Given how popular the class fantasy of a spell sword is, I like many others it seems don’t feel like any of the classes fill the traditional class fantasy of a battle mage or spell sword. Yes the death knight, shaman and paladin are all close mechanically but in terms of class fantasy they are definitely different.
The biggest reason I see push back on the idea is that it wouldn’t be fair to mages who love their spec to have it turned into a melee spec and I agree with them on this. However, with the new talent system it seems like there is a very simple solution to this issue in that there could be a choice node in the fire tree that turns fireball into a melee ability and buffs melee damage. The rest of the fire spec already can be played perfectly fine as a melee class exactly the way it is, the only thing making it play firmly as a caster is spamming fireball until you crit.
Making a choice node to turn this melee would let those that enjoy the class fantasy of a spell sword have what they want, and those that enjoy fire mage as it is be no worse off. To further enhance the class fantasy, being able to transmogrify staves into melee weapons will make it so no weapon changes would be necessary either.
This seems like a really simple solution where everyone wins?
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Ehhhhh. I’m not really disagreeing with you. But! If they make a “melee mage”, which I’m 100% for, then it definitely needs to come at a 4th spec. Unfortunately, that’s why it’s extremely unlikely. It’s the only way to do it properly. Hunter showed change an existing spec to melee isn’t a good idea. The Lone Wolf talent is also controversial with Hunters because it turns MM petless and when that talent is the meta pick, it upsets people. I suspect if “melee Fire Mage” talent was the meta pick, we would see a similar result with the community.
I’m still not disagreeing with your idea. I would prefer a melee mage to have a new form of magic, though. Or even a blend of the current Fire, Frost, and Arcane in equal proportions with new spells that interact/combo with the others.
I personally wouldn’t win because I want melee mage to be more than just a talent. Similar to how I want Gladiator Warrior to be more than just a talent. But, I do think that if it were to ever, then your way is the more likely. I also believe there would be negative repercussions within the mage communities similar to Hunter.
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Would be interesting to have anti melee defensives in the form of magic swords. Something akin to shadowlands ret paladin eye for an eye. it would reduce physical damage taken by 35% and return every melee hit with its own strike.
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I think a proper melee mage spec would be great too, but I agree I think a one talent implementation like lone wolf would be more likely. It would be far less dev time and balancing involved. I think that there will always be people unhappy with a decision but given how little this method would affect overall damage since the instant pyro and combustion window playstyle would still fit in melee, I don’t think it would ever deviate that far from fires damage to be the meta if that makes sense. Even if it isn’t a win it surely can’t really be seen as a loss. You are no worse off than how fire was before right?
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