yikes. stand still is yikes
The new version of the water elemental is a cooldown, it is no longer permanent. So people who enjoy having the permanent elemental no longer have access to that functionality.
My complaint is that there (seemingly) is no middle ground with the current implementation. I would like for the elemental to be buffed to usability, but I would like it to be done in a way that doesn’t remove its permanence for those who use it. I gave the chief example of roleplayers because that’s a community I’ve always been in, and I’ve seen mages use it in that way. The moment that got added to the PTR I started seeing tweets (because I am unfortunately on twitter) complaining about this change
Alright, I see what you’re saying. I’m sorry for jumping to a conclusion and getting hostile. Brain no work at 1am and some earlier replies had already predisposed me to be more irritated than I should have been
Yeah it’s an uphill fight. But I’m a lot less demoralized by the prospect since WoW’s had so many major changes recently. Cross-faction gameplay for instance. An expansion built around flight instead of restricting it for a year, etc
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I always chose Lonely Winter anyway, so not particularly bothered by this change. To be honest, I always found the Water Elemental annoying and just there to proc Fingers of Frost on-demand. It’s an unfortunate change for Mages who liked having that permanent pets, though.
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As a Mage, even if taking the elemental isn’t the current choice, I still like the elemental being available. You also need it for the extra freeze on the adds for the Mage Tower challenge. I wonder if they thought of that.
Don’t remove the elemental. Make it viable again instead.
As a side note, Frost doesn’t need more short cooldowns. There are far too many as it is.
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Where does it say this? Have you tested it out on the PTR?
The tooltip for 10.1.5 is still the exact same as Live on Wowhead.
1.5 second cast, 30 second cooldown, summons a Water Elemental to follow and fight for you.
From the PTR board:
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Degas beat me to it, so you can see the changelog in the post above mine.
The permanent water elemental summon has been removed and attached to icy veins’ cooldown. If you’re still seeing otherwise on the PTR then it hasn’t been implemented yet, but these are what the current patch notes are saying
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It wasn’t a permanent elemental originally. I remember that it lasted only 45 seconds around Wrath of the Lich King era ?
Correct. The permanent water elemental was added in Cataclysm. TBC and Wrath it was a CD pet.
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Monks, and shamans have temporary pets, so why does only one specialization of mages need to have a permanent pet ?
Some people liked having it, I guess. As I said earlier in the thread I didn’t care for it and actually found it only there to give me Fingers of Frost on demand. I always go Lonely Winter on my Mage.
The thing is, it could kill stuff sometimes while questing so I didn’t have to think too much and only cast light spells to get through, it made the leveling experience more enjoyable, why would I want to cast four frost novas when my water elemental can take care of things while I just click ice lance a few times,
I don’t want my leveling experience to be too tedious.
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Awesome, thanks for that. I read up on most of the changes but I guess I missed this one in particular.
Now that I actually see the change, I have to agree with you that it’s a pretty silly one.
I see a few issues with this.
- They’re removing a part of the class fantasy that was there from the start (That you mentioned).
- The 2385328746398241 shades of blue Water Elemental Glyphs they made are now, essentially, useless. This seems to be a trend with their changes these days, and they’ve essentially left the Glyph system in the dust.
I’m torn. On one hand, it was useless. On the other hand, it definitely did add to class fantasy.
From what I read (And again, I could be wrong), they didn’t put anything in there to replace it as a choice node with Lonely Winter. Unless they chose “Coldest Snap” and placed it there (Since it doesn’t mention where that one went).
One can hope they decide to go back on it, but who knows.
Still, I’m one that always fights for the side of more options.
Less options makes the game less fun for everybody.
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This is my main concern with rolling the elemental into Icy Veins. Will all these glyphs be deleted along with the Warlock’s Observer? Or will they update the glyphs to now apply to Icy Veins?
Blizzard was doing so well this expansion with all these new character customizations… and then they do this. It’s just… a bizarre change for Mages and Warlocks.
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I’m actually gonna add this to the OP. I completely forgot that quoting the PTR notes was a possibility. Been a long time since I talked on these forums
I dont remember the last time I ever saw a frost mage use their water elemental.
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They don’t. It’s a terrible pet, super weak and shares a node with much stronger talent.
Making it a baseline permanent pet wouldn’t fix it. It’s still terrible and deals less damage than warlock Imp. Basically a cosmetic for RPers.
I haven’t done frost PvP in a while, but the 2nd freeze was amazing at one point. Not sure about these days.
It just irritates me when people make these threads and say things like “It’s iconic”. No, it wasn’t, and a lot of us still remember well the days when mages didn’t have any pet.
In fact, there were forum threads about why shaman could summon elementals, but fire/frost mages couldn’t…
People that think the way you do are such a cancer on RPG’s.
Please, go play math quiz games or some other spreadsheet bullcrap.
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Well I also remember a time before it was a permanent pet, and I remember hating when it became so. I never rolled a mage to play a pet class. So I was thrilled when lonely winter was introduced. Although I did always miss having the ele as a cooldown. It was very iconic for the fantasy given its place in WC3.
That said, while I am happy to see it as a cooldown again I do feel for the people who love it as a permanent pet. It’s been around for long enough now that it more than deserves to stay. My preference would be to still introduce it as a temporary summon with icy veins. But keep the earlier choice of the pet or lonely winter. People who choose the permanent pet, maybe icy veins empowers it or summons a second one.
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