Mage Thoughts for Wrath

[Vand]

I have been following the beta developments pretty closely, and frostfire bolt (ffb) is looking pretty hot. It receives every benefit of every spell that affects either frost or fire damage, except for the range talents (not a big deal since it has a 40 yard range built in). That means that it is procing both Ignite and Ice Shards, for 310% crits.

Then you add in the new Winter's Grasp talent, which is like frostbite for raid bosses, and shatter, which gives you a 50% increased chance to crit whenever the WG proc is on the boss, and you have a whole hell of a lot of crits, especially if you have multiple mages contributing to WG uptime.

Those factors have me thinking that an elementalist build will be the Wrath raid build for mages. There is quite a bit of flexibility in such a build. Here (http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=oZVxMzfcs0xZbAGckcxocqMz) is one I came up with that features a water elemental. Others might prefer a few more points in fire in order to take Molten Fury.

The reason I took Frostbite and Improved Blizzard is because blizzard is now critting in the beta (as is the warlock rain of fire spell...forgot the name). Having a blizzard spell that freezes mobs allows the mobs to be shattered...lots and lots of crits. The preliminary testing shows that this puts blizzard just slightly behind straight arcane explosion spam, maybe even better since crits can surpass the AoE caps...and from a safe distance and at a far lower mana cost. :)

I know that everything in the beta is subject to change, but I just thought it would be fun to get a discussion going about the possible future for mages.

[Wenge]

I believe FFB will be totally, positively nerfed straight into the ground, or will not work as it currently does. The rest of the changes are hugely underwhelming. Warlocks get a mass-target shadowbolt. We get a spell that might be awesome IF the moon is in the upper house while sixteen angels sing on a pinhead. Sign me up.

[Vand]

I agree that the new talents (except for possibly WG) are pretty meh, almost as if they couldn't be bothered to put much thought into new mage talents. But what really matters is how much damage we are able to output. Mages and rogues are the only classes that contribute almost nothing other than DPS to a raid, and, as such, need to be at the top of the meters in order to be worth bringing to a raid. Bliz failed on that score in TBC, with mages being behind not just rogues but also two pet classes and a hybrid class, all of whom add more synergy to the raid than do mages. However, I am hopeful that they will successfully address that situation in Wrath, and ffb may be the tool they intend to use for that purpose.

[eleison]

Yeah, I'm also figuring if past holds true that Frostfire won't be all that and a bag of chips XD One thought I heard was that it would count as a Frost OR a Fire spell, depending on mob immunities and whatnot, not AND..because that would just be awesome and Blizz can't have mages being awesome..

Hopefully we'll be seeing some more love for mages soon =\

[Raptace]

I'm not sure how great the "mass target shadowbolt" that you speak of is going to be. but it won't be anything that is constant, and you have to go 51 points into demon which I'm sure won't be good for raiding cause well, it never is. FFB does look slick, I hope it sticks the way it is personally. And as far as sign you up Wenge, lol, go to the character screen, go create character, make a warlock, lvl it, and put it in the raid, no one will say anything to you, might be better than the constant lock QQ lol.

[Wenge]

thanks for the advice, I'll take your spot then

[Raptace]

riiiiiiiiiiight, cause that makes sense at all?

[Suvius]

On the plus side Frost looks even sexier for pvp and there's still time to re-roll for raiding. (lol)

[Kastus]

It's now "Will do whichever school is more powerful on the current hit"
Which IMO is complete bullshit, considering there is no such thing as a frost version of IMP scorch or shadow weaving.
If it's not upgraded, or returned to it's orginal state, fire will reign king again.
FIREBALL, FIREBALL, FIREBALL, FIREBALL, FIREBALL, FIREBALL, FIREBALL, FIREBALL, FIREBALL, SCORCH!

[Vand]

Not sure where you got that info, Kastus. FFB remains unchanged. In fact, the damage it does shows up as a totally new damage type in the combat logs: "frostfire." As for fire reigning supreme, they'll have to do a lot of changes for that to be the case. Right now, deep fire is doing the least damage of any spec in single-target fights, and by a pretty substantial margin (~20%). So the debate now is mainly between deep arcane and an elementalist build using FFB as its main nuke. Even deep frost is getting more serious consideration than fire in its current state.

Yes, there is a frost version of imp scorch. It's called imp scorch. That talent now increases damage from all three mage schools, although it has been nerfed to a 10% increase (another blow to fire). They have also announced that Winter's Chill will be increasing the crit chance for all three mage schools by 10%...and for three talent points instead of the current 5. If we have any boomkin with us when we start raiding Naxx (rather likely given the love they're being shown), they'll love the fact that both imp scorch and WC substantially boost arcane damage.

Now, every single thing I just said may be totally obsolete next week. It is still early in the beta process, and mages seem to be undergoing a very large number of changes. I just hope Bliz can get it right this time, and not leave mages the broken class they are today.

[Aurorawind]

They've only given some classes a 1st polish, and none of them a second polish, so things will get seriously reviewed for all classes still. And they haven't ruled out additional polish reviews, especially with Paladins. So I expect things to get tightened up greatly.

That being said, I'm loving frost getting the DPS boost since I prefer the frost playstyle for PVE on my gnome. Though I can't seriously see it being more damage than fire with all it's snares built in. I'm sure fire will be boosted back up.

[Wenge]

From a purely lore aspect, it's kinda silly that frost would be the best spec in Lich King. AMIRITE?

[Aurorawind]

Hmmm, URRITE!

[Kastus]

Not sure where you got that info, Kastus. FFB remains unchanged. In fact, the damage it does shows up as a totally new damage type in the combat logs: "frostfire." As for fire reigning supreme, they'll have to do a lot of changes for that to be the case. Right now, deep fire is doing the least damage of any spec in single-target fights, and by a pretty substantial margin (~20%). So the debate now is mainly between deep arcane and an elementalist build using FFB as its main nuke. Even deep frost is getting more serious consideration than fire in its current state.

Yes, there is a frost version of imp scorch. It's called imp scorch. That talent now increases damage from all three mage schools, although it has been nerfed to a 10% increase (another blow to fire). They have also announced that Winter's Chill will be increasing the crit chance for all three mage schools by 10%...and for three talent points instead of the current 5. If we have any boomkin with us when we start raiding Naxx (rather likely given the love they're being shown), they'll love the fact that both imp scorch and WC substantially boost arcane damage.

Now, every single thing I just said may be totally obsolete next week. It is still early in the beta process, and mages seem to be undergoing a very large number of changes. I just hope Bliz can get it right this time, and not leave mages the broken class they are today.

- Frostfire Bolt - - Rank 02 -
Launches a bolt of frostfire at the enemy, causing 722 to 838 Fire damage, slowing movement speed by 40% and causing an additional 90 Fire damage over 9 sec. If the target is more vulnerable to Frost damage, this spell will cause Frost instead of Fire damage.
(450 Mana, 3 sec, 40 yd Range)

http://www.wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Mage

Hence my info.

[Raptace]

so if you wear a bit of fire prot gear.... it won't hit you with both? lol

[Vand]

Yeah, I know what the tooltip says. But that is not how it is working. It is not the first time Blizzard has had an inaccurate tooltip.

[Kastus]

Ah, my bad, Im not actually on beta, I've just be going by WoTLKwiki.
0/32/39 still then. :D

[Vand]

The highest DPS numbers using FFB currently are more of a 0/30/41 variety...featuring our old friend the water elemental.

[tsunada]

I really like the Frost tree, I think the water elemental acting as a shadow priest is a bit odd, but maybe it could work in raids. Is anyone in the actual BETA?

[Kastus]

Really? No molten fury? I find that a touch odd really.

[Vand]

If talents remain the way they are now (huge if, I know), the first mage in any raid is very likely to be either deep frost or an elementalist with at least 44 points in frost (3/3 Imp Water Elemental) and enough points in fire to pick up Imp Scorch. Such raid-wide mana returns are too good to pass up, especially with Winter's Chill now adding 10% crit for every mage spec, plus boomkins (which are looking good enough for most 25-man raids to want one) and fire locks (which is looking to become the dominant Destro spec come Wrath).

[Chasidy]

I'm excited to see how it all pans out cause this may mean a whole new purpose for mages.

[Wenge]

Fuck you Blizzard

Players are right that Mages are in some cases getting more utility now with new talents. We'll evaluate the strength of classes utility when we tweak DPS output numbers. If a Mage spell is giving more utility than a Warlock spec, obviously the Warlock should be doing more DPS.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8765638232&sid=2000&pageNo=3#59

[Chasidy]

For real fuck Blzz

[Assault]

Not trying to start a flame war, but I don't understand what's unreasonable about that quote.

To use another example, rogues have the bestish dps because we bring almost no raid utility. If we had any sort of raid utility, we shouldn't be tops on damage because that would be super overpowered. The raid leader would be incentivized to bring numerous rogues, which isn't right.

[Wenge]

I don't want utility. I signed up for a glass cannon. Mages started griping about utility because with lackluster DPS there was no other reason to bring them along, so they said "well if you're not going to fix our DPS, at least give us something else" and blizzard said "your offer is acceptable."

[Assault]

Isn't the "utility" in this case just debuffs on the boss that increase magic damage taken? It's not like they're proposing making sheeping and decursing MORE prevalent or something..I hope.

[Raptace]

Wenge is never gonna be happy till Warlocks are buried below feral druids in dps, lol.

But on a serious note I think they should boost mage dps, I don't look at things from a pvp perspective like some people do. More dps= more bosses dead imo.

[Aurorawind]

The way I remember it, back when BC was coming out, was some very specific posts about roles.

Rogues were declared the highest single-target DPSers according to Blizz, then Hunters, Fury Warriors, Ret Paladins, Feral Druids, and Enhancement shamen all as the 2nd stringers because of utility they had.

Mages were supposed to be the highest damage caster for single-target, and AOE, in the game.

Warlocks were supposed to bring the utility like debuffs and all that, and then serve as 2nd tier caster dps on the same level as shadow priests, Moonkin, and elemental shamen.

[Wenge]

Raptace you're being a douchebag lol.

I don't think warlocks need to be nerfed into the ground*. I think it should be the case that all ranged classes have competitive DPS, and not that one class should get 10% more just because they're awesome. It was far more common that mages and locks would be tied for DPS back in the level 60 raids.

Mages have the lowest HP, the least survivability (yes, yes, ice block, mmkay), some of the slowest casts, and almost zero DPS when moving. We have huge mana issues, and we have to stop DPSing to evocate for 8/10 seconds. Our main debuff requires five casts to get full charges on, and falls off in 30 seconds. Our mana rocks share a cooldown with healthstones. Why do we get all that crap and then end up with low DPS? Because we have polymorph? Because we hand out food and water?

* But fear really needs to break on damage. Like 1 point of damage.

[Raptace]

I don't think I'm being a douchebag at all, I'm just having a bit of fun with you and you always get all huffy about it. I said mages should get a boost, I agreed with that.

Mages have less survivability than locks mostly because they can't heal themselves. But if they give life drain or say deathcoil to a mage, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
Blizz for some reason likes to give you guys low HP on your gear *shrug*

Slow casts... I have to put 5 points in a talent to achieve a 2.5 second shadow bolt, I wish I could put those points somewhere else.

I agree your mana rock or w/e you wanna call it should be on a diff cd than healthstones, its just as stupid as bears not being able to use potions to me.

And I'm not gonna get into it about fear, I'm just not, an afflic lock would get raped by practically anything in the game if they couldn't dot and fear. Thats what they made the class to do. If they made it break like that, locks would just end up being hunters, cause they would have to give their pets a HUGE buff, since every lock pet is fuckin worthless, thats why I kill my pet 2 seconds after she's alive cause she's better to me dead.

[Nortibiry]

It is somewhat insane that warlocks can top the damage meters throwing up a curse every minute (or is it two or five?) and then using one spell. Personally I think affliction should be the raid dps spec and should come out on par with mages, who should also have to deal with stuff like the scorch debuff to excel.

[Wenge]

I was just making fun of how you say something offensive and tack "lol" on it, lol.

I put 5 talent points on Fireball to make it 3 seconds, down from 3.5.

I also think the mechanics on fear in PvP should be different than in PvE - after all, my sheeping is nerfed to nine seconds in PvP but 50 seconds in PvE. There's no reason that fear can't be similarly skewed. Also in PvP I never see a lock without a felguard or felpuppy out.

[Assault]

Just feeding the flames here, but locks really are horribly overpowered currently, and Blizz has admitted such, at least in regards to Seed of Corruption being so ridiculously good. Some blue post I read on World of Raids admitted that they overshot the mark by a long ways with that spell.

Also in the future your pets will be far more integral to your class than they are now. A different blue post basically said that they think it's retarded that no raiding warlock uses their pet, and they're intending to fix that.

[Vand]

I do not think there is much disagreement that mages are the least valuable class in BC raiding. There is little/no reason a raid, especially a min/max raid, would ever want more than one. Just take a look at the low number of mages in the last couple SWP fights. Hopefully we can get through KJ with two, since we're not really a min/max raid, but we'll see.

Blizzard does seem to have recognized this issue. They should have addressed it before BC even came out, because the TCers were all shouting about exactly how mages ended up. Whether they successfully address it in Wrath remains to be seen. I have a level 70 priest and warlock, and will likely have a 70 druid and hunter by the time the expac hits. My first choice by far is to continue on Vand as my main, but I'll see how the TC community feels class balance is shaping up once the expac hits, and make a final decision if mages are predicted to be in the same position in lvl 80 raids.

[Raptace]

I didn't honestly know that you had to put 5 points into fireball to get it to 3 seconds, thats bullshit imo Wenge.
And Nort I agree about affliction, it should be "the spec" for raiding. But I will say that our dps does depend on something like Scorch, but its shadow weaving I think which Pika keeps up *hugs Pika*, it also depends on imp shadowbolt debuffs that get put up, which is just based on crit, I will admit, we have it easy in those reguards.

The reason you always see a lock with a fel pup in pvp is cause without sl/sl, especially in arena, a lock has 0 survivability.

And yes Assault, I'm aware locks are AOE gods atm. And I hope they do something to our pets to make them not suck so hard. Cause like I said, every one of them is really worthless.

[Nortibiry]

I guess my point is, yes you depend to some degree on raid buffs/debuffs, but:

- you are very robust for a caster, in terms of health and armor
- you have infinite mana
- you top the damage meters spamming a single spell
- you rock the aoe spamming a single spell
- you bring huge raid buffs via the curses and reasonable utility via healthstones, soulstones, and imp buffs.

Now don't get me wrong I don't hold anything against you personally :) It's just the way Blizzard has let things play out. But to flip things around -- can you point out anything a mage does better than you in a raid setting? I can see why they are a little on edge. Hopefully they will address things in the expansion and mages and warlocks will be on par in terms of damage, utility, and complexity.

[Mithwen]

I so see your point of view about not wanting to provide utility, Wenge. Utility sucks. It means you always have to be there, you never get to do something different, and you get to see very mediocre numbers after busting your ass to be good at your job. Plus, it's never worthwhile to get gear cause someone else can always use it to much better effect than you.

Mages should be the rogues of the caster world. Providing food and water is great, but I totally agree that it's bogus that that would mean a nerf in mage dps.

(And I should not be out dpsed by elemental shamans who don't have to shift forms in order to throw down a quick heal. Bah.)

P

[Wenge]

I found a great resource (http://mymagesucks.wordpress.com) for mage info.

[Mithwen]

Is it someone more bitter than you? Probably just more outspoken. :)

Incidentally, in the same list:
Shadow Weaving: Buffs only self.

which kinda sucks for warlocks.

[Rild]

Like seriously all you guys


QQ <- You
.
.
. <----your urine
.
.
8( <---me

Nerf cloth

[Mithwen]

Don't read it then, Mr. Grumpy.

Play a clothie at endgame where Blizz actually cares about class balance, as opposed to twinked out in some bracket where dots are king, then come back and bitch about people whining. When's the last time Blizz screwed with the enhancement tree and you said 'wow that's awesome'? Yeah, half past never is right.

P

[Vand]

As things are starting to shape up for 3.0, it is time to start thinking about mage raid specs for the last month of BC. Right now, fire is still the top DPS spec, and so I have come up with two possible specs, 14/47 (http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0VczZ0E0bRhIhVubhsb) and 11/50 (http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0V0zZ0E0bRhIhVubhsx). The difference boils down to whether an extra 30% crit bonus from maxing out Burnout (taking the fire crit bonus from 1.8 with 2 points in Burnout to 2.25 with 5 points, before the 1.4 Ignite multiplier) outweighs the extra 6% fireball damage from Spell Impact. I have a sense the two would be fairly close, and which one comes out ahead would depend on crit rates under all the new/changed raid buffs. I am leaning more towards maxing out Burnout at the moment.

I have decided to drop frost (and therefore Icy Veins) as my off-tree, because mana issues are looking to be much more prominent in 3.0, and so the 7% efficiency gained from Arcane Concentration (after losing 3% from Elemental Precision) becomes much more important. DPS-wise, giving up Icy Veins really is not much (if any) of a loss because the new Focus Magic works out to basically a constant 3% extra crit for the mage, provided they wisely choose who gets the buff (I've read elemental shaman are the top contenders), and considering that the recipient of the buff also gets +3% crit, it is likely a net gain in rDPS.

Dropping frost as the off-tree does mean giving up the 3% hit from Elemental Precision, although I think the new Misery makes up for that.

Blizzard has unfortunately ruined Blast Wave for raiders. Before, it was simply a great burst spell that I used when I was in melee range, used between Arcane Explosions whenever its CD was up. However, they have added a pretty huge knockback effect to Blast Wave, big enough that it is knocking mobs out of any sort of AoE tanking effects (such as Consecration). I guess the PvPers will love the new Blast Wave.

Hot Streak is looking to be a fun talent, since they changed it to only require 2 spell crits in order to proc. Frequent instant Pyroblasts are just plain sexy. I guess I'll need to dust off that spell and actually find a place for it on my bar.

[eleison]

I was looking forward to going back to Frost, especially with some of the new toys like Imp'd Water Elemental and Brain Freeze. The change to Deep Freeze had me kinda bummed, it used to be like a 2nd Ice Lance on cooldown, and now all it is is a Stun =\ On the other hand it does free up a point for Focus Magic, which seems pretty hot if we get mages or other high-crit casters cross-buffing.

[Vand]

At this point, frost just does not have competitive raid DPS. Blizzard has said that they want all three (four?) mage specs to offer similar DPS. It just has not happened yet, and I would not assume it will happen in the next 10 days.

Now, as soon as Wrath hits, my plan is to go 0/0/61 and never look back until I am once again raiding. Even then, if Bliz is able to give frost competitive raid DPS, I might keep it. It is just much too early to tell.

[Mithwen]

Have you seen actual numbers for lvl 70 specs? The only numbers I've seen for mages are lvl 80 theorycrafting, but it'd be interesting to see what people might have done with 70 specs.

P

[Vand]

I have seen no numbers taken from real-world conditions, mostly just a bunch of theorycrafting about which specs are best at 70, backed up by tests done on the new combat dummies. However, that is at least good enough to judge which mage school is likely to do the most damage in real combat situations, especially since the gap between fire and everything else is pretty sizable at this point.