Mage 5.4 Discussion

[Shangalar]

Dragon, the reply here was made before you made your thread This is what I was talking about, it makes much more sense that they would nerf the talent which is the only choice (for Warlocks) and not look at our talents which are completely viable, but Invocation is, as you said, the least of the three evils.

Just remember that Blizzard already stated that Mage level 90 talent changes most likely won't make it for 5.4

And please for the love of everything, stay on topic people, either discuss the things that are in the patch notes or don't discuss anything in this thread. I'm tired of reading the same things about our level 90 talents over and over and over again like it matters to anyone. The level 90 talent revamp isn't Beetlejuice and won't suddenly appear if you say its name often enough.

[Polarthief]

Just remember that Blizzard already stated that Mage level 90 talent changes most likely won't make it for 5.4

To be fair, their planned changes are "too big" for 5.4. Doesn't mean they won't be tweaking them at ALL for 5.4.
Granted, should they keep these talents, can you imagine how many Mages will be quitting or rerolling?

And please for the love of everything, stay on topic people, either discuss the things that are in the patch notes or don't discuss anything in this thread.

Alright, so let's just have no discussion I guess because all of our changes (so far) can be put into one character:

" "



I'm just anxious to see if they fix any of our issues, some of which have been here since 3.0. It's getting increasingly more annoying when we continue to go ignored for lengthy periods of time, except when Fire needs an immediate scaling nerf.

Anyways, I'm done. No changes = nothing to discuss.

[Intervir]

*Lvel 90 talent revamp,*level 90 talent revamp,*level 90 talent revamp !!

Jokes aside, do we know how the mana gem's glyph will work out with the manabuff? Any new datamine differs from 360k? Does hymn stcaking still works (can't remember my mana going 345k+... maybe if i was a gnome)?

[Polarthief]

Jokes aside, do we know how the mana gem's glyph will work out with the manabuff? Any new datamine differs from 360k? Does hymn stcaking still works (can't remember my mana going 345k+... maybe if i was a gnome)?

Mousing over it reveals 45k. Methinks it's a fix to lower tiers of the gem. Nothing on official; ignore it for now.

Should they be changing the mana on it, I don't see why they wouldn't make Brilliant Mana Gem work in the exact same way. Otherwise, the glyph would be pretty pointless (much like 80% of our glyphs), wouldn't it?

[Frost1129]

I'm not sure if they will end up doing any major changes to anything right now. I feel like what they might be attempting to do with the set pieces is to alleviate some of the easiest to solve problems, such as poor frost scaling (which basically translates into low DPS). Frost falling behind? Just give it more of the strong spells / free damage. It's a simple Band-Aid that doesn't run the risk of breaking mages and incurring a ton of wrath.

Any real changes, even tweeks, to lvl 90 mage talents are going to have huge repercussions. If they screw it up, mages will be bad across the board. This is due to the flat damage we gain applying to essentially every mechanic of every spec. Screwing it up will lead to huge outcry on the forums from mages. If they end up over-tuning us, which may be easy if it in some way interacts too well with any of the strong mechanics behind Fire / Arcane DPS, then we'll stomp meters are every other DPS class is going to cry out for nerfs and claim more mage favoritism.

So I think the tier bonuses are the best "re-working" we're going to get.

[zomgDPS]

The set bonuses pretty much confirm something Logix has been telling me (and some others) for ages now.


That being, that we all have been playing Arcane wrong. Not necessarily totally wrong, but at least, not as optimally as we initially thought.
Though after discussing it at length with him, these 'optimized' way to play it doesn't necessarily make the spec more performant.

Though it does add an aspect of gameplay that many have been ignoring so far, or at least, if not 'ignoring' then 'not articulating' (his phrases).

That being said, these new optimizations of his do not change much, but at least, they add a little something to the spec. The new tier bonuses will be very good for Arcane gameplay, that much is for sure.

I just wish I could either get him to post here, or link to his posts on our forums.

[Frost1129]

The set bonuses pretty much confirm something Logix has been telling me (and some others) for ages now.


That being, that we all have been playing Arcane wrong. Not necessarily totally wrong, but at least, not as optimally as we initially thought.
Though after discussing it at length with him, these 'optimized' way to play it doesn't necessarily make the spec more performant.

Though it does add an aspect of gameplay that many have been ignoring so far, or at least, if not 'ignoring' then 'not articulating' (his phrases).

That being said, these new optimizations of his do not change much, but at least, they add a little something to the spec. The new tier bonuses will be very good for Arcane gameplay, that much is for sure.

I just wish I could either get him to post here, or link to his posts on our forums.

Can you elaborate on this persons opinions on how arcane is being played now vs. how it could be being played at an optimal level?

[Polarthief]

Any real changes, even tweeks, to lvl 90 mage talents are going to have huge repercussions. If they screw it up, mages will be bad across the board. This is due to the flat damage we gain applying to essentially every mechanic of every spec. Screwing it up will lead to huge outcry on the forums from mages. If they end up over-tuning us, which may be easy if it in some way interacts too well with any of the strong mechanics behind Fire / Arcane DPS, then we'll stomp meters are every other DPS class is going to cry out for nerfs and claim more mage favoritism.

So I think the tier bonuses are the best "re-working" we're going to get.

Remove them and give us 12-13% passive. Too high? Nerf it 1%. Too low? Buff it 1%. It's not going to be much different from that, and it will make a LOT of Mages happy.

Now if they give us a DPS ability (similar to Priests/Paladins/Shamans), then nerf it to ~10% or so. They could just as easily give us a raid or self utility tier and not worry about tweaking around two things.

Bottom line: They have to be removed by 6.0 or Mage numbers will plummet, dramatically. They already have after every patch (multiple websites confirm this), and if another expansion hits with these garbage talents, you can be rest assured that Mages will appear less and less in every raid group.

[zomgDPS]

Can you elaborate on this persons opinions on how arcane is being played now vs. how it could be being played at an optimal level?

Yea.. I'm trying to get him to write it all out so I can copy pasta it here. He might come in and explain it himself (he's better at that), but if not, I'll try to do as good a job of it. (I am currently fighting to ensure locks don't get nerfed into the ground :P).


The issue lies with Arcane proc play and what appears to be a slight glimmer of mana play too. Currently, not many people (according to what we see from the logs) are optimizing their procs and taking full advantage of what he calls "hovering stack levels for optimal proc usage".

The differences are those of minor %points of DPS gain, so its not like Arcane is suddenly Zomg!
But what it does do is add 'gameplay', i.e. stuff that you can do to eek out that last %points of performance from the spec.


The other concept is one of 'shaping damage', but he explains that more as a 'strength' of the spec (since the current belief, by me as well, is that Arcane isn't really very strong at anything, relative to the other specs). It has to do with Arcane's versatility in exerting extreme damage pressure at precise moments in time on command. I will take some time out to elaborate on this further (as I said, I'm currently working on lock issues).

When he demonstrated all this to me it actually kind of made sense, and I guess is something many people might already know intuitively, but what he is doing is providing some form of framework that allows us to think about it. He believes the "AB4 AM(2) ABr rinse repeat" description of Arcane that is commonly used (by me too) is far too simplistic.

Though he does agree it is not as dynamic as the Arcane of old (as far as casting sequences is concerned) but it is also not a completely brainless rinse repeat spec.



It was a long convo, and we discussed much. I'll try to condense it if/when I can. Please bear with.


Quick edit:
To bring my statements full circle, the reason the tier bonuses were the 'trigger' was because he has been advocating (with maths) a style of gameplay that actually has the Arcanist 'hover' at max stacks to eek out as many AMs before 'closing the stack' with barrage. I'm not fully explaining that, but he has shown (with maths) that there are benefits to doing so (he even used an example of weaving in glyphed FFBs) to extend the time you spend at max stack.
This is functionally different than the playstyle of 'spam ABs weave AMs and burn mana down' that some people use (suboptimally) since his style is still fully reliant on regular ABr usage (which the usual 'burn mana down' gameplay ignores almost totally outside of AT), but it sounds the same on paper.

He coupled this with buffs such as AP where the idea is to maximise the amount of time you spend at max stack with AP (and other buffs) in order to ensure you aren't breaking the stack till the very last second, even at the expense of mana.

The only issue with everything he has said to me so far, is that it only works with RoP. It doesn't work so well with any of the other talents due to mana losses.

[Shangalar]

I thought that was how all Mastery RoP Arcane mages played. I personally always try to stay at max charges and fish for extra Missiles using a Blast and timing my bomb refreshal to match, but also bearing in mind to be back as close as possible to full mana for the following cycle. That's basically what you described in far too many words :P

[Polarthief]

Quick edit:
To bring my statements full circle, the reason the tier bonuses were the 'trigger' was because he has been advocating (with maths) a style of gameplay that actually has the Arcanist 'hover' at max stacks to eek out as many AMs before 'closing the stack' with barrage. I'm not fully explaining that, but he has shown (with maths) that there are benefits to doing so (he even used an example of weaving in glyphed FFBs) to extend the time you spend at max stack.
This is functionally different than the playstyle of 'spam ABs weave AMs and burn mana down' that some people use (suboptimally) since his style is still fully reliant on regular ABr usage (which the usual 'burn mana down' gameplay ignores almost totally outside of AT), but it sounds the same on paper.

He coupled this with buffs such as AP where the idea is to maximise the amount of time you spend at max stack with AP (and other buffs) in order to ensure you aren't breaking the stack till the very last second, even at the expense of mana.

The only issue with everything he has said to me so far, is that it only works with RoP. It doesn't work so well with any of the other talents due to mana losses.

TL;DR: Scorchweaving has become FFBweaving?

Sweet. Now they're going to nerf FFB in some way.

[zomgDPS]

I thought that was how all Mastery RoP Arcane mages played. I personally always try to stay at max charges and fish for extra Missiles using a Blast and timing my bomb refreshal to match, but also bearing in mind to be back as close as possible to full mana for the following cycle. That's basically what you described in far too many words :P

Yea.. im not describing it completley (im trying to simultaneously transcribe our vent chat while trying to remember it all as well). And the bomb timing thing is understood well. What he did was bring a whole host of other factors into play, e.g. procs/trinkets etc.

But in essence, it is something like what you describe, but what it does is put direct mathematical boundaries of what "fishing" is optimal under what scenarios.

I.e. its not mindless 'fishing' but there is, according to the numbers, quite an amount of variability in when and how to fish as well as when you can use non-Arcane spells to fish. e.g. there is a specifc situation where weaving in glyphed FFBs can yield the highest possible Arcane cycle, in terms of raw output, yet if even one of the factors of that scenario fails, the cycle becomes very suboptimal.
The decision process then, to use glyphed FFB is very reliant on how quickly the Arcanist can asses the situation and what kind of risk he is willing to take. Heady stuff.

It is a lot of direct if-this-then-that kind of stuff. He broke it all down using his favorite concept of 'cycles', and then built upon it.


Arcane has traditionally been the 'mathy' spec for mages. Logix lives in that part of it.

[Polarthief]

Yea.. im not describing it completley (im trying to simultaneously transcribe our vent chat while trying to remember it all as well). And the bomb timing thing is understood well. What he did was bring a whole host of other factors into play, e.g. procs/trinkets etc.

But in essence, it is something like what you describe, but what it does is put direct mathematical boundaries of what "fishing" is optimal under what scenarios.

I.e. its not mindless 'fishing' but there is, according to the numbers, quite an amount of variability in when and how to fish as well as when you can use non-Arcane spells to fish.

It is a lot of direct if-this-then-that kind of stuff. He broke it all down using his favorite concept of 'cycles', and then built upon it.


Arcane has traditionally been the 'mathy' spec for mages. Logix lives in that part of it.

Arcane also can't cast shit but ABarr on the move, so trying to 'math out' all of these things while being unable to move, in addition to having mechanics thrown at you seems a bit... idk... improbable, especially in ToT.

Not to mention the Hastevocation ABL spam seems to be working for the top parses.

[Shangalar]

I remember that we extensively tested FFB weaving during the 5.2 PTR and the results were sub par because of its long cast time and meh damage. We tried the same with Fire Blast and the result was also meh compared to the standard rotation. If this would be doable, a new arcane-specific filler spell would have to be developed.

[voltaa]

Hmmm I seem to recall stating this "stack hovering" concept was the optimal way to play over 4x 2x reset last week in another thread and being called a troll

[zomgDPS]

I remember that we extensively tested FFB weaving during the 5.2 PTR and the results were sub par because of its long cast time and meh damage. We tried the same with Fire Blast and the result was also meh compared to the standard rotation. If this would be doable, a new arcane-specific filler spell should be developed.

Correct. In fact I directed him to the very thread where we conducted our tests and his response was that we were using FFBs and Fire blasts suboptimally since there was no rhyme or reason to when and how we use them.

There are specific situations where using FB or FFB are of use and can be very optimal, but if those situations do not exist, using those spells will be very suboptimal indeed.

The error we made on our tests is that we were using those spells all the time, irrespective of what the situation was (by situation i mean things like current mana levels, current AMs, current procs, etc etc). When we were testing it we just were using them/weaving them in all the time.

That is, apparently, incorrect.


One thing that he did note, which I thought was very poigniant, was that he mentioned that unlike many other specs in the game, the Arcane spec is the spec whose gameplay (and the cycles you use) are extremely reliant on what is going on, i.e. fight mechanics.
He asserts that Arcane spec's optimal play is more closely tied to what is actually happening in the fight (when transitions will occur, when adds will spawn, etc etc) than almost any other spec in the game. He calls this the 'arcane metastrategy'.

Basically, what is considered "optimal" for Arcane will change a whole lot more than other specs depending on the fight.

He surmised that it is due to this that a lot of people consider it 'boring', since all they do is test it on the dummies (where there is nothing really happening) and/or they test it on one fight or two.
Apparently, the Arcane spec comes alive when you try to bend it to the specifics of a fight.


I do believe him though. He destroys pretty much every other mage I have seen play the spec, by leagues and bounds too.

[Polarthief]

I remember that we extensively tested FFB weaving during the 5.2 PTR and the results were sub par because of its long cast time and meh damage. We tried the same with Fire Blast and the result was also meh compared to the standard rotation. If this would be doable, a new arcane-specific filler spell should be developed.

Idk why there wasn't. Someone over at Blizzard should realize:
- For a "Mana DPS" spec, Mana isn't incorporated anywhere in our rotation. Instead, we base our rotation around the assumption that mana is an issue (unless you go Hastevocation).
- Three spells (Two for Haste) for an entire spec? Pretty underwhelming.
- Arcane needs a mobile spell that doesn't affect the entirety of your DPS. ABarr resets your stacks and is the only spell you can cast while moving.

Should be a new spell that you can weave that doesn't touch your stacks, is low mana/damage, and is mobile.

... BRING SCORCH BACK!

Seriously though, when I had Scorch for Arcane, it actually seemed pretty fun. Now it's back to being mindless as ever.


PS: Keep in mind during the 5.2 PTR, we didn't have RPPM trinkets and whatnot.

[Shangalar]

The only reason why Hastevocation is working is that with current T15 heroic gear you are able to reach absurd haste levels while still retaining a lot of mastery. I find that style abominable and brainless to the Icecrown Citadel level.

[zomgDPS]

The only reason why Hastevocation is working is that with current T15 heroic gear you are able to reach absurd haste levels while still retaining a lot of mastery. I find that style abominable and brainless to the Icecrown Citadel level.

Agreed. The current state of Arcane is an abominable mess. Many things like the amount of haste that is out of whack, the crazy bombs, and more really do place arcane in another situation where it is just another 'abomination of gameplay'


I think what he was going for was the actual core of the spec and its gameplay. Aspects that are independent of the random abominations of balance that exist, albeit temporarily.


Though he fully acknowledges certain more blatant failures of the spec. The level 90s for example and Arcane's intense reliance of RoP. I think he is just trying to correct some misinterpretations about it, or maybe clarify what the core of the spec is about for some folks (which during my convo with him, was namely, me).

[Deleted]

@zomgDPS your mate is 3 months late because thats what everyone is doing...
ffb isnt worth it compared to the old scorch because of the increased manacost + longer cast time.
i dont get whats "new" about your optimal way.

imo the new arcane 4p bonus is nice, but way too much rng again. there will be pulls with 8 AM in a row leading to ridiculous dps.