WoW Insider
Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 - 1:03pm
Awesome!
Quote:
Can you tell us which class will receive the next talent update and maybe also add a little bit about what your plans are?[â„cheer] ell, right now we're in the process of working on the talent review for the mage. Some of the aspects we're looking to improve include easing a mage's downtime between fights a bit and making a Fire/Frost build a more viable combination than it is right now. (Currently most magi feel that having anywhere between 11 to 21 points in the Arcane is a "must").
To accomplish this, it's likely that we'll take a few of the "must have" abilities from Arcane, and make them available to all magi. (Some likely candidates are the talents Evocation and Improved Arcane Explosion.) From there, we'll also look at ways for players to be able to create interesting combos between the Fire and Frost trees. Hopefully, these changes will further polish the general play experience of magi while also opening some new, interesting talent builds.
PSN ID: Stric9
Oh yeah! Bounce would be fire/frost if I could keep Evocation and IAE!
WOW: Bounce
I agree with the "awesome" assessment. Downtime is way much of a drag right now. Mana restores too slowly.
There is a priest talent that I absolutely love. I think it would be a great boon to the mages.
Its the talent that gives you a 100% bonus to your Spirit and 50% mana regen during casting with a 15 second duration.
It may also be helpful is mages got a DoT spell or a special kind of water that regens during combat but at a slower pace.
I havent gotten a mage past 23 so take all of this with a grain of salt. Im mainly trying to use my expereience from when my mid level druid was specced as a caster. My mana pool was big but the regen crawled.
Any interest in seeing Arcane Missiles have its mana cost lowered? It is channeled and even with the non interrupt talent, it can be interrupted. It does a lot of damage and I dont know if the mana/damage ratio improves dramatically at higher levels but if it doesnt, it should. I really like what they did with the priest's Star Shards. I dont see why the couldnt make some similar adjustments.
edit: Yeah i just looked up high level AM. Its 1150 damage over 5 seconds for 655 mana. Maxed Star Shards is 930 damage over 6 second for 350 mana. Star Shards probably also benefits from less aggro due to the fact that the damage is ramped over time: 67, 67, 134, 134, 268, 268) Mages have a legit gripe here I think now.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
I don't really have a problem with the downtime but if they are going to lessen it I won't complain. I would just like to see mages able to compete damage wise a little better with hunters and rogues. Also i'd like to see the ability to spec a few different ways without getting laughed out of most raids.
PSN ID: Stric9
If they made spirit restore mana 1:1 instead of 3:1, it would solve all the downtime problems.
I forgot to add that the talent I was talking about only activates after killing a mob worth experience.
@Leaping: I wonder what effect it would even have if it were changed to 2:1?
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
I think this is the heart of the problem for me. We don't have the aggro dropping abilities of rogues (feint, vanish) and hunters (feign death), not to mention their other benefits (pets, stuns, etc.), and we still can't compete for damage. Instead of a "glass cannon", we're more of a glass rifle. My solution? Pick and choose.
1) Up our damage. Make our crits do 100% damage instead of 50%.
2) Improve Spirit to 1:1 like mentioned above. Or have it increase our damage or crit rate. It's really a useless stat now.
3) Give us an aggro dump. This would make the class lose some of it's uniqueness depending on the form it takes. I'm all for the return of mage invisibility, but really don't want to just be a ranged rogue. Perhaps an AE aggro reduction?
Now, for what I'd like to see that'll never happen:
1) Multiple mages can focus together to cast a mega spell.
2) Shifting between fire and frost at will.
3) AE snare, more consistent than blizzard with the talents.
Xbox Live: Stilgar Black
That's groovy, but it makes your aggro management unpredictable.
I think giving mages an aggro dump would remove one of the things that makes them a challenge to play - managing aggro. How about a levitate spell that puts you just out of _melee_ reach, straight up(watch the ceiling!)? Put it on a timer, but make it instant or uninterruptible. You still have your aggro, but you're not getting hit. Like spamming blink, but without frustrating your group-mates trying to pull the mobs off of you by blinking/running around like a fool.
Or maybe a Wall of Ice/Fire that is impassible to NPCs and PCs alike? Actually, that'd be a bit too tricky to code in a way that wouldn't trap the mage on the same side with mobs. Scratch that.
Neat idea, I've never been in a group with more than one, though. Maybe mages can cast a spell that requires multiple people to focus on it(like warlock's summon), requires channeling, and is instantly interrupted by a single melee hit?
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit
Yes, but methinks that is a hallmark of our class.
Xbox Live: Stilgar Black
If the part about making evocation and instant IAE is true, a 30/20 fire/frost or frost/fire build would be a hell of a lot more viable.
So when you spec fire, your ice spells are reduced in power/damage/efficiency/rooting and when you spec ice, your fire spells are likewise reduced?
That's freakin' weird.
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit
about the ice wall, I am pretty sure that ice mages already have one of those, they encase thmeselves in ice and are immune to damage IIRC
"Also, I have four legs and am covered in wool. Baa!" *Legion* reveals his inner furry.
It's not like that duc, it's that without the investment of talents, there's no reason you'd ever use any of them.
Aye, the four eyed cats got it.
Xbox Live: Stilgar Black
How are mages 31point talents? Do you think they compare to some of the other classes revamped 31 point talents in power?
I wonder if they will give mages elemental based form(s?) like a druids moonkin form.
I would think that something excited will come down the pipe based on things like the priest's lightwell.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Arcane and Frost's 31 point talents are decent, but Fire's 31 pointer is crap. Arcane gets 15 seconds of 35% dps boost every 3 minutes. Frost gets a damage sponge usable once a minute. Fire gets one guaranteed crit every five minutes.
So if you spec fire, the slowing effect of frost bolt is pointless?
Or if you spec frost and don't get Improved Fireball(bolt?) for the chance to stun, you never want the DPS of the fire line?
I'm just curious. I've got a lowbie mage, and all the spells seem useful for their own situations, regardless of talent improvements. Yes, the talent descriptions make them sound even better when improved, but the base spells seem to have their own place and time regardless of spec.
Have I just missed the boat?
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit
I've played both a fire and a frost mage at 60 for raids. As a fire mage at 60 duc, the only reason you use frostbolt is if the mob has big fire resists. As a frost mage, you never use fireball, you use scorch when you don't have time for a frostbolt and fireblast when the cooldown is up. Just my experience.
At 60 in raids duc, most mages have a "bread and butter" damage spell that they cast over and over for most of their DPS. For me as fire that was scorch. Plus I had the other good fire talent spells of pyroblast and blastwave. For me as frost, the main damage is frostbolt, with other good ice talent spells of ice shield and ice block. Plus the frostbite procs are pretty good.
Ah, I get it. It's not that the other spells are diminished in any way, it's that the spell line that you specced in is more useful, _almost_ to the point of exclusion, right?
Well, that is definitely different than Paladins. By far.
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit
Right. To state it more.. its really your base spells suck if you don't buff them with talents and there isn't enough talent points to buff everything.
WOW: Bounce
nerf mages
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
Spirit Tap is the priest talent.
I don't think 2:1 would have a big enough effect Fang. Currently your average 60 mage in blues is probably running around with somewhere a little over 200 spirit, call it 210 for rounding purposes. So out of combat you regen 70 mana per tick. In combat with mage armor you get 30% regen, so that's 21 mana per tick. If you go to 2:1, you now get 105 mana OOC and 31 in combat, about a 50% increase. If you go 1:1 you'd get a very respectable 63 mana per tick, or even 1.5:1 would double your regen to 42 per tick. And your out of combat regen would be much faster and cut a lot of downtime.
Please note, I still believe on a PVE server spirit is MUCH more valuable than stamina while levelling, but once you get to raid level with a decent mana pool (over 6000), stamina takes over.
What you are talking about is not an aggro dump, but an aggro delayer. A dump would be like vanish where it totally clears you from the mob's threat list. Like Snood say, mages currently have two decent aggro delayers; frost nova (the ice root), but it breaks fairly quickly to damage and if mob is immune to snares it doesn't work, and ice block, which is a frost talent. Ice block basically puts you in a block of ice where you are frozen and can't do anything, but no one can hit you either for 15 seconds. The bad thing is that after that time expires, your threat is all still there so if you are still tops on the mobs list they will just come back to you. Pretty much exactly what you described.
I think it's 21 point talent in the frost tree.
That was pretty much the point, though. Mages need to manage their aggro more than rogues/hunters, and should need to. If your _team_ isn't doing its job in pulling the aggro, you or they or both need to alter how the encounters are going. By an Ice/Fire wall, I really meant a wall. Not a block/sphere that locks you inside of it, but a wall, perpendicular to your current facing, that runs up to, say, 50 yards, breaks line of sight, is impassible/impervious, and basically just buys you and your peelers a little time. Of course, it could also accidentally lock you on the same side with the mobs and your peelers on the other side, but that's where intelligence would come in on the player's part. Or it could put all the healers on one side with the meleers all alone with a boss on the other(without healing, due to LoS).
Actually, the more I think about it, the better I like it. It's not a pally bubble, it requires more intelligence to use well, and doesn't give mages a roguelike ability to just go insane with DPS every mob and have little to no repurcussions.
Levitate would be more like the bubble, but only for melee, and would still require that the peelers do their jobs, i.e. peel the mob, take over aggro. If a rogue/paladin/hunter/warrior can't generate enough aggro in, say, 10-15 seconds, to overcome a mage manadump, maybe the mage needs to slow down?
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit
I know. Dont you think it might be useful to have a mage counterpart? 140 mana per tick for 15 seconds when not casting (2100 mana!) and 35 mana per sec when casting. Of course this is after killing a mob worth xp.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Would have to be on a very long timer Duc, very exploitable in PVP. I like the concept though.
fang, would I like my mage to have spirit tap? Hell yeah! However in a raid scenario I don't think it would be OMG useful. For it to trigger you have to get the killing blow, and when you have 8-35 other people competing for that killing blow, well, let's say it's better for leveling.
Also if you made it a non-talent spell priests would scream bloody murder since they have to invest 5 points. And if it's a mage talent, probably in arcane tree, it's 5 more points to spend there. :/ Maybe a replacement for the IAE talent they've talked about making non-talent spell. Who knows.
Again though, if it's 5 points like priests, I probably wouldn't spec for it at 60 as long as it has that killing blow requirement.
Anyone have any verification of that? I rarely group and I was under the impression that the only requirement was that the kill was worth xp. So that if you were group healer it would proc too.
Your other points do pose potential problems.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Isn't it 4:1? 1:1 would be pretty insane.
Edit: Yeah, it's 4:1
WAR: Coda, Archmage, Vortex <Unguilded>
Not unless they changed it Strek. Last time I tested, and read something about it, mages were 3:1, priests 4:1 and other classes like druids and warlocks 5:1. Granted, that was like a year ago.
Fang - spirit tap is definitely killing blow. The spell text says "after killing", forum posts state killing blows and I've tested it on my priest. Also from the priest FAQ:
In lower level groups priests do get some killing blows because of SW:P killing runners or from the ranged spells like mindflay.
That's messed up. I guess its a soloing skill then. IMHO, that should be changed and I dont think it would crossover the usefulness/overpowered thin line.
Thats also messed up that the different classes are on different spirit ratios. No wonder my Druid regens mana so slowly. And it doesnt seem worth it to sacrifice so many stats to up spirit enough to be worthwile.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
I think +Heal is different, too. Priests +heal ratio is much better than Paladins +Heal ratio, IIRC.
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit