World of Warcraft™

I've created this thread essentially as a supplement to the feedback thread for players to just list the changes they would like to see to the Feb 15 version of the Mage talents and spec abilities.

This is NOT a debate thread like the feedback one, where players discussed the value of individual talents, etc in the new build and the talents in each tier with one another, etc etc.

This is more just a thread for players to list the changes they want to see or indicate the direction they wish the developers would take over the coming months as the talent trees are worked on and refined.
ONLY list changes you want to see from the latest Feb 15 version. Anything not listed you are assumed to be happy with in the latest build.

Personally, I feel the latest version is a big improvement on the previous one, but not quite there yet. We're still severely lacking in numbers of spec-defining spells and abilities compared to every other class and arguably still have too much baseline control.


MAGE

CLASS

*Scorch no longer talented. Now becomes baseline spell instead.
*Blizzard: Slowing effect removed as baseline.
*Cone of Cold removed as baseline and made a talent.
*Frost Bomb, Living Bomb and Arcane Bomb made into baseline spec spells.

Improved Blink (passive): Your movement speed is increased by 50% for 3 sec after casting Blink.

FIRE

*Flame Orb reinstated as spec spell, with 45 sec cooldown. Each target it hits burns for Fire damage over 4 sec. Interacts with Combustion.
*Living Bomb Fire spec ability and DOES interact with Combustion. Otherwise as is.
*Improved Flamestrike (passive): Your Flamestrike cast time reduced by 1 sec and cooldown reduced by 4 sec.
*Combustion: Additional damage based on Pyroblast, Ignite, Inferno Blast. Living Bomb and Flame Orb (NOT Flamestrike).

FROST

*Frozen Orb remains spec spell, but cooldown of 1 min. Functions as is and has chance to grant Fingers of Frost effect.
*Improved Blizzard (passive): Your Bliizard spell also slows targets by 70% for 3 sec.
*Frost Bomb: No longer slows, but after it explodes, your next Frostbolt or Frostfire Bolt cast within 4 sec will act as if the target were Frozen (and hence benefit from Frostburn mastery).
*Brain Freeze: As is, but only applies to Frost Bomb since the other bomb spells will now be spec-specific.

ARCANE

*Arcane Orb returned as spec spell with 1.25 min cooldown. Has chance to generate Arcane Charge and also chance to proc Arcane Missiles.
*Arcane Bomb: 0.5 sec cast. 40 yd range. Places an Arcane Bomb on the target which pulses every sec for 3 sec inflicting Arcane damage to the target and every enemy within 6 yards. After 6 sec, the Bomb will spread to the closest enemy target.
*Improved Arcane Explosion (passive): Damage range of Arcane Explosion increased from 10 to 15 yds.


TALENTS

TIER 15

Presence of Mind - As is.
Icy Flows (renamed Winds of Time) - Otherwise as is.
*New* Norgannon's Fury - 1 min cooldown. Your next Arcane Blast, Frostbolt or Fireball cast within 15 sec will trigger a Frostfire Bolt to be instantly cast at the same target.

TIER 30

Temporal Shield - As is.
Ice Barrier - As is.
Blazing Speed - As is, except increases movement speed by 125% for 3 sec and has 30 sec cooldown. (With 1.5 sec duration, probably not enough time for players with poor latency or slightly slower reactions to get sufficient benefit from this compared to the two shields)

TIER 45

Ring of Frost - As is, except has 45 sec cooldown and enemies immune to being Frozen will suffer Frost damage instead.

*New*Flame Wall
Instant Cast 1 Min Cooldown
A flame wall emerges from the casting mage travelling forward 15 yards, damaging all enemies it hits for X Fire damage over 12 seconds, knocking them back 12 yards and stunning them for 1 sec.
Aim for this spell is utility - the DoT effect would be moderate, primary advantage being the knockback. Would not interact with ignite or combustion. Flame wall would look like the ones that emerge from Sulfurus Smash on Ragnaros encounter, except there would only be one as opposed to 3.

*New*Arcane Prison
Instant Cast 1 min cooldown
Creates a potent arcane dome within 20yds of the caster (targeted effect, but smaller than Blizzard/Flamestrike), lasting 15 seconds. Any enemy within or moving through the dome has their movement, attack and casting speed slowed by 30% for 10 sec.

TIER 60

Greater Invisibility - As is, but I think cooldown should be increased to 3 mins. Extremely powerful.
Cauterize - As is, but once every 2 mins pretty harsh...maybe reduce to once every 1.5 mins.
Cold Snap - This ability is so good you could probably dump the instant 20% heal and it would still be as good a survivability talent as the other 2. The instant heal just makes this too tempting.

TIER 75

Cone of Cold - As is.
Dragon's Breath - As is.
Arcane Wave - Targets in cone in front of caster are knocked back 3 yards and rooted for 2 sec.


TIER 90

Invocation - Altered as current version is way too dangerous to balance and too much an automatic choice for Arcane currently. Instead of affecting Evocation, reduces the mana cost of your Conjure Mana Gem spell to 0, makes it instant cast. Mana gem cooldown reduced from 2 min to 1.5 min and increases your spell damage by 20% for 30 sec each time you use a mana gem.
Rune of Power - As is. Awesome talent.
Incanter's Shield - As is.

Shatter really needs to be an option for Fire and possibly (I wouldn't know) Arcane as well for PvP reasons.
Really can't imagine Fire PvP without shatter.

I would like Inferno Blast to spread bombs again, even if the bombs were made spec only.
As far as I can see the only reason this has been taken away is so that fire can't spread Arcane Bomb and break AoE stuff in PvE.

Also want Blast Wave back and Combustion to care about bombs (Again I think they took this out so that they can have a bomb tier).

Too tired to type anything else =[

02/18/2012 09:46 AMPosted by Doromil

no to your invocation

Current version of Invocation is way too obvious a choice for Arcane Mages, or hell any mages if the Glyph of Evocation remains intact. It DOES need altering.

Shatter really needs to be an option for Fire and possibly (I wouldn't know) Arcane as well for PvP reasons.
Really can't imagine Fire PvP without shatter.

I would like Inferno Blast to spread bombs again, even if the bombs were made spec only.
As far as I can see the only reason this has been taken away is so that fire can't spread Arcane Bomb and break AoE stuff in PvE.

Also want Blast Wave back and Combustion to care about bombs (Again I think they took this out so that they can have a bomb tier).

Too tired to type anything else =[

I'd love to have a fun, inventive version of Blast Wave back (not with a stupid slow though...we have more than enough of those already), but not the Cata version of Blast Wave.

Get rid of 2 of the bombs, keep one and add 2 DIFFERENT options for that level. I actually like the idea of the healing no CD evocation. It takes several seconds to do and it's easily interrupted. If someone is dumb and burns their interrupt early, it's their fault. And spell isn't OP imo.

You know the great thing about MoP? We'll be re-speccing constantly within the same raid in order to satisfy requirements for a certain boss. High single target damage needed for a boss? Respec into Arcane-ish talents. Need massive AoE loveliness? There are fire-ish talents for that. Need add control or kiting? We have Frost-ish talents for that.

Say goodbye to just being a single spec and sticking with it. This is, unless of course, you're stubborn and don't want to be a dynamic mage.

02/20/2012 12:34 PMPosted by Squeezebox

You know the great thing about MoP? We'll be re-speccing constantly within the same raid in order to satisfy requirements for a certain boss.

This is NOT a good thing. It's a horrible thing. Players should be able to choose a spec they like and stick with it if they choose.
They should also have the option of mixing it up and changing specs constantly if they so choose.
Neither of these choices should affect their performance.


If we are basically forced to respec into various talents for specific bosses in order to perform at the max level (and like or not, guilds will tend to enforce that players do this), then Blizzard may as well just remove specs altogether and have one spec for every class, making players alter their talents to the encounter.

This is NOT a good thing. It's a horrible thing. Players should be able to choose a spec they like and stick with it if they choose.
They should also have the option of mixing it up and changing specs constantly if they so choose.
Neither of these choices should affect their performance.

But there lies the beauty of it as well, while you wouldn't be able to EXACTLY the same AoE power Fury would while in arms spec, (due to a combination of Meat Cleaver, Single Minded Fury, or Titan's Grip) you can still pull an amount that, unless you were severly undergeared, would allow you to not be the reason the raid wiped.

However, if being top of the charts, better than everyone else, I am the greatest, really is what fuels you, then by all means swap specs.

Since this is about changes I'd like to see, I'd personally like to change the way the new Arcane Barrage cleave works. I actually kind of like the way Arcane AoE pans out now, it's in a good place, with us building up AB stacks and burst AoEing with Arcane Explosion, I don't see a need to tweak that.

Instead of having us cleave Arcane Barrage to X number of targets on X stacks of Arcane Charge, why not have it copy Arcane Barrage that number on times onto a single target instead? The same idea, but single target instead of AoE, an example,

Arcane Barrage: Launches bolts of arcane energy at the enemy target, dealing 1425 damage. Consumes all Arcane Charges.

You pulse an additional Arcane Barrage per second onto the same target for every stack of Arcane Charge consumed.

The idea is you would get a little buff that lets you passively shoot out extra Arcane Barrages that can go off on top of while you go back to casting other stuff - since Blizzard is playing with the whole "can be cast while a cast time spell is in progress" mechanic. Would be a nice bit of burst since we're going to lose a little of that, and more importantly give Arcane mobility (you can run around and it will continue to pulse the requisite number of Arcane Barrages at your target until depleted.)

You know the great thing about MoP? We'll be re-speccing constantly within the same raid in order to satisfy requirements for a certain boss. High single target damage needed for a boss? Respec into Arcane-ish talents. Need massive AoE loveliness? There are fire-ish talents for that. Need add control or kiting? We have Frost-ish talents for that.

Say goodbye to just being a single spec and sticking with it. This is, unless of course, you're stubborn and don't want to be a dynamic mage.

How will that work unless they give all 3 the same stat priorities? I really wish they had, but I am not going to go regem and reforge between bosses in a raid.

What I really want it for all 3 specs to be equally viable in raids (and begrudgingly in pvp, though I really think they just painted themselves in a bad corner introducing that). Make all 3 specs baseline do fairly equal dps (like 1-2%) while preserving the flavor of their current (or wrath) rotations and make the pvp and raid buff things into talents so people who like the play style of any of the 3 specs simply pick new talents for what they plan to do next (raid, dungeons, questing, BGs etc.) as if grabbing some tools out of the tool box and putting them in their utility belt.

Since this is about changes I'd like to see, I'd personally like to change the way the new Arcane Barrage cleave works. I actually kind of like the way Arcane AoE pans out now, it's in a good place, with us building up AB stacks and burst AoEing with Arcane Explosion, I don't see a need to tweak that.

Instead of having us cleave Arcane Barrage to X number of targets on X stacks of Arcane Charge, why not have it copy Arcane Barrage that number on times onto a single target instead? The same idea, but single target instead of AoE, an example,

Arcane Barrage: Launches bolts of arcane energy at the enemy target, dealing 1425 damage. Consumes all Arcane Charges.

You pulse an additional Arcane Barrage per second onto the same target for every stack of Arcane Charge consumed.

The idea is you would get a little buff that lets you passively shoot out extra Arcane Barrages that can go off on top of while you go back to casting other stuff - since Blizzard is playing with the whole "can be cast while a cast time spell is in progress" mechanic. Would be a nice bit of burst since we're going to lose a little of that, and more importantly give Arcane mobility (you can run around and it will continue to pulse the requisite number of Arcane Barrages at your target until depleted.)

So you want ABar to become use on CD/4 stacks instead of intelligent use for managing mana - at least single target. No thanks.

You know the great thing about MoP? We'll be re-speccing constantly within the same raid in order to satisfy requirements for a certain boss. High single target damage needed for a boss? Respec into Arcane-ish talents. Need massive AoE loveliness? There are fire-ish talents for that. Need add control or kiting? We have Frost-ish talents for that.

Say goodbye to just being a single spec and sticking with it. This is, unless of course, you're stubborn and don't want to be a dynamic mage.

How will that work unless they give all 3 the same stat priorities? I really wish they had, but I am not going to go regem and reforge between bosses in a raid.

What I really want it for all 3 specs to be equally viable in raids (and begrudgingly in pvp, though I really think they just painted themselves in a bad corner introducing that). Make all 3 specs baseline do fairly equal dps (like 1-2%) while preserving the flavor of their current (or wrath) rotations and make the pvp and raid buff things into talents so people who like the play style of any of the 3 specs simply pick new talents for what they plan to do next (raid, dungeons, questing, BGs etc.) as if grabbing some tools out of the tool box and putting them in their utility belt.

Because it wouldn't be required to change specs but just talents, except for the 1-2 heroic modes per tier. Which is already the case. You can also safely bet they are going to make crit/haste/mastery closer for each spec anyways.

Let me explain it quite simply for you. Here are a few aspects of a spec. Damage and it's sub categories (aoe vs single, burst vs sustained), how easy is it to pull off that damage (mobility vs non, instant/quick casts vs full/slower casts), and utility. You see all these variables? Pretty much the only way they can make three specs equal is by the following:

-Each spec gets white bolt or red bolt or blue bolt, all same damage/cast time
-Each spec gets proc that is super white bolt, or super red bolt, or super blue bolt, all same damage/mechanic
-Each spec gets dps cool down with same dps increasing mechanic, same cooldown. Different name and icon though.
-Each spec gets a cc and/or snare that has the same cool down, snare percentage/cc duration, and is on same DR table. But they are different colors/names/icons again. OR utility is completely excluded from spec.

Get it yet? The real problem is lack of encounter diversity.

@aethenor


your arcane and fire spells for lvl 45 are amazing. wow. please fill out an application to blizzard. kthnx.

02/21/2012 02:03 AMPosted by Doromil

rune of power, double mana regen with spell damage increase, the point of arc mage is steady dps with managing mana, then burn, evo, rinse repeat

Doesn't Rune of Power replace Evocation though? Even double mana regen is not enough to make a burn phase mana neutral or positive (assuming burn phases will continue to be a playstyle that Arcane uses). You'd be stuck at low mana levels with no good way to regenerate it back.

02/21/2012 01:49 AMPosted by Aeronaut

So you want ABar to become use on CD/4 stacks instead of intelligent use for managing mana - at least single target. No thanks.

On the contrary, since the benefit you gain for every subsequent stack of Arcane Charge increases linearly, there is no disproportionately larger benefit you gain from triggering it on AB4 as opposed to AB 1,2 or 3.

02/21/2012 02:48 AMPosted by Stardrake

On the contrary, since the benefit you gain for every subsequent stack of Arcane Charge increases linearly, there is no disproportionately larger benefit you gain from triggering it on AB4 as opposed to AB 1,2 or 3.

I can see why you would think in that direction. Let me explain.

The proposed ABarr design can result in the following, regardless if it is linear:

• ABarr is so strong that it becomes used on cd even during burns
• ABarr becomes fairly strong that it becomes used on cd or at 4 stacks during conserves. Recall that ABarr mana cost is constant.
• ABarr has the same place as it does today (movement, clearing stacks).

So the proposal would possibly take a step back and make arcane rotation easier when they are trying to fix this in the new expansion or do nothing to the rotation. It would definitively trade cleave (cleave and AoE are different) damage and a ranged multiple target damage method (two things arcane needs) for slight to heavy single target damage buff - which they can always do easily by adjusting numbers.

I would like to see three tables, each spec has its own table of talents to choose from.


The way it is, the three specs are very polar. not much differentiates a frost mage from an arcane mage.

The way it is, the three specs are very polar. not much differentiates a frost mage from an arcane mage.

In terms of capability, that's true, but it's also intentional. One of the primary purposes of this redesign is to end the problem of a spec having a built-in tradeoff of damage for utility. This means ensuring that every spec has comparable utility, and focusing on playstyle to differentiate the specs.