I just caught up on the upcoming Frost Mage changes and the removal of the Water Elemental is very alarming to me for multiple reasons.
When I first learned the 2-minute Water Ele summon back in TBC, I wished we had the option to make it a permanent pet. I really liked the WC3 fantasy of mages conjuring water elementals as their guardians to watch over them. Losing this ability is a huge blow to the class fantasy for me and many others. I remember making many comments and threads asking for a permanent WE long ago, and I remember finally getting that terrible Glyph in Wotlk and being so excited to finally have a permanent pet of my own. Seeing that taken forcibly away after 16 years is… well it’s not good. I was excited to see how they were going to improve the pet, and make it more dynamic, but instead its just sort of being taken entirely away (in a sense).
Possible compromises:
Have the normal elemental remain as a permaenent companion. Have it empower/grow larger when using Icy Veins, activating it’s new reworked abilities. This lets the rework stays intact, but people can keep the aesthetic of having a water elemental guardian as their sidekick. People who opt out of the pet just summon the empowered pet when they use Icy Veins.
Have the water elemental completely retooled. Change it from being a choice of Lonely Winter VS Water Elemental (because it can’t compete), and just turn it into a standalone talent that’s used for outdoor PvE. Turn it from a waterbolt-spamming minion and change it into a melee tank pet like a hunter pet. This would mean it has no effect of raiders or PvE rotations, but it still has a powerful niche in world content. Mages are not broken in solo content so I don’t think this would be a bad solution.
I know it seems dumb, and people hate pets because they’re clunky and annoying to control at times, but this is a very important aspect to me as a Frost Mage player, and I even made a comic series starring my mage and my elemental as a duo when I was younger. https://imgur.com/a/ddncYLV I’m going to be devastated if this goes through. A lot of my personal headcanon dies with this change.
Anyway. I really hope someone hears this. I resubbed just to write this stupid thread and I pray that a developer sees it. I’ll even take a cosmetic glyph that does nothing and helps in zero ways. I will take any compromise! I just want it so that my precious “Bubbles” can remain by my side. Please.
Personally, I have a preference for being a solo mage without a pet, but I also empathize with players like yourself. I feel that Blizzard should refrain from removing the option to have a permanent Water Elemental. I’ve used the permanent Water Elemental countless times in old content to solo raid/dungeon achievements. So I would hate to see it go for that reason alone.
In a previous post, I suggested that Blizzard make a change to the automatic summoning of the Water Elemental with the new version of the Icy Veins cooldown. Instead, I proposed the introduction of a choice node with two different options for the Water Elemental.
The option on the left would be a permanent “Summon Water Elemental” spell, which would receive a buff to make it equally viable compared to the option on the right. This choice would provide Frost Mages with a more consistent damage output.
The option on the right would be a temporary “Summon Water Elemental” spell, similar to the one Blizzard intends to include with the reworked Icy Veins cooldown. This choice would give Frost Mages a more bursty damage profile, featuring a significantly empowered Water Elemental since it would only last for approximately 25 to 30 seconds.
(I would prefer Blizzard kept the Water Elemental separate from Icy Veins in theory, but most people would just macro it into Icy Veins anyway if they were separated.)
Additionally, these two choices could potentially offer distinct utility or spells to further differentiate between them.
I’ve read they are removing it but I didn’t understand. IDK I guess I am looking at it wrong. I don’t play mage but was wondering what this was about. So they aren’t removing the spell just the ability to keep it perm? That is silly, why remove options…? Never understood this. Perma pet should remain.
I love your comic, very well done. Very talented.
I’m looking to play mage next patch is it going to be okay? I’m not as impacted because I hate pets in this game.
Last time I checked the PTR the Water Elemental was still part of the choice node with Lonely Winter in addition to being baked into Icy Veins, so you could have 2 up at once. Has that changed? Haven’t logged in to regular WoW let alone the PTR since D4 dropped, lol.
The Frost changes weren’t properly implemented when they released the notes, so the PTR build was incorrect. Blizzard just wanted to announce the proposed implementations early for feedback.
The choice node has been removed and now in it’s place is just Lonely Winter, which I also assume is placeholder for something else.
As for if the pet should remain as is, I disagree. It just doesn’t see play. I love my pet, but it sucks. This way I at least get him sometimes.
For example OP, you’re probably as enthusiastic about the Water Ele as players get, and even you are currently speced into Lonely Winter, and 4 of your 6 loadouts have Lonely Winter.
So if you’re not even using it that often as someone who loves the Ele, think how little it is being played across the board.
I have no skin in this game, i dont play mage and when i do, its certainly not frost.
That being said- man, theres like six glyphs for this one spell and boom…gone, and mage has very few glyphs without it. Also…so how’s frost gonna handle the Mage Tower encounter now?
My assumption is that Blizzard looked to see how many frost mages actually use the pet vs those that use Lonely Winter instead and that was the reason.
I’m sure there is some data they have access to that shows them how many and how long it’s been that way.
Since the talent was added in Legion I think I have seen the water elemental used only a handful of times throughout the years.
I agree a compromise of some kind or at least for RP reasons at minimum it should be available to be a permanent pet.
Heck there are so many glyphs tied to that one pet for a mage that as others have pointed out would cut their glyphs in half.
I personally never have used the pet since Lonely Winter again a compromise of some kind needs to be done instead.
Given, the reason is bunk, but, dont the observer and the felpuppy function fairly the same way? The elemental serves some (extremely limited) functions that are going away with nothing left as a replacement (again, ie, how the water elemental is used to soak runes in the mage tower twins encounter).
Also, the felpuppy will have new skins, right? Theyre no observer, and the best outcome would be new felpuppies and leaving the glyph be (i use it myself on my lock), but it’s not like theyre taking away the talent node and replacing it with some other sort of minion/pet.
I appreciate the empathy even though it isn’t your personal playstyle.
I do want to touch back on your opinion about keeping it separate from Icy Veins. I do agree that it’s probably a bad idea to attach it to an essential cooldown. This change has made it so people who do not want to play with a pet at all now have to use a pet during raid encounters, and people who like the permanent pets have now lost the ability to do so. I don’t think the devs have realized that everyone loses in regards to pets when it comes to the current Icy Veins/Water Elemental rework.
I definitely use the pet more than my raid specs. All outdoor content I do with my water elemental. My multiple Lonely Winter specs are for different raid bosses, the Mage Tower and Arena PvP. You can’t glean “time played” based on looking at the amount of specs I have saved. It’s just being presumptuous.
I know it’s suboptimal to not take Lonely Winter currently but I disagree completely that it should be removed because of that. The new talent system was made so they can preserve outdated abilities instead of pruning them. We normally would have all lost the covenant ability at the end of Shadowlands, but now we don’t have to thanks to talents. Same goes for this rework. There’s no reason to remove it entirely. Just keep it. Nothing is lost if it stays in the game.
The pet has several legit uses, like being used to soak certain abilities in encounters. It can be used to eat up that rune on the ground during the Frost Mage Tower challenge in fact! It has legitimate uses and I don’t see why those niche cases should all disappear when there’s no reason to do so. The age of pruning is completely over. Unless you can give a logical reason as to why it “has” to be removed, there isn’t any reason to do so. It’s not damaging the game’s performance, it’s not a source of an exploit, it doesn’t limit design space, it’s just a harmless talent option. It has no logical reason to be removed.
And again, they’re now forcing all frost mages to use a pet during raid encounters. The water elemental isn’t being “removed”… the “option” to opt in or out of it is being removed. You’re going to be stuck using a pet and you’re going to have to like it. You’re gonna have to make macros to move it around the arena so it doesn’t get blown off by boss abilities, you have to tell it to swap targets, and you’re going to have to make room for a bunch of keybindings for a single cooldown ability or you risk the pet bugging out and messing up your big impactful cooldown ability. And I don’t think most people want that. I think everyone would benefit from Water Elemental staying as an option between permanent VS never. But I mean… if you want to leave the WE talent completely removed and rely on unreliable AI for your biggest DPS cooldown, that’s your call!
Lastly, they can always retool the elemental instead of making it a choice between it and lonely winter (because LW wins out 8/10 times). They could turn it into a PvE tanking pet like the void walker or hunter pet for example. Now it doesn’t compete with Lonely Winter, has a legit niche, and doesn’t have any effect on raiders. There’s zero reason the entire concept of having a permanent mage companion has to die. It just is going to take a little effort by the devs to think of a solution.
I think you are right about this, and I hate it because Blizzard stacked the deck against the water elemental. People who want or need more power pretty much need to take Lonely Winter. Those who don’t care one way or the other will probably still choose Lonely Winter by the buff. By making it a competition, they basically ensured the permanent elemental would not be used. Now they can say, “Oh, look! Almost no one uses it. I guess we can remove it!” It doesn’t mean people DON’T want the permanent pet, it means they want the extra power more. It will still be used as justification for removing it. Now, if the permanent elemental was a choice on its own, with no competition, and people still didn’t choose it? Then I can understand Blizzard removing the option.
Grr. Stop taking fun away just because, Blizzard! Not all of us try to squeeze every last drop of power out of the game! Sheesh.
Okay, not that it matters, but I did cancel my subscription over this. They just keep taking away the fun stuff to cater to the high end players, and I am done. I have some nice twinks I can mess around with if I get the urge, but this is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Stop taking fun away for the sake of the high end players and I might pay money again. Until then, enjoy lowering the quality of the game for the sake of your ego. I doubt it is worth it.
I do agree that that is a large flaw in this decision, and a flaw in certain player’s perception. No one uses it because it’s always purposefully tuned to be worse than LW aside from a few patches. Mix that with the aversion to pets most players have and it makes it seem like it’s a clear majority rule situation, even though it’s more complicated than that.
I encourage anyone who has an issue with this to visit the PTR forums and post in the Mage Feedback thread about this issue if you’d like the WE to remain an option.
Honest question, and I will ask this again and again, why shouldn’t the water elemental be permanent? I am a RP player, and the answer I keep seeing is because people don’t want it to be for gameplay purposes. So…why? How does a permanent water elemental detract from game play? If you have a stronger option on a different node, why not take that and leave the RPers to their happiness? It seems like taking enjoyable game play from one group to satisfy your values. Should the game actually focus on that?
I was thinking of dusting off my mage and playing them as my alt when they announced that they were finally improving the mage. Then I heard they got rid of the water elemental, the whole RP reason I ever made a mage in the first place because I thought it was so cool… And I gave up on the idea on giving the mage another go.
Hopefully they listen to your feedback and let people keep it, will play it again if they do.
Guys. Game is balanced around endgame and somewhat pvp (though who cares about pvp, not blizzard). RP can’t and shouldn’t ever be a reason for gameplay class changes. The whole point of RP is that you create your own content without relying on devs, isn’t it?
Get a cosmetic pet elemental and RP with him. Every mage that actually plays the endgame used Lonely winter as long as it’s existed, because pets suck, and weak pets suck even more.
You’re acting like the existence of the pet forces you to use it… but it doesn’t because it’s currently an optional talent that’s always inferior to being petless. This argument is null and void.
Unless you can provide a legitimate reason as to why an “option” is a bad thing, then there’s nothing here to argue about. Does it make the game have worse performance? Does it hurt endgame content? Does it effect you in anyway if it’s a bad ignorable talent? The answer is no. But I’m open to a reason why the option “has” to go.
However if you DON’T like pets in any form you SHOULD be rallying against this rework since it’s going to force every player to rely on a pet for their biggest dps CD. And I think you should be more concerned about that instead of the harmless option to use the inferior Summon Water Elemental over Lonely Winter.
