why are they still retaining cross spec themed talents

[Charge me Doctor]

I'm pretty sure that giving a glyph option to replace all frost/arcane animations with fire animations for people who don't want mages to be mages would be such a problem

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I have to say that rather then Lavatomb, Molten block (Cho talent in Heroes) would be better for Fire - Provides immunity, and a AoE damage burn to targets around the mage.

Why? You do understand that if you make ice block to do anything besides immunity they'll have to cut it in some way? Like increasing CD or making it last only 3 seconds or make it untogglable

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They could use existing animations. for example i simply cannot use talents that cover me in ice or snow as a fire mage, i hate it.

Ice block is ok but why not a wall of fire or something that does the same thing.

Pure fire, pure frost, pure arcane

I wonder how dumb it looks to use an ice block on top of combustion on beta, lol. "hurr look at me, i'm a fucking Eldar Avatar. Oops, now i'm covoered in ice. Nope lol i'm burning again"

[Ipsissimus]

When did people stop wanting to be Mages and start wanting to be Arcane, Fire or Frost Mages?

I understand if it's just a case of accepting the direction Blizzard took the game in and wanting the specs to be further developed with the assumption that things will never be the same again. However, won't their resources be better spent actually operating on the dynamics of damage dealing with the specs? They're pruning utility as is, so it's not like we can expect them to differentiate specs through that.

[Deleted]

When did people stop wanting to be Mages and start wanting to be Arcane, Fire or Frost Mages?

I never remember a different case. My hard mode raiding experience on mages starts in Cata, and I'm pretty sure we had severe preferences there, e.g. people hating that they had to go Arcane in Firelands, or vice versa. I wouldn't be surprised that started much earlier.

[dreaderus]

lets create a fourth spec for the folks who don't get it.

Wizard spec

[Deleted]

Because mages are skilled in many different arts of spells, the specs' elements are just our main damage source, it would be boring if a spec's spells all had one elemental theme.

[Northem]

Well, as Blizzard itself has said, some people prefer having a fully specialised Fire Mage who only uses fire spells (alongside arcane-universal spells like [Blink], [Polymorph] or [Counterspell]) while others prefer being a sort of elementalist, perhaps specialised in fire magic, but with some frost and arcane tools at its disposal too...

In my case I'm a firmly supporter of the fully specialised mages, after all, I'm a pure Arcane Mage that never uses any frost or fire spell at all.

However, in my opinion Blizzard should try to satisfy both types of players by using talents and glyphs to allow people can customize their mages as they want.

[Deleted]

Well in my eyes all that look like "meh i'm lazy to dis so the nerds will have to swallow it".
I am no hard core game designer/programmer or etc, but i know at least some basics about it. I really can't understand why it is so hard to change the color scheme of ice block and frost nova from blue to red(even use blast wave... u know... "the ground under your enemy's feet has melted so they cant move for 4 seconds etc), why cant they just reuse flame ward animation as fire equivalent of frost barrier, Cold Snap can be just renamed and again change the color scheme of the icon from blue to red.
Why it is sooo hard? I mean why it is sooooo much time consuming?

[Orrin]

I really can't understand why it is so hard to change the color scheme of ice block and frost nova from blue to red(even use blast wave... u know... "the ground under your enemy's feet has melted so they cant move for 4 seconds etc), why cant they just reuse flame ward animation as fire equivalent of frost barrier, Cold Snap can be just renamed and again change the color scheme of the icon from blue to red.
Why it is sooo hard? I mean why it is sooooo much time consuming?

Because Mages use Arcane to create Fire and Frost effects. They are not amateur Shamans who can only speak with one type of Elementals, they are magic scientists. To explain it better, all Mages know low level programming language of Arcane, some specialize in creating high-level languages (Arcane spec), some specialize in graphics (Fire), some create business applications (Frost). But specializing in specific area doesn't mean you are incapable to comprehend another. More then that, you know bits and pieces from it.

So I suggest spec purists to relax. And go play Priests. In Legion Shadow and Holy won't be polluted by despicable spells from another spec.

[Sooba]

I was against removing cross-specs spells when it happened the first, I'm still against it. Mages are operating Arcane to get different spell effects, it doesn't make sense to make narrow elementalists out of them.

Precisely this.

A good portion of you seem to be forgetting that we're a mage first, and specced second. It's not laziness. It's a purposeful design choice. One that you happen to disagree with, and rather than just admitting you disagree with it seem inclined to want to pathologise it.

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I never remember a different case. My hard mode raiding experience on mages starts in Cata, and I'm pretty sure we had severe preferences there, e.g. people hating that they had to go Arcane in Firelands, or vice versa. I wouldn't be surprised that started much earlier.

I think you misunderstand the point or are just using an awkward example. It's not that people prefer specs. It's that they want their spec to be completely scrubbed of spells or animations of another school.

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I wonder how dumb it looks to use an ice block on top of combustion on beta, lol. "hurr look at me, i'm a fucking Eldar Avatar. Oops, now i'm covoered in ice. Nope lol i'm burning again"

Oh. You mean - like a mage.

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So I suggest spec purists to relax. And go play Priests. In Legion Shadow and Holy won't be polluted by despicable spells from another spec.

Or Paladins. Might as well play the doctrinaire class if you share the purist view. Using a nature-based hearthstone makes some of them cringe.

[Deleted]

I think you misunderstand the point or are just using an awkward example. It's not that people prefer specs. It's that they want their spec to be completely scrubbed of spells or animations of another school.

I implied there the general fixation to a certain school existed for a long time and it came together with the spec fixation. I believe the same situation is part of what is going on here. I'm willing to bet a large number - not all - of those saying "I want only <insert frost/fire/arcane here> spells" are fixated to a certain spec. I believe the spec fixation is pretty obvious in fire, it exists in a more subtle way for Arcane, and I was surprised by that but also frost has hard core fans even in PvE.

[Northem]

Because Mages use Arcane to create Fire and Frost effects. They are not amateur Shamans who can only speak with one type of Elementals

Excuse me but the shamans are precisely those who are in communion with each and every one of the elements, in fact, they treat all elements as if they were the same kind of magic.

We, the mages, do not do that but we specialize to be Arcanists, Pyromancers or Cryomancers.

For that reason, the fact of seeing a shaman using fire spells and frost spells at once is understandable, but the fact of seeing a very powerful Fire Mage/Pyromancer having to resort to [Ice Barrier] to protect himself is totally ridiculous! Perhaps do I have to remember the reason why [Frostfire Bolt] has gone down in history?

As mentioned above, both types of players (purists and elementalists) have to coexist since none of the two ways of understanding the mages is right or wrong, as Blizzard itself has admitted.

So I suggest spec purists to relax. And go play Priests. In Legion Shadow and Holy won't be polluted by despicable spells from another spec.

In any case, you should be the one who should relax and change your class, specifically, you should be a Shaman! You will love combining different types of magic!

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Well in my eyes all that look like "meh i'm lazy to dis so the nerds will have to swallow it".
I am no hard core game designer/programmer or etc, but i know at least some basics about it. I really can't understand why it is so hard to change the color scheme of ice block and frost nova from blue to red(even use blast wave... u know... "the ground under your enemy's feet has melted so they cant move for 4 seconds etc), why cant they just reuse flame ward animation as fire equivalent of frost barrier, Cold Snap can be just renamed and again change the color scheme of the icon from blue to red.
Why it is sooo hard? I mean why it is sooooo much time consuming?

Rather than asking that the spells that don't belong to our chosen specialization are "re-colored", I would go further: instead of having spells with different names and different graphic effects but with exactly the same effects, I would advocate to have totally unique and customized spells for each specialization.

As I've said before:

Who wants reskins?

As a Fire Mage: [Ice Block] be damned! Stick with your stupid block! As a Fire Mage I can surround myself with flames that transforms all damage taken into cauterization for my wounds!

As an Arcane Mage: I would never use [Ice Barrier] to protect me! I'm a master of the arcane magic and so I can use my own mana to muffle all damage taken or even rewind the very same time in order to avoid being damaged!

But yes, Blizzard is too lazy for doing that...

[Sarm]

I'd imagine a mage would be pragmatic enough to use what works, instead of sticking to a dogmatic self-restriction of what he can do.

[Rothex]

Well, as Blizzard itself has said, some people prefer having a fully specialised Fire Mage who only uses fire spells (alongside arcane-universal spells like [Blink], [Polymorph] or [Counterspell]) while others prefer being a sort of elementalist, perhaps specialised in fire magic, but with some frost and arcane tools at its disposal too...

So there are certain Arcane spells that are "ok" to be used by purist Fire or Frost Mages because they're, somehow, universal? I'm trying to get where your logic stands; so defining what "universal" means to you would be interesting to hear. And why would universal only apply to Arcane spells and not Fire or Frost spells?

Similarly, can you make a list. If you so desperately want Mages to be purist specs, can you list what general Mage spells are ok because they're somehow universal and some which are not ok? It just seems ironic that you can justify some core Mage spells for all the specs but then others are no-nos.

[Deleted]

I'd imagine a mage would be pragmatic enough to use what works, instead of sticking to a dogmatic self-restriction of what he can do.

And a physicist, still remembers some chemistry. A baker still knows how to boil an egg. A politician can still type a letter.

[Northem]

So there are certain Arcane spells that are "ok" to be used by purist Fire or Frost Mages because they're, somehow, universal? I'm trying to get where your logic stands; so defining what "universal" means to you would be interesting to hear. And why would universal only apply to Arcane spells and not Fire or Frost spells?

Similarly, can you make a list. If you so desperately want Mages to be purist specs, can you list what general Mage spells are ok because they're somehow universal and some which are not ok? It just seems ironic that you can justify some core Mage spells for all the specs but then others are no-nos.

Actually I should not answer to that blatant provocation, but anyway I will try to explain it in case there are some narrow-minded people that can not understand the concept of "universal arcane spells".

As you all know, both frost and fire spells are based on the use of arcane magic, i.e. arcane magic is the common basis for all spells a mage can cast.

However, when some mages specialize in the Fire or the Frost they do not forget various basic arcane "tricks" that are common to all specializations. These basic arcane "tricks" are useful and neutral tools that every mage should know, as they allow the mages to do fundamental things that otherwise they could not achieve.

Here you have the current list of these common basic "tricks":

• [Blink]
• [Polymorph]
• [Counterspell]
• [Slow Fall]
• [Invisibility]
• [Teleports] and [Portals]
• [Spellsteal]
• [Time Warp]

And, in my view, I even would add some more to that list (yes, I would make them baseline for all specs), such as:

• [Evocation]
• [Arcane Explosion]
• [Mirror Image]

[Charge me Doctor]

Oh. You mean - like a mage.

if you think that using immense amount of magic power just to douse it in a next second is like a mage - go you. Covering yourself in a block of ice after you became an avatar of flame is as dumb as recasting a fire totem after dropping a fire elemental totem as shaman. Or polymorphing your opponent when you just dropped him to 20% health.

Anyways, my original post was about how combustion on legion makes all your spell animations "fire", and i was wondering if it will actually make ice block into a "flame block" or "ember block" for fucks sake, because turning into block of ice after combusting yourself is fucking dumb from any perspective you look at it

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[Evocation]
[Arcane Explosion]
[Mirror Image]

Oh wow what a great example of spells that would never be brought up to your castbars or have any hotkeys binded to them in any spec except arcane. Totally worth wasting spellbook space and "you get this crap at level 58, enjoy it" *sigh*-worthy situation when leveling

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So there are certain Arcane spells that are "ok" to be used by purist Fire or Frost Mages because they're, somehow, universal? I'm trying to get where your logic stands; so defining what "universal" means to you would be interesting to hear. And why would universal only apply to Arcane spells and not Fire or Frost spells?

Similarly, can you make a list. If you so desperately want Mages to be purist specs, can you list what general Mage spells are ok because they're somehow universal and some which are not ok? It just seems ironic that you can justify some core Mage spells for all the specs but then others are no-nos.

Arcane used to be Knowledge spec. It kinda carried on today, but old arcane spec used to boost your mana (aka - cast more shit) and empower spells of all schools (aka - frost/fire mage). Now arcane is a spec of itself (blizz made up stupidest form of magic ever imaginable - "arcane", what the serious fuck) and because of that the part of "universal" mage is in really poor shape. A high ranked mage should know how to freeze legs of people surrounding him - sure, but does a fire mage who spent his whole life mastering arts of fire wants to freeze his opponent to the ground? Why don't he just burns his legs to the crisp? And why frost mage would want to just freeze enemy to the ground when he can deepfreeze him and shatter him in place?
When you ask questions like this it kinda explains why we have these "limitations" - because they make sense, and our opponents are getting stronger too, they can resist your outdated frost magic (as a fire mage) quite easily.

Some of these spells (blink, counterspell, alter time, invis, slow fall, etc) can be explained by the not actually being "arcane" spells, but "knowledge" spells or "time magic", but for gameplay purposes they are labeled as "arcane"

[Fkiolaris]

This is a 100% ridiculous argument and it goes for every single class/spec in the game. You are your class first and your spec second, period. There are no 36 classes in the game, there are 36 specs. You will have your base-class abilities and you will like them, otherwise if you want your spec to be a class then FF:ARR is that way (and it's an excellent game in many ways).

[Rothex]

Actually I should not answer to that blatant provocation, but anyway I will try to explain it in case there are some narrow-minded people that can not understand the concept of "universal arcane spells".

There wasn't any intended provocation in my post; read it how you want though. I was legitimately curious because I didn't know if you meant universal as "core to the class so the class can function well mechanically" or universal as "these are iconic fantasy spells lore-wise". This is an important distinction when it comes to understanding the categorisation of iconic class-wide spells such as Frost Nova, Ice Block, and Ice Barrier; which seem to be the only class-wide spells that are not on your list (unless I missed something else).

So your logic is coming from a lore perspective rather than a gameplay perspective. So if I'm reading it right, it's only those 3 baseline class-wide spells (Nova/Block/Barrier) that are the problem because they're Frost and don't fit well with the basic knowledge Arcane tricks idea? Lets ignore talents for now. These tricks, as you list them, are primarily just utility tools and not damaging offensive abilities. They're all types of utility, which is exactly what Nova/Block/Barrier are. There aren't any offensive abilities that are entirely class-wide. The point of specialising, at least in my opinion, is to destroy your enemies with a specific type of magic, which has nothing to do with utility.

I'm sure I've read somewhere that purists simply want Nova/Block/Barrier to be changed into a Fire or Arcane equivalent but functionally remain the same. In terms of actual gameplay and design resources it's just a waste of time. Blizzard wouldn't bother making new animations for something that is functionally exactly the same. This is probably why we don't have Fire Barrier or Arcane Barrier. If you want them to be purist spells then Blizzard needs to jump on the purist bandwagon and differentiate by redesigning them entirely. It's extra work and resources that isn't really needed to fulfil the lore desires of a few. Alternatively, Blizzard might just see Mages as all encompassing wizards who use a variety of magic schools. If so, then you honestly need to respect that lore decision and move on.

Finally, why would Frost or Fire want Evocation... at all? Like unless I'm in a fight where I need to spam Spellsteal continuously a ton of times then Evocation is an effectively useless ability. Arcane Explosion would contradict, what I'm assuming to be, your lore argument as it's a damaging offensive spell; not in the common bag of tricks.

[Northem]

This is a 100% ridiculous argument and it goes for every single class/spec in the game. You are your class first and your spec second, period. There are no 36 classes in the game, there are 36 specs. You will have your base-class abilities and you will like them, otherwise if you want your spec to be a class then FF:ARR is that way (and it's an excellent game in many ways).

I think I'm repeating myself but I insist: RESPECT! As far as I know, I'm not insulting anyone...yet.

Both types of players (purists and elementalists) have to coexist since none of the two ways of understanding the mages is right or wrong, as Blizzard itself has admitted.

[Macaquerie]

Mages should know at least a couple spells from each of the schools regardless of spec just to keep it interesting, but it's pretty hard to think of any Fire spells that would really fit the bill since they mostly focus on damage and every spec has plenty of those already. Maybe Dragon's Breath could be made baseline but this would inevitably lead to crying over why that wouldn't turn into an appropriately themed breath for each spec. Elementalist would be a cool idea, maybe playing in sort of a boomkin style but that would require a whole new spec be designed to accomodate that playstyle which isn't going to happen.