[Mage] Do you enjoy the L90 talents?

[klaps_05]

Since all talents atm give 15% I propose the following -

Make Wizardy buff 20%(5% atm) and make all 3 talents about mana management.

[voltaa]

Rune of Power is useable only on few fights in ToT. (high mobility)

Right here, only usable on a few fights, according to you

as for my armory showing I'm not using RoP, I said in a previous post, there are 1 or two fights in ToT where Rune is hardly usable, I'm progressing on one of those, which is the only reason I'm playing fire.

[sophos1]

Invocation is the only one worth using and if you don't evocate and lose the buff, you won't be doing any decent damage. It's annoying. It's not interesting. Mages should have a flashy ultimate spell like mass teleport. Mass Teleport a bunch of npcs to the fight or something would be awesome.

[oldnmean]

Since all talents atm give 15% I propose the following -

Make Wizardy buff 20%(5% atm) and make all 3 talents about mana management.

Making the level 90s about mana management make no sense. I do think that arcane needs something baked into the spec about management but frost and fire should be like every other dps caster class out there right now which means not having to really worry about mana much.

On topic. The buggy 5.3 invocation was the last nail in the coffin for the level 90 talents for me. Especially with it being possible to do multiple channels in a row and not get the buff. That actually make the passive 6% from IW to start looking better and better.

[Methusula]

Wtf? You quote someone else then attribute it to me? Anyone else seeing this? Last I checked, I wasn't Grg. Good stuff.

Back on topic, we talked about this earlier in the thread Klaps. The 90 talents aren't a flat 15% boost. We are balanced around closer to the 8%-10% range. So wizardry could go to 15% potentially, if the new 90 talents were dps neutral.

[zomgDPS]

Wtf? You quote someone else then attribute it to me? Anyone else seeing this? Last I checked, I wasn't Grg. Good stuff.

I think voltaa has gone and done goofed! :P Lololo. No matter, it happens sometimes, even to the best of us


Either way, this thread is good. I'm pretty sure we can use these statistics now that 5.4 comes closer.
While I'm sure we wont get any major overhauls to the level 90s for 5.4, I am however somewhat sure that the current version of the level 90s will not be the same as the ones when 5.4 drops.

I'm quite certain we can expect some change to them. If I was to think, the few things that 5.4 could address are;

1) Not making invocation pretty much be the no brainer default choice for fire/frost. There really is NO reason for fire and frost to take either of the other two at all, esp now when the durations and bonuses are almost equal.

2) RoP will have to be changed. I'm not sure how, but I will be surprised if it remains the same by the end of 5.4

3) I'm still on the fence if changing around the mana aspect is a worthwhile investment for 5.4. Perhaps some experimental changes?

Let us hope 5.4 arrives on the PTR soon. I hope the rest of you are getting ready for it as well. Feedback (like the one in this thread) will be most useful.
Let us prepare. A new patch approaches

[voltaa]

whoops, goofed hard there, my apologies

[Deleted]

Wtf? You quote someone else then attribute it to me? Anyone else seeing this? Last I checked, I wasn't Grg. Good stuff.

Back on topic, we talked about this earlier in the thread Klaps. The 90 talents aren't a flat 15% boost. We are balanced around closer to the 8%-10% range. So wizardry could go to 15% potentially, if the new 90 talents were dps neutral.

It can't be wizardry because it increase Intel, not Spell Damage nor Spell power.
In Beta, they changed L90 from raw Spell Power to Spell damage because it increasing Ice Barrier's absorb too. Only, IW increase SP.

I have more doubt that it was balanced around 10%, more around +12% (80% uptime). Perfect rotation is around 95% uptime.

[Methusula]

I think voltaa has gone and done goofed! :P Lololo. No matter, it happens sometimes, even to the best of us


Either way, this thread is good. I'm pretty sure we can use these statistics now that 5.4 comes closer.
While I'm sure we wont get any major overhauls to the level 90s for 5.4, I am however somewhat sure that the current version of the level 90s will not be the same as the ones when 5.4 drops.

I'm quite certain we can expect some change to them. If I was to think, the few things that 5.4 could address are;

1) Not making invocation pretty much be the no brainer default choice for fire/frost. There really is NO reason for fire and frost to take either of the other two at all, esp now when the durations and bonuses are almost equal.

2) RoP will have to be changed. I'm not sure how, but I will be surprised if it remains the same by the end of 5.4

3) I'm still on the fence if changing around the mana aspect is a worthwhile investment for 5.4. Perhaps some experimental changes?

Let us hope 5.4 arrives on the PTR soon. I hope the rest of you are getting ready for it as well. Feedback (like the one in this thread) will be most useful.
Let us prepare. A new patch approaches

I'm a bit apprehensive about what they are planning for 5.4. A nerf to fire scaling is a certainty. The question is how? CM is the obvious choice, but it's not that simple. Taking crit from fire changes how it plays/feels in a very negative way.

Secondary stats are WAY too high already. You can already get to 50% haste and 50% crit is attainable self buffed. It could get cartoonish in 5.4(worse than ICC).

I wouldn't be surprised to see RoP baked into Arcane with a glyph for Invocation. We could see IW go baseline or go away. These would only be for mana in this scenario as the spell damage portion would just be redistributed.

As for what would replace them at 90? I wouldn't mind just seeing an IOU for 6.0.

---------- Post added 2013-06-10 at 01:04 PM ----------

It can't be wizardry because it increase Intel, not Spell Damage nor Spell power.
In Beta, they changed L90 from raw Spell Power to Spell damage because it increasing Ice Barrier's absorb too. Only, IW increase SP.

I have more doubt that it was balanced around 10%, more around +12% (80% uptime). Perfect rotation is around 95% uptime.

Ah yes, true dat.

[zomgDPS]

Oh boy I do hope they don't go after CM again.

Low crit firemages are already such an absolute, absolute pain to play even now. Further CM nerfs will just.. I dunno. It is not wise.
At the same time, nerfing pyro anymore will just make it a weaksauce spell, removing even more "boom" from a rather already "boomless" fire spec.



A full on redesign of critical mass may actually end up being the only real solution there is. (e.g. changing it to be a non-linear increase). But I dunno. It will be a tough one.

[Methusula]

Oh boy I do hope they don't go after CM again.

Low crit firemages are already such an absolute, absolute pain to play even now. Further CM nerfs will just.. I dunno. It is not wise.
At the same time, nerfing pyro anymore will just make it a weaksauce spell, removing even more "boom" from a rather already "boomless" fire spec.



A full on redesign of critical mass may actually end up being the only real solution there is. (e.g. changing it to be a non-linear increase). But I dunno. It will be a tough one.

We could see them nerf direct damage as a whole and maybe buff Combustion back to 100% ignite. At least we would grt them bomm on our cooldown...

---------- Post added 2013-06-10 at 01:12 PM ----------

Oh boy I do hope they don't go after CM again.

Low crit firemages are already such an absolute, absolute pain to play even now. Further CM nerfs will just.. I dunno. It is not wise.
At the same time, nerfing pyro anymore will just make it a weaksauce spell, removing even more "boom" from a rather already "boomless" fire spec.



A full on redesign of critical mass may actually end up being the only real solution there is. (e.g. changing it to be a non-linear increase). But I dunno. It will be a tough one.

We could see them nerf direct damage as a whole and maybe buff Combustion back to 100% ignite. At least we would get the boom on our cooldown...

---------- Post added 2013-06-10 at 01:13 PM ----------

Dafuq? My phone browser id going ape.

[voltaa]

Oh boy I do hope they don't go after CM again.

Low crit firemages are already such an absolute, absolute pain to play even now. Further CM nerfs will just.. I dunno. It is not wise.
At the same time, nerfing pyro anymore will just make it a weaksauce spell, removing even more "boom" from a rather already "boomless" fire spec.



A full on redesign of critical mass may actually end up being the only real solution there is. (e.g. changing it to be a non-linear increase). But I dunno. It will be a tough one.

I totally agree with this, % modifiers scale too well...in both directions, scaling hits them hard in one direction, nerfs hit them just as hard in the other

[Rotted]

In LFR I became a fan of the ward, (speaking from 5.1 havent been online since then)

outside LFR, like old raids etc, I pretty much stuck with rune of power, the other one was a bit meh,

[Deleted]

IW doesn't increase spell power either, all 3 increase spell damage.

Yes, I know. The tooltip was never corrected. It's easy to check : check IB tooltip with the talent and without. If there's change in absorbed damage, then it's SP.

[Ilyakimina]

I hate them with all my heart. I think we all need to understand where the talents come from.

Back in Wrath, when talents were "trees", there was this cool thing in Arcane called Incanter's Ward. The talent was supposed to take some of the damage you received and turn it into a flat dmg % increase. But wait, here's the interesting thing: when you were fighting a boss, you didn't need that flat % dmg increase to compete with the rest of the classes. You competed WITHOUT it, and when you had the fortune of having it in a few fights (like the Valkyrs), we could spec into this situational talent and DESTROY the meters. I didn't mind casting it and losing the global cooldown because the results were absolutely amazing. Not only that. Back then, mages were squishier than any other class. So, your big reward for taking all that extra damage would be that you would be a dps lightning rod if you did it right. It was more challenging to play, and it rewarded you appropriately. Your raid leader would not sit you on heavy constant damage fights because he knew you were really going to do well in those fights.

How this awesome mage talents history derived in what we have today is a mistery to me. Here it is again: IW, and yes, we don't have any passive damage reduction, so we're still squishier than the rest of the classes. The talent works more or less the same, except... wait. If I DON'T activate it, I will do 15% LESS damage than the other classes. If I DO activate it, I will compete. Where's the extra damage? It's not there, and not only that. Now it leads into mana management issues. Now it forces me to cast evocation or stand in a freaking rune (and recast it again and again) for the whole fight. I'm forced to do something incredibly annoying, and if I refuse, my dps will be awful. It forces Arcane spec to stand in the freaking rune, and when I get a fight where I can't, like Heroic Spirit Kings or Tsulong, my dps will be awful.

I ask you fellow mages: how can ANYONE like the talents in their current state? I'm surprised only 2 of every 3 mages hate them. They are AWFUL. If they hadn't given us these talents, it would be BETTER, because they would have had to factor in the 15% damage increase into our spells without forcing us to cast evocation, stand in the rune or cast IW. They should remove the talents, factor in the dmg increase and give us three cool graphic effects. That would be better... and it would be a damage increase for mages, since we wouldn't need to spend time casting these awful things.

Seriously. They are terrible.

[Polarthief]

What it comes down to for me is that we pretty much lack 15% dmg, but if you keep up the level 90 talent you do the dmg you are supposed to do. So give everything 15% more dmg for mages and make the talents something els.

I'd settle for a 10% buff across the board to start with if it means no more Invocation.

If that makes us unviable, buff us slightly.

---------- Post added 2013-06-12 at 01:48 AM ----------

I ask you fellow mages: how can ANYONE like the talents in their current state? I'm surprised only 2 of every 3 mages hate them. They are AWFUL. If they hadn't given us these talents, it would be BETTER, because they would have had to factor in the 15% damage increase into our spells without forcing us to cast evocation, stand in the rune or cast IW. They should remove the talents, factor in the dmg increase and give us three cool graphic effects. That would be better... and it would be a damage increase for mages, since we wouldn't need to spend time casting these awful things.

Seriously. They are terrible.

Sadly, it was too late to change this to "raiders/PvP players only" by the time I posted the thread. There are a few people who are fine with them outside of raiding. Very very few progression raiders actually like them.

[zephid]

All of them are bad, really bad.

[nightfalls]

I'd settle for a 10% buff across the board to start with if it means no more Invocation.

If that makes us unviable, buff us slightly.

Instead, this patch note, you get nothing.

[Juddalenko]

All you have to do is play another class to see how bad mage L90 talents are. It's weird, because they play to the system that Blizzard was trying to rid itself of - flat damage increasing talents. They are just that with different flavours: one that lets you move, one that plants you to the ground with no mana regen penalty, one that gives the bonus if you get hit. Love my druids Heart of the Wild & my priests Halo. Hate my mages "oh look a minute has passed, better evocate". They lack any sort of imagination whatsoever.

[Ilyakimina]

Want to give us level 90 talents that change our gameplay and make us take critical decisions? Alter our gameplay? That's what they were supposed to do, right?

It is not that hard. You level mage's damage with the rest of the classes and make the prizes behind RoP and Evocation real. 15% real dmg buff; HOWEVER, give us a punishment along with it. You want to stand in your RoP, mighty mage? Make us take 15 or 30% more damage when standing on it, or make it tick a dot that slowly decreases our health and increases the more time I stand on it. You wish to evocate to get a damage increase, mighty mage? Take Evo's CD back to 40 sec and make it so that if you receive any damage while doing it, you get stunned for 8 sec and get no buff. You want to use IW, mighty mage? Take away the passive bonus and make it situational, exactly as it used to be... even make us take x% more damage while the buff is active.

Mage's nature is to be damage dealers. We don't mind taking more damage. We don't mind having no defensive raid cooldowns, not even after rogues got their smoke bombs. We're not in the raid to save lives. We know we're squishy and, again, we don't mind, 'cause we're mages and have tricks up our sleeve to survive even if we're taking more damage. This is our nature. Give us a reward on our lvl 90 talents, even if it, at the same time, punishes us in other ways.

Can you imagine? You would have to decide exactly when to evocate, since doing it wrong could cost you your life and your damage during the try. You would have to choose when to stand on your RoP and, even though you'd be forced to stay in the same place, you'd be getting a great reward for doing it. You would get to choose when and how to do it, and you would be able to compete with the rest of the classes even if you didn't. You would make huge mistakes and die while trying to deal more damage, causing your Raid Leader to shout at you and forcing you to get better.

Something like that would be awesome. That was the spirit behind putting these talents in the game for mages, that's what the Devs wanted to put in the game. Our level 90 talents ARE fixable. They just need to want to do it.