They’re introducing a new choice node called “Inspired Intellect” that will just be a passive boost to intelligence. On the one hand that’s a welcome change but on the other I find it rather worrying that they believe players enjoyed the random nature of Time Anomaly and that the devs themselves were “happy” with it. As a rule of thumb everyone hates RNG and this talent was picked only when Temporal Warp couldn’t be effectively used and even then only because it was one of the few throughput talents in the class tree. They really should know this by now.
Also I really don’t see how they can balance the two talents effectively because even a 1% flat int increase is likely going to be better in virtually all situations and for all specs if for no other reason than due to scaling. Flat damage increases all don’t really make for very “inspired” talents which is ironic given the name.
Knowing how a spec plays would require someone within the company to play the spec, or at the very least talk to players about how things feel. Unfortunately, the only time they talk to any player is when they speak with the elite streamers, who will likely have very different concepts of what feels good and what is awful. I’d warrant that any top streamer who plays Mage, if asked, would say something like “TA is an alternative for where TW isn’t going to be good for them to use” and nothing more. This is why the design team keeps getting it wrong.
This essentially sums up 90% of the talent trees though. They were so desperate to ‘shake things up’ and reinvent the wheel in the form of a talent tree, that they never bothered to think of how that would work. “Quick, make 60 talents” was never going to end in anything fun, and the reality is that the Cata-era trees offered more options, more choice, and more fun. But hey, they get to give people that little ding of dopamine every level…
I think removing Temporal Warp is the single biggest offender of any of the talent changes introduced to mage. Temporal Warp defines mage gameplay, and it certainly does not equate to a 3% damage buff with the amount of personal lusts one can squeeze out in dungeons. Please, please consider reversing this change, it is uninspired and solves a made-up problem that is barely ever experienced. There are other characters that can lust, and having a few sets of drums is an option if ever a mage makes a mistake in their usage of personal lust. It is another vector for skill expression, that you are removing by adding a completely random roulette of buffs that we generally won’t be able to capitalize on, or a flat 3% damage buff that you guys don’t even think will compete that well with the roulette. If you turned it into CDR for your main CD, okay, but as it stands now, it is thoroughly uninspired and not exciting. There is something to be said about Temporal Warp being bad for mages in certain raid fights, but I’d wager it’s something mages can live with, because double lust and getting 4-8 time warps per dungeon is part of what defines mage, at least for me. Signed, someone who has played mage for all of DF and is essentially paying a monthly sub to play Frost in it’s current state. For the people who enjoy playing with Time Anomaly, it is already a choice node, so there is nothing lost with keeping Temporal Warp in as a choice on that node.
The DPS loss of Temporal Warp will he accounted for when there’s proper tuning. The 3% extra Intellect is not replacing the DPS of Warp, but providing a non-RNG option for Time Anomaly and competing with it instead.
The removal of Temporal Warp was one of the best changes done to the class in TWW Alpha.
It can feel fun on frost or arcane. On fire, it’s a tad wonky because you can munch fb charges and its most interactive thing is muscle memory going to scorch instead of fireball if you happen to get combustion.
i like temporal anomaly and the rng comes with it… again the 123th time blizz need to stop changing talents and trees just because the 1% doesnt like it. not everyone does mythic raiding and do m+30 keys
I’d much rather honestly be rid of it and have that DPS returned to my baseline spells instead.
And yeah, the choice with Time Anomaly is a good compromise but I’d still be a lot happier with seeing its removal and have Cauterize/Cold Snap choice node in its place which has been asked for by so many since DF Alpha.
I actually agree with both of those takes. Temporal Warp could have been great if it had been made into its own personal mini hero even if it they had to make it less potent to compensate. But for whatever reason they never made it into its own cooldown button and if they were never going to then removing it was probably the best alternative.
It has nothing to do with the “1%” not liking it, it’s that it doesn’t remotely fit in with the playstyle of arcane or fire. Both of those are about huge burst windows and then periods of much less (or in arcane’s case minimal) dps. Arcane is all about stacking cds for a predictable burn phase and having rng benefits that may or may not come when you want/need them is next to useless.
If you enjoy it, wonderful. But that doesn’t make it a good talent.
These are bogus posts from people I inadvertently tilted earlier today when I asked them to stop dredging up and nercoing the threads about the removal of the water elemental pet using dummy alt accounts, lol.
I am just explaining why and where the “derailing” is coming from, not precipitating it. /shrug
But bottom line, any alternative to excessive RNG is usually a good thing. Especially when it’s something that exacerbates the RNG by diluting the potential pool of procs like Time Anomaly does.
