list gets used more often.

It's ok, could be better since dmg reduction isn't tied to how skillfull your healers are... amp magic is still gonna be crap to have if your healers are crap

Not to mention they'll want it to be done at their convenience cause of their cooldowns...

Amp Magic is meant as a raid cd and raiding is a team game. Other defensive cooldowns need to be timed with raid too. If we got an offensive cooldown, we would pop it, when most of the raid pops their cds. Wether we like it or not.

RE: Targeting reticles, Freeze and RoP

I think the major difference in those cases, at least for me, is that when I'm playing I almost always have my mouse cursor on or near the target/in the 'field of play' (for targetting other mobs, etc.), so placing a reticle at or near a mob is a trivial thing. For RoP, I have to get my cursor under me with some measure of precision, then back to the target--which doesn't sound like a lot, but when there's a lot of mobs/a lot of visual clutter, it can be annoying.

They promised less visual clutter and less movement in encounters, that may help too. I still do not completely understand the hassle with targeting recticles. Blizzard and Flamestrike have them too and nobody is complaining about them.
Maybe Blizzard should implement minor glyphs that cause RoP and the Crystal to spawn on top of you/your target without the targeting reticle.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Polymorph (New) Transforms the enemy into a peacock

Clearly, this is the most glorious of days for Crittermorph.

[Grogfoot]

From the MMO data mining:

Brain Freeze:
Your Frostbolts have a 10% chance to cause the Brain Freeze effect. Each multistrike increases that cast's chance by an additional 45%. The Brain Freeze effect causes your next Frostfire Bolt to cost no mana deal 25% additional damage, and act as if your target were frozen for 15 sec. Mage - Frost Spec.

"...and act as if your target were frozen for 15 sec."

That can't mean what it would mean right now. Fifteen seconds of ice lance spam?

[Kuni Zyrekai]

From the MMO data mining:

"...and act as if your target were frozen for 15 sec."

That can't mean what it would mean right now. Fifteen seconds of ice lance spam?

No, just that it lasts 15s and considers target frozen when consumed. Same as live.