9.0 Mage redesign suggestions

[Malicefel]

Here are the things id love to see:
1) Alter time back
2) Combustion spreadable
3) Less ignite focus damage and more focus on HARD HITTING PRYOS
4) Pheonix Flames baseline.

[Kanariya]

I'd like to see Ignite go back to its pre-Mastery self: 40% of your non-periodic Fire critical damage over 4 seconds. It actually felt impactful and rewarding to get an Ignite, rather than it just passively applying from all damage done.

[Poly123]

I would love to have Mists of Pandaria Arcane Mage back while keeping the current version of rune of power. Everything scaling with Mastery and Mastery increasing the damage done the more mana you have and very hard hitting casts but weaker burn phases instead of this boring spamming one button spec right now. The spec was the most fun i have ever had playing wow back in mop. Also i would love to have ice block of GCD again....

And i would reverse nether tempest back to the version we had in mop. It has been so much fun dotting 20 targets and then seeing the fireworks the missiles were creating.

[matrix123mko]

Make arcane charges work on arcane missiles. Make arcane missiles a proc again.

[Naiattavain]

i thought rogue subtlety was supposed to be few specs to touch arcane and the other two specs. fix subtlety before giving mages attention.

[Mereteran]

I am also interested in solving the problem. Thank you for your inquiry.

[Poly123]

Honestly...
thinking more about the core problem of arcane i would change Overpowered to increasing the duration of arcane power from 10 seconds to 30 seconds ( maybe different numbers, but thats not the point ). I feel like Overpowered is currtently the core problem of the spec while it doesnt seem like it is.
The problem is that if you have too much base damage / scaling on the spells you will end up with a version of the hellfire citadel mage 2.0. But if the damage without cooldowns is too low you have the state it currently is in: mediocre at best. But by changing the duration of arcane power to lets say 30 seconds, the damage spreads more evenly over the fight instead of beeing clustered at very small time intervals.

This would also solve another problem arcane is currently facing: If you get stunned or have to play ANY mechanic while arcane power is up you end up doing no damage at all until it is off cd again. So movement mechanics wouldn't feel as bad as they do right now.

[gallamann]

The thing is, Mages were ground zero for the prioritization of spec identity over class identity, and many Mages over the years were supportive of it. If I went back far I can find threads supportive of making our aoe attacks spec specific or making our barriers spec themed. People wanted to be fire mages, or frost mages, or Arcane mages and some almost seemed to feel that using a spell from another school was somehow wrong.

In hindsight, as Blizzard began spec pruning, this sort of approach found favour within Blizzard and led us to where we are now, with three specs with little cross pollination.

Yet is it entirely bad? Blizzard said they went too far, and they did, but going too far does not mean they shouldn't have started. Spec locking certain abilities does make sense given that our specializations are based on schools of magic. It provides character to that spec and anchors a rotation for players to use.

Ironically, the spells you list as being the ones that should be shared are the ones I think are the least likely to be so. You don't need fireball or arcane blast if you're a Frost mage after all.

But it is the second part of your list where things probably will change. Greater utility and niche spells opened up to all specs, rather than being spec locked or flat out removed.

This is exactly what happened, for whatever reason Blizzard listened to a minority that wanted to be strictly one type of damage/thematic and it has hurt mages. I was never for it but probably wasn't vocal enough in arguing against it.

For me, mages largest problem begins with talent row 45, that simply needs to go. Put Mirrors back baseline.

Next biggest issue with talents is row 75, that is garbage for PvE. It's a PvP row and PvP already has talents.

Legion Frost issues;

Can't reach soft crit cap of 33.34% still and it's 8.2 with 8.2.5 around the corner.

No proc protection - 25% chance to proc BF just isn't the truth in a specific encounter. Whenever you cast 8+ frost bolts, kiss your DPS goodbye.

FoF Proc munching - not refunded a proc after Flurry when one is generated during BF(FB)/Flurry/IL, a 3rd charge of FoF missing, also 2 charges of FoF hurts any game play with Ray as must be certain nothing is generating before using Ray

Finally, for all classes Blizzard needs to dump those auras that apply to every spec and properly tune individual spells. Heck I can't even find what the hell they are anymore, last I saw majority were over 10%, with several over 20%. That's just disgraceful
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[Lahiri]

Ironically, the spells you list as being the ones that should be shared are the ones I think are the least likely to be so. You don't need fireball or arcane blast if you're a Frost mage after all.

This was never the case originally. You absolutely did use those spells (at least in PvP). Spells used to be unique / niche in ways that mattered for gameplay purposes. As a Frost Mage you would regularly use

Frostbolt - Main damage cast
R1 Frostbolt - Quick snare
Fireball - Highest damage opener
R1 Fireball - Quick dot against stealth classes
Scorch - Short cast damage
Arcane Missiles - Channelled, no pushback (talented), caused pushback, followed around LOS, in some patches continued when out of range.
Blizzard - Main AoE
R1 Blizzard - Cheap AoE snare
Arcane Explosion - Spammable instant cast dmg
R1 Arcane Explosion - Cheap spammable AoE to break stealth
R1 Flamestrike - Left the ground 'dot' (Admittedly don't recall a use for max rank flamestrike)
Arcane Blast - Great replacement for Frostbolt when Frost was locked out. No travel time.

These are just the damage abilities. I miss this design where you could find a use for most of the spells, rather than blizzard deciding a frost mage doesn't need any of them.

[Costa]

Make Ice Lance more powerful/get better with mastery, bring back Deep Freeze (the damage and the stun), let us be able to get FOF procs off bosses again, make Mirror Images baseline as well as Ring of Frost, bring back Frostfire Bolt/Orb etc etc.

Looks like 8.3 has buffed the ice lance by 20%! To make it worth playing with again which is nice.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Looks like 8.3 has buffed the ice lance by 20%! To make it worth playing with again which is nice.

It's still not worth on GS sets. Took noIL from ~6% over default to about 3% in average gear this tier. They need to fix Flash Freeze before anything looks remotely normal again, and then that'll necessitate a global buff by about 10%.

What it DID do is bring back Frozen Orb as the dominant build. At least 8.2.5 fixed the impact range, but you're still playing Rune, which most hate.

[mrgreenthump]

It's still not worth on GS sets. Took noIL from ~6% over default to about 3% in average gear this tier. They need to fix Flash Freeze before anything looks remotely normal again, and then that'll necessitate a global buff by about 10%.

What it DID do is bring back Frozen Orb as the dominant build. At least 8.2.5 fixed the impact range, but you're still playing Rune, which most hate.

Yeah, I mean buffing Ice Lance is the right call if you want to make Frost ST use Ice Lance again without nerfing Flash Freeze to the ground. But all this makes is that the Orb Build will be even stronger as you said. I guess that's build varity?

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Yeah, I mean buffing Ice Lance is the right call if you want to make Frost ST use Ice Lance again without nerfing Flash Freeze to the ground. But all this makes is that the Orb Build will be even stronger as you said. I guess that's build varity?

The issue with it is that there's no reasonable buff that makes it usable on GS sets without fixing FF. Blizz would have to look at potential full Mastery sets and balance Lance around being a DPS gain over not using it at that point, which would require something in the +120-180% range. Which yeah, makes Orb insane. There's no winning without fixing FF.

[Ryonas]

I just want them to bring back the old talent trees.

[Costa]

It's still not worth on GS sets. Took noIL from ~6% over default to about 3% in average gear this tier. They need to fix Flash Freeze before anything looks remotely normal again, and then that'll necessitate a global buff by about 10%.

What it DID do is bring back Frozen Orb as the dominant build. At least 8.2.5 fixed the impact range, but you're still playing Rune, which most hate.

So the orb build is the RoP into TV and Freezing Rain? Or is it Ray of frost and SI? I have been playing SI and TV without RoP for BoD days back then but then i stopped playing. xD

[lockybalboa]

They really need to buff the crit stats of fire mages to make it fun like in Legion

[gallamann]

The issue with it is that there's no reasonable buff that makes it usable on GS sets without fixing FF. Blizz would have to look at potential full Mastery sets and balance Lance around being a DPS gain over not using it at that point, which would require something in the +120-180% range. Which yeah, makes Orb insane. There's no winning without fixing FF.

I'd be SHOCKED if they touch any azerite traits while 8.x is live because I'd be STUPEFIED if they keep Azerite Armor around for 9.0.

Do you think Blizzard paid any attention to 33.34% crit for frost, it's looking like we will never hit that for BFA expansion. My concern being their internal testing is assuming we can achieve the soft crit cap and therefore DPS is being throttled to account for said cap. Also historically frost has been built around achieving that soft cap.

One big culprit to preventing soft crit cap is the lack of secondaries on Azerite armor. Other being the stat crunch with 8.0 launch.

[Dorthonion1]

Hmm. This actually goes against your idea of specs being more similar to each other, but yesterday I had a cool idea for fire mage I have posted on EU forums before.

Basically all your fire spells START OR ADD TO but DO NOT REFRESH a DOT on the enemy. This dot is pure damage per second instead of fixed damage over time. If the dot has high duration left, then it's better to cast fireball than scorch, because it adds more to the dot per second casting, but when the dot has only a low duration left it's better to cast scorch because it does more dps and adds less to the dot but it doesn't matter when it has <4 seconds left or something. Pyroblast with hot streak will always trump everything. For an aoe version, make flamestrike start this dot too.

I had an idea for a fire mage aoe talent called Kindling (pretty sure a talent called this exists but change it) where fireballs on targets over 70% health gives them a ddebuff where your aoe spells splash damage onto other targets.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

I'd be SHOCKED if they touch any azerite traits while 8.x is live because I'd be STUPEFIED if they keep Azerite Armor around for 9.0.

Do you think Blizzard paid any attention to 33.34% crit for frost, it's looking like we will never hit that for BFA expansion. My concern being their internal testing is assuming we can achieve the soft crit cap and therefore DPS is being throttled to account for said cap. Also historically frost has been built around achieving that soft cap.

One big culprit to preventing soft crit cap is the lack of secondaries on Azerite armor. Other being the stat crunch with 8.0 launch.

Cap's not really a mandatory thing, just an interesting modifier on the Crit stat that makes it somewhat desirable. NOT achieving it lets Frost's Crit scaling continue through all the tiers instead of getting railroaded into a quarter of your stats are garbage after the Xth tier once obtained. We scale absolutely insanely with Azerite ilvl if you've got FF, so lack of secondaries on them is moot.

Early expansion will always favour it since it'll be the single largest jump in damage until you start getting enough Int that the other stats have enough to work with. But an end tier where we're not capped? Great. Room to grow with the rest of the specs.

Current tuning aside, of course. The spec needs FF fixed+global tuned up about 10% (iirc)+Lance up individually. But that's through no fault of stats. ...Aside from the whole Mastery pushing Lance out of the picture thing. But that's also FF making Mastery dumb.

Internal testing is cross referenced with SimC and actual raid performance. We're in a kind of poor spot due to there not being many top end Mages playing Frost in the raid, so you can't judge raid performance too well. We sim decently well, although T24 profiles weren't ever finished for all specs, so it was never posted on the primary site. It's just that Fire's execute niche is too good, and Frost's 2t niche is the weakest of the 2t specialists. Arcane's fine aside from cooldown timings not being great in TEP, but you'll probably see a bunch of it in Ny'alotha.

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As to the actual topic: Frostburn needs to replace Icicles as Mastery, and Icicles need to be a spec feature at a flat SP%. Flurry needs to be a 20s, 2 charge system with BF half-charge refill. This fixes like 5 different problems with the spec design; relative stat values should all be roughly in line, Mastery no longer pushes Ice Lance out of the rotation ever, Glacial Spike can be tuned without odd knock-on effects, and the charge Flurry means you won't have to wait at 5 Icicles for GS. Frostburn basically codifies the mini-combo as the default method of play, and stats only make that stronger. Orb should be considered Frozen at all times, to match the current Orb/Mastery interaction and to provide a slight bump in AoE. IV should increase BF recharge rate in addition to current effects, and be extended to 30s default to actually provide some power behind it as a 3m CD.

We've actually simulated the above changes and it makes the spec feel pretty wonderful to play, and there's no oddities in stats that suddenly break it. Returning Alter Time would be very welcome, as Ion said that was a pretty big one on the table. Saving Icicle state into a big GS>build>GS>end AT>GS again would be slightly disgusting and I welcome it.

[Aphrel]

cone of cold, blizzard, arcane explosion and dragons breath should be classwide imo. I wanna be able to slow/disorient things regardless of what spec i play.

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I want fire to get frost's mastery and pyro be turned into glacial spike mechanic with how icicles work, but I want at the 5 stack for the pyro(that has the damage for 5 spells that crit adjusted by mastery) to be instant. The "Icicles "(give it some fire name) will generate on crit of fireball and pyro crit. This seem like a chance to keep crit focus and build to a thematically satisfying pyro.

Just an idea.

hmm, pass. The heating up/hotstreak mechanic is imo the most satisying thing of all the mage rotations.
Im all game for making glacial spike instant thou. That would solve the annoyance of having to fish for or hold on to flurry procs.