Fire CANNOT play without combustion. Even the low Combustion build with Tempered Flames needs to spend at least 1 point in the basic Combustion. Fevered Incantation also does nothing without Combustion so it might as well be a pre-req.
Having a 4 sec duration Combustion is as independent from Combustion as DF fire can get.
Regardless, Combustion’s problem is really just how OP Rune of Power is, not really the Combustion spell itself.
I really like the Fire tree. Tough decisions, but you can definitely tailor how your mage will play (hopefully in viable ways, we’ll see). I see variations of two different builds: one that focuses on bigger combustions/kindling that needs to play conservatively with phoenix flames/fire blast, and one that can be much more liberal with those spells, relying on the increased crit from pyroblast with tempered flames to roll hotstreaks while off combustion. I’d be excited to test this build when able to: https://www.wowhead.com/beta/talent-calc/mage/fire/BNUUmEUEQoGDxRQBAMVVRCYVUQUmFUCBQ
I hope the left part of the Arcane tree is viable too because I personally hate Arcane HArmony and the Kyrian playstyle =(
I have a little hesitation around some of the trees but all in all, I believe mage is going to be a LOT of fun in Dragonflight.
I am really looking forward to continuing the Arcane tradition well into the next expansion.
It was particularly popular in WOTLK with the addition of Frostfire Bolt. I am honestly surprised we didn’t see it return in some form as a talent in this new talent tree design.
Imagine if it was a talent that turned all your fire or frost spells into Frostfire spells! We’d pick up a few benefits (snares for fire, dots for frost) and a cool new visual theme!
Maybe Blizzard will remember that and try to work it into the next iteration.
I unfortunately disagree, for me CDR fire mage still seems like the forced go to with SKB. On your talent tree I would probably drop the one point that you have for the fevered incantation and go improved scorch. It is a guaranteed 6% increased damage in execute ranged vs an rng 1-5% more crit damage.
Rune of Power / Incanter’s Flow positioning feels terrible.
Love it or hate it, RoP is essentially mandatory due to the sheer amount of damage increase. RoP (or IF in a pinch) has become a core part of our class, so long as it exists.
However, its dependencies are Slow (boring), Spellsteal (boring), Remove Curse (boring), Cone of Cold (ughhh), and Shatter (I’m not frost). How does any of this relate to RoP?
It was here when I was looking at this tree and got sinking feeling that Blizzard gave us exactly what they thought we were asking for: Talent trees with dependencies and cookie-cutter builds, inspired by the trees of yore.
Seeing this base class tree, I’m starting to wonder if the current (Cata - SL) talent system wasn’t better in one major way: No dependencies. You don’t have to choose talents you’d much rather just not have in order to fulfill a requirement for a good one down the tree.
I realize it’s far too late now to start questioning the entire talent tree system, and I’m trying to be open-minded and even optimistic about this change. I just have this serious concern that this entire system has taken the talents and abilities we know, and shuffled everything around and forced them into trees with thematically nonsensical dependencies.
Again, what does Rune of Power have to do with Slow and Spellsteal? These are utility abilities, of much more use in PvP than PvE. Why do we have a core PvE talent relying on them?
My constructive advice is this:
The class talents, as with the spec talents, need thematic dependencies. Look at Classic talents. You only had direct dependencies on thematically similar talents, and the rest was simply a numbers requirement (X number of points in Y tree required).
This system takes the tree methodology to the extreme and feels like a dependency nightmare.
Anyway, this is my initial gut reaction. I’m hoping that this gets shuffled around a bit more and that these dependencies and choices make more sense to me in the future.
I will say, on the positive side as an Arcane mage (currently) that the Arcane Harmony playstyle appears to still be viable. Though this does beg the question whether or not this will become the only way to play Arcane (versus the traditional burn/conserve rotation).
Don’t let that Berserk line fool you though. It’s complete trash all around for Feral players and a terrible CD.
You should want something better for real lol
Feral Druid tree is the worst tree along with Survival hunter. But I will say the Fire tree for mage looked bad but mostly its the Mage Class tree that looks terrible to me.
Disregarding the messy placement of talents - the thing that bothers me the most is I was really hoping there would be multiple Arcane endgame builds going into DF - sort of how Shaman trees have many legendries effects and many capstones affording them greater variety in builds depending on what they want to do.
It seems Blizz want Arcane to have another couple years of the Radiant Spark wombo-combo and although its fun - we’ve had that single playstyle for two years and another two of that just feels – wasted. The only choice seems be be run the left-side Orb(s) for faster Arcane C\arge generations and more barrages or Harmonic Echo for larger, less frequent barrages. Unless I am mistaken only one other legendary effect made it in with the evocation thing - so we’re left with one main capstone playstyle and just a slight difference in how often we barrage? I’m not a fantastic arcane mage, but that’s how it appears to me. There wasn’t an attempt to even try to make another flavor of arcane like gravity or time based spells which many good suggestions on these forums presented. Just - take RS for another few years and also use the same AM leggo for another couple years unless you want your arcane orb back…
I dunno, I remember hearing about choice and variety and the Arcane tree just seems like another two years doing the same thing - with less of our kit.
I think you can say that about all three trees, with the new talent system people seem to be have been hoping for the option of different play styles. Either new ones or the return of old ones along side the current ones.
Basically people want the talents choices to mean something but the current trees have none of that.
100% this. They’ve talked up these new talent trees but at the end of the day, they’re really nothing but existing spells/talents/covenant abilities slapped into a shiny new shape. There will 100% be an ‘optimal’ build that is considerably stronger than other builds. There will 100% be several mandatory talents like RoP.
Nothing has been done to look at the underlying issues that players have had since BfA which is that the specs generally feel terrible to play. Tuning can be done at any time (not that they do, but it can be) but in so many ways this feels like they’re just doubling down on stupid. While those expansions weren’t perfect, there is a reason why so many Mages really enjoyed the specs from Mop-Legion.
At the end of the day, this talent tree is exactly what players feared. A copy-paste of existing spells/talents that brings nothing new. It’s a lot of wasted effort from Blizzard when we have been asking for actual spec redesigns for a long time.
Why is there so much healing in the General mage tree? Why do my mirrors need to heal me? Why do my shields need to cooldown faster to protect/heal me? Why do my barriers need to refund healing back to me? Why do I need my blink to heal me? Why does Iceblock need to heal me? (Reabsorbtion, Cryo-Freeze, Accumulative Shielding, Tempest Barrier, Diverted Energy).
As a pure DPS class, why do I need to spend 12 points in healing. 12!
Frost: There are 3 talents here that do basically the exact same thing, Arctic Piercing, Chain Reaction, and Wintertide. There’s another 6 Talent points for 1 effect. Why do I have to invest that many talent points?
Lastly there are too many talent points at the base of the tree in icy veins for any creativity. 2 Talent points for 3 extra seconds is a joke.
Realistically it’s because the designers had to come up with 62 talents instead of 21. Given how poorly the current talents have been managed, do you really think this same team could come up with 3x as many that aren’t just going to be 2% stat increases, 4.5% damage bonus to X spell? Calling it now, but within a week of launch there will the the “optimal” build to play and anything outside of that will be a hinderance to any group.
Mage is not full dps anymore.
So you can solo. With the class being designed around ROP fulled burst windows its sustained dps is low for a pure dps. Fire and Arcane cant even kite like Frost can (not that they give you room to kite in most zones anymore)
I’ve played a mage in Classic through to Wrath and again from Legion through to Shadowlands, so have experienced a few different flavours of mage in WOW.
Reading through your post I completely agree with your thoughts on the class tree and Rune of Power. I hate ROP more than anything else about mages, and wish Blizzard would ditch it or give us a better alternative so we didn’t feel like we have to take it to be competitive. However, I don’t hold out much hope they will since they effectively buffed it for Shadowlands by linking it to Combustion, etc further makinng Incanters less of a viable option.
And the class tree. Oh dear. It’s so focused on defensive abilites with very little offensive abilities or utility I struggle to believe it was designed for what mages are primarily meant to be. And what is with all the 3 point talents! Compared to the class trees for Shamans or Evokers it makes you feel like you have more limited selection in how you can spec your mage, and are just spending points to advance to the next ability not because you are engaged in any meaningful choice.
The fire tree definitely looks the best of the three, although Tinder and Wildfire are poor choices to have to make to get to Kindling or Fiery Rush. Particularly as Widfire appears poorly written as a gain in ctitical strike is not the same as an increase in critical strike rating so this talent basically does nothing for you.
You can never escape strongest builds. It is absolutely silly to think that you can. Therefor there is no real choice coming from talent revamps like this.
I think this will only lead to more toxic situations later down the line when you do have people who want to do their own snowflake build and its subpar and then people just remove them from whatever they are doing raid/m+/pvp. The only place for experimentation is outside doing dailies and what not.
I wish they would have done a rework of the specs though. I even gave during shadowlands beta a complete rework of Frost excluding talents. But they would rather try to band-aid what is there then take the risk. Like im sorry mana on a frost and fire mage is useless outside of spellsteal. Why even have that as a resource. If the answer is its class fantasy, that’s a horrible class fantasy, here you have a blue bar that has no meaningful interplay with your actual class its just their to exist and that’s all.
I read your response and likes the feedback. It still seems like too much wasted potential. Healing needs to be condensed to make room for new abilities. Some things to solo like Ice Block heal is ok, but still not at a 3 point sink.
Oh, your right. I was just trying to explain the thinking behind it. The Ice Block heal and mabey the old Evocation heal would be plenty.