The uses of our AoE spell; Blizzard

[Imnick]

Refreshing your Mage Bomb can actually net you a missiles proc or two now which is fairly handy on fights with 3+ targets.
I don't have the same animosity towards the bomb tier as you do but if in 6.0 they decided to make Fire the only DoT spec again (or also make Frost Bomb baseline for Frost) then I wouldn't cry either, the sight of a cloud of Nether Tempest missiles is a beautiful one but I'd take more interesting AOE over that any day.

I honestly think that their dedication to giving each tier a Fire/Frost/Arcane choice was a bit of a mistake in terms of flavour, I don't think any other class does that >_>

[jtmzac]

Even Frozen Orb is at present a little suss because of its pathing issues.

As long as you don't try and cast it on stairs it works fine. The only boss fight where it causes problems is elegon and you can avoid it getting stuck by just walking towards the centre of the platform a little before you use it.

Flame orb might have just been a fire and forget cd but at least it was sort of unique and cool looking.

[Elegiac]

Refreshing your Mage Bomb can actually net you a missiles proc or two now which is fairly handy on fights with 3+ targets.
I don't have the same animosity towards the bomb tier as you do but if in 6.0 they decided to make Fire the only DoT spec again (or also make Frost Bomb baseline for Frost) then I wouldn't cry either, the sight of a cloud of Nether Tempest missiles is a beautiful one but I'd take more interesting AOE over that any day.

I honestly think that their dedication to giving each tier a Fire/Frost/Arcane choice was a bit of a mistake in terms of flavour, I don't think any other class does that >_>

I admit, the visual for NT is quite stunning; I remember actually squealing when I used it for the first time on beta. As I said, perhaps Nether Tempest can summon a totem-like contraption that spits out little Arcane Missiles, and you can have X number active at once.

The funny thing is they failed in that dedication: Level 45 is all Frost spells, and level 90 is all Arcane spells. Why they can't just delineate certain talents visually like they do with the Priest ones is beyond me.

[brirrspliff]

I use Blizzard when I feel lazy on trash packs. For such an iconic mage spell, it's rather lackluster.

yeah, but it was THE aoe spell many years. thinking back to ulduar council hardmode, or nefarian... good times! :-)

[Imnick]

Mages used to be the premier AOE spec in the game, even without unbalanceable capless Combustion spreading.
Yeah our AOE was as boring then as it was now but so was everyone else's so it didn't sting as much, now we still have basically the most archaic system of AOE damage (except perhaps for Shadow Priests?) and don't even do above-average damage to compensate.

In fact there were even tricks you could do back then that you can't now. PoM's increased crit chance would apply to every tick of a Blizzard and it would both proc and consume Fingers of Frost. That last one is basically entirely passive but it was still more interesting than we have it now!

[Elegiac]

Mages used to be the premier AOE spec in the game, even without unbalanceable capless Combustion spreading.
Yeah our AOE was as boring then as it was now but so was everyone else's so it didn't sting as much, now we still have basically the most archaic system of AOE damage (except perhaps for Shadow Priests?) and don't even do above-average damage to compensate.

In fact there were even tricks you could do back then that you can't now. PoM's increased crit chance would apply to every tick of a Blizzard and it would both proc and consume Fingers of Frost. That last one is basically entirely passive but it was still more interesting than we have it now!

Even before FoF, I remember Blizzard proccing Frostbite....

[Eroginous]

Once upon a time, Frost used to be the leveling spec and Blizzard used to be the go-to spell for leveling quickly. You used to get it by level 22 I think, and it would be amazing to just pull a bunch of trash, Nova it in one place, then Blizzard it down, rinse, repeat, then ding quickly.

Now, Blizzard has nerfed AoE so badly that it's little more useful than to get players out of stealth. You're almost always going to do just as much single target damage over the same time frame as AoE damage, it's not really that great anymore.

[royals]

Who remembers down ranked flame strike + flame strike + blizzard combo?

[Polarthief]

Blizzard's handy for slowing adds on Feng if your DKs aren't paying attention for some reason

Cone of Cold also achieves this, and slows them even further, for much longer

---------- Post added 2013-02-05 at 03:26 PM ----------

Even before FoF, I remember Blizzard proccing Frostbite....

I remember when Blizzard+Frostbite was required to kill Iron Council - Semi-Hard Mode with Molgeim last. Those little elemental fuckers ran all over the place, and a Frost Mage was the only way IIRC to do that fight.

[Imnick]

That's a good idea, I didn't really even have that spell on my bars any more.
I mean I probably still won't because we have two death knights but I'll keep it in mind if 5.2 also needs groups of adds to be slowed.

[Polarthief]

That's a good idea, I didn't really even have that spell on my bars any more.
I mean I probably still won't because we have two death knights but I'll keep it in mind if 5.2 also needs groups of adds to be slowed.

Have you done H Will yet?

If not, be prepared to relearn your CoC.



... That sounded more wrong than it should be >_>;

[Deleted]

Leave mage bombs alone, they're the only way to do decent AOE with Arcane. No one should have to suffer switching specs for AOE content, not even for Mel'jarak.

[Veyne]

What I think could be used to help remedy the AoE problem is axing the Level 75 talents (yucky bomb spells) and turning it into a tier of AoE improvements.

Please don't take away my Nether Tempest. Please? =/

[Elegiac]

Leave mage bombs alone, they're the only way to do decent AOE with Arcane. No one should have to suffer switching specs for AOE content, not even for Mel'jarak.

No, they aren't the only decent way. The decent way would be giving Arcane better spec-specific AoE tools and replace the bomb tier.

[Malfecto]

I use it!

Flamestrike + blizzard is just enough time to look like I'm doing dps on dungeon trash while I take a whiz real quick.