Mage - Cataclysm Preview Compilation

[coldethyl]

I really cant see how we haven't been given anything but aces in our preview.

Mages, The best of the 9 classes previewed so far.

you ignorant suckup we got fucked pure and simple,2 pvp talents and bloodlust.do you work at blizzard as a schill(you know the hot chicks the casinos pay to play baccarat with house money when a whale wants a table and there is noone else to play with)

people still complain mages are op in pvp so we get 2 new pvp abilitys that will surely aleviate the hatred the non mage masses already have for us(and you know how fucking mouthy this bunch of unwashed heathens gets,so if the pvp abilitys dont completely suck when released they will shortly there after)

and blood lust ,they have so much respect for mages they didnt even bother with giving us a new ability,they just copy pasted a shammy one.and with the eme shammy changes noone will want mages in the raids just like sunwell.

the whole arcane bit is a fucking inslut ,our spell damage out put scales negativly with our manahow about warriors do less damage when they have alot of rage? how about healers do less healing when they are low on mana? how about rogues doe less damage when they dont have energy?

noone would accept it,but mages are expected to swallow and say thank you/

lets look at the changes to burnout,pyromaniac,and playing with fire shall we
we are loosing 50% critical strike bonus damage,+3% crit chance,+3% spell damage,and 50% mana regen while casting to get the ability to help the boss kill us faster as we trade health for mana,a little haste when we have ignite on 3 or more targets,and the ability to cast blast wave faster when we take melee damage.these changes are almost enough to gut the fire tree,but jethro is all in favor of them.these are not improvements these are downgrades pure and simple.I wonder what changes they have in mind they dont want to tell us about yet so we cant do anything about it.

I reiterate we got fucked.

[Marvdatboi]

you ignorant suckup we got fucked pure and simple,2 pvp talents and bloodlust.do you work at blizzard as a schill(you know the hot chicks the casinos pay to play baccarat with house money when a whale wants a table and there is noone else to play with)

people still complain mages are op in pvp so we get 2 new pvp abilitys that will surely aleviate the hatred the non mage masses already have for us(and you know how fucking mouthy this bunch of unwashed heathens gets,so if the pvp abilitys dont completely suck when released they will shortly there after)

and blood lust ,they have so much respect for mages they didnt even bother with giving us a new ability,they just copy pasted a shammy one.and with the eme shammy changes noone will want mages in the raids just like sunwell.

the whole arcane bit is a fucking inslut ,our spell damage out put scales negativly with our manahow about warriors do less damage when they have alot of rage? how about healers do less healing when they are low on mana? how about rogues doe less damage when they dont have energy? noone would accept it,but mages are expected to swallow and say thank you/


I reiterate we got fucked.

It's not that serious. Beta isn't even out nor have you seen the actual mechanics at work but your spouting out so much BS.

[Ridesdel]

you ignorant suckup we got fucked pure and simple,2 pvp talents and bloodlust.do you work at blizzard as a schill(you know the hot chicks the casinos pay to play baccarat with house money when a whale wants a table and there is noone else to play with)

people still complain mages are op in pvp so we get 2 new pvp abilitys that will surely aleviate the hatred the non mage masses already have for us(and you know how fucking mouthy this bunch of unwashed heathens gets,so if the pvp abilitys dont completely suck when released they will shortly there after)

and blood lust ,they have so much respect for mages they didnt even bother with giving us a new ability,they just copy pasted a shammy one.and with the eme shammy changes noone will want mages in the raids just like sunwell.

the whole arcane bit is a fucking inslut ,our spell damage out put scales negativly with our manahow about warriors do less damage when they have alot of rage? how about healers do less healing when they are low on mana? how about rogues doe less damage when they dont have energy? noone would accept it,but mages are expected to swallow and say thank you/


I reiterate we got fucked.

Language Bro....

Me, I like these changes, esp the arcane changes, time to bring back the skill!
I played as 40/0/21 back in TBC, before it was found to be the "best" arcane spec, even had the other mages in my guild questioning me, until I topped them on the charts, back then it seemed a bit more challenging to play arcane.
And, I can't wait for frost to become fully viable in end game, i love playing as frost, hell half the time I still play as frost in raids.
I had benched my mage in favor of a tank/healadin because I found that to have a higher skill-cap than playing as arcane, and as the dust builds on my mage, she will be waiting for the day she casts that Wall of Fog, hits that Time Warp, and fries those allies with the Fire Orb, until then she will only be for non-progressive raids where I can have more fun playing as frost!

[Trustyduck]

Has anybody suggested anywhere that "mana adept" should work in the opposite way? I mean to me it makes more sense to reward players for floating on the edge of being OOM, but still having the where-with-all to maintain a solid rotation. This definitely addresses the "bads vs. pros" issue.

I guess the reason behind my suggestion is that it would compete with fire in the "execute" range, while still making arcane fun and dynamic (in my opinion a hell of a lot more). If you know of any post (or for that matter a blue post) that so much as hints at this, post a link.

Anybody else think that "more damage the smaller your mana pool is" is a terrible idea, or a great idea? thoughts/questions/comments?

[Talenarrus]

My mage is lvl 70, and these changes make me wanna lvl him up again, wall of fog? awesome

[coldethyl]

to everyone who is looking at these changes from a glass half full perspective,remember back when we complained about mana issues and the official blue responce was just dont cast as much. remember when we had a useful living bomb/hotstreak interaction for 18 hours before the bitching from the other classes got it reverted in less than a single day? do you remember when living bomb was first released it had a knockback effect?(thats right the new mage aoe spell did exactly the oposite of what you want an aoe spell to do,keep them grouped and hit them over and over until they are dead,what the hell are all the mobs in the air moving away from the designated aoeing area for?)remember when the blue responce to a question about mirror image and threat was answered in blue text that was 100% wrong? I remember,i remember vanilla wow when we had fangs,and i remember sunwell when we stood out side and acted like bobby bouchet.

healers dont want to heal us now,imagine how us having lifetap will improve things. innervates are a finite commodity and if the druid doesnt use it on itself it goes to a healer,so for everyone talking about getting intervates to compensate for the arcane abomination mastery effect its not going to happen ever,you know it ,i know it and the druids definatly know it.

someone commented on my language ,I honestly dont know why you all arent swearing about this pile of shit.to make that stupid arcane mastery work we will need evocation on a 30 second cooldown and it has to be uninteruptable.that wont happen.I dont like the intentional vagueery about having the tools to manage mana under this horrible mastery bonus,we dont have the tools needed now,and they dont even hint about them,which tells me they are not sure about how or if its going to work,but hey why not throw it at the wall and see if it sticks right.its not like mages pay the same ammount per month as other classes ,oh wait they do.

blizzard makes changes to other classes for the benefit of the changed class.blizzad makes changes at mages to benefit those who arent mages.at least they are consistant.

Remember when blizzard said ok your right noone wants to be the kings of aoe we were kidding ourselves with that one,well we just got 2 new aoe spells,they really take us seriously dont they.

[Pennygear]

Arcane spec has become pretty freaking boring for me, so I'm super happy to see that fire will become a viable spec again. I was pretty sad when I had to ditch it for 3,3,3,3 5/4

Viva la fire!

[Cryosis]

Ok, so I'm disappointed that one of our 3 new spell is a rehash, we could have gotten "bloodlust" and the speed effect could have been a different spell called "Haste" the opposite of slow (cast on one person at a time).

And ya i'll miss the wards but hopefully it wont make me get insta gibbed by lock/ele sham combo.

Deathfrost seems slightly odd, but can be awesome. Though I think that it should have only applied to fire/frost to continue with what they had going with frostfire bolt. But i guess with the AM changes they added it in.

[Larwood]

Has anybody suggested anywhere that "mana adept" should work in the opposite way? I mean to me it makes more sense to reward players for floating on the edge of being OOM, but still having the where-with-all to maintain a solid rotation. This definitely addresses the "bads vs. pros" issue.

I guess the reason behind my suggestion is that it would compete with fire in the "execute" range, while still making arcane fun and dynamic (in my opinion a hell of a lot more). If you know of any post (or for that matter a blue post) that so much as hints at this, post a link.

Anybody else think that "more damage the smaller your mana pool is" is a terrible idea, or a great idea? thoughts/questions/comments?

Yeah that was one of the first things I thought of actually. Haven't bothered to post it because it would still be the mastery bonus nobody wants.

off topic: I'll bet incanter's absorption gets merged into improved mana shield (assuming this loss of wards shit sticks.)

[Deleted]

The mastery of the Mana Adept reminds me something like:

"Attention! Offer!: The more money you have, the more discounts you will!"

Is not this a bit stupid?, but still there are deluded who try to search sense ...

[Swizzle]

The mastery of the Mana Adept reminds me something like:

"Attention! Offer!: The more money you have, the more discounts you will!"

Is not this a bit stupid?, but still there are deluded who try to search sense ...

or there are retarded who jump to conclusion wweeeeellllllllll before they know anything about how something works.

question: what use will we have for the large hadron collider outside geneva in 5 months?

[Ridesdel]

Will all y'all quit yer griping all ready! Stop putting these changes into current playstyles! I'll say it again: Stop putting these changes into current playstyles! And a third time for those who will have missed the first two:

STOP PUTTING THESE CHANGES INTO CURRENT PLAYSTYLES!

I benched my mage back in uld/toc content because I got bored with arcane as it is. I would welcome any and all changes to bring the skill component back to the mage class, outside of pvp that is.
I'm a glass-half-empty type of person myself, but all I'm seeing is good from these changes, shouldn't that tell you something?

And, yes, I am quite the pessimist!

[Jethro]

Thankfully there is some people posting on here with a clue.

I should actually count my keybinds I must be in the 30s as well, I cant believe that anyone would come on here and be proud they "play with 6 keys" literally missing out every single important mage spell in the game and then expect to be taken seriously about giving feedback on potential changes.

Did he even have BLINK bound I mean, if you don't have our most powerful spell bound you really have no business posting on issues that effect the class in Cataclysm.

Looks like the mages will get more fun spells to use ;D Thats why i like playing my mage 8)

Thank god even if you are a casual player, fun game play.

As the guy above me said, Stop putting these changes into current playstyles.

Game is being rebalanced, yes hard concept I know.
Changes are only previews of direction the class is taking, yes hard concept I know.


Some other guy whining about them removing damage talents from the fire.

FOR MONTHS BLIZZARD HAS BANGED ON ABOUT REMOVING TALENTS THAT ARE "MANDATORY" DAMAGE BUFFS, REBALANCING THE TREES IN OTHER WAYS AND HOPEFULLY MAKING TALENT CHOICE MORE INTERESTING WITH TALENTS PROVIDING DIFFERENT GAME PLAY MECHANICS.


"EJ SAID THESE ARE THE BEST ARCANE TALENTS, I'M SO COMPLETELY BAD I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE CLASS MUCH LESS HAVE THE ABILITY TO INTERPRET TALENTS AND CREATE MY OWN SPEC HERP DERP."

I'm hoping Blizzard do succeed in making every classes talent trees have multiple choices in point placement outside of 3 points here or there. For both PVE and PVP game play.

Paid by blizzard, I dont think so, they probably could hire me though cause I can guarantee mages would be alot better off with my interpretation of the class over "HERP DERP ARCANE 6 BUTTON SPAM YO."

This is pretty much the 2 arguments.

Wow I like the idea behind whats been previewed, the promise of interesting unique game play mechanics.

NO WAI DONT NERF OUR SPECS YO, YOU SUCK BLIZZARD FOR RUINING MY ARCANE MAGE CLASS.

The 2nd one is well, lacking.

I was going to go on about that bad that claimed I'm "overcomplicating" the class, this post is already too long, responding to that will probably make a post twice the size of this one.

But it comes down to, YOU being BAD and using 6 abilities is not = to streamlining game play, its just bad game play.

ME using EVERY TOOL provided and being GRATEFUL we are getting MORE is not = to complicated game play.

Binding use managem to a key and create managem to a shiftmodifier of that key is damn hard.

[Eroginous]

My main has been a mage since BC came out. Before that it was a warrior. The changes in general seem kinda...... bad.

I know nothing is set in stone, and things are not even on the table 100% yet, but giving mages a new snare is asking for trouble. Deep Freeze was nerfed in the beta and the original version wasn't as powerful as the wall of fog they are talking about. Mages DO NOT need more snares. All you're going to do is make mages FOTM again and then nerf the ability into the ground once you realize just how stupid a non channeled 30 yard wide snare on a 30 sec CD is.

The changes to wards and magic are good, won't really miss them, they are pretty useless as it is.

The fire orb seems good, but I am just worried Blizzard is still missing the problem with DPS only classes: Too many talent trees that do the exact same thing. hybrids are fun because you literally have multiple roles built into one class. If you roll a druid, you can play any role and all you need is the right gear for it.

But a pure DPS? All you get to do is DPS. How you deal damage is largely irrelevant as long as you down bosses. I don't see the buffs to fire making it any more viable or appealing as a spec in either pvp or pve. If it stays random and unable to CC properly, it STILL won't be played.

The last thing I am seriously questioning, is the arcane adept, especially in pvp. I can see arcane mages being drained to 50% and not being able to pull off a win because of the damage loss due to a dumb idea. Anyone who argues that casters should have to manage mana, come pvp against melee that don't have to 'manage' any resources and then try again.

Mages and casters in general shouldn't have to deal with mana issues in pvp combat especially. Healers yes, but dps, no. A warriors damage doesn't stop unless you get out of melee with him, and even then, you have to watch for his gap closers, and he is never unable to use an ability because of not having enough rage.

Earlier, they justified casters having to manage mana because of their damage output compared to hybrids, but things have since evolved into everyone being within a couple percentage points of each other. The old argument is a tired one. Either give all dps casters enough mana regen to not have to worry about mana management, or give us BETTER tools. This Arcane Adept bullshit isn't going to get anyone anywhere.

[Jethro]

Mages and casters in general shouldn't have to deal with mana issues...

OHH GOD, ITS OUR CLASSES RESOURCE SYSTEM

WE HAVE SO MANY TOOLS TO HALT AND ESCAPE MELEE, WORST ARGUMENT OF THE DAY.

Grats, you are lazy and dont want to manage mana.

GG.

Either give all dps casters enough mana regen to not have to worry about mana management, or give us BETTER tools.

We want Arcane mages to have several talents that play off of how much mana the character has and give the player enough tools to manage mana.

LEARN TO READ

Just wow.

How you deal damage is largely irrelevant as long as you down bosses.

WHY DO YOU EVEN PLAY THE GAME?

Yea screw fun, who wants interesting and unique game play mechanics that might provide a challenge.

NO WAI I WANT 1 ABILITY I SPAM UNTIL THE BOSS DIES AND ONCE IT DIES IT DROPS 5 PIECES OF NEW LOOT FOR ME EACH WEEK YO.

Go reroll a hunter and put an argument forward for why spamming auto/steady shot is a fun game play style.

[Zookz25]

In all honesty, the only way I can see mana adept working is if they give arcane mages 2 main rotations, and have an arcane mages mana go up and down more rapidly, closer akin to melee resources.

Basically, the mage would have a higher damage rotation that consumed a lot of mana with nice damage output, and then had another rotation that would do less damage, but have more mana regening properties to it (procs for regening mana and such, while still doing some okay damage, not just sitting around or casting fewer spells to regen mana).

Basically the high-damage/high mana cost rotation would be used for your burst; timing it on weakend boss phases, nuking down a player, etc. The low-damage/mana regening rotation would be for keeping mana up; boosting mana preemptively to set up a nuking on a weaken boss or player.

Essentially, the skill would be how well you time and/or weave your weak/strong rotations together depending on the situation; it really wouldn't be a whole lot different then how arcane use to work. Moves like evocation would be a quick damage boost to bring your mana back up and unleash more of your higher damage rotation.

Someone who wasn't very good would obviously be somebody who spams one of the two rotations without weaving them. Spamming the low damage rotation might keep your mana high, but high mana on the weak rotation still isn't much. As someone pointed out, it would work a lot like eclispe for boomkins; switching between two sides, the more you use one side, the stronger the other gets; but instead of it being a balance between nature damage (sun), and arcane damage (moon), it's balancing between lowering your mana bar via high damage output (nuke rotation), and raising your mana bar via low damage output (regen rotation).

As for innervate, how is it any different from a couple blood DKs chaining their hysterias on one melee? Or Chaining power infusions on a caster? Chaining innervates will lose some mana for the healers, but that arcane mage will most likely top the meters like anyone else being chained buffs. It's the raids choice on whether it's worth it or not.

I'm just speculating, but this seems like the most enjoyable way to do it without a huge amount of balancing frustration on blizzards part, imo. Then again, blizzard has always had a hard time balancing the balance boomkin... hmm...

[therealpeni]

blabla

plz, stop posting so much rambling stuff
if u do so, do it in a more civilized way.

yes, u may have a point, it hurts my eyes though, and you're way overreacting on it all.

JUST WOW
(^ lol)

[Skarrd]

plz, stop posting so much rambling stuff
if u do so, do it in a more civilized way.

yes, u may have a point, it hurts my eyes though, and you're way overreacting on it all.

JUST WOW
(^ lol)

I agree with this. The huge font made me think you to be a giant tool and not even read your thoughts, though they seem to be mildly intelligent from the bit I did read, even if proposed in that silly way.


I tend to agree with the whole mana being irrelevant bit. Talk to a shadow priest. Ask him if he even ever looks at that silly blue bar. Mage's are the only dps caster who actually can have mana problems. Every class should have to pay attention to their primary damage resource. Warlocks and mages do have to pay attention to mana, though only mages can ever truly run out. I find it silly that shadow priests are using shadowfiend as a damage cooldown, and I don't think shaman or moonkins even know what mana is either.

[Bloodpolska]

either some people here dont have a mage and are just bitching or they have a mage and are just bad.

for one fights nowadays are generally long and use all your mana when you down him.
learn to conserve your mana and know when to CAST EVO!

its sad seeing people complaining about such an amazing mastery that only pros can master.

GJ blizzard i love your mastery!
1. because i know how to play a mage.
2. its going to embarrass the mages in my guild when they blow through there mana like they do there twinkies
3. its going to force people into learning when and where to pop evo mana gems potions and all that.


Also i dont know why some people complain about mages and 2 buttons. WE ARE SQUISHY!
now please before you make a post on this thread go down your talent tree and learn every talent instead of copying specs and complaining about a 2 button rotation.

[Jethro]

Someone who wasn't very good would obviously be somebody who spams one of the two rotations without weaving them. Spamming the low damage rotation might keep your mana high, but high mana on the weak rotation still isn't much. As someone pointed out, it would work a lot like eclispe for boomkins; switching between two sides, the more you use one side, the stronger the other gets; but instead of it being a balance between nature damage (sun), and arcane damage (moon), it's balancing between lowering your mana bar via high damage output (nuke rotation), and raising your mana bar via low damage output (regen rotation).

This guy gets it. ^^^^

Skill in how you manage mana and how you handle movement, exactly what arcane was and how it should be come cataclysm.

Giving us a "balance" playing style tree in how arcane plays along the lines of the direction druid caster DPS is heading. That's exactly how they can make arcane truly different to the other 2 trees play styles. Making arcane interesting to play and maximizing damage output directly relating to player skill would be a much needed change.

Just because terrible feral druids do poor DPS, does not mean that the few that do EXCEPTIONAL DPS should be punished and it does not mean that the feral DPS mechanic is broken due to any percentage failing because of "challenging game play".

As for Innervate, currently mana is not a mechanic that healers really have to seriously worry about. The blues have already stated that healers OOMing through bad play WILL be a mechanic re-introduced. I don't see mages being balanced around needing to be fed innervates. If mana really becomes a serious mechanic for healers decent progression guilds wont even considering wasting CDs like that on a single DPS.

I don't see this affecting decent guilds, if innervates need to be reserved for healers, guilds simply dont keep bad mages that cant sustain their damage output through bad play. Healer keeps entire raid up, single bad dps who mismanaged their class mechanics does less damage, will be a problem that sorts itself out.

People are approaching this in a way that really can only be described as "I should win 100% of the time, there should be no time when I do not win the game", no challenge, hand me my loot so I can go stand in Dalaran.

As for Blizzards ability from prior patches, they've had 5 years of experience at this point, they were never going to get everything right from day one. Its impossible to completely rip classes apart and rebuild them during minor content, so really Wow - BC and BC - WOTLK are the only 2 times theyve had a chance to completely rebalance the classes.

Wow -BC wow was still in its infancy if its not still at this point and Id have to believe they've learn't alot since the end of vanilla. WOTLK alot of time was given to the hero class and re-balancing the game around adding another class fullstop.

This time Blizzard has more experience, knows the 10 classes and has clear direction how they work/intend on changing them to work. I have to be optimistic and hope that they can deliver tangible changes the 3rd time
making major changes to how classes all work.

Ohh and BIG FONT, get over it, he clearly can't read making key points bigger is just me being a nice person, didnt even charge him for the service.