[Discussion] Mage class - What would we like to see happen to the class in Shadowland

[Vnni]

Could be cool, but through the whole history of WoW has Arcane been a volatile spec. I like it like that.

[seenism]

Make shatter for frost mage more meaningful (outside of just glacial spike > flurry), and bring back deep freeze.

Remove shimmer, bring back blazing speed, and alter time.

PoM for Arcane mage being applied to any ability would be nice, not just arcane blast. Arcane orb baseline.

Would also be nice to see cold snap for fire in particular, but remove cauterize.

EDIT:
Small after thoughts, as a general thing for the game, I'd generally like to see overall damage brought up, and having cooldowns nerfed. Most classes feel like shit out of cooldowns and it makes PvP a bit stale when games last forever.

And also, revert GCD changes.

[matrix123mko]

I would like to see Arcane and some other specs in the game to take a damage cut. The trade off is having support specs, do medium dps and have abilities that increase the damage and utility for the rest of your group/raid.

Let our ability usage tie to short term buffs for the group.

Say use our current arcane charge system, releasing the charges with arcane barrage would generate a buff.

1 charges - Debuff the target with arcane instability making them take 5% increased damage last 20s
2 charges - Increases the movement and attack speed of allies in 30y by 10% for 15s
3 charges - Allies within 30y take 20%increased healing for 10s
4 charges - Allies within 30y have 3% increased critical strike for 15s

Arcane Missiles - Dampen damage taken by 1% per stack within 12y of the target, uses all arcane charges.


I would like to see specs with utility like this pop up, instead of just gogo pure damage.

I would love to play support mage. Arcane magic isn't only damage in lore.

[Ambereldus]

Pipe dream incoming:
I think a support spec could work if Blizz wanted to add a new role to the game, but I think Arcane should stay more-or-less the same. Keep it as a turreting caster-blaster, but I agree that gravity-like spells would be a perfect fit.

To make room for a support spec for mages, and at the risk of making a bunch of people angry...
...merge Fire and Frost.

They function similarly because they both rely on spell combos, rng procs/crits, and maximizing damage during small burst windows. Since our magic comes from the arcane leylines and not from the elemental planes, there's no reason a mage should limit themselves solely to heating things up or cooling things down. Why not both? Design it as an Elementalist spec which uses Frost spells to prime targets with some kind of "fragility" debuff which our Fire spells can shatter for extra damage/crit. However, I think its important that the whole kit weaves itself together like different colours of a painting, without having a dichotomy between the two schools like Balance druids have.

This frees up space for a support spec, which I propose as using Temporal magic.
I could see a Temporalist being either a support, dps, or healer; kind of like Chromie. We'd manipulate the flow of time to speed up allies' attacks, slow the enemies, or even reverse damage. Abilities like Alter Time could make a strong comeback.


I know the idea isn't realistic at this point, but I think it could be really fun to play AND give mages additional options instead of just "be a dps"

[Carcimomim]

I think I see where you’re going with this support spec idea. You’re right though as a fire mage I abhor the frost/fire merge idea. Though I do get what you’re trying to say.

[Wyrt]

Arcane needs to be less burst dependent. For one, using multiple cooldowns on top of each other feels absolutely awful with the GCD change, and for two, the talents will never be balanced when there's an obvious "This increases burst damage" option like there is currently.

I get why burst is so important to the flavor/identity of arcane, but it's a bit too oppressive in talent choices. Burst should absolutely still be important, just not so overwhelmingly important as it is now.

I wouldn't say arcane necessarily needs more abilities(though it wouldn't hurt), but it really needs for those talents that give new abilities to not be consistently behind.

More mana management would be nice as well. Not just blowing your load then waiting for burst to come off cooldown again. The "You do more damage above 90% mana" worked alright, but would prefer something a bit more interesting.

[Obelisk Kai]

While the class is getting unpruned, I don't think they will be bringing back the WOTLK-MOP era of bring the player not the class either which failed so abysmally in it's own way as well.

Most of the unpruning is probably going to be about making more abilities that are currently locked behind spec walls or pvp walls baseline again or making it a common talent. I don't think the entire cornucopia of abilities will be coming back though. Deep Freeze for example was a Frost Mage stun, right now Mages cannot stun. That is a limitation on our class as a whole. That is something I don't see being undone.

Personally I would like to see Greater Invisibility become baseline rather than Arcane Mage specific. Invisibility and Greater Invisibility are an odd pair. Most abilities in the game that are 'greater' are just better versions of existing baseline abilities. Greater Invisibility by contrast is Invisibility that actually works.

[Doffen]

I really liked Arcane in Legion, 3 charges for Arcane Missiles as baseline for starters would be nice. And something like Mark of Aluneth+trait so you got mana back on some AoE cleave. Doesn't need to be exactly the same, but an active ability that do damage and give a proper amount of mana back would be nice, managing mana and all that.

Arcane as playstyle is something I love playing, but feel it need an ability that mix up the rotation a bit, something to use while moving outside missiles/PoM for example. Not too much, but a little flavor.

[Soon-TM]

Fire: Meteor and Phoenix Flames made baseline to the spec.

Frost: Ice Floes and Ray of Frost baseline.

Arcane: Mark of Aluneth back, can be cast on the move. Less emphasis on burst damage and more options to recover mana aside from Evocation (and MoA, if it ever returns).

[Specialka]

Fire: Meteor and Phoenix Flames made baseline to the spec.

Frost: Ice Floes and Ray of Frost baseline.

Arcane: Mark of Aluneth back, can be cast on the move. Less emphasis on burst damage and more options to recover mana aside from Evocation (and MoA, if it ever returns).

And for arcane, a bit more to the aoe part a.k.a some kind of range spell (maybe arcane explosions but targetable on an ennemy?).

[Kyriani]

Here's what I'd like to see:

1) Baseline Mirror Image as it was when it was merely an aggro management tool, instead of this piss poor excuse for a dps cooldown that we have right now.

2) Baseline Mark of Aluneth but instant cast. (The basic spell - no mana return. See below)

3) Baseline Arcane Rebound (Legion artifact talent - When Arcane Barrage hits more than two targets, it explodes for [ 50% of Spell Power ] additional Arcane damage to all enemies within 10 yds of the primary target. )

4) A mana management talent row that includes: Aluneth's Avarice (Legion artifact talent - Mark of Aluneth restores 20% maximum mana when it detonates.), the effect from the Legion legendary Mystic Kilt of the Rune Master (Arcane Barrage grants you 3% of your maximum mana per Arcane Charge spent.), and A reworked version of Rule of Threes that makes it competitive with the previous two (like make it affect the next three arcane blasts or some such).

5) An aoe talent row that includes: Arcane Orb, Reverberate, and Supernova with Supernova being reworked to REPLACE Arcane Explosion and its cooldown only applying to its knockup effect. This would make it essentially work as a spammable ranged (if you have a target) or pointblank (if you dont) aoe spell with its knockup effect only happening every 25 seconds)

6) Arcane Power off the GCD again or its duration increased to offset the time lost to the GCD. I'd prefer it simply removed from the GCD since it makes using it awkward, slow, and clunky.

7) Rune of Power removed - I still have animosity towards this spell even if Incanter's is a viable alternative these days.

[Lollis]

Fire: Meteor and Phoenix Flames made baseline to the spec.

Only if Phoenix is an aoe alternative to Fire Blast and not as part of the main rotation, especially with the current global cooldown.
I really hate how PF and all instant cast missile abilities just slow rotations down.

[Tyris Flare]

Here's what I'd like to see:

7) Rune of Power removed - I still have animosity towards this spell even if Incanter's is a viable alternative these days.

It's not viable for anything but frost. And with the way the class works in practice, I doubt that will ever not be true. Stacking stuff for burst damage is just so fundamental to arcane and often fire.

It does seem like a relic of a past age in its current form. If if were a self-targeted buff it would be so much better and still facilitate the burst play-style.

[Kyriani]

As far as animosity goes, I put it in the same category as Lightwell. Its one of those spells the devs keep trying to make work for years and years until they finally realize "yea this is bad" and remove it.

[Specialka]

I like Rop because it fits quite well the mage theme, especially Arcane. But I prefered it Wod style, castable at range and we had ice floes at the time.

[z01z]

i want fire spec to change from it's current playstyle of "do massive damage for 10s, and then do meh damage for 2mins".

[gunner_recall]

I don't really know what I want. I would like the class to have some differences and get a revamp like demo locks. But I do know one thing that would absolutely make SL the best expansion they've ever made:

The destruction of Rune of Power.

[iindigo]

As a fire main since Vanilla, I'd mainly like to see two things for the spec:
• Tone down the proc reliance, bringing down burst DPS a bit while improving sustatined
• Remove Greater Pyroblast entirely and redistribute the damage amongst other spells

GPyro is such a cheesy ability, but without it fire mages have a hard time in PvP outside of cooldown windows because baseline abilities do so little damage. Older designs where fire didn't have a giganuke spell but abilities like Fireball actually took a chunk out of the enemy's HP bar were a lot better.

[Akraen]

I'll buy the expac if we get alter time back. Otherwise I'll stay in classic.

[gallamann]

ELIMINATE current 75 tier.

RoP is just limits every spell because dev's have to think "oh how will they abuse RoP with this"...

Suspect it is why Brain Freeze isn't a 2 charged based system with 20 second charge reset. Because then we could build to one GS, RoP, GS, BF/Flurry, 5 FB's, BF/Flurry.

Would anyone even play fire currently if it wasn't for RoP abuse of combust windows. No because your damage would not exist. Arcane would be in same boat.