Scorch Weaving Design

[Frostyspeed]

I have a suggestion for a few fixes for mage issue of t1 talents.
I don't know about you guys but I've been playing mage since wotlk and the funnest experience I ever had was 5.1 arcane scorch weaving design. It had a high skill cap and the only real problem with it was the power of the specs total output.

So, my suggestion is to ditch presence of mind from the tier talent and introduce a new spell which is low mana and extremely low damage (less than ice lance without procs) kinda low. Castable while moving.

This will give arcane mages some small dmg while moving. Also fire mages will gain something similar but it also can proc hot streaks and heating up, however fire already has scorch so perhaps increase the crit chance of this said spell by 100% multiplier to make it look attractive? also give frost mages something to cast to possibly proc ice lance procs while moving.

Why it's balanced: it's a low damage spell that's sustain damage while moving. Ice Floes is normal damage but not as sustained. Blazing Speed is no damage but "ending the moving" quickly. To me, if I had to pick, it would be a hard choice. Where as currently fire just takes PoM and frost/arcane always generally take the same talents.

I wrote this post on my phone in class so it might not be perfect, will make it a proper post once I have some free time.

What do you guys think and any constructive criticism.
Especially interested in what some of the top mages of each spec think? (Vykina/Akraen/Kuni/Cycobi) and others I forgot to mention

[Polarthief]

So... We're back to the first tier of MoP with Arcane being OP at keeping stacks up with Scorchweaving?

I mean, that was the reason they removed Scorch from the talent trees.

[Frostyspeed]

Well, the only reason arcane was that strong that patch was because scorch did a lot of damage to make viable for fire. It wasn't meant for arcane. However, they can balance it and make it work. It could be the go to band aid nerf

[durrtygoodz]

Scorch weave had high skill cap? u wot m8?

AB
Scorch
AB
AM
AB
Scorch

etc

Hard gameplay!

You're right it was pretty fun though.

[Elegiac]

The combination of Ice Floes, Rapid Displacement, and Blazing Speed has solved a lot of Arcane's mobility issues PvEwise. The only other suggestion I could offer would be replacing Ice Lance with a spell that allowed Mages to refresh Arcane Charges while on the move.

[Deleted]

Scorch weaving was unintetional desing, plus it made arcane to deviate from what was the initial purpose of the spec(aka mana managment to keep high benefit from Mana Adept) and also made it too powerfull dps spec, witch even the warlocks couldnt outperform in t14. So it was scraped for 5.2

Even tho i was top dps during fights, i didnt liked it. It was totaly out of place to use fire spell in your arcane rotaion, much as ar now the tier 75 tallents. It also lowerd the skill cap too much. When 5.2 hit there was sudden drop in mages numbers(atleast on my server) because they couldnt keep up with the minimum skill cap x)
And so they rerolled to warlocks. So i dont know who is the noob around here :P

[Frostyspeed]

Maybe i am remembering differently, but i thought 5.2 arcane was easier than 5.1 arcane. Also, arguments with 'i don't like fire spells in arcane' can be solved by simply making it an arcane spell? Since you have Blazing Speed as 'fire' and Ice Floes as 'frost'.
Also, to me, scorch weaving playstyle WAS EXACTLY 'mana management to keep high benefit from Mana Adept'. Now its more about missile management and not going too low on mana. Its kind of the same to be honest.

[Mastamage]

Also, to me, scorch weaving playstyle WAS EXACTLY 'mana management to keep high benefit from Mana Adept'. Now its more about missile management and not going too low on mana. Its kind of the same to be honest.

Scorch-weaving was far from mana management. It was simply: "whoops I burned to low, better Scorch until I get to 100% so I don't have to Barrage EVER". It was mind-numbing and a complete joke that went on for far too long. Now, if you burn too low you will pay the consequences of lower damage and longer time to regen. Missiles are an RNG based proc, Scorch filled that gap AND procced Missiles. Essentially, it was double-dipping.

[Frostyspeed]

I was playing it a bit differently then :P i never scorched to 100% mana, i was just scorching in between blasts to manage my mana and keep it at the 90% marker, if i remember correctly at least. Fair enough then.

[Pretzul]

Scorch weave had high skill cap? u wot m8?

Thank you sir.

The combination of Ice Floes, Rapid Displacement, and Blazing Speed has solved a lot of Arcane's mobility issues PvEwise. The only other suggestion I could offer would be replacing Ice Lance with a spell that allowed Mages to refresh Arcane Charges while on the move.

We do its called arcane explosion

Anyway, scorch weaving was really fun (and simultaneously boring), but it was unintended and broken as hell. Made our class as easy as warlocks imo. It can DIAF as far as I care (oh wait it already did).

[mrgreenthump]

and simultaneously boring

The current Arcane is both boring and it ain't fun either. It can be hard at times to position yourself, but we have had to deal with that for the past 9 years as Mages, so for experienced players it ain't really challenging either. More towards being annoyed that your spec cannot move as freely as other classes and specs. Which leads to you being frustrated each time you have to move.

[Mastamage]

The current Arcane is both boring and it ain't fun either. It can be hard at times to position yourself, but we have had to deal with that for the past 9 years as Mages, so for experienced players it ain't really challenging either. More towards being annoyed that your spec cannot move as freely as other classes and specs. Which leads to you being frustrated each time you have to move.

I find it more engaging this tier than scorch-weaving simply because mana matters. Although with the haste levels we could reach, especially with the meta/hero, it makes mana regen pretty outrageous, which makes the spec mind-numbing at times. Overall, though, I believe it's much better off w/out Scorch. In the end it's different strokes for different folks.

[mrgreenthump]

I find it more engaging this tier than scorch-weaving simply because mana matters.

How does it matter more now than then? You still hower your mana. Then you casted Scorch when you got to a point where you was abt to go too low, now you cast Arcane Barrage. I guess the difference is that you casted Scorch a lot more than you do cast Arcane Barrage currently.

In the end it's different strokes for different folks.

Indeed.

[Mastamage]

How does it matter more now than then? You still hower your mana. Then you casted Scorch when you got to a point where you was abt to go too low, now you cast Arcane Barrage. I guess the difference is that you casted Scorch a lot more than you do cast Arcane Barrage currently.

Outside of cleaving in T14, Barrage was pretty low on the priority list since we could just camp at full stacks with Scorch+Missilies.

[Deleted]

It can be hard at times to position yourself, but we have had to deal with that for the past 9 years as Mages, so for experienced players it ain't really challenging either.

Other ranged had this aswell, mages just didn't have dots so we had more gain from optimizing our movement and back than those mages who succeeded got rewarded with top dps (diffrent balancing back than). Now a days you'll be rewarded with doing equal dps as the others.

Mage community was also more minmaxing than other class communities back in the day so their was more focus on it. (sorry bit rambling on the subject).

Edit: personally i find the mage are turrets and need to move as little not fitting as class design, it never was specificly designed for mages and if one does consider it i think it's an archaic design that should not be held anymore.

[Obtuse]

I can see your interest in having this return. If they were to adjust the tier one talents to provide some sort of cast while moving spell I think it should have a higher mana cost. High enough to encourage you to stop and cast as often as possible, high enough that your passive mana regen is notably less than the cost of the spell. I like the idea of scorch weaving but I believe the penalty should be more severe.

[Deleted]

Anyway, scorch weaving was really fun (and simultaneously boring), but it was unintended and broken as hell. Made our class as easy as warlocks imo. It can DIAF as far as I care (oh wait it already did).

Am I missing something, or is this subforum/poster delusional? It implies Mages were/are hard without Scorch weaving. Since when are Mages hard? I don't recall this ever being true in PvE (and I'm pretty sure Demonology Warlock is the hardest caster (can't speak for all DPS), so that's an odd comparison as well. Maybe the suggestion was that it made Mages harder?).

[Imnick]

there was never a scorch weaving "design", it was a trick Blizzard never thought of themselves and then promptly smacked down like it deserved when they noticed people using it

[Pretzul]

Am I missing something, or is this subforum/poster delusional? It implies Mages were/are hard without Scorch weaving. Since when are Mages hard? I don't recall this ever being true in PvE (and I'm pretty sure Demonology Warlock is the hardest caster (can't speak for all DPS), so that's an odd comparison as well. Maybe the suggestion was that it made Mages harder?).

Demo is an entirely different story, yes its more involved, but tbh no spec in this game is impossibly hard (at least as much so as you make it seem). As for destro and aff, please dont tell me these specs aren't easy as hell. There wouldnt be so much QQ about warlocks across all skill levels in the WoW community if warlocks couldnt do amazing damage with minimal effort. I would know, I've played all 3 specs myself.

As for mages being easy, please explain to me why a vast majority of people butcher the class so badly if it's so easy.

Dont come in to the mage forum and expect people to be warm and fuzzy toward warocks

[Deleted]

Demo is an entirely different story. As for destro and aff, please dont tell me these specs aren't easy as hell. There wouldnt be so much QQ about warlocks across all skill levels in the WoW community if warlocks couldnt do amazing damage with minimal effort. I would know, I've played all 3 specs myself.

Also dont come in to the mage forum and expect people to be warm and fuzzy toward warocks

Current Destruction is indeed fairly easy, but if you were to suggest Fire and Frost are hard specs to play, I really don't understand where you're coming from. Sure, Arcane is a little bit trickier, but not even Arcane is "hard".

I didn't - I came into the Mage forum expecting people of at least average intelligence to speak in a relatively civil manner. I hope such can be achieved, regardless of the unfathomable evil the Warlock is.