For arcane and fire mages, surviving high-level dungeons is extremely difficult, not due to a lack of defensive abilities, but rather a lack of charges in a short period, since only one barrier and one defensive ability lasting 3 minutes each are insufficient. Therefore, more charges are needed. I started playing a Devourer Demon Hunter and noticed that there are two defensive charges lasting 1 minute and 30 seconds each, in addition to life recovery from lifesteal and orb collection; this is very strong. Why not add two shield charges and reduce the cooldown of the defensive ability from 3 minutes to 1 minute and 30 seconds for both specializations?
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Personally, I think giving:
Fire →
- Fire mages a slow, yet relatively steady health-regen (in-combat)
- and perhaps healing yourself of 12% of all damage done while combustion is active
Arcane →
- and Arcane mages a greater barrier than the average mage spec,
- along with perhaps an improved alter-time spell for Arcane, where it’ll restore them to full health no matter the percentage they were when it was initially activated — and providing a small absorb shield when re-activated, to give some insurance to whatever mechanics are going on at the time
Would be a good ideal way to give each spec some “Oomph!” against the defensive capabilities of Frost 
Both of these spec implementations would be huuuuuuuuuuge for a lot of M+ ordeals 
Worse case scenario is for Blizzard to nerf the shield and the heal while in PvP combat.
Frost has the worst survivability of all specs in raid. All as in every single one. Arcane is not far behind at 4th, and the four weakest specs in survivability (frost, WW, BM and arcane) are quite behind the rest of the herd. Fire is above average. Do not underestimate the value of a cheat death.
I am all for giving mage a better kit for surviving m+ and raid (and improving its currently pathetic mass AE profile across all specs). But, to say that the extent of the survivability improvements for mage should stop short of frost is completely divorced from the reality that the class inhabits across all specs.
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I didn’t have much difficulty surviving as an ice mage, both in raids and Mythic+, so much so that there are people doing level 23 as a frost mage.
Completely flubbing a mechanic into panic Invis DR + Ice Cold + Cryo Freeze + Mirror Images DR and surviving is something I’ll never forgive being taken from me
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Not even getting into any M+ with this character yet (I think I’ll just PVP with it for group content), but I’ve bought a whole champion set with the marl chest vendor and proceeded to do world content as anything not Frost.
Every spec/hero variation of Fire and Arcane had trouble fighting stuff out there. Yes, I could get the job done, but sometimes barely if I pulled more than a couple of enemies.
Barriers won’t last long. Other defensives like Dragon’s Breath, Frost Nova, can only buy you a couple of seconds. Kiting and doing your best dps as those specs is nearly impossible. Heck, even as Frost - while I can kite - I still need to be extra careful with how I do that.
Arcane still has better over Fire because they can be very bursty, but trying solo content as the latter is just a miserable experience.
Mage needs more defensive tools, like Blastwave back, or more sturdy Mirror Images with DR built in. I don’t think I’ve had issues being fully champion-geared with any other spec in the game for mere outdoor content.
Same boat, quit this season and have just been doing 2s/casual PvP but having been there, it’s nuts that Frost has straight up double the main defensives. I mourn the loss of SKB Fire
I also love how many people (usually non mages) who claim they still have a ton of defensives brings up whole 2 barriers for Frost mages. Except the Barrier is not a bonus, but the bare minimum “defensive budget” to help with the Mage’s durability compared to other classes. Maybe we could see the second charge as the actual bonus.
Not suprising that the duration of the barrier is 1min while the cooldown is 30s. It means to complement your base health at any times. In fact, through that optics, is more cumbersome than another class with more passive damage reduction/armor/health.
You should consider changing your filters on those statistics to “All Players” and “All Kills” so as to not include wipes.
You’ll find that there are some specs that are egregiously worse than others, and Frost isn’t one of them. It’s not great, mind you, but it’s also not at the bottom. Right now comparing the three mage specs is going to be a little skewed since Frost makes up about 8% of all mythic raid participation while Arcane and Fire are a combined 0.3%.
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personally I was thinking what if blazing barrier can remove bleed kinda makes sense cauterizing wound. Arcane barrier being able remove magic debuff just a thought
2 Likes
I’d love to see barriers get buffed, all specs getting two charges of ice block and barrier, and take barriers off the GCD and allow them to cast while casting like shimmer.
Also a stam buff would be nice.
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ALL of mage needs more defensives in high end content, we are simply too squishy in 18s and above and ramping damage scenarios such as Mythic Rotmire around 6 minutes in.
I think instead of stam a shield leech would be more true to the class; additionally shields should heal a small % when damage is taken while a shield is up (like it use to but better).
Imo, bigger shields are better then how fire’s shield heals for a percent absorbed. Just because it would be lame to die before you got healed. Where with a bigger absorb you wouldn’t have. No reason to make it more complex then it needs to be.
- give all Mages 2 charges of barriers
- reduce the barrier global cooldown from 50% of normal to 25% of normal (making it even less punishing to cast barrier) - I like this instead of taking it off GCD entirely because I don’t think it would be healthy to MACRO barrier into other spells
- re-design cold snap: now grants instant -50% remaining cooldown on block and barrier when you press it. so you want to press it RIGHT AFTER using Iceblock/Barrier. it’s now a “think ahead” talent.
- remove cauterize. turn it into a pvp talent. end of story. this thing stinks and needs to die.
- remove “merely a setback” talent from Sunfury Arcane Mage / Sunfury Fire Mage (replace with another talent for this choice node, or just leave the non-merely a setback as the only choice, removing this as a choice node entirely and making it just the one talent)
- update the new mage class tree talent granting 4% avoidance on the PTR to also include the functionality of merely a setback. “for 8 seconds after your barrier fades, you retain your barrier’s bonuses and effects”
- reduce the CD of all Mage Barrier spells for all 3 specs by -5 seconds
and if barriers are too oppressive in pvp, reduce their effectiveness by some % with separate pvp tuning. I am so sick of being squishy, and I’ll not accept “omg but what will this mean for pvp?” as some LAME excuse to do NOTHING. stop being like Chuck Schumer, the do-nothing Democrat leader! be real men, like Zohran Mamdani, and DO SOMETHING, you developers!!
At that point just give everyone Cold Snap. It’d be easier.
Any mage worth their salt wouldn’t macro barrier. Like all defensives you want to use them before the damage hits you to give your healer the best chance of keeping you alive.
Having two blinks to remove stuns, alter time, how frustrating it can be to deal with invisibility, two ice blocks, and a spammable cc is what makes mage tanky in pvp. Barrier doesn’t do much at all in pvp.
The barrier is a defensive ability available every few seconds. The PvP talent Overpowered Barrier increases its damage absorption by 100% while reducing its duration to 4 seconds, making it a much stronger short-duration defensive cooldown.
For Frost and Arcane, if the barrier is broken, it triggers a powerful unique effect. For Fire, the barrier instead reflects a percentage of the damage it absorbs.
It is a very powerful defensive ability.
I know and agree that barrier + overpowered barrier is strong, but when people complain about mages being too tanky it’s not because of barrier. Taking barrier off the GCD and buffing it will certainly make us tankier in pvp. And if they were to buff barrier they could always tune overpowered barrier or as pvp tuning to barrier.
Like I said before I think invisibility, greater invisibility, and double blink out of stuns is what people find frustrating about playing against mage. And rightfully so imo.