Well Said!
So, in most RPG settings, mages are usually separate between magic specializations due to DND roots, I can especialize in Evocation, Summoning/Conjuration, Illusion, etc. while in the lore WoW does the same, gameplay-wise did something a bit weird, they split evocation into two schools and they made Arcane primarily a utility school, you had arcane explosion and missiles, but they were the exception, not the rule.
The reason for that is so you could mix and match the different talent trees, for instance, in TBC every mage spec wanted to pick Icy Veins which means your fire/arcane mage was also descent with Frost Magic, and in WotLK they added stuff like Frostfire bolt to play with that fantasy.
Come MoP however and classes got locked to single specs which uh⊠Never made sense for mages, Jaina is a frost mage with incredible knowledge of raw Arcane, likewise Khadgar focuses primarily on Arcane but he doesnât shy away from using Fire or Frost.
Our characters donât really feel like mages because of that, then you add to mages having every single spec balanced around bursts due to RoP and you have this class that supposedly can obliterate entire armies barely doing any damage outside of big CDs which destroys the fantasy presented and you are left with a very weak class fantasy and very niche gameplay.
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No, it isnât actually. A lot are average, and some like Warrior and Rogue are simply S Tier amazing.
Itâs like the people who made those trees actually play the class whereas the people who made the mage tree have never touched mage in game.
This isnât just mages crying.
World First guild leaders on Twitch went through the tree and broke down how awful it is compared to others, and how awful it is stand-alone.
The mage trees are uniquely awful.
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Arcane has never had strong fantasy? Wtf� Do you know WoW lore? Lol
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Have to agree here. We should get iceblock and invisibility as part of our base toolkits. Now if they want to put greater invisibility as something you have to spend a point or two on, fine, but not the starter version. Also in favor of getting rid of ROP. Donât promise players flexibility and the chance to design their character the way they want and then give them trees which pretty much forces them into taking points a specific way unless they want to utterly gimp themselves out of spells they should have out of the box.
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Arcane the talent tree, not the school of magic. Arcane started life as the tree that existed to support Fire and Frost and while it gained some identity in TBC and WotLK, I donât think it was ever as strong as Fireâs or Frostâs.
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Im not sure but I think blizz forgot about the mage talent/spec trees all togetherâŠ
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I think Imfiredup quite nailed it when he said âit feels like you are swimming through piss to get what you wantâ or something along those lines.
The Mage trees, and this goes to the spec trees as well, feel uninspired. It gives the impression that the guy that made the trees didnât know what to put there, so they put the most generic stuff from Shadowlands conduits in there along with a few abilities that sound cool but are very problematic like [Meteor] and [Time Anomaly].
[Meteor] doesnât make much sense if not playing Fire and trying to maximize it with [Radiant Spark] sounds like cancer to me, and [Time Anomaly] is 2 gigantic layers of RNG thatâll make the variance in DPS extremely problematic, not to mention feelsbad gameplay if RNGesus doesnât grace you with his presence.
And whatâs with the idea that we need to talent into [Shatter rank 2] and [Hot Streak]? And spend multiple points to make [Flurry] function as it does today and the same goes for [Fire Blast]. 10 (TEN) points to make [Icy Veins] not suck. Please, do something about it.
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I understand why they want Meteor/Ice Nova/Time Anomaly to be cast by all mages regardless of spec, they did say that they wanted mages to not feel like they were only playing just an Arcane Mage or just a Frost Mage, they wanted to make Mages feel like actual masters of all schools of magic weaving in different types of spells in their rotation.
Saying that, if they want to accomplish this, they need to make them impactful, otherwise its not worth taking.
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Exactly.
So far, the idea is there, but the execution as of now is bad.
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Fixed that for ya.
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I 10000000% agree.
After playing the mage class in GW2 especially MesmerâŠoh my goodness so much is left to be desired with the WoW mage.
It just feels like a cloth wearing elemental shammyâŠ
Haha ty. It has been a rough 2 yearsâŠ
So how is this different than the start of any other expansion with the exception of maybe Wrath and BC?
Ever since we lost Greg Street, mage has been terrible.
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From cata to WoD you could just move on with only talent chnages here and there and only needing to worry about gearing up.
However, starting from Legion they decided to butcher every spec and class in the game, so the difference is that since Legion at the core of each class and spec we ended up starting each expansion with classes thay were barely functional, broken (and not in the overpowered way) and left nearly barren (havoc demon hunters for example).
Now, with dragonflight, concerning mage they seem to want to put a stop to that, however, they opted to retain a lot of problematic and dead end things like mana gem for arcane and crit passives for fire (like wtf?) and furthermore instead of adding new stuff they barely even added anything meaningfully exciting and chose the approach of gutting existing spells, seperating them into different nodes and passing thay off as ânewâ.
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So, in short, we lost a lot, gained nothing and as a nerd with glasses once said itâs making us swim through piss to get the meaningful things.
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I know this post is old, but I found it through a Google search and wanted to share my thoughts. I play a mage and had the same experience. After trying out all the other classes and specs, I noticed a significant difference in the mage talent trees compared to the others.
With the mage tree, I feel like Iâm picking talents just for the sake of filling slots. Thereâs hardly anything that stands out as something I want or genuinely need. In contrast, other classes offer talent choices that feel impactful and meaningful.
For example, there are multiple talents dedicated to improving Alter Time and Ice Block, but I rarely, if ever, use those abilities. Yet, I have to sink about eight talent points into them just to progress further in the tree and access the talents I actually need. This leaves me stuck picking talents I never use, like Mass Sheep or Dragonâs Breath. Itâs frustrating and makes the mage tree feel less engaging compared to others.