I just checked the patch notes, and there are no changes for mages. The most recent Warcraftlogs dot com (Mythic, 75%, using per second amounts) has Warlocks at Nos. 1, 4 and 6 overall, with Mages at 17, 19 and 23 of 24 DPS specs. The worst Warlock spec is 6% better than the best mage spec, and the best is 20%+ better. This is nothing new – locks have been miles ahead for months. Is BoD supposed to be Sunwell 2.0? (Maybe 3.0 – 4.0?)
What is going on here Blizzard? Are you dropping Mages in the DPS trash bin as part of an effort to balance class numbers? I’ve read that Mages are the No. 4 most popular class, while Warlocks are down at No. 9. If that’s the intent, I don’t understand it. Hunters are the No. 1 most popular class, and I see that they have two specs (MM and SV) that are outperforming all three Mage specs.
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Evocating on 1 or 2 charges to get a rule of three proc when you’ll be full mana anyway. Big brain plays. That’s why they call it brainstorm. Disclaimer: I understand that there could be reasons to do this on aoe. And bugs are bugs. I just feel like they’ve spent more dev time on brainstorm than they have on the entire spec in BfA.
To op… Yeah, mages are popular and kind of weak. Each of the specs has areas they are competitive in situationally, it just doesn’t really match what makes a good dps number in the current raid. Who knows what’ll happen next tier. At least Demo locks got fixed.
Mage is my favorite class by far and I’m currently unsubbed. Every time there are patch notes I check for changes to mage as I currently don’t enjoy the class. Now both in 8.1 and 8.1.5 they has been almost no buffs/changes, (and frost nerfs in 8.1) so its difficult to justify coming back.
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I’m posting this on my phone. It just irks me to no end that some of our abilities and talents are awful.
Presence of Mind interacts with only one spell. At this point, just remove it. There is zero fun in it. It should interact with more spells!
Polymorph: Instant cast, but places your polymorph on a cool down for x seconds.
Arcane Missiles: Immediately grants upto two charges of clearcasting.
Evocation: Your next evocation can be cast while moving.
Arcane mages should get Cone of Cold as a baseline ability.
Slow should once again reduce casting time of spells by around 35% or so.
Nether Tempest should be reworked. Absolutely awful for a level 90 talent. Mine crit for between 600 to 900! I’ve seen a tick for as low as 20 to 30.
Arcane Power doesn’t even last long enough to get three clearcasting casts off! Let alone, using 4 Arcane Blast, then arcane power and presence of mind, you cannot maximize the full use of arcane power. Either, take it off the gcd or add an extra 2 seconds to the duration.
Arcane is my favorite spec this expansion, but it could use some attention. Numbers can be tweaked, but the core execution of the spec feels poorly implemented.
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Don’t forget that Equipoise got nerfed by like 75%.
Arcane was already struggling as far as DPS specs go. I have no idea what Blizzard are doing.
Ya I haven’t been able to log in yet to see it for myself, but that’s what I’ve been reading. It’s total garbage that they keep doing stuff like this. Looks like I’ll be changing traits next time I log in. May as well go all aoe at this point. Or switch to frost
Other than damage tuning they aren’t going to be making any major changes to how Mages play midway through an expansion. If you’re hoping for mechanical changes you’re out of luck for the next 12+ months before 9.0.
Don’t worry, you still have a better idea than they do.
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Even relatively small changes could make a huge difference such as make phoenix flames baseline again for fire, make arcane orb baseline for arcane, and fix the proc munching issue that frost has had since legion.
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Well, there’s already a blue post acknowledging that the 200% buff to Equipoise was accidentally reverted in yesterday’s patch and the developers are aware of it and working on a hotfix.
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I completely agree with you! Small changes like baseline phx flames, arcane orb, and a frost spell, perhaps ebonbolt, would go a very long way.
Mage in general feels like it needs just a little work and attention. Arcane arguably needs more – but I think Frost and Fire could be vastly improved with minimal effort.
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The point of nether tempest is to break stealth and keep people from capping stuff as easily. Its more of a pvp talent with very questionable dps.
Rerolling Priest, tried hard but no success.
Blizz failed, mage sucks
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Oh yeah, and mage has been bad since beginning legion now, something is seriously wrong with class balancing here
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Pretty sure I played fire at the start of legion and I remember being quite OP.
Things got nerfed in 7.1, but fire was still one of the strongest until 7.1.5 or 7.2 (can’t remember when they did the big class reworks when talent trees got all swapped around and some baseline stuff like ice flows went to talents)
They main thing I remember was fire was top at the start. Right when we each got spec got it’s own special shield it dropped, and then frost was fairly strong for the remainder. If I remember correctly.
None of this is impactful for where we are now. Arcane was strong in Uldir, but let’s face it, arcane is not that fun. Spamming arcane blast while managing mana consumption us not that great.
Glowball, I’d point out fire at that point in legion was only doing so if you had proper legendary’s. And those bracers sucked for game play, that they kept that for BFA as a talent…
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I think blizz removed a topic “why are mages still a class” where these issues were discussed…fascinating…
You can’t compare mages and warlocks. This is two expansions in a row Warlocks have been top casters and well above mages. Look at all the work done to Demonology … look at all the communication warlocks got leading up to this expac.
The devs favor locks. They probably only play locks (the ones that play casters). They do not hide the things they favor in this game and it’s very clear they love locks above all casters.
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That’s absolutely true. I wouldn’t be surprised if this post got deleted as well.
Ignorance is not as bliss as you think, Blizzard.
While im ALL FOR hating warlocks and thinking changes need to be made, this mindset is just awful. They don’t favor one thing over the other, they are just horrible at balancing the classes and making the specs work correctly.
Demo was just off, and they wanted to fix the spec so players could enjoy it. Overall mages have pretty strong identity in their specs, they just scale horribly gameplay wise (and arcane needs a revamp b/c of how boring and one denominational it is)
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