Spellslinger sounds like a rather generic uninspiring hero talent specilization. All mages sling spells so it just seems so… unexciting.
IMO, it should be changed to Conjurer or Summoner. Then they can amend the mistake they made of removing the permanent pet by creating a Hero talent tree that focuses on bringing that playstyle back and enhancing it so its actually a compelling pet spec mages can opt into if they want.
Arcane Familiar, a Phoenix pet like Kael summons, and the permanent Water Elemental would be perfect candidates for such a tree. Who wouldn’t want to be like Kael? Or enhance the playstyle of the arcane familiar/water elemental? And its entirely optional so the haters can’t complain about being forced to play with a pet spec.
The haters should back this. Because what it means is that they can take water elemental out of IV and everyone can get what they want. No more forced 20% uptime on water elemental. Now would the mage community unite and help each other like a world walking on rainbows? We’ll see. History has shown me otherwise. I’m definitely not holding my breath.
I wouldn’t mind this as an option since it would be on top of your existing talents. Maybe the conjured pet would depend on your primary specialization. Water Elemental for frost and an Arcane Golem (like those used by blood elves, draenei, and Medivh) for Arcane.
I wouldn’t mind that actually. I always thought the Arcane Familiar talent was a huge letdown and that it should have looked like an arcane elemental. Arcane Golems as temporary guardian type summons, with the same utility as a Shaman’s earth elemental, would also be really cool.
We all know that’s not going to be true. One of the hero specs will perform better and, given Blizzard’s track record, one of them could be completely unviable.
Even if it was perfectly balanced, Blizzard would effectively be telling 2/3rds of our specs that their options are “Become a pet class” or “Don’t become a pet class”. If I wanted to be a pet class, I’d play a hunter or a warlock. It’s a pretty large fundamental shift in playstyle (in my opinion). It’d be a no-brainer decision for me, which unfortunately would make half my options DoA because of how drastically it would impact the way I want to play the game.
The other option would be to make all of the actual summons / pets be choice nodes where something else can be selected. But at that point, would it really still be a Conjurer / Summoner? And that still takes a lot of - if not all of - the meaningful decisions away from the player simply because they’d prefer to be a lone wolf.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t care if the water elemental stays or goes just don’t force a negative impact (turning mages into a pet class because it “performs better”) on other players to do so.
I do feel that the Hero Talents are largely uninspired so far, but I’ll take what they’ve offered us over being a Conjurer or a Summoner.
And as a note, as sick of hearing it as I am, I do genuinely hope that Blizzard can find a way to give you what you’re asking for without forcing me down a path I do not wish to travel.
I like the idea of Hero Talents and what they’re trying to do. But atm mage’s names do feel “meh”. And overall it’s hard not to think that every spec won’t just pick the one setup that’s clearly focused more on there spec: frostfire, sunfury, & spellslinger; wonder which one goes with which spec . Same is true of every class-spec, just need to see what the actual talents are.
But I was hoping for at least a cooler name haha. Spellslinger makes me think it would distance effects to spells like Arcane Explosion…neat.
Call it something like: Archmage, Wizard, Grand Magi, Sorcerer, Mana Addict, Arcanalord, Gandalf, Merlin’s Apprentice, Raw Magic, Conduit, Touched by the Arcane, Arcane Conduit, Supreme Intellect, Your Mom’s “Friend”, Uncle Ron, or ya know anything that sound awesome like the Warrior names. Take those names and make it cool.
I agree that the names feel incredibly uninspired, but it looks to be that way across the board. Some classes clearly have better ideas than others right now.
The only one that I’m interested in is Frostfire, but as an Arcane mage I bet I won’t be seeing that one. Sunfury sounds like a blood elf fire mage and Spellslinger sounds like the one guy left in the ghost town in the wild west that knew how to read.
The big thing is that I would want my Hero Talents to feel heroic. “Spellslinger” and “Sunfury” don’t do it for me when Death Knights will be running around rocking “San’Layn” and “Rider of the Apocalypse”
Give me things like “Guardian of Tirisfal” or “Ravenseeker” to reference Medivh. Give me things like “Spell Weaver” or “Magic Incarnate” to reference Malygos. Give me things like “Eye of Norgannon” or “Cosmic Keeper” to reference the titans.
There is SO much lore out there for them to use (and retcon) and I hope they decide to fall into names that feel powerful.
And given the massively undertuned track record on welly, it’s most likely to be the “conjuror”. Even if that wasn’t true, I take issue with that, that’s like balance druids saying that they want feral to play just like balance just in case feral is ever better. This is why this class feels so narrow compared to others: it’s being forced to always be a pewpew wizard regardless of spell color. And that’s probably what it will be forever.
Frost is already a pet class 20% of the time. During its most important burn window. And frost can’t get out of it at all. If they moved welly from IV to the Hero class, frost will have non-pet options, which is better if people TRULY hated welly. only 2/3rds of specs are actually out of having it.
The three mage specs are, in my opinion, wildly different from each other in many ways. To the point where it seems like a lot of players will actively refuse to play one of them because they don’t like it. Even when it’s outperforming the other two. (For most people, Arcane seems to be the unwanted spec. For me it’s fire.) I’d hardly call mage a “narrow” class just because all 3 specs are designed around dealing damage with spells.
To me, this sounds like a frost problem. Moving it into a Hero tree would make it someone else’s problem as well. Clearly there’s an issue right now with the state of how Water Elemental is designed, and moving that problem from one spec to two isn’t going to help anyone. It would give those who wanted the elemental the option to have it and those who didn’t want it to be rid of it forever at the expense of locking both “factions” out of an entire Hero Talent Tree.
I’d much prefer if Blizzard could just find better ways to balance the existence (or non-existence) of the Water Elemental within the frost tree.
To me, because they all revolve so heavily around their dps cooldowns and ideal play related to them, it feels samey. I’ll admit i was never great at executing fire’s rotation but i never cared enough to learn it.
Mages have summoned and crafted constructs of all kinds so it almost makes sense to move the fantasy outside the elemental spec trees while also letting people opt out of it if it’s not their thing. If they relaxed the 2 hero talent specs restriction and let you pick any hero talent spec with any other spec would this change your opinion at all? They could change the name of the frostfire tree and make it about mixing elements in some way. In fact if they did that they could re-introduce ebonbolt. Make the top node a choice node in how they’re mixed (frostfire bolt being an obvious other choice).
It really isn’t, because Frost is in no way a pet class. Despite having a 20% uptime on IV which does ‘technically’ summon a pet, the player can ignore it entirely and never interact with it. In fact, most Frost Mages could be entirely forgiven for not even realising it was there. Having a non-interactive pet does not make it a pet class, and anything short of massive changes won’t allow it to ever be one. However - a new ‘sub-class’ could potentially open things up but I think the current state of the pet is fine as it is.
That’s me in a nutshell. Arcane for the last few years has been terrible to play in my opinion, and I generally won’t touch it outside of shiggles in a low key. Same with Fire really. Would I play them if they went back to WoD/Legion? Sure, but for now nope.
Probably, yes. I was going to say in my previous post (before deciding I’d rambled too much) that if in the next expansion (Midnight, I believe?) they opted to add an additional Hero tree to the mix and increase what our options are, I’d say that’d be a good time to look for a pet-based tree. Doing it now takes away 50% of your agency in the trees. Doing it when there are 3 trees makes it a 33% reduction. It’s still substantial, but notably less. It also gives them more time to figure out how to do it correctly.
Also, regarding my “That seems like a frost problem” comment, I want to be clear that I don’t necessarily think the current IV / Elemental thing is an issue in itself, but rather the fact that some people aren’t happy with it. I haven’t played enough frost recently to be able to have a justifiable opinion about what is and is not good for the spec. But there’s a very vocal group of players who are not happy with how it currently works, meaning it’s clearly someone’s issue.
Oh yeah! Since this is locked to frost and arcane, I think arcane mages should get a Kadgar’s guardian. And it should have a move that forces all enemies around it to follow it around for 3 seconds as a reference to the old Shatt intro quest.
That’s factually incorrect. We used to have two options. Now we have one. That’s a problem. Removing customization and player choice is never going to be better than forced options. I’ve already devised ways a perma pet can exist alongside the new icy veins thing. You won’t give anything up, and everyone gets what they want. But for some reason… people are against that? It’s odd to me.
The fact that the MOST popular thread on the entire mage forum, for the last few months, without me even needing to comment in or bump the thread, is about the removal of the pet should make some of you open your eyes about how things are not “perfectly fine.”
Then we’ll have to agree to disagree! Removing options, when unnecessary, is a net loss. It’s simple math.
Before removal of the talent: Options = Two options total (Lonely winter vs Summon WE)
After the removal: Options = One option total (Icy Veins temp summon)
I don’t really see why there’s so much resistance to accept an indisputable mathematical value.
Good news for you! You can’t actually grab all of the hero spec talents! You’d be allowed to skip any pet related ones! In fact, you can ignore one of the two hero specs entirely! Don’t like the Summoner tree? Choose the other tree. Done. Everyone is happy!
You can bury your head into the sand as much as you want, but the most popular thread on the forums currently is the pet discussion so you’ll just have to get used to this point of discussion until the issue is resolved.
There’s no disagreement to be had about what is or is not fact, though. You may have an OPINION about the change, but Blizzard clearly delineated their design intent with the change and implemented that change. Unless you’re saying the new implementation is bugged or nonfunctional, or somehow runs counter to Blizzard’s intent?
Your opinion is not an indisputable mathematical value. Hate to break it to you.
Honestly, at this point I almost want Blizzard to just finish the job. Remove Water Elemental entirely, bake the value and buff into Icy Veins baseline, pretend Water Elemental never existed, and move on.
Somehow, despite your spirited claims to the contrary, I’m imagining the overwhelming majority of the Mage playerbase would manage to live with themselves and keep playing despite the loss of their dearly valued… Whatever that thing was. I know I’m not going to miss it much myself.
. Same is true of every class-spec, just need to see what the actual talents are.