Rouncer

Next patch Watershield has no mana costs.

 

◊ Vontre

I don't think it is uncalled for, the purpose of mage armor is to regenerate mana, so giving it a cost heavily impacts the usefulness of the spell. There are other spells in the game with a negligible mana cost like ice block, counterspell, the new water shield. A mana regen mechanic is the prime target for a reduced mana cost.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Ztorm

I think it's reasonable to request that mage armor cost 0 mana, but does anyone think it will have a significant impact? I suppose it will allow for switching to mage armor during movement/transition periods, but that gain is going to be incredibly minor compared to SPs/chain chugging/MoE. Also, if you do plan on swapping armor midfight, remember that switching back to molten armor costs 630 mana, and unless you're using +8 spirit gems in your yellow sockets, I doubt the amount of mana recovered is going to compensate for the switch back.

 

Rouncer

exactly my point - it still keeps armor switching unfeasable but it makes it so that you aren't kicking the mage while he's OOM.

nobody prepares for things like the shadowpriest dying or the fight taking twice as long as normal but they do happen and this way the mage would be able to swap into Mage Armor and regen enough to be able to continue fighting and wouldn't have to wait 20 seconds for the regen to just catch up with the costs for swapping to Mage Armor.

 

Massael

I would think in that situation mage armor is worth the switch even with its existing mana cost. Assuming 3-5 minutes of fight time left there should be no reason for you to remain with molten armor just to save a few hundred mana, over the remainder of the fight you'd regen many times that.

 

Rouncer

What if there was just 1 minute left? What about if you run OOM at 30 seconds remaining and everything is on cooldown? You thought you had the timing down right but the last 10% is taking longer then expected.

I guess next time I end up in that situation I should break out the abaccus and calculate whether its worth it or not to switch???

Your first instinct when mana is becoming dear and cooldowns are on cooldown should be to switch into Mage Armor and keep on dpsing not to break out a spreadsheet.

 

Cloudgatherer

That's a pretty faulty analogy. One class can only be so powerful relative to another in class design, and what we may measure as "powerful" may differ from what the Blizzard class designers measure as powerful. You have to look at everything the class can do, not just "oh, we get IB for free now!", which now gets factored as part of our base abilities, and I'd bet being able to go invulnerable is rated fairly high (despite whatever opinion there is on its raid usefulness).

Consider the threat wipe philosophy going into BC. Every pure DPS class has one (Soul Shatter is close enough, yes, I know it is 50%), every hybrid does not. Fury Warriors, Enhance/elemental shamans, Shadow priests, feral druids, lack a threat wipe yet are in every raid. "Oh, but threat is not an issue" you say. To this you have to consider that the class designers are not the raid designers. The raid designers probably saw that "gee, alot of dps hybrids don't have agro wipes as their disadvantage, maybe only one or two Broodlord-esque fights for BC" (thus, VR).

Threat wipe is a tool. Whether or not that tool is useful is determined by the raid designers. How "valuable" that tool is is determined by the class designers. Replace "threat wipe" with "invulnerability" and the same holds true. Both have value for class balancing, but both can be completely ignored by raid design (and they pretty much had to be in BC).

Many of the posts in the last couple pages have been along the lines of "why bring mages to raids?" type questions and issues. If we're supposed to be the "rogues" of casters, the damage doesn't seem to be there. The "Kings of AoE" remark dropped at Blizzcon is laughable, and the immediate follow up question everyone has ("uh, what about SoC vs Mage AoE?") was pretty much passed over when asked. Adding IB as a core mage ability still "counts" even if your counter argument is "well, it's not that useful". Neither are the agro wipes, but we got those anyway instead of something else.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my mage, I'm sure everyone here does. Looking at our tools though, we have alot we just don't use for raiding (Ice Lance, Invis, Spellsteal, and now IB). Sure, you may pull one out for a gimmick from time to time, but the more "tools" like these we have, the harder it would be to ask for buffs that make mages more desirable to have for raids (group/raid synergy, or "real" rogue-like dps).

And this brings us to 2.3. Our damage tax is gone (dps++), we'll have IB as a trainable skill, and frost mages get a new, unknown talent. That's a fair amount of attention from devs. To be buffed and ask for more buffs (raid synergy or more competitive damage) just won't go over well, not without a preponderance of data in 2.3. Even so, a class designer can justify a lower DPS with utilities/synergies, even if we can collectively agree that those are of little value, we do not make the class changes, the class designers do.

Anyway, I'm just wary of too many of those types of "tools", they do count, but they aren't offering us much and the class designers (IMO) are overvaluing them in comparison with the hunter/lock/rogue DPS+Utility vs Mage DPS+Utility.

 

Muphrid

On the topic of Chaotic Skyfire, Roywyn's numbers suggest that CSD can be seen as increasing the crit bonus such that, for an initial crit bonus b, the new crit bonus b' = 1.09*b. For specs with Ignite involved, b' = 1.09*b-.036.

 

Massael

I don't think it's ever that clear cut. That crit bonus from molten armor could be what allows you to kill the boss absolutely OOM rather than wipe at 1% with 400 mana left. I guess this is all conjecture in the end, but I really don't see the switch to mage armor being clear cut even if it's free to do so. There are *some* situations definitely where I see what you mean, but for the most part your spriest will be battle rezzed, or your pot cooldown will come up / evocation will be ready soon enough that mage armor is nothing more than minor dps loss for a minor mana increase.

Even in your 1 minute left OOM scenario, I would probably be more inclined to Wand/JoW for 20 seconds than scrape a scorch off with mage armor once every 8 seconds. I certainly see where you are coming from, I just think that mana regen is so varied and the number of scenarios are so numerous it's not a clear cut answer. Blizzard absolutely should make MA mana free, but you'll still have mages agonizing over whether it's worth it and that's where I remain bemused.

 

ReignConfused

I'm not sure how recieving a legendary weapon would put us into the realm that a legendary weapon puts rogues.

Atiesh never shot mages into the stratosphere DPS wise... A really good MH + OH in Naxx put you at about the same spell damage really...

[Wraith Blade] [Sapphiron's Left Eye]

[Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian]

150 1% 2% for atiesh 120 2% 2%

So our LEGENDARY item that was SO awesome gave us 30 spell dmg and lost us a crit but gave us some stats. And a pretty wicked cool 1% crit group buff.

Nothing to jump our DPS like 10%, which is what you see in rogues.

 

Pintofbrew

Rounced: You're giving mage armor too much credit. Firstly, ideas like turning it on while in transition and moving? What's the point of that? if you're moving, you're not casting, so surely, not casting and entering FSR will make it pointless? You profess turning it on to get two regen tics worth 30% regen? Forgive the attitude but I doubt you'd ever even consider this use. How often do you transition that long?

Secondly, everyone seems to be disregarding that mage armor is not a mana-regen mechanic like Water Shield. WS was changed in the way it works to provide a much much more efficient way of operation: It is entirely feasible for a shaman to be in a state where due to OOM issues they don't cast anything at-all, and having to break FSR to cast water shield made at least one and a bit charges of it pointless: That's why its 0 mana. Mage armor might be massively important for it's 30% regen to us but it also holds 18 all resist. You may not consider this useful, even combined with the similar arcane talent, but the fact remains: Mage armor is more than a mana-conservation tool. I insist that changing it's cost to 0 is uncalled for. SP dead? Use rank 1. If theres 1m left to the fight and boss is on 10% and your regen is dead and and and.... Use rank 1 if you're that desperate, otherwise keep Molten and enjoy 3%crit in execute range.

I'm failing to see why people all of a sudden think that the ability to insta-change armor for free should be given to the class as an emergency mana-conservation tool... You should predict what's optimal given circumstance, experience and conditions, decide which armor is most suitable, and have it on before the encounter starts. I like the fact that I have to decide the risk/reward return for picking armor during an encounter: I've swapped to rank 1 mage armor from SP death, I've switched to Molten when the palas saw it in their politeness and chucked a JoW, and I've swapped to Frost armor when we were down to 1 AOE healer on solarian.

Cloudgatherer: IB was predominantly given to us on the basis that it's a must for arena. Nothing can change that fact because it's simply true. With it as trainer skill we gain massively in potential to dabble without having to go whole-hog. Even PvE players are entitled to have some fun in PvP once in a while and this will go a long way towards helping that. Given that, while your argument that theres only so many tools we can have has merit, there is no chance it will be revoked. I still believe this change was not intended as a "PvE Fix" and it does not herald the end of the mage class tweaking.

Reignconfused: Atiesh at the time was for lvl 60, meaning you did not require 24crit rating for 1% crit. In fact if memory serves, 14 CR was 1%. Where that 33CR aoe buff came from I don't know, but I seem to recall the staff granting 3% crit to all in range. very very far from what you'd call insignificant.

 

thesmoosh

This isn't difficult at all.

Improved LOTP gives 5% hp back every time melee crits. Moonkin aura should give a fixed or % mana back every time party member crits. Moonkin group synergy, fixed. Reliance on spriest, fixed. Ability to stack ele shaman / 3x mage / moonkin, fixed.

This would fit well with shaman clearcasting and mage master of elements.

 

Peekaboo

Just a quick question on 10/48/3 ish spec and fireblast. My real world test is currently giving me 9% more dps on trash if I throw in fireblasts. I've heard people quote 5%.

With the improved coefficient to fireball will fireblast be worth even bothering with except to slip in a quick last shot to screw those executing warriors ?

 

ReignConfused

You were right pintof, it was 3% crit. So it was a flat 30 dmg increase to the mage in question and about 12% crit extra to the party.

Far from what I call "legendary" when you look at a rogues weapon.... *frowns* But that's me, and god knows we do need more utility.

 

Cloudgatherer

We're saying the same thing at this point, and I did agree on it being an obvious PvP/Arena buff (less so for PvE). Nothing here is disagreeable to what I've stated, I'm just concerned that the "why should we bring mages to raids?" issues are less likely to be addressed as a result of the 2.3 "buffs" (damage tax gone, trainable IB). There really is a limit to "free stuff" from the class designers, and I hope they get back some of that "concentrated coolness" with mages that they strive for with every class. I'm in the same boat as a few posters in this thread, I'm my guild's raid leader, and have no desire to recruit beyond the 3 mages we currently have.

Slightly OT though, as a general "PvP vs PvE" spec type argument, making IB trainable for mages makes as much sense to me as making MS trainable for warriors. While fire/arc mages certainly benefit from the invulnerability, that poor prot warrior is still respecing every week for Arena play. Certainly seems like they should make those "PvP" talents all trainable if they make IB trainable, but this is a discussion for another thread.

 

kadgar

2.3 doesn't increase mages dps, it is a nerf for our dps. Mages dps in 2.3 will be lower than in 2.2 because of TLC and MSD. Frost and fire will do more dmg in 2.3 but their dmg will still be below 2.2 arcane, even if you include IB. Although we'll have to wait for the new 21 frost talent for a final comparison.

 

Trouble

Shadow priests.......

 

Rouncer

I never suggested turning it on for transition and movement sections - that was your complete misunderstanding of what I was suggesting which for some reason you keep perscribing as what I was thinking of.

I think that Mage armor should be the first thing any OOM mage should think about casting on themselves in any situation that they find themselves OOM and without usable cooldowns. I don't think it should be swappable the way that Paladins can swap auras but I think that if the mage is having mana issues they should be able to swap into Mage armor without taking an initial hit for the cast, at least they should reduce the cost significantly compared to the other armors.

Aspect of the Viper costs 40 mana. All the other Aspects are at least 3 to 4 times as much mana (140-150 mana for all the other aspects) . Aspect of the Viper also gives back up to 50% of the Hunters Intellect as mana/5. Since Aspect of the Viper, in a raid setting, functions exactly the same as Mage Armor on basically every single encounter, excluding the 1 resistence fight in all of TBC, shouldn't it cost at least 2/3rds less mana to cast then our other armors?

Sure the analogy is flawed since a hunter doesn't have as much Intellect as a mage and they also don't have evocate and mana gems but they at least get to do somewhat decent dps while OOM in the form of pet dps combined with autoshot. Also I, along with all the other mages who have suggested changing Mage armor, are suggesting 15% as the value not the sliding scale that hunter's get which can give them 50% (although I definitely wouldn't complain if that was the mechanism Blizzard used to correct our current mana issues).

 

Pintofbrew

Rounced :perhaps I am looking at this armor mechanic from a skewed point of view; somehow to me it still looks WAI as it is, but perhaps that's my faulty understanding . Everyone else makes it arguable that it should be reduced so what the hell... I'll jump on the bandwagon too.

Kadgar: The changes in 2.3 are not a nerf, they are a fix. We were not doing damage in 2.3, the clearly faulty game mechanics were. TLC outputting 8+% of our DPS was completely out of order and I believe somewhere in the arcane damage thread someone calculated that with no MSD you'd need +520 more spellpower to get to the same DPS. Does this seem logical to you? Do you not agree with the alterations to the game mechanics? I played Diablo 2 LOD for a long time before WoW and I can assure you, when the game starts revolving around item-based gimmicks it becomes a sad, sad game indeed.

Arcane will be looked at, it is unthinkable that it won't, but until that happens it is more fitting that it is in an unusable state rather than a broken, overpowering gimmick spec. Don't think I'm an arcane-basher, I specced AM too for these months of blissful meter-topping but one of the reasons I prefer WoW to any other game out there is relative balance: There's no gimmicks, no "must have" and no game-mechanics abuse.

Reignconfused: 12%crit to party? 3% you mean I suspect. And as for comparing with Azinoth, I think that's out of place: You should compare it with Thunderfury and Hand Of Ragnaross. Back then, legendaries were legendaries, but they weren't madly OP. More like, very very good with a gimmick: TF had the proc that went off like mad, HoR had a similar bonus and Our staff made us wanabe-moonkins.

 

Darkmantle

28 critical strike rating was 2% spell crit at lvl 60.

Atiesh has 4 versions http://thottbot.com/?s=atiesh
Priest one was 62 +heal to the group.
Druid one was 11 +mp5 to the group.
Mage one was 2%(at 60) crit to the group
Warlock one was 33 +dmg to the group.

Thunderfury before the nerfs was SICK. The proc chance was changed from 30% to 18% or something like that. The proc was made so it wouldn't proc on secondary targets and chain procs from sword spec/hand of justice/instant poison/windfury/lifestealing were nerfed. I think is was george who released a video of him doing phase 1 nefarian with every buff imaginable and basically destroying one side.

 

hypetech

I've seen a lot of people ask, but I haven't really seen an answer yet in this thread. There is a lot of reference to haste as it affects the new arcane spec and in dealing with meta gems, but I'm interested in how haste directly stacks up to damage, and more importantly crit rating, for a 10/48/3 mage. For example, would Fetish of the Primal Gods provide more overall dps than Flametongue Seal ? What is a good point system for spell damage vs crit vs haste for 2.3 in deep fire?

 

kadgar

I agree that it's a fix from an item point of view. No item should have such a massive impact on certain spells or speccs, sure.

But at the dmg front it is still a nerf because we are doing less now.

AM 2.2 overpowered? Do you really think that? We need an incredible amount of mana and support for 2.2 AM and our dmg is only on par with other classes. Other classes witch need much less support for doing the same dmg then we, witch all have a higher survivability and witch bring more support to the raid themselves.

Arcane tree being looked at? Sure they will do, but probably not before the overnext addon.
I've seen a lot of issues in this game not solved ever or only after several years, look at engeneering, discipine tree, pala "dmg", blink, mana regeneration, def warrior + holy priest farming, ...

Arcane was never a good tree. At the beginning it was a absolutely must have for evo and AE. After the mage patch (1.11?) arcane was the tree nobody specced. Hell they gave us this insane "175 armor in full netherwind" talent an wand spec. survived the "big mage review".
Arcane was an option in 2.1 when fire and frost had the tax, MSD didn't proc on each missle and the people had the 2p T5 bonus, but this bonus is broken the same way as TLC and MSD are.
There is only 1 area where an arcane specc is useful actually (well after 2.3). That is when you have solo leveled a mage twink to lvl 70 witch wears terrible green 300 spell dmg gear. there you get a good spell dmg boots from mind mastery.
Arcane is a bit better than before TBC, but it's still bad.

Arcane definitively seems to have no high priority at blizzard (yes the tree is broken, but is it really a big problem? we always could live without it, like priests without discipline). I don't expect this problem solved anytime soon, although blizzard could surprise us with WotLK.

The problem is not just a few arcane talents or spells, blizzard doesn't has a concept for the arcane tree. Hell it's the whole mage concept that is broken at that point, our survivability, aoe, mana reg, glass cannon style, cross tree synergies, nearly identical talents and spells in every tree, boring 1 spell spam in fights, low group / raid support, ...

 

Sancus

Speaking as someone who has Atiesh, I have to say that it's probably the most disappointing legendary ever implemented. The fact that it's the only caster one just adds insult to injury, honestly.

I dunno why Blizzard is so fixated on melee weapons, but it really annoys the hell out of me. They have had this fixation with melee weapons since day 1. You just have to look at the drop tables to see that, there are always tons and tons of melee weapons in every raid, yet there's only a few cases where there's even more than *1* desirable caster weapon. This results in melee always having their shiny weapons while we wait for our first-ever Archimonde sword after 15 kills.

I know random loot is random, but they could really, really stop making such wasteful loot tables, and is it really necessary to have *3* melee legendaries in the history of WoW vs 1 crappy caster one? Nevermind the poor Hunters.

<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl

 

Raiste

well speaking of legendaries, i think this is a problem with caster weapons in general. The biggest difference between melee and caster weapons wise is the proc based itemization melee get vs just flat stat based itemization casters get. Look at the enchants even. Every single melee high end enchant has been a great proc based enchant, casters still get pigeonholed into stupid +40 dmg enchant (as a mage my PvE weapon is my arena weapon so I can't put the "higher end" +53 dmg on it). I think it'd be much more interesting if casters received some good proc based weapons and enchants finally.

As far as mana regen, this is a huge issue. Right now as a mage I am so completely paralyzed mana wise if something bad happens during a fight (ie shadow priest dies, evocation gets interrupted etc) that my dps just takes a nosedive because of mana management issues. Armor switching is not the answer, just need more solid and reliable way to regen mana. Maybe add a 20% increased mana regen from items/spells when molten armor is up (much like fel armor for warlocks). Heck I would much prefer that they gave us reliable passive regen and removed evocation all togather.

 

Firefly

I see mentioned here again and again that our damage isnt on par with other classes. Im 11/47/3 and i usually have a 5th spot for full raid (we are 6/6 and 3/4). Usually i have 3 rogues and a lock a bit above me (depending on content). So i was wondering if its the itemization at t6 gear that screws mages? As i see it the changes they are making in 2.3 are great for me, im hoping for about 10% damage increase since im not using stopcast atm. And that should make it possible for me to catch and probably beat rogues.

I dont think there is any reason why they should make mage armor free. I would much more prefer that they buff our gems and that they didnt share cd with healthstones. 50% increase to the current gems, and a new rank would be nice.