Suggested Mage Changes - Please stop ignoring us

Classes Mage
123

I was thinking of having SKB and [Kindling] as a choice node, buff [Pyroclasm]'s damage, give it a casting speed buff for [Pyroblast] and make it a capstone in place of SKB. Making [Pyroclasm] work with [Flamestrike] would be cool too and increasing the buff duration to 30s.

SKB vs [Kindling] makes sense to me since both are [Combustion] uptime talents.

124

I really just want a no cdr build and an uptime cdr build. This way we can tune our profile between 2 min bust, 90s bust, and high uptime 60s. This is how you give fire mage a variety of builds while actively promoting thought independent of the tuning of these options. This would then rely on a variety of fight timers being present in raid design though.

125

What’s the point of having mana beyond adding a soft limiter on our utility? Since Blizzard is obsessed with cooldown reduction for Mage, just put all utilities on a cooldown and make it reduced by X amount for every offensive cast that you do.

Remove mana and then add Arcane Charges, Fire Blast, and Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze as resources to manage. Bam. Mage reimagined.

126

Im looking at the raid fights in 10.1 and man…this is not looking good for mage in general. All of our weakest target counts and damage profiles on display. Mage is going to need yet another round of dramatic aura buffs if nothing changes before release. Im really starting to get tired of starting patches demonstrably behind average waiting for aura buffs.

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127

10.1
Prismatic Barrier now has a new unique icon.

You’re welcome mages!

128

Bumping this to echo the general sentiment. It’s crazy we’re less than a month from 10.1 and there’s not a single mage PvE change listed. And nothing from 10.7 either. I am genuinely confused.

129

Hey guys, some real quick changes to the tree suggestions above based on feedback. You can find these changes below (and updated in the OP above).

This is probably going to be my last post/edit on the topic of suggested changes since I seem to be wasting my time in this bucket of silence coming from the devs. I might tidy up the OP but other than that, that’s it for me. Good luck.

General Mage Tree

No changes

Arcane:

Rule of Threes:

  • Current: When you gain your 3rd Arcane Charge, your next Arcane Blast or Arcane Missiles has its mana cast reduced by 100%
  • Suggested change: Every 3rd spell you cast is guaranteed to be a critical strike, but you can no longer crit outside of this repeating 3-spell combo. Upon selecting this talent, critical strike damage is reduced by 25% (175% instead of 200%). Your critical strike rating will now increase critical damage instead of critical strike chance (i.e. 25% crit = critical damage does 200% like normal).

Mana Adept:

  • Current: Grants 2% maximum mana per Arcane Charge consumed by Arcane Barrage
  • Suggested Change: Grants 2% maximum mana per Arcane Charge consumed by Arcane Barrage and deals 25% additional damage.

Resonance:

  • Current: Arcane Barrage deals 15% increased damage per target it hits. (Max +75%)
  • Suggested Change: Arcane Barrage deals 10% increased damage per target it hits. (Max +50%)
    • This nerf is to compensate for Mana Adept above.

Masterful Magic

  • New Talent: Increases Mastery by 2% and increases Mana regen by 10% at all times.* Placed where Chrono-Shift is located on 10.0.5 version*

Foresight:

  • Current: Standing in place for 10 seconds grants you 4 seconds of casting while moving
  • Suggested Change: Casting Arcane Barrage has a 5% chance per target hit to fire an Arcane Orb in front of you.

Harmonic Echo:

Now a choice node with Focusing Spark

Focused Spark:

  • New Talent: Radiant Spark’s Vulnerability debuff decreased from 10% damage to 1% damage per stack, but this can now stack infinitely (i.e. Clearcast Arcane Missiles gives 8 stacks (with current tree), 10 stacks with new Orb Barrage replacement). Debuff lasts 10 seconds and is not further increased by new stacks. Choice node with Harmonic Echo

Fire:

Firefall

  • Current: Damaging an enemy with 30 Fireballs or Pyroblasts causes your next Fireball to call down a meteor on your target. Hitting an enemy player counts as double.
  • Suggested change: After consuming 8 Hot Streaks, your next non-instant cast Pyroblast or Flamestrike will call down a Meteor on your current target.

Hyperthermia

  • Current: When Hot Streak activates, you have a low chance to cause all Pyroblasts and Flamestrikes to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes for 5 seconds.
  • Suggested change: Every 40 seconds, your next Hot Streak will activate Hyperthermia, which causes all Pyroblasts and Flamestrikes to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes for 5 seconds. If this procs during your Combustion, your Combustion will be extended by the duration of Hyperthermia (5 seconds).

From the Ashes

  • Current: Increases Mastery by 2% for each charge of Phoenix Flames off-cooldown and your direct-damage critical strikes reduce its cooldown by 1 sec.
  • Suggested change: Increases Mastery by 3%. Your direct-damage critical strikes reduce Phoenix Flames’ cooldown by 1 sec. Your Phoenix Flames can now be cast outside of GCDs.

Alexstraza’s Fury

  • Current: Phoenix Flames and Dragon’s Breath always critically strikes and Dragon’s Breath deals 50% increased critical strike damage and contributes to Hot Streak.
  • Suggested change: Phoenix Flames and Dragon’s Breath always critically strikes and Dragon’s Breath deals 50% increased critical strike damage and contributes to Hot Streak. Your Phoenix Flames can now be cast outside of GCDs.

Frost

Ray of Frost

Moved to the position of where Splitting Ice is on 10.0.5 version

  • Current: Channels a beam for 5 secs, dealing (168% Spell Power) Frost damage every 1 second and slowing movement by 60%. Each time Ray of Frost deals damage, its damage and snare is increased by 10%. Generates 2 Fingers of Frost charges over its duration. 1.25 minute cooldown.
    • Total Ray of Frost Damage: 1008% Spell power over 10 seconds, 201.6% Spell Power DPS
  • Suggested change: Channels a beam for 5 secs 10 secs, dealing (168%100% Spell Power) Frost damage every 1 second and slowing movement by 60%. Each time Ray of Frost deals damage, its damage and snare is increased by 10%. Generates 4 Fingers of Frost charges over its duration. During Ray of Frost, you are able to cast Finger of Frost-Ice Lances without interrupting the channel. 1.25 minute1 minute cooldown
    • Total Ray of Frost Damage: 1550% Spell power over 10 seconds, 155% Spell Power DPS
130

One day, we’ll get patch notes for mages…

131

You all got trolled pretty hard this expansion. They are silently telling us to go play warlock or evoker. All of this excellent suggestions and feedback means nothing to them since they don’t read forums and don’t even play the game. Sure some of them do, probably pet battle or smth definitely not m+, raid and PvP

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132

10.1 is now a release candidate.

Brace yourselves, friends for another 6-9 months of being the most ignored class in WoW except for the mandatory aura buff they’ll give at some point when mages are hot trash.

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133

One day, hopefully we get attention…

134

Mages are not in melee group situations anyway lmao it’s laughable how that filler talent is. Couldn’t they come up with something that makes sense? Do they expect mages to blink in groups and mass poly which isnt instant btw theres a cast time lmao. The likelihood of the mage being the one CC is higher.

2 Likes
135

Preservation evoker. Because everyone knows Devoker is trash.

136

It never ceases to baffle me that in an era where Polymorph is rarely used, they thought people would be excited to have Mass Polymorph in the worst version they could come up with.

There was a month-long period during the beta where people were talking like “Wow, Mage gets Mass Polymorph? That’s insane!” and I felt like I was taking crazy pills because I took one look at it and thought “Why in the cold depths of Hades would I ever want a melee-range CC with both a cast time AND a CD that breaks on damage and heals the targets?”

There was literally an engineering item that worked better than that in BFA. It was an exploding sheep that ran towards a mob and turned them and every mob near them into random animals.

3 Likes
137

Let’s be honest: it was intentional that no one would use this. Had to ship a full tree somehow - best not include something you might have to actually tune.

138

Hey guys! Since we got a buff, I guess I get to keep going with ideas / changes to suggest. Here goes (again, see OP for full list of changes, including these ones)

Mage Class Tree

Incanter’s Flow

  • Current: Increases damage by 4% to 20%, cycling every 10 seconds
  • Suggested change (previous suggestion): Grants you the following effect based on your specialization:
    1. Arcane: Increases your maximum number of Arcane Charges by 1 and generates 1 Clearcast charge every 10 seconds
    2. Fire: Increases your maximum Fire Blast charges by 1 and reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast by 1 second
    3. Frost: Generates Brain Freeze every 10 seconds.
  • Suggested change (updated): Grants you the following effect based on your specialization:
    1. Arcane: Increases your maximum number of Arcane Charges by 1 and increases the damage of Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage by 20%.
    2. Fire: Increases your maximum Fire Blast charges by 1 and reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast by 1 second
    3. Frost: Generates Brain Freeze every 15 seconds and increases Ice Lance damage by 25% and Icicle damage by 10%.

Arcane

Foresight

  • Current: Standing in place for 10 seconds grants you 4 seconds of casting while moving
  • Suggested Change (previous version) : Casting Arcane Barrage has a 5% chance per target hit to fire an Arcane Orb in front of you.
  • Suggested Change (updated) : Casting Arcane Orb now grants you 4 Arcane Charges.

Radiant Spark

  • Current: Conjure a radiant spark that causes (91.2% of Spell power) Arcane damage instantly, and an additional (49.5% of Spell power) damage over 10 sec. The target takes 10% increased damage from your direct damage spells, stacking each time they are struck. This effect ends after 4 spells. 30 second cooldown
  • Suggested Change: Conjure a radiant spark that causes (91.2% of Spell power) Arcane damage instantly, and an additional (49.5% of Spell power) damage over 10 sec. The target takes 10% increased damage from your direct damage spells, stacking each time they are struck. This effect ends after 4 spells. This also applies Touch of the Magi on your target. Replaces Touch of the Magi. 45 second cooldown.

Supernova / Black Hole

Split into two seperate talents, Black Hole moved to Cleaving Barrage location

Arcing Cleave

Removed from the game, added to Resonance

Resonance

  • Current: Arcane Barrage deals 15% increased damage per target it hits. (Max +75%)
  • Suggested Change (previous version): Arcane Barrage deals 10% increased damage per target it hits. (Max +50%)
    • This nerf is to compensate for Mana Adept change. (+87.5% bonus damage on 5 targets with Mana Adept, +37.5% only with both Arcing Cleave and Mana Adept on single target).*
  • Suggested Change (updated): Arcane Barrage deals 10% increased damage per target it hits, excluding primary target (Max +40%). For every Arcane charge, Arcane Barrage hits 1 additional target for 40% damage.
    • This nerf is to compensate for Mana Adept change (+75% bonus damage on 5 targets with Mana Adept (same as current), +25% only with both Arcing Cleave and Mana Adept on single target (increased from +15% current with Resonance)).

Rule of Threes:

  • For Arcane Missiles, every 3rd missile benefits from this guaranteed crit effect, not the whole Arcane Missiles cast

Masterful Magic

  • New Talent (previous version): Increases Mastery by 2% and increases Mana regen by 10% at all times.
  • New Talent (updated): Arcane Barrage has a 10% chance per target hit to generate 2 Arcane Charges.

Flowing Time

  • New Talent (previous version): Increases Haste by 2% and reduces the cooldown of Blink by 1 seconds.
  • New Talent (updated): Every Arcane Missile has a 10% chance to ripple on impact, dealing (8.25% Spell Power) to the target and all enemies within 8 yards. Deals reduced damage after 8 targets.
    • Same damage as Arcane Echo talent. Talent renamed to Unstable Missiles
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139

I got bored and this really intrigued me. I have a lot of opinions (and not necessarily good ones). You’ve put a lot of effort into this, so bravo to you! I’m assuming you posting this means you’ll revel in any form of feedback. Regardless, don’t take anything here personally. I’m a grumpy mage with more thoughts than I have spells.

Considering how long it took them to fix our UI to make 4 charges work, I don’t see this being a good idea. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of being able to have an extra arcane charge, however, I think something like that should be dedicated to a cooldown instead of a full passive effect. Having a choice node on Touch of the Magi that granted an extra max charge (or two) for its duration instead of copying damage could be interesting.

The extra increase to Blast and Barrage damage could be detrimental to missiles as a whole. In my opinion, there’s a very fine balance between how powerful our blasts should be compared to our missiles. I, personally, think it should be:
Arcane Missiles (no CC) < Arcane Blast (4 charges) < Arcane Missiles (with CC) < Nether Precision Arcane Blast (4 Charges)
For at least part of BfA, CC missiles did less dps than a fully charged blast, making it rather irrelevant to cast unless you wanted to conserve mana. I don’t want to go back to that.

…Why? To attempt to get two full barrages out of a single arcane orb (once after cast, once after they hit the targets and grant you charges)? This would cause some very degenerate “I need to be at least X yards away from the mobs so I can hit them with Arcane Orb and get off 2 barrage casts, but I need to be WITHIN X yards to cast explosion”. Honestly I like the concept of foresight as it is, there are just too many existing throughput talents that compete with this decidedly not throughput related space. We just need to consolidate our throughput better.

In a perfect world, I’d like to see us have more choice in the utility that we have. That’s something we, as mages, are lacking overall. I’d rather keep foresight and find a way to make it a better choice.

Again, why? In all honesty we don’t need so many stacking buffs (heck, these are stacking debuffs at that, which are objectively worse). If we’re going to suggest anything, I’d rather it be that either one of these is completely removed OR we’re given a choice for which to take (and their damage numbers are adjusted to make them both competitive choices, just perhaps for different scenarios)

If Mana Adept is going to change, it should be to combine it with another talent (or make it baseline), not to add more throughput to it. We already have too many throughput talents. Adding yet another is just going to hurt, especially when you add another throughput talent just to nerf an existing one. Mana Adept, as it is right now, is something that you could potentially play without if you’re careful enough with your mana. In the next patch, with a set bonus that grants more mana, we may be able to give this talent up in favor of other things because we won’t need it anymore. Add throughput to it and suddenly there’s no option anymore.

I do agree that Resonance and Arcing Cleave should be combined. It just doesn’t make sense that they’re separate AND that Resonance comes first in the tree. If we get any changes here (besides combining them), I’d like to see a talent that more evenly distributes the damage across all the targets hit. Something like For each Arcane Charge, Barrage hits 1 additional target (for full damage) but deals 5% less total damage.

If I wanted to stop caring about crits, I’d play fire. Or Frost (at that Shatter crit breakpoint, if that’s still a thing). Arcane is already more complex than it needs to be. Trying to time out which of my spells is going to crit to ensure that my barrage or my surge crits is going to steer people away. Being able to guarantee them is great, just not like this.

I like the idea of keeping a talent called “Rule of Threes” that does something fun with the number three, I just don’t like this one. Something interesting, though, would be to make “every third consecutive Arcane Blast” do something (like increased damage or castable while moving or regen mana, etc.). It would be something fun to put directly under Nether Precision. It could give an incentive to cast a third blast as part of the rotation, but it would need to be well balanced so it doesn’t make us not want to cast arcane missiles

This is Impetus, but worse?

So it’s a repeat of Arcane Echo, but less controllable? Honestly, I like the idea of the haste and blink reduction a bit more. A 10% proc chance on missiles is pretty low, especially considering it’s only 8.25% damage. Something named “Unstable missiles” should be more along the lines of Clearcast Arcane Missiles have an X% chance to duplicate to another target.

140

I feel like rather than reworking Incanter’s Flow, I’d just straight-up replace it with the third option from SL that got left in the dust: Focus Magic.

Have it give spell power instead of crit and then tune it and Rune of Power to be equivalent when used at decent efficiency. No more movement hang-ups from people who don’t want it and mages get an extra bit of raid utility.

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141

All great changes, a shame that blizz will never read this or actually change anything.

And if they did read this, i wish they’d at least RESPOND to the criticisms and class change suggestions (that are clearly well thought out) by players.
I mean they really need to have community managers actively communicating with the devs or have devs pop in from time to time to explain their class balance rationale.

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142

Hey all! New update, this time to the fire tree. This one is pretty sizeable. LMK what you think. See the OP for the actual tree and visuals and all that

----- Core Fire Mage Mechanical Talent Changes -----

Critical Mass

  • Current: Your spells have a 7% / 15% increased chance to crit. You gain 5% / 10% more crit stat from all sources. 2 point talent
  • Suggested Change: Your spells have a 15% increased chance to crit. You gain 10% more crit stat from all sources. 1 point talent, moved to Firestarters’ location in 10.1’s Fire tree

Flame On

Moved to Phoenix Flames’ location in 10.1’s Fire tree

Firestarter

Moved to Critical Mass’ location in 10.1’s Fire tree

----- Fireball-Oriented Talent Changes -----

Loaded Flame

  • New Talent: After 8 seconds of not casting Fireball, your next Fireball is instant cast. Placed in Pyrotechnics’ location in 10.1’s Fire tree

Pyrotechnics

  • Current:Each time your Fireball fails to critically strike a target, it gains a stacking 10% increased critical strike chance. Effect ends when Fireball critically strikes.
  • Suggested Change: Each time your Fireball fails to critically strike a target, it gains a stacking 10% increased critical strike chance. Effect ends when Fireball critically strikes.Fireball critical strikes deal 25% more damage.

Flame Accelerant

  • Current: If you have not cast Fireball for 8 seconds, your next Fireball will deal 70%/70% increased damage with a 20%/40% reduced cast time.
  • Suggested Change: If you have not cast Fireball for 8 seconds, your next Fireball will deal 60%/120% increased damage and has a 50%/100% increased chance to critically strike.

Conflagration

  • Current: Fireball applies Conflagration to the target, dealing an additional (6.6% of Spell power) Fire damage over 8 sec. Enemies affected by either Conflagration or Ignite have a 10% chance to flare up and deal (6.75% of Spell power) Fire damage to nearby enemies.
  • Suggested Change: After not casting Fireball for 8 seconds, your next Fireball cast will explode on impact, dealing 25% of its damage dealt to all enemies within 8 yards of your target.

----- Scorch-Oriented Talent Changes -----

Blazing Execution

  • New Talent: Scorch critical strikes reduce the cooldown of Fire Blast by 2 seconds. Placed below Improved Scorch in 10.1’s Fire tree

Improved Scorch

  • Current: Casting Scorch on targets below 30% health increase the target’s damage taken from you by 2%/4% for 12 sec, stacking up to 3 times. Additionally, Scorch critical strikes increase your movement speed by 30% for 3 sec. 2 point talent
  • Suggested Change: Casting Scorch on targets below 30% health increase the target’s damage taken from you by 3% for 12 sec, stacking up to 3 times. Additionally, Scorch critical strikes increase your movement speed by 30% for 3 sec. 1 point talent

----- Phoenix Flames-Oriented Talent Changes -----

From the Ashes

  • Current: Increases Mastery by 2% for each charge of Phoenix Flames off-cooldown and your direct-damage critical strikes reduce its cooldown by 1 sec.
  • Suggested change: Increases Mastery by 3%. Your direct-damage critical strikes reduce Phoenix Flames’ cooldown by 1 sec. Your Phoenix Flames can now be cast outside of GCDs.

Alexstraza’s Fury

  • Current: Phoenix Flames and Dragon’s Breath always critically strikes and Dragon’s Breath deals 50% increased critical strike damage and contributes to Hot Streak.
  • Suggested change: Phoenix Flames and Dragon’s Breath always critically strikes and Dragon’s Breath deals 50% increased critical strike damage and contributes to Hot Streak. Your Phoenix Flames can now be cast outside of GCDs.

Phoenix Reborn

  • Current: Targets afflicted by your Ignite have a chance to erupt in flames, taking (12.5% Spell power) Fire damage and reducing the cooldown of Phoenix Flames by 10 seconds
  • Suggested change: Casting Phoenix Flames reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast by 5 seconds. Casting Fire Blast reduces the cooldown of Phoenix Flames by 5 seconds.

----- Pyroblast-Oriented Talent Changes -----

Tempered Flame

  • Current: Pyroblast has a 30% reduced cast time and a 10% increased critical strike chance. Combustion duration reduced by 50%
  • Suggested Change: Pyroblast has a 30% reduced cast time and a 10% increased critical strike chance. Combustion duration reduced by 50%

----- Flamestrike-Oriented Talent Changes -----

Flamestrike

Moved to Improved Flamestrike’s location in 10.1’s Fire tree

Improved Flamestrike

Removed, effect added to Flame Patch Talent

Flame Patch

  • Current: Flamestrike leaves behind a patch of flames that burns enemies within it for [8 * (5.076% of Spell power)] Fire damage over 8 sec
  • Suggested Change: Flamestrike leaves behind a patch of flames that burns enemies within it for [8 * (5.076% of Spell power)] Fire damage over 8 sec. Flamestrike’s cast time is reduced by 1.0 sec and its radius is increased by 15%.

Pyromaniac

  • Current: Casting Pyroblast or Flamestrike while Hot Streak is active has an 8% chance to instantly reactivate Hot Streak
  • Suggested change: Every 5th Flamestrike cast (Hot Streak or hard-cast) will cause your next Flamestrike to be instant cast and deal double damage.

----- Hot Streak-Oriented Talent Changes -----

Pyroclasm

  • Current: Consuming Hot Streak has a 15% chance to make your next non-instant cast Pyroblast cast within 15 seconds deal 230% additional damage. Max 2 stacks.
  • Suggested change: Consuming Hot Streak has a 15% chance to make your next non-instant cast Pyroblast or Flamestrike cast within 15 seconds deal 230% additional damage. Max 2 stacks.

Firefall

  • Current: Damaging an enemy with 30 Fireballs or Pyroblasts causes your next Fireball to call down a meteor on your target. Hitting an enemy player counts as double.
  • Suggested change: After consuming 8 Hot Streaks, your next non-instant cast Pyroblast or Flamestrike will call down a Meteor on your current target.

Sun King’s Blessing

  • Current: After consuming 8 Hot Streaks, your next non-instant Pyroblast or Flamestrike cast within 15 seconds grants you Combustion for 6 seconds
  • Suggested change: After consuming 8 Hot Streaks, your next non-instant Pyroblast or Flamestrike cast within 15 seconds grants you Combustion for 6 seconds

Living Bomb

  • Current: The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking (30% of Spell power) Fire damage over 4 sec, and then exploding to deal an additional (17.5% of Spell power) Fire damage to the target and reduced damage to all other enemies within 10 yards. Other enemies hit by this explosion also become a Living Bomb, but this effect cannot spread further.
  • Suggested Change: Consuming Hot Streak (Flamestrike or Pyroblast) puts a living bomb on your target, dealing (50% Spell Power) Fire damage over 10 seconds. After being hit by 3 Hot Streak-consuming spells (either Flamestrike’s AoE or Pyroblast), the target explodes, dealing (100% Spell Power) Fire damage to it and all enemies within 10 yards. 30 seconds cooldown. Passive talent, applies to target when consuming Hot Streak

Hyperthermia

  • Current: When Hot Streak activates, you have a low chance to cause all Pyroblasts and Flamestrikes to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes for 5 seconds.
  • Suggested change: Every 40 seconds, your next Hot Streak will activate Hyperthermia, which causes all Pyroblasts and Flamestrikes to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes for 5 seconds. If this procs during your Combustion, your Combustion will be extended by the duration of Hyperthermia (5 seconds).

----- Brand New Spec Defining Capstones -----

Fury of the Fire God

  • New Talent: Deals (150% Spell Power) Fire Damage to your target and all enemies within 8 yards, and activate Combustion for 10 seconds (increased by Improved Combustion). During this Combustion, your Ignite damage is increased by 100% and spreads to all nearby enemies with in 8 yards passively. Replaces Combustion. 3 minute cooldown (decreased by Kindling). This talent does not interact with Legend of the Eternal Flame. Choice node with Sun King’s Blessing

Endless Blaze

  • New Talent: Flamestrike will now contribute to Hot Streak if at least 1 target hit was crit. Flamestrike deals 20% less damage, flame patch damage unchanged. Choice node with Hyperthermia

Legend of the Eternal Flame

  • New Talent: Combustion is now permanently active, but only grants you 30% additional Critical Strike chance. If Wildfire talent is selected, it’s critical strike chance increase becomes permanent for you and your 4 party members. Replaces Combustion, choice node with Fiery Rush

----- “Freeing up the Tree” Talent Changes -----

Firemind

  • Current: Consuming Hot Streak grants you 1%/2% increased Intellect for 12 sec. This effect stacks up to 3 times. 2 point talent
  • Suggested Change: Consuming Hot Streak grants you 1% increased Intellect for 12 sec. This effect stacks up to 3 times. 1 point talent

Feel the Burn

  • Current: Fire Blast increases your Mastery by 2%/4% for 5 sec. This effect stacks up to 3 times. 2 point talent
  • Suggested Change: Fire Blast increases your Mastery by 3% for 5 sec. This effect stacks up to 3 times. 1 point talent

----- Talent Swap with the Class Tree -----

Meteor

Added from Class tree to the current position of Cauterize

Shifting Power

Added from the Class tree as a choice node with Living Bomb

Cauterize

Removed from the Spec tree, added to the Class tree in the place of Meteor

  • Developer’s note: Similar to Arcane, Fire has some talents that see exactly 0 play, mainly for tuning reasons (i.e. Flamestrike build in AoE). While you could simply fix Flamestrike with tuning, a lot of the talents in the Fire tree are poorly designed and not fun to play with, even if they were tuned to do good damage (i.e. Living Bomb, Pyromaniac, Cauterize). Below is a detailed description of talent changes for talents that see no play, as well as talent tuning that makes it harder for new players to pick up Fire:
    • Core Fire Mage Mechanical Changes: The addition of the new talent trees resulted in certain core talents being made into talent points that, if omitted from a spec, could make the spec borderline non-functional. Fire has 2 examples of this: Flame On (which grants 2 Fire Blast charges and reduces Fire Blast cooldown) and Critical Mass (which increases critical strike chance significantly). Without these talents, Fire is near unplayable, both in and out of Combustion. In order to address, I positioned Flame On early and in the middle of the early spec tree, and made Critical mass a 1-talent point node that is easily accessible for all builds. This resulted in moving Firestarter to the next tier of talents.
    • Fireball-Oriented Talent Changes: Flame Accelerant is a controversial that has potential, in my opinion. At this time however, it is a strange talent that has almost no value after the 1st talent point since the 2nd does not further increase Fireball damage. Going with a theme of not casting Fireball for 8 seconds (i.e. during Combustion), I decided to create several talents oriented around saving up for a big Fireball the could be cast during Combustion (8 seconds into it) and outside of it, i.e. during the execution phase when you replace Fireball with Scorch. Loaded Flame is a new talent that allows Fireball to become an instant cast if not cast within the past 8 seconds. Pyrotechnics increases now also increases the critical damage of Fireball in addition to eventually guaranteeing a crit with Fireball. Lastly, Conflagration is an extremely weak talent, even back in BfA, which is entirely passive, boring and uninteractive. So I thought: Why not use it to give Fireball some cleave? With this change, it would allow this mega-Fireball thrown every 8 seconds to cleave 25% of its damage to all nearby targets, giving Fireball value in AoE.
    • Scorch-Oriented Talent Changes: Several Fire mages on the Mage discord have been complaining about Fire’s lack of Execute, which seemed to be stronger in the days of BfA, and I agree with them. In fairness to Blizzard, they tried to improve Fire’s execute with the addition of Improved Scorch, but this talent is almost never selected because there are a number of absolutely manditory core talents that compete with it. This, unfortunately, has led to Improved Scorch not seeing much play. In an effort to reinforce that and bring back Fire’s execute, I made several changes to those manditory talents (see “Freeing Up the Tree” Talent Changes below), as well as made Improved Scorch a 1-point talent at the cost of 25% of it’s effect. I also added a new talent, Blazing Execution, which will significantly improve Fire’s throughput in the execute phase by helping with Fire Blast cooldown resetting. Also it makes the talent tree look mirrored with the right side instead of having a big gap between Improved Scorch and Call of the Sun King, which is always nice.
    • Phoenix Flames-Oriented Talent Changes: Phoenix Flames remains a controversial spell to cast. It has a travel time, is not guaranteed to crit (outside of with Alexstraza’s Fury) and is on the GCD. All of these make it an unfun button to press, even if the 10.1 tier set is hard at work trying to make use press it more. In an effort to fix some of these issues, I made From the Ashes and Alexstraza’s Fury both change Phoenix Flames to no longer be on the GCD. I also removed the “Off-cooldown” Mastery gain of From the Ashes (which disincentivized using Phoenix Flames altogether for that reason). Lastly, I changed Phoenix Reborn to make Phoenix Flames essentially give you 1 Fire Blast charge when used, which should significantly increase its use during Combustion.
    • Pyroblast-Oriented Talent Changes: Tempered Flames, while a cool idea at its roots, should not come with a 50% Combustion duration drop. This actually makes the talent a DPS loss to pick up in almost all settings. I simply removed the Combustion duration decrease. The opportunity cost of not having 2 more seconds and more mastery from crit rating during Combustion is enough of a trade off for this talent.
    • Flamestrike-Oriented Talent Changes: Flamestrike is sadly seeing almost no play at the moment. Now, one could reasonably argue that it simply requires a numerical buff, which certainly could make it more useable, but I think there are other problems with this spell, mainly in the way of you having to spend 4 points just to get your full Flamestrike (Flamestrike + Improved Flamestrike + Flame Patch + Incendiary Eruptions). Note that those 4 points would be traded from talents like Flame On, Critical Mass, Feel the Burn or Firemind, which is an acceptable loss. In an effort to reduce this, I removed Improved Flamestrike and tied its effect to Flame Patch. I also buffed Pyromaniac to give benefits to casting Flamestrike (both in and out of Combustion). Lastly, I added a brand new capstone that allows Flamestrike to generate Hot Streak procs (see Brand New Spec-Defining Capstones section below).
    • Hot Streak-Oriented Talent Changes: A lot of the complaints I hear for new Fire mages is that the spec is very difficult due to having to juggle a bunch of different buffs within a narrow time span. I agree that the number of buffs have gotten excessive, but I actually think the real problem is the timer on these buffs. Losing a Pyroclasm or Sun King’s Blessing proc feels awful and your DPS meters most certainly feel it too. As such, I removed the timers on these buffs to make it easier to juggle these buffs. I also made Firefall, a talent that also sees no play, now interact with this 8 Hot Streak in a row mechanic that Sun King’s Blessing has. This is because even when I tried the talent, I would always try to line it up with Combustions so as to guarantee a crit with Rune of Power on the Meteor for massive damage. This change simply bakes this mechanic into the talent. If the damage ends up becoming excessive, you can always dial back the Meteor’s damage by whatever percent is appropriate. Lastly, I made Hyperthermia more predictable, since this extremely strong buff (especially with Flamestrike) is far too random, and procing at the wrong can feel extremely frustrating (i.e. at the end of a large AoE pull rather than right at the start).
    • Brand New Spec-Defining Capstones: Many of my friends and fellow mages have suggested several things for Fire Mages. First of all: there are a lot of Fire Mages that would like an option for the old BfA version of Fire Mage, with a super-Combustion every 2 minutes where you completely smash the meters, especially in AoE. This is the purpose of the “Fury of the Fire God” talent. It has both upfront damage and significantly increased Ignite damage that spreads to all targets in the vicinity, something reminiscent of BfA Fire Mage, with a 3 minute cooldown (reduced to ~ 2 minutes with Kindling). Secondly, I mentioned in the Flamestrike section a talent that would allow Flamestrike to contribute to Hot Streak, allowing players to throw down a lot more Flamestrikes (albeit with less damage per Flamestrike, but unchanged Flame Patch damage). This is essentially what Endless Blaze does. Lastly, I remember in Season 4 of BfA, you could actually get enough critical strike chance to permanently emulate being in Combustion for Fire Mages, which completely changes the playstyle. I would like to see that come back. My attempt at bringing it back is with the “Legend of the Endless Flame” talent, which grants you a permanent, albeit weakened Combustion that forces you to heavily invest into crit to reach 100% crit from normal Combustion. With your base crit chance, Critical Mass, Wildfire and Tome of Rhonin talents, this net you a total of 60% critical strike chance, meaning you still need 40% critical strike chance (about 6750 Critical strike rating with the Critical Mass crit rating increase buff) to reach 100%. Because of talents like Improved Combustion, this would make 75% of that turn into Mastery, so although your haste, versatility and base mastery would likely be low from putting so many points into crit, your Mastery would be somewhat secure with this talent. Also, this would provide a neat permanent party buff of 2% crit to all members of your party with the Wildfire talent.
    • “Freeing Up the Tree” Talent Changes: As I mentioned above in my “Core Fire Mage Mechanical Changes” section, there are a lot of 2-point talents that net so much damage that you cannot deviate from them. I chose to seperate Firemind and Feel the Burn from Flame On and Critical Mass because while the spec would be non-functional without Flame On and Critical Mass, it could still function with Firemind and Feel the Burn. You would just do a lot less damage, which many find unacceptable. As such, I decided to make both of these talents 1 point each, as well as nerfing them slightly to compensate. Hopefully this allows Fire Mages to have more freedom and diversity of choice in their spec tree.
    • Talent Swap with the Class Tree: This is just documenting some of the talents that got moved from the class to the spec tree.
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