I appears neither Explosive Ingenuity nor Explosivo are correctly increasing the proc rate of lit fuse. Across 84 hot streaks consumed, I only got 8 lit fuse procs for 9.5% rate despite having both talents that should be increasing the proc rate. Then another test, 116 hot streaks produced 12 lit fuses for 10.3%. In total that’s 20 lit fuses in 200 hot streaks matching the base 10% rate.
2 Likes
“I did not expect much and I am still disappointed” (c)
Somehow pretty much all changes made in latest alpha build made Mage specs / hero specs worse and not better. Horrible choice node between Ice Nova and Ring of Frost was not addressed. It does not seem that any feedback posted over last week was addressed either.
Now more constructive feedback (though sometimes it is very hard to be constructive seeing changes like these):
Spellfrost Teachings change - proc rate nerf is understandable, but why also nerf the damage bonus? This talent was already not good for single-target situations especially for Arcane and now it is even worse.
Suggestion: Revert damage nerf and now that chance is 2% it definitely needs some form of bad RNG protection.
Frost Splinters damage reduced by 66% - why such large nerf? These splinters now do comparable / less damage than Icicles with zero Mastery stacked, what is the point of them now? There was already a joke that Splinters tickle enemies and now it is not even a joke.
Mana Addiction change - the incentive behind this nerf can be understood (balancing / shifting power into more active playstyle), but the nerf itself is too large. It now provides so low value that it is not even noticeable, especially outside of Combustion.
Suggestion: Revert the nerf to at least 1% Haste per stack, which would be more noticeable and in line with Frostfire Mastery.
Swapping positions of Arcing Cleave and Charged Orb is not good for multiple reasons - it made Arcane Barrage related talents even more disconnected, it locked a QoL Feature in 3rd part of tree with limited talent points pool, Charged Orb has not enough effect to compete with throughput talents in 3rd part of tree either etc.
Suggestion: Make Arcing Cleave baseline (since it is literally core AoE talent for Arcane akin to Flamestrike for Fire and Blizzard for Frost and both of these are baseline) and return Charged Orb to its old position.
4 Likes
Spellslinger Frost Feedback - again
Bugs
This Hero spec is very difficult to properly test. There are still some breaking bugs and it is not possible to give constructive feedback about the gameplay and flow of the spec due to these.
- Other SS Frost Mages’ are still causing us to generate additional Splinters that we shouldn’t be generating, which is overinflating our true number of Splinters and Splinterstorms.
- Splinterstorm is sometimes triggering without 8 Splinters being active. Once this bug occurs, Splinterstorm will continue to trigger providing at least 1 Splinter exists, so this then puts the Hero spec in a non-stop automatic loop of 1 Splinter > Splinterstorm > 1 Splinter > Splinterstorm, etc. When this occurs it’s impossible to test properly because Winter’s Chill just has near 100% uptime from the non-stop Splinterstorms.
I’m quite surprised that a numbers tuning pass went on Spellslinger Frost to nerf it by a considerable amount when the spec doesn’t even work properly and is generating far more Splinters than it should be because of a bug.
Spellfrost Teachings
The reduction in Frozen Orbs resets being generated cause of Spellfrost Teachings makes sense. Playwise this still feels fine in AoE but doing some ST testing it feels worse where there are more droughts. When this occurs, it feels like nothing is happening at all with Spellslinger and it feels like there’s basically no Hero tree at all.
The Spellfrost Teachings buff that grants +20% Frozen Orb damage. This buff applies to ourselves automatically when Spellfrost Teachings procs, not when we actually cast the Frozen Orb that is automatically reset from this Hero talent. This leads to situations where Spellfrost Teachings is proccing and buffing us either mid-cast (Ray of Frost, Glacial Spike) or during gcds, where the buff is ticking down without us actually having cast the reset Frozen Orb to begin with. We then are losing a significant portion of +20% Frozen Orb damage through no fault of our own. Please adjust this so that the buff applies when we cast the reset Frozen Orb, not when it is actually reset.
Also the fact that there’s no on-screen visual display or button glow to indicate that Spellfrost Teachings has actually procced. We currently need to stare at our buff bar to know when it has procced.
Theme, Fantasy, and Gameplay
The more I play with Spellslinger the worse I feel. The visuals and aesthetics just are not there and the gameplay just is not engaging, and particularly for Frost it is conflicting with the already existing Icicle fantasy.
When we were previously getting lots of Frozen Orb resets from Spellfrost Teachings then the gameplay started to feel different, but the nerf in that now is just making it feel like there’s no Hero spec at all, particularly in ST. This theme is not based on anything in WoW history or Mage lore and just feels completely out of place; basically as if the theme was taken from some other game and just mapped into WoW.
Additionally, when testing in this new build, the damage from all of the Splinter-related talents are leading to around 10% of our total damage distribution. Splinterstorm itself is averaging at 2-3% of our total damage, and for a capstone Hero talent this really feels very underwhelming. The overall damage from the Hero tree talents does not feel impactful and there currently isn’t anything in this Hero tree anymore that causes a noticeable and fun gameplay that changes from the base Frost rotations.
There were very few players in Alpha providing feedback on Spellslinger Frost (and Frost in general) in the official feedback thread. With the vast majority of Alpha feedback being given by only a couple of people primarily only on Fire, I fear the lack of invitations to players who play Frost has caused insufficient feedback being given about the quality of the theme, fantasy, and gameplay of Spellslinger. And because of this I feel that we’re now locked into an underwhelming Hero tree that cannot be changed as it’s too late. I feel let down as a Frost Mage main that I have very little excitement when it comes to Hero talents compared to most other classes.
8 Likes
I’ve appreciated all your feedback. I played my mage mostly as an alt and 90% as arcane, and these tree changes as it stands now for TWW means I won’t play mage.
The tree structure, point costs, dead capstones, terrible pathing, dead/non-choice talents both in main and hero tree, the list goes on. It feels bad to play, bad to spec.
I sincerely hope Blizz listens to you and other skilled/prominent mages from Altered Time, because you are 100% correct in your assessments.
Here’s hoping.
3 Likes
Arcane
Current arcane tree feels so bad when we compare with current DF Arcane which is one of the best arcanes we had so far, during the alpha/beta the tree was already bad but now its 100x worse , the Arcing Cleave change is just so random and unnecessary, its like everything we got from DF it just went directly to the trash and scrapped.
Arcane also feels super boring when compared with Fire/Frost.
Spellslinger ? Fking trash
Sunfury? Dogsht
Why did blizzard do that to arcane ? Things were looking so bright for every mage spec, then sht like this happens and everything turns to sht.
I just hope it isn’t late for changes, because we need GOOD changes and we need them ASAP
6 Likes
Just a quick report on Spellfrost Teaching as Spellslinger Frost:
With the proc chance nerf, now seeing around anywhere between 3 to 5 Frozen Orb resets per Icy Veins window. Unfortunately this has done nothing to address the issues at the extreme where Frozen Orb resets before it can be cast again (such as during Shifting Power) or the extended dry spells outside of IV window. I am still hoping for some kind of mechanic to rein in the extremes a little bit more, as both of these extremes are unfun point of the spec currently.
Firmly disagree. Mana gem is a pretty trash capstone requiring you to have a bagspace item that has to be respawned mid-pull. In addition, Cascading Power (the talent below it) was never picked for the entire expansion. In fact, Siphon and Harmonic echo were mandatory all expansion, now it’s just siphon storm (which is still a problem, but at least it’s not 2 things). Lastly, nether tempest is hot garbage, only used to proc arcane echo but it doesn’t even last the full duration of TotM. Also, improved prismatic barrier is now baseline (was unpickable), supernova is now in class tree where it belongs, and chrono-shift and foresight were completely unpickable all expac
Current tree has issues, namely slipstream competing with DPS talent, 2-point nodes for prodigious savant (which I thought blizzard said was supposed to be 1 point?), chrono shift still not being pickable, siphon storm being locked in and arcane harmony not starting raid boss fights/dungeons with 20 stacks.
Comparing DF tree with mana gem to beta tree and saying it’s worse is lunacy brought straight out of mage discord (and is likely why it is not being listened to).
Spellslinger is one of the most fun I’ve had with any classes, on par with templar ret pally, mountain thane prot and colossus arms war (god does pressing 10 stack demolish after warbreaker feel good)
The worst part about the recent nerfs was the orb reset for arcane. I suspect this was put in to match frost’s reset, but frost has a bug where other mages consuming Winter’s chill cause you to spawn splinters (which I think is why they got their splinters nerfed).
SS arc currently feels very nice, especially in dungeons. My only hope is that they revert the 2% nerf back to 3%, but that’s just me.
All this to say: I disagree with you; SS arcane is not trash; it feels amazing and I look forward to playing it in TWW
4 Likes
You are very rude and disrespectful in how you communicate to people here.
He said the tree was the best Arcane has had and he’s absolutely correct. Mana Gem sucked, yes, no one argued it was a good talent. However, the tree as a whole is a huge part of Arcane’s success this expansion, the ability to get single target optimizations and AOE/cleave without massive tradeoffs is why Arcane was the first pick among Mage specs for raid progression.
Please stop talking down to people in your feedback.
9 Likes
Agreed … the tree was a huge improvements.
The concern I have about the new tree coming in TWW is you have a clear build for ST but an aoe/key build for me (not a theorycrafter or top tier player who can figure out best builds) is the aoe talents are scattered and positioned throughout the tree so I can’t get a sense of what a key build would look like atm.
I saw a blue post that arcing cleave and charged orb were getting new positions but it’s not reflected in the talent calculator yet last I checked.
I still hate siphon storm too ( I’m an old Legion arcane mage) and would like to see Evocation go back to a tool for mana management rather than a dps CD.
Is there anywhere to see what people like you (im in the mage discord … I know you know your stuff) have deemed as a likely key build with what we have to work with now cause I can’t seem to cup with a build on beta that gives a good balance of st and aoe while still accessing nodes like orb barrage and aether attunement (which have been the best things to come to arcane for me this expansion).
2 Likes
There are a couple of builds pinned in #war-within channel, but nothing concrete still yet. The positions of Arcing Cleave/Charged Orb are correct on the wowhead calculator now.
2 Likes
Oh awesome I’ll check them out.
I’ll die on my hill about Siphon Storm, tho (lol).
5 Likes
Me too dude; me too
1 Like
One way to fix Siphon Storm’s degenerate gameplay is to simply tie the % in increase to ACTUAL MANA RESTORED WHILE IN COMBAT.
That is, no pre-pull garbage channeling, no channeling while at full mana for a burst, etc. Evocation should serve its intended function of mana restoration.
Even then, it might be too strong for how later in the tree it’s placed.
Instead, it could be turning Evocation into a 2 sec channel, and as it channels it restores an arcane charge up to 4 charges.
2 Likes
If you want Evocation to be used for mana only, just remove Siphon Storm, if you made it count only mana restored, Arcane Mages would just spam Explosion before pull to go out of mana. Even if you found a way around that, we’d just hold Evocation until our next cooldown set to stack cooldowns then and the change you want would likely only serve to make our opener weaker relative to our other burst windows.
I don’t think mana is as interesting as the rest of you thought, Siphon is fine with how Arcane is currently developed. If you made Evocation about mana only again, we might not even pick it as a talent. Arcane is not a spec based on mana, we’re a spec based on cooldowns, that’s why Evocation felt unimportant for years until Siphon Storm was added. Going back to Legion/BFA, you just used Evocation as soon as possible after going out of mana, it wasn’t interesting or dynamic.
For what it’s worth, I think Siphon is boring too, I just don’t think people are realistic about their interpretation of what Evocation does for us. And I would definitely be fine with potentially not having Evo or Siphon for a season or an expansion, but I would not advocate for Arcane’s damage profile to be flatter, burst is our only potential edge agains’t Fire and Frost in competitive content.
4 Likes
I don’t strictly think it’s about mana. I just think a long channel that wastes half the spell’s supposed case use just for a stat boost is annoying gameplay. The less ramp up and jumping through hoops the spec has to do to spit out burst and sustained damage, the better it will be for most practical settings, especially M+
4 Likes
Have you played dungeons on Beta? I do not think Evocation is a source of that issue anymore with Radiant Spark and Nether Tempest removed. If anything, our setup feels very, very light at the moment, which is a great thing. I think a much bigger issue for M+ (or raid cleave) situations is how bloated our talent tree is and how dysfunctional the layout and positioning of things are. Creating builds that focus single target or AOE isn’t hard, but hybrid builds that balance the two are completely screwed when compared to Fire and Frost who both have cleave/AOE built into their kits. Fire gets Flamestrike and Ignite baseline, Frost gets Frozen Orb baseline and has very easy and undenied access to cleave/AOE talents. Meanwhile, Arcane has to spec Arcing Cleave by not taking a capstone talent most likely - this is absolutely absurd to me.
11 Likes
Agreed, I won’t dispute any of these. Addressing these pain points for arcane would be great.
2 Likes
No I get what your saying … like I said, it’s just been really hard for an old man like me to get used to it as a DPS CD. That being said, my main concern about it in DF was how it added to the insane ramp up time. Now that the ramp is reduced, it may not be something that sticks in my craw.
What you’re saying about mana though has me curious: I see in the build on Altered Time Discord that Siphon Storm is recommended and taking both familiar and the mana restore from barrage (old Legendary Kilt effect) aren’t in that build. I haven’t been able to play too much on beta so far but this implies that mana isn’t an issue and no mechanic for extra mana or mana return is needed? Interesting …
I’m probably messing something up somewhere then because I’m running OOM before I get Evo back up. Unless I need to treat mini-burn as more of a “conserve-phase” style mini burn where after the 4 blasts I immediately dump charges and rebuild. but either way ST I am definitely having mana issues.
Frostfire Feedback
Imbued Warding / Meltdown
- Imbued Warding
– Very good talent that borrows from Triune Ward back in Shadowlands. I honestly thought Triune Ward was going to come back in some form in Dragonflight due to being the prime representation of mixing all 3 specs’ spells into one, but Imbued Warding is a good enough compromise. I’m kind of disappointed it got excluded from Mass Barrier though, both from buffing the group and from buffing the caster. - Meltdown
– I think this talent is incredibly weak both because it has very little use and the extra barrier after a major cooldown isn’t very relevant and also because it competes with Imbued Warding. Any chances to make this one better?
Elemental Affinity / Flame and Frost
- Elemental Affinity
– This basically only reduces the cooldown of Dragon’s Breath and Blast Wave for Frost and Ice Floes for Fire. Everything else is of very little consequence that won’t likely even be noticed much. The fantasy that this talent would allow for Frost to mix in more Fire spells and vice versa doesn’t really pan out well. - Flame and Frost
– Now this one is pretty bad. The fact that this talent is even here is bad. Wasting a 5min cooldown to reset what? Dragon’s Breath, Blast Wave and Fire Blast? And a 5min cooldown cheat death for Ice Floes, Ring of Frost, Cone of Cold and Frost Nova? It really doesn’t make any sense so please completely redesign or even remove it.
Isothermic Core
Firstly, I love this talent and the idea to call down its counterpart from the other spec, but I feel like it has a few disparities between specs.
-
Frost
– It calls down a Meteor that only deals one instance of direct damage, thus generating a single stack of Fire Mastery in single target. It seems to generate extra charges in AoE due to hitting more targets, but in single target specifically, and when weaving in Glacial Spike and Ray of Frost, sometimes Fire Mastery stacks fall off. I would like to ask to either make the masteries last a bit longer or let Meteor generate more Fire stacks either through direct damage or by the flame patch it leaves on the ground.
– Another thing is that Comet Storm deals 150% damage for the Fire specialization. I would like to ask for Meteor do deal similar damage for Frost for them to be more comparable. -
Fire
– Similar to what was mentioned above, but since Comet Storm calls down 7 comets, it generates 7 stacks of Frost mastery and deals 150% more damage. I’m just reiterating this to ask for the same treatment for Meteor, especially in single target. -
Fire Mastery
– The Living Bomb does very little damage for Frost compared to Fire due to talents that improve it. Maybe buff it a bit for Frost? The extra Brain Freeze is pretty good, but the Living Bomb damage really is lacking.
Bugs
For some reason, Fire Blast consumes Fire Mastery for Frost Mages.
Other than the things I mentioned above, everything else feels pretty good. It is procs galore with Frostfire specialization and it took me some time to get used to it but it’s definitely a lot of fun.
1 Like