Why do Mages never have tons of changes in Patches/Expansions?

[Raugnaut]

Isn't there something to be said on change for the purpose of change?

Changing things for the sake of changing things is how we winded up with the stinking pile of shit that was BfA class design.

And from a business standpoint, that's one of the fastest ways to wind up bankrupt.

When you have a working formula, you may seek to tweak it to perfection, but changing the formula just because? No.

[Malikath]

because, mage is the class for smoothbrains.

[unbound]

This is something I've noticed in the past. Been a long time player, but one of those that is very on and off with the game (usually play the first four-five months of an expac pretty hard then wait til the next). I've noticed whenever we're in this stage of an expac coming out soon, I never see "Mage" pop up on class changes relative to other classes. Do we know why this is? I feel like I've seen a total of 4-5 lines for all of Shadowlands thus far

Blizz has gotten pretty lazy about most classes. It is just more obvious with mages.

Fire mages are currently OP. Frost and Arcane take turns on being bottom of the pile. Generally speaking, mages have a pleasant rotation that is neither brain dead (ala DH) nor overly busy with too many buttons. It would be nice if Blizz put more effort into all of this as Frost mage hasn't really changed since MoP...but with their current attitude, it is probably best that they don't try to change things as they tend to make them worse.

[Lodravel]

If I were forced to redesign mana for mages, I like the idea of mana being used for huge burn phases with your primary set of damage dealing not costing anything. Like breaking a dam or turning on a faucet, the mana flows and so does the damage - with Arcane being cyclical (as-is), Fire burning through it quickly, Frost being more efficient. Maybe the core damaging CDs could trigger the mana spending. I couldn't imagine it being baked into the base kit like Arcane -- I think Arcane specifically managing its mana as part of its key gameplay is kind of iconic, so relegating mana to just a conversion for extra damage during primary burst CDs like Combustion or Icy Veins may be one way to see it gone about.

You know what? I like that. The problem that would arise from it is that it would lock our burst behind two gates - the first being the CD and the second being the available mana.
To combat that, we'd need a better way to control our mana than having it be a simple switch tied to our burst CDs. A mechanic that allows us to decide whether we want to spend or conserve.

This used to be accomplished by switching between magic armor (at least over a short period in the beginning of Cata, where mana management was an actual thing). I enjoyed that gameplay, but I admittedly may be in the minority with my opinion.

[Sw1tch]

Everyone in this thread apparently: "I want to play the same exact thing for 20 expansions in a row."

Mind boggling that you think no changes in an expansion is a good thing. Think about how much new, cool shit expansions used to bring to classes. Unreal.

Heavily agreeing with you here! I've raided every expac to a decent degree. It's always the same - Frost at the beginning, fire at the end, and sometimes Arcane is OP when the stars align. But outside of performance, which was my purpose here...the class design, dynamic, and flow of combat has been stagnant for some time. IMO you should be adding a fresh element to every single specialization every expac. Don't keep adding obviously, remove/refine some....but there should be something interesting getting added to keep you coming back/bring players in.

[Razion]

You know what? I like that. The problem that would arise from it is that it would lock our burst behind two gates - the first being the CD and the second being the available mana.
To combat that, we'd need a better way to control our mana than having it be a simple switch tied to our burst CDs. A mechanic that allows us to decide whether we want to spend or conserve.

This used to be accomplished by switching between magic armor (at least over a short period in the beginning of Cata, where mana management was an actual thing). I enjoyed that gameplay, but I admittedly may be in the minority with my opinion.

I hesitated to mention some kind of stance where you were spending mana or not, but it was the first thing that came to mind earlier but it doesn't strike me as very simple or elegant. I considered Evocation or an inverse Evocation, but I think that's best thematically as Arcane only to manipulate mana so much. I guess it could be a new separate CD to burn mana, but at that point maybe it may as well be a stance - it's a button either way. Hmm. Maybe Armors could be a stance.

[Lodravel]

I hesitated to mention some kind of stance where you were spending mana or not, but it was the first thing that came to mind earlier but it doesn't strike me as very simple or elegant. I considered Evocation or an inverse Evocation, but I think that's best thematically as Arcane only to manipulate mana so much. I guess it could be a new separate CD to burn mana, but at that point maybe it may as well be a stance - it's a button either way. Hmm. Maybe Armors could be a stance.

Agreed, an outright stance wouldn't be elegant in the way that stances are a very old part of WoW. But it would be simple.

You could go even further (and this is going to sound crazy):
Imagine you had a system of mana "gears". Yeah, like in a car. You'd shift up and down, depending on how "fast" you'd want to go. Mage goes WRRRRRRRRRROOOOM.

No, I'm serious. Slap a fitting name on that, maybe call it "Ley Conduit" or something. Highest "gear" is big damage and insane mana consumption, middle is normal damage and mana neutral, and lowest means less damage but decent mana regeneration. You'd shift up and down, off the GCD but with an internal CD.

Add mana crystal back to all specs, maybe evocation too. Mana is back, baby, drive your mage to the top of the logs. Bwahaha.
I know how ridiculous this sounds, and perhaps not for everybody... but I'd actually dig it. Been of the impression that this class should mirror some of the sophistication it has lorewise for a long time, and how better than by turning them into mana racers?

[Weeps]

Mage is the golden poster child for blizz devs.

[Mamut]

shadowpriest gets a re work every damn expansion.

You talk about the rework they promise for BfA but which one was abandoned because "there wasnt enough time, we will fix it later"?

SP is the most broken and unfan spec in the SL beta right now, and no, priest is not my main.

[Lora]

Isn't there something to be said on change for the purpose of change?

yeah, dont change if it aint broken.

- - - Updated - - -

You talk about the rework they promise for BfA but which one was abandoned because "there wasnt enough time, we will fix it later"?

SP is the most broken and unfan spec in the SL beta right now, and no, priest is not my main.

shadow priests have never been fun.

[cparle87]

shadowpriest gets a re work every damn expansion.

Only classes you see getting attention/changes are normally - Monk (normally Brew), priest, a hunter spec normally BM/surv. Aff/destro lock.

Everyone else is lucky to get some love once every 3-4 expansions.

Bottom line, they need to do more work on classes

I think the last time feral got a rework was in WoD when ravage was baked into shred and pounce was baked into rake, and even then the rotation and gameplay was left unchanged. Thinking back more I think the only major change we've had since day one was the introduction of savage roar in Wrath. Keep rake and rip up, sneak in bites, don't cap or let anything fall off.

[mrgreenthump]

Changing things for the sake of changing things is how we winded up with the stinking pile of shit that was BfA class design.

And from a business standpoint, that's one of the fastest ways to wind up bankrupt.

When you have a working formula, you may seek to tweak it to perfection, but changing the formula just because? No.

Yet for BFA Mages got almost no changes at all. And those changes we got removed things or made them talents from the artifacts.

---

Nobody here is talking about DPS. Fact that Fire is doing how well it is doing right now, is showing that the mechanics behind it is broken. Blizzard had to dodge making cleave bosses this expansion, because of Fire and most of melee being rather broken when it comes to cleave. We don't see 2 bosses right next to each other often, because that would make Frost super OP on that boss.

But sure lets talk about Mage DPS this expansion. Do you remember what it was like before we got Mechagon bracers, Lucid and 3x BM. It was dogshit. Only thing that worked was us abusing game mechanics and using the no-icelance frost build. Even that was at most times no enough to be anywhere near Warlocks for example. Last expansion we were dogshit until we got the legendaries we needed. And even then those legendaries got nerfed, because they were too good. I didn't play WoD, but from what I heard Mage was only truly broken after all progression was done and you had all possible stacking buffs to annihilate the bosses.

Mage has often been the top dog at the end of the expansion, but the way there we have been middle(or lower) of the pact with our best spec most of the time. There are some exeptions like Arcane with Shard of Woe and Fire with the original Alter Time. That made Mages absolutely broken for the whole expansion in regards of DPS. Which is funny, because that kinda proves my point of Mage being broken with item interactions in almost all expansions. Sure it makes the boring rotations somewhat fun for a while to see your damage being 2x the next. But after the 500th pull on a boss, you don't care about your DPS, you care about killing the boss. And when you spec is boring as hell.. It's a slugfest.

The sad part is that I feel Blizzard is scared of changing Mages, because we would likely end up abusing the changed parts in no time. I'm still salty we lost Alter Time(the buff affecting one), it was such a fun mechanic. But as Blizzard has this weird obsession that the average player has to have a chance to beat a 99 percentile player, it got removed. Such is the fate of the Mages in WoW.

[Arainie]

Isn't there something to be said on change for the purpose of change?

Believe it or not, but a lot of us pick our classes because we like the class concept and the way they play. Change for the sake of change has always taken away from this aspect. My priest is a perfect example, neither spec much resembles what I picked and loved when I leveled it back in TBC.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

We don't see 2 bosses right next to each other often, because that would make Frost super OP on that boss.

That doesn't happen. Frost's 2t is pathetically bad compared to other 2t specialists, such as Destro. This is an incredibly longstanding issue with the spec that supposedly has a 2t strength. We saw 2t at least once a tier this expansion until 8.2, and we still had that for Destro since they're unhindered by target distance. Even with Orb's heyday on Cabal, it didn't touch better specs.

That said, they are absolutely afraid of changing Mage to any meaningful amount. No one knows what to do with Arcane, Fire's Heating Up system feels great, and Frost's Shatter also feels mostly great (when working and ignoring the issues with BF droughts). There's a lot of small details they could change, but the core gameplay loops of at least two of them work perfectly fine.

..Which makes the Winter's Chill changes even more baffling.

[Amaterasu65]

what's the expert class?

Probably the class that gets peed on by fire mages on the meters right now. Salty losers.

[Delano]

Because the class is mechanically solid. Hey, at least your changes are implemented *cries in rogue*

[Rothex]

Yet for BFA Mages got almost no changes at all. And those changes we got removed things or made them talents from the artifacts.

---

Nobody here is talking about DPS. Fact that Fire is doing how well it is doing right now, is showing that the mechanics behind it is broken. Blizzard had to dodge making cleave bosses this expansion, because of Fire and most of melee being rather broken when it comes to cleave. We don't see 2 bosses right next to each other often, because that would make Frost super OP on that boss.

But sure lets talk about Mage DPS this expansion. Do you remember what it was like before we got Mechagon bracers, Lucid and 3x BM. It was dogshit. Only thing that worked was us abusing game mechanics and using the no-icelance frost build. Even that was at most times no enough to be anywhere near Warlocks for example. Last expansion we were dogshit until we got the legendaries we needed. And even then those legendaries got nerfed, because they were too good. I didn't play WoD, but from what I heard Mage was only truly broken after all progression was done and you had all possible stacking buffs to annihilate the bosses.

Mage has often been the top dog at the end of the expansion, but the way there we have been middle(or lower) of the pact with our best spec most of the time. There are some exeptions like Arcane with Shard of Woe and Fire with the original Alter Time. That made Mages absolutely broken for the whole expansion in regards of DPS. Which is funny, because that kinda proves my point of Mage being broken with item interactions in almost all expansions. Sure it makes the boring rotations somewhat fun for a while to see your damage being 2x the next. But after the 500th pull on a boss, you don't care about your DPS, you care about killing the boss. And when you spec is boring as hell.. It's a slugfest.

The sad part is that I feel Blizzard is scared of changing Mages, because we would likely end up abusing the changed parts in no time. I'm still salty we lost Alter Time(the buff affecting one), it was such a fun mechanic. But as Blizzard has this weird obsession that the average player has to have a chance to beat a 99 percentile player, it got removed. Such is the fate of the Mages in WoW.

This. This is the crux of the issue. Mages' base designs have always been broken or so highly nonfunctional that they have required a very specific set up trinkets, legendaries, or other items, and high stats for the specs to work and be actually good. Fire is probably the best example of this out of all of them.

The start of WoD in Highmaul, Fire was so grossly bad and so below every other spec's dps that players were using MoP tier sets in raiding as it was a dps gain than current WoD expansion gear. It was shortly after this that Blizz deactivated all legacy tier bonuses. Fire only become "ok" mid-Blackrock Foundry solely due to the fact that so many boss fights had tons of adds or cleave where players could abuse the Ignite crunching bug for massive Combustions. Mage only really become very good overall for most bosses at the end of WoD with the Prophecy of Fear/Prismatic Crystal combo, and a class should not need to wait until the 2nd last boss of an expansion to be remotely good and playable.

BfA also was good as showing that stripping Mages, more so obvious with Fire again, of all the Legion artifact weapon bonuses and legendaries that the base designs are just garbage. Fire is now just too reliant on the short Combustion window and stacking literally everything it can into it to be competitive; outside of Combustion Fire is so weak and really has nothing, and a spec should not be nonfunctional for most of its rotation. This forces very specific talents, gear, and playstyles, to be remotely competitive. Needing to have Lucid, Mechagon bracers, Azshara's Font of Power, another on-use Intellect trinket, and 3x BM to actually play Fire in BfA is not good design.

Arcane's obvious problem is the million gcds needed to even get started while Frost has had issues in the last couple of expacs where no-Ice Lance builds end up happening due to stat scaling issues, while the RNG with FoF/BF munching or them not proccing at all for extended periods is incredibly punishing.

Mages don't need to be completely redesigned; they don't really need any additional completely new abilities honestly either. What they need to for the base design of the spec to be improved where they are functional and competitive outside of their extreme burst windows, have better stat scaling, and are not reliant on certain trinkets, legendaries, or other item effects to be even remotely playable. This would mean baking in some talents and legacy effects into the specs themselves, and scrapping a fair few talents, because at the moment pretty much all of the specs for Shadowlands are heading for the same forced locked-in talents all over again as BfA, which is not fun and doesn't fix the root cause of the design problem.

[Kul]

Mages should have the best ranged dps since they don’t have pets or elementals to tank or any kind of heals etc. It was even written in the in the original wow game manual: Mages can dish out the most ranged damage in the shortest time.

Thus it was written ”Mages can dish out the most ranged damage in the shortest time.” And thus it is so.

[Amaterasu65]

Because the class is mechanically solid. Hey, at least your changes are implemented *cries in rogue*

It is mechanically solid but most talents are horrendous and useless or lackluster. They should at least make more talent changes in all classes that have stale trees.

[msdos]

I feel like Mage was the first caster they worked on and is what was used as the blueprint for everything else. They have the best CC, best immunity, best AOE and all their spells are the most streamlined. (Frostbolt and Fireball had built in mechanics since day 1, everyone else gets nothing, Warlocks get to suicide themselves.)

The design of the other casters started to break down after they stopped allowing people to bring unique buffs to raids. So you basically were just left with superior Mage table and Warlock stones, none of the other casters got any QoL crap like that that also helps the raid.
Ele, Shadow, and Boomkins bring jack diddly to a raid and Boomkin and Shadow have barely been playable the past few expansions, looking like more of the same in Shadowlands.
All their creativity went into Mage and Warlock, I think they ran out of juice.