Swizzle's Crazy Mage Discussiorama!!

[Imnick]

But Temporal Shield is great, one of our better talents in purpose and design.
Alter Time likewise and unless greatly reworked (no) you'd have to pick it anyway, it is a great cooldown.
Spellsteal and Remove Curse can't be the same spell because one dispels curse debuffs on allies and one removes magic buffs from enemies, what are you smoking?

REMOVE SLOW FALL? NO

[zomgDPS]

While I know it isn't nice to just say what doesn't work rather than what does, there are a few ideas whose basic premise I disagree with strongly enough to voice concern about. These are a few:

Water Elemental / Pets talent tier

And yet again I am about to make another prophetic statement. I think "pets" will be a deeply discussed topic in the near future once again. More specifically, whether or not mages should have a 'pet spec' or be considered a 'pet class'. While it was discussed long ago in the past, I think this topic deserves to be re-evaluated.
Naturally, the conclusion of that debate will impact the Frost spec considerably, but it will also lay down the foundation of how pets/minions as a concept bleed over into the other specs.

Personally, I disagree with this particular idea from Luccas. Mainly because I have a recurring subscription to the school of thought that identifies mages as a non-pet class, i.e. I do not think mages (of any spec) should have a permanent pet at all, including Frost.


If we consider back to the original water elemental, back in Wc3, it was a powerful timed summon (when fully upgraded). I would like this aspect of the Welly to be preserved.
Mages aren't meant to be running around with pets on display all the time, that is a warlock-y thing. Mages are meant to apply the more 'subtle' use of magic. I prefer the welly (or any other pet/summon) to be temporary at best. Heck, I would even prefer if they made the welly like it originally was in wc3, where you could summon multiple wellies (up to 3 at max water elemental cd usage) but they were timed, hence would dissapate after a while.

I would prefer the welly to be changed to that, and remove the concept of permanent pets from the mage class altogether. You want a pet based caster? Play a lock. Leave the mages be in their pet free ways.


With all that said, I do think the mage CDs that do spawn summons, e.g. MIs or Welly, should have some cool secondary mechanic attached to them, for example, I absolutely love the new version of the druid treants on the 5.3 PTR. For those who may have missed the change, they now have charges (up to 3), and can be used 1 at a time and immediately cast roots as soon as they are spawned (hence essentially becoming a form of controlled CC as well). This is a much better, controlled, version of the treant spell, which increases the utility of the spell and its 'fun' factor considerably due to this 'secondary' effect.

I would want MIs and the welly to get a similar treatment, not that it does the same thing, but that they "do something other" than just their basic version right now, e.g. maybe MIs can give Arcane mages a special secondary spell that allows you to swap locations with one of your Images? Who knows? Just something to make them 'more' than they are.

Freezing talent tier

Mages already have this i.e. a Freezing talent tier with the RoF, Ice Ward, and Frost jaw tier, and, if I can be honest, the current choices seem better than yours. That being said, I do think Ice Ward could use a buff. The idea of letting it 'detonate' when recasted is a good one.


I disagree with many of your other points Luccas, mainly because I do not think they are well thought out changes and/or they don't seem to address any specific issue and instead are just 'change for change's sake'.

From your list, here are a few of the ideas that I strongly disagree with in particular:

Give each spec its single respective AoE and bomb and remove them from talents.

Remove armors (and turn them into spec passives)

The bombs, while I hate how they have become the cornerstone of damage, work well in the context of the talents and choices, i.e. making them 'baseline' per spell school will just diminish variability and gameplay, as well as pigeonhole the specs unnecessarily. So no, do not want.
Armors also work well, especially in PvP, though they could use some more work, removing them (or just giving each spec its own armor) is also going to diminish playstyle opportunities as well as choices and versatility. So no again.

In general, I do not agree with an idea that states: "fire mages should only use fire spells, frost mages should only use frost spells, arcane mages should... etc", hence I would strongly oppose any form of "spec identity = spell school usage" agenda. One of the strengths of the mage class is its multi-school availability. That aspect must be preserved.

Remove Slow Fall (along with all similar abilities from all classes and bake them into potions)

No. "Cold dead hands" no.
Slow fall is one of the last vestiges of mage "fun" left in the class. Removing it will just hammer one more unnecessary nail in the mage coffin.

On the flipside, I think more 'fun' mages spells need to be added. A classic sign of a wizard/mage in RPG lore is the use of cantrips and other such small non-combat utility spells which the mage should always have access to. I would prefer to see an entire array of non-combat utility spells for mages, ones that can be used about town and/or have some small fun use. Things like the illusion glyph (sans cd ofc), but a whole array of such spells specific to the mage.

Mages are meant to be all about their spells, yet the mage class has the least amount when compared to other classes.

[pyrostorm9001]

If we consider back to the original water elemental, back in Wc3, it was a powerful timed summon (when fully upgraded). I would like this aspect of the Welly to be preserved.

I would much prefer a variety of summonable familiars on a variety of CD's than the current lvl90 talents
The cata mage model regarding our rotation and how interacted with our spells and mana was far better than MoP.
I liked the burn/conserve phase for arcane, just didnt like AB being 90% or so of my damage, shift the damage around a little bit more.
Fire had the only Bomb and would prefer that for the sake of spec identity, I understand that this would mean a do over for the bomb tier but seeing how it turned out im ok with this.
Bring back deepfreeze to PvE making it a boss damage only spell (and only for frost) I just cant understand why this was changed for MoP.

[Alexand3r]

I hope this doesn't become a wall of text, but anyway, here we go....

Ideas taken from http://mop-talent-grid-maker.appspot...&gridId=419001

Notes


Number of CC effects and healing effects has been reduced (this should be done to every class in the game).

General

- Deep Freeze is now a talent in the grid. (change necessary if the amount of CC effects is to be reduced) and has a 45 sec. cooldown.

- Blazing Speed has been removed. It has been replaced by Mark of Fire.

- Frost Ward has been removed and is now a glyph that replaces Frost Nova.

- Frostjaw has been removed and is now a glyph that replaces Counterspell.

- Frost Ward and Frostjaw have been replaced by Rune of Displacement and Blast Wave.

- Ring of Frost has been removed and is now a glyph that replaces Frost Nova.

- Added Improved Evocation

- Greater Invisibility is now Arcane-only and has been changed.

- The Bomb spells have been combined into one talent, which gives each specialisation their respective Bomb. New glyphs have been added for those who wish to use a different Bomb.

- The level 90 talents have been changed and/or removed.

- Incanter's Ward is now an Arcane-only ability

Arcane

Arcane

- New Ability -- Incanter's Ward:

25 second cooldown, instant.

Absorbs damage over the next 25 seconds, converting the damage into mana up to 18% of your maximum mana.

When the shield is destroyed, you gain up to an additional 30% spell power for 15 seconds, depending on how much damage was absorbed. (what could be a fun addition: all enemies within 6 yards are knocked back 12 yards)

- New Ability -- Greater Invisibility

2.5 minute cooldown.

Instantly makes you invisible. While invisible, you are untargettable by enemies.

Chance to be hit is reduced by 90% for 3 seconds after coming out of invisibility. In addition, damage over time effects won't cancel the effect.

Lasts 20 seconds, but the effect is cancelled if you perform any actions.

Replaces Invisibility.

-------------------------------------------

Tier 1

Presence of Mind and Ice Floes remain the same, but Blazing Speed has been removed and replaced by Mark of Fire (I'm not really sure this would work).

Mark of Fire: Instant. 20 sec. cooldown.

You place a Mark of Fire on the enemy target.

When the enemy target is out of your range, the range and damage of your next direct damage spell are increased by 75%.

Lasts 20 seconds.

Tier 2

(Mostly) Remains the same, the only difference is that Flameglow in addition to its current effects reduces the damage of attacks made against you that critically hit by 35%. Maybe Flameglow could be replaced by another talent (something that improves our armours?).

Tier 3

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 one could be fun to use.

------

Blast Wave: Instant. 20 sec. cooldown.

A wave of flame radiates outward from the caster, knocking all enemies within the blast back.

------

and then there's Deep Freeze which now has a 45 sec. cooldown.

Tier 4

Cold Snap and Cauterise remain the same, but Greater Invisibility has been replaced by Improved Evocation.

Improved Evocation: Your Evocation ability also causes you to regain 60% of your health over its duration.

In addition, damage taken is reduced by 40% while using Evocation and for 4 seconds after.

Tier 5

The Bomb spells have been combined into one talent located in the last tier. Their spot in tier 5 have been taken by Spell Volley (I've always wanted something like this), Fire Torrent (this would look amazing) and Ice Comet (I'm not really sure about this one, maybe it could trigger Blizzard when cast?).

Spell Volley: 6% of base mana.

Instant. 8 sec. cooldown.

Your next Arcane Blast, Fireball, Frostfire Bolt or Frostbolt will hit all targets within 15 yards of the target and deal 50% of its normal damage.

------

Fire Torrent: 2.0% of base mana.

Channelled. 20 sec. cooldown.

You burn all targets in front of you within 40 yards, dealing fire damage every second. Lasts 6 seconds.

In addition, enemies affected by Fire Torrent will be dazed and will have their attack speed reduced by 45% for 6 seconds.

------

Ice Comet (As I said, I'm not really sure about this talent): 3.0% of base mana. 40 yd range.

1.5 cast time. 15 sec. cooldown.

Summons an Ice Comet to strike the target and all enemies within 10 yards, dealing frost damage.

------

and finally, Tier 6

The previous talent here have been removed and replaced by Circle of Blades (Fable anyone?), Archmage (This might need to be reworked, especially the fire part which is a bit of a mess) and the Bomb talent.

Circles of Blades: 2.5% of base mana. 40 yd range.

1.5 cast time. 30 sec cooldown.

You summon several blades that float around you. Every 3 seconds, a blade will strike your target dealing physical damage plus additional damage as arcane,fire or frost. Lasts 12 seconds.

If the target is at or below 25% of maximum health, this spell deals 50% additional damage.

If cast a second time, it will instantly strike the target with all the remaining blades, knocking it back.


------

Archmage:

All

- Brilliance Aura: Your Arcane Brilliance becomes Brilliance Aura.

Arcane

- Improved Arcane Missiles: You can store one additional charge.

- Spellsteal: If the player casts Spell Steal while the enemy is casting a spell or within 4 seconds after a spell has been cast, he/she will be able to unleash an exact duplicate of that spell. Cannot happen more than once every 2 min.

- Illusion Mastery: Your Mirror Image spell generates 5 additional copies of yourself, but their overall damage remains the same. In addition, your mirror images mimic all of your actions.

Fire (This one is a bit of a mess)

- Fiery Madness: When you cast Flamestrike, you gain the Fiery Madness effect. For the next 20 seconds, your Scorch, Fireball, Frostfire Bolt and Pyroblast will automatically trigger an instant, free Flamestrike at the target's location. While this effect is active, your movement speed is increased by 15%. This effect has a 1 min. cooldown.

- Improved Dragon's Breath: Your Dragon's Breath deals 150% additional damage and reduces the damage caused by all enemies caught in the blast by 20% for 10 seconds.

- Improved Inferno Blast: Your Inferno Blast deals 50% additional damage.

Frost

- Water Elemental Mastery: You now can have two Water Elementals active at the same time, but their Freeze ability share the same cooldown.

- Improved Frost Nova: Enemies hit by Frost Nova have their healing reduced by 10% for 10 seconds. In addition, the radius of your Frost Nova is increased by 200%

- Frost Wave: Your Cone of Cold becomes Frost Wave, which affects all targets in front of you within 30 yards.



That's all as long as the tiers are concerned.

Other:

- I wish there Mages felt more "elementalish".
- Arcane Charges could interact more with our abilities [maybe a talent that consumes an Arcane Charge to improve one of our spells ( for example, consuming a charge causing your next Blink to increase your movement speed by 70% for 3 seconds.)]
- Fire should make you feel more like a Pyromaniac.
- More fun glyphs and spells.
- Better spell graphics.
- Mirror Images more useful in PvP ( I attempted to do this with the Archmage talent).
- Better Armour spells (maybe some spells such as Blink could interact with them?)
- Variety.

I really liked what TacTican suggested, especially the integration of the Glyph system in the talent system.

Here are some glyph ideas:

----------------

Glyphs

---

Major


- Glyph of Ice Lance: Your Ice Lance is no longer on the GCD, but it no longer strikes your target instantly. Instead, whenever the player casts this spell, an Ice Lance will float for 3 seconds, which will then strike its target.

- Glyph of Dampen Magic: Spells reflected back at you are 50% less effective.

- Glyph of Overwhelming Explosions: Your Arcane Explosion reduces the movement speed of all affected targets by 10%. Stacks up to 4 times.

- Glyph of Arcane Barrage: When you have 4 Arcane Charges, your Arcane Barrage knocks its targets down for 1.5 sec.

- Glyph of Heavy Polymorph: When a target you've polymorphed is damaged, that target is stunned for 3 sec. This effect cannot occur more often than once every 10 sec.

- Glyph of Double Polymorph: You may polymorph an additional target for half the normal duration.

- Glyph of Sickly Polymorph: Your polymorphed targets regenerate life at 10% of the normal speed.

- Glyph of Mental Quickness: Your Blink spell now has two charges, but its second charge won't free you from stuns and bonds and will only teleport you 10 yards forward.

- Glyph of Elusive Tactics: You are now able to switch positions with any of your Mirror Images, as long as they are within 10 yards of you. Cannot happen more than once every 4 seconds.

- Glyph of Greater Blink: After a successful Blink, attacks made against you have a 60% chance to miss for 4 seconds.

- Glyph of Improved Blink: After a successful Blink, your movement speed is increased by 70% for 3 seconds.

- Glyph of the Unseen: After a successful Blink, you become invisible for 2 seconds.

- Glyph of Silent Casting: Your Invisibily breaks 3 seconds after dealing hostile actions, rather than doing so immediately.

- Glyph of the Art of Deception: An attack that would otherwise be fatal will instead cause you to teleport 25 yards in the direction you are moving, leaving a Mirror Image in your previous location. Cannot happen more than once every 30 seconds.

- Glyph of Permanent Invisibility: Your Invisibility spell now lasts until cancelled and has a 30 sec. cooldown, but using it in combat will cause it to last for only 10 seconds. This effect has a 1.5 min. cooldown.

- Glyph of Illusion Mastery: Your Mirror Image spell generates 5 additional copies of yourself, but their overall damage remains the same. In addition, your mirror images mimic all of your actions.

- Glyph of Burning Determination: When interrupted or silenced you become immune to both mechanics for 20 seconds. This effect has a 45 sec. cooldown.

- Glyph of the Pyromaniac: When you use Flamestrike, your movement speed is increased by 30 % for 5 seconds.

- Glyph of Frostbite: Enemies hit by Frost Nova have their damage reduced by 45% and their healing reduced by 10% for 5 seconds.

- Glyph of Blizzard: Your Blizzard spell no longer needs to be channelled.


Minor


- Glyph of Magic Dust: Teaches you the ability Magic Dust. Your land mounts can now fly. Lasts 60 minutes.

- Glyph of Arcane Charges: When you have an Arcane Charge, you generate random arcs of arcane energy. This effect intesifies as the number of Arcane Charges increases.

- Glyph of Arcane Lance: Alters the appearance and the damage type of your Ice Lance.

- Glyph of Arcane Blast: Your Arcane Blast causes cracks in the ground.

- Glyph of Arcane Chains: Teaches you the ability Arcane Chains. Envelops a wounded NPC in magical chains, forcing it to follow you.

- Glyph of Arcane Bubble: Teaches you the ability Arcane Bubble. Surrounds the caster with an Arcane Bubble.

- Glyph of Arcanefire Bolt: Alters the appearance and the damage type of your Frostfire Bolt.

- Glyph of Brilliance Aura: Your Arcane Brilliance spell causes you to emanate an aura.

- Glyph of Weapon Channeling: Your spells are now cast through your weapon.

- Glyph of the Trickster: After a successful Blink, a copy of you will be generated at a random location.

- Glyph of Blue Fire: Your Fire spells are now blue.

- Glyph of Firefrost: The colours of your Frostfire Bolt are inverted.

- Glyph of Forceful Blink: After you blink, all enemies within 8 yards are knocked back 6 yards.

- Glyph of Deception: When you cast Blink, you leave a mirror image in your previous position that deals no damage and lasts for 8 seconds.

- Glyph of Mass Slow Fall: Teaches you the ability Mass Slow Fall.

- Glyph of Water Walking: Your Frost Armor allows you to walk across water.

- Glyph of Frostfire: Your fire and frost spells now deal Frostfire damage.


Edit: Added more glyph ideas. You can also find them here (It's my blog): http://thetophatdragon.blogspot.it/

[Deleted]

There's a bunch of good idea, and some less good ones.
You're Tier 5 feel good. And merged/specced mage's bomb is simple and good.

I love a lot of your minor glyph idea (flying dust on mount, mass slow fall).

You're true with the need for mage to feel more Elemental.

[SodiumChloride]

Movement abilities should be spec specific.

Fire : Scorch

Frost : Water Elemental? Might have to work on its fragility though.

Arcane : ... Maybe let them cast while moving but at greatly reduced DPS, when they stop moving they will auto drop a "Rune of Power" which brings them back up to normal DPS as long as they stand in it.

Tier 15 and tier 90 talents are to be trashed - tier 15 is weird, the talents aren't really "equal", tier 90 no one likes anyway and should be redesigned/repurposed anyway.

Old favorites like PoM (and maybe Blazing Speed) should just be made baseline.

[Swizzle]

My personal wish is that people would LEAVE DEEP FREEZE THE EFF ALONE. Seriously, stop it. The best thing that could have happened in terms of spec balance in PvP is DF being baseline for all Mages. It is a crucial class ability in the PvP metagame, and by having it baseline the specs are all balanced around already having it. Take that away and a spec either becomes god like with it, or trash without it. Leave it be, it actually is perfectly fine in its current form. DO. NOT. TOUCH. DEEP. FREEZE.

Other than that, Blazing Speed is in a good place, I don't understand why you would take that away with an ability that makes no sense in PvE (when are you ever THAT far from a boss in PvE?), and is either too good in PvP or absolute tripe.

Making bombs spec specific is also a terrible idea from a PvP perspective. If you force Frost into Frost Bomb...well their damage output just went to 0 when faced with a competent dispeller...unless they take a glyph, and Blizzard doesn't want to force people into glyphs (how will the glyph know what bomb you want anyway?) Lastly, glyphs aren't meant to be that powerful in PvE, and you are now balancing all the specs around a glyph: no bueno.

Now for a super succinct run down:

Displacement: they already hate how Ursol's Vortex is working out, why add a more broken version of that into the game?
Blast Wave: No one would ever take this...ever
Deep Freeze: WEEEE!!!! Mandatory talent!! Even at 45 seconds, which punishes any Mage that does PvP for no real reason, it's still the best thing in this tier.
Imp. Evo: No use when compared to other defensive talents. Standing still and channeling isn't defense, it's called getting yourself killed.
Spell Volley: Probably the only good idea in here, except it's better served as a learned ability instead of a talent.
Fire Torrent: Umm, let's see: AoE, channeled, 6 second, long range DoT+snare+daze...why? Pop a Frost Nova on a team and you just won the game solo.
Ice Comet: Good intent, but would have to deal ludicrous damage to compete with the other two talents.
Circle of Blades: Makes no sense for a Mage. Masters of magic shouldn't have random passive physical damage.
Archmage: I have a 32 inch monitor, and the description of this talent cannot be seen at all on my screen. That's not a talent, that's a separate class. Too good for Arcane, garbage for the other specs.
Mage Bomb: No thank you, as explained above.

[Methusula]

-Lots of complaining snip-

Wow, wake up on the wrong side of the bed much?

I think the ideas he presents a little hit and miss, much as Nathyiel stated. A lot of the glyph ideas are nice (although HIGHLY Arcane centric). I think there is a huge area of opportunity with glyphs, both as cosmetic enhancements and for funzies. I would imagine Blizz will expand on this in the next expac.

[SodiumChloride]

Since we are talking "way out there" ideas.

I really wish they would make the water elemental non-targetable / non-killable. Having it died on you taking out half of your combat capability is just not fun. You have normal mode and you have gimp mode. Your capabilities are not "constant".

[Alexand3r]

-snip-

Well, thank you for the feedback (although you could've been more polite, eh?)

1. I think that Blazing Speed should be removed, but yes, Mark of Fire ( as I said in the post) should probably be changed into something else.
2. As I said at the beginning of my post: Number of CC effects and healing effects has been reduced (this should be done to every class in the game).With that in mind, I think that Deep Freeze in the talent tree shouldn't be unfair, but then again I might actually put something else there again instead , because as you said, and I agree with you, it may be the obvious choice in that tier.
3. I'm sure that Blizzard can make something like Rune of Displacement work properly.
4. If Deep Freeze is replaced by something else I'm sure that Blast Wave can become a good choice (it can be improved too.)
5. Imp. Evo, being a channelled spell, might be weaker compared to the other two, but maybe the healing can be increased and/or maybe the mage becomes immune to silencing and interrupting effects while it's active. If not, then well, I'll come up with something else.
6. Spell Volley should stay as a talent in the grid and not baseline in my opinion.
7. Fire Torrent could actually be worth casting if the damage is high.
8. Ice Comet --> same thing as Fire Torrent.
9. There are many games where Wizards summon physical objects to damage their foes, and well, Jaina uses a spell similar to this one in the game (although it deals only frost damage). Being masters of magic, I don't think that summoning a couple of blades should be a problem and it could make the class more unique.
10. I agree with you about the Archmage talent. It's a mess and I'll probably change it. The idea itself wasn't bad though. Maybe the part about the Mirror Image spell can become a glyph.

- Glyph of Illusion Mastery: Your Mirror Image spell generates 5 additional copies of yourself, but their overall damage remains the same. In addition, your mirror images mimic all of your actions.

11. Mage Bomb. I still hold my ground on this and about your question regarding how a glyph can change each bomb, well here you go:

- Glyph of Living Bomb: Your Nether Tempest or Frost Bomb is replaced by Living Bomb.
- Glyph of Frost Bomb: Your Living Bomb or Nether Tempest is replaced by Frost Bomb.
- Glyph of Nether Tempest: Your Living Bomb or Frost Bomb is replaced by Nether Tempest.

Thanks again for your feedback but please, try being less aggressive

@Methusula My mage is Arcane so... :P

[zomgDPS]

Just to reiterate..
I don't know if I am alone in this (probably not) but just to point out again.

I think it would be more helpful if we didn't jump directly into the "specific changes" just yet and instead spent some time discussing things from a slightly higher vantage point first.

For example, Alexand3r, while your list is long and your changes many, your post distinctly lacks explanation as to why you want to make the changes you do, as well as what specific issues you think your changes are addressing.
e.g.
There are many places you have just removed certain spells and or turned others into glyphs or vice versa, but you don't really explain why you want to do this.

I think right now, at least for me, it is more interesting to find out what people want changed rather than look at specific changes themselves. The real useful aspects of your posts are:

- I wish there Mages felt more "elementalish".
- Arcane Charges could interact more with our abilities [maybe a talent that consumes an Arcane Charge to improve one of our spells ( for example, consuming a charge causing your next Blink to increase your movement speed by 70% for 3 seconds.)]
- Fire should make you feel more like a Pyromaniac.
- More fun glyphs and spells.
- Better spell graphics.
- Mirror Images more useful in PvP ( I attempted to do this with the Archmage talent).
- Better Armour spells (maybe some spells such as Blink could interact with them?)
- Variety.

These kind of more 'general' directions are more useful at this stage, since it is things like this that will allow the community to focus their efforts and creative juices towards issues and ideas that are generally considered more important.

For example, I too think there should be more 'fun' glyphs and spells for the Mage in general. I also think spells should interact with each other a bit more (e.g. one of the things that irks me to this day is how Frostfire bolt doesn't really 'work' for Arcane in any real way. I would like to have it have some role in the Arcane spec).


But yea.. in general, lets start with 'top level direction' ideas first before jumping into saying things like "Spell X needs to do 48.1% more damage". We have a looooong way to go before we need to worry about details and math. Lets focus on design first.


In an effort to do this, let us for one min take a step back and have people answer this question:

What are the top 5 issues for the mage class as you see them?
(answer as tersely as you can. Try to condense a point to a line or two. The constraint of having to explain an issue within a sentence or two will force you to think clearly about it).

[Deleted]

I wish Arcane would feel more dynamic in its rotation. It doesn't feel like I'm harnessing the powers of the arcane if all I do is find a place to park and push out my damage. Procs and cooldowns barely matter when it comes to rotation.

Fire is balancing too much on gear. Not only the validity of the damage output is greatly depending on your gear (which I don't mind) but the fluidity of the playstyle itself is all about your crit levels. Too little and it's boring, too much and it seems like you're only using your big nuke anymore. Critical Mass was an idea to help balance this, but will never work because of the different gearlevels of the playerbase. The whole Hot Streak mechanic needs to be reworked.

Frost to me is in a good place. The only changes I could think of would be regarding the pet. In pve, the Water Elemental is nothing more than a passive dot, like the Undead Racial is. Either get wrid of it and make it a crowd control talent in the tier with Frostjaw and Ring of Frost, or give it some manageable attacks.
I don't like controlling pets so I would rather see the first option.

The top 5 issues as I see them:
1) The turret philosophy makes the class incredibly hard to balance and will always be a major problem as gear scales.
2) There is too little difference in playstyle between fire and frost specs.
3) Mana Adept - everything about it. It does the exact opposite of what it was intended to do. It limits the possibilities of where to go with the spec.
4) Mages lack a unique utility. Warlock portals, stampeding roar. These things give classes flavour.
5) Not so much a mage issue as it is a general issue: Flat damage increases make for a lame set bonus. Having 5% more damage to my whatyamacallit bolt does not make me feel like I'm wearing a magical outfit.

[Elegiac]

What are the top 5 issues for the mage class as you see them?
(answer as tersely as you can. Try to condense a point to a line or two. The constraint of having to explain an issue within a sentence or two will force you to think clearly about it).

1) Level 90 talents.
2) Arcane's core concept is flawed.
3) Fire's crit scaling is both a gate and too good after that gate.
4) Frost's stat scaling is garbage.
5) Mobility: we either need to be amazing when stationary or be given more mobility.

---------- Post added 2013-04-26 at 03:26 PM ----------

In general, I do not agree with an idea that states: "fire mages should only use fire spells, frost mages should only use frost spells, arcane mages should... etc", hence I would strongly oppose any form of "spec identity = spell school usage" agenda. One of the strengths of the mage class is its multi-school availability. That aspect must be preserved.

"Multi-school availability" was only relevant when resistances, immunities, and weaknesses were relevant in PvE gameplay - no longer the case. Core rotational spells should ideally be of the same school as the spec.

[Soulstrike]

I hope this doesn't become a wall of text, but anyway, here we go....

Ideas taken from http://mop-talent-grid-maker.appspot...&gridId=419001

Notes


Number of CC effects and healing effects has been reduced (this should be done to every class in the game).

General

- Deep Freeze is now a talent in the grid. (change necessary if the amount of CC effects is to be reduced) and has a 45 sec. cooldown.

- Blazing Speed has been removed. It has been replaced by Mark of Fire.

- Frost Ward has been removed and is now a glyph that replaces Frost Nova.

- Frostjaw has been removed and is now a glyph that replaces Counterspell.

- Frost Ward and Frostjaw have been replaced by Rune of Displacement and Blast Wave.

- Ring of Frost has been removed and is now a glyph that replaces Frost Nova.

- Added Improved Evocation

- Greater Invisibility is now Arcane-only and has been changed.

- The Bomb spells have been combined into one talent, which gives each specialisation their respective Bomb. New glyphs have been added for those who wish to use a different Bomb.

- The level 90 talents have been changed and/or removed.

- Incanter's Ward is now an Arcane-only ability

nice suggestions!! but uhhh i dont like most of the "changes" youve done to current tree

i really liked having deep freeze as a baseline spell for mages :/

whats wrong with blazing speed??? its really fun and good when they finally changed it

i love frost ward :P always take this for questing

agreed with frostjaw feeling a bit wonky......

i dont think i can survive without a root by geting replacing ROF

the tier 4 talent is sooo imbalanced cold snap and cauterize is off gcd/procs and dont waste your dps time while evocating does (does this mean we have to evocate every often as fire/frost mages??)

t5- does this mean we have different rotation when there are more than 2+adds?? thats cool!! but i think ill always take spell volley ( i mean whats the point of AE/blizzard/flamestrike if we have fire torrent???) oh and yea ice comet needs a bit working :P

t6- execute mage style heh but physical??? kek XD
archmage sounds cool but i prefer not go super sayian mode as a mage...(feels like shaman spell ascendance)

loving most of the glyphs youve done (how you ppl come up with these stuff :P)

and finally agreed with zomgdps we just need to change the problem we have not complete overhaul
arcane mastery

fire and frost rotation being almost the same blue for frost red for fire......

scaling of both frost and fire

ill have to disagree with mobility..... i mean we are top dps regardless this tier and last and the one before and the on before.....

wouldnt mind a utility for mages (shouldve gave mages teleport stuff wouldnt been enough)

zomgdps and swizzle when you guys gona post you stuff :P keen for some of your crazy stuff

[Swizzle]

zomgdps and swizzle when you guys gona post you stuff :P keen for some of your crazy stuff

I posted some stuff earlier, but I'm about to take a forum vacation for a while, so don't expect me to post anything for some time.

[Alexand3r]

What are the top 5 issues for the mage class as you see them?

In my opinion, the top 5 issues are:

1. the level 90 tier
2. the bomb tier ( while I like it, I feel that it should be combined into one talent)
3. Arcane needs something more, because in the current PvP situation it is really difficult to build up Arcane Charges(not impossible, just difficult)
4. I miss feeling like an elementalist (As you zomgDPS too said, I wish Frostfire Bolt was worth casting as Arcane.)
5. As I said before, more fun glyphs and abilities (I wish they didn't remove abilities such as Blast Wave) and some of our current abilities improved (Mirror Images)


Oh and @TacTican I've said it once already but I'll say it again. I really like your ideas! You should post them in the official forums! A system like that could make levelling and well, the whole game more fun!

Edit: I've changed my talent grid, give it a look if you want.

[Swizzle]

Okay, I don't feel like making a new thread for this, and an update to the OP won't be read by anyone (since people only read the newest posts all the time), so I'll just say it here and hope it doesn't hijack the thread. My game time expired last week and, after 500+ days played on my Mage alone, I don't think I'm going to re-sub. It's been a good six years, but at this point in my life, I think it's high time I give up WoW. I'll still mod and keep up on updates and everything game related, but I think Shang will be the go to person from now on regarding things in game. Anyway guys, thanks for a good...two (?) years now, but don't think that me not playing means I'll be any less of a stickler to the rules here.

Back to discussing the game!!

[Deleted]

Okay, I don't feel like making a new thread for this, and an update to the OP won't be read by anyone (since people only read the newest posts all the time), so I'll just say it here and hope it doesn't hijack the thread. My game time expired last week and, after 500+ days played on my Mage alone, I don't think I'm going to re-sub. It's been a good six years, but at this point in my life, I think it's high time I give up WoW. I'll still mod and keep up on updates and everything game related, but I think Shang will be the go to person from now on regarding things in game. Anyway guys, thanks for a good...two (?) years now, but don't think that me not playing means I'll be any less of a stickler to the rules here.

Back to discussing the game!!

good life to you.
IRL can be pretty harsh and can't be nerf !!!

[zomgDPS]

- swizzbot's sneaky goodbye snip!! -

Dafaaaq?

You cannot leave now swizz, not now, not when the mages need you most!!!


Have you considered coming back for the next beta at least? The mages could really use your help at that time


The greater mage community as a whole has already lost many great mages. MoP was a particularly harsh exodus, with many Titans quitting the game and moving on. Is it a coincidence that these departures are timed so well with a general decline in the quality of the class? I think so... but thats another matter.


Either way, more so than most, the mage class has always been one of the classes that was always somewhat closely tied to its community (remember the mage union guys?). Some of the oldest and best and even most recognized theorycrafters or community members out there in the greater WoW community, are (or were?) in fact, mages.
This is a fact that is unique to the mage class. No other class can claim so many good community members.
In that way, this class' community is written into the DNA of the class itself.

But now that community is fading somewhat. Older members are giving way, but no new blood is taking the reigns. Or maybe we are just already living in the endtimes...



With all that said, you have been on the MMOC forums for a LOOONG time swizzbots, from waaay before I started posting back in teh days i was still but a nyubbie lurker.
To that effect, this just won't do.
You cannot sneak your goodbye in as a random post in a random thread and expect to get away with it.


I expect a full new post (in a new thread of its own, thank you) by the morning. A proper goodbye. So that the many other mages here who would want to wish you goodbye, can do so properly.


I mean srsly.. with you gone, whose gonna ban me?

Shangabangs likes me too much! :P LOLOLOLO....

[Dorrinal]

1. Level 90 Talents
On paper they are awesome for arcane, because the way they interact with mastery can drastically change the play style, but for fire or frost they are minor annoyances. In practice: RoP is frustrating, Invocation is boring, Incanter's Ward hard to use and high risk.

2. Frost's Double Cap
Keep the Shatter cap, make Icy Veins glyph baseline? Make Shatter scale over 100% crit (similar to Chaos Bolt)? Stacked on top of the hit cap, the crit and haste caps can make gearing frustrating or boring. However, frost's shitty scaling doesn't bother me if Blizzard can tweak the numbers each patch. It's not elegant but it works.

3. Fire's Crit Scaling
As I said above, adjusting specs between patches is acceptable. What's not acceptable is a spec that goes from weak or boring to a critfest in a single tier, only to be knocked right back down after the patch.

4. Arcane Play Style
I want the burn phase back. If the level 90 talents aren't removed, Invocation should enable the old burn-then-conserve play style.

5. Minor Glyphs Are Boring
Yeah okay I ran out of great concerns. Ask someone who does PVP.