Dear esteemed Blizzard developers,
After many, many times running the “focus magic” talent, I have to admit it does not keep up with the other talents in that row (except in very narrow specific situations).
I (like so many others) have a suggestion.
The trigger is fine as is (*proc’ing off non-casters would be nice), the 5% boost to whomever you cast it on makes a difference and many healers praise the gains they see.
The benefit to the caster (me) is not sufficient. Recommend increasing the crit and int bonus to 10% (up from current 5%).
Also recommend it be able to cast on self with reduced effectiveness (like an effectiveness at the current 5% rate).
Thank you.
2 Likes
It’s such a boring talent. I don’t even understand why it’s there.
4 Likes
None of us do. Focus magic just isn’t good enough and never will be for what it gives to be compared to a flat 20%-40% damage buff from the other 2.
it shouldve just been “improved mirror image” instead. And have them pump damage and last longer.
2 Likes
Mimic your spell casts and do, maybe a percentage of that damage which will also add onto the damage for touch of the magi (if they intend to keep that spell beyond this expansion 
)?
1 Like
Tying an offensive option to a defensive button is a bad idea. The only reason Mirror Images still do > 1 damage is because of the Frostbolt utility bit that’s absolutely negligible and it only works in Torghast because it’s Torghast.
1 Like
To be fair, its a small defensive. You would still always run rune of power. People forget that it used to be mirror images in that row. Some 2v2 PVP matches it would actually come in handy. Honestly think that improved images in that row is fine - since its probably best for niche uses like world content and things like that.
1 Like
It’s a very good defensive in PvE though, so that’d be a bit hard to balance between being both a defensive and offensive button in these two different modes, and the images have an internal cooldown for how often they can be consumed if I’m not mistaken.
It seems like Blizzard tried to steer away from this kind of design since Legion iirc and the best example I can think of from back then is how [Blur] from DHs used to refund charges of [Fel Rush] which was used in conjunction with the [Momentum] talent but received enough complaints that it was changed to simply increase movement speed instead.
For Mages the other example I can think of is [Alter Time]. For those that remember this spell in Pandaria, it used to return everything to the “starting” point, including mana and all sorts of buffs such as Fingers of Frost, Clearcasting and Hot Streak. Now it’s reduced to return only health and positioning exclusively.
If memory serves, it’s because a week out from launch that talent slot was still empty as a placeholder. Someone clearly had grand ideas to include something that was less irritating than RoP but less passive than IF, ran out of time due to the launch push and FM was the best that they could come up with in the few days that had.
There is some glimmer of hope that they might come up with something a bit better, but given the track record of the last 3 expansions I’m not holding my breath. Realistically at this point that whole row of talents is busted and boring. I’d prefer just a flat % increase baseline, and 3 whole new talents in that row (that aren’t based off current legendaries or convenant abilities).
2 Likes
Honestly, half of our talents are boring af and shouldn’t belong on our trees. Just as many we never use either.
Blizz sold everyone on the “fun and exciting” talent trees when they implemented them but they have devolved into boring, passive, and unbalanced choices overlooked by massive amounts of borrowed power.
3 Likes
The talent tree really suffered from Legion to BfA with many of the then baseline talents/abilities from legendaries and artifact weapons being turned into talents.
Just looking at Frost Mage we can already mention Freezing Rain, Chain Reaction and Ebon Bolt.
Exactly.
Plus, ever since legion, blizz just recycles spells. It’s copy/paste from the artifact systems. They did the same thing with leggos in sl. None of effects are truly original in sl.
1 Like