[Mage] WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 111

Skallewag · 07/02/08, 5:11 AM

Well Manly, for WotLK I actually agree with you. I think that a couple of patches into northrend things will be scaling a lot smother than in TBC. I think adding an expansion to such a huge mmorpg as wow is really really hard.
Everything has to be new and cool, everyone has to get cool abileties, at the same time people cant think that all the other classes new abileties are too cool and on top of all this everyone has to be equally valuable everwhere.

But I really do believe blizz when they say they have leared a lot from creating outland. That being said however I think they could have scoured their own suggestion forums a bit for new ideas to mage spells and talents. Ive seen a lot of interesting stuff there. Let me make a simple example. Take a quick look at the shammy elemental tree. Lighting overload. 20% chanse to instantly cast half a bolt extra. Now back to Netherwind pressence in our arcane tree, 5% to cast a bolt extra. Now Im sure balance will be fine between these two talents, my guess is that NWP can proc of every AM tick for example since that would bring it to a 25% proc chanse per arcane missiles cast and that seems rather fair as shammies get 20% at a lower tier. I have no concerns about the balance of such a talent, but I cant help thinking its basicly the same talent. Im sure I will have a lot of fun with WotLK, but Im equally sure I would like to see some more sneaky tricks. I play mage mainly for my love of sneaky tricks. ^^

Like a more detailed version of that proximity mine I suggested earlier.

Rune of Arcane Explosion.
[apropriate manacost here] Instant cast

You inscribe a word of power on the ground that activates after
2 secconds and remains active for 10 secconds before it fades.
If an enemy comes within 10 yd of the rune it explodes dealing
[X] arcane damage within its reach.

Values of the spell should ofc be tweaked. Perhaps it would be better at a smaller range AoE effect. 5 yards but more concentrated, or possibly just a lot cheaper than AE. A spell like this would give mages an interesting and new way to deal ranged AoE damage, it would work to set up traps in pve cause scripted enemies are dumb and in pvp it would add a very interesting dimension to pillars. (was thinking of pillars when suggesting a smaller blast radius but cheaper cost.)

Gediablo · 07/02/08, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by manly

However, its not because they said words like 'king of AOE' 'dps=ZOMG' or 'raw-unadulterated damage' that we should be blindsighted into believing it means a whole lot. I think the comment was wholly uninspiring in the sense that we already knew that. He provided an answer to a question, I don't think we should be thinking further than that. As always, I expect blizzard to know what theyre doing, and I was always confident a fix would be in eventually.

You are definitely more optimistic and have more confidence to the Blizzard balancing and test team than me. Comments like the well known "In test after test, our jaws are consistently dropping at the sheer damage output we've seen from the mage at level 70, so I do think that some of the panic here is unwarranted. These results are directly what have led to some of the changes such as the one to elemental precision. Damage = zomg." or this blue post in reply to my post that the AE range still wasn't as the tooltip described after they 'fixed' it: "When standing still, this effect does appear to have a less than 10 yard range. However, I can confirm that when moving (as you invariably would be when casting this type of spell), the range of the spell is a full 10 yards. This is considered to be an intended feature of the spell, and is working correctly." (This refers to that AE got a 1½ yard shorter range than the tooltip say when standing still or jumping without moving, which according to Blizzard is working as intended.)

I know from other games that balancing and bug-fixing a new game is extremely hard, and personally I expect WotLK on release to be extremely unbalanced and buggy compared to the current live versions. What I don't get is how their development teams can go and proclaim phrases like the first quote above, which clearly turned out false, as it was proven shortly after in the open beta. Not only does it shows extremely poor testing and/or theorycrafting on their part, but it also either eventually piss off the mage community or the non-mage communities - either way a really bad approach.

I also have problems understanding why Blizzard's policy on people commenting on alpha-leaked material is to delete and ban, rather than listen. As you say yourself manly:

Originally Posted by manly

They knew that a quick fix probably wouldn't have done it, so they went for a full scale 'fix' of the problem and delayed the mage dps fix for WotLK. They want to do a better, bigger fix if you prefer.

In other words if the balance is way off, it should be fixed before release, since it is harder to fix underpowered or overpowered classes in minor patches without massive whine. If their internal testing isn't creative/skilled enough to test it correctly (pretty sure no warlock Blizzard tester tried sacrificing a succubus for SB or SoC spamming during their test phase) then what is the harm in letting a community of free eager testers at least do some theory crafting for them and opening up for balancing ideas.

At the moment we can of cause only speculate on the design of the encounters. As someone said they might add something like a Corehound-pack-boss encounter that actually requires mage AoE, and justify bringing more than 1 King of AoE to that encounter. But that doesn't change the fact that we can expect a vast majority of boss encounters to be single target dps fights. You cannot make a general PvE balance on classes by adding gimmick fights like having a mage tank Krush Firehand or Council or a warlock tank Leo or Illidan. Those things spice things up and are needed and fun yes, but if bringing more than 1 player of a class to any 25 man raids generally brings less than bringing a 3+ of other similar classes then it isn't balanced. Many guilds brought 1-2 locks and stacked extra mages during Naxx which indicated an unbalance, just like stacking warlocks and bringing 1 mage in especially early TBC raiding (and apparently end of Sunwell too) indicated unbalance. The pendulum swings, and that can't be avoided, but better thinking and testing and listening to the community can make the swings less drastic. I'm much against flavor of the month classes (like often seen in DaoC or SWG), and I do consider WoW overall more balanced than those games.

I don't have the feeling that Blizzard always know what they are doing, however. The cap on AoE spells e.g. - it appeared to be a fast fix to prevent mages to solo/duo farm the non-elite world-spawns during Naxx-release. Yet they never adjusted pre-TBC encounters to this, and they removed the gear and talent scaling part - does it makes sense that an arcane mage in S1-gear does the same AE damage at Felmyst as a 1500 +damage mage with AP running? Instead a fix like changing it to something similar to multi-shot, and capping the damage to x number of targets rather than overall (non-crit) damage would have made more sense. And when this problem starts to show in TBC like at Felmyst they 'fix' it by increasing the cap on 1 AoE spell, rather than changing the basic AoE mechanic. Counterspell and global cooldown another well known balance issue gone wrong. Mage 2xTier5 is another poor 'fix'. Seed of Corruption and Demonic Sacrifice are two warlock examples. None of these examples has been introduced by Blizzard without a reason, but the long term consequences for the classes in all situations doesn't seemed to have been that well considered nor tested.

New content makes more money than extensive testing. Many boss fights doesn't even seems like the internal test teams have been close to defeating with buffed up characters and inside knowledge of tactics. I might be too pessimistic on my view on things, but I believe MMO and WoW history speak for itself here. New content equals more unbalance and new not so well thought ideas.

Originally Posted by alvinrod

For whatever mistakes Blizzard made in TBC, I'm quite sure they've learned from them and have made sure that they won't be repeated again in WotLK. Sure there might be new mistakes, but they'll fix those in the next expansion or patch them up as we go along.

With Naxx being the first instance and having plenty of time for returning it for 10 and 25 man raids, I think we'll see the best encounter and raid balance to date.

I honestly believe that those of you who expect WotLK to be really balanced in the start is going to be disappointed. New talents, new skills, a new class. And they will make some of the same mistakes again. The mage class is going to seem overpowered while leveling 70-80, but melee classes will become insanely powerful with the best gear in WotLK. Some of the underpowered classes/specs now will become overpowered and vice versa. It was like that Pre-TBC, it was like that in TBC and I see nothing so far that prevents it from happening again. For WotLK I hope for a bit more balance 6 months after release compared to TBC, and a bit more equal gear-scaling across classes and specs than during TBC. If something of the new content fundamentally needs changing it should happen during the alpha or beta - SoC didn't get changed during TBC even though it went over the hill in Blizzard's eyes. Blink, Ignite or Coldsnap won't get replaced/fixed in the middle of an expansion no matter if they are documented to be bugged. The new professions Inscription may destroy all the theory crafting here (only to be nerfed to oblivion after a few months). We don't know really. I just try and be realistic - that way the inevitable bugs and balance issues seems easier to handle.

manly · 07/02/08, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by Gediablo

You are definitely more optimistic and have more confidence to the Blizzard balancing and test team than me.

What does it matter whether I am optimistic or not ? In the end, I have no say in how the class is balanced. I can't affect the results, I can only be happy or frustrated with them. I prefer having an optimistic view because it is just as productive as the reverse.

Originally Posted by Gediablo

In other words if the balance is way off, it should be fixed before release, since it is harder to fix underpowered or overpowered classes in minor patches without massive whine. If their internal testing isn't creative/skilled enough to test it correctly (pretty sure no warlock Blizzard tester tried sacrificing a succubus for SB or SoC spamming during their test phase) then what is the harm in letting a community of free eager testers at least do some theory crafting for them and opening up for balancing ideas.

The balance isn't way off. If it were really way off, it would have had been fixed early. There a certain margin by which they operate on. If we're 10% behind on dps, something drastic will probably be done about it. If were more within 5%, then they just accumulate issues for a later major release patch (ie: 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, etc.) where they can bunch up a lot of similar things, and reduce support calls. I know it sounds crazy like that, but the more you introduce change, the more you add support calls, but by the same fact you 'drown the noise' by making people complain about the wrong things (since instead you get people crying afoul over the major things rather than all the piddly details).

As I said before, I don't think they tested with 0/21/40 for warlocks. But even if they did, we don't know what gear they used to test. Hell, if they tested with T4 gear, destro spec is perfectly fine. Keep in mind, talents are done and testing MUCH BEFORE raid gear is designed. To only make players wonder even more wtf, on the playable WOTLK booths (sp?) the players were in T4 gear. I am really not sure why. Also, I doubt they test with flame caps / destro pots. Not that it matters really, since that would only favor warlocks over mages.

Originally Posted by Gediablo

Mage 2xTier5 is another poor 'fix'.

Maybe because it isnt? I really doubt that was intended to be used for fullscale use. Arcane has never worked up on its own, except back in alpha when no gear had spell damage on it. Oh boy arcane explosion was good. Fireball was downright retarded. But ignoring that, arcane has never standed up on its own entity. It always required other stuff to work. I'm thinking here about 2pct5, MSD and TLC. Oh wait, thats the totality of all pure arcane specs.

Telvin · 07/02/08, 1:56 PM

Originally Posted by manly

As I said before, I don't think they tested with 0/21/40 for warlocks. But even if they did, we don't know what gear they used to test.

As you already said, they probably tested with T4, and most likely will do tests in T7 for wotlk, as this fits for most customers anyway.
I am still curious how blizzard may test scaling with gear (or if this is done)?
A certain attribute-value to be spent and comparing results?

Arazan · 07/02/08, 2:06 PM

Originally Posted by manly

Unlike most people here, my baseline assumption is that most of what blizzard does is roughly OK and in line with what they intended. If things were not as they intended them to be (with a certain error margin), then they would eventually try to fix it. I think the fireball/frostbolt coefficient removal was a sign of that, as well as making ice block baseline (not to mention icy veins). They had a goal, and we were below it at that point in time. If right now we werent up to what they wanted, they would fix it. Problem is, they decided to go against a 'quick fix' like most of us would ask because every 'quick fix' results in an infinite amount of customer support (by non mages obv.), which they aren't interested in increasing. They knew that a quick fix probably wouldn't have done it, so they went for a full scale 'fix' of the problem and delayed the mage dps fix for wotlk. They want to do a better, bigger fix if you prefer.

As much as I'd like to take some personal credit, I think the removal of the coefficient tax was because of the outcry from raiding mages who could mathematically and statistically show that the nerf was completely unnecessary... and it's a lot easier to revoke a nerf than institute a buff, so I think they took away the coefficient tax just to appease the raiding mages who were obviously wedged into a second-tier single target dps role.

Originally Posted by manly

However, its not because they said words like 'king of AOE' 'dps=ZOMG' or 'raw-unadulterated damage' that we should be blindsighted into believing it means a whole lot. I think the comment was wholly uninspiring in the sense that we already knew that. He provided an answer to a question, I don't think we should be thinking further than that. As always, I expect blizzard to know what theyre doing, and I was always confident a fix would be in eventually. In any case, it seems wholly unproductive to me to bitch about the situation given we don't really have a realistic way to affect teh results, and even if we could affect them, the truth is they probably know a lot more than any of us as to why things work that way. So yeah, I don't really see any good reason to get worked out over what might be in wotlk.

I love you Manly but I gotta disagree with your conclusion here. I don't think that they said what they said because they know what they're doing and they just can't go into all the specifics. Maybe I'm just incredibly cynical, but I think they said what they said for the exact same reason they said what they did pre-TBC when all the math showed what mages would be in TBC... I think they said it to shut everyone up and give the complainers the hope that class fixes were coming.

I'd really like to think that I understand the mechanics of how a few of the classes work, and I was really saddened by the mage WoLK info. To me, it was like they took the strength of the arcane and fire trees (dps/dpm control, and consistently high dps, respectively) and expounded on it at the cost of expounding the weakness of that tree (lack of a good arcane primary nuke and mana inefficiency, respectively).

I know that everyone thinks they know what's best, but I just can't look at what they're doing and see it being an overall benefit to the class. They're just expounding on each tree... arcane will be great burst, but will absolutely NOT be able to maintain casting without frostbolt, and fire will be good, consistent dps, but with Burnout then fire will continue to be incredibly dependent on shadowpriests, shaman mana totems, and consumables until the fire mage gets to be very well geared.

Originally Posted by manly

We'll see how mechanics works, and then make conclusions. Blizzard indicated the purpose and intent of frostfire bolt, and if theit intent is really what they said, then they'll soon see how broken shatter is, and also how the way trees are built up go in contrast with the design goal of frostfire bolt. The fire and frost tree have the dps increasing talents being mostly low in the tree, and the dps increasing talents high in the tree for arcane. This is a bit why historically arcane was a support tree, and that functionality modelled it well. If you make work an elementalist build, you get the best of both worlds. You get most of the dps increasing talents from fire/frost, and theres almost no fillers because those trees have fluff talents at the end of it, unlike arcane.

As much as I love the idea of frostfire bolt, I think "oh it helps mages dodge immunity" is an incredibly stupid way to argue for why it's a good thing. Damage immunity is one of the dumbest things implemented in this game because of how it strictly hurts mages and, to a lesser extent, elemental shamans, yet NEVER affects shadow damage because that would be "unfair"? What the hell? And I'm pretty sure a 600 foot tall robot really isn't going to care about being poked in the feet with toothpicks, yet VR and Doomwalker only have slightly more armor than, say, Kael'thas? Oh and a phoenix, A'lar, is immune to fire damage, yet is hurt by physical weapons that would fly right through if not be completely melted by A'lar's fiery body?

Damage immunity is something that either needs to be applied logically in ALL modes (fire beings are immune to fire, shadow beings are immune to shadow, ridiculously large robots are immune or extremely resistant to physical damage... etc) or it needs to not exist. As one would basically break the game by making the raid structure unrealistic and one would end the "but let's still screw mages" clause, I think you guys know which one I'd favor.

Again, maybe I'm really cynical but it just seems like everything that's being said about the mage class is just lip service. None of the changes are really addressing core issues that are killing the mage class, and everything done to mages seems to be done as an afterthought. Oh, and being referred to as the "experimental class" really isn't confidence-boosting.

Arazan · 07/02/08, 2:20 PM

Originally Posted by manly

The balance isn't way off. If it were really way off, it would have had been fixed early. There a certain margin by which they operate on. If we're 10% behind on dps, something drastic will probably be done about it.

WWS Scoreboard

^^ According to that, which is the AVERAGE damage WWS scoreboard, not the top dps scoreboard, mages fair like:

T4: warlocks do 7.70% more dps
T5: warlocks do 8.33% more dps
T6: warlocks do 6.50% more dps (hunters do 8.14% more)
10man average: warlocks do 12.65% more dps (hunters do 6.61% more)
25man average: warlocks do 7.11% more dps (hunters do 7.02% more)

And averaged across all content, rogues do 15.25% more dps than mages, warlocks do 7.67% more than mages, and hunters do 6.55% more.

In terms of mage dps balance, that's pretty horrendous.

manly · 07/02/08, 2:44 PM

Yes, and I don't know why people mention FFB as being an 'immunity dodger'. Its not. Blizzard has not given any shed of evidence pointing towards that conclusion. It might be a far more interesting spell for a deep fire spec on a fire immune boss - I certainly welcome it as such, but mages are well suited in the first place to switch schools of magic ! Even more to the point - with talks about instant talent-spec switch, I don't see why immunities needs to be made into a big deal. Its not because I do a fight and suffer 30% in partial resist that I believe firespec as a whole cannot work at all on supremus. Sure, you might want to swap out fire mages on al'ar, particularly when learning the boss. Is it really worth getting all worked up over compared to the myriad of other things that will affect me on a regular basis in contrast to the few off bosses ? I think mages are in a good situation to work around immunities, and I think in that regard viewing FFB as an immunity-dodger is ill-advised. I don't think its that. Blizzard said its there to allow elementalist spec to work.

Ironically, if the spec I linked (0/30/41) does work and FFB works like modelled, then you would be fine without FFB on immunity fights since you have lots of dps increasing talents in either school. You would simply switch to fireball/frostbolts and keep on trucking.

As for the WWS numbers, keep in mind those numbers can be easily misinterpreted. For starters, it only accounts for submitted WWS parses, which is probably less than 5% (if not much lower than 1%) of all boss fights. Second, you need to realise that warlocks are somewhat less dependant on group comp to work thanks to lifetap. Mage dps only works with COE. Mage needs a SP for anything close to a long fight (which happen to be the case for most starting guilds), particularly when you have shitty gear (ie: crafted gear). If the numbers were all coming from the exact same group comps, I'd accept them. But as it is, like almost every other data, it will be inherently biased. I do see in those numbers that mages are the lowest pure dps class in almost all content. However, things like bloodlust generally being chained on melee will screw the numbers. Also unholy frenzy will play on those numbers. Not many people make hunter groups, but hunters should be head and shoulders above rogues for truly top end content. I believe its a side effect from the stackability of ferocious inspiration, but not many will agree with my view. I could also give you the data from brut, where mages tend to do well, but again, it pales in comparison to what hunters can get. Not to mention, but that accumulated data spans across content patches. Mages got coefficient removal for fireball, icy veins, and whatnot. The numbers will change over time, a pure average of all data is somewhat misaligned.

Besides, I gave 5/10% as stick placeholder figures. 7% average is arguably an acceptable number to keep delaying a fix. Its high enough to be high on the priority list. It would definately follow suit to 'mages tends to be sidelined'.

Deedre · 07/02/08, 2:45 PM

Arazan, bear in mind there's a lot of t5/t6 raiders farming Kara for badges nowadays. Warlocks wearing gear equivalent to the content aren't destro locks. And badge gear has thrown things for a loop as well, allowing many classes to rapidly gear themselves out in t6 equivalent gear, which is throwing the numbers off across the board.

This wasn't the case a year ago and I personally was completely competive with warlocks in my t4/t5 days back then when we all had gear equal to the content in question. And rogue were kind of weak if anything at that stage.

So you'd have to look at the numbers being produced back then to get a clearer picture of class balance. Those numbers wouldn't have indicated a breakdown in balance and we shouldn't be surprised that Blizz took no action back then. We won't mention the entire spellfire/spellstrike fiasco which artificially inflated relative mage output back in those days.

Vontre · 07/02/08, 2:56 PM

Originally Posted by manly

Ironically, if the spec I linked (0/30/41) does work and FFB works like modelled, then you would be fine without FFB on immunity fights since you have lots of dps increasing talents in either school. You would simply switch to fireball/frostbolts and keep on trucking.

Not even close. That build can't really afford either empowered fireball or empowered frostbolt, or any of the other talents it needs to not make a fireball or frostbolt nuke utter shit.

manly · 07/02/08, 2:59 PM

sorry misread 'empowered' into 'improved'.

TBH, I don't even care about immunity fights. Its like really minor compared to so many other issues.

Lhivera · 07/02/08, 3:26 PM

Originally Posted by manly

Yes, and I don't know why people mention FFB as being an 'immunity dodger'. Its not. Blizzard has not given any shed of evidence pointing towards that conclusion.

Simply because, intended or not, if it does use talents from both trees at once, it will be useful for that purpose. A Frostfire Bolt talented with Piercing Ice and Ice Shards will do better DPS for me against a Frost-immune target than a completely untalented Fireball will. There is that one "if," of course, but we already know that the spell won't function in its primary intended role as an Elementalist nuke if that "if" doesn't pan out.

Vontre · 07/02/08, 3:47 PM

What you're really thinking of is a fire-talented nuke that deals frost damage, but that's not what it is so it's still going to be terrible for immunity fights.

Lhivera · 07/02/08, 4:01 PM

Originally Posted by Vontre

What you're really thinking of is a fire-talented nuke that deals frost damage, but that's not what it is so it's still going to be terrible for immunity fights.

No, not really. What I'm thinking of is a spell that will, when I'm specced Frost, and facing a Frost-immune target, deal Fire damage, but still benefit from some of my Frost talents. Thus dealing less terrible damage than a completely untalented Fireball.

Similarly, if I were a Fire mage, facing a Fire-immune target, it would deal Frost damage, but still benefit from some of my Fire talents. Thus dealing less terrible damage than a completely untalented Frostbolt.

We already know it pretty much has to behave this way in order to work as an Elementalist nuke. And an earlier poster in this very thread (a while ago, 2-3 weeks maybe) explained that this was exactly how it was working -- we just don't know if it was working properly.

Primary result: competitive elementalist damage.
Secondary result 1: Frost mages are less terrible on Frost immunity fights.
Secondary result 2: Fire mages are less terrible on Fire immunity fights.

Unless something truly bizarre is planned for the spell, the secondary results are pretty much inevitable consequences of achieving the primary result. To throw some numbers out there to illustrate the idea: if a Fire Mage currently deals 50% of his normal DPS when facing a Fire-immune target, he may deal 75% of his normal DPS with FFB. Now, for a radical min/maxer, this is of course still unacceptable, and it might as well not happen at all, he'll just switch specs or swap out for another class or a frost-specced mage, but for the majority of players, it's a significant improvement.

Maledict · 07/02/08, 4:22 PM

I think it fairly sad we are even talking about immunity fights given that resistances and immunities are only of concern to mages in the first place. Manly is right about FFB - it isn't intended for immunity fights. If Blizzard wanted to fix that, they can just stop making them - they add nothing to the game, and as far as lore goes a fire elemental taking damage from a wooden arrow makes about as much sense as a fireball.

Overall, ~I just hope they can add some complexity to the class. I don't want our dps to be increased by 10% ifit just involves us becoming a one button class like warlocks. (It's not like we aren't almost there).

mkultra55 · 07/02/08, 5:04 PM

Originally Posted by Arazan

As much as I love the idea of frostfire bolt, I think "oh it helps mages dodge immunity" is an incredibly stupid way to argue for why it's a good thing. Damage immunity is one of the dumbest things implemented in this game because of how it strictly hurts mages and, to a lesser extent, elemental shamans, yet NEVER affects shadow damage because that would be "unfair"? What the hell? And I'm pretty sure a 600 foot tall robot really isn't going to care about being poked in the feet with toothpicks, yet VR and Doomwalker only have slightly more armor than, say, Kael'thas? Oh and a phoenix, A'lar, is immune to fire damage, yet is hurt by physical weapons that would fly right through if not be completely melted by A'lar's fiery body?

Damage immunity is something that either needs to be applied logically in ALL modes (fire beings are immune to fire, shadow beings are immune to shadow, ridiculously large robots are immune or extremely resistant to physical damage... etc) or it needs to not exist. As one would basically break the game by making the raid structure unrealistic and one would end the "but let's still screw mages" clause, I think you guys know which one I'd favor.

Again, maybe I'm really cynical but it just seems like everything that's being said about the mage class is just lip service. None of the changes are really addressing core issues that are killing the mage class, and everything done to mages seems to be done as an afterthought. Oh, and being referred to as the "experimental class" really isn't confidence-boosting.

Amen Brother.... Immunity should be logically applied or completely removed from the game.