I miss alter time.
I miss mirror images purely for the threat mechanic.
I miss being able to slow mobs with blizzard/cone of cold.
I miss being able to stun mobs with deep freeze.
I already miss the range on dragons breath..
I miss using our bomb spells (living bomb/frostbomb/arcane torrent). (and them actually being usefull...)
I miss cone of cold actually doing damage like in classic/vanilla wow.
I and every mage ive ever spoken to hate rune of power and have hated it since its implementation.
I also feel that combustion is too powerfull atm. Im utterly useless inbetween combustions and it really shows in m+ or on trash in general where one pack i pull 100k+ and the next i barely do 40k.
Talents shouldnt have abilities, only ability tweaks. The abilitys should be part of the base spec! I hate "having to" forego abilities because a passive is the stronger talentchoice.
Things like meteor/cometstorm/arcane orb/ebonbolt/phoenix flame/living bomb/frostbomb/arcane torrent. All those should be baseline for their respective spec imo.
And the talent choices should come down to (do i want icelance to cleave or do i want blizzard to be instant cast?) or something along those lines.
Passive dmg buffs should be removed from talents alltogether, all choices should be "wich ability do i wanna tweak for this fight?"
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thats the idea, i dont want it to be possible to flurry the gs (and ofc also have it buffed to compensate). because either holding flurry procs for it, or fishing flurry procs for it both feels like a bad design.
None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.
I am legitimately tired of people like you trying to destroy pure DPS classes. There does not NEED to be an extra healer with a time aesthetic. Mages have had 2 abilities EVER that referenced time magic. Alter time and Time Warp. Do you even have a compelling idea for the gameplay of a healing time mage?
Arcane missiles should have be influenced by arcane charges,
Please explain how me suggesting this would somehow destroy your ability to play a mage how you want.
There does not need to be any extra classes at all. It's called "options" and having them added does not somehow diminish your ability to enjoy the game, unless you yourself let it which I can't control.
Blizzard devs themselves contemplated adding a Time spec to mages (I don't feel like digging up the post, and I don't think you'll even try, since you seem so intent on being emotionally....whatever that is over such a small suggestion).
I do have a compelling idea for the gameplay of a healing TIme Mage -- it echoes the one that the Blizzard Devs themselves had. Using time to turn back wounds, or to speed up healing.
Take a step back.....it's not this serious.
If we could all sit and talk without demonizing one another and attempt to understand the opposite point of view, the collective world would be a better place. Mental bigotry is the worst of all.
I need the WoD incarnation of Combustion back, having enjoyed that glorious shitshow you just can't appreciate the current watered down bullshit.
Now ill have to fill every frostbolt with the fireblast bullshit and spam my heart out on aoe with arcane explosion while blizzard is on cd.
Sigh, wtf.
I'm down with Cone of Cold, as that ability was useful and damn satisfying to use and I'd love to see it return. Arcane explosion was kind of a staple for getting rogues out of stealth, so I'm glad to have it back. Same thing with Blizzard, although both Blizzard and Arcane Explosion weren't really included in fire's aoe rotation anyway, as that was were the spec specific spells shone naturally.
Dragon's Breath, on the other hand, would be overkill for frost mages.
WoD? Nah mate, Cata Combustion was where it's at. :P
Oh sure Cataclysm combustion was sweet, but the double spread of ignite, target swap for combustion and then spreading that shit all over was absolutely glorious, getting the perfect combustion on mythic Trainfuck/Iron Maidens/Blast Furnace was better than sex.WoD? Nah mate, Cata Combustion was where it's at. :P
My Ideas
FIRE:
Fiery Entiry: Summon a Fiery Entiry to attack by your side, like some of the monk spirit things but fiery, this permanent pet will melee your target and apply a dot that will boost your fireball, pyro, fireblast dmg by a certain amount. You have the choice to explode the Entity to do big dmg to target and anything around it, you can't summon another Entiry for a while.
Flame Hunger or Combustion?: Absorb the ignites of all your enemies to increase your haste by x% and damage by y% for z seconds, the duration will be proportional to the absorbed ignite damage up to z seconds. Basically eliminate some / most / all of your ignite damage from the enemies and turn your into a nasty fire machine gun for a small time, duration would be capped to avoid staying 2 days with this buff.
A talent or whatever to make your meteor and flame patch dots to stay on the target it hits instead of on the floor.
FROST:
i would implement a mechanic that if the target is immune to slows then the spell would do a x% more dmg, would help on raid bosses and not be super OP in PVP.
Make Comet Storm baseline to frost, that spell looks sexy.
Frozen Orb: Same but with the following change: The orb will damage your enemies and / or aid your raid members it passes through, the positive effect will vary depending on the raid member role. Healers: Infuse then with refreshing chill increasing their heals potency by x% for x seconds. DPS: Their attacks will do x amount of extra frost damage for x seconds. TANKS: Their skin will harden and reduce their dmg taken by x% by x seconds.
Ice Wall: Create a wall of ice in front of you that will protect you and your allies reducing their dmg taken by x% while they stay behind the wall or while the wall stands, (Wall can absorb up to x amount of damage). Yes we can now save ppl with our stuff!!!! Obviously the wall should not be too big, just a little arc in front of you.
Ice Form (Replaces Ice Block): You turn into a statue of ice making immune to all damage for x seconds, while in ice form you can still slide at a 50% reduced movement speed.
ARCANE:
Quickening Trance: Create an X yard wide aura around yourself for 10 seconds that increases your haste by x%, this effect will also affect up to 3 raid members, if your raid members stay inside for more than 6 seconds they will be stunned for x seconds.
Arcane Orb: Same but make it return to you, and if you catch it generate x amount of arcane charges.
I know some of the ideas wild, but what do you want, im a mage!!!! blizz could balance with numbers so this does not become crazy or maybe it already is... sue me.
I like the ice wall idea, giving a bit of raid/dungeon utility is always fun. For fire I just want legion fire mage back. I don't play much of arcane so eh. In general id like rune of power to be re worked or removed. And make the fun looking spells baseline. I agree with comet storm, I like the dot arcane mage can apply, maybe slightly nerf arcane blast and have arcane blast apply the dot. I love the icicle theme for frost, maybe make frost mastery multi-strike and just fill your screen with icicles and flurries. Make a class cool is enough in my opinion. Yes balance is important but it will never be perfect.
Well, true. There is little sophistication left in any class.
What makes mage special in this regard is that the class fantasy (dirty word, I know) is one of sophistication. Their powers weren't attained by natural talent alone, nor through servitude to the elements or the light, or by making pacts with demons. They got there through slow learning.
Something about that strikes me as diametrically opposed to an eazy and simple gameplay. On the contrary, they should be very difficult to master!
I can see how and why one might not agree with that viewpoint. Yet, it doesn't quite feel mage-y if the gameplay is so... "dumb".
Edit: I'm repeating myself, of course. Haha
Last edited by Lodravel; 2020-03-08 at 10:58 AM.
The Covenant abilities we are getting have been changed a little from the iterations we saw at Blizzcon.
However, without numbers and relying on mechanics alone, would I be correct in saying that the Kyrian Radiant Spark and the Necrolord Skeletal Mage (which sounds pretty cool) appear to be the best choices for raiding or dungeoneering mages?
Radiant Spark would definitely be saved for our cooldown windows.
Skeletal Mage would synergise better with Arcane or Frost (who cast Arcane Blast and Frostbolt's during their cooldowns) rather than fire (which uses pyroblasts (and scorch in a pinch to get heating up) during combustion).
Torment of Mirrors seems to be a PVP ability though. And Shifting Power seemingly expects us to be in melee range...dungeon trash is the only time I can imagine it being useful based on our limited information right now.
Focus magic making a comeback is a big no no for me.
I always hated 1 person per raid buffs and the shit show they bring with them - FM, ToTT damage increase, Dark Intent, PI etc. should not exist IMO. It's either an uninteresting in class circle jerk, or getting whispers all raid about it with stupid innuendo and incessant whinging. Not even making mention of their impact on parses overall.
I seriously can't overstate how much I hate these abilities. They are toxic as all hell and that's one hill I'd be willing to die on.
So after seeing the changes: I'm sad we're not getting a more significant redesign but I'm also okay with it? But I'll still need to see more before I can make an actual say on how mages will feel going into SL
General: Mirror image fuck yeah. That's one of my favorite spells. Alter time ehh...I liked it but I'm not like...too crazy about it. Fire and frost ward is kind of weird but cool, we'll see. I'm actually glad fireblast is becoming baseline, it gives another "oh hey, I gotta go" button to push. Frostbolt...eh. Arcane explosion being baseline feels pointless but well...it's useful as a rogue check. Focus magic...we'll have to see. I think it might be better for mythic+ where you can just put it on the healer or something but I also don't like the "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" abilities. They just feel...pointless. Of course, I get why it's not a raidwide buff but it could be a short cooldown or something instead. We'll see.
Arcane: Clearcasting stacking to 2 is cool...it helps give more mobility if you take slipstream. Mastery extending to all abilities is awesome, because now it makes casting something other than blast/barrage worth it. Touch of the magi being baseline is a BLESSING. I'm really excited to play with enlightened. I love the mana-gement game, honestly, and I think this talent will be really neat. But again, we'll see.
Fire: Ignite going from a passive spread to an on demand from fireblast feels...pointless? But I guess it works if CC is needed. I wonder if that implies CC is coming back? Blastwave change...eh. Kindling change...eh. Pyroblasm change...eh. Seems like fire is getting mostly QoL changes but we'll see.
Frost. Winter's chill buff is cool. But we'll see.
Overall: We'll see but I'm okay that it mostly seems to be small changes? I feel like frost is in a really good place, I feel like fire was in a good place and it's getting a slight buff. Arcane seems to be getting the most changes but...we'll see
i mean, they already said classes werent geting massive redesigns like the past 2 xpacs. not sure why people are surprised.