Mage Changes in Shadowlands

Classes Mage
1

Hello fellow mages!

Just wanted to create a conversation regarding some of the class changes confirmed or datamined in SL. Also wanted to throw out some general thoughts/questions/concerns. Hopefully someone with a platform or alpha access can pass things along.

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Rune of Power - Mages were always advertised as a glass cannon dps class with mobility, but RoP goes against this design philosophy. If this was pruned ppl will be inclined to take Incanter’s Flow, but I would rather have our spells hit hard to begin with and have old school Incanter’s Absorption be our damage modifier.

  • Shimmer - Datamined to only have one charge. From a PvP standpoint, and imho, Shimmer should be pruned. Gpie/Polymorph while blinking is aids. If 1 charge Shimmer goes thru, it feels like it will be a dead talent. The other choices are simply better and having a way out of stuns is extremely useful. Also, it’s already hard enough to get sheeps on good healers alone, but it will be close to impossible with only 1 charge of Shimmer. Personally I would replace Shimmer with Deep Freeze for Frost and Blazing Speed for Fire. Give 2 charge Shimmer to Arcane. Every spec getting their own niche.

  • Focus Magic - Is this purgeable? If so then I fear this talent won’t be picked since this talent is on the same tier as Incanter’s Flow. I would rather see it work like Tricks of the Trades.

  • Fireblast - It needs to do dam to be useful to press. If not it will just be a totem/explosive killer. Maybe not even an explosive killer if it’s so weak.

  • Cone of the Cold - Dear God please make this baseline for all specs. Having an instant cast slow for frost/fire just feels good.

  • Temporal Shield - A must pick for as a PvP talent. I understand why it can’t be baseline cause of PvE, but man I would love to be able to free up a PvP talent slot to mess around with the other PvP talents. Maybe make it baseline just for PvP?

  • Mirror Images - Long overdue, but the spell feels underwhelming. I would like to see the images cast from all 3 schools, at least this way it would provide a slow no matter which spec you are playing. A snare/root dispel while you press it would also give Mirror Images more utility in PvP and PvE. Or maybe making enemies drop focus/frames; this would be extremely useful in PvP. Add some sort of utility to it (ok it reduces threat… when was the last time ppl had threat meters?) to make it more than just another dps cooldown.
    FROST

  • Lonely Winter/Ice Nova - Lonely Winter being the highest simming T1 talent is so boring. Majority of passives are boring and unfulfilling. Ice Nova needs to get buffed to sim higher than Lonely Winter. Would love to be able to shatter off Ice Nova on bosses to increase class mechanics.

  • Concentrated Coolness - This is a PvP talent. This needs to be baseline just for QoL due to the wonky pathing of Frozen Orb.

  • Frost Bomb - Just to spice up Frost rotation, as well as well provide fat burst in PvP. Both are severely lacking.

Honestly, I’m miss Frostbolt mattering. I miss shatter combos. I know that Blizzard probably won’t revert class mechanics but more ways to shatter would be nice, especially on boss fights. So maybe stuff like baseline Ebonbolt would help.

FIRE

  • Flame On - This needs to be reverted back to it’s original form, which is basically Mechagon bracers. Then it needs to be baseline. Again, passives are boring.
  • Phoenix Flames - I feel like this needs to be baseline. Aesthetically it looks amazing. It will also help with fire mage aoe not being reliant on Combustion.
  • Blast Wave - Such an iconic fire mage button. It seems to be the premier choice after the Shimmer nerf, which i’m okay with but would rather see it baseline.
  • Greater Pyroblast - Needs it’s % dmg removed. Disgusting ability and is not healthy for the game.

ARCANE

  • T1 Talents - The choices are so boring, please rework.
  • Enlightened - I feel like this will be a mandatory talent. Nether Tempest just tickles and I don’t think Revertebrae won’t do enough to challenge Enlightened on this tier. Might as well make it baseline if that will be the case.
  • Arcane Orb - Feels like this just needs to be baseline since arcane rotation is so boring.
  • Arcane Power - Got changed to be a 3 min cd, PvP wise this feels so bad, UNLESS, base abilities get buffed. I would rather have the game go away from cd reliance.
  • Touch of the Magi - Basically ghetto Mark of Aluneth. Great addition to the game.
  • Mana Gems - Another great addition to the game, but it would be cooler if it is available to all specs and awards a spell dmg or int buff when pressed. Mana Gems got me reminiscing of the Orangemarmalade 1v2.

TBH I would rather have them revert arcane back to Legion. Make Arcane Missles stack and be proc based again. This spec also feels right with Displacement and double charge Shimmer. Imo mobility should be the niche for arcane. Create a game where there is a class that can actually kite melee.

SIGNATURE COVENANT ABILITIES

There has been a rumor going around that the signature covenant abilities are not usable in instanced content. Sounds false, but would like a confirmation.

  • Kyrian (Summon Steward) - At first glance it seemed like this would be op, until I saw the 5 min cd, would need to see what the “useful amenities” that the Steward would provide. Seems to be the premier choice as a mage.
  • Venthyr (Door of Shadow) - Seems useless for mages.
  • Necrolord (Fleshcraft) - Do we only get the shield after channeling for 4s ? If so seems kinda meh. What school will be locked if the channel is interrupted? We won’t know until the Necrolord zone is available to be tested. If you’re allowed to get the shield after a second you press the button, it will be more enticing.
  • Night Fae (Soulshape) - Seems eh, most melee have so much mobility this probably won’t matter.

MAGE SPECIFIC COVENANT ABILITIES

  • Kyrian (Radiant Spark) - Seems like this and Deathborne will be the go-to Covenants to pick, at least for PvE and PvP. This would be INSANE if it was instant cast, especially in PvP.
  • Venthyr (Mirrors of Torment) - Feels like the cd needs to be lowered. 1.5 min for this spell does not feel worth it.
  • Necrolord (Deathborne) - Would be dope if it was instant cast. Such a cool spell overall, I hope the aesthetics will do justice.
  • Night Fae (Shifting Power) - What tree is locked when interrupted? How many seconds are reduced from your abilities per channel? Seems like this would be super good Fire and it’s reduced Combustion build.

From first glance Kyrian is the correct choice, at least for PvP. Radiant Spark being a 30s cd just lines up with mage burst windows.

What are you’re guys thoughts?

References:

h ttps://www.wowhead.com/news=311908/new-class-abilities-and-class-changes-shadowlands-alpha-build-9-0-1-33978
h ttps://shadowlands.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/arcane
h ttps://www.wowhead.com/news=311927/shadowlands-covenant-abilities-deep-dive-cooldown-duration-range-other-effects

9 Likes
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We need deep freeze for 1v1s and 2v2s. Even the top mages like venruki, ziqo, and xaryu are saying this. If you don’t think we do then here’s just some of the problems frost faces. It’s a proc reliant, cooldown heavy, hardcasting, builder spender that’s heavily reliant on it’s aoe which does crap for damage and slow’s for only 3 secs which you barely get any value out of because of everyone’s mobility, we lack any ranged instantcast slows besides FO (which i’ve already explained sucks) and which is all to common among melee, we lack any stun, all our 2 roots have to be talented into and not to mention they have a dr, all our damage and control are in the frost school besides poly which heals them up to full and (again) has a dr, they’re nerfing shimmer even though we already were getting trained easily by melee, and the other classes are getting significantly more than frost therefore making it even worse in comparison. Adding deep freeze would really only affect pvp and even if it did affect pve it’s not like they’re preforming good there either so what’s the problem with it? 3v3 arena? If that’s the case then why should we care about just 3v3 balancing when it would bring much more balancing to every other area of pvp and bring a lot of flavor to the class AND the entire mage community has been asking for it since you removed so if blizz really wants to show that they’re listening and willing to make changes for the community this would be a GREAT start.
Love this post and hope blizz at least acknowledges these problems.

6 Likes
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As one who has no problem with mana management being Arcane’s thing, I think at the very least Enlightenment should be baseline. If they’re going to keep mana management as Arcane’s core there needs to be more means to actually…manage mana, besides a draining burst followed by tedious conservation until the one thing that gives a significant amount back comes off cooldown. I’d prefer something that requires a button press, though; preferably something that does damage as well. It’s pretty much the one case here where I’d agree with the op in regards to passives.

With all that said the return of Mana Gems, another means of actually managing mana, is quite welcome. Turning Touch of the Magi into a version of Mark of Aluneth is also welcome, if only because MoA shouldn’t have left in the first place.

In addition to my thoughts on Enlightenment being baseline I somewhat feel like Arcane Orb should take its place in talent tiers. I personally would prefer not to have it baseline, if only because I prefer to have the freedom to choose it which I’d obviously lose if that were the case. I also find the idea of having it compete with Nether Tempest.

Speaking of Nether Tempest, I’ve felt like it’s needed a buff or something similar for sometime now. I’ve always liked it as Arcane’s version of Living Bomb but have felt discouraged from taking it for a while because of how weak it is. Going back to my desire for a more active way of regaining mana that also does damage, it has occurred to me that NT, AO or even Arcane Missiles could be configured to do that. Arcane Missiles building mana could also give it more of a reason to be cast out of Clearcasting, but I digress. Speaking of Clearcasting I noticed the WoWhead page mentioned it stacking up to two times, which I like.

As another quick tangent it would be interesting to me if Charged Up were made baseline but reworked to where you had control over the amount of charges gained, once more adding to the mana management concept.

I’ve always felt Lonely Winter should be competitive, or at least not so weak as to be a major detriment to take. Being able to play Frost sans pet is pretty great to some people, myself included.

I also think Ray of Frost needs to be either buffed or reworked from its current state. I’ve always found it interesting, but I can scarcely recall a time since it’s introduction where it wasn’t made awkward by its mechanics in relation to the rest of spec’s kit; or otherwise made useless or non-viable due to the talents it’s set against. I feel a bit similar about Comet Storm. Bringing Deep Freeze back could offer an interesting synergy with RoF, I think, but I digress.

Focus Magic is a talent that I’d rather see in action before I make any judgements about it. It seems alright on paper, at least in a general sense.

I don’t have much of an opinion on Covenant stuff at the moment, other that Deathborne kinda comes off as gimmicky to me; if only because of the skeleton thing.

1 Like
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I think mages getting Deep freeze back would be a good thing, but, they would need to get rid of the ability that lets you cast while blinking.(forget the name obviously). This is from a pvp perspective.

But honestly this would be better anyways as it would allow for more outplay maneuvers freeing up blink to get you out of stuns (which would be great TBH).

6 Likes
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I second this. Either remove the new Shimmer as it is garbage without the second charge and give us spec specific spells in its place or give the second charge back. I’d personally be happy with Frost getting Deep Freeze, Fire having Blazing Speed, the one from WoD that had an active, and give Arcane old Shimmer with the removal of stuns and snare functionality. Also, give me back Displacement!

7 Likes
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I feel that there are a lot of good changes here, but also a lot of questionable decisions.

The following is an assessment of Arcane purely from a PvE point of view.

Abilities first:

  1. At Level 52, Arcane Barrage grants you 2% of your maximum mana. I strongly believe this should be a talent choice, not baseline.
  2. At Level 32, Clearcasting can stack up to 2 additional times. Good stuff.
  3. Touch of the Magi. Excellent addition.
  4. Slow. Still disappointing outside of PvP.
  5. Presence of Mind. Still disappointing. It would be nice if this could apply to any spell, not just Arcane Blast.
  6. At Level 43, Evocation’s cooldown is reduced by 50%. Good stuff.
  7. Mirror Image is now baseline. Good stuff. Long overdue.
  8. At Level 56, Arcane Power’s duration is increased by 5 seconds. Good stuff.

And now talents, which I’m less happy about:

  1. Level 15 talents are really boring. Blizz, please, please, please do something more interesting here. It doesn’t need to be powerful… just more interesting.
  2. Level 25 talents. Shimmer and Slipstream are good, but no one in their right minds is ever going to take Mana Shield. I think Mana Shield should be swapped with Chrono Shift. That’d make the choice of talent in this row a lot more interesting.
  3. Level 30 talents. The entire row is just wrong. Rune of Power is actively bad and needs to go. Focus Magic should be baseline, not talented. And Incanter’s Flow is incredibly boring. Blizz, you really need to reconsider what you’re doing here. Perhaps some mana management talents?
  4. Level 35 talents. They’re fine.
  5. Level 40 talents. Everyone will take Chrono Shift. This would be fixed if you swapped Chrono Shift and Mana Shield, as previously discussed.
  6. Level 45 talents. Reverberate and Enlightened are both good. Nether Tempest needs to be made more interesting, though, in order for this to be a good row. It doesn’t necessarily have to be more powerful, just provide some additional utility.
  7. Level 50 talents. Overpowered and Time Anomaly are both good. Arcane Orb should absolutely be baseline, however, and replaced with an offensive CD that can genuinely compete with the other two.

Quick note on one talent in particular: I think Chrono Shift just slightly misses the mark. In my opinion, it should read “Arcane Blast slows enemies by 50%, and Arcane Barrage increases your movement by 50%, for 5 seconds.” That would make it a more competitive choice, particularly if shifted to the Level 25 talent row, as I’ve previously suggested.

So, overall… better, but still needing some love from someone that actually plays and likes Arcane.

7 Likes
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it’s called shimmer and it’s practically getting removed because it’ll only have one charge so it’s TERRIBLE especially in comparison to regular blink so they should just replace it with deep freeze and blazing speed

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So the problem with Deep Freeze, just to play the Devil’s Advocate, is that it’s so strong.

There was an iteration of Deep Freeze you were allowed to shatter into it. Iirc other casters were also able to shatter into Deep Freeze as well. This makes Deep super nutty.

Another iteration would be the WoD version, where it’s simply used for setup; you were not allowed to shatter into Deep. Now this was extremely strong because if you played with 2 other classes with great CC (Sub Rogue/Druid), you were able to always get 3v1 scenarios every 30s.

So how do you combat this? The WoD iteration is almost completely useless in 1v1s. It would be only used as a psuedo-interrupt, but the iteration where you could burst into Deep is extremely strong.

In my opinion, I don’t have a problem with either iterations, but I would prefer the version where you could burst into Deep. This would make the ability more versatile.

It feels like Deep Freeze is one hell of an ability to balance, that’s why Blizzard pruned it instead of trying to balance it.

1 Like
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I second this.

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frost specifically really needs it to be viable in general pvp

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What spell would you like PoM to work on?

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Preferably I’d want it to work on just about anything with a cast time, not unlike how it used to be. Granted I’m not sure about how useful that would actually be these days, let alone in the future. It could, at the very least, offer a little added convenience in instant refreshments. Having it work on non-arcane offensives could perhaps also have some minor play for getting around school locks, again not unlike how it used to be.

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There was an iteration of Deep Freeze you were allowed to shatter into it. Iirc other casters were also able to shatter into Deep Freeze as well. This makes Deep super nutty.

This is the original deep freeze that existed for 3 expansions during peak WoW. I guess other frost mages could shatter your deep in bgs or something but it wasn’t nutty for that reason

Without deep freeze frost has been reduced from a setup/burst class to a boring dampener spec that relies on a ridiculously tuned snare to be useful. The identity has been lost

11 Likes
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Now that I think about it, The food from Conjure Refreshment should probably give some kind of Well Fed buff. Individually it does well in restoring mana, and to some lesser extent health, but unless I’m mistaken folks can craft things that are of more value to groups in instances; mainly due to the frequency of the aforementioned buff.

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I think it should work with several spells providing a different functionality for each one. Like Thunder Focus Tea.

Perhaps it could allow you to insta Polymorph, Counterspell or blink regardless of cd, cause your missiles to cast as though clear casted, or make Invisibility remove all debuffs.

Those are just some ideas.

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I’ve always felt Lonely Winter should be competitive, or at least not so weak as to be a major detriment to take. Being able to play Frost sans pet is pretty great to some people, myself included.

Lonely Winter is already used for the orb build, so I’m not sure what you mean. It’s not only viable, it’s pretty damn strong.

I also think Ray of Frost needs to be either buffed or reworked from its current state. I’ve always found it interesting, but I can scarcely recall a time since it’s introduction where it wasn’t made awkward by its mechanics in relation to the rest of spec’s kit; or otherwise made useless or non-viable due to the talents it’s set against.

Ray of Frost is the PvP talent, and it’s pretty good. CC > Orb > IL > Ray > spam IL.

17

Alter time should capture buffs and debuffs like it did in MoP. The WoD version that mages are getting back in shadowlands severely reduced its depth.

2 Likes
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I run RoF for raids with pretty decent success. I don’t much care for TV (having a passive in that tier just feels so wrong), and I love popping Ice Floes then RoF and having a blue laser while I just around like a madman. I do hope they fix the issue though where it sometimes just doesn’t proc any FoF off bosses.

Alter Time in MoP suffered from Blizzard not knowing if it was a dps spell or a mobility spell. Sure it was great, but it was a nightmare to balance properly. With the way it reset buffs you’d just end up using as a dps cooldown 95% of the time. I much prefer it as purely a mobility/hp reset, cheesing mechanics in Iron Qon was freaking amazing.

19

I wasn’t saying it needed to be changed, just that I appreciated its place as something that can be confidently taken.

Addendum:

In general I was more or less saying I wouldn’t want it to become less powerful than the other talents on the tier, but then I pretty much feel the same for talents universally and ideally.

I stopped playing the spec in pvp before RoF’s introduction so I wasn’t aware of this.

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If PvE players don’t want it then at least make it a PvP talent. Using alter time right before a feral put up a 5 combo point rip while also capturing fingers or frost or instant pyroblast was peak skill. On the other hand using it right after a warrior puts up colossus smash would double the duration of his burst window, peak failure.