[Mage] 5.2 Hotfix Buffs

[Swizzle]

• Mage: Nether Tempest, Living Bomb, Frost Bomb damage +40%.
  
  We’re happy with the relative power of Arcane, Fire and Frost mages in PvE to each other, but all three specs are below where we want them. We were hoping that once groups got past the first few 5.2 raid encounters that benefit a lot from multi-dotting that we’d see mage DPS climb, but it’s not there yet. We don’t want to change rotations or force players to change specs, so we wanted a relatively passive change.
  
  We decided to buff the bombs because it affects all three specs relatively similarly and is as close to a passive form of damage as mages have. Had we buffed the cast-time nukes, the risk is that mages would lose even more DPS on high movement or high multi-dot fights, which wasn’t our intent. If these buffs aren’t sufficient, we will happily make more, but we’d rather make a few buffs a few times in a row rather than over buff then have to nerf it back down.

There you have it...we were all wrong.

[sirmailbox]

Wow! This is also a great boost to our AoE/multidotting, which is the other issue people were upset about. Sounds good to me.

[Deleted]

what a slap in the face! this is not even close it will bring problems in pvp, and will not help in pve its like a cookie "take that and stop whinning" . What a Slap in the face....

[Elegiac]

Which fixes....absolutely nothing. Ok.

[Swizzle]

Warlocks also got a nerf, so all is right in the world.

[Polarthief]

... Of all the things to buff... Bombs?

I'm curious if this now makes it worthwhile to actually multidot. I feel like NT is still too eh.

The problem I see with this though is for PvP. If they buffed L90 talents or our main nuke, it would have little to no consequence in PvP. Buffing Frost Bomb by 40% is a significant buff to PvP damage, as is LB and NT.

[Swizzle]

Which fixes....absolutely nothing. Ok.

It's a surprising buff to PvP, if anything.

[Polarthief]

Warlocks also got a nerf, so all is right in the world.

Not really. I really don't see this actually making us competitive, nor does it make Multi-dotting worth it.

A 40% increase to shit damage is... still shit damage +40%.

[Alphamage]

lol.. indeed, no one expected the bomb buff. Nice one and appreciated. Lets see how it will work for us...

[Polarthief]

It's a surprising buff to PvP, if anything.

Which leads me to believe it will be reverted and changed with a Primary Nuke or L90 talent buff.

Granted, Ryg said that they would add more buffs if we're not where they want us still.

[MiLLeR]

Mind blown at why frost gets buffed in PvP..

[Polarthief]

lol.. indeed, no one expected the bomb buff. Nice one and appreciated. Lets see how it will work for us...

Not appreciated here. It will be reverted for PvP reasons and changed with something else, mark my words.

[Elegiac]

lol.. indeed, no one expected the bomb buff. Nice one and appreciated. Lets see how it will work for us...

I don't appreciate it. As Dragon said. Shit damage is still shit.

[Swizzle]

Which leads me to believe it will be reverted and changed with a Primary Nuke or L90 talent buff.

Granted, Ryg said that they would add more buffs if we're not where they want us still.

Unless, of course, these changes only apply to the damage the bombs do to NPCs and not players. But that's not listed in the changes itself, so who knows.

[schwarzkopf]

There you have it...we were all wrong.

Me thinks that 'we' were not the ones that were wrong

[Polarthief]

Unless, of course, these changes only apply to the damage the bombs do to NPCs and not players. But that's not listed in the changes itself, so who knows.

If they continue down that kind of path, why in the fuck won't they just split every spell for PvE and PvP? Instantly fixes 99% of adjustment between the two gamestyle issues.

[Swizzle]

If they continue down that kind of path, why in the fuck won't they just split every spell for PvE and PvP? Instantly fixes 99% of adjustment between the two gamestyle issues.

One of the reasons I can think of is simply more code. Take the amount of spells in the game...then double it. I don't know how WoW is actually coded, but there exists a chance it would lead to a slower game overall which would probably hurt sales more than balance.

[Polarthief]

Me thinks that 'we' were not the ones that were wrong

^

They were wrong here.

This also isn't a significant buff to bring us up to where they want us. Fire also gets significantly less benefit from the Bombs because Arcane's mastery scales them up and Frost gets a lot of Haste, making NT and FB way more effective for Frost only (LB only gets a small benefit from Haste)

[Elegiac]

I love how they admit mobility is a problem and still make no move to fix it.

Starting to think that the driver is letting the passengers drive the short bus, here.

[Polarthief]

One of the reasons I can think of is simply more code. Take the amount of spells in the game...then double it. I don't know how WoW is actually coded, but there exists a chance it would lead to a slower game overall which would probably hurt sales more than balance.

Double the coding? No, just add single lines of code to do "-50% damage when cast on players" (similar to the Frost Bomb nerf in PvP).

They wouldn't need to be in the tooltips, they just need a single modifier.

Unless that's not how coding works.