Feedback: Mages

Thëodorus-sargeras · June 26, 2024, 2:15am

As for Arcane, I agree that the tree is severely bloated, disorganised, and in need of redesigns in places, and I certainly appreciate (and largely share) the frustration. Arcane’s redesign has been tumultuously difficult and hit-and-miss. Even so, I do believe that the current tree will be viable/enjoyable with the necessary pruning, reorganisation, redesigns, and tuning.

If it were up to me, I would return Arcane to its Legion iteration (with the appropriate adjustments and elaborations), which was the best it has ever been, and I think that would solve so many of the spec’s problems. Alternatively, I would consider overhauling the entire spec and coming up with a new version of Arcane altogether. But, after I and many others have proposed restoring Legion Arcane repeatedly over the last several years to no avail, I think it is fair to say that Blizzard has no interest in going back to Legion-style Arcane. What we have now in the Beta, though, has significant promise, as long as the right changes and redesigns are made in the end. Keeping the DF tree would be a mistake.

Lanfear-tichondrius · June 26, 2024, 2:46am

Heat shimmer procs way too much. it makes improves scorch a near maintenance buff in single target. Strong dislike.

Manather-stormreaver · June 26, 2024, 2:53am

Frost will have mastery seriously devalued in TWW. A significant portion of our damage coming from hero talents and our tier set is entirely unaffected by our mastery (Enhanced Ice Novas, Meteor, Living Bomb, Frigid Pulse). Worth noting this wasn’t an issue with our prior cleaving tier sets because they cleaved a % of the spells damage, rather than the ice lance tier being a wholly separate effect. Going back to the Frostburn mastery (mastery increases damage to frozen targets) would be a good evergreen effect.

Also pls change the Ice Nova and Ring of Frost choice node, it makes no sense and only serves to hurt frost over the other two specs.

Arittamordio-sargeras · June 26, 2024, 5:46am

Each week when more changes come out and the feedback that the players are given is completely ignored, it becomes more and more worrying. Even looking at this last batch of changes to Death’s Chill. The overall view is that spamming frost bolt is not a fun play style and it still does not work with Hero Traits or anything else in frosts kit.

It feels like we are rapidly approaching the point in which there wont be the drastic change we need to fix these talents, and we will be left with poorly designed talent because they “ran out of time” when in fact its that feedback isnt being taken into consideration or they are overly committed to the idea of this mock deathfrost trait.

Brainard-area-52 · June 26, 2024, 6:50am

Bugs (Arcane only):

Consortium’s Bauble is increasing the mana cost of Arcane Blast by 3%, not reducing it
Volatile Magic isn’t scaling with Mastery: Savant
Dematerialize DoT does not proc Arcane Echo (might be intended; I’m not sure)
Dematerialize DoT does not scale with Mastery (this may be intended to prevent double-dipping, although this talent can only proc from Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage which don’t have as good mastery scaling as other Arcane spells even with Prodigious Savant talented)
Dematerialize does not apply to all targets hit with Arcane Barrage when consuming Nether Precision (and sometimes the DoT doesn’t apply to the main target hit). This has significant implications given that in AoE, having 5 targets with Dematerialize on them can proc a lot of Arcane Explosions with the Energy Reconstitution talent.
Invocation: Arcane Phoenix: the bird’s spells are not proc’ing Arcane Echo (might be intended; I’m not sure)
Energy Reconstitution: Arcane Explosions from this effect does proc Arcane Echo (might be intended; I’m not sure)

Arcane Spec Tree Feedback

Overall Feedback: I am happy that Arcane is getting so much attention (definitely was not the case 2 expansions ago), and while this newest iteration has some issues that I’ll discuss further, I think the ideas are interesting and worth exploring.

The biggest problem I see with all these new talents is that there is a lot of bloat that makes it quite difficult to pick DPS talents like Energized Familiar (which I liked!), Illuminated Thoughts, Eureka (especially with how much weaker Arcane Missiles is now relative to Arcane Blast d/t series of buffs), Concentration, Time Loop and sadly Chrono-Shift is now even farther away from being pickable d/t the severe competition with the sheer number of DPS talents.

I think I know why you’re doing this: you don’t want us to have everything; you want to incentivize choice (i.e. you can’t get Arcane Harmony and Orb Barrage without dropping Evo/Siphon Storm or Prodigious Savant/Leysight/Leydrink or Magi’s Spark). I’m not against this idea per se, but it does feel bad for talents like Chrono-Shift (which will now only likely to get picked in PvP), and doubly bad given there are raw throughput talents that are essentially mandatory like Improved Arcane Missiles and Crackling Energy taking up some of those mandatory points.

I do think some of the talents given immense DPS values in some (or all scenarios for some talents), and could probably be reworked to be a little bit more interesting or removed to provide an opportunity to select some of the cooler talents you’ve been working on that unfortunately likely don’t give as much DPS value (i.e. Energized Familiar, Arcane Tempo for AoE (competes w/ Charged Orb), Static Cloud, etc.).

Because we are now in a situation where we have too many talents and not enough points, I’m going to discuss all of the talents that I think have some quirks or minor/major issues and what could be done to address this to make the Arcane tree feel good to talent into (except Leydrinker).

Individual Talent Feedback

Dematerialize + Energy Reconstitution + Static Cloud

Dematerialize (New Talent): Spells empowered by Nether Precision cause their target to suffer an additional 8% of the damage dealt over 6 sec.

Energy Reconstitution (New Talent): Damage from Dematerialize has a small chance to summon an Arcane Explosion at its target’s location at 50% effectiveness. Arcane Explosions summoned from Energy Reconstitution do not generate Arcane Charges.

Static Cloud: Each time you cast Arcane Explosion, its damage increases by 25%. Bonus resets after reaching 100% damage.

Feedback: I like the idea of Ignite for Arcane, and although I love the idea of Energy Reconstitution, those are basically just damage procs with little interactions with the rest of your kit. Trying this out in single target, Dematerialize was ~2% damage overall, which is pretty good considering Arcane Blast was ~20% and Arcane Barrage was ~12% (although dummy was in execute range; was running M+ build w/ Arcane Bombardment). This talent stands to give roughly 100% more value than Crackling Energy with these kinds of numbers, given Crackling only increased Arcane Blast damage by 5% (and thus accounted for only ~1% overall in that fight since Arcane Blast was ~20%). In practice (i.e. dummy not in execute range), this difference would probably shrink, but will likely still heavily favor Dematerialize over Crackling Energy by all metrics. You did introduce an AoE application for this talent in the form of Energy Reconstitution, which is definitely very cool, but lack in two departments. The first problem is that the DoT lasts only 6 seconds, but with this talent you actually want the DoT to last as long as possible (even if the ticks do no damage) since you want to keep proc’ing these Arcane Explosions. The second problem is that with Arcane Barrage, the DoT does not apply to all targets hit by Arcane Barrage. This could provide significant AoE damage to the buff, which may be necessary given Energized Reconstitution only does ~1.4% of my overall in keys when I tried this out. The other problem is that the Arcane Explosions do not grant Arcane Charges, which makes this buff purely DPS-based. Although I can understand the reason why you didn’t want to have these grant Arcane Charges, it does limit the playstyle impact of these two talents. I do think this idea is very unique and cool, and I would love to see it expanded, but as it stands, it may need so more flushing out to make it work. Lastly, Static Cloud is a cool idea that could’ve worked with these other two talents given the Arcane Explosions give you Static Cloud procs, but the problem is that the stacks reset after 4 stacks, and these are easily consumed by random Arcane Explosions proc’d from Energy Reconstitution, which you don’t want given these only do 50% of normal damage. However, I do think you’re on to something with this talent combo; I have an idea below that you can consider that could make this talent trio more interactive and explosive (pun intended).

Suggestions:

Dematerialize: Deals 8% of the target’s health over 15 seconds (up from 6 seconds)

This is to maximize uptime of the DoT to get more Arcane Explosions out of them in AoE

Dematerialize: Allow the DoT to apply to multiple targets when hit by Arcane Barrage (maybe cap DoT application at 5 targets?)

This is to increase the value of this talent in AoE due to having multiple targets now popping Arcane Explosions randomly, which doesn’t do much damage on its own

Static Cloud: Arcane Explosion casts and procs from Energy Reconstitution grant 1 stack of Static Cloud. At 20 stacks, your next Arcane Explosion becomes Arcane Nuke, which deals 400% increased damage, generates 4 Arcane Charges and applies Arcane Surge for 4 seconds.

This is meant to incentivize using Arcane Explosion in a tactical and methodical way, where you build these Static Cloud charges using these little explosions from the DoT on Dematerialize w/ Energy Reconstitution to generate this giga-Arcane Explosion.

Putting some hard numbers on this, with Clearcasting proc’d, Crackling Energy, Eureka and the Arcane Surge buff, this would do (673% Spell Power) Arcane damage w/ 9.6% mastery (baseline), or roughly 7% more damage than Arcane Surge, which currently hits for (628% Spell Power) when factoring the 35% buff from Arcane Surge and 8% damage from Mastery it benefits from (talk about a nuke)

Big Brained

Big Brained(New Talent): Gaining Clearcasting increases your Intellect by 1% for 8 sec. Multiple instances may overlap.

Feedback: What a name for a talent; I love it. Regarding the actual effect, it’s a little bland, basically Ironfur but with a minor intellect buff. It does gain value during CDRs because Evocation and Arcane Surge are guaranteed to generate 2 CC procs. It also slightly raises the value of Illuminated Thoughts. Overall, this is one of those buffs that we’ll pick if the simbot tells us, and won’t if it tells us not to. Not very interesting, similar to Crackling Energy, Improved Arcane Missiles, Surging Urge, Resonant Orbs, Eureka, Consortium’s Bauble and Improved Touch of the Magi (where these are all just % damage amps w/ no real rotational difference). It’s fine to have a couple of nodes like these in our tree, but as you can see from the list above, it’s a little excessive for Arcane.

Crackling Energy + Improved Arcane Missiles

Crackling Energy: Increases Arcane Explosion and Arcane Blast damage by 5%.

Improved Arcane Missiles: Increases Arcane Missiles damage by 5%.

Feedback: Please remove these talents Blizzard. Arcane is currently looking to be overperforming currently in keys, and likely in single target as well (pending raid testing). I think if you choose to nerf Arcane by removing these talents, these would likely be the some of the best received nerfs in living memory since it would free up the mandatory talent points to something more interesting.

Resonant Orbs

Resonant Orbs (current): Arcane Orb damage increased by 10%

Resonant Orbs (suggested change): Arcane Orb’s cooldown is reduced by 2 seconds every time you use Arcane Barrage.

Feedback: Similar to Improved Arcane Missiles and Crackling Energy in single target, this talent provides a massive amount of damage in M+, increased in large pulls. Given Arcane Orb currently does 20-30% of my overall depending on the key (higher in SV and Necrotic Wake, lower in City of Threads), this talent provides 2-3% overall damage in a single point for keys. But like Crackling Energy and Improved Arcane Missiles, I can’t feel any of it. Numbers are going up, but just like the Shards of Domination in Sanctum of Domination, I can’t feel any of this damage because it is not interactive with my kit. The example I gave above would probably give you the same amount of damage in keys, but in a much more interactive way than the current talent.

Time Loop

Time Loop (current): When you apply a stack of Arcane Debilitation, you have a 10% chance to apply another stack of Arcane Debilitation. This effect can trigger off of itself.

Time Loop (suggested change): After applying 24 stacks of Arcane Debilitation, your next Arcane Missiles will fire all of it’s Missiles instantly. This effect can stack with Aether Attunement.

Feedback: Time Loop applies a surprisingly higher amount of stacks than I thought, somewhere on the realm of 1-2 additional stacks for every Clearcasting proc consumed. The problem is the duration of Arcane Debilitation (only 6 seconds) and how hard it is to get 3 CC procs without spending a single one (since Arcane Debilitation incentivizes spamming Arcane Missiles to stack that Vulnerability as high as possible). I like the way Arcane Debilitation works currently, but I don’t want to play around RNG procs randomly giving me more vulnerability. I don’t feel that increased damage because it’s completely passive. I would like for something a little more active in my kit for Time Loop. With the effect listed above, your 3rd Arcane Missiles (applies with Aether Attunement) would fire off its volley instantly, effectively acting as a 25% DPS increase for your 3rd Arcane Missiles (2 second channel → 1.5 second GCD instant cast), and would likely look visually stunning as you fire off 8 to 40 missiles instantly (with Aether Attunement).

Consortium's Bauble

Consortium’s Bauble (Current): Reduces Arcane Blast’s mana cost by 3% and increases its damage by 3%.

Consortium’s Bauble (Suggested Change): Reduces Arcane Blast’s mana cost by 15%.

Feedback: This talent is currently bugged (it is increasing the mana cost of Arcane Blast by 3%, not decreasing it). More importantly, I would like for this to focus more on the mana cost reduction over the damage of Arcane Blast. a 3% mana cost reduction is equivalent to 1 free Arcane Blast every 33 Arcane Blast casts. Comparing that to real world values: the current top Volcoross Arcane mage log (Player = Lencely, Volcoross as an example of ST fight) casted 96 Arcane Blasts. This would mean he would get 3 free Arcane Blasts. That is completely insignificant. Because you uncoupled mana cost from CC procing in TWW, you can now get away with talents that reduce the mana cost of spells, allow us to get more haste while not being punished as much. I would like for this talent to lean more into the mana cost reduction over the damage buff, since it will always be taken over Arcing Cleave in ST (where Arcane Blast matters more).

Concentration

Concentration (Current): Arcane Blast has a small chance to make your next cast of Arcane Blast free. (2+Haste ppm)

Concentration (Suggested Change): Nether Precision can now stack up to 3 times, but Arcane Missiles now only grants 1 stack of Nether Precision. Arcane Barrage can now consume up to 3 stacks of Nether Precision in a single cast to gain their additive effects (i.e. +60% or 90% damage if Leysight talented).

Feedback: Similar to Consortium’s Bauble, the mana gained from this talent isn’t much. In that same log I used on Volcoross, Lencely casted 28 Arcane Blasts per minute. Concentration would mean that 2 of these would be free, which equates to a ~7% mana cost reduction on average for Arcane Blast. That’s so low and uninspiring for a near-capstone node, I think we can do better here. The talent I suggested here is meant to give synergy with the Arcane Harmony build, where you would cast 3 Arcane Missiles to get to 20 stacks of Arcane Harmony in single target, get 24 stacks of Arcane Debilitation by doing so and be able to expend all of the Nether Precision stacks accumulated into the big barrage.

High Voltage

High Voltage: Damage from Arcane Missiles has a 20% chance to grant you 1 Arcane Charge. Chance is increased by 5% every time your Arcane Missiles fails to grant you an Arcane Charge.

Feedback: Fantastic talent, don’t change it. Fits in amazingly with Arcane Harmony. The only thing I need you to figure out is how to make this work with the Sunfury tree (i.e. how to get enough CC procs in that tree to make this CC-spam happen, how to get Spellfire Spheres using CC procs, etc.)

Chrono-Shift + Impetus

Feedback: Please flip the position of these talents. The only way I see us play Chrono-Shift is if it is in a spot where you have almost no choice but to select it in order to gain access to the whole rest of the tree. I think you could swap it with Impetus and that would meet that goal well.

Surging Urge

Surging Urge (current): Arcane Surge damage increased by 5% per Arcane Charge.

Surging Urge (suggested change): During Arcane Surge, 50% of your Mastery stat is converted to Haste.

Feedback: I’ve been omitting this talent for a while now just because I wanted to help out with Sunfury feedback (since the tree still isn’t working great w/ Arcane Harmony), but I think it’s time I address this here. I like the idea of having some kind of boost to Arcane Surge, but 20% additional damage at 4 Arcane Charges is just boring. One of the things I’ve noted while playing Arcane in keys and raid is that I’ve always wanted PI during cooldowns (like most specs of course), but if I were to retain the Haste buff outside of cooldown, I would run the risk of going OOM. Given that Arcane already runs high mastery, and your risk of going OOM during Arcane Surge is almost zero, I was thinking about a way to given Arcane some kind of haste buff during its cooldown. You could do a flat “+10% haste during Arcane Surge” or something, but something like this feels better (even if the number ends up the same or lower), similar to Fire mage’s Improved Combustion talent w/ Crit.

Sunfury Arcane

Spellfire Spheres

Spellfire Spheres (current): Every 6 times you cast Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage conjure a Spellfire Sphere.

Spellfire Spheres (suggested change): Every 6 times you cast Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage, or every 3 times you cast Arcane Missiles, you conjure a Spellfire Sphere. Consuming Burden of Power generates a Clearcasting charge.

Feedback: Spellslinger is fantastic already (maybe a little overtuned in AoE), but Sunfury is not. It is having an identity crisis of which route it wants to go down, especially on the thematic end of things. I’ve stated before that this tree should HARD focus on the Arcane Harmony build and not the Orb Barrage build because it fits thematically to have an explosive cooldown window with this tree, unlike Spellslinger’s constant barrage of spells (i.e. Orb Barrage). Unfortunately, it ain’t working chief, at least not well in AoE. I want to use Arcane Missiles to get Arcane Harmony back, but I can get these damn Spellfire Spheres (and Burden of Power) to line up with Arcane Harmony. Please find a way to get the Spellfire Spheres to fit with Arcane Harmony, it would be so nice for this tree to have a working nice in both ST (which already works) and AoE (which does not work; at least not with Arcane Harmony as far as I tested it)

Zommoros-azshara · June 26, 2024, 10:23am

Continuing the discussion from The War Within Beta Development Notes:

This has NOT been fixed for Arcane specialization, after a while in combat Splinterstorm will again double down until it starts triggering from only 2 embedded splinters.

Kuni-ghostlands · June 26, 2024, 10:49am

Mirroring this, I managed to bug it on Frost as well. It’s a lot harder to do, but I got it firing early again.

Other bugs remaining:

Controlled Instincts is working cross-mage and cross-spec.
Elemental Affinity is reducing same-element cooldowns.
FFB snapshotting on cast rather than impact, which breaks Frost’s Winter’s Chill mechanic.

Feedback:

Death’s Chill being capped is a good start, but it’s still encouraging Frostbolt spam. BOTH hero trees discourage that, the general idea of Icy Veins discourages that via Thermal Void. Like you give up so much extension time to cast 10 Frostbolts it’s insane.

Fractured Frost really shouldn’t increase Frostbolt damage even further. That entire quartet really needs to be re-evaluated. If you want a simplistic Frost option you need to lean on frozen Ice Lance hits. Nobody liked Shadowlands S3/4 Necrolord Frost, and it only worked because Deathborne lasted like 1:20 after procs and could stack to absurdity. It wasn’t fun, it was strong.

I still really don’t like spell alert on Excess procs, it tricks you into casting non-buffed Lance or sits there and taunts you with Flurry on cooldown. Given the changes to Frostfire Infusion’s proc rate and the Mastery stacks, I feel you could probably replace their stack count with the Excess buff on the personal resource bar instead and that would cover the loss of the spell indicator?

Speaking of, given that the general goal is to throw Flurry then Comet Storm, it really feels bad having the Excess proc for cooldown reduction that just gets completely wasted as you have been sitting on Excess and Comet Storm being available just waiting for Brain Freeze. Dunno what you can do there given this is the opposite side of the GCD from the usual Brain Freeze issues we encounter.

Controlled Instincts on Frost still sucks. Between the actual Splinter damage being next to nothing, and the active Blizzard ticking requirement that scales inversely with Haste, this feels extremely bad. You can make the argument that most of SSFrost’s contribution is through Orb, but Arcane gets a hefty boost in AoE via Orb as well. Buffing both the method in which it procs, preferably by making it linger after a Blizzard damage event, and the percentage of the Splinter damage would be nice here.

Chillproof-moon-guard · June 26, 2024, 11:33am

From a novice Arcane mage’s perspective:

I really appreciate the efforts to make Arcane more approachable for new mages and, overall, I’ve enjoyed playing around with Spellslinger Arcane. However, the Arcane tree has a lot of %dmg talents which don’t allow much room to play around with different builds. I’d like to see some of these baked into the base spec so we have a few more points to move around in the tree.

Vlsal-tichondrius · June 26, 2024, 12:16pm

There is a lot of feedback to be done about latest changes and Mage specs, so I’ll split it into specs with their hero trees posts again. Here is feedback about Frost and its hero talents including latest changes.

Frost Mage feedback:

Frost changes feedback:

Changes to Fractured Frost / Death’s Chill completely missed the mark - they don’t address any issues with this playstyle that were mentioned in this thread and had opposite effect - now you are even more incentivised to spam Frostbolt during Fractured Frost (at the very least till you stack Death’s Chill) and ignore Flurry and Brain Freeze procs, Ice Lance and Fingers of Frost procs and almost all other procs and effects. That is not good and should be addressed.
Suggestions:

Redesign all 4 talents that are related to Fractured Frost. Sample of such redesign was given in this post.
If you don’t have time / wish to do such massive redesign, there should still be tweaks to existing Fractured Frost related talents to make the playstyle less disruptive and more synergizing with remaining parts of Frost tree. Something like:
Fractured Frost - now also affects Flurry (to provide value for it and Brain Freeze procs during Fractured Frost window and give means to shatter cleaved Frost(fire) Bolts against CC immune enemies that cannot be AoE frozen) and makes Frostbolt consume stacks of Fingers of Frost to increase its damage by X% only while Icy Veins is active (to open synergies and use cases for Fingers of Frost procs during Fractured Frost phase, but only then to keep Ice Lance relevant enough outside of this phase).
Slick Ice - include Flurry into the list of spells that stack Slick Ice.
Death Chill - reduce number of stacks to 5 and tweak their value if needed (to reduce ramp-up and align them with Slick Ice) and maybe make it triggered by Flurry too (to avoid possible countersynergy and keep synergies with Cold Front and potentially Slick Ice / Fractured Frost).
Fractured Frost period could also use a way to participate in Thermal Void extension for Icy Veins to avoid losing its uptime.

Fractured Frost tooltip in spec tree is bugged and states 0% damage increase.

Frost spec main remaining issues:

Choice between Ice Nova and Ring of Frost harms all 3 specs, but Frost Mages most - Ice Nova is pretty much a rotational spell for them that is used to (AoE) shatter big hitters like Glacial Spike and Comet Storm and likely will be picked most of time leaving Frost locked out of its main utility spell - Ring of Frost. It also causes a choice between throughput and utility for Frost in general tree, which is not good and should be addressed.
Suggestion: Split them and either make Ring of Frost replace one of the rarely if ever picked Frost Nova talents below the node or if you want to still keep similar number of CC / utility options available for Mage to current beta number - make it a choice node with Mass Polymorph instead, which would make much more sense, since they have much more similar niches with different pros and cons. Mass Polymorph itself after nerf to its duration could also use a boost like getting selectable 8-10 yards radius area within 30 yards range and 45 seconds base CD (which matches Ring of Frost).
Addition of Permafrost Lances was good, but since it moved Ice Caller below it created other issue - now AoE builds have to spend 1 more point to take required nodes (which reduces build diversity) and ST builds have to spend 1 more point than AoE builds to reach capstone central talents in 3rd part of tree. Both issues could be addressed simultaneously:
Suggestion: Reduce Wintertide to 1 point investment with full current value. That would make its value better align with its cost, address the different pathing cost issue and could help with excess talent point spending.
Frost still has unaddressed issue with output against enemies that can and cannot be frozen - former can be affected by Subzero buff and shatters from freeze effects and latter don’t get value from them at all, which can make Frost too strong against enemies affected by CC, too weak against CC immune enemies or even both simultaneously. That also can create balancing issues in future and should just be addressed.
Suggestion: Reduce Subzero to 1 point investment with full current effect (to have value better matching the cost after the nerf and similar cost to Comet Storm on opposite side of tree) and make it also cause Glacial Spike and Ice Nova apply 1 stack of Winter’s Chill for the duration of their root (or usual duration of Winter’s Chill) when hitting enemies that are immune to crowd control effects. That would address multiple issues simultaneously - significally reduce the gap in Frost’s output between enemies that can and cannot be frozen, make Subzero provide value against CC immune enemies (currently it is sub zero, pun intended) and make paths at left and right of Frost tree have similar talent point cost.
Other unaddressed issue is with Frost’s AoE placement, mostly Frozen Orb. It was called a skill expression in one of earlier interviews, but it is actually just an unnecessary handicap that forces Frost players to play in close to melee range (while being a ranged spec) and can spoil AoE rotation with just 1 mob untimely aggroing on other ranged DPS nearby or 1 random add appearing in wrong position. It should be finally addressed.
Suggestion: Create a new capstone talent to the left from Coldest Snap and accessible from Freezing Winds that would allow Frost players to customize placement / movement pattern of Frozen Orb if they would want to. For example, that could be such a choice node:
Concentrated Coolness - Frozen Orb’s damage is increased by X% and is castable at a location with 40 yard range, but no longer moves (based on an existing PVP talent).
or
Drifting Coolness - Frozen Orb rapidly moves to a selected by player location and starts its slowed movement from it (instead of current slowed movement starting from first enemy hit). Frozen Orb also explodes when it expires, dealing X% of Spell Power Frost damage to enemies within its area.
Such choice node could address most issues - players would be able to pick preferred movement / placement pattern between 3 options (Concentrated Coolness / Drifting Coolness / current if this capstone is not taken), it also has some throughput value so can compete with other throughput talents in 3rd part of tree and it would cost a 1 talent point, which is a fair trade-off for its effect. And don’t worry that removing Concentrated Coolness from PVP talents would require inventing a replacement - even with its removal Frost would still have access to 9 (minimal required number) of available PVP talents.
Splintering Ray is simply not competitive enough and needs a boost or redesign.
Since you are also actively looking at PVP talents, there are 3 Frost PVP talents that should be looked at. Snowdrift is a CC tool that forces ranged and kiting based spec into getting and staying in melee range, which is a literal design contradiction. Ice Form replaces a much more generally useful major CD and is too niche (Frostbolt damage increase does not matter much since Frostbolt itself does not do much damage and even Fractured Frost synergy does not compensate for that enough) and on top of that is easily dispellable. Icy Feet is also too niche - it affects only some freeze effects and its effect is easily counterable - immune to snares Frost can still be easily crowd controlled by other effects to negate its value entirely. All these PVP talents should be looked at.
Suggestions:

Replace Snowdrift with Deep Freeze - single-target and ranged stun that still has condition for activation (target being already frozen) and still can be countered (via removing / dispelling the freeze effect while GCD from applying it is active to prevent being consecutively stunned). That would still keep Frost’s stun counterable, but make it much more usable and less contradictory to its ranged and kiting based design.
Make Ice Form instead increase all Frost damage while active and undispellable like Icy Veins, but remove stun immunity to compensate. That would make it much more generally useful as a replacement for Icy Veins in 1 min CD window comps and a decent PVP slot option while also removing stun immunity which can be quite overtuned against specs that don’t have access to dispel effects.
Revert Icy Feet to a talent that caused freeze effects deal damage when expired / removed with increased damage when dispelled and just make it affect all freeze effects and tune to have meaningful enough value. That would give Frost a tool for some dispel protection (useful against root break / dispel heavy classes and comps) with reasonable value and its own niche.

Frostfire feedback (from Frost POV):

Change of Frostfire Mastery to 6 stacks has both pros (you are now much more likely to successfully stack both Excess Fire and Excess Frost within its window) and cons (you get less secondary stats when fully stacked). That is still probably fine if compensated in other areas of hero tree if needed. Only suggestion here is to increase duration to 15 seconds - that would make Frostfire Mastery cycles much better aligned with other cooldowns like Flurry (30 seconds CD), Frost Bomb (15 seconds CD), Ray of Frost (60 seconds CD) etc.
Spec is still buff and proc heavy and its UI visuals for Frost overlap with Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost, making it confusing, especially for new players. Its UI visibility should be improved.
Suggestion: Make Excess Fire / Frost no longer highlight buttons for Flurry / Ice Lance and instead have a visible UI element near player that clearly states that you got their or Frostfire Empowerment stack. For Excess Fire that could be a large fiery arc to the left of player (distinguishable from Heating Up / Hot Streak and Hyperthermia), for Excess Frost that could be a large icy arc to the right of player (distinguishable from Fingers of Frost) and Frostfire Empowerment could create a large UI arc consisting of fire and ice above your character similar to existing Frostfire Bolt Brain Freeze UI effect that is currently used in Cataclysm Classic. Such change could help with both proc visibility and readability (you would know when you get a proc and which proc it is without checking 2-3 lines of buffs or potentially confusing them with Brain Freeze / Fingers of Frost).
Frostfire Bolt damage over time buff is nice, but did not achieve much - it became more competitive with Frostbolt / Fireball in PVE, but worse compatible with Fractured Frost builds that will spam it and refresh its dot every 1-2 seconds. As such, consider also buffing its direct damage or redistributing some of its damage increase back into direct part.
Frostfire Bolt still did not inherit Frostbolt’s PVP modifier and that makes it worse than Frostbolt in PVP - you both deal less damage with it and get locked on 2 schools if interrupted instead of 1, so it is strictly worse there than Frostbolt. That should not be the case for an “upgrade talent”.
Suggestions:

Make Frostfire Bolt inherit Frostbolt’s PVP modifier.
Additionally increase Frostfire Bolt’s damage in PVP only to provide decent enough reward for risking getting locked on 2 schools when casting it compared to Frostbolt’s 1 school lockout.

Elemental Affinity for Frost still does not affect Fire Blast (Fire spell) and affects Ice Nova, Frost Nova, Cone of Cold and Ice Floes (Frost spells).
Flame and Frost is simply not competitive enough with Elemental Affinity and needs a boost. For example, its CD reset could be tied to Icy Veins instead - that would provide around similar amount of Fire spell usages to Elemental Affinity with different pros (on-demand resets) and cons (less usages of low CD Fire spells).
Fire Blast now is even more undertuned for non-Fire specs and not viable even for Frostfire Mages - its damage now can be lower than non-shattered Ice Lance with high enough Mastery (despite Fire Blast being a CD based ability), its stack of Fire Mastery might be not needed anymore and it simply has close to no purpose. However, from what I saw there are currently 2 camps of Frost Mages - those who want to use Fire Blast to match the Frostfire Mage theme and those who don’t. There is a way to provide options for both camps that don’t force them into a playstyle that they don’t want - via adding choice node options.
Suggestion: Buff base damage of Fire Blast and tweak Thermal Conditioning into also upgrading Fire Blast into Frostfire Blast (as Thermal Conditioning now could use an additional boost to be competitive enough with Severe Temperatures) as an additional effect, making it deal X% additional damage as Frost damage and provide both Fire and Frost Mastery stacks when used. Such tweak serves multiple purposes - making Fire Blast relevant for people who want to use it (and people who don’t want to use it can take the alternative option in choice node), giving an additional Frostfire themed spell for people who want them and helping Fire Mages with stacking Frost Mastery (since it should also affect their off-GCD Fire Blast and make it also add Frost Mastery stacks). Frostfire Blast could also have synergies with Fire and Frost trees to make it more relevant like being cleaved by Fractured Frost etc.
Excess Fire Living Bomb is still undertuned for Frost, who lacks upgrade talents for it that can significally buff it like Fire has. Consider buffing value of Excess Fire’s Living Bomb for Frost only.
Frostfire Empowerment was tweaked, but still has contradictions in tooltips and actual effect. Its tooltip in hero tree states 50% damage increase and 80% damage cleave, buff tooltip states that it is also guaranteed to crit (not mentioned in hero tree tooltip) and actual effect also cleaves for 100% of damage instead of stated 80%. Buff stacked to 2 also doubles values in its tooltip (stating 100% damage increase and cleave for 160% of damage) when their actual values remain the same. Please bring tooltips and actual effects in line.

Frost Spellslinger feedback:

Frost Splinters being affected by Mastery is nice, but that also should be stated in Mastery tooltip for Frost Spellslingers (currently it is not). Even then they still deal abysmal damage (less than Icicles with no Mastery stacked) and the reason for their previous nerf might have been already addressed (bugged interactions with Winter’s Chill from other Frost Mages). As such, they need a boost.
Suggestion: Buff their damage to around Arcane Splinters value and then tune from there if needed.
Frost’s Controlled Instincts is much worse than Arcane version - it is tied to an ability than needs to be maintained, can expire right before you launch your Splinterstorm making cleave from it wasted and on top of that does not affect main target when Arcane version does. All of that should be addressed.
Suggestion: Make it trigger for X seconds after using Blizzard and hit main target as well (to bring it in line with Arcane version). That would make them more in line and remove current Haste countersynergy with it for Frost (as Haste reduces duration of Blizzard and increases chance of Blizzard expiring right before you launch your splinters).
Splintering Orbs is much worse fof Frost compared to Arcane as well - it requires Frozen Orb uptime to launch 4 splinters when Arcane version conjures them instantly (which affects timings and also can be harmful in single-target situations if enemy moves out of its area) and these splinters are launched at random enemies nearby, including those that are not even within Frozen Orb’s area and reducing viability for priority damage situations even more. That should be improved.
Suggestion: Make Frozen Orb instantly generate 4 Frost Splinters and launch them at the main target if any is picked (pretty much in line with Arcane version).
Volatile Magic is undertuned for Frost (deals half damage of Arcane version) and should be boosted.
Unerring Proficiency both provides low value and requires using a rotational / utility ability to activate it, which can make it being on cooldown right when you accumulate 30 stacks. That could be improved.
Suggestion: Buff stacks value and make 30 stacks both reset cooldown of Ice Nova and highlight Ice Nova button (currently it is not highlighted like Supernova button is when fully stacked). That would address these issues and make Unerring Proficiency immediately usable when you stack it to full without harming other usages of Ice Nova.
Phantasmal Image does not correctly adjust tooltip for Mirror Images - it states correct damage reduction (25%), but wrong number of them (3 instead of 4).
Look Again is not competitive enough with Slippery Slinging both because Displacement is frequently not taken in PVE because of hard accessibility in general tree and because its effect’s value is much more niche that simple movement speed increase. All of that could be addressed to make Look Again more competitive.
Suggestion: Move Displacement to more accessible spot in general tree (for example it could swap positions with Accumulative Shielding) and make Look Again provide additional benefit - movement speed increase after using Displacement or making Displacement off-GCD or something else.
Shifting Shards are still too chaotic - they can aggro enemies that are not in combat in PVE, break breakable crowd control effects in PVP and launch splinters at wrong targets (not stacked in Blizzard for synergy with Controlled Instincts or not the priority target that should be killed as soon as possible). That should be addressed.
Suggestion: Change its targeting pattern to prioritize current target if any, if there is none - enemies hit by Shifting Power and if there are none - only then random enemies within 40 yards. It should also not target enemies affected by breakable crowd control effects in all these cases.
Spellfrost Teachings could use a form of bad RNG protection, as currently there can be large windows without its procs, especially in single-target situations.
Suggestion: Add a mechanism like “after conjuring X Frost Splinters without getting a proc, next Frost Splinter is guaranteed to trigger Spellfrost Teachings”. That would not affect much good and average RNG windows and would simply help with bad RNG windows.
Passive Splinterstorm can be good and convenient, but some players could still prefer manual control over it to avoid things like overlapping Winter’s Chill stacks from it and similar issues. That could be addressed via simply giving players a choice between active and passive versions of Splinterstorm in capstone talent.
Suggestion: Make passive Splinterstorm a choice node with active off-GCD ability Splintersurge with similar effect. That would allow players to pick the preferred option and utilize it.

Velerialan-bonechewer · June 26, 2024, 12:22pm

I have some Frostfire Mage suggestions which can be implemented to improve this spec in a future.

Frostfire hero spec will have additional energy bar called Frostfire Power. It will work as Spriest insanity.

Fire PoV:

As Fire mage if you cast any frost spells it will contribute to the Frostfire Power bar.
if Frostfire Power reaches 100% energy, energy will slowly starts to drain to 0% and while doing so:

You will gain free Icy Veins for 20sec,
Your Pyroblast will turn into Flurry and your Phoenix Flames into Ice Lance,
Instead of Hot Streak you will be able to proc FoF if you cast Frostfire Bolt.
Every single frost spell used during this “drain” phase will give you stacking buff, increasing your damage with next fire spell by x%.

Frost PoV:

As Frost mage if you cast any fire spells it will contribute to the Frostfire Power bar.
if Frostfire Power reaches 100% energy, energy will slowly starts to drain to 0% and while doing so:

You will gain free Combustion for 15sec,
Your Ice Lance will turn into Phoenix Flames, Your Flurry into Pyroblast,
Instead of FoF you will be able to proc Hot Streak if you cast Frostfire Bolt(or PF/FBlast).
Every single fire spell used during this “drain” phase will give you stacking buff, increasing your damage with next frost spell by x%.

When energy reaches 0% your frost/fire spells returns to normal rotation and you can spend your stacked “bonus frost/fire damage” buff.

Onbekend-area-52 · June 26, 2024, 1:27pm

Arane feedback

I feel there is way to much passive stuff that is happening with arcane in the beta. For spellslinger random orbs flying around looks cool having no control over them feels bad. I preferred having the cooldown of the orb reset over it just sending out random orbs.

Now there is a talent that procs arcane explosions means even more rng procs that cast abilities I have no control over.

None of the main issues are being addressed. Touch of the magi last 12secs and still not having a manual detonation option is still problematic. And evocation being used as a dmg buff feels weird.

Despite it’s problems I still much prefer the dragonflight tree of the war within. There is more spells to cast and I feel like a mage vs a slot machine. I feel like every talent tree change things get worse.

Soisaws-illidan · June 26, 2024, 1:41pm

I’m not sure why we would ever take any of the living bomb talents now. Gutted it twice in a row where it’s not worth the investment in points to get something that’s gonna be 3rd or 4th overall in my damage profile when I could put those points in another part of the tree and just rely on ignite (as always)

Eila-stormrage · June 26, 2024, 1:52pm

Arcane Talent Tree Feedback pt. 4

I will focus on the parts of the tree where I believe these new additions have downgraded it and made it bloated, as well as the aspects that continue to be problematic.

Gate 1: It feels awful that we must spend nine talent points in Gate 1 to pick up all the pseudo-mandatory nodes for pathing. These are Arcane Surge, Impetus, and Improved Clearcasting. This is once again placing an unnecessary point tax on Gate 2. Arcane Surge and Improved Clearcasting are mandatory based on their strength, whereas Impetus is a required node to get to Siphon Storm.

The single change that can happen to make Gate 1 make sense is baking Concentrated Power into Clearcasting baseline. This new placement is a prime example of an unnecessary tax node. Even Improved Touch of the Magi can be categorized the same way.

As for Arcing Cleave, it is disappointing to see that it is still not a baseline effect, but it is a consolation that it is now competing with a much weaker node. At the very least I will feel slightly less awful making Arcane AoE functional.

Impetus: Continuing with Impetus, why is this effect specifically selected to be the pseudo-mandatory node for pathing? Yes, it is mandatory as long as Siphon Storm exists, but I will elaborate on Siphon Storm later.

There are so many other spells and effects that I would consider more core and flavorful to Arcane that would fit perfectly in this placement and help Arcane have a solid foundation after Gate 1. These could be Slipstream, Arcing Cleave, Arcane Familiar, or even Enlightened.

Siphon Storm: The problem with Siphon Storm, both now and in Dragonflight, is how overwhelmingly strong it is. Because of how strong Siphon Storm is, it warps the tree such that everything that precedes it becomes mandatory, and the nodes that become accessible from picking up Siphon Storm and the path to it become incentivized.

I enjoy Siphon Storm, so I have not minded this in the past, nor do I mind it now. Truthfully, I enjoy it even more now that Evocation grants Clearcasting. But with how bloated the tree has become, I think many of these new additions to Arcane will be dead on arrival for The War Within in no small part due to Siphon Storm.

Evocation (and mana in general): Evocation is iconic to Arcane but is currently on life support due to Siphon Storm. On a high level, mana as a resource is not meaningful.

On my suboptimally geared character on beta equipped with the default equipment it came with, mana is not something I have to worry about while playing. Casting Arcane Barrage to spend Glorious Incandescence, channeling Arcane Missiles, etc., I do not run out of mana once Arcane Surge becomes available again. In real scenarios, you will also spend globals to cast non-offensive spells, such as defensives, contributing additional passive mana. At this point, Arcane Surge does what Evocation does but better, and you pick Evocation if and only if you pick Siphon Storm.

This is true for any talent that involves saving or generating mana, such as Mana Adept or Concentration. These talents do not offer anything that cannot be fixed by simply playing better and more efficiently. The positive to this is that I can safely ignore Mana Adept and pick Slipstream instead to get to Touch of the Magi, but I am unsure if this is the intended design goal.

I am conflicted because I like Siphon Storm but it is also obvious how detrimental it is for the tree. Siphon Storm by itself puts a 3-point tax on Gate 2 and a 1-point tax on Gate 3. Is it too much to ask that both Evocation and Siphon Storm just become baseline? This would also solve the aesthetic issue that Siphon Storm is the one node that makes the tree asymmetrical.

Utility: Briefly, and to re-iterate, there are still utility nodes for no reason all over Gate 2. Chrono Shift is dead on arrival, Presence of Mind is on life support thanks to Siphon Storm, and Slipstream only directly competes with Mana Adept. Why must Arcane be stuck in the Stone Age when it comes to specialization tree design?

Arcane Harmony: I like Arcane Harmony. Last week, Arcane Harmony felt so good when it only required Arcane Debilitation. Now, there are two nodes in the way, of which I care about neither.

Just to put some numbers on it, Time Loop has a 43% chance of doing nothing when you cast Arcane Missiles. Around 34.4% of the time it provides 1% increased damage for 6 seconds. Time Loop is pathetically weak and is not worthy of being a Gate 3 talent.

As for High Voltage, it is a meaningless effect. In the Hero talent trees, there is more than enough Arcane Charge regeneration to support an Arcane Harmony build. Sunfury has Glorious Incandescence, Spellslinger has Spellfrost Teachings, and both have Arcane Orb and Touch of the Magi.

To me, the only thing Time Loop and High Voltage accomplish is making Arcane Harmony worse, which is counterintuitive to the fact that they are required for pathing to even get to Arcane Harmony. This is overcooked. There is only one talent that already exists in the tree that I can envision between Arcane Debilitation and Arcane Harmony, and that talent is Aether Attunement. You got it right weeks ago.

This issue exists for a couple of other nodes as well where I have to pick something that feels bad or meaningless in order to access the effect I actually care about. Examples:

To get Resonance, I have to pick either Dematerialize or Big Brained.
To get Prodigious Savant/Leysight/Leydrinker, I have to pick either Crackling Energy, Static Cloud, or Resonant Orbs
To get Aether Attunement, I have to pick Enlightened.
To get Siphon Storm, I have to pick either Reverberate or Arcane Familiar.

There is no rhyme or reason to these restrictions, and they force us to pick a bunch of nodes we do not want to access the nodes we do want. I think Arcane still requires a significant node reshuffling.

My feedback on unnecessary tax nodes remains the same as before and has only been exacerbated with the additional bloat. All of these nodes can be removed and it would improve the quality of the tree instantly:

Crackling Energy
Improved Arcane Missiles
Concentrated Power
Improved Touch of the Magi
The second point in both Prodigious Savant and Arcane Debilitation
Big Brained and/or Dematerialize
Time Loop and/or High Voltage
Resonant Orbs

As it stands, none of these nodes feels good to pick.

Unsorted Comments:

Aether Attunement still does not increase the damage of Arcane Missiles against neither the primary or the secondary targets.
Splinterstorms are still bugged and will begin to periodically occur regardless of the active number of splinters.

Imipenems-area-52 · June 26, 2024, 1:55pm

Casual mage here. I love arcane, the aesthetic and the feel and want to play it. My problem with it in DF was how complicated the rotation felt (apologies to any legit mages if this is off base). I really enjoyed the previous version on the beta but this version just seems too complicated (re talent selection and overload of choices). As others have stated some of these talents can be made baseline and others baked into each other. Lastly as a shameless plug, siphon storm just seems too powerful to be left out of any build but there are other more “fun” talents I’d rather take (harmony, spark, attunement). With it being two points and out of the way of these other talents it feels like I will have to chose the more powerful option just to stay viable in keys. I really appreciate the iterative thinking but I feel like we’ve taken a couple steps back. Again apologies to any legit mages out there if I’m wildly off base.

Also, I love the idea of a “missile build” with talents buffing that line of thought and love spamming missiles into a buffed barrage. I agree with others in the sense that we already have enough charges so while High Voltage is interesting in theory, we could move aether attunement to its spot and get rid of it [to be specific get rid of High Voltage], in the name of simplifying the tree.

Borales-stormrage · June 26, 2024, 2:22pm

Magi’s Spark has a gorgeous if not the best arcane animation and it feels terrible that it’s been made a capstone that’s likely not going to be competitive in M+.

Please move it back to an earlier node, impressive class/spec visuals should be easily accessible as they enhance the play experience far more than any boring bland passive does.

The new arcane familiar just looks worse than the original one. I get you were going for the Medivh crow theme, but this holographic, very small transluscent bird looks cheap and dated.

The previous arcane familiar looked like it was made of arcane energy. This one is lacking the energy palette and instead looks like some random toy you’d summon from the toybox.

Ad for Sunfury Arcane, the visuals for the Phoenix are entirely fire focused, and this makes me not like the hero talent for arcane. For arcane, we should be getting purple/blue/magenta motifs even if you have to fix them with some fire.

So far, it’s only fire spells. I far prefer spellslinger for this reason.

The bird also looks really dumb just flapping its wings while standing on the ground. It should be hovering and casting the spells while hovering.

I’ll say it again, these spellfire orbs are so much worse than the Felo’melorn fire artifact orbs. They’re static, they don’t orbit or are dynamic around the mage, and have worse visuals.

Please give us our gorgeous Felo’melorn orbs back even if it’s as a glyph.

Nicodemùs-stormrage · June 26, 2024, 2:23pm

Feedback for Arcane:

Slipstream and Impetus should swap positions.
Crackling Energy, Improved Arcane Missiles, and Resonant Orbs should be removed.
Arcing Cleave should be baseline and Mana Adept moved to it’s place.
Siphon Storm should be removed.

For Hero Talents of all classes & specs:

Any hero talent that requires another talent to be chosen (even the initial one where the whole tree focuses on another talent like Archon) should have alternative options that don’t require specific talents. Being pigeonholed into selecting talents we don’t want/enjoy sucks.

Kuni-ghostlands · June 26, 2024, 3:21pm

Frostfire Empowerment’s AoE burst probably shouldn’t be allowed to crit again itself. It’s already gaining the increase from the FFB itself critting.

Kuni-ghostlands · June 26, 2024, 3:29pm

Also was there any particular reason for dropping SPELL_AURA_REMOVED_DOSE from Mirror Image’s DR? Can we get the damn thing visible to the player? It’s made auras to track this extremely stupid.

Thëodorus-sargeras · June 26, 2024, 4:01pm

Agreed. As for Siphon Storm, its removal is imperative, now more than ever before. It is utterly stifling build diversity because of its sheer power and, equally important, it is completely antithetical to Evocation’s inherent identity and purpose. Why should we be incentivised to cast a spell that restores mana at full mana? This makes zero sense. Evocation itself should be baseline and Siphon Storm (if not removed altogether) should be replaced with something to this effect: Evocation’s cast time is reduced by X seconds, now triggers an explosion, dealing X damage, after fully channeling, and grants X% increased Intellect based on the AMOUNT of mana RESTORED (all with the appropriate tuning). This way the spell would be used at the end of the Burn phase and grant extra power (but not excessive) to the Conserve Phase, so that Evocation’s true identity is maintained. It would also be another useful AoE tool. The talent would be nice to have, but not required.

Chewydots-tichondrius · June 26, 2024, 4:07pm

Hi team, just a quick one:

I love the new change of Clearcasting for Arcane where you need a proc to cast Arcane Missiles. I think a similar trigger should be implemented for Pyroblast for Fire when you have a Sun King’s Blessing or Hot Streak proc active. This would completely remove the need to strafe/jump to avoid hard casting Pyroblasts. Would make the gameplay much better, without any negative impact (the only time you really want to hard cast Pyro outside of SKB is pre-pull in PvE).

Thanks!