6.0 Mage Speculation & Paranoia

[Orrin]

Fellow Mages rejoice!


source: https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...59846640967681

[mrgreenthump]

Could be just that they are making bombs fairly weak compared to actual nuking, which would mean a few nerfs and mastery change for arcane(again). You already won't multi-dot as Fire, because it does so little damage.

I guess the other reasons would be target limit for bombs, but that would mean all the bombs being the same, which would lead to them being spec based, which would mean new talent tier?

And my final guess is them changing rotations so we won't have time to multi-dot.

- - - Updated - - -

Merged the bomb thread to this as it didn't make too much sense to have it up, when this got bumped up and is sort of dedicated for these things

[furydeath]

I wonder what spell they will remove this time my gold is on RoF.

[Pyromelter]

Assuming we are keeping bombs (or at least fire keeping LB), I would be careful what you wish for. One of the ways they can restrict multi-dotting is with a cooldown (like shaman flame shock, or our own frost bomb), or another way would be like making our dot a finisher (like priest devouring plague). If it's the former, I have to say, I'm not in favor of that, not having one of your instant dots just feels kinda bad. If it's the latter, meaning as a DP-like finisher, that would mean a significant re-design of how mages work including using some kind of CP system.

Frost mages and Arcane mages already have psuedo-CP's, and blizz did say somewhere that arcane charges will be changing from a debuff to a buff in WoD, so I wouldn't be shocked if living bomb becomes fire's "finisher."

All I'm saying is be careful what you ask for, because while I think most of us aren't huge fans of being a multi-dot class (otherwise we'd have been spriests or locks or boomkin), the alternative might not be any better.

Edit: Uh, just to respond to myself... Living Bomb as a finisher might not be bad, per se. I actually kind of like devouring plague when I've played shadow priest. Just sort of a warning that they are still in pre-beta for WoD, and that getting hopes up for a complete revamp of mage dots might not be the most wise thing to do, because as we have seen, changes work out worse than we expect.

[Deleted]

Well I liked playing arcane and being able to do good singel target damge and being able to multidot.... Though 2-3 emenie fights were best for fire/frost.... everyone has their good place right now....

I also think if bombs will be restricted to just a few targets they will feel too much the same... so blizz better compeltely reworks this tier... as well as t90 tier... as well as fire mage..... hm I sense a lot of new stuff coming ^^

[Libretto]

I'm gonna miss Nether Tempest if they remove it or whatnot. Multidotting with it on many targets plus arcane explosion is amazing fun when farming mobs or doing things out in the world such as questing. Mage AoE and mob tagging ability will hopefully not be completely ruined with the incoming changes.

[voltaa]

I'm with you on this critique. Nether tempest is probably my favorite spell in the game, not because "lol NT all teh mobs" but for the fact that the way it worked as a cleave was really unique. I thought the implementation of our bombs as talents was pretty good aside from frost bomb being so clunky, but I can understand why they would want to change them as there are just those situations where bomb damage got out of control.

[Libretto]

Playing well with NT actually made playing the class interesting. Maximizing NT cleave as arcane (or frost) on some bosses was challenging and was still a different dot playstyle than spriests or warlocks who have multiple dots and different ways of applying them.

The big issue for me is mob tagging. There have been a lot of times when mages have been abnormally weak at tagging mobs because of a lack of decent instant casts without a cooldown - ice lance tagging of mobs is obviously garbage. Living bomb in ICC was nice but you had to be specced fire. I really don't see a reason why the bombs need to be removed, but the bombs being a necessity for high DPS on some fights might be something they could look at changing - perhaps removing the bomb component from some specs.

[voltaa]

Well at this point we have no reason to believe that the bombs are being removed, just being changed. I know a lot of people are going to jump the gun and celebrate "yay new lvl 75 talents" based on this but I realy think they might just put a 1 target cap on bombs, make NT the 100% most single target damage and 2 target cleave, LB the best for 3-5 and frost the best for 5+ and this would make the bombs easier to balance for them and give each one more use.

[LocNess]

I don't mind the bombs, I just don't agree all specs should be able to use any of them. I hope they make them weaker, but I am a fan of the idea to maintain a bomb as a priority (such as applying one on fire to boost your damage). Would be cool if like each NT tick would give you back 1.5% mana or something, stuff like that.

[Akraen]

I love NT.

But I want us so far different from warlocks that there's no comparing us. From a design perspective I think that must happen. I'm just so tired of mage v. lock.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Mage v Lock will always happen simply due to the fact we're the two pure cloth DPS. We share the same gear, we share the same comparisons.

[Polarthief]

Updated OP for the news about Mage Bombs not being Multi-dottable. (Hasn't been confirmed that they are removed)

If there's anything else I missed, feel free to post about it and I'll update the OP, or volt/greenie can because I've been super inactive since I quit WoW (for the time being) XD

[mrgreenthump]

Updated OP for the news about Mage Bombs not being Multi-dottable. (Hasn't been confirmed that they are removed)

If there's anything else I missed, feel free to post about it and I'll update the OP, or volt/greenie can because I've been super inactive since I quit WoW (for the time being) XD

I wonder, what is it about us mages quitting WoW

On the actual topic, ain't actively seeking for the stuff, but I'll update if the stuff reaches this forum.. and I remember to actually do it

[Polarthief]

I wonder, what is it about us mages quitting WoW

On the actual topic, ain't actively seeking for the stuff, but I'll update if the stuff reaches this forum.. and I remember to actually do it

Gee I WONDER why... *rolls eyes* (to be fair, the game just got really boring to me. I'll probs return in WoD and retire to my Garrison 24/7)

I search if I see/hear about it, but I won't go out of my way to look.

[Deleted]

Fellow Mages rejoice!


source:

I like what he's saying hear but I hate the mindset that is once again shown here.

WHY are ALL 3 mage specs not multi-Dot!? WHY are ALL 3 warlock specs multi-dot?!
We got 3 freeking ranged casting specs. Whats wrong with having clear diffrences, why can't one mage spec be more like a traditional warlock spec?

I know that it's good to have 1-3 defining features returned in all 3 specs but what are these? And where can they be really diffrent? Shamans for example have totems as a difining feature but all 3 are incredibly diffrent. But it's always focused on how they can be more homogenized than being diffrent.

[LocNess]

I like what he's saying hear but I hate the mindset that is once again shown here.

WHY are ALL 3 mage specs not multi-Dot!? WHY are ALL 3 warlock specs multi-dot?!
We got 3 freeking ranged casting specs. Whats wrong with having clear diffrences, why can't one mage spec be more like a traditional warlock spec?

I know that it's good to have 1-3 defining features returned in all 3 specs but what are these? And where can they be really diffrent? Shamans for example have totems as a difining feature but all 3 are incredibly diffrent. But it's always focused on how they can be more homogenized than being diffrent.

What Mage Spec is really in a current designed to be a good multi dot designed spec? Arcane has very heavy hitting spells and works off of those, Frost works off procs and fast hard casting, Fire is probably the closest, however the dot spread is always nerfed and it just revolves around a hard casting spell critting to work off of.

Arcane has the best potential for it I think, but they would still have to change the design direction.

[Phair]

I never enjoyed NT, on council type encounters it felt like you were spending globals on just spamming your dot then actually playing your classes specialization.
I understand and respect the skill involved in maintaining dot snapshots and uptimes if I really wanted to spend 90% of the encounter monitoring these things, I would of just mained a Spriest or Warlock a long time ago.

Double (or triple) the bombs duration and then tone back their damage. Less mouseover spamming and more time nuking would make me pretty happy.

[Frost1129]

What Mage Spec is really in a current designed to be a good multi dot designed spec? Arcane has very heavy hitting spells and works off of those, Frost works off procs and fast hard casting, Fire is probably the closest, however the dot spread is always nerfed and it just revolves around a hard casting spell critting to work off of.

Arcane has the best potential for it I think, but they would still have to change the design direction.

If you look at damage breakdown, you are completely backwards. Fire has the most damage done by single target spells by a long shot. Arcane and frost will either have NT being top by HUGE margins, im talking tens of millions in damage if there is anything with cleave, or LB will be 1st or just behind your main nuke for damage.

[Vedel]

If you look at damage breakdown, you are completely backwards. Fire has the most damage done by single target spells by a long shot. Arcane and frost will either have NT being top by HUGE margins, im talking tens of millions in damage if there is anything with cleave, or LB will be 1st or just behind your main nuke for damage.

What occurred over the course of the expansion was Blizzard being lazy in their mage buffing. Towards the middle of ToT, if I am remembering correctly, mages were falling behind in damage across the board in all specializations. To buff all mages specs blizzard decided to buff all the bombs by 50%ish (I don't remember the exact number) this caused drastic changes to mage cleave. They also nerfed LB's explosion but increased its periodic damage which makes it the best ST and pushed NT to the top cleave. Bombs were not as huge contributors to mage dps at the start of the expansion as they are at the end. When I play Arcane on a council fight, NT easily accounts for 40%-50% of my damage. When I play frost on a council fight it tends to be 30-40%. On a single target fight LB can easily be 20% of damage in arcane and a little bit lower in frost. I absolutely hate Spoils of Pandaria while the rest of my raid enjoys it cause of AoE zerg fest, I spend the fight pressing tab target and Nether Tempest. Our AE needs an overhaul. We should have a dot but it should not be that important to our damage. A dot is important for all specs since it allows us to continue to damage target while moving. The dots shouldn't be removed but they need a huge nerf. We are a nuke heavy class and need to maintain that status. We are not affliction warlocks, our AoE should never be multi-dotting.