[Mage] WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 11

• Chicken · 05/23/08, 2:49 PM

Originally Posted by bortson

That said, if Explosive Fireball is real, that's an awesome spell. Basically, a front-end seed of corruption. It's nice that fire mages are being given a legit ranged AoE option rather than forcing us to try to convince ourselves that there's a way to make flamestrike effective.

Not to burst your bubble, but despite the fact that most of the websites link this ability to Mages I have my doubts it's a Mage ability. Now I'll admit tooltips aren't much to go by, but the one we know for the ability reads "Breathes a ball of fire", and as far as I know Mages aren't much inclined to breathing balls of fire. Conjuring and hurling them yes, breathing less so. Combine that with the fact that any leaked pictures from trainers do not show the ability anywhere, nor do the talent trees, I'm of the opinion it looks more likely to be an ability used by a ridable dragon.

Deedre · 05/23/08, 2:57 PM

262.5% crits, if true, saves burnout from the clutches of spellpower and shifts a few points from the arcane/fire hybrid spec back to fire.

It opens things up for a tri spec of sorts: 10 in arcane for clearcasting (which I still think is going to be essential), 11 in ice for IV, the rest in fire. Nice build.

RpgWizard · 05/23/08, 3:00 PM

Originally Posted by Deedre

262.5% crits, if true, saves burnout from the clutches of spellpower and shifts a few points from the arcane/fire hybrid spec back to fire.

It opens things up for a tri spec of sorts: 10 in arcane for clearcasting (which I still think is going to be essential), 11 in ice for IV, the rest in fire. Nice build.

except you can't have an 18/50/11 build

Deedre · 05/23/08, 3:03 PM

Yes, I corrected that, 18 in arcane isn't doable, but 10 for clearcasitng is, and helps offset some of the mana drain from burnout.

Zaldinar · 05/23/08, 3:04 PM

Originally Posted by RpgWizard

except you can't have an 18/50/11 build

10/48/3 + 10 points -> 10/50/11

Only three points for the new talents unless you snipe from DB/Pyro/BW, but still potentially nice.

Edit: I cant count either, it seems.

Flamingcloud · 05/23/08, 3:07 PM

Originally Posted by Lhivera

A thought here. I callously pooh-poohed the idea on the mage forum when proposed by another mage, and perhaps someone has knowledge of actual testing that can confirm/deny this:

What if Burnout is not a 25% increase to Critical Strike Bonus Damage (162.5% crits, 227.5% with Ignite), but is rather a 25% increase to Critical Strike Damage (187.5% crits, 262.5% with Ignite)?

I pooh-poohed the poster who was arguing this on the basis of there being no precedent. But I realized this morning that, in fact, there are precedents: the Hunter/Survival "Slaying" talents, and now the updated "Poleaxe Specialization" talent for warriors. There is also a new Warlock/Destruction talent that reads:

Eternal Flames - Your Searing Pain and Incinerate spells have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to refresh the duration of your Immolate spell on the target, and increases the critical strike damage of your Destruction spells by an additional 2/4/6/8/10%.

Note: "Critical strike damage," not "Critical strike damage bonus."

This would, of course, require that the tooltip wording on Burnout is incorrect, but it wouldn't be the first time (or the tenth, or the fiftieth). And it would certainly make for a much better talent. At a 35% crit rate, it would be about a 13% DPS increase. This would also much better explain the exorbitant mana cost.

That kind of makes sense though it would still leave crit as the worst stat for warlocks even critting at 2.399 with csd and eternal flames. This is ofcourse assuming current ratios of for crit/hit/haste stay intact. Would make both of these talents very good. 13.2% gain for mages and like 7-8% for crit portion and another like 8% for the rolling immolate portion by my calculations(single target of course).

bortson · 05/23/08, 3:16 PM

Originally Posted by Chicken

as far as I know Mages aren't much inclined to breathing balls of fire. Conjuring and hurling them yes, breathing less so.

Well, we do have dragon's breath for those inclined to spec that way, so there is precedent for fire mages suffering from deadly halitosis. I do share your skepticism about whether this is legitimately a mage spell though, which is why I prefaced it with an "if Explosive Fireball is real"

We can always hope.

RpgWizard · 05/23/08, 3:23 PM

Originally Posted by Zaldinar

10/48/3 + 10 points -> 10/50/11

Only three points for the new talents unless you snipe from DB/Pyro/BW, but still potentially nice.

Edit: I cant count either, it seems.

He edited his post after I posted.

Though I don't know, I'm still not completely convinced that mana will be a huge problem in the expansion. Only going 50 in fire means you skip every AoE talent, except Dragon's breath I guess, and depending on encounter design we might be gimping ourselves. I think there's going to be a switch back to the use of Mage armor, unless mana is not an issue for a specific fight, which let's you pick up the AoE talents you miss by picking up a full 5 points in Clearcasting.

Perhaps a 7/53/11 spec or 9/51/11, depending on the usefulness of Living Bomb (such as it being passive after you activate it, allowing you to AoE as well as have Living Bomb damage tick)

toth · 05/23/08, 3:24 PM

Originally Posted by Alvira

They would never give anyone the ability to stun or cc bosses unless they meant for the bosses to be cced in the first place. It would be too easy for a raid to stack mage and hence prolong the time of the stun. You put a 30 second cooldown to it? Clever raid leaders just stack 6 frost mages. Suddenly, you have a rotation going that will ensure that the boss keeps on getting stunned all the time.

They could implement diminishing returns on stuns on raid bosses similar to how it works in PvP. But if they opened up those flood gates, there are plenty of classes that can provide a stun interrupt.

Deedre · 05/23/08, 3:27 PM

RpgWizard, you may be right, I'm assuming that AE can carry the load adequately so far as aoe is concerned, but it's debatable.

Jarlyn · 05/23/08, 4:35 PM

There's no denying we're in dire need of a new ranged AoE spell, I don't see why we shouldn't think something is in the works in that regard. Not that I don't enjoy getting dominated by warlocks on M'uru, but something to match Seed would really be fantastic.

◊ manly · 05/23/08, 5:00 PM

Originally Posted by Jarlyn

There's no denying we're in dire need of a new ranged AoE spell, I don't see why we shouldn't think something is in the works in that regard. Not that I don't enjoy getting dominated by warlocks on M'uru, but something to match Seed would really be fantastic.

Well, then use spellsteal and cast some a flamestrike every aoe if you want to beat them on the DMs.

Jarlyn · 05/23/08, 5:03 PM

I do

Firemaw · 05/23/08, 5:16 PM

Begging blizzard for a final point in the fire tree like [Summon Phoenix] or [Summon Fire Elemental] or [Summon Dragon]. Then let the pet become the [Living Bomb].

Powerade · 05/23/08, 5:18 PM

I don't know if someone already posted it. In that case I apologize :P

Here the new ranks of the spell:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...g?t=1211549882

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...g?t=1211549911

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...agespells3.jpg

Here the lock spells if someone is interested:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ockspells1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...g?t=1211550078
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...g?t=1211550097
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ockspells4.jpg

◊ manly · 05/23/08, 5:18 PM

Oh I know, you're probably sheeping. That will really kill your dps. I know I tend to give our warlocks a tough fight, however, I don't aoe, I only single target, but on the other hand I do spellsteal (and don't sheep). If I were to aoe I'd be at 2.6-2.7k dps, which should place me top or 2nd. With no aoe its more like 2.4k (of course, because spellfury is kind of ridiculous).

Lileith · 05/23/08, 5:31 PM

Ice Barrier rank 8 absorbing 3300 ... sweet

Lysara · 05/23/08, 5:32 PM

Originally Posted by Powerade

I don't know if someone already posted it. In that case I apologize :P

Level 78 Shadow Ward absorbs 3300 damage while lvl 78 Fire/Frost Ward absorbs 1950? That seems rather inconsistent.

And new rank Arcane Brilliance isn't very exciting, that's a spell that could use some work.

Deedre · 05/23/08, 5:38 PM

Interesting.

Max rank AB is nearly half again as strong as AB rk1. They cranked it up big time. Big enough to compensate for lack of scaling talents?

Canyc · 05/23/08, 5:50 PM

Disclaimer: This is 100% speculation, no evidence whatsoever to back it up.

Suppose that in addition to increasing mana regen, spirit were updated to provide passive spell haste. How would this affect things? They keep talking about wanting to do something to make spirit a far more desirable stat, and this is the only thing I've been able to think of that could fill that role.

I can also see it increasing spell penetration for PvP purposes.

Kludge · 05/23/08, 5:56 PM

Originally Posted by Deedre

Interesting.

Max rank AB is nearly half again as strong as AB rk1. They cranked it up big time. Big enough to compensate for lack of scaling talents?

But here is the problem T5 set bonus becomes godly still with that spell. The gear is outdated by then, but who would not take a 20% bonus damage on your primary nuke? I mean it brings the avg spell damage of AB to what ~1180 then you add in +dmg and all that fun stuff.

Can an arcane mage replace that set bonus is the major issue.

Deedre · 05/23/08, 5:59 PM

t5 set bonus is going to be nerfed, bank on it. They will replace it with a flat spell damage bonus.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the same happened to 4 pc t6.

Blizzard doesn't like percentile bonuses carrying over. They nerfed the heck out of all these from vanilla going into TBC.

That aside, the massive increase in AB rk3 gives me a smidgen of hope for arcane pve. Time for some number crunching.

Kludge · 05/23/08, 6:02 PM

Something else is bothering me.

They add spells mana cost to increase with your mana pool grows, fine its fair. By why cant some talents scale as well. Arcane Subtlety is still only a penetration of 10.... They changed Magic Absorption to have 1 point of resistance per level why not something similar with Arcane Subtlety.

◊ manly · 05/23/08, 6:02 PM

Keep in mind Deedre that we can't really TC arcane for WOTLK since there are far too many external factors that we don't know. We don't know how the reduced VT mana will affect our play, and the mana regen from other specs/classes will play in all this. We don't know about the new JOW either. Also, I read somewhere that mana potions now give mana but drains the mana back that they gave over 1 min (essentially removing chain chugging). We don't know if theyll do something similar to remove dps consumables like haste potions/destro pots/flame caps, but I certainly hope so.

grayrest · 05/23/08, 6:08 PM

Originally Posted by Deedre

t5 set bonus is going to be nerfed, bank on it.

We've known this since we started doing AB rotations in 2.1. The persistence of ten storms gave me hope that it might not be nerfed but with the nerf this patch, 2t5 is far and away the best set bonus and thus next in line for the chopping block. I don't expect them to nerf 4t6 simply because the number of inferior pieces you have to wear to hit a relatively small bonus will probably be offset by the loss in stats--though the sunwell drops are well enough itemized for damage that they might be workable.