Still no Fire Nerfs and Frost Gets a New Mastery. Further updates at p22

[Vynestra]

That doesn't make any sense.

Does too, solves the movement problem with arcane, and brings it's dps on par with fire. :3

[Huevos]

Does too, solves the movement problem with arcane, and brings it's dps on par with fire. :3

Arcane could use a fix like this to make it more mobile, but I think this one in particular is a pipe dream, and I'll be surprised at this point if any of the level 90 talents are touched.

[Frost1129]

The only obvious change I can think of to help lower geared mages and nerf those in higher gear is making CM a flat %. That's a no brainer, but I don't think it's enough. Fire is going to scale well because of the reliance on crit, which is a very basic playstyle mechanic, not something they're gonna change in a minor version patch. The problem is compounded by the synergy between crit and mastery, and then obviously haste since we have such slow cast times and really no rotational cooldowns that make haste less valuable - IB doesn't really count since it's not used on CD, like Mind Blast or Lava Burst are.

I really thought the combustion change was a decent one. I don't want coeff changes because we're already not great outside of combustion. Wouldn't be surprised to see a PB nerf though, since it makes up a larger portion of damage the more gear you have.

So this tier I would have said nerfing CM would do the trick (it obviously did - it's why they did it in 5.2) but with the gear levels available I don't think top tier mages are going to care if CM goes from it's current state to a flat increase. They'll probably be rolling in enough crit (especially with that ridiculous crit proc trinket) that it won't even hurt them.

Nerfing combustion hurts all mage tiers, especially lower geared ones.

[Khain]

Curious what mages think about how they got nerfed and not even 6 hours later the blues were assuring you guys that the nerfs were being reverted?

I know most every other class was astonished by the revert of nerfs in like 3 days back a few months ago but 6 hours?

Even mages have to admit that there is something seriously wonky about how Blizz treats its favorite class.

I've aways thought that something was wrong with the way mages were treated since WotLK which BTW was when GC got in, last patch mages started as a middle of the road and after one week they got a hotfix, while hunters were in a terrible spot and took them months to address it. Lore said they might even left mages alone for 5.4 and if it stays like that with that with the amp trinket i can see a mage worthing 2 middle of the road classes dps wise.

[Polarthief]

Not trolling at all.

Its a legit question.

Just because it brings up a painfully situation that Mage's may want to pretend doesn't exist because your so used to being catered to every patch doesn't make it trolling.

Someone obviously never tried Mage this expansion/Sunwell Plateau...

If we're being catered to this expansion, why do we still have the shit L90 talents that a good portion of us have been asking to get changed since MoP beta?

[fearist]

I've aways thought that something was wrong with the way mages were treated since WotLK which BTW was when GC got in, last patch mages started as a middle of the road and after one week they got a hotfix, while hunters were in a terrible spot and took them months no address it. Lore said they might even left mages alone for 5.4 and if it stays like that with that with the amp trinket i can see a mage worthing 2 middle of the road classes dps wise.

your tears are so delicious
"Those are the issues we’d like to fix, and why the earlier changes hit the PTR to begin with. We may try other methods, or we may decide to just leave things alone for 5.4, but we do want to fix them."
LAWL omg, how great would this be, i can't wait to feed on more tears if blizzard actually goes through with that

I like it better when I feed on tears. Infracted.

[Vynestra]

your tears are so delicious
"Those are the issues we’d like to fix, and why the earlier changes hit the PTR to begin with. We may try other methods, or we may decide to just leave things alone for 5.4, but we do want to fix them."
LAWL omg, how great would this be, i can't wait to feed on more tears if blizzard actually goes through with that

If that happens, fire mages will be pulling 1m dps, arcane 500k, and then all the other classes at 300k. >.>

[fearist]

i certainly wouldn't mind. survival of the fittest brah, i'll be at the top shredding bosses while people who refuse to respec to the most optimal spec will be at the bottom mirin' hard.

[Vynestra]

i certainly wouldn't mind. survival of the fittest brah, i'll be at the top shredding bosses while people who refuse to respec to the most optimal spec will be at the bottom mirin' hard.

Yeah, great philosophy. Method will bring 15 fire mages. Then blizz will be like "oh tartar sauce! we shoulda nerfed them in the ptr, we knew the dmg was gonna be high....Lets just remove CM and combustion. That'll fix it!" And fire will recieve the mother of all post-patch nerfs :3.

[fearist]

reaching,

[Menphis]

your tears are so delicious
"Those are the issues we’d like to fix, and why the earlier changes hit the PTR to begin with. We may try other methods, or we may decide to just leave things alone for 5.4, but we do want to fix them."
LAWL omg, how great would this be, i can't wait to feed on more tears if blizzard actually goes through with that

If this went through without any nerfs, prepare for a huge over nerf during 5.4 live.
Don't forget what happened to the fire spec after a few weeks or days since 5.1 went live.


BTW, I had some nice laughs on how this thread titles been changing lol

[Deleted]

Blizzard made a change on the test realm!! OMFG!

[Marco89]

Could someone quickly explain the Combustion glyph for me? I read is as the same as live in terms of damage but instead of the cooldown being 100% longer, it will only 50% of the original CD? Then I read this was nerf and being reverted? Did I miss something between patch updates or am I just dopey right now?

[Shangalar]

Let me make something clear boys and girls - other class posters are welcome to post on our forums as long as they're nice to use in line with the forum code of conduct, but you guys need to also be nice to them. Discuss, don't get provoked by trolling or silly jabs.

[Alphamage]

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/2...ve-fire-mages/
I believe this answers everything. PTR is all about testing. If it is not working good they revert it...

[Deleted]

I enjoy watching Blizzard get into pickles like this. Well, if they leave Fire untouched for 5.4, time to dust off my mage hehe.

[ssviolett]

Phew. Storm has passed by.

I enjoy watching Blizzard get into pickles like this. Well, if they leave Fire untouched for 5.4, time to dust off my mage hehe.

Nope, this wont happen. Blizzard WILL nerf fire mages thats for sure, they will never allow things to be as it was just after 5.1 - huge disbalance. It is hard to find a solution - to nerf high ilvl mages without nerfing low ilvl ones, but I believe if they wont make things work they will simple reduce our Pyro damage once more.

- - - Updated - - -

If this went through without any nerfs, prepare for a huge over nerf during 5.4 live.
Don't forget what happened to the fire spec after a few weeks or days since 5.1 went live.

I just hope they wont do this shit again. To nerf a class mid-tier is worst idea ever and will lead to huge frustration.

[Pyromelter]

Something occurred to me - in cataclysm, mages were nearly perfect. All 3 specs had good uses, each one was "best" at different times during the xpac, the mechanics were fun, to the point where I remember the EJ post talking about fire being the pinnacle of game design, where things really worked well together.

And now we have... this whole mess.

As I was thinking more about "nerf scaling increased base damage" type changes to help lower geared mages while reducing scaling for upper tier mages, it occurred to me that the entire design of the mage class in MoP has been so messed up, there's just no way they can do anything but bandaid us. The flaws have been harped on time and again, but a tl;dr is that our first 4 talents offer the type of choice that they want for us (except PoM-Pyro, which has been problematic since BC), and our last 2 talents completely throw off the entire gameplay of all the specs.

And when I think about both the level 75 and level 90 talents, and how they interact with our spells and scaling, I just realize that we are going to be in for a rollercoaster of nerfs, buffs, and reversions of nerfs and buffs just like we saw.

I'm going to give a few predictions, I think something along these lines will happen in 5.4
1. Combustion moved to 60 seconds baseline, glyph removed. I feel like this is a very highly likely scenario. Blizz has shown that glyphs that are mandatory they will just bake into the class and get rid of the glyph. 60 seconds will line up the 3rd 'bustion with amplification, and the 4th with a second alter time.
2. A slight nerf to the scaling of Pyroblast, with an increase of the base damage. This will help undergeared fire mages a little, while toning down scaling at higher levels
3. A buff to the base damage of fireball, scaling unchanged. Basically a small boost to leveling/undergeared fire mages.
4. PoM gets removed entirely, or possibly does not work with Pyroblast, or Pyroblast will incur a penalty for being used with PoM, like maybe 10% less damage (similar to the old Titan's Grip penalty, but just for pyroblast).
5. Invocation gets nerfed (from say 15% down to 12%), Incanter's Ward gets changed to be a bit more user friendly (but not overall buffed), and Rune of Power stays the same. Since RoP will stay at 15%, it will cause many people to start looking at how fire and frost can use it, or the nerf to Invo may push people back into Incanter's.
6. They do something unexpected with the L75 bomb tier. I would not be surprised if they scaled it back to how it was when 5.2 first dropped. Nor would I be surprised if NT stopped scaling with arcane blast stacks. I can almost guarantee this is where the nerf will come, since this is an easy dial for them to turn, and they have turned that dial in the recent past.

---------------

tl;dr - expect changes, expect nerfs, and expect them to come with combustion, and our level 75 and 90 talents, and try not to overreact. Things are going to change, and they are going to be kind of crappy until 6.0, in my opinion anyone with any kind of voice should be pounding the desk for major changes to L75/90 talents and getting the devs to try to reach that cataclysm mage design beauty in 6.0 and beyond.

[Shangalar]

Some replies, not at home so problematic to answer all:

If 1-2 years ago EJ thought fire was the pinnacle of design, it was because people jerked off all over infinite combustion spreading which was laughably bad design. Yes it was fun seeing unlimited numbers on Yor'sahj but that doesn't mean it was good design.

Next, Nether Tempest doesn't scale with Arcane Charges, it benefits from Arcane Mastery.

I doubt there will be significant changes to our bombs for 6.0. Adjustments sure, but removals or reworks - not so sure. The level 90 talents rework was already announced so I'm sure that will be okay.

[ssviolett]

From what I was at PTR most problems and disbalance comes from Amplification+Combustion pair. I cant even understand how Blizzard created such OP trinket, especially for high burst classes. I hope it wont get to live.
But your predictions, Pyromelter, can be true, especially very first one - this is very likely. But please, dont change our poor 90lv talents mid tier, I wont survive through another respec, and I hate RoP >.<