[Mage] Do you enjoy the L90 talents?

[voltaa]

I love the talents and I'm not even ashamed...they're fun for arcane, which is the only spec that matters :P

[Damax]

I don't mind them. I wish they changed the bombs though. Bombs should be spec defining abilities

[serenka]

i hate the mage 90 talents, really need an overhaul imo, all of them. these talents are not fun, all of them are a hassle and annoying. i'd rather take none of them!

[Polarthief]

There, I decided that I love more than one of them. I am in favour of them being changed, but I'd love for them to stay in some version - for example as 2-minute cooldowns.

Then the correct choice would be "No, I loathe them".

I'm not asking if you want them changed or not, I'm asking "do you like them, EXACTLY AS IS, RIGHT NOW?"

[Shangalar]

Yes, I like them exactly as is right now. However, I would prefer them to not be as they are right now anyway. It's not mutually exclusive

[Windry]

I like all 3 in concept, I don't like the actual numbers.

Having played a Warlock in Cata with Improved Soul Fire, having played a Paladin with Inquisition, Rogues with Slice and Dice... I think it's perfectly normal and fine to have your DPS have to juggle a buff to maximize DPS.

I do not like the way they interact with Arcane however. I would personally like them to be:

Invocation - Evocate no longer gives you mana back, but Invoker's Energy buff increases your mana regen by 15% and your damage dealt by 15% (1 min duration)
Rune of Power - Replaces Evocate, while standing in it increases your mana regen by 15% and your damage dealt by 20% (1 min duration)
Mana Shield - 25s CD, if fully pop'd increases your damage dealt by 18% and increases your mana regen by 15% (25s duration).

I think the concept *should be* Invocation is the easiest to keep up, so it offers the least rewards. RoP being the hardest to stand in should offer the best rewards, and Mana Shield in the middle.

[Akraen]

I'm done raiding at the end of this expansion if our lack of damage reduction stays. That's what frustrates me every single raid. It's what generates mage-hate from healers. I hate the L90 talents too, and they play a role in me deciding whether or not to raid another tier or expansion... but the damage mitigation is really what eats me up every damn raid.

[Terahertz]

I used to be OK with incanters ward. But after the nerf to it in 5.3 it's just as unimaginative, boring and lame like the 2 other choices.

[Erolian]

No I don't really like them at all. They aren't really that interesting or fun to me perhaps its because I've played other classes with similar mechanics but in my opinion I'd rather be actively doing something rather than sitting there watching myself evocate or being tied down to a 2 yard circle. Sure it might be slightly interesting for like 5 pulls while I figure out where to put everything but then what? I'm unhappily standing still in a 2 yard circle or casting an extremely boring evocation when my UI says to when in reality its more fun to just fight the boss and not your own character.

Don't even bring up IW they ruined my favorite talent and gave me that in its place a few years later. Used to be if you were a clever mage you could ward a certain spell type during a boss for a dps boost. Now its a pop this on CD and take damage or your DPS will blow for picking this spell. Nothing is left of the flavor it had it should just be deleted.

[Akraen]

No I don't really like them at all. They aren't really that interesting or fun to me perhaps its because I've played other classes with similar mechanics but in my opinion I'd rather be actively doing something rather than sitting there watching myself evocate or being tied down to a 2 yard circle. Sure it might be slightly interesting for like 5 pulls while I figure out where to put everything but then what? I'm unhappily standing still in a 2 yard circle or casting an extremely boring evocation when my UI says to when in reality its more fun to just fight the boss and not your own character. Don't even bring up IW they ruined my favorite talent and gave me that in its place a few years later.

Amen.

It's not interesting and they're all arcane-based. Couple that with the fact that you often have to choose a bomb that's not of your spec, each spec feels completely de-synergized now.

[Polarthief]

I'm done raiding at the end of this expansion if our lack of damage reduction stays. That's what frustrates me every single raid. It's what generates mage-hate from healers. I hate the L90 talents too, and they play a role in me deciding whether or not to raid another tier or expansion... but the damage mitigation is really what eats me up every damn raid.

Idk why they don't turn Flameglow into something like that and just make it a class-wide passive. It never really fit with two damage reduction cooldowns.

[MihaiKrieger]

To be honest, I've been using all 3 of them in PvE, situation-based and all three suck. the new Invocation is better, but generally I hate all three. We could have used something more interesting, a new spell to alter the rotation and have big impact, I don't know. I would rather have used a cooldown modifier. The possibilities are limitless.

[mellowconundrum]

They're bland, uninspired and ultimately the 15% should just be built into our moves.

As for the talent I'm using, I use invocation and raid as frost. I'll even use it when doing dailies, although mostly before boss type mobs...keeping it up all the time during dailies when most mobs fall easily already is just a hassle. As for raiding, it's more like a dull pain - annoying but manageable. Something that should be fixed but needs good consideration as to how to do it properly.

Really, the L90 talents should have been awesome cool downs, just like the mage bombs should have been bombs instead of dots.

[Milamber]

the 15% should just be built into our moves.

maybe not 15%, but this ^^

[Ataxus]

Mage lvl 90 talents are by far the most annoying.

Personally I feel the class should get the MoP-Warlock treatment and be remade from the ground up.

this :P we need it bad

[Deleted]

Outch, the result is pretty clear for now !!!

@polar @akraen : FireGlow made baseline could be a good idea (with adjustment).

edit: there's also the question of defensive armor's buff.
Why Fire can keep there optimal armor for damage reduction but not frost nor arcane ???

It have always question me ...

[Hasted]

I like all 3 in concept, I don't like the actual numbers.

Having played a Warlock in Cata with Improved Soul Fire, having played a Paladin with Inquisition, Rogues with Slice and Dice... I think it's perfectly normal and fine to have your DPS have to juggle a buff to maximize DPS.

Juggling a DPS buff is fine, the issue is that for every spec other than Arcane the talents are just extremely boring passives. There's no gratification in keeping up such a imperceptible DPS buff. SnD for example is mildly interesting because it makes a noticeable change to how the damage is being dealt; and in addition the fact that it's an instant cast makes it far less intrusive than RoP and Invocation. It needs to be something that more actively (or at least noticeably) increases damage; even something like haste or Crit buff that at the very least make certain events more probable. Just something more than a simple % damage increase.

RoP and Invocation make sense as potential DPS choices for Arcane. Their current implementation cant do that effectively because they still have to interact with the other 2 specs, which limits how they can be designed.

IW on its own is a neat concept, bringing back the old-school IW feel from Wrath. I enjoyed that model but I don't see them ever taking it to that extent again unfortunately because its far too unbalanced. Either all encounters would have to be designed around this (and similar abilities) being used, and Mages balanced around the idea that they could use this consistently. Alternatively they would have to balance Mages without the IW concept and have it as a free dps buff essentially; which becomes problematic because on fights where it could be utilized we would scale way out of control.

Would be nice to see some form of personalized talents for each spec in exchange for this tier. There's little versatility between specs, and yet the three both benefit very differently from various mechanics. To that end it seems unlikely that we will ever see anything to modify our offensive play that all 3 specs can take ambiguously. As it stands Icy Flows is rarely taken due to the fact that few fights require minimal movement on that kind of cooldown; and ultimately on fights that require consistent movement Blazing Speed excels. POM is generally useful in 2 PvE scenarios: building Combustions and Patchwerk fights.

Ultimately this all boils down to a fault of the current design for the talent system. It's logistically difficult to balance 3 abilities around 3 different specs which all play fundamentally differently and expect them to be useful to all 3. This becomes abundantly apparently when talents revolve around damage; due to the state of the game its a rare occasion that sacrificing a worthwhile DPS increase is going to be viable for a DPS class. Its not as big of an issue when it comes to pure utility talents (like the RoF tier or the Cauterize tier) where they can all potentially be used viably depending on the setting. This in turn highlights the flaw that not all of the talents are decent choices relative to each other.

[Methusula]

this :P we need it bad

It's just so hard not to get excited about the possibilities here. I have to consciously stop myself from thinking about it so I don't get completely let down if it doesn't happen.

[Dristereau]

Nope. Would be absolutely fine if they just buffed Mages damage slightly to compensate and we didn't have 90 talents. All of them annoy me. Rune of Power is useful for anything without movement, IW is okay but pretty crap in some cases, and Invo seems to break too much.

[Deleted]

i don't mind incanters ward, it's more about knowing when there's going to be raid damage and then getting a nice boost. i only do LFR and PvP though, but i can't stand the other two. rune of power has its moments in a stationary fight, but i'd like to have the option to target it OR cast under myself. invocation can just fuck off though. it was ok when the healing was better with the evo glyph, but 10% is balls. also in raids i'm not the best at timings, and i'll occasionally let it drop off and forget.

i would be more than happy if they did a complete rework IMO