Feedback: Mages

In Development The War Within Beta Test
167

On behalf of a frosty friend.

Hero Trees

Frostfire

I like the Frostfire visuals much more than Spellslinger. The gameplay leaves something to be desired, though.

First of all, the Fire Mastery is sometimes hard to fully stack, especially with active talents. Frostfire Infusion can get you pretty close even when not casting Frostfire Bolt that much, but seeing 6-7 Fire Mastery stacks expire happens quite often and is pretty frustrating. Forcing Frostfire Bolts into the rotation when I have other, more interesting stuff to do feels pretty awful. Living Bomb triggering Fire Mastery is neat, but because it requires fully stacking Fire Mastery beforehand, it is often an overkill. Honestly, a lot of the time I wish fully stacking Frost Mastery gave me a fire spell to help finish my Fire Mastery stacks instead of yet another frost spell.

The passives tied to fully stacking your mastery feel fine. More Brain Freeze procs is definitely noticeable, the Comet Storm cooldown reduction less so. However, I dislike the instant Frostfire Bolt from Frostfire Empowerment; it tends to break the flow of the rotation. It’s better in AoE where you don’t cast Frostfire Bolt a lot and the proc is something you get to actively choose; in single target situations it just kinda happens without my input.

Spellslinger

Spellslinger visuals are fairly disappointing, especially as Frost. The splinters aren’t visually distinct enough from Icicles; they just look like a second row of Icicles. Splinterstorm is hard to tell apart from a bunch of splinters generated during Icy Veins. However, I like the gameplay more than Frostfire.

It should be noted that providing proper feedback is quite hard because of the current Spellslinger bugs: splinters generated by other mages, Splinterstorm sometimes triggering with 1-2 splinters, splinters from Frozen Orb and Shifting Power hitting random targets I’m not in combat with.

I really like Spellfrost Teachings. The proc feels powerful and I actually get a choice in using it. It definitely needs some indicator (even if it’s just a glowing button).

Controlled Instincts just outright not working between Blizzards feels awful. It happens quite often due to the delays and spell travel times. I think it should linger around for a couple of seconds like the arcane version does, giving you some time to recast Blizzard.

Splinterstorm is really annoying to take advantage of as Frost. Winter’s Chill from Flurry works great because it’s easily predicable, which cannot be said for Splinterstorm. Due to the various delays and differing travel times, you’re not sure how many stacks you’ll have to operate with since one or both stacks might be consumed by spells already in flight when Splinterstorm hits.

Class Tree

The removal of Temporal Warp was a good change. I’m not a big fan of Time Anomaly, though it will feel less awful with a Brain Freeze proc instead of Fingers of Frost (once the bug with missing cooldown reset is fixed). Inspired Intellect is fairly boring, but I’d take it over Time Anomaly if it wasn’t so undertuned.

Moving Ice Nova and Ring of Frost into a single choice node is an awful change. Frost already struggles with utility compared to Fire and Arcane (Cold Snap and slightly larger barrier are very situational compared to Cauterize and Improved Prismatic Barrier) and now we’re forced to pick between a core AoE spell or additional utility, whereas the other specs can just pick the utility without any real downside.

Spec Tree

I don’t think it’s controversial to state that the spec tree is just bad. Frost currently has the lowest number of unique spec talents among all specs. The tree barely offers any choice, since many of the talents are just straight up either required or extremely situational. Let me quickly go over the main pain points:

High Point Investment

Leveling another mage during Remix showed me how bad the start of the Frost tree is. Frost has a bunch of talents that basically don’t do anything unless you pick 1-3 other talents. The first time you get Flurry, the spell is almost useless. You need to pick at least Shatter and Brain Freeze (but realistically also Perpetual Winter) before the spell starts feeling fine. Ice Lance is mostly useless without also picking Fingers of Frost. Blizzard is a worse Arcane Explosion until you pick Ice Caller, etc.

I’m quite surprised Fingers of Frost and Shatter are even in the spec tree, given the recent trend of making key passives (like Clearcasting, Hot Streak or Fuel the Fire) baseline.

Lack of Choice

The first 19 talent points are more or less locked. The second tier has really expensive pathing to unlock two key talents: Icy Veins and Splitting Ice. This doesn’t leave a ton points to spend freely before moving to the third tier. The problem is especially bad because the second tier contains many extremely situational talents (Deep Shatter, Snowstorm, Subzero). In the first 20 talent points, the only real choice you make is Ice Caller vs Frozen Touch.

The situation isn’t much better in the third tier. The addition of Death’s Chill (which I have some issues with, see below) was meant to create an alternative to Glacial Spike. But as it stands, two of the five capstones are only useful in AoE, so you’ll always pick the remaining three in single target and cleave. Our only choice node also doesn’t really offer any choice because Splintering Ray would be hard to justify even with 100% cleave.

Death’s Chill

Deathborne making a return is quite surprising. The Frostbolt spam rotation that it enabled at the end of Shadowlands wasn’t exactly well received. The talent (and its partners Fractured Frost and Cold Front) have two major issues.

Firstly, Icy Veins is currently quite busy (which, to be clear, is a good thing) and doesn’t leave a ton of room for Frostbolt. This is especially apparent in AoE where you might cast a couple of Frostbolts over the entire Icy Veins, making Fractured Frost (which only works during Icy Veins) a dead talent. In the best case scenario, you get a slight benefit from them every now and then and that’s about it. In the worst case scenario, Frostbolt pushes out other, more interesting spells from the rotation.

Secondly, these talents are trying to turn a filler spell into a payoff spell, which creates tension with existing payoff spells. Deciding when to ignore procs and cast Frostbolt instead honestly isn’t a fun choice to me. I cast Frostbolt to enable other, more exciting spells. It doesn’t need to be more than that. The alternative to Glacial Spike shouldn’t be juiced up filler spell that kinda does it all (cleaves, does AoE, buffs you) when there are existing payoff spells to consider.

9 Likes
168
  • Heat shimmer is proccing way too much in st. It allows a ridiculous uptime on improved scorch leading to a new maintenance buff.
  • lit fuse proc rates are broken for talents that increase above 10% baseline.
  • fire meteors no longer providing cooldown reduction on fireblast
169

Regarding Sunfury
I will admit that it feels fantastic pressing combustion. The recent nerfs are a little heavy-handed, however.

Regarding Fire Mage
Fire Mage suffers from a problem present in Dragonflight and is STILL present in TWW: Our spells feel EXTREMELY weak outside of combustion windows, especially in lower content. Flamestrike really is just not a fun button to press - it just does not hit hard enough, even if one goes all in on a Flamestrike build.

1 Like
170

Can we please revert the change that turned Supernova and Dragon’s Breath into a choice node? Gravity Lapse is such an iconic spell that really reinforces Sunfury’s Kael’thas fantasy, I don’t see why it couldn’t continue to replace Blast Wave instead of Supernova. I do not like having to choose between Gravity Lapse and Alexstrasza’s Fury. I don’t even like Supernova, so it feels bad to take it just so I can replace it with Gravity Lapse while losing access to Dragon’s Breath in the process.

6 Likes
171

Living bomb ignite not working still. Also living bomb nerf is really bad for sunfury AOE. Should have instead nerfed living bomb granted from excess fire.

Unleashed inferno doesn’t buff living bomb, while all combust procs give frostfire empowerment → excess fire → living bomb, making any living bomb nerfs extra harsh for sunfury.

Playing flamestrike still sucks - mouse pointer locked to a point on the screen. Please consider making it a targeted ability

4 Likes
172

Figured i’d drop my list of bugs i’ve encountered so far. Might include some interactions that arn’t bugs, but feel weird they work how they do.

BUGS:
Flame Accelerant is consumed by Hyperthermia instant pyros
Living Bomb doesnt apply ignite (so Mark of the Firelord is useless on ST)
Frostfire bolt benefits from, but does not consume Flame Accelerant
Living bomb seems to be proccing despite not having Lit Fuse active.
Meteorites from sunfury as of the build today 6/18/2024 are not giving Fireblast CDR like the tooltip says it should.
The tooltip of Frostfire Empowerment buff itself is entirely different than the tooltip inside the Frostfire talent tree
A single meteor cast gives you full Frost Mastery and Fire mastery for Frostfire, despite being 1 cast.

Sure there’s more, but that’s what i’ve encountered personally so far.

1 Like
173

Having had the opportunity to test the new changes to Arcane (thank you for your continued effort - it is very much appreciated), the pathing is certainly a lot better, but there are still problems (I know Blizz indicated in its patch notes for today that some new talent nodes for the Arcane tree did not make it into this build, so I eagerly look forward to seeing those):

General Observations (Talents and Abilities) - in no particular order

1.) as has been repeatedly stated since the opening days of DF, there is simply no reason why Arcane Barrage’s basic functionality should be split into several different talents. It takes up a few much needed points and forces one to pass over far more interesting options. If nothing else, then at least make Arcing Cleave baseline.

2.) similarly, as has likewise been pointed out time and again, Improved Arcane Missiles and Crackling should NOT be talents. They, too, unnecessarily tie us down in talent selection, and serve no broader purpose.

3.) Arcane Debilitation continues to suffer from RNG issues, because Arcane Missiles (even with the bug fix to Clearcasting procs from Arcane Missiles themselves, etc.) do not proc as often as before. The debuff itself also falls off too quickly, further reducing its value. I do like that I am no longer compelled to select this talent to proceed further down the tree, however.

4.) Prodigious Savant is no longer a required selection to keep going down the tree, but it does bar our way to Leydrinker, which has received a major buff and is now (almost, see below) capstone worthy. This is not necessarily a problem in itself; rather, the issue is that Prodigious Savant is inherently weak and boring. It really ought to be replaced with something else; it strikes me more as filler than a true talent, the surest sign that it should either be made baseline or removed (and replaced) altogether.

5.) as numerous others above have called attention to, the Arcane tree is still bloated with utility nodes that do not belong there, i.e., Slipstream and Chronoshift.

6.) Arcane Explosion is woefully undertuned and does not proc Clearcasting frequently enough. As this has historically been one of Arcane’s most powerful and useful AoE tools, it feels so wrong to try and avoid it in the rotation on account of very low damage. It urgently requires a buff.

7.) Surging Urge seems underpowered and, because it is also tied to a longer CD, it does not compete well with several other more consistent DPS options. I love the idea of this talent - it just needs to be buffed and, perhaps, offer additional benefit outside Arcane Surge casts.

8.) Evocation should be baseline or placed further up in the tree. It is more difficult to pick this talent with the latest talent position rearrangement, especially when constructing AoE builds. Evocation is foundational to Arcane and a very useful tool - not being able to select it in many cases feels bad.

Capstones

1.) As much as I disapprove of Arcane Harmony, I suppose it can stay. However, as was mentioned in today’s patch notes, I avidly hope that one of the yet unimplemented talent nodes is a choice node with Arcane Harmony.

2.) While I am fine with Magi’s Spark and Nether Munitions being on a choice node, both are still underpowered. Now, Magi’s Spark received a huge buff this week, but I fear it is still not enough, as it registers low damage overall in my dungeon experience so far (its other issues include sometimes failing to activate it before mobs die and its (usually) 45-sec CD). For a capstone this is not ideal. The solution, though, is simple: continue to buff it until the numbers are right and possess the power becoming of a capstone. I really love Magi’s Spark’s addition to the game and do not want to see it removed under any circumstances. Nether Munitions, despite being buffed by 2%, is just too weak, not to mention as dry as it gets. Please reconsider this talent by coming up with something both much more creative and powerful. Leydrinker received a needed buff and is now in a OK, but still unsatisfactory, state. I strongly recommend increasing the proc rate once more. Additionally, I do hope that one of the unspecified extra talent nodes will be a choice node with Leydrinker, as the latter is comparatively feeble in single target.

Dead Talents

The following are at risk of either very rarely or never being selected:

  • Arcane Tempo
  • Chronoshift
  • Concentration
  • Nether Munitions (quite possibly)

These really need buffs or redesigns as soon as possible (in the case of Chronoshift, it should be baseline, in my opinion).

Bugs

  • Aether Attunement still does not deal extra damage either to its primary or its secondary targets.
  • If only one point in Arcane Debilitation is selected, the debuff, no matter how high the stacks, reads “0% [increased damage]” and may not actually be functional at all.
3 Likes
174

New build new Frost feedback.

  • I like Permafrost Lances. Straight up, good talent, synergizes with the rest of the tree, very happy.

  • Tier set change is nice. Frigid Pulse is one of those things I would like to see in the tree at some point in the future, much like the DF S3/4 exploding Glacial Spikes.

  • Fixed Splinter gen off other mages, but I see you haven’t pinned down the lowering threshold for a Storm. Hopefully you can find that soon.

  • Temporal Anomaly seems to just not be granting Brain Freeze at all now. Has it been removed from possibilities, and if it has, can we get the Water Ele/Frigid Empowerment added to the IV proc instead to shore it up?

  • Temporal Anomaly is granting Frostfire Empowerment but not the 8 Splinters from an IV activation. Would like some consistency.

  • Elemental Affinity is lowering the cooldown of shared class spells of the wrong element. Frost is getting CDR on Ice Floes, Frost Nova, Ice Nova, and Cone of Cold. Notably, Cone of Cold while talented into Coldest Snap drops to 32 seconds.

Looks to be the start of a good direction. I’m hoping we have some Frost talent love in the near future for reasons mentioned many times in this thread.

7 Likes
175

New bug: Controlled Instincts is proccing for Frost from Arcane’s Orb debuff.

That said, can we get Controlled Instincts stuck on Frozen Orb as well, both for thematics and so we have a duration that isn’t reverse haste scaled?

2 Likes
176

Another build and still nothing to address the problem with Frosts new talent Deaths Chill. This talent is very problematic in a number of ways.

First the talent works against hero talents. As to build the stacks up you will have to spam frost bolt. Which means you will actively be ignoring all other abilities and talents including the hero talents, No brain freezes, No Ice lances, nothing. This mind you is also not interesting gameplay as you will simply be spamming frost bolt for roughly 25 seconds before doing anything else to finish the damage boost.

Second the tier pieces also work against this as they are simply increases to your ice lance damage.

Third if this is the intended idea for the talent, its poorly introduced. Nothing tells the player that they should actively avoid using their rotation and if they arn’t nothing suggests that they should do their rotation either. This is just awful in a design sense because now you are forcing your player to look outside of the game to figure out how to do their rotation instead of things that should be understandable within the game itself.

Ultimately you have a talent that will either A never get used because it works against frosts entire kit, especially the hero talents. Or B its gonna be so marginal in the damage boost because you only get it from filler that it will feel worthless. This has been mentioned multiple times before but as each patch comes out and nothing is address it becomes worrisome that all the feedback is being ignored for frost. And we will see something like 2-3 months after the game is live a change that finally fixes something that was brought up back in alpha.

3 Likes
177

Here is feedback about Frost Mages and Frostfire hero spec in latest build after testing.

Frost changes feedback:

  • Adding Permafrost Lances to Frost tree was a good move - they synergize very well with rest of toolkit. However, now that AoE path to Icy Veins consists of only 1 point talents, single-target path (Lonely Winter + Wintertide) is more expensive and makes you spend an additional talent point compared to AoE builds.
    Suggestion: Reduce Wintertide to 1 point investment (with full current value). That would make it better match the effect (which was already nerfed for Frostbolt and is quite niche for Ice Lance) and make ST and AoE paths to Icy Veins point investment balanced.
  • New tier set is quite good - it is simple yet effective, provides value in both ST and AoE situations and it does address AoE scaling issue mentioned in my Frost feedback post above. Consider adding 4 set bonus as a Frost tree talent in following seasons (when current tier set will be redundant).

Frost tree main unaddressed issues:

  • Ice Nova as a choice node with Ring of Frost feels very bad, as it forces Frost Mages to pick between their rotational ability that is used for additional AoE shatters and their main utility spell.
    Suggestion: Split them and either make Ring of Frost replace one of barely used Frost Nova talents below their node or if you still want Mage CC nerfed for some reason - make it a choice node with Mass Polymorph, which would make much more sense, as their niches and use cases are similar with some different pros and cons.
  • Fractured Frost aka Deathborne talents still lack ways to shatter cleaved Frost(fire) Bolts against CC immune targets that cannot be frozen and lack synergy with Flurry.
    Suggestion: Make Fractured Frost also affect and cleave Flurry - that would solve both these issues simultaneously. In addition Flurry could also be included to trigger Death’s Chill to avoid countersynergy with it.
  • Deathborne builds countersynergize with both Icy Veins extension talents (that trigger only from Ice Lance and Glacial Spike both of which might be not even used during Deathborne phase) and new tier set (since Fingers of Frost procs provide no value for Frost(fire) Bolt and might be not even used during Deathborne phase).
    Suggestions:
  1. Make Fractured Frost additionally cause Frost(fire) Bolt to consume Fingers of Frost procs only while Icy Veins is active to increase its damage by X%.
  2. Make 2 tier set bonus also affect buffed by Fractured Frost Frost(fire) Bolts.
  3. Make 4 tier set bonus also trigger from Frost(fire) Bolts that consumed Fingers of Frost.
  4. Add buffed by Fractured Frost Frost(fire) Bolts to the list of spells that extend Icy Veins via Thermal Void.
  5. To avoid countersynergies with Excess Fire for Frostfire - Excess Fire could also be triggered by buffed by Fractured Frost Frost(fire) Bolts.
    Such changes can make Deathborne builds more competitive, but still should not lead to no-Ice Lance playstyle, as uptime of Deathborne phase would be limited and outside of it Ice Lance should still have higher priority than Frost(fire) Bolt for consuming shatters.
  • There are still several undertuned and overpriced talents in Frost tree that are rarely to never picked and should be addressed. These involve Deep Shatter (should become 1 point investment with full current effect), Subzero (should become 1 point investment with full current effect and provide some value against CC immune enemies too, for example make Glacial Spike and Ice Nova apply 1 stack of Winter’s Chill to such enemies for the duration of their immuned root), Splintering Cold (should become 1 point investment talent and also include Icicles generated by Ice Lance) and Splintering Ray (should be significally buffed or redesigned).

Frostfire changes feedback:

  • Duration increase of Mastery stacks to 14 seconds is decent - it makes stacking opposite school Mastery before timer expires easier and increases uptime of maximum stacks stat bonus.
  • Buff to Frostfire Infusion proc rate definitely helps with stacking Masteries too. However, there is still one unaddressed issue with stacking opposite school Masteries and that is Fire Blast. It still is the only pure damage Fire spell for Frost Mages in PVE and it is severely undertuned - damage done is barely more than a non-shattered Ice Lance and it is likely a dps loss to use despite providing a stack of Fire Mastery.
    Suggestion: Significally buff Fire Blast for Frost and Arcane specs or at the very least for Frostfire (Frost) Mages. That would both match the theme of Frostfire Mages actually utilizing both Fire and Frost spells effectively and help with stacking Fire Mastery, since Fire Blast’s CD can be aligned with each Mastery cycle.

Frostfire main unaddressed issues:

  • Blazing Barrier applied by Imbued Warding and Meltdown is nerfed by 25% in PVP. Since it is provided by a separate hero talent and other defensive hero talents are not nerfed in PVP, it should not be the case.
  • Frostfire Bolt still did not inherit Frostbolt’s PVP modifier, making it both deal less damage in PVP than Frostbolt and also lock 2 schools when interrupted instead of 1, so just strictly worse. That should not be the case for a hero talent that is supposed to upgrade existing spell.
    Suggestion: Make it inherit Frostbolt’s PVP modifier and additionally buff its damage in PVP to account and compensate for double school lockout there (to make risking getting locked on 2 schools when trying to cast it worthwhile).
  • Elemental Affinity for Frost is supposed to affect only Fire spells, but currently also affects many Frost spells - Ice Nova, Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Floes etc.
  • Frostfire Empowerment is supposed to increase damage done by Frostfire Bolt by 100% and make it cleave for 80% of damage according to tooltip, but instead makes it guaranteed to crit and cleave for 100% damage. That both makes its effect confusing and actual effect lose synergy with shatters and Combustion, so actual effect should be brought in line with tooltip. Also when stacked to 2 its buff tooltip states that it would cleave for 200% of damage (when actually still 100%) and should be fixed.
  • Excess Fire Living Bomb was already not powerful enough for Frost and is even more after the general nerf to its damage. Its value should be buffed.
  • Flashfreeze Burn states that Frostfire Empowerment buff provides maximum stacks of Frostfire Mastery and refreshes their duration, but that is done by using its Frostfire Bolt and not via just getting its buff. This tooltip should be clarified to avoid confusion.
2 Likes
178

New MAJOR BUG appeared with the latest build:

  • Meteorites from Sunfury hero tree are not granting any Cooldown Reduction on Fire Blasts or Arcane Orb charges.
2 Likes
179

Frost Mage

  • Frost is suffering from a lack of choice in its talent tree. Too many talent points are incredibly niche (Death’s Chill, Fractured Frost, Cold Front, Frostbite, Subzero, Deep Shatter) to the point they are essentially dead, especially with the tier effect as it is. On top of the fact that the only choice node we have is very undertuned and that we have the lowest number of unique talents in the game.
  • Ice Nova being a choice node with Ring of Frost is incredibly damaging to Frost only, since ring has historically been a very valuable cc tool in m+ strategies and ice nova is a core rotational spell for frost. The effects also arent remotely similar, the only commonality is they’re both frost spells.

I want to echo Kuni’s statements here, our TA IV proc feels very underwhelming, and thats something the water elemental could fix. Giving us a dmg boost in our cd like Arcane and Fire (with UI) get from TA. Having added access to Freeze in AOE would also feel great.

TA granting Frostfire Empowerment feels very good, and is the only synergy Frostfire has with the proc, where Spellslinger still generates double splinters. Would really like TA giving the proc to stay.

4 set issues

I also want to highlight a very real possibility that we take Fractured Frost and Cold Front in ST just to generate more orbs, which is degenerate, and something that arose in the DF beta as a prominent build as well.

  • New 4 set is nice for damage, if a bit boring given there is nothing to play around. It would pair nicely as a choice node with the DF S3 2 set, which also solves the issue of GS desperately needing a capstone. Its been around for 8 years, a talent after it to spice it up would be nice.
  • Would be great if the 4 set procced off any frozen ice lance, FoF only seems a bit weak so far. Would also make it more compatible with spellslinger.
5 Likes
180

Bugs (Arcane Tested only)

  • Splintering Orb (Spellslinger) is currently only firing 2 Splinters (not 4 like the tooltip says)
  • Magi’s Spark (Arcane Spec tree) echo damage (the 100% echo from Arcane Blast, Missiles and Barrage) is currently not working, only the explosion works
  • Splinterstorm is triggering w/ only 2 splinters, as shown here: https://imgur.com/gallery/splinterstorm-bug-BxvmOiJ
  • Aether Attunement is applying when not talented
  • Aether Attunement is refreshing sometimes after being consumed

:eye: Arcane Spec Tree Changes :eye:

I honestly didn’t expect Arcane to get this many changes (and reportedly we have more coming according to the dev notes?) Thanks for looking at our spec, I appreciate it :smiley:

Magi's Spark Buffs and Choice Node w/ Nether Munitions
  • Feedback: I think this is going to favor Magi’s Spark over Nether Munitions given that the damage of Magi’s Spark and its Arcane Blast/Missiles/Barrage echoes would occur during the Touch of the Magi window, as opposed to Nether Munitions happening after Touch blows up. Given the explosion now doing a lot more (which it should, it was kind of underwhelming before), I think this might be the default pick for AoE due to the explosion, and the default pick for ST due to the echoes, but I guess we’ll see. Overall good change.
    • One thought I had was to make the Echo damage of Arcane Blast, Missiles and Barrage instead be stored in the Explosion itself and add to its damage. In single target, this would change anything, but in AoE it wouldn’t feel as bad casting Arcane Blast and Missiles since that damage would get cleaved to other mobs around.
Leydrinker
  • Feedback: First things first: it looks like the change is actually 60% (not 50%; confirmed in testing) and the proc chance is ~20% (not 15%). Secondly, this talent is now a whole lot more powerful, accounting for roughly 3-5% of your damage in ST and likely more in AoE (but can’t test this accurately because M+ is down).
    • One of the problems with this talent is how random it is. Obviously, you want to have this synergize with Arcane Harmony-empowered Arcane Barrages, but it’s so random that you can’t always get it to proc at the right time. I do wish there was a way to guarantee the proc rather than it being RNG. Given that you generally want to spend your Arcane Harmony-empowered Arcane Barrages during Touch of the Magi, I was wondering if you’d be willing to consider changing this talent to the following:
  • Leydrinker (Current Version): Consuming Nether Precision has a 20% chance to make your next Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage echo, repeating its damage at 60% effectiveness to the primary target and up to four nearby enemies.
  • Leydrinker (Suggested Change): Activating your Touch of the Magi causes your next Arcane Barrage to echo, repeating its damage at XXX% effectiveness to the primary target and up to four nearby enemies.
  • Tuning for the echo damage would have to be determined based on testing (if implemented) given that you would get this proc less often than current, but you would almost always get it on the spell you want. I would also allow this to apply to Arcane Barrage rather than Arcane Blast just to solidify the synergy with Arcane Harmony and not risk consuming this with Arcane Blast (similar to Burden of Power’s problem for Sunfury)
Arcane Harmony and Sunfury Changes
  • Feedback: Nothing was changed for this talent, but Sunfury’s Spellfire Orb was changed significantly, which reduced the synergy Sunfury had with this talent. I personally think Arcane Harmony fits thematically a lot more with Sunfury than Spellslinger given the Hero talent feels like an explosive version of Arcane that throws a smaller number of high-power spells (like Arcane Barrage w/ Arcane Harmony). This was further reinforced by Burden of Power and Sunfury Execution further empowering Arcane Barrage (stacking w/ Arcane Harmony). With the change to how the orbs are generated, I would recommend the some version of following changes to Arcane Harmony just to maintain this synergy:
  • Arcane Harmony (Current Version): Each time Arcane Missiles hits an enemy, the damage of your next Arcane Barrage is increased by 5%. This effect stacks up to 20 times. (Max = +100% damage)
  • Arcane Harmony (Suggested Change): Each time Arcane Missiles hits an enemy, it generates 1 stack of Arcane Harmony. Each time Arcane Blast hits an enemy, it generates 4 stacks of Arcane Harmony. Each stack increases the damage of your next Arcane Barrage by 5%. This effect stacks up to 20 times. (Max = +100% damage)
  • The above change is meant to allow Arcane Blast to also interact with Arcane Harmony given how Sunfury might end up in a situation where it may want to Arcane Blast without using Arcane Missiles during it’s cooldown window just to stack Mana Cascade and get another Burden of Power proc to spend on Arcane Barrage.
Chrono-Shift, Improved Arcane Missiles, Crackling Energy and "New Talents"
  • Feedback: I think the above comment is great and welcome. The only concern I have is that we are pretty tight on points. There are many who have complained about the fact that Chrono-Shift isn’t able to be picked, that Improved Arcane Missiles and Crackling Energy feel like obligate talents for DPS w/ little gameplay to offer. My only suggestion would be for you to consider making some of these baseline (especially Chrono-shift please I beg you) and replace those talent spots with whatever you’re cooking up. I would hate for you to create something cool that just isn’t able to be picked because it competes with superior DPS talent nodes.
Arcane Missiles and Clipping
  • Feedback: With the most recent changes, we are heavily incentivized to clip Arcane Missiles again. This is because Nether Precision’s Arcane Splinters can now send off Arcane Orbs off-GCD, Eureka was nerfed (+ 25% AM damage → +10%), Illuminated thoughts was nerfed (+5% AM damage → +0%) and Spellfire Spheres now generate stacks based on Arcane Blast or Barrage usage. I personally don’t like this since it feels like you’re just mashing your Arcane Blast button during Missiles to interrupt it, and one of the successes of Arcane’s rework was to have Arcane Missiles feel more impactful to press rather than relying on Nether Precision procs. I would recommend a talent that reduces the channel time of Arcane Missiles to the same time as the GCD (1.5 second base) just so that we can put an end to this debate. If the DPS increase is too much, you can just nerf the damage of Arcane Missiles, but I don’t like having to interrupt this spell. It feels wrong.

:snowflake: Spellslinger Arcane :snowflake:

Splintering Orbs and Spellfrost Teachings
  • Feedback: Aside from the previously discussed bug where Splintering Orbs is only applying 2 Splinters rather than 4 (like the above change mentioned), these changes are phenomenal. No negative feedback to give here. Great job :smiley:

:fire: Sunfury Arcane :fire:

Lessons in Debilitation
  • Feedback: I actually appreciate this because I fear I was going to be forced into playing Fire w/ Unstable Inferno just to get some extra CC in M+ (regardless of damage or spec preference), similar to why VDH was incredible in M+ w/ it’s double sigils.
Burden of Power and Mana Cascade
  • Feedback: This feels a lot more consistent than the previous iteration w/ Clearcasting, but it runs into the problem I previously discussed with Arcane Harmony. Hopefully this can be addressed because ti would be such a shame if you can’t run Arcane Harmony w/ Sunfury.
Glorious Incandescence
  • Feedback: This further reinforces the synergy with Arcane Harmony given that you get all your Arcane Charges back after you Barrage, but it runs into the issue that you won’t have Arcane Harmony stacks to begin with because you’re going to be busy casting Arcane Blast or Barrage to get your Burden of Power proc. We already have a Barrage-spamming hero tree w/ Spellslinger, I don’t think you should focus on this for Sunfury. I think Sunfury would be better served with a few hard-hitting Arcane Barrages.
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Another CRITICAL bug on Arcane/Spellslinger specialization:

  • Splinterstorm is triggering off every 4 instead of 8 splinters.
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Some more mage problems:

Fire

  • Flamestrike casting at cursor is a deterrent from playing flamestrike
  • Moving/jumping constantly to cancel unintended hardcast pyroblasts is very annoying. Might as well make pyrobalst only usable with hot streak and sun king’s
  • Crits registering with a delay based on spell travel time incentivizes playing in closer range
  • Crits are so abundant that Enhanced Pyrotechnics is not necessary. Heating up is often achieved easily with phoenix flames while fireball is becoming useless.
  • Phoenix flames, while a generator, with all modifiers does more damage than pyroblast. This messes with fire’s intended priority system. You are asked to spend hot streaks, but the abundance of hot streaks forces you to lower pyro damage, making it more boring. To compensate, you make unleashed inferno, and then occasional big hits like phoenix flames with its capstone. So far it’s still fun, but the problem is already there. You should definitely consider a charge-based hot streak spender
  • Living bomb ignite still bugged
  • Still talents that reward you for casting pyros over flamestrike but would be useful in AOE

Frost

  • First and 2nd gate of the spec are extremely rigid. Minimal choice for any spec.
  • AOE is extremely bloated and unintuitive. Orb/blizzard is a self-contained mechanic that has nothing to do with frost’s mechanic of shattering.
  • Glacial was fun and making shattered lances generate icicles helped a lot. However, still a negative feedback where more lances should be good, but more lances = less frostbolts = less flurries = bad for glacial spike. The number of contradicting mechanics in frost is a little nuts
  • Way too many procs. Having 2 FoF and 2 flurries with brain freeze so often is a bit silly.
    Add to that instant frostfire bolts or frozen orb resets (while orb can also give you more FoF). All of this with rather obscure priority system isn’t great
  • The original 2nd gate talent that buffed cone of cold is still there, but it definitely contradicts coldest snap in its purpose.

Arcane

  • Mana is irrelevant to decision-making, other than pressuring you to press either evocation or arcane surge eventually. You also know that the spec is not balanced around pressing arcane blast with less than 4 arcane charges more than 5 times in a fight
  • Arcane charges are irrelevant. You only play with having 0 or 4. 1-3 charges is extremely rare and something you actively try to avoid.
  • Single target payoff is arcane balst - a mana spender. AOE payoff is barrage, while explosion is something you’d avoid if possible. You realized there was a contradiction there and so changed how clearcasting is granted. That was a great change, but the arcane barrage issue still remains. What does it do in single target? Is it damage, or is it mana conserve? Taking talents altogether, the answer is “sort of both”
  • I’m not sure why you are reinforcing barrage → touch of the magi sequence with magi’s spark talent. It’s very awkward, but maybe that’s too subjective
  • Shooting random arcane orbs as spellslinger arcane feels like playing an ARPG character that has a random proc equipped that doesn’t really do much with the rest of the build.
  • Arcane orb was a small aoe burst enabler before. It had its flaws, mainly the travel time, but you could stand it when it’s infrequent. Now, a lot of AOE burst is arcane barrage + arcane orb (whether you actually cast it, or proc it). But barrage having no cooldown, and orb having travel time, makes gameplay during high haste and at long rage is very awkward. Even generally, when you press arcane barrage, you need to react to whether an orb was launched or not to correctly use the next GCD

I’m sure some of these you guys are fine with, and those that are absolutely a problem will not be addressed in TWW, but worth pointing them out still

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185

Fire Mage Bug
Hyperthermia has procced for me while inside Combustion

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I really dislike the frost spec tree at the moment. The moves away from glacial spike, the desire to seemingly make frostbolt more important, the lack of meaningful choice between AoE and ST, the fact that we never take Cold Front and yet it remains a capstone, and the number of talents that we never change whatsoever. Frost being one of the easier specs is not an excuse for low tree customization. I really hope there’s a shift in design philosophy soon. The Hero Talent trees for frost are fantastic, but the frost spec tree itself needs jesus.

2 Likes
187

Frost Feedback - v3

Thank you for removing Snowstorm and for introducing Permafrost Lances, this is a great talent that fits in well with the spec and is a step in the right direction of addressing anti-synergistic and/or dead talents.

Variety and choice, again

From this recent build across all specs, Frost is still lowest in terms of total unique talents including choice node options (now tied with Survival) and total talent points overall. As Survival just had an entire rework and multiple spells became baseline, they would likely have overall more choice than Frost given that Frost is locked into such a large amount of talents to make base spells functional.

If talents such as Brain Freeze, Shatter, and Fingers of Frost are not going to be made baseline, then Frost needs multiple new choice nodes to offer options for varied gameplay. Currently the primary talent builds in Beta are almost identical for both AoE and ST, where only 3 talents are being varied. This does not meet any goals of build variety and falls extremely far behind specs like Fire which has immense variety in talent choice and builds. Please introduce more choice for Frost.

In all of these cases, Fractured Frost and Cold Front are still not looking to being taken due to the multiple problems previously raised about this talents in this thread, but even if they were tuned high they would be problematic to the health of the spec by encouraging degenerate Frostbolt spam. Frost currently only has 1 AoE designed capstone talent (Coldest Snap) that is worthy of taking. Please completely revise Fractured Frost and Cold Front to be less problematic and more beneficial in cases.

If Winter’s Chill’s duration could be extended to last an extra couple of seconds that would be a great quality of life improvement. Particularly when needing to shatter Ray of Frost into WC where WC will usually expire before RoF has finished channelling which causes the last 1-2 ticket of RoF to not benefit from WC.

4 Likes
188

Some additional feedback about Frost Mage and Frostfire after more testing.

Frost feedback:

  • Even though stated goal for tier set change was to make it more aligned for both hero specializations, new tier 4 set bonus still benefits Spellslinger more. The reason for that is Frigid Pulse being activated only by Fingers of Frost procs - Spellslinger gets much bigger amount of them than Frostfire from its Frozen Orb resets. There is a way to address that.
    Suggestion: Make Frigid Pulse trigger from all Ice Lances that hit frozen or semi-frozen (Winter’s Chill, Fingers of Frost etc) target. That would bring amount of triggers for both hero specs more in line, as Spellslinger has Frozen Orb resets and Winter’s Chill from Splinterstorms and Frostfire has additional Brain Freeze procs from Excess Fire instead. If that would be needed, adjust pulse damage to compensate.
  • Snowstorm was removed and AoE scaling issue against 3+ targets was addressed by the 4 tier set bonus, but other issues mentioned in this post remain. Please take a look at them as well.

Frostfire feedback (including from Fire POV):

  • Fire has similar issue with Elemental Affinity as Frost - it affects both Fire and Frost spells when supposed to affect only opposite school spells.
  • Frostfire Bolt on its own is still a dps loss for Fire compared to Fireball - it has faster cast time, but lower damage and the result is still being a dps loss. That should not be the case for an “upgrade talent”.
  • Duration increase for Frostfire Mastery and proc chance increase for Frostfire infusion are nice, but there are other unaddressed issues like mechanics, bugs and visibility of procs. They were mentioned in this and this posts and could be looked at.
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