Dragonflight Talents for Mages

[jrod45]

I see the mage changes and i was really hoping that theyd give fire Flame Orb back. Both Frost and Arcane has one, yet Fire was the spec that had it originally. Theres still time, so fingers crossed. Glad they plan on making hotstreak baseline. Like duuhh...

Im wondering if Energized Barriers will give and additional charge of said abilities, or just replenish a charge that was used
?

[mrgreenthump]

Finally some Mage changes, most of stuff I see is all good. Have to see what "improved pathing" is though. Reflection seems to be interesting if it's on use and off gcd, but that would make Master of Time do the same thing? Maybe it's a choice node with Master of Time. But if it truly is like Displacement used to be, it's massive win, if it's automatic, it's never picked.

Fire we have to see, it didn't really have that many problems outside Phoenix Flames never picked and Molten Skyfall being after AoE talents. Will be interesting to see.

Frost is all good as well, but kinda worrying they didn't mention Splitting Ice and Hailstones or the 2nd stack of Brain Freeze. All of which are quite nice to have and previously pretty hard to get. Brain Freeze munching problem was supposed to be sorted with 2nd stack of Brain Freeze, but they made it a talent and with everything in the tree being DPS, you would've given up DPS to for the spec to play and feel better and a dps loss(because again you had to choose between QoL talent and a damage talent). I'd kind of want Hailstones to be baseline. The spec needs it for better mastery scaling.. And sadly before at least you didn't have enough points to get it. Am just worried that we still pretty locked into the permanent Icy Veins playstyle and now with more points to use we still can't get a lot of choices.

Arcane is getting much needed changes. Arcane Orb is pretty much getting to be baseline by proxy, because you have to pick it now, so instead of never having it now you always have it.. Oh well. Other changes have to see. Never played Arcane in SL, so can't really comment on Radiant Spark gameplay, but from what I've seen players are divided on it, so hope we aren't locked into it.

Overall somewhat optimistic and hope it's just a first pass. But at least we got changes which most of them seem to be good and towards the right direction. Have to see the trees though as any pathing change makes it completely different.

Im wondering if Energized Barriers will give and additional charge of said abilities, or just replenish a charge that was used
?

You can't go above max stacks. So for Fire, you have to have used a Fireblast charge to gain benefit and with Arcane and Frost you have to have Clearcasting/FoF not at max stack to gain benefit.

[Stickiler]

I see the mage changes and i was really hoping that theyd give fire Flame Orb back. Both Frost and Arcane has one, yet Fire was the spec that had it originally. Theres still time, so fingers crossed.

I only want Flame Orb if it meaningfully contributes to our rotation, which they could give it the slot that Mirrors of Torment is currently in(Charge generation during Combustion), but it would be weird in the AoE rotation I think.

[mrgreenthump]

I only want Flame Orb if it meaningfully contributes to our rotation, which they could give it the slot that Mirrors of Torment is currently in(Charge generation during Combustion), but it would be weird in the AoE rotation I think.

Mm, I don't remember when Flame Orb was a thing, but that already tells me it wasn't too memorable. Cool visuals and all, but it needs to fit into the rotation, maybe they could make it line up with Combustion and give us more Fireblasts. But don't think combustion needs more damage.

[Chromeshellking]

Mm, I don't remember when Flame Orb was a thing, but that already tells me it wasn't too memorable. Cool visuals and all, but it needs to fit into the rotation, maybe they could make it line up with Combustion and give us more Fireblasts. But don't think combustion needs more damage.

Cata spell. And tbh I don't recall it either.

But yea arcane needed those changes badly but I really don't hold out hope its gonna be fixed.

[Jaggler]

IIRC Flame Orb was just a fire and forget spell with no interactions with the rest of the kit.

Frostfire Orb was a talent in cata to turn the spell into a frostfire spell and with MoP it was converted into Frozen Orb.

[klaps_05]

I cant understand how you go through legion/bfa/shadowlands fire mage and you pick shadowlands mage as the best. whoever is making these decisions really hasnt played mage at any level.

[mrgreenthump]

Didn't notice it before but there is a massive difference between Reflection and what Displacement used to be, it doesn't give a charge of Blink back. So it's only semi decent. You could do some quite amazing stuff with Displacement in raids because it gave you the blink back and was a 30 sec CD. Like on Mother as an Arcane Mage you never ever had to walk. Displacement and Shimmer just dealt with all the movement.

[mrgreenthump]

Right, so we got the trees now.. And the general tree is far far better. I'd say it's actually maybe even good now. I'd still want different end nodes, Shifting Power is really really weak for a cap stone. With seeing the tree now, I'd remove Master of Time and bake the cd reduction to Alter Time and change Reflection to what Displacement was. Then Alter can be a more clear defensive ability, which it will likely be anyways most of the time, while Reflection/Displacement would be the movement talent. Right now Master of Time is quite clunky to use as you have to use 2 buttons to react to something instead of one with Reflection. And actually cancel Alter Time if you couldn't go back when Reflection you simply wouldn't press.

Fire didn't really change much, you get Pheonix Flames now, but probably still won't take Alex's Fury or 2nd charge, so it's a bit meh. But it's still more than we have on live now instead of exactly same. And if they tune some spells to be a lot more powerful we might have actual choices in the tree.

Frost is far better as now you can get Hailstones and 2 stack Flurry with an Icy Veins build, but pathing to Lonely Winter and IV still has to be done through Blizzard and Cold Snap, it'd be near perfect if they just gave us another 2 paths from Brain Freeze to Lonely Winter and from Arctic Piercing to Everlasting Frost. And possibly another 2 paths from Flurry and Shatter Rank 2 to Cold Snap. If those changes would happen it'd be really good.

Arcane is a bit weird still seems like Radiant Spark is still the go, but with tuning it might be that there are now alternatives. Only real glaring thing is that with Mana Gem now having the ability to give 2 Clearcasting procs, the 2 minute cd desyncs with everything else being 1.5 min or 45 seconds.

Overall Mage talents went from being pretty bad to ok and maybe even somewhat positive.

[klaps_05]

The class tree is absolute crap - wow, we put together all the shadowlands conduits at low ranks, amazing work, pack it up. Temporal Wrap is still not redesign - enjoy not being able to use this talent on any boss/dungeon where the lust in not on pull/start. Conduit-less shifting power - doesnt make sense as a spell to have in DF nor does it fit mage fantasy in any way. And for some ungodly reason, they still want you to Shatter meteors - just stop with this nonsense.

Frost is still dogshit 2 paths of Shadowlands, slick ice or freezing winds, wow excitement!
Fire is beyond tragic - conflagration and flame patch, the 2 most garbage talents of all time still exist, living bomb still doesnt do dmg, ignite still manually spread, but hey, more SKB garbage playstyle.
Arcane identity is redesign so it will be in the dumpsters until next expansion, or...you can play SHADOWLANDS radiant spark.

Mage dev clearly in love with Shadowlands, but it seems based on the insane amount of feedback by players, should have ended his employment in Shadowlands or at least pretend to be reading the feedback from literally DOZEN of the highest level of players from m+ to raiding to pvp.

[Caprias]

It's just cumbersome. It isnt the worst thing in the world but its tedious enough that I rather play another class then deal with it.

Guess it just comes down to personal subjective taste.

I find RoP awesome, it fits thematically and makes especially fire/arcane a very bursty class (and I love blowing stuff up with CD's), it rewards pooling resources to fit into that window and punishes bad play when using it at the wrong time, there is also fun micro optimization like going to the edge of the area of effect during free gcd's to bait AoE's, RoP is easily one of the most impactful abilities for mage.

The only argument I can see where it's anti synergistic is that mage had very practical mobility with shimmer for several years now and RoP obviously doesn't vibe with that.

[Sagenod]

In Arcane they should remove Foresight then put Slipstream in its place on the tree. Where Slipstream was put a version of Time and Space, the Legion artifact talent that caused Aluneth to echo your Arcane Explosion for 20% damage.

Rename Radiant Spark to Nether Spark/Mana Spark, etc. Radiant is distinctly related to Holy magic so it doesn't fit mages thematically. Also if they're going to stick us with the same stuff we used in Shadowlands, at least recolor the spell effect a bit. Add some purples in there lol

[Lodravel]

In Arcane they should remove Foresight then put Slipstream in its place on the tree. Where Slipstream was put a version of Time and Space, the Legion artifact talent that caused Aluneth to echo your Arcane Explosion for 20% damage.

Rename Radiant Spark to Nether Spark/Mana Spark, etc. Radiant is distinctly related to Holy magic so it doesn't fit mages thematically. Also if they're going to stick us with the same stuff we used in Shadowlands, at least recolor the spell effect a bit. Add some purples in there lol

My hope is that they held out on bringing the former covenant abilities into line visually because nothing had been set into stone until now.
Since they're mostly done playing musical chairs with the abilities though, we might see them doing just that.

It would be a shame if they didn't IMO.

[Stickiler]

The class tree is absolute crap - wow, we put together all the shadowlands conduits at low ranks, amazing work, pack it up. Temporal Wrap is still not redesign - enjoy not being able to use this talent on any boss/dungeon where the lust in not on pull/start. Conduit-less shifting power - doesnt make sense as a spell to have in DF nor does it fit mage fantasy in any way. And for some ungodly reason, they still want you to Shatter meteors - just stop with this nonsense.

Frost is still dogshit 2 paths of Shadowlands, slick ice or freezing winds, wow excitement!
Fire is beyond tragic - conflagration and flame patch, the 2 most garbage talents of all time still exist, living bomb still doesnt do dmg, ignite still manually spread, but hey, more SKB garbage playstyle.
Arcane identity is redesign so it will be in the dumpsters until next expansion, or...you can play SHADOWLANDS radiant spark.

Mage dev clearly in love with Shadowlands, but it seems based on the insane amount of feedback by players, should have ended his employment in Shadowlands or at least pretend to be reading the feedback from literally DOZEN of the highest level of players from m+ to raiding to pvp.

Where are these dozens of high level players giving their feedback? Cos LiquidMax did a stream discussing it with 4 mages he's raided, M+d, or PVP'd with at the top level, and they said the trees only needed a couple of tweaks to be good.


It sounds like you're just in love with a playstyle from 10 years ago, and that playstyle is gone.

[klaps_05]

Where are these dozens of high level players giving their feedback? Cos LiquidMax did a stream discussing it with 4 mages he's raided, M+d, or PVP'd with at the top level, and they said the trees only needed a couple of tweaks to be good.


It sounds like you're just in love with a playstyle from 10 years ago, and that playstyle is gone.

The 3 specs are literally shadowlands copy paste. The ppl LiquidMax interviews play mage regardless of its state. They along many others (on official forums and the mage discord) have spent years explaining dead talents and garbage playstyles, but the current mage dev is in love with Shadowlands mage, so thats what is offered. Both legion and BFA had much smoother playstyles for all 3 specs which couldve been used as foundation and thats not 10 years ago.

[Stickiler]

The 3 specs are literally shadowlands copy paste. The ppl LiquidMax interviews play mage regardless of its state. They along many others (on official forums and the mage discord) have spent years explaining dead talents and garbage playstyles, but the current mage dev is in love with Shadowlands mage, so thats what is offered. Both legion and BFA had much smoother playstyles for all 3 specs which couldve been used as foundation and thats not 10 years ago.

Idk what spec you play, but Fire mage has played the exact same since Legion, it's been my main and nothing has significantly changed.

[klaps_05]

Idk what spec you play, but Fire mage has played the exact same since Legion, it's been my main and nothing has significantly changed.

Ah, yes, you were playing a lot of flamestrike in legion or minute mage, and living bomb was top 3 of your dmg for all of bfa, compared to shadowlands where you just spam flamestrike.

[Stickiler]

Ah, yes, you were playing a lot of flamestrike in legion or minute mage, and living bomb was top 3 of your dmg for all of bfa, compared to shadowlands where you just spam flamestrike.

I'm very confused by your message. Are you being sarcastic? Living Bomb isn't/wasn't used because it's been hard trash since it was changed in 7.0. I doubted my own memory so I went and looked, and even in warcraftlogs, none of the top parses are using living bomb.

[klaps_05]

I'm very confused by your message. Are you being sarcastic? Living Bomb isn't/wasn't used because it's been hard trash since it was changed in 7.0. I doubted my own memory so I went and looked, and even in warcraftlogs, none of the top parses are using living bomb.

Im referring to M+ playstyles not raiding.

[Caprias]

I'm very confused by your message. Are you being sarcastic? Living Bomb isn't/wasn't used because it's been hard trash since it was changed in 7.0. I doubted my own memory so I went and looked, and even in warcraftlogs, none of the top parses are using living bomb.

He's kind of right, fire mage aoe filler is very questionable nowadays, starting to hardcast a 3.5 second aoe spell at 2 targets due to mainly ignite not spreading automatically and being tuned weak af. is dumb as hell, tbf. that might change with how ignite and the blaster master talent work in DF (tuning thing).

Idk why flamestrike doesn't have a chance to give a heating up proc, lowest hanging fruit I've seen so far.

Living bomb just needs a complete rework.