Mage feels really bloated or over complicated

Classes Mage
1

This is from a raiders perspective trying mage for a couple of seasons. Everyone knows arcane has some complex timings. Frost suffers from simultaneous rng double procs which feels bad and the aoe has too many choices…the single rotation cleaves but the you have the other 5-6 cooldowns to juggle. Fire is more of the same.

You have to work way too hard just to be on par with other caster classes. Do y’all think it needs more ability pruning?

On the other hand, devastation and augmentation feels great. Not an overly bloated skill bar and no weird proc rng. Ele blasts spicy meatballs on an easy to understand and predictable rotation. Destro lock has a solid builder spender rotation. I enjoy these other casters then come to mage and it feels way too bloated.

26 Likes
2

Your assessment is spot on and you’re not the only one who feels that way either. In my view, atm, Devastation Evokers are the gold standard of what a caster should be (minus the ridiculous decision to limit their range, of course). Destruction Warlocks are also right up there with Elemental Shamans close behind. Of course the problem with all of them is that they don’t bring the numbers although neither do Mages unless you’re super sweaty.

Casters in general feel pretty bad to play regardless of what level or type of content you’re trying to tackle either because they’re plagued by a cumbersome rotation or simply can’t compete with the damage that other DPS specs can dish out, especially melee.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much appetite for implementing the fundamental changes that are necessary to bring casters more in line with other DPS so, for now at least, we either have to put up with things as they are now or move on to greener pastures. But, for what it’s worth, know that you’re not alone in your frustration!

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Not sure if I would go so far as “pruning”, because then we risk going back to the terrible IL-spam builds, or god forbid, the NoIL build which just sucked. I think the issue is that in usual Blizzard fashion, they tend to swing too far one way or the other.

For example, prior to the 7.1.5 rework, we essentially had Frostbolt, IL, and flurry, with the rare Orb. That was about it. It didn’t feel great to play, and players were not pleased that we had abilities like CmS, GS, and Ray of Frost just sit there with no purpose.

Then we got the rework, but rather than come up with new ways to make those abilities fit, they just buffed them all out the wazoo and suddenly our rotation doubled. To compound that, we still relied on the same base mechanics that were designed around having 3 buttons or aspects that honestly haven’t felt good to play since their introduction.

CmS, GS and Ray all rely on Shatter to work. The 2pc from S2/3 help, but S3 at least is too RNG based where you can get proc after proc (which feels good) or have long dry spells (which feels bad). Add to that, the priority system isn’t as straight forward as it seems at first glace, especially when you add things like Shifting Power and add phases into the mix. Let’s not get started on how GS is wasted if an add dies while it travels, which just tanks dps.

So yes, Frost for ST does feel a little bloated and convoluted, especially for the damage it deals when compared with other specs. However, rather than just cut abilities I’d rather see them merged or given as choice nodes. It would be simple enough to tune the abilities and redesign them as ‘spenders’ for Icicles.

Suddenly you have a big choice option for GS, CmS, and Ray. You now have an AoE, Cleave, and ST option to pick based on the fight. Tuned correctly, this could be fun, and in theory you’d have both CmS and Ray up to use far more often. What’s more, is that people who dislike one or more of those abilities also have options, and that’s always a good thing.

10 Likes
4

Haven’t played mage since WOTLK, boosted this one and I’m really underwhelmed. I feel like the hybrid casters (shadow/ele/balance) have more fun dps specs.

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5

Seems to be a pervading myth that frost is the “easy” caster spec. That is not true at all - all warlock specs are far easier than frost. Frost since the remake is no joke difficulty wise, there’s actually a lot of stuff you need to pay attention to if you want to maximize performance as a frostie.

Fire I find is the easiest mage spec and even then it’s not a very easy spec to play, players who aren’t used to extremely fast APM can’t pick this spec up at all.

Demo lock is the golden standard this patch when it comes to a mix of viability and beginner friendliness to play.

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6

Not really, it’s the same exact thing as before i.e. you want to try and Shatter everything. It’s just that now there are a lot more things to Shatter. Aside from that the only other cumbersome thing is that RoF and GS root you in place for a very long time which isn’t optimal especially in the current raid where there is a swirly to dodge every .5 seconds of a fight. But that’s a caster-wide problem because casting on the move isn’t a thing for some inexplicable reason.

That is true. It’s why I don’t play Fire or the piano, lol.

You didn’t mention Arcane but the problem there is the ridiculously long and complicated ramp up alongside the pointless minor nuisance that mana management has become.

7

Since blizz made GA the main attack with a few other spells its hard to keep up with what to do,wish it was just timing the spells to be sent as needed.

8

Radiant Spark, Nether Tempest, and Siphon Storm can be safely removed from Arcane. Shifting Power needs to be changed to something other than CDR.

13 Likes
9

I am actually going to start using Radiant Spark for the first time EVER today since they finally fixed the visual and made it a pretty purple arcane rune. And I will also try harder not to forget that Shifting Power exists and just leave it languishing on my bar. :crazy_face:

But seriously the bloat is real! I actually don’t mind having a bunch of extra buttons to press but it’s a question of how they fit into the rotation. If it’s something situational like Blast Wave, Dragon’s Breath, Ring of Frost, etc. that’s fine. Having half a dozen abilities that you have to use in a precise sequence before you can even go into your burst window is just annoying ramp up that we could definitely do without.

3 Likes
10

If you think pve is hard for mage, try PvP.

The whole mage design is terrible. Blizzard dev responsible for mage are just incompetent and like to make the class complex.

Not even 1% of the pvpERS use fire mage.

Is blizzard gonna balance or rework the class? Nope since the next expansion is coming out next year why put in resources to fix it.

I swear for a $15 sub you would expect they company would fix these small issue

6 Likes
11

Arcane is more bloated than Frost.

I think I will aswell.

12

Ha I feel it’s lose/lose on this subject for blizz. After MOP people complained of too many buttons. Then we got 4 expansions of simplification or over-simplification in some cases and people complained about that. Now most specs have at least some form of complexity and people are complaining again. And we wonder why blizz rarely listens to us. We are never consistent in what we want.

Personally I think fire feels great. They fixed the wonkiness of tier 1. It’s no longer clunky. There’s a ton of fluidity with the rotation and cooldowns. I’m never not doing something. It’s probably my 1st or 2nd fav version of fire since the legion remake.

4 Likes
13

How are we so bloated? We literally spam arcane blast and explosion 80% of the time and every 45 seconds we cast 3 other spells, like I don’t understand do we just want 3 button rotation 100% of the time? So it’s just brain dead boring like frost was in SL. It’s the same old oh the class is too complex too much button bloat every other class does 100% more damage for 100% less effort. Who cares go play those classes if you don’t want to put any effort into actually becoming a better mage. Did we all forgot they removed run of power?

3 Likes
14

To play the class well is incredibly complex. If it seems to you that the rotation is 80 percent either blast or explosion id submit to you that you are doing it wrong.

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15

Hot take: The old 3 button rotation for arcane offered more complexity without unwarranted complications. We were bound to mana, not to cooldowns. Mana was malleable. Cooldowns are static (or at least relatively static because of shifting power). But that’s a different topic.

In my personal opinion, if you can drop one spell and just increase the buff that another spell gives by certain amount without noticing changes to our playstyle (aside from obviously fewer buttons), THAT is prime territory for pruning. RS, Siphon, Surge, and the baseline TotM all do the same thing: % damage increase (just with a slightly different flavor).

We could drop RS and Siphon and just increase Touch and Surge to compensate and all it would do is improve the rotation.

To the same effect, Nether Tempest really only exists right now to proc Echo (at least in PvE) and could be built directly into that spell.

They don’t provide anything unique to the kit. Nether Precision and Arcane Harmony are at least unique in that they only only trigger / buff certain spells.

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16

It’s never been easier to play arcane than right now though. No rune of power, duration of radiant spark is increased since shadowlands you basically have to fail miserably to waste a burn window. Full movement all the time with slip stream and ice floes. there’s never been a better time to play arcane or any of the mage specs

17

It’s actually not that bad at all. You just cast it and then cast 4 ABs. I kinda regret stubbornly refusing to use it before, LOL!

Omg, y’all quit asking for RS to get removed now that they finally gave it pretty purple pixels! :sob:

No but for real, RS and SS are just an annoyance at this point and feel like 2 extra buttons to press for no reason. I have always been of the view that if a talent or an ability adds nothing but a minor damage increase it should simply be removed and the damage aura increased to compensate. In this regard RS and SS are no different than RoP (except being less annoying since they don’t root you in place). So if they stayed true to their logic and reasoning behind the removal of RoP then these need to go as well.

18

Well, except for during TBC, Wrath, Cata, Mists, WoD and Legion. You know, the expansions before they decided to add the cooldown-stacking playstyle that very few people seem to enjoy. Just because it’s better than it was during the dark-times doesn’t make it good.

Honestly, I’d drop TotM and Surge as well, and just bring back Arcane Power. As you said, it’s just a % damage increase at the end of the day, and the 4 abilities could just be merged into a single one, at the same time reducing the silly set up aspect. Just seems like a broken system to me when you have more set-up multipliers than rotational spells…

1 Like
19

:rofl::rofl:

Still annoying. I tried RS in Solo Shuffle and it felt clunky. Harmony feels more smooth.

20

Yeah I dunno I enjoy the way arcane plays right now. It’s all subjective anyway. If we removed radiant spark touch and surge what would we even be doing? How can you combine 4 abilities into one and call it a rotation? what would the perfect combination of spells actually look like?

3 Likes