Battle For Azeroth: Mage Megathread (Alpha/Beta)

[Deleted]

Dear forum guru's.....it's that time again pre new xpac where I start questioning whether or not I want to change class. I've played Warlock for the last few years and it may be time for something different. Up until AoTB I raided as Destro, which I think I'll go back to for BfA if I stick with lock.

I have a mage alt who I have tinkered with a bit as Fire and quite enjoy. The squishiness compared to lock can be frustrating but is probably habit of just face tanking everything and draining or using pet, but I've found it can actually be fun to finally kill a tough mob or pack on the mage even though it's more effort...quite rewarding!

I also enjoy the "blowing things up" style of the fire mage, but I'm not totally up to speed with changes in BfA. I also have no legendaries, not sure if this is a big deal for levelling? I like dpsing and I like doing damage, Mage's always seem to fair quite well in terms of this. Given the fact that lock may well be FoTM maybe its time to try something new?

TL;DR, pros and cons of mage vs lock for H raiding and M+ in BfA and other convincing arguments to wear a dress instead of being a demon summoning badass :P

Pro: gold saving from not having to wear eyeliner

Cons: no tanking pet

[davesignal]

Arcane: Played a lot of Arcane this week in Mythics+. The spec is very simplified, with either spamming AB or using your AM proc (depends on your talents/azerites), and the burn/conserve phases we're used to. It's very powerful too. Going into melee to spam Arcane Explosion + ArcBarrage (on a minimum of 3 mobs) with the Reverberate talent is very strong, dominates packs. It's dangerous though, especially in higher mythics, or with tanks that cannot hold aggro from the burst well. Hotkey your Greater Invis. AOE'ing is also a mana hog, and I find myself constantly trying to drink and then blink to catch up to the group, sigh. Powerful, but wish Blizzard would tweak it so I didn't have to sit and drink so much to upkeep AOE in dungeons.

Also, I found the only thing useful with the Time Anomaly talent was leveling/world quests as it's weirdly unpredictable and not helpful in dungeons (thanks for that random evo while I'm at full mana?). I feel like the spec could have been designed better overall, but it's "viable" in that it does damage, I guess. I'm skeptical that it will do well in very high level Mythic+ keys though because of it's dependence on melee AOE and resulting mana issues.

Here's something that I don't get: the nature of Arcane is being able to control how much mana you turn into damage-- i.e. you burn hard, you do a lot of DPS, you kill your mana, or you conserve and do less damage.

So.. why don't you just.. not AOE quite as hard and save yourself some mana? Like, you said that Arcane can dominate packs and do very strong damage.. couldn't you just reel that back in a bit to do, I don't know, the same DPS as everyone else most of the time, thereby conserving mana and not having to drink? Maybe save the really hard AOE burn for when you know you need it?

Like, it's just weird to see somebody play Arcane and go "Well I do a lot of damage but I run out of mana!" as if that's not literally the entire point of the spec: balancing your mana consumption versus your DPS.

[gallamann]

I laughed upon seeing they removed the 800 from blizzard's formula. Stupid how they can always find time to nerf something that clearly needs no nerf (seriously frost AoE hasn't been competitive for a couple years); yet can't find the time to fix proc munching via FB/Flurry/IL sequence or to bump base charges of FoF to 3 to help prevent munching.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

I laughed upon seeing they removed the 800 from blizzard's formula. Stupid how they can always find time to nerf something that clearly needs no nerf (seriously frost AoE hasn't been competitive for a couple years); yet can't find the time to fix proc munching via FB/Flurry/IL sequence or to bump base charges of FoF to 3 to help prevent munching.

It was a change in one of the scaling factors on a few spells, DKs had the bug too. This was a bug fix, a highly reported one at that, nothing more.

[gallamann]

It was a change in one of the scaling factors on a few spells, DKs had the bug too. This was a bug fix, a highly reported one at that, nothing more.

So what is thier stance on FoF proc munching?

[Deleted]

So what is thier stance on FoF proc munching?

No reaction so far afaik. So either they don't have time to fix it or they can't be bothered.

[Bugg]

Would an AM-centerd build work? If once chooses Azerite traits that enahce the Arcane Missiles: Anomalous Impact and/or Arcane Pummeling ?
Maybe?...
But not much synergy with arcange charges...

[Swizzle]

Would an AM-centerd build work? If once chooses Azerite traits that enahce the Arcane Missiles: Anomalous Impact and/or Arcane Pummeling ?
Maybe?...
But not much synergy with arcange charges...

You don't get charges and I think the Clearcasting generation is lower with pure AM spam, but I'm not sure. I think their goal is to give you an option to press a button other than AB, but not have that other button ever be the bread and butter of the spec. Just my two cents from the beta.

[lillbrorsan]

I've been playing a Mage in beta for the last month. I'll give a few thoughts here for anyone interested in reading it.

Fire: My main was Fire in Legion, but like the beginning of most expansions, the stat choke from lower gear makes the spec feel very weak and not as fun. So I don't have a lot to say about Fire as I quickly changed specs, but gameplay wise it seems almost exactly like Legion thus far.

Frost: Leveled mostly as Frost since I found Arcane to be an even bigger mana hog than ever, and was tired of sitting to drink after large AOE groups. (I duo-leveled with a tank so we very quickly pulled large groups of quest mobs to AOE down, but the evo timer couldn't keep up).

Frost is very, very dependent on Glacial Spike for it's damage. It's very powerful, so powerful that it makes up a huge portion of your damage and you can shift your place on the damage meters with just one GS. Even on trash it's strong due to Splitting Ice talent. I'm not as happy with Frost playstyle and this single-minded Brain Freeze to Glacial Spike for literally everything. It got a bit stale, and it's a lot of slow casting Ebonbolt/Glacial Spike. I miss the snappier Frost playstyles from previous expansions, and would be happy to see the GS centered rotation go by the wayside. Frost can hold it's own though, and it's decent in both AOE and Single Target.

Arcane: Played a lot of Arcane this week in Mythics+. The spec is very simplified, with either spamming AB or using your AM proc (depends on your talents/azerites), and the burn/conserve phases we're used to. It's very powerful too. Going into melee to spam Arcane Explosion + ArcBarrage (on a minimum of 3 mobs) with the Reverberate talent is very strong, dominates packs. It's dangerous though, especially in higher mythics, or with tanks that cannot hold aggro from the burst well. Hotkey your Greater Invis. AOE'ing is also a mana hog, and I find myself constantly trying to drink and then blink to catch up to the group, sigh. Powerful, but wish Blizzard would tweak it so I didn't have to sit and drink so much to upkeep AOE in dungeons.

Also, I found the only thing useful with the Time Anomaly talent was leveling/world quests as it's weirdly unpredictable and not helpful in dungeons (thanks for that random evo while I'm at full mana?). I feel like the spec could have been designed better overall, but it's "viable" in that it does damage, I guess. I'm skeptical that it will do well in very high level Mythic+ keys though because of it's dependence on melee AOE and resulting mana issues.

Overall All 3 specs feel much more squishy than before. There's a glaring lack of self-healing that I'm sorely missing from Legion. Trying to do some WQ solo feels much more punishing because of that.

Thanks for the rundown! I have no access to the beta and am planning on coming back to BFA to raid with a new guild so am looking at if Fire or Frost is the most interesting.

I like that all specs seem interesting to play (maybe less so Arcane) and will probably level as Fire, but, I have a feeling that I will go for Frost at max level, even though Fire is my all-time favorite thing to play, it seems weaker, at least early on (as always?)

[Deleted]

I am considering switching to Mage this addon, pretty much multi-classed everything to +15 M+ halfway through the addon except shaman and I had a lot of fun on my Mage.
I am typically a melee player so I am afraid I might regret it. I pretty much only play M+.

My main problem is that I loved running Arcane even if it was not the top performer, okay with fire and just hate frost stylistically. Though it seems like Frost will again be the go-to spec. Definitely do not want to play Frost.
I liked the playstyle in M+ with Arcane Explosion and Aluneth and finding the best moments to drink though I think Blizzard should drastically increase mana regen outside of combat for Arcane to reduce it or speed up drinking recovery.

Since the Beta did not allow for lvl120 premades I have not been able to check out more than Warrior which has not convinced me fully.

[klaps_05]

Instead of FOF going to 3 stacks, I would like to see brain freeze going to 2 stacks, and instead of the horrible Fire bracers 2.0 trait for BF, to change it to the t21 bonus dmg for the IL - this brings up TV a bit and also bumps our AOE as the bonus dmg applied to Splitting Ice if you had FOF up.

edit: 2018 and water elementals still dying like noodles, so that HP better go up too.

[Ellsian]

Instead of FOF going to 3 stacks, I would like to see brain freeze going to 2 stacks, and instead of the horrible Fire bracers 2.0 trait for BF, to change it to the t21 bonus dmg for the IL - this brings up TV a bit and also bumps our AOE as the bonus dmg applied to Splitting Ice if you had FOF up.

edit: 2018 and water elementals still dying like noodles, so that HP better go up too.

Oh yeah, I noticed water ele dying quite a few times in certain dungeons. It's pretty much just an auto-attacking fluff pet. The elemental dies, despawns between load screens, still has mobility issues when jumping from ledges, draws aggro, doesn't invise correctly many times, and stares at walls instead of fighting. In Waycrest Manor there were many times while fighting that my elemental wasn't even attacking because it was staring at a door/line of sighted while I was attacking down a hallway or through a door. In cramped areas I started using Lonely Winter talent more after getting annoyed with the elemental (they buffed LW talent a few builds back). I think the only thing water elemental is good for is doing a little extra damage with Freeze + Splitting Ice combo on trash.

[Deleted]

I doubt between Warlock or Mage, which class do u recommend me for m`+?

[Spellstorm]

I played the new Arcane for an Antorus Normal PUG. Damage numbers seemed faily reasonable, at least relatively, using others as my yardstick.

It felt actually pretty nice; I went 3212121, with the Rune Master Kilt and the Soul of the Archmage granting Time Anomaly. It definitely feels more unpredictable now with this build that I've ever experienced with Arcane. Instead of very defined burn phases, sometimes Time Anomoly grants a couple of free APs and an Evo, and now all of the sudden burn can go on almost until the nat Evo is ready again. Same as in conserve; with Overpowered and Time Anomaly via the ring, an AP proc allows mini burn phases during conserve phase, if you're watching for it and ready to adapt.

It's some of the most interesting gameplay I've experienced as Arcane since HFC with Prophecy of Fear and Prismatic Crystal. It's really disappointing that the interaction that I think makes the spec the most interesting is the one that's going to go away when the Leggos stop working.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Soul of the Archmage granting Time Anomaly.

RIP. Soul hotfixed to Amplification.

[The Archmage]

Such a shame. It was REALLY interesting. Without having to sacrifice Overpowered, Time Anomaly was fun like hell, and potentially very strong if you reacted fast.

[Deleted]

I couldn't compete on my arcane mage (twink) with my friends outlaw rogue at all in an m+, he pretty much did twice as much damage with 20 ilvl more and it was volcanic but still.

With the kilt and time anomaly I never really had to drink which was cool but Arcane Explosion feels so weak now

[Spellstorm]

Such a shame. It was REALLY interesting. Without having to sacrifice Overpowered, Time Anomaly was fun like hell, and potentially very strong if you reacted fast.

I agree. It was a lot of fun for me while it lasted.

In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I wrote 1000 words praising it on the feedback forums about an hour before the hotfix that I apparently can't link to.

If you care, it's titled "Arcane Mage Feedback", posted under the BFA Items and Classes forum, by my Mage Aiyana.

[ShiyoKozuki]

Icy veins feels really underwhelming to use without the artifact and thermal void not being taken anymore. Is it even a 1% dps increase?

[Taven]

Icy veins feels really underwhelming to use without the artifact and thermal void not being taken anymore. Is it even a 1% dps increase?

Most guides say its a 2%. My sims right now say to take LW and TV still as its an overall DPS gain. So I'm not sure what to believe anymore.