“Summon Water Elemental” Part 1: https://i.imgur.com/CUycnYT.jpeg
“Summon Water Elemental” Part 2: https://i.imgur.com/gPgfGMw.jpeg
“Summon Water Elemental” Part 3: https://i.imgur.com/3wUS2CZ.png
“Summon Water Elemental” Part 4: https://i.imgur.com/ekTRrGV.jpg
I made a thread a couple of weeks ago regarding my distaste for the removal of the option to have a permanent frost mage pet. It got a lot of views and discussion, and I see other threads regarding the topic that also are just as active, so it’s clear to me that this is a pretty divisive change.
I wanted to take some time out of my schedule to create a series of visual suggestions on how Summon Water Elemental can stay in the game and coexist with the new Frost Mage rework. I have several suggestions I want the devs to possibly consider, so a few more parts before patch 10.1.5. None of these suggestions are perfect, but they might work with some tweaks.
Anyway, enjoy, give me feedback on if you think the suggestion could be balanced, and let me know if there’s any typos. I always miss one somewhere!
I’m actually in favor of the Water Ele changes.
But I wanted to comment and say I liked the comic, and I love how the comic character is also your WoW character.
I totally agree with you on keeping the elemental. It’s been such apart of frost since vanilla I think there should be play style were it buffs you and your elemental gives you extra abilitys. Ya we can keep lonely winter for that play style but make it to were both are viable if people want the the elemental. That would be like a ele shaman but with no fire elemental just wouldn’t make since.
It’s also really dumb to revert it because of glyphs. The cosmetic glyphs for it are almost useless if you don’t get to see it all the time. This is one of the tackiest changes i’ve ever seen. I guess for locks it was the demo changes in Warlords or post warlords that just obliterated capability from a spec. I played legion, i earned the title archmage i should be able to have 3 active at all times. I’ll settle for them not removing it and making it competitive with the non-WE option, hopefully giving both choices a little bit of a niche but keeping the difference sane between the two even in the niche scenarios so no one feels shafted.
I am kinda torn on the issue. On the one hand I never like when things are removed (except RoP, I will happily dance a jig on its grave) especially when they were already a choice you could easily opt out of. On the other hand, while water elementals have been permanent (if watered down pets) for a very long time, historically they were a temporary summon and essentially a DPS cooldown. That’s been the case even going back to before WoW in Warcraft 3.
At the end of the day I think WEs will work better as a temporary summon and, while it’s not the same thing, you do always have the option to have a WE companion pet out at all times (there are in fact many different versions available).
P.S. Bubbles looks adorable in the comic! I am gonna change the name of one of my WE companion pets to “Bubbles” in his honor.
If you’re using the rts as a reference point, the only rts that had locks, wc1, also only had temporary summons. Water Elemental in that game was the answer to lock’s most powerful summon, daemon, albeit summoned by a different unit, conjuror.
So if locks are allowed to evolve mages should too. That’s one of my major gripes with this class: it’s constantly held back and never allowed to evolve.
Please everyone stop repeating this bs about the rts. You’re not wrong but if we take the rts as gospel truth locks should have 0 permanent pets. Us not having permanent we is a case in point of us not being able to evolve next to other classes.
Also in wc3 where we could summon water elemental we could consistently have 3 at a time. Honestly i might not be as pissed about this change if we could do that and it wasn’t a single permanent pet.
Save the water elemental and give me a glyph where my mirror image copies are water elementals, please.
Honestly, I haven’t used the water elemental in several expansions. I hate that it’s competing with a 25% buff to damage. It would be nice if they could buff it or move it away from sharing a slot with a 25% buff.
As it stands though, since I’ve gone so long without it, I’m pretty indifferent.
That’s exactly what they want though. Wear you out so you don’t care. Don’t know if this much friction is worth it though. If i have to drag a dev, kicking and screaming to make the right choice, imo my fantasy is dead because even its dev doesn’t care.
Lmao! Looks like I touched a nerve. I couldn’t care less about the rts. I was merely pointing out that WEs not being permanent pets goes all the way back to that time. The first incarnation of WEs in WoW also had them as a temporary summon and, frankly, it worked better then.
The only reason we don’t have a permanent pet is because Mages aren’t a pet class and this is an MMO where those kinds of distinctions matter a great deal to people and a big reason why they choose one class over another. You can’t just upend that regardless of whether or not you agree with it.
By that logic warlocks should be the same way. Let’s have the mage dev make everyone the same! Warlock pets were temporary then and that’s how then pets worked then too!
But why? Where does this idea even come from? The most recent rts when vanilla launched was wc3. We were functionally a pet class being able to have 3 out at once beforw vanilla. Hunters and locks can have pets. Heaven forbid one mage spec uses it.
So why did mages suddenly have no pets in vanilla? It feels very arbitrary and random in context. Wow isn’t opposed to more than 1 class having pets and hasn’t been opposed to us having one for 12 years. It’s neglect for our lore that put us in this current situation and also neglect for the ability as well. I bet you our dev told their boss “don’t worry, it’s been terrible for 12 years based on our behavior, no one will care keke”
I loved the water elemental as a cooldown when it was added during TBC along with Icy Veins. When the glyph came out during Wrath to make Water Elemental a permanent pet, I was very opposed. In Cataclysm, they made it a permanent pet baseline, and I hated it. The water elemental got in the way all the time and didn’t feel very impactful most of the time. I was happy when they eventually added Lonely Winter.
That said, I am not opposed with the permanent pet being an option for those who like it. Just because I don’t enjoy it doesn’t mean my opinion matters more than other mage players.
Right? They did the same thing (not sure if its still the case) when they removed ROP but kept IF. I’m all for removing or reworking the bad “choice” nodes (they were never a choice, lets be honest) to make them fit better within the spec and gameplay but here it seems like they just removed WE and kept LW which means they don’t understand the entire point.
It, like IF, is nothing but a passive damage boost. It provides literally nothing to the spec in terms of rotation or gameplay that couldn’t be achieved by passive buffs to the aura or specific spells. It’s an incredibly boring and poorly designed talent, and it does nothing but make it a mandatory talent spend.
Don’t get me wrong, the changes and updates in 10.1.5 are great for the class but it seems as though they just assigned someone who has never played the game (and especially never a Mage), and told them they had to have it ready by early July. There are some great changes coming, but when you think about what could have been it’s just a rush job.
Leaving IF after RoP got axed was just them being lazy. But this LW thing is odd. So it’s just going to be a 25% buff to Frostbolt, Ice Lance, and Flurry with no downside at all? Will the damage increase not be active when the WE is up during IV? So many questions…
Until the final PTR build is released I am going to keep assuming they’ll change or remove it.
P.S. So many talent nodes can simply be subsumed into an aura buff, it’s depressing.
Yeah that’s the problem. It’s rush job #2. We gave lots of feedback in df beta, it was ignored and they went with it anyway. This patch is they finally fix most of the problems we’ve had for the last few expansions and that’s it. Meanwhile other classes have actually evolved.
Yep. Maybe removing a permanent ability that would have taken actual work to balance is also lazy. You might be onto something here.
Dealing with some real life pet stuff this month, so it took me longer to make these than I hoped it would. I really wanted to push out a 4 part story that ends right before patch day but I’m probably going to miss that window.
Keep the Water Elemental! I will use a Water Elemental no matter what, let the min/maxers go solo if they want that, but BLIZZARD LEAVE OUR WATER ELEMENTAL ALONE!
I’m devastated that WE is gone. My first mage was in Wrath, as arcane, but eventually changed to frost. I play alone 95 percent of the time, and I want my WE back. I don’t think I’ll be maining mage any more.
Me too. the new water elemental change is awesome. I hit like a beast when it is up. Sad though when I die and all that dps is wasted. lol. Ya ya i know. get good. lol
