Can we update Blink to be castable while casting? And the shimmer talent then only gives blink 2 charges?
Shimmer is just too mandatory doing both, and with that buff to blink, there would be a lot more flexibility to take the other talents on the row (at least for fire).
I don’t think I’ve ever specced out of shimmer.
Tbh this game would be so much better if there were only 3 or 4 talent tiers at most. For most classes, there are many talent rows that are basically always on “set and forget” most of the time. Mages are no exception, in fact I think mages are way more locked in than other classes are.
Shimmer’s relative strength over the other options is too great for the other talents to keep up, especially in PvE. It’s basically free casting while moving. Frost has Ice Floes, but Floes becomes worse as you gear up because it scales inversely with Haste.
That and being off the GCD make Shimmer so much more desirable than any other talent in that row it’s actually hard to compete. The only time I ever spec out of Shimmer is when I’m playing Arcane so that I can cast Arcane Missiles and Evocation while moving.
Lol I didn’t even know Blink was on the GCD, I use shimmer so much.
Yeah…
I’d love to use Blastwave, too. Really good situationally, in sanguine M+ for example… knockbacks can be super clutch and its the only one we have.
Floes is off the GCD too, but it scales poorly with Haste. The more Haste you have, the less distance you cover with a Floes charge on the move.
Yeah, I’m really not a big fan of Ice Floes and would rather have it reworked instead.
I’d like to see all of the mage talents changed. If there are talents on a row that have been the best choice for several expansions it should become baseline to that class/spec. If you can’t make all three choices in a row a viable choice there is something wrong with that row. Guides tell you that glacial spike is worse than if you didn’t even bother to pick a talent in that row. That’s not right.
Yeah and that’s not even only with Frost because most specs in the game go through the same thing. Just looking at Mage though we can easily name a few like: Searing Touch, Shimmer, Flame On, Frenetic Speed (PvE), Lonely Winter, Rune of Power, Chrono Shift, Arcane Orb and Overpower.
These talents have been dominant for the past few expansions with very little, if any for some of them, variation. Most of these, if not all, should be made baseline in some form or another just how I suggested it should be done for Lonely Winter in another post.
Then again, like I’ve said, this isn’t only intrinsic to Mage. The entire talent tree has been in need of a revamp for a long time now, not mentioning how we haven’t gotten a new talent row for several expansions.
To add, there are so many talents that are just dead on arrival and never used for the longest time. I have no idea why they still exist. This always happens when there are dominant talents. Making these clearly-better talents baseline would open up possibilities of the dead talents actually seeing some use.
As it is though the talent trees are terribly designed. It becomes even worse anytime certain talents synergize with certain conduits. You can basically kiss the other options in the row goodbye for the whole expansion (looks at TV + IP).
That could be a possibility to open up the other ones, but I have my doubts about them not replacing them with equally powerful or even stronger talents considering how long some have been dominant up to this point.
There are cases where some people would say “play what you want, it doesn’t matter” in discussions like this, but sometimes when you actually take the time to use these talents then “do what you want” isn’t an option because of how bad a lot of them are. Arcane orb is the primary example in this case.
I agree; I never got CE in any tier by “playing what I want” so I’m not sure if that argument works, tbh.
Lol I forgot Flame On. Probably even more mandatory than shimmer. Has anyone ever speced into “From the Ashes”?
Pyromaniac is a joke, and needs to be removed, only a computer could properly play that talent. And even then its still not great.
The fire tree is really just a mess.
There’s so much of the currently talents that used to be included in the class as a baseline kit. For all its numerous faults, you can’t argue that MoP-Legion had the most ‘complete’ feeling of gameplay across the board for all 3 specs.
Blink had 2 charges and still broke stun.
Ice Floes was baseline
Ebonbolt was useful but didn’t feel like you were losing a talent, and also didn’t require you to ‘save’ it for GS or 2xIL.
FR was baseline.
SI was baseline.
That’s just for Frost. Fire and Arcane have just as many problems.
For me, I think this is a big part of why so many players don’t feel that BfA/SL has been good to play. They took so much of our base kit from previous expansions and just tacked it on as a talent, while also pushing certain talents to be more or less mandatory (eg: LW, SI) to the point where we would never consider taking anything else.
I’d honestly take a much broader and accessible baseline kit and have some semi-interesting but less mandatory talents.
Splitting Ice should 100% be baseline even if it’s not always picked. It’s part of the spec’s identity: 2 target cleave. Imagine if Destruction had to choose between Havoc and something else.
It’s also a shame losing baseline spells/passives and have them be an option in the talent tree. Blizzard should take a psychology class and learn that nobody will ever have any kind of positive feelings towards that unless the mechanic forced upon the players was a bad one. Taking something people liked having as a matter of course and make it compete with other choice, sometimes multiple that used to be baseline, is always going to spark frustration.
I think talent trees should really emphasize that that spec is better at certain spells than it’s counter part. Remember when you had to be arcane for to improve counterspell or be fire to get fireblast to stun. I feel things like those should be brought back. We all have blink but arcane could have an entire row to modify it. We all have frostbolt but frost could make theirs much better with a talent row. Things like that would make talents more interesting imo.