Blizzard... Why?

Classes Mage
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I think most of us fully understand why things like Shimmer and Greater Pyroblast have been nerfed. Those two abilities, especially, are unhealthy for the game, and even though it’s blatantly evident when a relatively skillful player uses them, a fresh Mage could que into a BG and melt people from max range with Greater Pyroblast while Shimmering away and finishing the cast.

That being said, two massive changes that make zero sense have most of us asking… why? What is the reasoning for doubling the Arcane Power CD? What is the reasoning behind making Temporal Shield Arcane only?

I’ve tried to rack my brain for something, anything, that could explain the Arcane Power change and I still can’t figure it out. It’s bad enough the spell is still on the GCD, and most Alpha testers have pointed out, this makes the spec feel so bad at the start of a fight. So many buttons have to be pressed on the GCD to get rolling. It’s just not enjoyable. And guess what? It’s not going to be enjoyable for the other players who check the damage meter and see the Arcane Mage blowing everyone else out of the water even after starting from behind. Don’t get me wrong, I never like using damage meters as a meaningful tool to balance anything, but those numbers may get nerfed due to outcry, and then what? We are doing mid-pack damage while still having a massive ramp time? It’s a disaster waiting to happen. At 3 minutes, this completely changes the reason for the spec. I love the mana-management play-style, but I hate having to wait 3 minutes to do real damage. In Frost, it is manageable because of the kit. Flurry and Icicles/Glacial Spike make you feel like you’re doing something when Icy Veins is on CD. Arcane, even with mana-management, feels incredibly dull outside of Arcane Power.

Temporal Shield actually worries me immensely, though. We’ve been saying since the first Alpha build that Arcane is going to be hurt the most because of the Shimmer change as they are also losing Displacement, but instead of giving Arcane something to make up for their lacking mobility, you cripple Frost and Fire survivability? It would be one thing if you made Temporal Shield baseline for Arcane, but it’s still a PvP talent. So you’ve brought Fire and Frost “down” to Arcane’s level in a way even though survivability wasn’t the issue that needed adjusted.

I know that Druids got relatively quick responses to their feedback about Feral. I fully expect Priests to hear back about Shadow by the end of next week. When are we going to hear something? So many seemingly pointless, crippling changes with no explanation for a class that hasn’t seen much of anything since 7.0. Preacher’s points in the Alpha videos couldn’t be more perfect. We have so many dead talents, so many dead talent rows due to some talents being 100% must have’s for the spec to feel good to play let alone be good.

Temporal Shield is staying a PvP talent and being made Arcane only, but the Ice Ward talent is still in the game…?

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I seriously want to hear their thinking to some of these changes.

In my head, I can only assume losing a shimmer charge and temp shield has to be because of covenants.

Clearly if you’re a mage and want to pvp, at this point in Alpha you will 100% need to go Venthyr. If not, you’ll be seemingly complete dog poop.
Venthyr giving you both a “blink” and a silence ability. One of those pretty much only being useful in PVP.

I was okay with the way covenants were. But these massive mage nerfs look like they’re really trying to cut mages down, so that we aren’t OP with our Shadowlands borrowed power. Which is awful awful design imo.
Instead of balancing and making the covenant abilities a little more useful all around for every aspect of the game, they’ve made it even more specific.

That’s my only theory on these changes. I just can’t seem to wrap my head around why else they would get rid of one of our only ways to kinda self heal…(outside of alter time 1min CD coming back…)

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The GCD thing is pretty huge. Between Mirror Images, Charged Up, Radiant Spark, Rune of Power, Touch of the Magi, and Arcane Power, that is 7.5 seconds of set up before we can even start attacking??? Compare that to a DH, paladin or most other specs that just pop one cool down and start bursting…

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What you posted isn’t a GCD issue. It’s a bloat issue are best. The idea has always been to decide whether stacking and spending all that time is worth it, rather than spreading it out through combat.

I don’t think the alternative is going back to 5 spells macroed together, either. Perhaps they need to remove spells and enhance the remaining spells? Problem is, people would complain about that too, because they miss XYZ, or hate that an old baseline skill became a talent.

That’s just the reality though. No GCD isn’t the answer to having too many buffs. Going 0 to 100 is wonky at best.

My personal belief is buffs should have a .5-1 sec GCD (reduced from the standard) but still not be macro able to be macroed together.

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I disagree. I, personally, don’t see an issue with making buff CDs off the GCD so they can be macro’d together within reason. I don’t believe every single ability mentioned should be off the GCD, but at least one or two of them should be.

Fire feels good right now because Combustion and Trinket are off the GCD and can be macro’d together with Lucid. Bracers are off the GCD, but you don’t use them until they are needed. That’s way better design. In SL, Arcane will have Arcane Power, Rune of Power, Radiant Spark/Deathborne, Mirror Image, and Charged Up all in need of casting at the beginning of a fight and all on the GCD with some having a cast time. 5 abilities that essentially do nothing, 2 of which have cast times before we can cast a single Arcane Blast. That’s just silly.

Charged Up and Arcane Power/Icy Veins should be off the GCD like Combustion already is. Mirror Image can stay and the covenant abilities can stay, though I wish they were instant. Hell, Charged Up being on the GCD currently makes no sense. At least Mirror Image having a GCD makes sense.

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The real issue (and I’m 100% on board with the asinine amount of buttons before any damage thing) is that Blizzard has expressly stated they do NOT want stacking of cds (even though it’s been a thing for 15 years) yet we have arcane mage specifically needing like 6 GCDs? Like really?

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Agreed. But I think this issue stems from them doubling down on the rigid gcd and refusing to take certain spells/abilities off of it.

They want to create a form of “complexity” with the gcd in the form of making choices as to whether you should blow your load completely (Arcane mage for example) or whether you should be more measured about cd usage and be conservative on your cd’s. This is made even more apparent with the current arcane power change.

I for one hate the gcd.

Hell from what I remember on live (I “quit” mid EP) we barely have just enough time to set up as it is.

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Well you take a spec that’s already a turret and make it even more “turret-ty” which I just don’t get at all.

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Remember warlocks at the start of BFA? Its mage turn i guess in shadowlands.

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I keep hearing this complaint, but i’m honestly not sure how big a deal it “really” is. like in pvp sure it would be great if you could setup your ZOMG EVERY COOLDOWN EVER FOR MAXIMUM BURST right off the starting line, but very few other classes can front load their burst like that either. need to start doing damage a bit sooner? sacrifice a bit of your burst, your not gonna get a perfect setup every time.

In pve, well out in the world or on trash pulls in mythics and raids, how often do you really bother burning every single cooldown anyways? and for boss fights, a 10s pull timer is pretty standard, which should give you plenty of time to get your fancy pre-pull ritual done.

only place I could see it getting a “little” bit annoying would be in really high-end M+ bosses, where you might not have the time for your pre-pull ritual on bosses. but otherwise, just weave your cooldowns.

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I believe that something like Mirror Image could be weaved, but the issue with Arcane, specifically, is that the spec is incredibly weak comparatively outside of CDs. The Mastery change, I assume, is meant to offset this, but honestly, our Mastery never should’ve been reduced to just two abilities to begin with. So to combat the fact that we have 5 GCDs we have to use before we can cast a single Arcane Blast, they make it to where Arcane Missiles gets Charge/Mastery benefit? Then to offset that, I guess, they double the CD of Arcane Power???

One step forward, five steps back. The Mastery/Charge change (which is really just a reversal to what it used to be) is presumably not going to be near enough to make up for the silliness that is our opener. And even if it does, it will cause Mastery to be significantly over-tuned to the point where every Arcane Mage is stacking Mastery. This has the potential to be nerf-worthy damage wise, but it also means the spec will feel so much worse as our Crit and Haste levels will be much lower.

That’s what this boils down to. Numbers can and will be shifted. But how the spec the plays is the most important. Right now, it feels really bad, and if the Mastery is supposed to save us, then they are setting us up for the numbers to be nerfed and the spec to be useless.

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Looks like it. I hope they remain viable in some way though. At least you guys had destro.

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thats the thing though, why do you “have” to cast all 5 GCD’s. except for raid bosses how often do you realistically find yourself using every one of your GCD’s?
Now I agree that its a bit much and at least one or two of em could do with being taken off GCD (Arcane power for one, especially if its got double the cooldown)

Simply that I don’t think its going to end up being the “class killer” that people seem to be saying it is.

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They paid the iron price for affliction being literally untouchable in raids. Terrible in M+, died instantly in PvP. But at least you weren’t shadow priest lmao

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I mean, I thought we were talking about a boss scenario. M+ or raiding. Even in PvP, however, you’d still have Arcane Power/Mirror Image/Covenant to cast before you hit the player with a single damage dealing ability.

“Class killer” is a bit strong, yes, because currently Arcane Mage ST is probably the best ST in the game on the Alpha. The issue is numbers can, and will, be tuned. I don’t care if I’m at the top of the meters. I care that the class/spec is fun to play. If the numbers get nerfed, as they probably will and should be, but the game-play remains the same, the “class” for intents and purposes will be “dead.”

They are just taking Mages down an incredibly unfun road, they have been their since 7.0. Everything that has made the class feel “fun” has been borrowed, and it feels like we are heading head first into SL with it being the exact same if not slightly worse.

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Melee say “hi.”

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Remember when Blizzard’s moto for adding or removing something was “is it fun?”. I want to know when that changed…

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Simply put, what the mage class is looking like is just sad. It looks to be the farthest thing from a good time. We’ve seen it happen slowly over time. Close your eyes and point to something that they’re changing in SL and the overwhelming majority will agree that it makes the class FAR less fun to play. From the overwhelmingly stale talent choices to the ever disappointing glyphs, mages are turning into the most boring spec with the least identity. I love this game. But I will be unable to justify spending my limited free time (and $15 monthly) playing a game that I just simply can’t enjoy anymore. I feel like Blizz has kicked up their feet and are napping while there are other MMO’s putting in the work and making amazing alternatives.

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I wish they would actually act on their statement about not liking the practice of stacking cooldowns. They could replace the level 45 talents with new ones that interact with the upcoming baseline Mirror Image. Why have such a nice looking, iconic spell be little more than a boring cooldown? Why not add a bit of spec specific synergy via a talent row that actively encourages you to not use it during Arcane Power/Icy Veins/Combustion?

How about frosty mirror image adding a bit of stacking haste that explicitly does not stack with icy veins? Maybe an absolute zero mirror image where the mirror image attacks apply a modified version of winter’s chill that only affects your next frostbolt but at the cost of not usable while icy veins is active?

How about have let the world burn mirror image augment the spread of an ignite but with some conditional attached to make it unfavorable to use right after combustion? Maybe hot head mirror image can add a modifier to your chance to crit fireball and thus score more heating ups that you can convert into hot streaks?

How about using it to add an additional source of cleave to arcane? Refracting mirror image could cause clearcast arcane missiles to hit multiple targets? They could balance the damage by having total damage dealt go up per cleaved mob, but have the damage dealt per mob gradually decline. Maybe have a version of mirror image that restores mana while dealing some damage? There would not be much use in stacking a mana restoring mirror image with a mana cost reducing arcane power.

These are just random ideas I thought of while typing this out, and I have no idea what might be worthwhile or not. But I do think something on this level would be far more interesting than the currently boring unpruning of fireblast, arcane explosion, and frostbolt. Additional buttons for potentially rare or very niche usage is boring. Broad synergy with more applicable usage that actively breaks the urge to stack all modifiers into one huge burst could be a refreshing change.

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I will be honest, if they bring back the arcane Legion legendary shoulders effect for SL I might stay arcane for the expac, it’s cleave + burst was fun to use back then.

Hopefully they added wall collision to it since then as it used to pull through walls/floors so aiming it carefully was paramount.

If all else fails I’ll stick with DK.

1 Like