I love the class fantasy to death, but holy crap, Mage has easily one, if not, the most outdated class design in this game, at least for PvE stuff, Fire is amazing and super fun in single target but completely gimmicky in AoE, Frost’s rotation is way too repetitive and Arcane always falls behind because what it can do Fire and Frost does better, the whole class just feels super weird without a clear direction. Warlock’s gameplay feels more wizardly than mages at this point.
6 Likes
100%. The new talent trees is the perfect opportunity to do massive reworks of specs that have needed it for a while now. Mages haven’t seen any major changes for a long time and Arcane in particular has barely changed since WoD. Even then, it’s not that different to a TBC Arcane mage.
As has been discussed in other threads, Blizzard doesn’t know what to do with Arcane. It utilises mana as a resource but for procs only but there’s no real gain to having high mana, and by the mid-tier patch mana management doesn’t exist. The mana resource does however limit the rotation and options. While it has been suggested to go full on the mana management, I think the better solution at this time would be to scrap it and redesign the spec. That would allow for a greater number of rotational spells rather than the 2.5 we have now.
Frost needs to move away from layers of RNG, proc-munching and a lack of meaningful talents as well as the over-reliance on instant cast spells for damage.
Fire needs more added to it, especially for AoE.
10.0 has so much potential, but it needs to be done right. Recycling existing spells, covenant/legendary/azerite/HoA abilities etc is just boring and doesn’t bring anything new to the table. The focus has to be on gameplay. Balance can be done at any time, but if a spec feels bad to play then players are going to move on.
4 Likes
I like the idea of arcane being more of a time mage. I even had a design in my brain for a long time for turning it into a healer that rewound healthbars and put up prismatic time shields that pushed damage into the future to be removed by other spells later, almost like brewmaster monk but a healer.
Then Invoker was announced and that dream died.
1 Like