Feedback: Mages

In Development The War Within Beta Test
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Further Arcane feedback:

Spec Tree
The moving of talents has made it feel better. I do like that familiar is mandatory, as the bird is cool and even if it’s not the most interactive talent. If we weren’t forced to take it would be up to tuning see if would ever really warrant picking it up. I would miss having such a cool little guy if we were forced to drop it so I do like this change

Having POM back is also nice, but I do think it would still be better as a learned talent. The only reason we’d take it is because it’s mandatory pathing for siphon storm, as it’s not a big enough QOL talent to take if we had to path out of the way to get to it. Aspect of the Eagle was made baseline for hunter, I do think POM could be done the same for arcane.

Arcane cleave still taking a talent point is odd, especially in gate 1. Currently in most M+ builds you end up forgoing a capstone talent point for an additional gate 1 node, which does not feel good. I do think having the nodes go Cleave → Resonance → Orb → orb barrage would be more reasonable. Again, I think making Arcane Cleave baseline would be much better, I don’t really understand why we need 3 talent points to make barrage work.

Improved Arcane Missles and Craclking Energy are also lack luster talents, but pretty strong regardless. IAM is also just worse than Eureka, and doesn’t really have a reason to be there since we can only cast AM with clear casting, and Eureka also buffs explosion. I hope that these are replaced with the new talents as noted in the patch notes, and just baked in and have base spells buffed/nerfed accordingly

Leydrinker is better, but still low damage and a proc off of a proc. It doesn’t feel great to play with or around in AOE or single target. I do think this is a cool idea, but needs to be better to be worth the point investment.

Charged orb is such a good QOL talent that I do think it should be higher up if possible. I do think that with the recent SF and SS changes that this not as necessary however, as we’ll still end up taking it regardless in AOE, but it isn’t mandatory now in ST.

Spellslinger
I love the Spellfrost Teaching change in ST. It looks cool and feels nice. In AOE it’s good. You end up munching procs, but the orb damage is quite high the splinters are worth it. My only wonder is if this could be targeted AT the mob being hit rather than based on current facing. Having no control over when this goes off could make accidental pulling common in dungeons. I do not know if this would be possible with how the spell is coded though, but it would be a nice quality of life feature.

Sunfury
I do really like the changes, and having orbs based on Blast/Barrage makes orb generation in AOE and ST much better, and makes arcane soul better as well. The Glorious Incandescence and Burden of Power feedback loop is also nice. I do not miss the CDR on arcane with how it is procced now.

Phoenix doesn’t really feel that impactful however, and I would love to see it’s power tuned up, even if the base power of the hero talent tree may be tuned down. I know that would make it more burst forward and reliant on CDs, but for how cool the Phoenix is I feel it I should notice it more in the meters and on mobs.

Bugs
-Arcane Orb does not generate 4 splinters each time. Sometimes it only grants 2
-Splinterstorm can randomly trigger regardless of the amount of shards, with or without other SS mages around
-Aether Attunement is not increasing missile damage to the primary target
-With 1 stack of Arcane Debilitation, the debuff on enemies reads as 0% all the time. This may just be a nameplate error and it is working, but with default nameplates I can’t tell.
-I don’t know if I’d consider this a bug, but spellqueing with any modifiers like NP or burden of power is going to make arcane a bit more complicated to min/max. You can queue an arcane barrage at the end of an arcane blast to have them both benefit from the buff. This isn’t the most intuitive, and although I think can lead to some interesting gameplay, if the goal of the rework was to help simplify arcane I wonder if this would need to be addressed. This has been present since SL however, and was part of Kyrian Arcane’s rotation for a while, so I wouldn’t mind it sticking around.

TLDR: better, but spec tree feels tight and some nodes are bland. Hero talents way better.

1 Like
210

Just a friendly request.

Can we get some sort of recognition or explanation as to why we dont get the choice as fire mages to get more consistent damage through talent choices? Sometimes, in certain fights, it would be great to have a bit more level dmg profile.

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Some additional feedback about Frostfire:

  • Excess Fire for Frost is also activated by Fire Blast. Likely oversight, but maybe could be kept.
  • I understand that not all players want to use Fire Blast even when playing Frostfire as Frost and agree that its main niche should be stacking Fire Mastery when needed. However, currently using it is a dps loss even with Fire Mastery stack taken into account and that should not be the case for a spec that literally combines Fire and Frost spells. As such, its damage and maybe even CD should still be buffed and tuned to the level that you could use it 1-2 times per Mastery rotation to stack Fire Mastery to full if needed and not lose throughput, but not using it if you had good RNG and already stacked Fire Mastery to full is also acceptable. For example, its damage could be buffed to the level of Fire’s Fire Blast (without being guaranteed crit and off-GCD) - that would likely make it a dps increase / neutral to use if it provides a Fire Mastery stack and not if it doesn’t, which fits that design. If that damage won’t be enough, it can be increased more to needed level.
  • I also agree with earlier posters - Frostfire Bolt mechanics need work, it currently travels faster than Frostbolt (so you would need to adjust to different shatter timings for it and Frostbolt when playing Spellslinger and some combos don’t work as effectively) and snapshots effect when cast, preventing it from being affected by some shatters. All of that should be addressed and it should have similar travel speed and snapshot mechanism to Frostbolt.
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Disagreeing with multiple points as they continue to be raised by others in this thread. Under no circumstances do I want to be casting Fire Blast in my rotation as a Frostfire Frost Mage. Nor do I want an active-on use Spinterstorm button. Nor do I want the replication of the Deathborne playstyle in the Frost tree.

Fire Blast is incredibly disruptive to Frost’s rotation, has no interaction with Frost’s base spec mechanics, and would add completely unnecessary button bloat. Frostfire should be tuned to function perfectly fine without needing Fire Blast ever at all and if it’s not then the Hero talents need to be tuned accordingly. Similarly, given the frequency that Splinterstorm occurs during IV it would be near-impossible to effectively use as an active-on use ability and worsen cognitive load and add button bloat for no reason.

The Deathborne playstyle is a product of its SL time where IV had near 2 minutes uptime, all active spells (GS, RoF, and CmS) were dead talents, and the playstyle put Frost in a very degenerate place. Frost has been intentionally designed away from that in order to be in a much healthier place, and it is just not possible to replicate that prior feeling of pumping out uber fast strong Frostbolts for extended periods of time without completely devaluing and contradicting the rework in 10.1.5. Deathborne needs to be let go.

14 Likes
213

I think people should read feedback from others more carefully before making assumptions.

  • Fire Blast suggestion does not require making it mandatory in a rotation - it just makes it not be a dps loss to use to gain a stack of Fire Mastery or stack Fire Mastery to full (like intended).
  • Active Splinterstorm is suggested as a choice node with passive Splinterstorm, so that people who don’t want to manage it (like poster above) can play passive option and people who want to manage it can play an active option.
  • I kinda agree that Deathborne playstyle might be outdated in TWW though and could use tweaks or redesign.
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Sun kings blessing gives an incredibly flat damage profile

Unleashed inferno gives a burst profile.

If tuned well and balanced continuously as the expansion progresses the choice is in the tree already.

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Disagree. Even with sun kings blessing, outside of combustion your still spamming firebolt and your dmg profile plummets.

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Arcane and Sunfury feedback:

  • Currently Siphon Storm is pretty much a mandatory talent, which requires another talent, Evocation. Evoction is gated behind Presence of Mind, a niche utility talent that in many situation just adds another button to arcane mage’s already crowded action bars.
    Presence of Mind itself is gated behind Impetus, and Impetus behind Arcane Familiar.
    This means that every build will have to dump a lot of talent points on talents it doesn’t necessarily need/want just to get to Evo&SS.

  • Please make Arcing Cleave baseline. Arcane’s spec tree is already constrained as it is.

  • Mana Adept was not a powerful talent, and therefore almost never picked.
    So why was it actually nerfed instead of buffed?
    Please consider buffing it to 8%-10% instead of the nerf.

  • There’s a huge dissonance between the ST and AoE rotations. In ST you quickly build to and stay at 4 arcane charges for as long as possible, arcane blasting a lot. And only cast Arcange Barrage when Arcane Harmony stacks to 20.
    In AoE on the other hand you build to 4 arcane charges and immediately cast Arcane Barrage, with the rotation centering around casting as many of these 4-charges barrages as you can.

  • Spellfire spheres for Arcane: Currently you generate those spheres by casting either Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage 6 times. The issue is that in single target you will get a sphere after 6 casts, but in AoE you will need to build arcane charges before casting barrage and thus require more casts. Worse, it incentivizes you to cast Arcane Barrage with less than 4 charges.
    Perhaps make it that instead of requiring 6 Arcane Barrages, it would require 6 Arcane Charges to be consumed. This will still play worse in AoE than in ST, but less so.

  • Lessons on Debilitation is an extremely weak and niche talent. And yet because Gravity Lapse actually nerfs your Supernova, it will still get picked.

1 Like
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Nerf living bomb damage in pvp by 40%

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Gotta say, Frostfire has me pleasantly surprised. I think I might actually play Mage for once.

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Spellslinger feels kind of weird for frost in single target. Or I’m doing something wrong. It’s way better and more fluid for Arcane.

I feel like Frostfire works great for Fire and Frost. Feels fun and the graphics are cool. The only thing I hate with a passion is that new Frostfire Bolt icon lol. I’ll probably create a macro just so I can use the old one

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I cannot emphasize enough that we do not want to be casting frostbolt more. This change could incentivize a playstyle that wants you to cast Frostbolt 10 times than do your normal rotation. This is a rather degenerate style of play and is not desired.

Please reconsider Death’s Chill as a whole and replace it with something not associated with ramping damage. This can only hurt frost’s damage profile.

9 Likes
223

So we’re doubling down on frostbolt being more powerful, despite the feedback that we don’t want a deathborne-like playstyle. Frostbolt is now essentially a maintenance buff with the Death’s Chill changes. We’re also making frostbolt more powerful during our 2 minute CD. I seriously don’t understand the motivation to do any of this. I can’t imagine how many procs we’re going to waste trying to keep frostbolt up. This philosophy around frost is seriously hurting the spec. I was so impressed with the 10.1.5 changes, and now it seems we’re erasing all of that progress.

12 Likes
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Essentially the only feedback here regarding Death’s Chill, Fractured Frost, and Cold Front has been the need for them to be reworked. To see you double down on the talents is disappointing.

If there is absolutely 0 chance for them to be shifted to a combination of flurry and ice lance, then for this playstyle to not feel horrendous to play Fractured Frost needs to be available in a limited manner outside of Icy Veins.

8 Likes
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I do. And not only Fire Blast, but Scorch too.
Frostfire is about using both Fire and Frost schools, and we barely use a single fire spell as Frostfire Frost…
Like wise, Fire would need more frost spells for the hero spec to work.

If button bloat is an issue for some, this could also be achievable without button bloat by having some spec spells change schools and/or become “frostfirey” as well.

Like having a “Cold Wave” instead of “Scorch” for fire, Fire Lance for frost etc.
Make it an optional talent in the hero tree to appease spec purists.

TBQH Frostfire should be a spec on its own merit, as it kinda once was back in wrath/cata.

And again: this was a missed opportunity to also make the hero tree care about thermal shock, similar to balance druid’s eclipse mechanics, but different enough to not be the same thing.

While I think that was your intent with the mastery buffs, it was kind of a miss since no one wants to track even MORE buffs in the UI.

P.S.: Death’s Chill is degenerate, please rework it.

1 Like
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extremely loud incorrect buzzer noise

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Opinions can’t be right or wrong.
But your disagreement has been noted.

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Death’s Chill

Much about it was already said above but I feel like we need to press on this issue even more now. This talent isn’t interesting, it isn’t healthy and it isn’t wanted. This latest change just made this talent into a chore; pop Icy Veins, cast Frostbolt x10 and then start doing damage.

Adding ramp to our kit is already bad enough, but the overreliance on our filler spell makes it even worse because it forces us to ignore our core mechanic procs and other active skills to get the buff to max stacks as soon as possible. Not to mention it’s just a stronger Slick Ice, making it almost a copy paste talent and we need to path through one right after the other.

Fractured Frost

I was hoping that Fractured Frost would include more spells into its cleave mechanic to make it more interesting, like maybe also making Flurry cleave to 2 additional targets and possibly even increasing the spells affected by Splitting Ice to cleave an additional target. But instead, it just doubled down even more on Frostbolt, which much like Death’s Chill, if this is the optimal choice, it just conflicts with almost the entirety of the spec’s toolkit, prioritizing a filler spell over core procs and pushing other active skills further down the priority list while Icy Veins is active.

These changes aren’t good. Doubling down on Frostbolt spam isn’t healthy for the spec and also not something the majority of your players want to see.

7 Likes
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I agree here. Frostfire feels like it just missed out on that weaving theme.

That can come from two different approaches, though. It can come from active use of our currently available fire abilities, or it can come from more combo triggers that thematically weave spells from both schools within our standard rotation, like with Imbued Warding, Isothermic Core, and Excess Fire/Frost. Both would be best, in the form of choice nodes, but that gets super difficult to manage/balance and it’ll get complicated QUICK.

Speaking of Excess Fire - I kinda dislike that the spell used here is Living Bomb. Figure it would look way cooler if it were Phoenix Flames or something. Iconic Fire mage ability that would pair well with Flurry’s spell effects, especially since it would fly out amongst the flurry particles and all that.

2 Likes
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One thing to keep in mind is whether you have Fractured Frost. In ST, then yes you need to frostbolt 10 times for Death’s Chill. However in AOE, you only need to frostbolt 3-4 times to reach maximum stacks as it increases on each instance of damage. This means you can ramp the aoe fast and then get to flurry/ice lance/AOE rotation. Granted, I only do frostbolt cleave testing in Frostfire as getting the instant cast triple frostbolt that does an AOE explosion is very satisfying