I'm not sure I agree with this statement because I think it's better to keep a balance between passive and active abilities. I don't want to have a million keybinds to play my class, my fave classes are often the ones I can neatly organize on my bars and that makes me feel like I have an interesting rotation that keeps me both entertained while having that sense of flow. That's why I always picked Incanter's flow over Rune because it doesn't break my rotation's flow, it's just something I know I can passively rely on while I pay attention to my rotation and my surroundings. I just came back to mage after a while, didn't main it since WoD and I really like Frost right now for this reason, it just feels relaxing and pleasurable to play.
In the end if you're not doing hardcore raiding and the likes of it I think you can more or less customize your playstyle to something that is enjoyable rather than something that is the absolute best. As I don't actively raid since WoD I just experiment with talents and see what I like and I find that I tend to prioritize a nice balance so that my bars don't feel cluttered and overwhelming!
Well, it just kind of depends. For example I used to play a lot of classes in FF14 in competitive raids, and those classes have a ton of abilities to use, some long rotations, with many things to track, along with things that punish you for bad play and reward you with good DPS for good play. The thing is, all of those classes have what I would call a general "flow", that is to say you are never picking a talent and introducing into a rotation to pointlessly make it convoluted. It all feels right.
I don't disagree that an active should be generally better than a passive, since regardless of ease or not it is more engaging, but very rarely does a talent ever add much in terms of gameplay itself, very rarely does it really reward you all that much. I guess my argument would be why not just have 3 active talents that are all generally balanced, with the odd one maybe being more high risk/high reward? Why have passives at all? Maybe the reason is because it's for more "casual, less competitive playstyles, but people who play like that don't generally care about such things anyway.
*Insert every single ridiculous PC parts detail here that no one cares about*
Would that mean therefore that you would also support Mirror Images being buffed to do same damage as RoP?
We are now 3 expansions with MI never being competitive and by your own logic, it should out perform IF because you have to press a button.
Personally I don't think the entire talent tier should exist for all mages. Instead bake that 12% damage into our specs and put some choices there that buff our damage 1-3%. For example a 3rd charge of FoF as a choice for Frost.
I never got past level 30 in FFXIV because I received some free playtime to try the game out but then ended up not playing more because I already played WoW and didn't really want to keep two subs, so I cannot really talk about that but when it comes to WoW I still prefer not having tons for things happening at the same time (not only because of clutter but because I have a difficulty for focusing on too many things at once without getting overly stressed, and I realized after my raiding burnout that it wasn't what I wanted from this game).
That said I still check guides and try to do as best as I possibly can in every content I participate in the game, I try my best no matter if it's a Solo challenge or a Mythic dungeon or Normal PuGs, or even LFR, I know that it's that thing most people hate but regardless I still appreciate the content and won't stop doing my best just because it's considered easy. I think both passive and active talents should be viable because it should be about customizing your own experience more than anything else. I understand there's a level of satisfaction in keeping control of large rotations and keep track of everything but it just doesn't do it for me, feels more like a shore.
Mirror images should really be the best option for 90-120 second burn phases like mythic Jaina. Increase the CD to 3 minutes and make it more potent.
Last edited by Nitros14; 2019-03-15 at 04:50 AM.
Personally, I'd have MI have more of an interaction instead on just pure damage. Maybe something like increase chance on Enhanced pyrotechnics for fire, increased BF chance for frost, that kinda thing. That way, you don't immediately lose it's benefit as soon as 1 image dies.
I look at Frozen Touch as more of an active talent, since it means more procs to react to and use. But I guess you could say its like a middle ground between passive and active because it's not creating another whole spell/keybind to use. That Chain Reaction talent that no one takes might be the most passive one in that row depending on if you're supposed to game it or not.
Either way I'd argue that they're not really paying attention to 'passive vs active' at all when it comes to talent balance, or lack thereof. It's not a bad way to design things, but they do so little balancing on talents. Has been sorely needed on several talents for awhile now. Some talents also just get heavily outscaled throughout the xpac and it wouldn't be hard to bring some of those up so it feels like there's more of a sense in choice. Could say the same for the Azerite traits that no one takes.
Back more on topic, I saw BM got a 6.5% buff with 8.1.5, and Demo got brought down a few thousand. 2 specs is hardly enough for tuning though. I think Fire could have gotten a few % too. (haven't paid attention to Arcane)
- - - Updated - - -
Yeah, Mirror Image is purely single target, relies on pet AI, the images living, and takes 40 seconds to do full damage (so you're more rigid on fight timings). Given the other two don't have those problems, and can apply to more than just single target, I don't see why Mirror Image can't be tuned for the niche of superior single target.
The weird thing about the Jaina fight to me is she gets this cool Glacial Ray and Prismatic Image ability, and you'd think it would have tipped someone off to thinking "hey, the Mage versions of Ray of Frost and Mirror Image talents are taken by no one and could use a buff!". Same could be said for the coolness of Arcane Orb and Alexstrasza's Fury (add the range back in)
I don't want to waste a bunch of time going down that class design rabbit hole though. I'd just appreciate a small coefficient buff at least for Fire, and fixing the Frostbolt/Glacial shatter range for Frost at least, somehow
Last edited by MrExcelion; 2019-03-16 at 08:56 AM.
Mirror Image should be the WOTLK version of Mirror Image-- a threat dump that summons three tanky illusions so you can solo beefy lads. Trying to turn it into a legitimate damage CD was a poor idea.
People just bring us for our buff and warp now, we are shite atm
Its overstated. Mages will always be an decent progression class because we're extremely mobile, can bring slows, pretty survivable, and have ice block.
BUT, not saying that its okay. Its insane that a pure DPS class with three specs doesn't have a single spec in the top 2/3rd. All 3 specs are bottom 7. Each spec has glaring weaknesses in their rotation. All 3 specs could use some form of buff.
Hunters have 2 in the top half and their lowest is higher than our highest. Warlocks have 2 in the top 5 and their lowest is still above our highest. Rogues have 2 in the top 8 and their lowest is about even with our highest.
(according to WCL statistics for BoD overall)
"Extremely mobile" is a bit of an overstatement. A WW is extremely mobile. Our mobility is used to keep our DPS up, not as a means to travel (usually) Compared to a warlock? Yeah, but then look at the mobility a warlock brings for an entire raid, and somewhat to themselves. No one ever says "We need a mage for their slows" in raiding, not even for Opulence. We're also not "pretty survivable" at all. There is no button that reduces our dmg taken, or a button that increases our hp or anything, it's literally ice block, and a barrier isn't a major CD. And while we have an immunity, there's several other classes that do much more damage than we do that have one, who also have things like good mobility, that do far better. That's not even mentioning how other specs have great utility, which in mythic raiding can be incredibly useful due to how fights are now designed with them in mind, while also doing more damage than we do - something unheard of back in the day.
We're overall close to bottom on all specs, and the lowest DPS caster on all casters. You'll see arcane in the logs getting a bit higher, but that's really a very deceiving thing. We can't sit here and say "Mage has this, other class has this" and try to justify things. Because there's plenty of other specs that have more than we do, that is far more valuable, and our damage is not near theirs. Look at rogues - they don't really offer anything and they're not even where I would say they should be. So no one thing justifies anything apparently and it's just their failure to balance and failure as a whole on class design.
Last edited by La; 2019-03-21 at 09:48 PM.
*Insert every single ridiculous PC parts detail here that no one cares about*
I too play a fire mage & I am also being embarrassed by its low DPS in raids. (ilvl 390).
While everyone else is posting double digit DPS figures in BOD, there is my DPS of 8-9 k showing to everyone on Skada/Recount.
I only feel ok when I am running with my guild .
And when the guild invites a Pug they sometimes comment on my fire mages low DPS. "Can we replace that DPS".
But my guild wont allow that to happen & will kick the pug if they keep that comment up.
On the other hand, Fire Mages are kicking butt in PVP..
And I usually average 3-4 killing blows in random BGs.
It is usually down to one spell. GREATER PYROBLAST. what a killer.. can take an enemies health down by half.
If Blizzard allowed Fire Mages to use Greater Pyroblast in raids.. wouldn't that be nice..
But you are correct OP.. at the moment in raids , I intellect buff.. provide a table & sometimes spellsteal
That's what I feel are my main abilities in raids are at the moment .
I'm trying to find the best way to say this .... but if you're doing 8-9k dps at 390 ilevel, it's not the class, it's you.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/ra...et=7&boss=2263
Choosing Grong Heroic because it's mostly single target so you can't really pad on adds.