Mage Ability Bloat-What's for the Chop

[Aliessil]

Not seen it mentioned before, but they could certainly merge the teleports and portals. If you're solo, cast teleport; if you're in a party, make a portal.

That would also stop the mage-in-the-group-accidentally-teleports-when-trying-to-make-a-portal.

[Kenbud]

Not seen it mentioned before, but they could certainly merge the teleports and portals. If you're solo, cast teleport; if you're in a party, make a portal.

That would also stop the mage-in-the-group-accidentally-teleports-when-trying-to-make-a-portal.

But what about when you unintentionally click the portal said Mage opened because he couldn't just port? And I has been mention quite a few times. Just like "no one uses mana gem except arcane" followed by "yes you do in pvp" at least once every other page.

[Nightfall]

But what about when you unintentionally click the portal said Mage opened because he couldn't just port? And I has been mention quite a few times. Just like "no one uses mana gem except arcane" followed by "yes you do in pvp" at least once every other page.

I don't think Mana Gem usage in PVP is of any concern. Remove the gem or make it Arcane-only and lower Spellsteal cost a little bit for the specs that lost the gem - no problem at all. The gem doesn't add much gameplay, especially for non-Arcane mages.

[voltaa]

I don't think Mana Gem usage in PVP is of any concern. Remove the gem or make it Arcane-only and lower Spellsteal cost a little bit for the specs that lost the gem - no problem at all. The gem doesn't add much gameplay, especially for non-Arcane mages.

But the whole reason it costs so much to spellsteal was to avoid the spamming, so lowering the cost would bring back a problem that they managed to at least somewhat fix, I understand a lot of people don't like mana gem(for whatever reason) but really the simpler solution than "blizz pls remove this spell that I don't use" would be just don't put it on your bar and let those that still use it, use it.

A lot of the "problems" I have seen crop up in this thread could simply be fixed by not putting spells that you don't use on your bars and forgetting they exist, and letting those who utilize the full mage toolkit, to keep them. There is no spell that we have that is used infrequently enough to remove it, those who disagree with that statement either aren't using the abilities they have to the fullest or aren't participating in both sides of the game (pve and pvp)

[Deleted]

Biggest problem I see is not bloat but the removal of the gameplay elements that made the abilities relevent in the first place, mana gem for instance, was a usefull resorce at one point then became an important part of our rotation but now with the new mechanics is largley irrelevent. Sheeping, another important gameplay/skill/tactic that seems largly irrelevent.

For example, dungeons in the past went something like, enter .. first mobs, tank marks sap/sheep/iceblock targets, rogue goes, you sheep, it all kicks off, hunter pulls/kites (kites btw another skill lost) mob over to ice trap, tank pulls the rest away as not to break cc, everyone starts dps, not to fast though might pull threat from the tank even the healer need to be carefull (there used to be healing threat).

Nowadays its tank pulls everything, target what you like or Aoe, doesn't really matter = really boreing.

My point is that the current game design dosen't allow for classes to use the unique spells and talents so they become 'bloat' because we never get to use them.

[Deleted]

With the amount of keybinds available I really don't see any problem with the current amount of spells. Flamestrike could be removed I guess, I just personally like having a lot of cool abilities even if I rarely use them. Stuff like mana gem, different polymorphs and slow fall.

[Polarthief]

I believe that would be the first post I have made out of context and if you would have read a little down from your original post you would have seen I admitted I missed the first part of your post and did infact take it out of context. Sorry sport, my B ill try not to do it again I know how irritated you get.

In THIS thread...

Also, love the condescending attitude, meng.

[mrgreenthump]

But we also need DoTs removed. Arcane and Frost (excluding Frostfire Bolt's piddly weak DoT it had) never had DoTs until 5.0. Why we needed them all of a sudden is beyond me...

Oh hell no.. Remember arcane before any dots, you just did next to 0 damage each time you moved.. At least now when we have a really strong dot to use, our dps doesn't drop as much.. I mean it's not a really big deal in the end, as you can balance the stationary spells to hit more, but that puts even more pressure to move as little as possible, and arcane would yet again be that stationary nuker that scales out of control for stationary fights and gets a nerf based on the outcry of everyone.. then again 5.4 is already looking like that.

Anyways that's my 2 cents abt Arcane at least.. I mean it's not a big deal for me if they get removed and Arcane wouldn't suffer, but I don't see how Arcane would suffer from removing 20% dot damage.. you can't just buff our ST by 10%(compared to before removing the dot) to compensate movement loss..

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Then again.. Arcane in my mind needs a complete redesign, but seeing that blizz is rather happy with it atm(from their comments), I don't see that happening.

Frost might not need a dot though.

[Nightfall]

But the whole reason it costs so much to spellsteal was to avoid the spamming, so lowering the cost would bring back a problem that they managed to at least somewhat fix, I understand a lot of people don't like mana gem(for whatever reason) but really the simpler solution than "blizz pls remove this spell that I don't use" would be just don't put it on your bar and let those that still use it, use it.

A lot of the "problems" I have seen crop up in this thread could simply be fixed by not putting spells that you don't use on your bars and forgetting they exist, and letting those who utilize the full mage toolkit, to keep them. There is no spell that we have that is used infrequently enough to remove it, those who disagree with that statement either aren't using the abilities they have to the fullest or aren't participating in both sides of the game (pve and pvp)

Well, yes, the cost is specifically made prohibitive. But I'm not saying it should be reverted to spammable state. Mana gem restores 18% mana every 2 minutes, Spellsteal costs 21%. So basically Mana Gem allows 1 additional Spellsteal every 2 minutes on demand. Not a very engaging mechanic if you ask me.

Myself I constantly use Mana Gem in PVP as all specs if I find myself Spellstealing a lot (which is usually the case) and of course I use it as Arcane in PVE. I have it binded for quick use on the same key since I first learned it in TBC and it doesn't bother me much. But frankly I don't see much point of it staying as it is. I like gems in general, that's why I have Jewelcrafting as my main profession, so naturally I hesitate to remove Mana Gem altogether. But I have to admit - it's usefulness has greatly diminished over the years, especially for non-Arcane. It should either be made more interesting, or Arcane-only as a mana-management tool or completely removed. Also the creating of an actual item with charges in the bags is kind of outdated. It should be just a cooldown.

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Oh hell no.. Remember arcane before any dots, you just did next to 0 damage each time you moved.. At least now when we have a really strong dot to use, our dps doesn't drop as much..

Why do you think it's meaningful? Part of your overall damage is transferred to a dot, Mage Bomb, so the fact that your bomb ticks while you move doesn't make you deal more damage, you basically deal the dot's damage the instant it is applied assuming the target won't go immune or die, so whether you move or not afterwards is irrelevant. Or do you mean you can multidot while moving? That's more or a concern, but still, you are either putting dots on the targets you were ignoring as they are insignificant or you are going to overwrite dots early, potentially with more weak ones. Not a very good solution to movement.

[mrgreenthump]

Why do you think it's meaningful? Part of your overall damage is transferred to a dot, Mage Bomb, so the fact that your bomb ticks while you move doesn't make you deal more damage, you basically deal the dot's damage the instant it is applied assuming the target won't go immune or die, so whether you move or not afterwards is irrelevant. Or do you mean you can multidot while moving? That's more or a concern, but still, you are either putting dots on the targets you were ignoring as they are insignificant or you are going to overwrite dots early, potentially with more weak ones. Not a very good solution to movement.

It's nice when people don't read what I just wrote, but hell I'll try to explain it better.. Having a dot doing 20% of your overall damage, means that when you eventually have to move, your dps doesn't drop as much, when again means your stationary dps doesn't have to be too high for the game to handle.(For example 10% of the fight is moving, you do 50% damage while moving, you loose 5% overall damage if we don't have a dot, you loose 4% damage when you have a 20% dot, now that is EXTREMELY simplified and arcane certainly doesn't loose 50% all the time, with the new RoP coming, 1 could argue with a bit of luck, it ain't a dps loss at all to move as your RoP range is so much bigger). Other option ofc is to give arcane more movement dps, but that doesn't seem likely seeing how Blizzard has been developing it.

I didn't even comment on multidotting, so how you got that.. I don't know. Multidotting is only an option when there is more than 1 target that is meaningful for the fight(unless you pad the meters). What I really meant was movement dps for arcane, which consists of AE, ABarr, (something random instant if outside of AE range) and a dot. Generally we use ABarr if we know the movement is gonna be longer than a simple dot and move and it suits our mana, procs and charges, followed by dot refresh unless it's like few seconds from last refresh and then AE ftw if in Boss range. Now if we move for 1-2 seconds we don't loose much compared to standstill(if dot is removed we prolly would), but it's those 3+ second movements, that are kinda rare have to admit, but those fights still put us to a point if you should bring an Arcane Mage to the fight as he can't do the damage needed overall. Granted with the new RoP range in 5.4 it is A LOT better in that respect, even the small movement as we don't have to redo rune every single time.

So in short having a strong dot has 2 good perks, having 1 more GCD to push while moving(super useful if you know the movement timing, not so useful on random movement and bad luck) and it smooths out the dps when you face dps loss for whatever reason. Then again it's a dps loss in itself if you can't max the uptime..

[Deleted]

I've recently started playing my mage a bit more.. and this thread is scary.. remove mana gem? I use that in pvp after spell stealing.. Teleports? How could you possibly want to remove that?

Mages don't have complicated rotations/priorities.. there's no need to remove anything.

The only thing that is a bit shit for pve is Alter Time I guess, but I LOVE having that in pvp.. oh you're gonna follow me mister warrior? Here jump off this bridge after me! Oh just kidding i'll cancel my Alter Time and port back up!

[Jarion]

Man we are a snippy bunch. Why so aggressive fellow mages??

[Methusula]

Man we are a snippy bunch. Why so aggressive fellow mages??

Good question.

I'm not sure why people are so hung up on teleport. We would still have portal. The concerns people are bringing up about portals being everywhere or people accidentally clicking them are pretty asinine.

It is clear there will be changes coming next expansion. Hopefully they don't dumb us down too much, but honestly, it is clear they want to move into an even more casual friendly direction judging by what I saw from the dev interviews.

[Kenbud]

Good question.

I'm not sure why people are so hung up on teleport. We would still have portal. The concerns people are bringing up about portals being everywhere or people accidentally clicking them are pretty asinine.

Another snippy comment with nothing constructive to follow. It's a fucking debate dude, there are many ways to argue your point.

[mrgreenthump]

Good question.

I'm not sure why people are so hung up on teleport. We would still have portal. The concerns people are bringing up about portals being everywhere or people accidentally clicking them are pretty asinine.

It is clear there will be changes coming next expansion. Hopefully they don't dumb us down too much, but honestly, it is clear they want to move into an even more casual friendly direction judging by what I saw from the dev interviews.

I usually teleport and go afk.. now I would have to wait for the cast and click on the portal!

But ye.. I don't know. I have been a mage from the beginning and it just wouldn't be the same without teleport. They could remove portals though xD. I mean yeah it wouldn't be much of a hassle to cast a portal and click it, but it just doesn't feel the same. Plus removing teleport wouldn't make much sense either as it aint a combat spell, so you can bind them to some weird buttons that you have no chance ever to reach with your keyboard hand. Plus they are behind 1 spell in the spellbook so it wouldn't do much either. If they wanted to reduce spells in spellbook, remove passives to some other tab and then reduce poly's to 1 spell on the spellbook just like teleport and portal..

[Methusula]

Another snippy comment with nothing constructive to follow. It's a fucking debate dude, there are many ways to argue your point.

How is this "snippy"? If anyone is being "snippy", it's you. You already got called out for jumping down someone's throat before actually reading what you were reacting to.

I really think the concerns over merging Teleport and Portal that have been brought up are weak ones that can be addressed by tweaking Portal.

As I said in my last post, it is clear they are looking to trim some things down. Whether you agree with them or not is irrelevant. The best we can hope for is that they are smart about the way they go about it.

[Nightfall]

It's nice when people don't read what I just wrote, but hell I'll try to explain it better..
<..>
I didn't even comment on multidotting, so how you got that.. I don't know.

Chill out man! I can't read your mind, go to Priests for that.

[Kenbud]

How is this "snippy"? If anyone is being "snippy", it's you. You already got called out for jumping down someone's throat before actually reading what you were reacting to.

I really think the concerns over merging Teleport and Portal that have been brought up are weak ones that can be addressed by tweaking Portal.

I am absolutely being "snippy" because 90% of the things being said in this thread are how did you put it? Asinine? My post about portals was a fucking joke about something that happens a small % of the time. The whole portal argument is asinine. It's one slot in our spell book that's a drop down menu, great space saver. Maybe we should assign a number code to each city and have one button with a 20 second cast, you start the cast and type in the city code along with the names of the player you want to port there. These players won't even have to be in your group (to make it more simple if course) they just get a pop up window in which they just have to confirm they would like to be ported using an predetermined eight digit pin that you send them in the mail 30 minutes before departure time. Sounds good to me, simplified that shit to one button the the spell book.

[Methusula]

I am absolutely being "snippy" because 90% of the things being said in this thread are how did you put it? Asinine? My post about portals was a fucking joke about something that happens a small % of the time. The whole portal argument is asinine. It's one slot in our spell book that's a drop down menu, great space saver. Maybe we should assign a number code to each city and have one button with a 20 second cast, you start the cast and type in the city code along with the names of the player you want to port there. These players won't even have to be in your group (to make it more simple if course) they just get a pop up window in which they just have to confirm they would like to be ported using an predetermined eight digit pin that you send them in the mail 30 minutes before departure time. Sounds good to me, simplified that shit to one button the the spell book.

If ever there was an appropriate use of "CSB", this would be it. It is quite clear from your post history that all you want to do is argue. You make ad hominem and strawman posts while completely ignoring the substance of any post you attack.

I am bored with you. Have fun with your little forum game.

[Kenbud]

If ever there was an appropriate use of "CSB", this would be it. It is quite clear from your post history that all you want to do is argue. You make ad hominem and strawman posts while completely ignoring the substance of any post you attack.

I am bored with you. Have fun with your little forum game.

I don't attack any post with substance, i would actually embrace them. Looking at my "post history" in this thread you will see i have agreed with a few people who have had some really good ideas. so if your post had substance i failed to see it and you failed to see the comedic nature of mine so i took up a notch just for you. I enjoy arguing very much but the one thing i enjoy more is a constructive discussion with new and good ideas. Since this thread is very lacking of the latter im going to have fun defending my opinion. Sorry you're bored, I will miss your thought provoking ideals oh wait....