Wish Blizz would scrap level 90 mage talents :\

[Obelisk Kai]

Okies. Lets be serious here. ZomgDPS' analysis, based upon the facts, is almost certainly correct.

Our feedback that the Level 90 talent's simply aren't fun however is also correct. So what do we do about it?

First off, our part of the equation is accepting Blizzard's vision for us as a class. If you've been playing Mages for a considerable length of time, then you've been playing a static caster. It's how we began. I don't believe the design of a static caster is outdated at all, simply because other games have given everone else so much mobility. I guess this is one of those times when class homogenization can break down. If you want a truly mobile ranged dps, there are other options. But for the class that wants to be the glass cannon, I guess that's our role.

We need to accept our role. We need to get comfortable with it. It's like the Warlocks who complain about Grimoire of Sacrifice being nerfed and Ghostcrawler asking them why they choose a pet class in that case (to a poster who said he wanted to play without a pet).

Once we accept the fact we are static casters with limited options for casting on the run, we can work from there. No use complaining about what their vision for us is, this isn't like the time they revealed they saw us as Kings of AOE to justify our abysmal single target damage (and to consequently realise that being King of AOE is ridiculous and so change the vision).

The level 90 talents, viewed through this design prism, are designed to reinforce the Blizzard vision for us as a class.Standing still for six seconds for a full Invocation Channel. Making sure you're always standing in a Rune of Power. Even Incanter's Ward encourages us to plan ahead to ensure we have that 15 second window of opportunity for some joyous burst,which means standing still.

Ok. I can get behind the vision, it's what I used to do and you know what, it isn't a bad place to be. I really do agree with Ghostcrawler when he says we have interesting rotations and cool toolsets, when I get to use them and almost get lost in my rotation that is when playing my Mage is at it's most fun. Sure moving is a pain, but it's not crystal clear that for us it is supposed to be.

Still...our level 90 talents. I get the intent, but they are a failure.Specificially, ONE is a failure.

Incanter's Ward is the reactive level 90 talent. It's a little bit more mobile, requires a measure of skill to use correctly and is only really useable on a few boss fights, but use it right and you get a sweet dps boost. This is fine. Really, Incanter's Ward is a perfectly ok talent in my opinion. It's main issue is that it's application is very very niche compared to the other two.

Invocation. The new Invocation. The Three second channel with the minute duration and the 15% power boost. I don't think it's good design actually, I actually think it is worse design than Rune of Power. It feels like a bandaid talent, a recognition that the tier has severe issues and so they are making it so much better than the other mainstream option while they figure out what the hell to do with it. Personally i'd scrap this talent and replace it with something else, but for the life of me I don't know. Any Ideas?

Rune of Power. Bane of our existence. We gotta pop it every minute and stand in it. We have to use a targetting reticule to drop it, which is great fun on those moments when we gotta stack and gotta make and educated guess. Usually we get it right. Usually.
Thing is...I can see where they were going with Rune of Power. Remember the Assembly of Iron in Ulduar? I remember when Runemaster Molgeim (?) dropped his little rune and we all stacked in it for a sick damage boost. That was fun. So why isn't Rune of Power fun?

Because we have to do it all the time, and even though we are static casters, it FEELS restrictive. It doesn't feel like we are gaining extra damage for standing still, it feels as if we are giving up any sort of movement at all to stay relevant. How do you fix that?

What if Rune of Power was converted into a cooldown/rotational ability. One minute cooldown, 15 second duration, 60% damage boost. It's up to you to game when the right moment to drop it will be during your rotation, you're not constrained by it all the time, and it feels rewarding to use as you'll get big numbers managed right.

But what the hell to do about Invocation?

[bklutz]

lvl 90 mage talents made me stop maining my mage since late tbc.....i would much rather perfer something similar to our bomb tier.

[Polarthief]

lvl 90 mage talents made me stop maining my mage since late tbc.....i would much rather perfer something similar to our bomb tier.

I would prefer the Polymorph modifiers, or literally, LITERALLY, anything that was useless for PvE compared to this garbage.

[Deleted]

lvl 90 mage talents made me stop maining my mage since late tbc.....i would much rather perfer something similar to our bomb tier.

Mirror Image modifiers would be an easy thing to implement and with very little complaining.
choice 1: shorter cooldown for more frequent burst
choice 2: longer duration for a prolonged burst
choice 3: extra copies for bigger burst.

Get wrid of the cooldown on evocation, get the manaregen from Incanter's Ward as a passive and forget the Rune of Power (or perhaps make it a 3min cd boost spell).

After these changes it would be just simple number tweaking. Probably should make Mastery more valuable to avoid spam rotations.

[Soulstrike]

I would prefer the Polymorph modifiers, or literally, LITERALLY, anything that was useless for PvE compared to this garbage.

pretty sure we did the same thing when polymorph talents were intorduced and ppl QQed so much that blizz had to change it to current lvl90 talents lol

Mirror Image modifiers would be an easy thing to implement and with very little complaining.
choice 1: shorter cooldown for more frequent burst
choice 2: longer duration for a prolonged burst
choice 3: extra copies for bigger burst.

Get wrid of the cooldown on evocation, get the manaregen from Incanter's Ward as a passive and forget the Rune of Power (or perhaps make it a 3min cd boost spell).

After these changes it would be just simple number tweaking. Probably should make Mastery more valuable to avoid spam rotations.

good start but MI is bit boring dont you think?? :P

lvl 90 mage talents made me stop maining my mage since late tbc.....i would much rather perfer something similar to our bomb tier.

you do realise you pretty much have same rotation if you take IW??? so i dont see any problem with that??? >_>

[Deleted]

good start but MI is bit boring dont you think?? :P

Rather have boring than what we have now, but whatever works... MI was just an example of something that's not gamebreaking, easy to tune and situational.

[Polarthief]

pretty sure we did the same thing when polymorph talents were intorduced and ppl QQed so much that blizz had to change it to current lvl90 talents lol

They were actually our T5. T6 was Blast Wave, Dragon's Breath, and Slow.

But after playing with THIS garbage, I would gladly rather have nothing than this shit.

[Faxender]

Okies. Lets be serious here. ZomgDPS' analysis, based upon the facts, is almost certainly correct.

Our feedback that the Level 90 talent's simply aren't fun however is also correct. So what do we do about it?

First off, our part of the equation is accepting Blizzard's vision for us as a class. If you've been playing Mages for a considerable length of time, then you've been playing a static caster. It's how we began. I don't believe the design of a static caster is outdated at all, simply because other games have given everone else so much mobility. I guess this is one of those times when class homogenization can break down. If you want a truly mobile ranged dps, there are other options. But for the class that wants to be the glass cannon, I guess that's our role.

We need to accept our role. We need to get comfortable with it. It's like the Warlocks who complain about Grimoire of Sacrifice being nerfed and Ghostcrawler asking them why they choose a pet class in that case (to a poster who said he wanted to play without a pet).

Once we accept the fact we are static casters with limited options for casting on the run, we can work from there. No use complaining about what their vision for us is, this isn't like the time they revealed they saw us as Kings of AOE to justify our abysmal single target damage (and to consequently realise that being King of AOE is ridiculous and so change the vision).

The level 90 talents, viewed through this design prism, are designed to reinforce the Blizzard vision for us as a class.Standing still for six seconds for a full Invocation Channel. Making sure you're always standing in a Rune of Power. Even Incanter's Ward encourages us to plan ahead to ensure we have that 15 second window of opportunity for some joyous burst,which means standing still.

Ok. I can get behind the vision, it's what I used to do and you know what, it isn't a bad place to be. I really do agree with Ghostcrawler when he says we have interesting rotations and cool toolsets, when I get to use them and almost get lost in my rotation that is when playing my Mage is at it's most fun. Sure moving is a pain, but it's not crystal clear that for us it is supposed to be.

Still...our level 90 talents. I get the intent, but they are a failure.Specificially, ONE is a failure.

Incanter's Ward is the reactive level 90 talent. It's a little bit more mobile, requires a measure of skill to use correctly and is only really useable on a few boss fights, but use it right and you get a sweet dps boost. This is fine. Really, Incanter's Ward is a perfectly ok talent in my opinion. It's main issue is that it's application is very very niche compared to the other two.

Invocation. The new Invocation. The Three second channel with the minute duration and the 15% power boost. I don't think it's good design actually, I actually think it is worse design than Rune of Power. It feels like a bandaid talent, a recognition that the tier has severe issues and so they are making it so much better than the other mainstream option while they figure out what the hell to do with it. Personally i'd scrap this talent and replace it with something else, but for the life of me I don't know. Any Ideas?

Rune of Power. Bane of our existence. We gotta pop it every minute and stand in it. We have to use a targetting reticule to drop it, which is great fun on those moments when we gotta stack and gotta make and educated guess. Usually we get it right. Usually.
Thing is...I can see where they were going with Rune of Power. Remember the Assembly of Iron in Ulduar? I remember when Runemaster Molgeim (?) dropped his little rune and we all stacked in it for a sick damage boost. That was fun. So why isn't Rune of Power fun?

Because we have to do it all the time, and even though we are static casters, it FEELS restrictive. It doesn't feel like we are gaining extra damage for standing still, it feels as if we are giving up any sort of movement at all to stay relevant. How do you fix that?

What if Rune of Power was converted into a cooldown/rotational ability. One minute cooldown, 15 second duration, 60% damage boost. It's up to you to game when the right moment to drop it will be during your rotation, you're not constrained by it all the time, and it feels rewarding to use as you'll get big numbers managed right.

But what the hell to do about Invocation?

I pretty much agree with what this guy said. I agree with the vision that we as mages/glass cannons have to be like a turret and stand in one place to do more dmg and I pretty much like it tbh. However the design of the lvl 90 talents is not part of this vision in my opinion just because we have to use them in order to perform "well". If we miss an Invo or mess up with RoP our DPS goes way down. The bad design comes into play at this restrictive part. All the other classes have lvl 90 talents that are cool or let them do something special, they are not tied directly to the damage they do, but rather they provide a boost.

I like the idea of having RoP and maybe even Invocation as a DPS cooldown. Imagine that in a burn phase you pretty much want to stand and cast anyway so these 2 talents could come into play right here. Put down the damn ring or cast your Invo a few seconds before the burn phase and then stand in it (because as I said you will stand still anyway) and receive a temporary boost in DPS after which you have to wait I dunno let's say 2 mins to use it again. I wouldn't restrict our normal DPS in any way and they would be fun to use and gives you a sense of power (Rune of Power, get it ?). In order to make sure that we mages are restricted from movement more than other classes you can do that by buffing our filler spells like Frostbolt, AB and Fireball. That way you make sure we DO want to stand still and cast otherwise it would be a DPS loss, but in the same time we wouldn't plummet on DPS meters because our Invo got interrupted or because we put a RoP down somewhere and after 1 second we have to quickly move in another place because a puddle of fire came right on the spot so we have to cast it again.

[Swizzle]

I'm sorry guys, but expecting the talents to be scrapped is a pipe dream. They'll get iterations, updates, and changes but they won't be taken out. The most you can expect is what Rogues got with one talent in the tier being redone, not the full tier. It could very well happen next expansion, but it won't happen mid-expansion. Sorry to disappoint, that's just how game design goes.

[Televators]

Okies. Lets be serious here. ZomgDPS' analysis, based upon the facts, is almost certainly correct.

Our feedback that the Level 90 talent's simply aren't fun however is also correct. So what do we do about it?

First off, our part of the equation is accepting Blizzard's vision for us as a class. If you've been playing Mages for a considerable length of time, then you've been playing a static caster. It's how we began. I don't believe the design of a static caster is outdated at all, simply because other games have given everone else so much mobility. I guess this is one of those times when class homogenization can break down. If you want a truly mobile ranged dps, there are other options. But for the class that wants to be the glass cannon, I guess that's our role.

We need to accept our role. We need to get comfortable with it. It's like the Warlocks who complain about Grimoire of Sacrifice being nerfed and Ghostcrawler asking them why they choose a pet class in that case (to a poster who said he wanted to play without a pet).

Once we accept the fact we are static casters with limited options for casting on the run, we can work from there. No use complaining about what their vision for us is, this isn't like the time they revealed they saw us as Kings of AOE to justify our abysmal single target damage (and to consequently realise that being King of AOE is ridiculous and so change the vision).

The level 90 talents, viewed through this design prism, are designed to reinforce the Blizzard vision for us as a class.Standing still for six seconds for a full Invocation Channel. Making sure you're always standing in a Rune of Power. Even Incanter's Ward encourages us to plan ahead to ensure we have that 15 second window of opportunity for some joyous burst,which means standing still.

Ok. I can get behind the vision, it's what I used to do and you know what, it isn't a bad place to be. I really do agree with Ghostcrawler when he says we have interesting rotations and cool toolsets, when I get to use them and almost get lost in my rotation that is when playing my Mage is at it's most fun. Sure moving is a pain, but it's not crystal clear that for us it is supposed to be.

Still...our level 90 talents. I get the intent, but they are a failure.Specificially, ONE is a failure.

Incanter's Ward is the reactive level 90 talent. It's a little bit more mobile, requires a measure of skill to use correctly and is only really useable on a few boss fights, but use it right and you get a sweet dps boost. This is fine. Really, Incanter's Ward is a perfectly ok talent in my opinion. It's main issue is that it's application is very very niche compared to the other two.

Invocation. The new Invocation. The Three second channel with the minute duration and the 15% power boost. I don't think it's good design actually, I actually think it is worse design than Rune of Power. It feels like a bandaid talent, a recognition that the tier has severe issues and so they are making it so much better than the other mainstream option while they figure out what the hell to do with it. Personally i'd scrap this talent and replace it with something else, but for the life of me I don't know. Any Ideas?

Rune of Power. Bane of our existence. We gotta pop it every minute and stand in it. We have to use a targetting reticule to drop it, which is great fun on those moments when we gotta stack and gotta make and educated guess. Usually we get it right. Usually.
Thing is...I can see where they were going with Rune of Power. Remember the Assembly of Iron in Ulduar? I remember when Runemaster Molgeim (?) dropped his little rune and we all stacked in it for a sick damage boost. That was fun. So why isn't Rune of Power fun?

Because we have to do it all the time, and even though we are static casters, it FEELS restrictive. It doesn't feel like we are gaining extra damage for standing still, it feels as if we are giving up any sort of movement at all to stay relevant. How do you fix that?

What if Rune of Power was converted into a cooldown/rotational ability. One minute cooldown, 15 second duration, 60% damage boost. It's up to you to game when the right moment to drop it will be during your rotation, you're not constrained by it all the time, and it feels rewarding to use as you'll get big numbers managed right.

But what the hell to do about Invocation?

Great post. This has spawned some nice discussion. If anyone has ideas for replacement talents for the hell of it, I'd love to see some of your ideas. What I'd like to see is base mage damage ramped up a bit, scrap these shit talents and move onto something *fun* and/or providing utility.

[Polarthief]

I'm sorry guys, but expecting the talents to be scrapped is a pipe dream. They'll get iterations, updates, and changes but they won't be taken out. The most you can expect is what Rogues got with one talent in the tier being redone, not the full tier. It could very well happen next expansion, but it won't happen mid-expansion. Sorry to disappoint, that's just how game design goes.

The problem is not even Blizzard knows how to fix the issues. RoP they didn't even bother with except a nerf, IW they didn't attempt, and Invo they're experimenting, but still having issues with it and Arcane; Arcane being another issue in itself.

Also, they're completely changing things around with Arcane and even scrapped Freeze for Frost. Small changes, but changes nonetheless that leave me optimistic that they'll realize their mistakes soon enough.

[Shangalar]

While I'm not currently in the mood for a more detailed discussion on my part, I just want to point out that there are those like me who find all three level 90 talents very fun and cool to play with. Talking about their design of course. There are issues with the mana regen part, but all three talents for me are great.

[Televators]

While I'm not currently in the mood for a more detailed discussion on my part, I just want to point out that there are those like me who find all three level 90 talents very fun and cool to play with. Talking about their design of course. There are issues with the mana regen part, but all three talents for me are great.

Just curious, but what do you find fun about it? I can understand not hating it, but what's fun about a mandatory straight dps spell that you must babysit in order to have the same dps as other classes baseline?

[Deleted]

I hate them too so much i dont play my mage alt anymore but Blizzard loves them and has said they are very happy with mages atm so I guess nothings going to change.

[Shangalar]

Well other classes have a dps spell or a dps cooldown in their level 90 talents and they use them to do damage as well as part of their core rotations. We on the other get unique maintenance buffs and the players react with "Blizz don't care bout mages QQ". Druids, Paladins and Priests have spells which play off their hybrid nature (forcing extremes like Feral druids spamming Wrath in caster form for the first 30 seconds of a fight). Rogues, Hunters and Warriors get dps spells/cooldowns. Warlocks get passive buffs.

In light of all of that, you consider our own talents to be boring. I can understand if we wanted additional spells to bolster our rotations (like Elemental Blast), but we have those in the bomb tier. Why isn't anyone complaining that we are forced to use a bomb spell to maintain the same dps as other classes have? Because it's just double standards if you're not using that argument as well. I think that passive procs or passive buffs would be insanely boring and I'd much rather have a maintenance buff that does something.

The way I see it is this: I'd rather that the talents have a different effect based on spec or I'd rather that they don't have any effect on specs at all. Currently Fire and Frost don't change their rotations based on the talents, but Arcane does. That's the mana regen issue and that's the primary concern I have with the talents.

Ultimately, the talents provide an element of skill to all 3 specs. Maximizing your uptime on the talent means maximizing your dps. I find this a lot more exciting than "use this spell between these two" or "use this on cooldown".

[Televators]

Well other classes have a dps spell or a dps cooldown in their level 90 talents and they use them to do damage as well as part of their core rotations. We on the other get unique maintenance buffs and the players react with "Blizz don't care bout mages QQ". Druids, Paladins and Priests have spells which play off their hybrid nature (forcing extremes like Feral druids spamming Wrath in caster form for the first 30 seconds of a fight). Rogues, Hunters and Warriors get dps spells/cooldowns. Warlocks get passive buffs.

In light of all of that, you consider our own talents to be boring. I can understand if we wanted additional spells to bolster our rotations (like Elemental Blast), but we have those in the bomb tier. Why isn't anyone complaining that we are forced to use a bomb spell to maintain the same dps as other classes have? Because it's just double standards if you're not using that argument as well. I think that passive procs or passive buffs would be insanely boring and I'd much rather have a maintenance buff that does something.

The way I see it is this: I'd rather that the talents have a different effect based on spec or I'd rather that they don't have any effect on specs at all. Currently Fire and Frost don't change their rotations based on the talents, but Arcane does. That's the mana regen issue and that's the primary concern I have with the talents.

Ultimately, the talents provide an element of skill to all 3 specs. Maximizing your uptime on the talent means maximizing your dps. I find this a lot more exciting than "use this spell between these two" or "use this on cooldown".

Mage bombs not only provide damage, but some splash, some snare, some explode. They do different damage in different situations. Their use is determined by the number of mobs present. Being unable to cast them due to mechanics RNG does not destroy your dps. They are a decision. Fun. That's the difference.

[Polarthief]

Well other classes have a dps spell or a dps cooldown in their level 90 talents and they use them to do damage as well as part of their core rotations. We on the other get unique maintenance buffs and the players react with "Blizz don't care bout mages QQ". Druids, Paladins and Priests have spells which play off their hybrid nature (forcing extremes like Feral druids spamming Wrath in caster form for the first 30 seconds of a fight). Rogues, Hunters and Warriors get dps spells/cooldowns. Warlocks get passive buffs.

Okay, as far as the "feral spamming wrath", you can choose to pick up NV instead. Atm, we have to babysit Invo or stand still all the time (as IW is a DPS loss). It's not like we have a passive alternative to not deal with it.

Now, if these talents didn't come with such restrictions, I'd like them more. RoP needs to be bigger, or instant cast, or fuck, idk, at least castable while moving or some shit. IW shouldn't be a shield and should just pop the 30% when you cast it so it's a bit more controlled. Invo shouldn't halve Fire/Frost's MP5 because Fire/Frost are like every other caster, having mana irrelevant.

Also, one tier of talents being radically different for ONE specc over the other two tend to show that it was heavily focused on that one specc (i.e., Arcane). TBH I just kinda wish they kept Fire/Frost in mind when designing them (because if they did, they would never have thought of something redundant like halving MP5 when not Arcane).

---------- Post added 2013-02-12 at 12:34 PM ----------

Mage bombs not only provide damage, but some splash, some snare, some explode. They do different damage in different situations. Their use is determined by the number of mobs present. Being unable to cast them due to mechanics RNG does not destroy your dps. They are a decision. Fun. That's the difference.

This too. I actually enjoy choosing my bomb spell based on specc/gear (and in some extremes, encounters, like Frost Bomb for Wind Lord). Choosing my L90 talent just isn't fun. It's more of a punishment than a fun choice that "makes me feel OP" (as Blizzard has said, our talents are supposed to make us feel OP, many, many, times)

[Elegiac]

While I'm not currently in the mood for a more detailed discussion on my part, I just want to point out that there are those like me who find all three level 90 talents very fun and cool to play with. Talking about their design of course. There are issues with the mana regen part, but all three talents for me are great.

Good for you, they happen to be ruining the class for the rest of us.

---------- Post added 2013-02-12 at 11:35 AM ----------

Well other classes have a dps spell or a dps cooldown in their level 90 talents and they use them to do damage as well as part of their core rotations. We on the other get unique maintenance buffs and the players react with "Blizz don't care bout mages QQ". Druids, Paladins and Priests have spells which play off their hybrid nature (forcing extremes like Feral druids spamming Wrath in caster form for the first 30 seconds of a fight). Rogues, Hunters and Warriors get dps spells/cooldowns. Warlocks get passive buffs.

They do; but they are not maintenance buffs which inhibit mobility, for the most part.

In light of all of that, you consider our own talents to be boring. I can understand if we wanted additional spells to bolster our rotations (like Elemental Blast), but we have those in the bomb tier. Why isn't anyone complaining that we are forced to use a bomb spell to maintain the same dps as other classes have? Because it's just double standards if you're not using that argument as well. I think that passive procs or passive buffs would be insanely boring and I'd much rather have a maintenance buff that does something.

I am, I protested the Bomb tier for quite some time. Having to use a generic 'maintain this DoT' spell is a stupid idea for Frost and even moreso for Arcane. Make Living Bomb baseline for Arcane, scrap Nether Tempest and Frost Bomb or redesign them to be AoE assistance abilities.

Ultimately, the talents provide an element of skill to all 3 specs. Maximizing your uptime on the talent means maximizing your dps. I find this a lot more exciting than "use this spell between these two" or "use this on cooldown".

This is a myth; none of the talents take a lot of 'skill' to use correctly, they are just more annoying versions of Inquisition.

[Polarthief]

This is a myth; none of the talents take a lot of 'skill' to use correctly, they are just more annoying versions of Inquisition.

^

What's so hard about Invo? You just get fucked by RNG most of the time.

In 5.2, this issue is completely nullified. It's just another button once every 60s now. Does it make you feel proud of your choice? No, not really. It's just a nuisance.

[Deleted]

^

What's so hard about Invo? You just get fucked by RNG most of the time.

In 5.2, this issue is completely nullified. It's just another button once every 60s now. Does it make you feel proud of your choice? No, not really. It's just a nuisance.

60 seconds maybe for fire/frost.

Haste/Invo its more like every 15 seconds :x.