Firstly, make it a baseline ability but significantly weaker and doesn’t provide a threat dump. (Not sure if this has already been done)
But I was thinking if they keep it as a talent in the future, why not have it be viable in comparison to Incanter’s Flow and Rune of Power?
This is what I suggest with Mirror Image as a talent.
The ability has a passive 5% increase to spell power damage but its active ability increases spell power per each individual image by 5%. The talent will also drop threat and MIrror Images are meatier and have additional capabilities (Frost Nova, Blink)
So 3 images+the baseline 5%= 20% extra spell power. Not incredibly powerful as Rune of Power, and doesn’t exceed Incanter’s Flow which passively cycles. You get the ability to move while the spell power increase is active but it’ll be helpful in burning phases.
Mirror Image is already going to be baseline for all three specs in ShadowLands.
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I always thought MI stand in a weird spot, thematically, for being a dps cooldown. The images are illusionary, it practically screams defensive tool for me. And that’s actually how it’s being used ever since it became a talent.
Differently from the OP, I really think they should turn it into a defensive tool. Heck, I’d even love a talent in the pvp rows that improved the MI with an A.I. similar to the version we get in Torghast (they behave like island expedition npcs) while giving them a bit of defensive utility.
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The issue with MI is they get killed too fast to do any good for a temporary threat dump.
PTR is showing MI as being a 20% damage reduction on a 2 minute cooldown now. I think this is great utility now 
You can either use it to increase your DPS or hold it for specific situations where you need to mitigate damage.
It does basically no damage now, it’ll pretty much always be used defensively (which is good)
With the recent blue post, it’s clear that MI is a defensive now. This is a massively welcomed change and gives it purpose
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Finally!
Literally the only time I even took this talent in BfA was for soloing Visions, to have an emergency button in case things start getting out of hand.
At first, I was very upset that MI was becoming a defensive rather than having explosive DPS…i loved the idea of my many mes blowing up the enemy BUT, it does make more sense to use as a defensive given the images are just that…images. i like that itll confuses say…rares or elites youre trying to solo in the maw. Mages needed a little more solo survivability anyway and this is a good addition.