Nurru

You're arguing that instead of making the deep Fire crit talent actually useful that players should instead spec 33 points into Arcane. What?

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

Lhivera

There are questions of degree here. If Rogues are doing 5% more DPS than warlocks, mages and hunters, that's probably fine. If they're doing 20% more, that's probably a bit much. Somewhere, you draw the line between "fine" and "too much". Where you draw that line depends on how much utility the various classes in question are bringing. The fact that rogues bring nothing but DPS would not excuse them doing twice the DPS of other DPS classes, any more than it would be OK for them to bring no utility and do no more DPS than other DPS classes.

The question (and I've been out of raiding for a few months, so I honestly don't know the answer to this) is whether Rogues are pulling too far ahead as gear continues to improve, such that the utility brought by other classes isn't enough to compensate for the gap. If they're not, then fine, it should be a technical possibility to design Mages around the same principles. (Whether it's desirable or not is of course a matter of opinion, not fact. Personally, if it's possible, then I would like fire to be designed around such principles, with Frost having less DPS and more utility and Arcane being in-between. But that's just how I'd do it.)

If, however, they are pulling too far ahead, then you have to ask why. If they're balanced at lower gear levels and imbalanced at higher gear levels, then the pure DPS nature of the class may be responsible for that scaling problem.

I'm not really trying to argue which way it should be done here. I'm just trying to say that there may actually be technical problems with trying to strip our utility and rebuild us around pure DPS, and if there is such a technical problem, then Rogue scaling and performance should give us an indication of it.


It's game design. WoW was clearly born in part from a love of tabletop RPG's. It doesn't impose RPG constraints on how you play your character, beyond certain basics built into the world (like you can't talk to the opposite faction, and you must complete quest chains in story sequence). But it certainly must allow for people who do come from that tradition and enjoy it to play without being forced to choose between playing that way and succeeding at the game. Vontre's 100% right that this is an important factor that must be taken into account during the design of talents and skills.


Limiting it to pure Fire spells only (more to the point, excluding Frostfire Bolt) would allow for a stronger talent, which would in turn allow for a stronger deep Fire build -- as long as it was managed through deeper talents that would exclude taking Spell Power.

In other words, this change alone wouldn't save Fire, but it may be a necessary step toward saving Fire.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

◊ manly

I think too it is required, although I was very much looking forward to 0/50/21. Although any elemental spec is fine I guess.

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Akston

I don't really have much first hand experience with amazing rogues but from WWS reports if anyone is scaling out of hand it's hunters. Hunters could probably use a bit of a nerf and still be well worth the raid spot but as far as rogues go i really don't think they are out of hand. They do a lot more dps than anything but hunters but they bring absolutely nothing in return. I really like that idea. I like doing high dps. Would another class benefit the raid more? Possibly. But your name is at the top of the meters at the end of the night. THAT is why i rolled a mage. Mages most definitely can be balanced similar to how warlocks are balanced but that really isn't the class i want to play. When you take into consider winter's chill and imp scorch, frostfire mages are amazing but that isn't the kind of class i want to be playing.

I guess its more of a personal thing than anything else but the new synergies seem like a betrayal of what a mage was/should be in my opinion.

 

aikiwoce

I think things are getting a little unfocused here, and people are repeatedly pushing each other's buttons. We should instead try to organize a list of questions we'd like answers to, and pose them to the Blues. I've tried to round up what I think are the main questions people are asking, but please feel free to add some of your own.

1. Clearly state what the "direction" or purpose is for each tree.
2. What they think a mage's role is in Arenas, BGs, 5-mans, 10-mans, 25-mans.
3. Their thinking behind AoE - talents, encounters, why we should be Kings.
4. Their thinking on how Hybrid classes, 'utility" specs, and DPS specs will be interacting in WotLK.
5. Has their thinking shifted from the old stance: "Utility = less DPS." If so, why and how?
6. Why are Fire/Frost/Elementalist spec's casting rotations so monotonous atm? What is being done to address this, especially post WG-nerf?

That's all for now.

 

Lhivera

They answered this one today, for Warlocks (answer is no). Was quoted and perhaps linked upthread.

Edit: that's "No, their stance has not shifted," which would be, "yes, utility = less DPS".

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

Zeldyrr

Hmmm. I'm going to have to stop replying to such posts for fear of repeating myself, but for what it is worth:

It is very dangerous to assume Blizzard is fine with hunters or rogues as they are just because "that is the way it is". Take the feral quotes, above. They specifically said, "We aren't happy with the way feral ended up the BC," and then go on to say how they want people to sorta have to choose between tanking and kitty dps. They may "seem to be fine with hunter and/or rogues" right now because they haven't patched it in live BC. But I'd bet on big changes to come in WotLK.

As another example, they just nerfed Lifebloom. In the explanation they specifically say they screwed up in BC and made lifebloom too powerful. They want healing druids to use all of their healing spells and abilities; they never intended druids to be relegated into boring LB spam on the tanks. They tried to nerf it in live, but couldn't pull the trigger. Now with a new healing spell, new ToL form, etc. they feel they can make the change. They may seem "fine with it" w.r.t. druids in live now, but they aren't and they are changing it.

Many of y'all are working at cross purposes to the game Blizzard is trying to make. I see posts listing raid composition with the exact number of mages with the exact spec that will equal optimal DPS and buffs. Blizzard is saying quite clearly that caster dps in a 25-man raid might be a boomkin, a shadow priest, 2 mages, a lock w/ a death knight and ret paly assist. Or it might be 2 boomkin, no shadow priest, 3 locks, 2 mages. Is the second group as optimal? No. Are they trying to make it so close in performance that guild #2 won't lag guild #1 by months and months? Yes.

I think this is similar to Lhivera vs. all the frost mage haters. On paper, fire beats frost easily. But on certain raid bosses, frost mechanics more than make up this difference. (A fire mage can't catch me on Shade, for example.) Blizzard would love it, I think, if the raid encounters were complex and varied enough that one reasonable raid composition is just as good as another. Sure someone might run a guild where you have 50 people on the bench and respec 10 people and swap in 10 others for every boss fight. But 99% of progression guilds would gear up, learn the strats, and have fun.

 

Daydreamer

Y'know, on that note, amongst all the people who rolled mages to be massive-DPS low-survivability glass cannon... I'm the weirdo who rolled a mage so I could play a learned spellcaster, well-schooled in the ways of magic, applying brains over brawn. No, the game isn't big on roleplaying even on RP servers, but I wanted that "feel", and I found that spamming fireball over and over really doesn't provide it no matter how cathartic the crits can be.

Maybe that's why I so badly want Arcane to work and I want toy and utility spells so much. Fire mages are very direct and that's fine, but I want at least some mages to have some subtlety to them. I really want to spec Arcane, but right now it doesn't work too well, and Frost has all the cool toys.

I do think class "feel" is important. And I think reducing the mage in all specs to pure-DPS nuke spam is a severe detriment to the image of the fantasy mage. IMHO the utility stuff, even the out-of-combat utility stuff, is very important to the class.

And this might be sacrilegous, but I think that the class could use some more survivability, so long as it's active, spell-driven, shield-type survivability... definitely not just passive armor. If every other class is going to have the ability to do good DPS, then the Mage should probably bring comparable survivability, either individual or group. But the feel of the class should require them to cast spells to get it, and not have it just "be there". I don't really think lack of survivability is a key feature of the class. IMHO, the key feature of the class is spellcasting -- and mages and priests are pretty much the only classes that do nothing else.

 

Dorrinal

Let me start with a question which sounds like one of Blizzard's goals with respect to class viability in raids.
How do we make mages desirable for two raid spots?

Roywyn's made a good point on raid composition and spaces in a raid. Winter's Chill is now the premier raid buff provided by mages. Blizzard could assume this baseline when looking over at the other trees, modifying the question thus:

Assuming there is a Frost mage in the raid to provide Winter's Chill, why would a raid bring a (Arcane, Fire) specced mage as additional dps?
Answers:
(Elemental) - Frostfire Bolt leeching Winter's Chill is a good complement.
Not sure there is anything wrong with this right now aside from the Burnout scaling demonstrated above.

(Arcane) - Place a debuff in the Arcane tree for additional raid benefit
(Deep Fire) - None.
Focused Mind and Improved Scorch are so shallow in the tree it may pigeonhole mages into 11/18/42 like Roywyn suggested.

Being a "pure dps" class, I think most of us would vastly prefer an answer like: "Deep Fire and Arcane scale so well with other raid buffs that they make up for the utility lost by not having Winter's Chill." Dropping Focus Mind and retooling deep Fire would be a great start. Moving Focus Mind deep into Arcane is tempting but runs the risk marginalizing deep Fire if two important raid buffs were deep in different trees.

 

Roywyn

Um, Spell Power and Ice Shards are additive, so Burnout should be additive as well?
Wouldn't they scale as follows?

0/50/21 ffb (25% burnout) = (100%Hit+50%Crit*(1+100%IS+25%BO))*1.4Ign = 297.5% crits
0/50/21 ffb (50% burnout) = (100%Hit+50%Crit*(1+100%IS+50%BO))*1.4Ign = 315.0% crits

(Fire spells already work off this as (100%+50%*(1+25%))*1.4 = 162.5% * 1.4 = 227.5%.)

50% Burnout would buff FB by 7%, FFB by 5% (because it already has a big crit modifier).
Both are still below 33/38/0 Fireballs.

Even with 350% crits (406.7% with CSD+EO), FFB as 0/50/21 would be only 4% above 33/38/0, on the level of Shadow Destro with CoD.
That would require 100% Burnout though, or Ice Shards affecting 50% Burnout (which shouldn't happen with current mechanics).

So, I don't really see the issue with 50% Burnout, and it even has some wiggle room for improving other talents. 100% Burnout FFB will beat 33/38/0 and has no leeway for improving Hot Streak as well.


Making Scorch/Winter's Chill affect all schools tones FFB down quite well as it improves the other trees without changing FFB.
(Barring double-dipping, which everyone expects to get addressed.)


I stitched together a 7/13/51 spec, with a very simple Immo/Inci*8 rotation (some basic haste and WoA/Ret haste).
Ignoring Corruption to keep it simple. Not modeling Conflag for simplicity either.

Imp. CoReck in Affliction (thinking that it's the best RDPS talent).If I'm wrong, toss the points into ... Destro I think?
Imp. Imp and Aegis in Demonology.
In Destruction, I picked 5/5 Imp. Immolate (it sucks), Molten Core (partially a filler, not using it in calculation for simplicity).
Not using Conflag/Backdraft. It was shown to be ~6.4% DPS along with the 25% crit from F+B.
I might model conflag it later when we know how the other talents work. We have the ~6% fire
Ignoring Fire+Brimstone. No one has an idea how it's supposed to scale Immolate.
Ignoring Chaos Bolt, because we don't know how it's supposed to work either.

Spec looks like WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator
There's a billion things to improve as said above. I'm ignore more talents than I use
Also not modeled Life Tap because ISL and Spirit recover 70% of the mana cost, and the rest is covered by JoW and raid buffs.
(Using a high-gear setup with 3k spell power though, so even the 3% ISL average does a lot.)

I just wanted some simple model for a simple build as lower bound for warlock DPS.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

Zeldyrr

There are indeed so many ways Blizzard could go here. Personally I don't like the approach you've stated above. I'd rather change the feel of each mage spec by the style in which they work. Frost mages should rely heavily on a (not ridiculously fragile) water elemental and the shatter mechanic to do damage. Fire mages should blow things up a from a distance with flashy spells. Arcane mages should rely on debuffs and spell rotations. All three should bring equal damage and utility, IMO.

 

Akston

Even if they aren't fine with the amount of dps rogues and hunters are putting out what can they really do about it? What changes have they made in beta to make anyone assume that want things to be different? Rogues still dont have anything to bring outside of dps. BM hunters still only bring FI and MD. Neither class/spec is getting big boosts to utility. Maybe the extent to which they are leading by is a bit much but from all the changes in beta so far it really seems like they are happy with the basic role that bm hunters and rogues occupy. Both seem to still be designed as amazing single target dps that have little to no utility. Unless i am missing something, their dps is, and will continue to be, what gets them raid invites.

 

Lhivera

I fully expect that when the smoke clears, we'll find Marksmen leading the personal DPS pack for hunters, with BM second and Survival third, in reverse order of the amount of utility provided. Of course, unless they've got a better handle on how things scale this time around, that could get all twisted up at Tier 9.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

JonIrenicus

On the talk of armors, the easiest thing to do would be to add a new mage armor entirely focused primarily on pve. The others have too much baggage.


I think a new mage armor should maintain 30% regen while casting, add 3-5% spell haste, and grant damage or haste based off spirit.



Some may take this as a useless post, or wanton wishfulness, so be it, nuke it if you must, but I think it a completely reasonable type of pve focused mage armor to add.

Of course there is always the argument that the reason that fel armor is so superior is to fill in the potential gap of lower overall dps based off the new lock talents, this may or may not be real, but if so they could drop the spirit bonus on my new mage armor idea. It could always be tweaked, but I think most of us would be much happier with a more pve focused armor.

 

Kel S'jet

Question 1 has been asked before, and no doubt it will be asked again (cue BSG music). The answer is always the same, i.e there is no straight answer. Perhaps since blizzard believe that if they say "Arc is for utility, Fire is for AoE and Frost is for Control" that the collective mage community will be up in arms and when the dust settles that the community will hold them to that quote on a knifes edge.

Question 2 they will not answer. Partly due to the answer being too long, and partly due to the fact that they themselves probably do not know the answer completely.

Question 3 is simple. Mages need to be kings of AoE since they cannot be kings of anything else. Most, if not all, game niches are already filled. AoE is the leftovers, given to mages. This naturally leads them to need to make AoE encounters (though Blizzard has sometimes been seen as stating that things like AoE encounters are also a mechanism to 'pace' dungeons as well as allow mages to 'shine'). The interesting part of such statements is that it says a lot when you realise that you have to design specific encounters in specific environments and that you have to essentially script an event in order to make a class worthwhile. Essentially showing that in normal/regular game play everywhere else, the class is somewhat useless/replaceable.

Question 4 I think is quite elementary (my dear watson). It is clear that 'hybrids' will be providing support dps as well as a plethora of buffs that can be used in various wonderful ways by the "regular' dpsers. For classes that are hybridised across roles (ie a feral tank and boomkin are hybridizing across roles, whereas a feral dps kitty and boomkin are hybrids but within the same role, ie dps), its simple. The hybrid can choose to really spec into that particular role and be as adequate as a primary class in that role. Synergie wise, i think it works out fine. A boomkin, at least in my reading of what blizzard wants to do, should not do as much dps as a mage, but the increase in dps he provides to everyone else along with his own dps should be comparable to a mage's straight up dps.

5 was answered by Lhiv

Question 6 is interesting and I feel it is something that has been left over since the days of WoW's original release. Mages, originally, were meant to have a strength that they have access to multiple schools of magic. I believe it was the intention, in the beginning, that mages would actively use all these schools together. Weaving frostbolts in with fireballs in with missles, etc. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as expected and mages were left spam-casting the spell from the school of their choice. This failure of the initial design is what has caused the WoW mage to be somewhat of a snoozer. Though things got better in BC, with arcane becoming a little more dynamic. Hopefully, they (blizz) will manage to give all 3 specs a more involved casting mechanic. Something that lets us weave spells and feel like we are doing something a little more 'magey' rather than just having to sit there and yawn while we spam our balls and take our pots.

In the end, as Vontre stated earlier, the mage community as a whole should stop farting on about which spec is this or that and why who let the living bomb out and why int and spi are on our sets and who tuk-er-jerbs.
We need to start pushing for blizz to make an consolidated effort in improving our casting dynamics.
The greatest thing mages could get from an expansion is an overhaul in our mechanics (like pallies are getting). Something dynamic, fun and involved (like the DKs mechanics). Something that actually allows us to feel like mages and not human replacement for macros.

Oh, and we also have to get
Telekinesis.

 

◊ manly

I don't see why you guys are all enthralled into getting dynamic play. Dynamic play means increased chance of human error, which means suboptimal play. But all of that notwithstanding, after you play it for a while it becomes nothing more than something totally automatic you don't need to even pay attention to. Is this really the goal? In the end, it comes down to the same in my view. I think it is wrong to view dynamic cast cycles as being something required to do -- if you need to feel challenged, then the boss mechanics should be what challenges you, not the limitations/intricacies/technicalities of your spec.

Personally I'd much rather keep it the way it is. But again, I just play whichever spec leads to the best dps.

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Lhivera

I feel that both the limitations/intricacies/technicalities of your spec and the boss mechanics should challenge you. Yes, it increases the chance of human error, but carry that to the other extreme. Would it be more fun if we could simply preprogram the predictable portions of our casting sequence into a macro, push a button, let the macro cast for us until it was time to interrupt it for some special event during the fight? Not even a little bit, but that would certainly reduce the chance of human error and produce more optimal play.

The more complex your DPS process, the less likely it is ever to become fully automatic, because every little event that trips you up can cause a chain reaction, altering your casting for some time before you can restore the normal sequence.

So, yes: because the name of the game is fun, rather than machinelike efficiency, I believe it would be preferable to have a more complex and interactive DPS process. I love what they're doing for Warlocks in this regard -- rather than simply offering ways to bypass Conflagrate, for example, they're working like hell to create reasons to use it. We need that kind of attention to make our class more fun to play.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

radikal

Manly - The old WG mechanic was dynamic and to play "optimally" would have never been extremely trivial especially if the fight required even small amounts of movement. A similar mechanic would be definitely appreciated...at least by me so that a bot can't play just as well as me.

 

◊ manly

I know, but again, its still hardly dynamic. You just have to set an aura mod to pop when you gain the WG buff, then switch your spell. Thats about it really. You really think that qualifies as complex ?

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Salus

I would love to see burnout replaced with something along these lines. I'm sure this has been suggested before, but e.g.

Inferno - Instantly deals damage equal to your ignite on target + 20/40/60/80/100% additional fire damage.

It gives you something to cast when a mob is about to die that is actually useful, improving trash rotations, and it should synergize fairly well with Hot Streak. Not exactly dynamic, but better.

 

Muphrid

With all this hullaballoo about Frostfire Bolt and crit multiplier talents, I'm going to go back out on my radical limb and suggest that crit damage increase talents be normalized to a static long-run %DPS increase.

 

Copernicus

Personally, I just want cool procs during my standard rotation that let me cast something different.

Missile Barrage and Brain Freeze are examples of dynamic casting that interests me. 8xFireball/Scorch or Barrage rotations do not. I'm also interested in more cooldown limited buffing or debuffing, along the lines of Frost Nova/Ice Lance. Something that comes up often enough to make me want to use it, but also causes a change in the standard spells.

 

Kel S'jet

Detonation
requires 50 points in fire talents (<-- mebbe not but meh)
500 mana
Insta cast
Marks the target for detonation. After 'T' seconds the target detonates. Fire spells cast on the marked target increase the detonate damage done to the target. Frost spells cast on the target reduce the detonate damage done to the target but increase the critical strike damage of the detonate spell by x%. If the target detonates for between a-b damage, detonate does double damage. If the target detonates for above y damage, the extra damage burns z% of the mages mana. During the duration of the spell, if no fire spells are cast on the target, the detonate damage will reduce by P every U seconds. Casting arcane spells on the target reduces the time to detonate (T) by L seconds per cast.


notes, T is initially large, around 1 min or so
edit: detonates final damage is fire damage by the way
edit2: assume the spell scales in y and does all the other numerical stuff we need it to do. My point is more about the mechanic and less about the numbers

Now put that with this?


Expand Spell
core ability
200 mana
Insta cast
The next spell you cast will cause T% of its total damage to all enemies within 15 yards of the target.



yes yes, i know that at least Detonation would not work (due to the inter school dependancies). But it would be cool, no?

Telekineses though, would be cool too! haha!



nb. I apologize if this post seems a little out of place, I was merely attempting to reply to the question concerning what are interesting spell dynamics/mechanics. I cooked up the above 2 spells very quickly, just to give an idea.

 

Celani

Koraa posted today that all pets will scale with master's +hit rating.

Source

This damn well better include the water elemental.

 

Talbain

Well, I'm saying that the core component wouldn't be solved unless Burnout did more than Spell Power. I.e. unless it's better than Spell Power, there's no reason to take the talent. So, regardless of what spells it affects, until it's better by some noticeable margin than Spell Power, it's a waste of points to take.