Battle For Azeroth: Mage Megathread (Alpha/Beta)

[Champagne Supernova]

It's times like these that i'm glad i have another class to fall on when the shit inevitably hits the fan. Just tired of their lack of willingness to spruce up and improve the mage specs, PvE and PvP talents.

[Swizzle]

A few noob questions regarding the wowhead BfA talent trees:

Fost:
1). Am I correct in thinking that the Frost AoE was severely nerfed?
2). Lv 60 Frozen touch was nerfed from 40% on live to 20%... what's up with this?...

Fire:
1). What's the reasoning behind choosing a lv100 talent now?

Frost AoE is bursty and with the right talents can be...okay. Not sure if it's nerfed compared to live since I hardly ever use Frost to AoE anything.

I suppose they thought 40% was too high. Proc generation feels bad on beta compared to live, especially since EB and Frozen Touch are on the same row.

What do you mean? The Legendary bracer talent is a really low proc rate. so it won't be the be all end all everyone thought, even if it stacks up to two times.

[Bugg]

I was referring to the interaction between orb and blizzard that we have on live. With it, the AoE of frost is good/decent, for the way one uses it (I mean it's easy to use, simple and efficient).

[Deleted]

Hello fellow Mages,

i have been summoned to open this Megathread to discuss everything Battle for Azeroth: changes, speculations, wishes, designs.

What do you think about the changes we have seen so far? What do you want to see changing?

Let's discuss about all specs here, creating a thread for each one seems pretty redundant to me.

I will be very curious to read about all your thoughts and ideas.

As usual, keep it civil, like all you people contributing to our subforum always have been

I've levelled to 120 on the beta as fire, I've always played fire, and to get to the point, I have little to no interest in frost or arcane. So, having said that, how do I feel about fire?

As for the global cooldown changes, I can't say it's bothered me too much, it doesn't seem to alter much for me, some slight changes to how I use certain things but generally it's not much different. Kiting, even as fire, is easy, plenty of mobility and cc to mass pull, even though getting hit is a little more punishing now, it's still pretty easy to mass pull and kite.

Damage seems fine even for levelling gear, although I'm a bit disappointed in the azerite traits, although I do expect better traits to come with better gear. All in all, I'm happy with fire, but I do have some personal thoughts on talents and other things.

In legion, I hated that apart from the core spells, most of the damage dealt by dps classes was passive, everything was passive, neck enchants were passive, trinkets were mostly passive, artifact weapon traits were mostly passive. To me, it felt like we had very little control over our damage, it was all automatic and personally I would have liked to have had more personal control over it, to me, that would have been more engaging.

Then we have the legendary effects that are now talents, and this is my personal opinion, but I hate the idea, it's lazy. Instead of coming up with fresh ideas, they're just recycling things that were already there, things like the hardcast pyro and so on. I would have liked to have seen something NEW and exciting, not a carry forward of talents we've had for the whole legion expansion.

What would I like? Talent wise I'm not sure, but like I said, I would have personally liked something NEW and fresh, something we hadn't thought about, something that we didn't even realise would be cool.

For example, and something I've wanted since TBC, elementals like frost has, for fire and arcane. The fire elemental could use blastwave or flamestrike for cc, and cast fire bolt, easy. Arcane could have an arcane elemental and use a mass slow or counterspell, and cast arcane blast, easy. Give mages elementals for all specs, that'd be great.

I've also always wanted a healing spec for mages, using arcane, which lore wise has been done plenty of times, arcane mending I believe is cast by ogres in some place somewhere, I forget, but arcane healing is 100% a thing, i'd roll healer on my mage for sure.

Apart from that, I'm not sure, mage feels a little...stagnant, I would have loved more from BFA, but I guess all the time is going into allied races, not spec reworks.

[Deleted]

I cannot abstain myself from confirming this. I have been a main Mage since BC, and i never felt so bad about my class as i am feeling now. We are a month away from pre-patch and all our specs seem unpolished, unfinished. No cool new additions, no relevant talent changes, no reworks... nothing. We are still stuck with our abominations (Rune of Power, Incanter's Flow, Unstable Magic) and every spec is still totally reliant on a completely RNG mechanic via lifechanging procs (Fingers of Frost and Mind Freeze, Clearcasting, Pyroclasm - different names for the same RNG crap that make or break our overall performance).

I feel entitled to be worried now. And i generally am not a "the sky is falling" guy.

This. So much this.

We're so very close to pre-patch, and frost feels clunky. Fire has only had spells removed/made into conflicting talent choices and Arcane feels flat out unfinished.

Whoever thought that removing ALL synergistic aspects from the Arcane spec and making AB deal x2 damage than AM + making Clearcasting a useless proc unless you're having mana issues needs help.

Currently on beta, our best ST spell is Arcane Blast - and because it hits so damn hard it also makes it our best AoE spell because of UM. The Arcane Explosion changes hurt our spammy AoE - but I don't believe any arcane mage really hoped for us to be a mass AoE spammy spec. Any and all of the potential gameplay changes around Arcane have been ignored too, there's a possibility of taking away much of our burst and putting it into core spells (AB), there's potential of making Nether Tempest baseline and playing around with mana regen with that, there's potential of making supernova more interesting, there's potential for making Arcane orb NOT a PVE noob trap - but it has all been ignored.

If we take a quick look at our level 15 talents, Rule of Threes is basically useless as any arcane mage worth their salt will want to have as FEW Arcane charge resets as possible throughout an encounter. Amplification is "okay" but currently we're generally ignoring Clearcasting unless we're having mana issues. Arcane Familiar is the only talent in that row that synergies with the current beta iteration of Arcane as it allows you to get ~1-2 more Arcane blasts off in a burst.

Just that level 15 talent row should sum up the current state of BFA Mage and especially Arcane for you, there's no philosophy. We've only lost spells, talents and any synergy that was once there.

[Deleted]

Hello,
I found mage in this expansion ( i main mage since wotlk) boring .
First of all, blizzard claims that the most fun talents should be the most strong ones. BIG JOKE. We are force to get all the passives one's to be competitive and nobody can say that i am wrong on this . Also they haven't change anything from legion to boa like we were the perfect class .. meanwhile every mage around here is considering to re roll but yet blizzard mage developer is "correct"
Enjoy another boring expansion with been the underdog in both pvp and pve meanwhile other classes with 4 roles (healer/tank/rdps/melees ) are rekting in damage .
P.s we have free portals don't worry there is something good .

[Carmilla]

It's not just that we haven't received any changes, adjustments or polish... it's the fact that we loose all our artifact traits as well. All the mage specs just play and feel like they are 'less' than what they were in legion.

I think any one who hasn't played a mage during legion could maybe find the BFA specs kinda fun... And I will echo what many have already said, the way the mage plays now on BFA just feels unpolished and lacking. Maybe 8.2 we will see something... but at the moment I am not seeing or expecting anything to change before BFA release.

[Deleted]

Starting to wonder whether they think mage is pretty much perfect or they just gave up. Haven't yet seen a blue post on mage and it's the only class in like 3 or more beta builds to receive absolutely nothing. Not even minor tuning changes. A lot of people play this class and have expressed their concerns and they don't find even A SINGLE thing to change or adjust?

Fire is incredibly boring right now since it's basically just legion fire mage minus the artifact and minus firestarter & flame on if you pick both of the legendary affix talents. Especially the hit combustion took with the removal of pre-ignited is hard. Also going to miss cauterizing blink a lot.

Arcane is just plain unfinished and broken. Almost any synergy the spec had was pruned. The proc went from exciting and visually impressive (especially with rule of threes procs) to almost useless. And what you're supposed to in AoE is unintuitive and broken. The added GCD also really hurts the already really short duration of Arcane Power.

Frost is kind of okay. I don't feel as proc starved as in legion if I pick the right talents. Though frost AoE got a lot less fun (rip freezing rain with splitting ice on the same tier there is no chance it's ever going to get picked). Don't really understand why they pruned the synergy with our frost elemental either (hated water jet's clunkyness but removing it without any replacement sucks). Glacial Spike is a lot of fun still though that could be due to how broken the spell is right now and I imagine not getting brain freezes at the right times running glacial spike on bosses is going to be really frustrating.

And as a general thing the talent tree is in an absolutely horrendous state. A lot of talents either make no sense and shouldn't be there at all, are terribly undertuned or should be baseline. Hell in some cases multiple talent rows are absolute garbage and should be scrapped. What I really don't understand is how talent rows that basically only affect PvP are still part of the general talent tree now that we have PvP talents. Talents should enhance your abilities, alter your rotation or gameplay in meaningful ways and should be fun. Any talent that doesn't fit that role should just be deleted or made baseline. And any talent that only fits a role in niche situations or PvP should be removed/made baseline or shifted to your PvP talents.

As a sidenote I am not going to reroll. I am not going to accept having to put in the effort of rerolling because they're not capable of delivering at least one actually fun spec for a class that has three specs to choose from. I am going to stick to playing mage(probably going frost at the start) hoping they're going to be able to fix the issues the other specs have within the first few months and if they can't I am just going to quit the game. I am really sick of how they're treating class design lately.

[Oldmage90]

I am getting kind of worry.... Third consecutive patch and NOT A SINGLE thing for mages!..... Mages devs got fired or what!

[Armourboy]

It's really frustrating considering some of the changes other classes are getting. Really frost just needs a couple of changes, Fire needs a few tweaks imo, but arcane is one step away from being completely broken and one could argue not even functional.

[Bryci]

I don't know man... either blizzard just don't know what to do with mage anymore or they aren't getting any reliable info from those pro beta testers. Now pretty much too late for any major changes to be honest. DMG number tweaks can definitely happen but not mechanical changes. There is just no good synergy between talents and spells whatsoever.

Frost and fire are basically a downgraded a butchered version of legion and arcane is just lol. 4 ab -> missiles ->and barrage for the 5th? expansion in a row! How exciting playstyle is that? minus the burst phase... When was arcane fun? Mop with the ping pong nether tempest and HFC broken trinket era. Bring those things back and bake them into the spec obviously with a tuned version and the spec will be fun again. Also bring back old mastery.

[Obelisk Kai]

It's really frustrating considering some of the changes other classes are getting. Really frost just needs a couple of changes, Fire needs a few tweaks imo, but arcane is one step away from being completely broken and one could argue not even functional.

I am hoping that we might get a blue post of our own this week summarising feedback and what changes Blizzard plans to make but it feels like the end of Legion all over again, so I sort of doubt it.

I don't want to indulge in mopery (most oppressed people ever), but Blizzard has had a very conservative attitude to Mages for a very long time. The usual response was 'Mages are fine'. They don't like tinkering with us too much.

However, remember what happened with Legion. They didn't adjust in beta and very rapidly we got a big overhaul in a subsequent patch. Maybe we are heading that way again.

[antelope591]

Yeah.....mage is like the only class who hasn't received any blizz posts during the past few months and barely any changes last few builds. Even though arcane is completely busted, frost is just as lame as it's been since they nerfed double IL and fire, while in the best shape could still use some tinkering. Wtf blizz? I really want to know who still thinks this class gets all the love when it's been the complete opositte for almost a whole expansion now.

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I don't know man... either blizzard just don't know what to do with mage anymore or they aren't getting any reliable info from those pro beta testers. Now pretty much too late for any major changes to be honest. DMG number tweaks can definitely happen but not mechanical changes. There is just no good synergy between talents and spells whatsoever.

Frost and fire are basically a downgraded a butchered version of legion and arcane is just lol. 4 ab -> missiles ->and barrage for the 5th? expansion in a row! How exciting playstyle is that? minus the burst phase... When was arcane fun? Mop with the ping pong nether tempest and HFC broken trinket era. Bring those things back and bake them into the spec obviously with a tuned version and the spec will be fun again. Also bring back old mastery.

We've been giving feedback since early alpha, never even got as much as a blue post and its months later, pretty sure we've all just given up on feedback at this point.

[Armourboy]

Yeah.....mage is like the only class who hasn't received any blizz posts during the past few months and barely any changes last few builds. Even though arcane is completely busted, frost is just as lame as it's been since they nerfed double IL and fire, while in the best shape could still use some tinkering. Wtf blizz? I really want to know who still thinks this class gets all the love when it's been the complete opositte for almost a whole expansion now.

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We've been giving feedback since early alpha, never even got as much as a blue post and its months later, pretty sure we've all just given up on feedback at this point.

Well and it's hard to give feedback when you dont know what direction they want to go with it, and that's not just a mage issue.

I tend to agree with someone else's post I read. I think all of these recent changes after they said they were done is because they scrapped something internally with azerite gear/bonuses so now they gotta toss classes something.

[Champagne Supernova]

Looks like Frost might be getting a new Water ele model , emphasis on the word 'Might'. If the recent build is anything to go by.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Looks like Frost might be getting a new Water ele model , emphasis on the word 'Might'. If the recent build is anything to go by.

Shaman summons got the upgraded models, we'll get that one. Give it a couple builds to get hooked up.

[Swizzle]

Shaman summons got the upgraded models, we'll get that one. Give it a couple builds to get hooked up.

These are the same people who got upset we were able to name them through tricky macros. I miss my ole Drippy...

In any case, RoF is interesting and has been growing on me for single target fights, but it REALLY needs graphical tweaks to compare with GS. Also, is anyone else getting a bug with RoF where it sometimes won't generate one or two FoF procs? Somewhat annoying, I tell you h'what.

[Tirilka]

Oh, this is just sexy




I love how smooth it is, almost like an oil painting

[Obelisk Kai]

Looks like Frost might be getting a new Water ele model , emphasis on the word 'Might'. If the recent build is anything to go by.

It is everything I ever dreamed of, it's beautiful.

Fingers crossed we get to use it.

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Shaman summons got the upgraded models, we'll get that one. Give it a couple builds to get hooked up.

Oh that's a relief, I checked the shaman summons myself after those new models went live and was disappointed to see they didn't have them. Glad to know they do now and that it means we are almost certainly getting big blue's upgrade.

I am really pleased with the re-design, it's a work of art and the best elemental upgrade yet (although I am curious to see what the Air Elemental looks like one they are finished with it).

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Oh that's a relief, I checked the shaman summons myself after those new models went live and was disappointed to see they didn't have them. Glad to know they do now and that it means we are almost certainly getting big blue's upgrade.

Ye. Took them a couple of builds after the fire one was datamined, but it's up and running. Neat heat effect coming off of it. I remember checking the build of, and it wasn't hooked up, although earth was, which was previously datamined.



Still no sign of Poly:Bee/Hex:Wicker Beast though.