Hot Takes for Mage Talents and Class design as a whole, from a casual player.

[Sugani]

Arcane Harmony, Radiant Spark, Thermal Void, and Sun King's Blessing are all net negatives in making the core combat loop and rotation flow feel good; they actively go against it and make all rotations feel worse.

Arcane
Arcane Harmony ends up getting in the way of establishing a perfect sense of flow and ends up making the Arcane mage opener feel a hell of a lot clunkier than it should be. I understand the point of what Arcane Hamory is trying to do, but ultimately I feel like it contributes more toxic gameplay than healthy.

Radiant Spark also overlaps with Touch of the Magi, and their disjointed CDs end up screwing with the player as they flow between the conserve and burn phases. I would instead give both spells the 'Arcane Surge' treatment. Keep the talents where they are, but make them all passives and build up and make Touch of the Magi even stronger with a longer cooldown that aligns with the 1.5-minute cooldown of Arcane Surge.

Frost
Thermal Voidboth contributes to the same problem. Frost feels lost right now, trying to juggle three different playstyles, Icy Veins, Glacial Shard, and Ray of Frost. So my problem with those two talents is less about them existing and more about them contributing to the class design in an overly intrusive way that prevents the other styles from shining. I think some streamlining could be beneficial here, making Glacial Spike contribute and provide benefits off Thermal Void. Allow Glacial Spike to extend the duration of Icy Veins by a factor plus the cast time. Icy Veins does not need to clash with Glacial Shard, and the two can still easily benefit from one another.

As far as Ray of Frost, probably the single most ignored spell by mages since detect magic. Rework this thing; no one uses it; try and fold it into the mass AOE gameplay. Let each pulse burst and hit everything in a radius around the target. Let frost mages feel like they're unleashing a real blizzard when they drop a Frozen Orb, Blizzard, and follow up with a Ray of Frost that freezes everything in place while it's all melted down. There's some real potential with this spell; the animations and effects are excellent, but it's been five years since it was added, and it's never seen widespread use. Go back to the drawing board, and rethink it.

Fire
I don't play fire all that much, but hard-casting pyroblast is not fun, breaks the flow, and does not add as much complexity to the game as you think it does. It's an anti-fun talent that goes against the core design principles of fire. Suck King's Blessing needs to be removed or redesigned completely.



There are my mage hot takes after playing the pre-patch of Dragonflight. Maybe at 70, some of these issues will resolve themselves, but that's how I feel about these new talents for Mages. Overall pretty fun for casual players, but just a few feel clunky, and it sucks how strong those talents are.

[Stickiler]

Fire
I don't play fire all that much, but hard-casting pyroblast is not fun, breaks the flow, and does not add as much complexity to the game as you think it does. It's an anti-fun talent that goes against the core design principles of fire. Suck King's Blessing needs to be removed or redesigned completely.



There are my mage hot takes after playing the pre-patch of Dragonflight. Maybe at 70, some of these issues will resolve themselves, but that's how I feel about these new talents for Mages. Overall pretty fun for casual players, but just a few feel clunky, and it sucks how strong those talents are.

Sun King's Blessing isn't new, we've been playing it for ~6 years now. It's an incredibly fun talent because it gives you more combustions without using your main cooldown, and the Fire is at it's most fun when you're in combustion.

[Sugani]

Sun King's Blessing isn't new, we've been playing it for ~6 years now. It's an incredibly fun talent because it gives you more combustions without using your main cooldown, and the Fire is at it's most fun when you're in combustion.

Fire, for me, is primarily about being highly mobile, instant cast spells, and burst damage. Breaking your gameplay flow to stop and hard-cast a pyroblast for sun-king is the antithesis of that design. There must be a better way because it feels terrible as a casual player. Like, why have it hard-cast a pyroblast, something you never want to do? I'd rather them just increase the hot-streak amount and trigger it automatically, consume enough hot streaks and you combust into flames. The core rotation would feel much better for it.

And if they want to preserve the original design, make that an optional talent that alters its behavior.

[Stickiler]

Fire, for me, is primarily about being highly mobile, instant cast spells, and burst damage. Breaking your gameplay flow to stop and hard-cast a pyroblast for sun-king is not. There must be a better way because it feels terrible as a casual player.

When did you last play Fire? Fire hasn't been mobile for almost ten years now. Having to cast Fireball as a filler means that you're basically immobile, and your only chances for mobility are during combustion(which you're not going to want to move because of RoP anyway), or using Scorch, which while it does allow you to be mobile, is a significant DPS loss over casting fireball, so you wouldn't be doing that anyway.

Shimmer doesn't really count, because it's once every 20 seconds or something.

[Glorious Leader]

I love glacial spike. Evidently its a dps loss.

[Chromeshellking]

I feel like the last 6 years the people in charge of mage designs just floated ideas on paper that sound cool but as it plays out just tanks. Mop era Arcane for me was the best iteration of it as you had a hard to master but once you did you really could deal a ton of damage.

Currently trying to force myself to learn either FFB or fire in general due to ICC but I hate the spec and I dont have the ideal crit chance to make it pop.

Frost just sits there and at this stage I without a doubt will never be a viable build.

[Biomega]

I feel like the last 6 years the people in charge of mage designs just floated ideas on paper that sound cool but as it plays out just tanks.

You're not wrong, but in some aspects, that IS important to design, too. Not everyone is a performance-oriented player, in fact it seems likely that a numerical majority of players are not performance-oriented to a degree that would make them research and actively compare setups. They don't want to be ass, but they also aren't bothered that one talent is -5% dps and another is +5% or whatever.

Which also explains...

I love glacial spike. Evidently its a dps loss.

People love Spike. It sucks, but people love it. That's why it's still there.

Now, all that being said, you CAN make the argument of "why not both?" - it sounds a little like having your cake and eating it too but it's a matter of degrees not a matter of absolutes. Sure you can't balance EVERYTHING - but if there's a spell like Glacial Spike that's (apparently) quite popular and a cool visual and a new way of playing... is it really that hard to just make it a little better? Just to be a viable alternative, instead of shooting yourself in the foot in the name of coolness?

I suppose at the end of the day there'll always be SOME loose end that SOMEONE cares about to an inordinate amount, so it's hard to justify what to pick for a fix and what you just leave hanging. Resources are finite. Lots of things need work. All the time. It's a never-ending uphill struggle. I still think they could do better - but it'll never be perfect.

[durrtygoodz]

I feel like the last 6 years the people in charge of mage designs just floated ideas on paper that sound cool but as it plays out just tanks. Mop era Arcane for me was the best iteration of it as you had a hard to master but once you did you really could deal a ton of damage.

SoO Arcane with the set bonus was almost perfection and could have been the blueprint for the spec going forward. 2 yard radius RoP requiring 100% uptime was the only shit thing.

[Glorious Leader]

You're not wrong, but in some aspects, that IS important to design, too. Not everyone is a performance-oriented player, in fact it seems likely that a numerical majority of players are not performance-oriented to a degree that would make them research and actively compare setups. They don't want to be ass, but they also aren't bothered that one talent is -5% dps and another is +5% or whatever.

Which also explains...

People love Spike. It sucks, but people love it. That's why it's still there.

Now, all that being said, you CAN make the argument of "why not both?" - it sounds a little like having your cake and eating it too but it's a matter of degrees not a matter of absolutes. Sure you can't balance EVERYTHING - but if there's a spell like Glacial Spike that's (apparently) quite popular and a cool visual and a new way of playing... is it really that hard to just make it a little better? Just to be a viable alternative, instead of shooting yourself in the foot in the name of coolness?

I suppose at the end of the day there'll always be SOME loose end that SOMEONE cares about to an inordinate amount, so it's hard to justify what to pick for a fix and what you just leave hanging. Resources are finite. Lots of things need work. All the time. It's a never-ending uphill struggle. I still think they could do better - but it'll never be perfect.

Evidently what i read suggests spike is a 10% dps loss. I still pick it dont give a shit. That being said giving it a flat dps increase shouldn't be hard. Part of the appeal of that spell is that its like an execute, it hits hard. So just make it hit harder.

[Chromeshellking]

SoO Arcane with the set bonus was almost perfection and could have been the blueprint for the spec going forward. 2 yard radius RoP requiring 100% uptime was the only shit thing.

Exactly, And where they went after was just so painful to see.

[LordVargK]

For me mage has so many abilities that just suck the fun out of it, that I am glad Demo WL plays fine.

Rune of Power is something I always disliked. It's a short cooldown that does hinder your mobility and does nothing on it's own. Incanter's flow isn't really competitive. And needs a WA to track properly.
Shifting Power is an absolutely hideous ability that does not fit the mage at all. Neither visually not gameplay-wise. Just give me a .5 sec cd reduction everytime I cast an ability please. It's just another cooldown you have to track.

The fact that our arcane mage has to ask for a 12 second pull timer to properly setup his burst damage ist just ridiculous.

[Skavee]

This is my take, mainly m+ pov. Also I'm certain other classes also have to deal with stuff, but I can only speak for what I currently play.

General
The game currently has a lot of situations that force you to stop casting. Random aoe swirlies, interrupt mechanics a la quaking or simply important casts you have to kick. The later mostly affects fire if you happen to be hardcasting a pyro and either your assigned target starts casting or well, there is noone else to kick.

Arcane
To many buttons that don't feel satisfying to press, your ramp is very susceptible to getting screwed by forced movement. Ice floes helps but is yet another button. Nether tempest should just get baked into touch of the magi. Radiant Spark is a cool concept, but the windows to get the 4 stacks should be more lenient. Mana gem is nice, but another button that does a similar thing
to talented evocation (mana + spell dmg modifier).

Frost
I'd say due to the many instant casts, you are the least susceptible to mechanics unless it's forced downtime where your IV falls off. Proc munching feels bad, but sometimes is the optimal way to play. There are many dead talent's. I dislike talents like wintertide or free frozen orb one with 30? stacks, where you have to build up plethora of stacks of some kind to then unleash at the right time. Also god forbid if the stacks fall off/max out at the wrong time.

Fire
Already mentioned in General. I don't mind pyroclasm and skb that much, but currently to many things can screw with you. I'd at least welcome some sort of increase to the buff duration, so canceling a skb Pyro to interrupt or moving to the next pack doesn't insta punish you.