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

[Swizzle]

I'm among the first to say Blizzard's bullshit has method, but in this case I think they really thought their hare-brained idea with ignite spreading via fireblast was a good thing. I mean if you have no clue it might actually seem that way because "after all you use it anyway, so barely anything changes for you". That's obviously not true in practice.

I mean...they just took it back to how Inferno Blast worked in MoP. I think they're actually out of ideas for Mages and just wanted to send us back to MoP to shut us up. They messed up with the Legion artifact abilities and Legendaries ACTUALLY making specs fun. They clearly had no replacement for when they went away and fought tooth and nail to not just baseline everything (even though from a lore and gameplay perspective, it would have made total sense to just absorb our Artifact abillities at least).

Honestly, the easiest fix would be to just reintroduce the old talent trees and iterate from there. Baseline the things players take 90-100% of the time and give us deeper customization.

[blankfaced]

Oh look linking our aoe to our main source of hot streaks isn't a good idea....yet again. I'd like them to stop trying to bring back failed experiments thinking maybe this expansion it'll work out.

[mrgreenthump]

wanted to send us back to MoP to shut us up.

I'd be somewhat fine if we got the carbon copy of MoP Fire. Then we'd have the old Alter Time.

[koppi]

Ok as the shadowlands release date is getting closer, im getting more interested in wow again, here are my thoughts:

1) im very excited that according to the last build we are getting displacement again (altho it feels like we had something, they took it from us, and now we are just happy for something we already had lol)

2) i really hope there will be much more changes especially like new stuff or so, as the (arcane) mage feels too pruned, too stereo play

3) yesterday i’ve watched madseasonshow comparenent of vanilla and retail and it gave me big nostalgic feeling, and first things that came to my mind from playing mage 15 years ago was constant casting of dampen or amplify magic. I think (if blizz reworked it a bit) it has a better unprune potential than frost and fire ward, as those are very situational, dont you think?

4) please give us deep freeze again



5) i think arcane needs more utility spells, it fits the school and arcane just have lack of spells like mirror image, invisibility, alter time, and spells like these.. What about making the arcane invisibility (improved invisibility, greater invisibility, call it what you want) to automatically summon mirror images who wouldnt follow you.

6) another possible change i can think of and based on past of mage is buffed time warp - for those who dont remember, the original spell also buffed movement speed of the mage only.

7) Ring of frost - Nowadays i always pick chrono-shift over ring of frost, however ring of frost was one of my most favorite abilities when it was instant cast however it took some time to “charge”. That allowed me to fe lock the warsong gulch tunnel behind me while carrying a flag. I would like to have it back, but i dont mind not having as im in love with chronoshift as well.

8) make mirror images greater, atleast for arcane, like casting various scale of spells (we already had this as well, mirror images in past were casting fe ice block, if im not mistaken polymorph as well)

[gallamann]

What I want to see for mages...

RoP gone - this spell just pigeon holes the developers, everything must be designed with thought that we will abuse said abilities in that window.

Caster design - they need to take a HARD look at how casters damage suffers due to movement, majority of their encounter design is move, either to avoid or to do a mechanic. This whole concept of "stand to deliver" needs to be re-evaluated. What you end up with in current design is specs like Fire that can abuse a small window via instant cast that delivers majority of damage. Caster filler damage is terrible, and most times you must cast that to generate procs to actually do damage.

[koppi]

Another idea i have for arcane mage, however this one is not implementable anymore, but for me... spell reflection fits arcane mage way better than to a warrior, dont you think?

[Doffen]

Focus Magic giving up to 8% intellect is a nice change. It was a bit lackluster with only the crit part, to say the least. Also read they said they might look at the other talents in the Shimmer row, would be cool to get to another use of the good old blink besides the eventual stun.

[Swizzle]

Focus Magic giving up to 8% intellect is a nice change. It was a bit lackluster with only the crit part, to say the least. Also read they said they might look at the other talents in the Shimmer row, would be cool to get to another use of the good old blink besides the eventual stun.

My issue with the changes is they still haven't addressed WHY the always taken talents are always taken. Flame On and Shimmer aren't taken due to pure numbers alone, they make the specs WORK. Maybe see how that functionality can be baked in and open the room for more competitive and fun talents.

That said, the new FM change is only going to encourage FM trading between Mages, so nothing new there.

[Doffen]

Hm, Touch of the Magi was a bit undertuned they said on wowhead today. In this alpha build today its nerfed to 25% instead of 50. Seems odd.

Though new Savant is in this build and it's so good that they had to tune TotM down?

[Tyris Flare]

At this point I'd rather magi just be baseline to have fewer prep-buttons to press. At a minimum, mirror image has to be off the GCD and probably Magi too. AP off the GCD would also be great since you already have to pair it with Rune.

Blink should just have 2 charges baseline, and shimmer should let you cast while casting at the cost of losing the stun break. Slipstream should also be baseline for Arcane imo.

Anyway the Covenant abilities are so incredibly broken that the spec stuff will end up feeling like small potatoes if it doesn't get fixed. The dumb skeleton mage will be mandatory for arcane and garbage for everything else.

We're going to end up spec locked the entire expansion and/or need to have multiple characters with different Covenants.

[Swizzle]

Anyway the Covenant abilities are so incredibly broken that the spec stuff will end up feeling like small potatoes if it doesn't get fixed. The dumb skeleton mage will be mandatory for arcane and garbage for everything else.

The fact that the people who design the game can't tell the difference between the specs filler abilities is actually remarkable. AB =/= Fireball. It's closer to Ignite or Pyro in terms of overall damage share.

[mrgreenthump]

The fact that the people who design the game can't tell the difference between the specs filler abilities is actually remarkable. AB =/= Fireball. It's closer to Ignite or Pyro in terms of overall damage share.

Am not complaining, Arcane is getting cleave without having to suffer from loosing ST cause of it. Given only for ~15 seconds every 3 minutes.

[Tyris Flare]

The fact that the people who design the game can't tell the difference between the specs filler abilities is actually remarkable. AB =/= Fireball. It's closer to Ignite or Pyro in terms of overall damage share.

Especially since anyone who has actually played the class for any amount of time could have told you that in a heartbeat. It was my first thought they instant they showed off the potential abilities a while back.

Glaringly obvious design problems abound.

[Swizzle]

Actually, I just re-read the changes...you only get an increased damage Pyro after using Dragon's Breath? Does it have to do damage or contrbitute to Hot Streak, or can you just cast it randomly before consuming Hot Streak for an increased Pyro? Seems worse than I initially thought.

[mrgreenthump]

Actually, I just re-read the changes...you only get an increased damage Pyro after using Dragon's Breath? Does it have to do damage or contrbitute to Hot Streak, or can you just cast it randomly before consuming Hot Streak for an increased Pyro? Seems worse than I initially thought.

You got to take into account that Flame On is overvalued atm as we run next to no crit on our gear. Although Flame On is also a big part why we run no crit. But if they manage to rebalance fire away from haste next expansion and we focus on crit again Flame On isn't an auto pick if there are competitive talents next to it. But yes 35% does sound somewhat lackluster for just one Pyroblast.

I'd imagine we just use Dragon's Breath before our CDs to get the buff pop cd's and our first Pyro is massive. It doesn't sound awesome, but at least it not useless as before. And if they tune DB to do actual damage, we might pick this for AoE.

[Tyze]

Frostfire Bolt

[hambone2626]

take phoenix flames off of talent tree and make it baseline is what I want like in legion. could use that other heating up proc ability.

[blankfaced]

Yeah, I don't get why they went frost bolt for all instead of just bringing Frostfire Bolt back for everyone.

The wards should have been one time use reflects instead of just bringing back what they were. Arcane Explosion is the only good thing coming for all of us, and even then it's just for pvp and breaking stealth. Mages just need a bunch of utility brought back to the class that isn't there anymore. I'm not talking "necessary for raiding" utility, more "I'm a mage so I can do this." Like when mana mattered and we could make gems for ourselves and had evocation type of utility. Or when fire had Blast Wave and it knocked back. Or when Fire Blast stunned on occasion. Everyone could have shatter and Deep Freeze. Mages have lost so much utility along the way they just feel so hollow and shallow now.

[Swizzle]

I'll give you most of that, but Impact stuns should never come back. That was literal cancer along with Mace Spec Warriors.

[Champagne Supernova]

I'd quite like Arcane to get Mark of Aluneth back as a talent, replace arcane orb to make it baseline.