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.
See, for me, Brain Freeze is a pale ghost of what Winter's Grasp offered. With a time-limited rather than charge-limited WG proc, you actually had to think about what you had time to cast, depending on your active haste when the proc happens. How many Frostbolts before I squeeze in that final Ice Lance? Can I get a Deep Freeze in there (assuming the damage applies even if the stun doesn't)? It required some degree of awareness of what was going on.
Would that be rocket surgery? Of course not. But it'd be something, which is more than we have now. Brain Freeze, on the other hand, just means we have to push a different button approximately one cast out of ten, without really any thought about the timing or how to optimally use the proc.
Originally Posted by 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.
No, that's not true. The problem isn't that Spell Power is worth more than Burnout. The problem is that going 32 points into Arcane is worth more than going more than 40+ points into Fire. If you improve Burnout, and you improve 1-2 other talents that require 40+ points in Fire to reach, then you can change that equation. As long as a 50+ point Fire build can at least match (and probably exceed, given the lower efficiency) the DPS of a 32+ Arcane/Fire hybrid, it works. Talents don't have to compete with each other on a point-for-point basis in order for entire specs to compete well with each other.
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.
No, that's not true. The problem isn't that Spell Power is worth more than Burnout. The problem is that going 32 points into Arcane is worth more than going more than 40+ points into Fire. If you improve Burnout, and you improve 1-2 other talents that require 40+ points in Fire to reach, then you can change that equation. As long as a 50+ point Fire build can at least match (and probably exceed, given the lower efficiency) the DPS of a 32+ Arcane/Fire hybrid, it works. Talents don't have to compete with each other on a point-for-point basis in order for entire specs to compete well with each other.
While it's true that the particular Ice Shards vs. Spell Power example is a common one, I do feel that similar talents should come with similar costs. However, that is mostly just how I feel, and I could certainly understand if not everyone feels the same. While you're right, my point was that Burnout under its current structure does not add enough to the pure fire build to make the pure fire build stand alone, and it certainly won't outshine elementalist builds. I do tend to look more at talents for what they themselves do, rather than looking at synergies possibly being built from other talents. Thus when I look at Burnout I see a weaker version of Spell Power, not a talent that is unique to Fire in some function that only Fire can fulfill.
I also recently saw a Retribution paladin build and I find their changes to be quite a bit more impressive than those the Mages have received. Which is worrisome, since we have seemingly already received our big review.
Would it make any sense to sort of give us a serpent coil braid buff to our mana gems? kind of like the spellstones for locks? consuming our mana gives us more powa!
See, for me, Brain Freeze is a pale ghost of what Winter's Grasp offered. With a time-limited rather than charge-limited WG proc, you actually had to think about what you had time to cast, depending on your active haste when the proc happens. How many Frostbolts before I squeeze in that final Ice Lance? Can I get a Deep Freeze in there (assuming the damage applies even if the stun doesn't)? It required some degree of awareness of what was going on.
Would that be rocket surgery? Of course not. But it'd be something, which is more than we have now. Brain Freeze, on the other hand, just means we have to push a different button approximately one cast out of ten, without really any thought about the timing or how to optimally use the proc.
No, that's not true. The problem isn't that Spell Power is worth more than Burnout. The problem is that going 32 points into Arcane is worth more than going more than 40+ points into Fire. If you improve Burnout, and you improve 1-2 other talents that require 40+ points in Fire to reach, then you can change that equation. As long as a 50+ point Fire build can at least match (and probably exceed, given the lower efficiency) the DPS of a 32+ Arcane/Fire hybrid, it works. Talents don't have to compete with each other on a point-for-point basis in order for entire specs to compete well with each other.
Lhiv I think you've got Brain Freeze mixed up with Fingers of Frost. FoF is the nerfed self-buff version of WG, Brain Freeze is the insta free fireball proc. And yes, I really like the idea of goofy but interesting procs like Brain Freeze and Missile Barrage... the problem is that talent trees are extremely exclusive, and a spell like Fireball will usually be horrible for a deep frost mage... honestly I'm curious for a deep frost mage (some kinda of 10/0/61 build) whether or not the proc would be better dps-wise were it giving you a free instant frostbolt :/
Honestly the proc I'm really disappointed that hasn't even been considered is Multicast. It's absolutely perfect for a last tier arcane talent... something like
Your damaging spell casts have a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to instantly cast a copy of that spell.
Or however you want to do it. Even if it is similar to Lightning Overload, I'd still consider it pretty innovative because Multicast is always a pretty common mage-ish ability.
The 30% crit on PoM is really interesting to me, as many spells don't consume the debuff. Two of the main arcane nukes (ABar, AM) won't use up PoM, and then there's stuff like fire blast which might be useful when PoM is up, so one could keep the 30% crit indefinitely by using these spells alone.
I doubt that this is ideal, given the weaknesses of AM... but over a short period of time it may be effective. PoM and Arcane Power have the same cooldown, so you could keep PoM up long enough to get the most use out of AP, and then dump it on a nuke (ok, PoM is actually going to cooldown 15 seconds later than AP because it doesn't start cooling down until you use it up). Ideally, one would enter this AP-PoM cycle after MBar procs to get the most out of it, and clicking a trinket is a no brainer. I just wonder if this is all viable. If you try to keep it up for 15 seconds, you'll almost certainly have to use non-MBar AMs, and you WILL have to use fireblasts. Still the 30% crit on top of AP and trinket is pretty sweet.
Anyone have some thoughts on this? I apologize if it's been discussed already but the thread has become very long and I can't keep up...
Edit - Anyone have any details on how Master of Elements interacts with Arcane Missiles? In live, it doesn't affect arcane spells, but the description I'm reading suggests that it will now affect ALL spells. Does this mean you get back 30% of the cost if ANY of the missiles crit? Or maybe get 6% back for each missile that crits? Anyone tested this?
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.
...We need that kind of attention to make our class more fun to play.
See, I disagree. I am fire at the moment for ZA bear runs and I honestly find just scorch stacking extremely tedious. With Focused Mind and the new scorch, all the raid mages are going to go "1-2-3 NOT IT" with regards to being the scorch/FM bitch. It's just thankless, tedious work, and I don't see how it makes the class more fun to play.
I can't even tolerate the thought of playing a shaman. The totem management would drive me bananas.
Not to mention such setup makes soloing or 5-mans weaker and more annoying as well. Who's going to--or wants to--FM/scorch stack every mob? Not me.
See, I disagree. I am fire at the moment for ZA bear runs and I honestly find just scorch stacking extremely tedious. With Focused Mind and the new scorch, all the raid mages are going to go "1-2-3 NOT IT" with regards to being the scorch/FM bitch. It's just thankless, tedious work, and I don't see how it makes the class more fun to play.
I can't even tolerate the thought of playing a shaman. The totem management would drive me bananas.
Not to mention such setup makes soloing or 5-mans weaker and more annoying as well. Who's going to--or wants to--FM/scorch stack every mob? Not me.
I think he meant something else.
More along the lines of talents that force (?) you to use spells that are usually not part of your rotation. Missile Barrage is a good example. A normal Arcane rotation won't ever use AM, but all of a sudden you get this nifty little proc from your talent (MB) that makes you want to switch things up and use a different spell before settling back down into your normal rotation.
Lhiv I think you've got Brain Freeze mixed up with Fingers of Frost. FoF is the nerfed self-buff version of WG, Brain Freeze is the insta free fireball proc.
I don't have them mixed up. Fingers of Frost has no effect whatsoever on spell rotations; Brain Freeze does. In the respect we're talking about here -- increasing the interactivity of the DPS process -- Brain Freeze is what replaces Winter's Grasp, while Fingers of Frost is simply a passive 5% crit increase.
And yes, I really like the idea of goofy but interesting procs like Brain Freeze and Missile Barrage... the problem is that talent trees are extremely exclusive, and a spell like Fireball will usually be horrible for a deep frost mage... honestly I'm curious for a deep frost mage (some kinda of 10/0/61 build) whether or not the proc would be better dps-wise were it giving you a free instant frostbolt :/
It would be better -- about 20% better, which would be too much. As it stands already, the DPS increase is roughly in the neighborhood of 3%, but the DPM increase is more than 10% -- in other words, those 3 points in Brain Freeze do more for you than 10 points in Arcane purely in terms of efficiency, plus they also add a bit of DPS. The problem with Brain Freeze is really just cosmetic. Changing it to treat your next Ice Lance as if the target were frozen would be a virtually identical DPS increase, though a bit less DPM. Or you could produce almost exactly the same DPS and DPM increase by making it an instant cast, free, 80% damage Frostbolt.
Originally Posted by flyingtoastr
I think he meant something else.
More along the lines of talents that force (?) you to use spells that are usually not part of your rotation. Missile Barrage is a good example. A normal Arcane rotation won't ever use AM, but all of a sudden you get this nifty little proc from your talent (MB) that makes you want to switch things up and use a different spell before settling back down into your normal rotation.
I think.
Yeah -- or look at the way Affliction will DPS, or even (somewhat less complex) Destruction. At a minimum, Destruction will be maintaining Corruption and Immolate DOTs, spamming Incinerate, casting Conflag just before the final tick of Immolate, managing the Imp, and trying to use a high-damage spell ASAP after the Imp scores a critical strike. That's interactive and interesting. Simply trying to see how close I can trim my frostbolt casts to the edge of the latency indicator doesn't really measure up to that.
Destruction went from Curse, then spam Shadow Bolt to this new highly interactive DPS style. Frost is going from Spam Frostbolt, Summon Pet to...well, the same thing, except now with the occasional tap of the Fireball key. It's quite disappointing in comparison, and I very much hope they're not finished.
ETA: Why the hell is McKay pointing at a lemon?
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.
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.
Detonate sounds like a fun idea. I'd just make it debuff the target with an effect that has stacks. Every fire spell adds to the stack, and frost spells take away. The casting mages spells have a bigger effect on the stack (so if his raid has a lot of fire damage, he can "cool off" the stack quickly with his own frost spells, and if the raid is frost heavy, he can keep the stack up by spamming faster fire spells). After a duration, it detonates doing more damage the higher the stack gets. If the stack is too high, the damage is reduced and the casting mage loses mana. This would be cool since it would require the casting manage to manage his elements to get the stack to the ideal amount, but not over it, while dealing with the chaotic fluctuations brought about by the rest of the group.
Indeed, this was established at least in the second half of the pilot, if not sometime in SG-1 before then.
Edit: on the topic of Brain Freeze, I can't help but think this is a talent with purely PvP utility--when it procs, you have the option of a second, better Fire Blast in the instant Fireball. Considering what it used to be, this is the only explanation that seems plausible to me in terms of intent of the talent.
Of course, that's not to say it couldn't be made somewhat PvE viable as well, but it wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard ultimately doesn't take the talent in that direction.
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.
Right.. But it would be nice if playing a mage was more reactive. The only class that really comes close to this right now is the shadow priest with their mishmash of cooldowns, channeled spell and dots.
I have a 60 druid that i run naxx with on weekends that i have found myself really liking. For the most part i am still using only a couple of spells but the class is actually reactive. Changes in the environment change how you do your primary job, healing.
More rotations for mages really won't do anything other than either having us macro them or memorize a cast sequence. Reactive abilities would make the class far more interesting. I am not really sure how this would be implemented but something more than spamming one button or the same sequence of buttons would be really nice.
Come to think of it this may not even be a mage specific problem. For example on monday we were slow on sentinels and spawns on muru and we had more than enough side dps so i was asked to help out on mu'ru dps and sents/voids when needed. I had a ton of fun actually having more than one specific thing to do, and having all of those things be dps related. Having to reactively manage multiple things without my dps suffering was really really nice.
I'm kinda tired so i'm not sure how well that all got through but hopefully you get the gist.
It's kind of funny, I've played a shadow priest and didn't really like it... too many cooldowns and DoT timers all over the place, one mis-click costs me a bunch of damage, and my 150-250 ms latency murders my DPS. I like the tranquility of my frost mage (I'm so lazy I even macroed /petattack into my frostbolt cast).
I do find it most fun in 5-person dungeons though where I can kite several things at once, so I guess that's where I look for my dose of interesting. (Well, and I play a holy priest fairly regularly.)
I don't expect I'm in the majority, just find it curious that I approach the whole issue from the opposite side.
Detonate sounds like a fun idea. I'd just make it debuff the target with an effect that has stacks. Every fire spell adds to the stack, and frost spells take away. The casting mages spells have a bigger effect on the stack (so if his raid has a lot of fire damage, he can "cool off" the stack quickly with his own frost spells, and if the raid is frost heavy, he can keep the stack up by spamming faster fire spells). After a duration, it detonates doing more damage the higher the stack gets. If the stack is too high, the damage is reduced and the casting mage loses mana. This would be cool since it would require the casting manage to manage his elements to get the stack to the ideal amount, but not over it, while dealing with the chaotic fluctuations brought about by the rest of the group.
Aye, that was kinda the idea I was going for. Something that would add a little dimension to mageplay during raids. I wanted something that had various dimensions in which the mage could work. Taking his original strength into play, that being, that he is a multi-school caster. Fire to feed the damage, Frost to control it and keep it within the required bounds. That would be the first axis. Second would be the crit damage axis, where the mage could throttle the crit of the spell (say if he knew he would have a guaranteed crit from maybe Combustion?) and the third axis would be arcane, where he could control the time that the enemy detonates by controlling how long it will take for the detonate to fire.
Tbh, I didn't even think for the dynamics of him trying to control it with other casters casting on it as well. I think that would be real fun if not slightly chaotic. (But thats what controlling magic is all about, right?)
And that was the idea, something the mage could tweak and play with during a raid. Something he could change given the situation and something that he would continuously tweak to reach the 'sweet spot' in damage and mana burnage.
Such a mechanic is very far from the current idea of casters, with their fire and forget and their spamming (it may even be a little alien compared to detailed proc based rotations), but I don't think anyone can argue that it won't be 'fun'.
Indeed, this was established at least in the second half of the pilot, if not sometime in SG-1 before then.
Edit: on the topic of Brain Freeze, I can't help but think this is a talent with purely PvP utility--when it procs, you have the option of a second, better Fire Blast in the instant Fireball. Considering what it used to be, this is the only explanation that seems plausible to me in terms of intent of the talent.
As I discussed above (and Ronwyn as well), in PvE, it's a substitute for Clearcasting. You go that deep into Frost, and you can pick up all the efficiency improvements Clearcasting offers by spending 3 points in your own tree (and gaining a little bit of DPS as a bonus), rather than spending 10 points outside your tree. Technically, it's a superb PvE talent. Aesthetically, it's terrible.
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.
Right.. But it would be nice if playing a mage was more reactive. The only class that really comes close to this right now is the shadow priest with their mishmash of cooldowns, channeled spell and dots.
I have a 60 druid that i run naxx with on weekends that i have found myself really liking. For the most part i am still using only a couple of spells but the class is actually reactive. Changes in the environment change how you do your primary job, healing.
More rotations for mages really won't do anything other than either having us macro them or memorize a cast sequence. Reactive abilities would make the class far more interesting. I am not really sure how this would be implemented but something more than spamming one button or the same sequence of buttons would be really nice.
Come to think of it this may not even be a mage specific problem. For example on monday we were slow on sentinels and spawns on muru and we had more than enough side dps so i was asked to help out on mu'ru dps and sents/voids when needed. I had a ton of fun actually having more than one specific thing to do, and having all of those things be dps related. Having to reactively manage multiple things without my dps suffering was really really nice.
I'm kinda tired so i'm not sure how well that all got through but hopefully you get the gist.
You got that right. The game is not fun if optimal play is "easy" to achieve. Most of the DPS classes just use a cookie cutter spec and follow the "optimal" rotation which is usually spamming a skill or using a set of skilled in a predetermined and unchanging sequence. This doesn't take skill. This is not fun. Sometimes a class has different rotations for an "efficient mode" or a "burn mode" etc etc, but this is still not interesting.
Some of the new talents encourage more dynamic play. There are procs in here that actually encourage you to change up your casting rotation, but I'm afraid it won't be enough. The only situations that demand DPSers to think fast are those which are created by raid encounters, and I think this is a fundamental problem. It could be made that the classes own abilities, procs, and buffs interact in such a way that you have to actually change your tactics to react to yourself and others in the group and not just to what the boss is doing.
This would be completely fair as long as every class was held to the same standard. If mages and rogues had the same optimal DPS but mages were overly complicated to play optimally, rogues would win in reality. If mages were better with optimal play, the most skilled players would never pick a rogue because they could do better. The only way it could be fair is if playing every DPS class optimally requires skill. There should be no class that is "easier" to play than another, I feel. The possible exception is that I feel it would be acceptible if a hybrid required more skill to play as well as a pure DPS (but both still have the same potential). I think this is fair due to the fact that a hybrid can fulfill roles besides DPS.
Brain Freeze is also a dps nerf, though maybe not after winter's chill buff anymore. Anyway, destro isn't near as complicated as you seem to think. No dots except immolate, incin spam and then you conflag before the immo wears off. Repeat ad infinitum. Oh and I guess life tap during the incin part, that's real hard there. But yeah, I already modeled the new destro changes. I don't know about demo or affliction though, so meh.
I came up with an idea to make the Improved Water Elemental talent slightly better suited for a Mage: what if, instead of healing the party/raid, the talent would allow you to 'sacrifice' the elemental at any given time for a short duration damage buff to the owner (or maybe even party/raid)?
This way players will be more encouraged to keep an eye on their Water Elemental's duration and health/mana to sacrifice it at the optimum time, usually the last second of its duration, unless the fight calls for some burst timing, like Curator for example.
See, I disagree. I am fire at the moment for ZA bear runs and I honestly find just scorch stacking extremely tedious. With Focused Mind and the new scorch, all the raid mages are going to go "1-2-3 NOT IT" with regards to being the scorch/FM bitch. It's just thankless, tedious work, and I don't see how it makes the class more fun to play.
I can't even tolerate the thought of playing a shaman. The totem management would drive me bananas.
Not to mention such setup makes soloing or 5-mans weaker and more annoying as well. Who's going to--or wants to--FM/scorch stack every mob? Not me.
Agreed on the scorch thing. I think the rub is that it is something you must keep up, but putting it up is lower dps. It's interactive but has negative feedback since ideally you would prefer to have casted a fireball. Having a debuff like winters chill applied with the main nuke is greatly preferable, no sane person would prefer the alternative of having to weave in a lower dps nuke to maintain a debuff.
Conversely, weaving in higher dps moves is positive reinforcement. That is what winters grasp would have been, on a proc we could get in an ice lance at the end or on the move.
Why everyone seems so content to be forced to spec into imp scorch for a self sufficient raid spec is beyond me, its the least "fun" nuke to have to deal with.
As for putting back some more interactivity into frost, all they need do is restore winters grasp to its previous state but just make it a self buff only, 5s would not be too out of line. Though even with that some think it over the top. I would rather have that as a self buff and brain freezes pve component removed completely than the status quo at the moment.
imp scorch has always been a chore, and it seems now we must all suffer with it to be self sufficient unless you have a sacrificial lamb to keep it up.
That's a cool idea, but I don't really think it fits in with the mage theme. Sounds more like a warlock ability. The simpler and more effective solution is to just buff it's survivability and mana longevity.
By the way, keeping up scorch makes me wish I had aids instead, I just wanted you guys to know that. Protip: I don't actually raid on my mage, it's more fun to make spreadsheets.
Well, I disagree, because I think your logic behind it makes no sense. If scorch did higher dps than fireball, but had a 30s cooldown, you'd be casting scorch and 'loving it' (?).
To you its unfun to do because its a 'chore' (read: less dps). Well, then, nothing stops you from spamming fireball without casting scorch. See if you enjoy that. To me, its exactly the reverse from a chore; scorch means I gain +15% fire damage for the next 30seconds. This is what the spell does. How can I possibly be disincentived to use scorch if it read +15% fire dmg for the next 30s ?
But I guess to you it would make more sense if fireblast was actually workable and more dps that whatever rotation you use for fire/ffb spec. To me, all it would mean is the same thing that scorch would do, it because something mindless that takes my attention away from the fight for no good reason. But hey -- according to your criterias, that would be perfectly fine.
Or maybe you meant to say that cast rotations are boring because they add nothing to the game ? Now we might come to agree on something. However, that different rotation could incur an extra mana cost which you need to dynamically readapt as you do the fight (much like AB spam). Most people would, I guess, consider that more fun to play. To me, its just the same old. I don't see why anyone would specifically call for a need to weave in fireblasts in a fire rotation for the sake of being more fun to play -- yet, argue that scorching is something unfun (despise the fact that both are the exact same thing).
I call bullshit.
Besides, if you want that kind of play, I don't see why it should be forced unto other specs than arcane (because thats pretty much what arcane is). Every tree has its distinct playstyle. Now you want all 3 trees to have a somewhat similar playstyle ?
Last edited by manly : 08/06/08 at 3:22 AM.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Brain Freeze is also a dps nerf, though maybe not after winter's chill buff anymore. Anyway, destro isn't near as complicated as you seem to think. No dots except immolate, incin spam and then you conflag before the immo wears off. Repeat ad infinitum. Oh and I guess life tap during the incin part, that's real hard there. But yeah, I already modeled the new destro changes. I don't know about demo or affliction though, so meh.
Hm, even with Frozen Runeweapon, no Ignite and Winter's Chill only working on frost, I still have instant Fireballs about 5% above Frostbolt on all gear levels.
With Ignite and Winter's Chill, it's about 30% more DPS during this GCD.
Not sure in which setup you find it's a downgrade really.
Fire Destruction is pretty nuts right now because they gave Incinerate a 12.5% haste boost to compensate for the 4.3% damage loss and then added 10% crit on top via another class, which scales twice due to crit feeding by Empowered Imp.
What feels unusual is CoD adding only 180-250 DPS, which isn't that much in higher gear levels.
See, for me, Brain Freeze is a pale ghost of what Winter's Grasp offered. With a time-limited rather than charge-limited WG proc, you actually had to think about what you had time to cast, depending on your active haste when the proc happens. How many Frostbolts before I squeeze in that final Ice Lance? Can I get a Deep Freeze in there (assuming the damage applies even if the stun doesn't)? It required some degree of awareness of what was going on.
Would that be rocket surgery? Of course not. But it'd be something, which is more than we have now. Brain Freeze, on the other hand, just means we have to push a different button approximately one cast out of ten, without really any thought about the timing or how to optimally use the proc.
Oh, I agree. I just like the basic idea behind Brain Freeze and Missile Barrage. Random procs that make me cast non-optimal stuff to get cool bonuses are fun.* Random procs that make me stick to my rotation (Clearcasting or critical hits) are boring. I'd also like to see controlled buffs or debuffs that result in a different cast rotation, but that's probably too complicated for too little gain.
* Fireball in deep frost is not fun. It would probably be too good if it just made your next fire spell instant-cast (see Pyroblast) but I don't know why it's Fireball over Frostfire Bolt.
AoE
Increase the AoE dmg cap for all/some(the AoEs which have a cd.) Mage AoE spells by x%.
Reduces the Manacosts of AoE Spells by x%.
Or: Returns 50% of the mana costs of AoE spells when they hit 5 or more targets.
Or: Returns 10% of the mana costs of AoE spells for every target more than 3 they hit, with a maximun of 80%.
(concrete numbers always subject for balancing)
Reduces the threat done by Fire and Frost AoE spells by x%.
Let all/AoE/specific Mage spells cause no/less aggro while Icy Veins/Arcane Power/Combustion is up. (think of priest AoE without aggro)
Arcane:
increases Arcane Blast (de-)buff duration by 1/2 seconds.
reduces missle barrage cooldown by 0,5 sec.
adds some interrupt protection to Arcane Blast.
increases the number of charges of Focus Mind by x(%?)
reduces Arcane Missles channeling time by 1/2 sec. (without changing manacosts or coefficients / or with changing them like in the Druid Healing Touch Glyph)
increases the range of blink spell by x.
gives you a run speed bonus of x% for y sec. after blink.
increase the radius of Arcane Explosion by x.
makes dampen/amplify magic casteable on enemys.
reduces evocation cooldown and channeling time by 50%.
changes Portal and Teleport spells to consume arcane powder instead of runes.
(and Increase the stack size of arcane powder to 100)
changes slow fall to not consume reagents / consume arcane powder instead of feathers / reduces your falling speed even more.
Fire
increases the radius of Flamestrike AoE.
replaces the Flamestrike dot with a debuff which increases fire dmg taken by the enemy by x% for the next y sec. and reduces the cast time by 0,5/1 sec. (make it spammable, change Firestarter talent to increase critchance of next Flamestrike or give a bonus to next living bom)
adds a knockback effect to Living Bomb or Blastwave or both.
lets Fireball/Pyro/Frostfire bolt refresh Scorch debuff or have a x% chance to do so.
changes Pyroblasts casttime to 4 sec., perhaps combined with all other sorts of effects. (see Druid Healing Touch Glyph as example)
gives your Scorch spell a 1% proc chance to cause your next Pyro being instant (low chane so it's not a big dmg buff, but Fun!).
lets Scorch spell refresh the Pyro dot - set it to full duration duration again.
gives your fireballs (and Pyro?) dot an additional 10% fire spell dmg coefficient per dot tick!.
Frost
adds some interrupt protection to frost spells - directly or when ice armor is active
triggers a frost nova if Ice Barrier is destroyed (replaces Shattered Barrier talent, such functionality make more sense as a Glyph).
reduces the casttime of Deep Freeze to 0 or 0,5 sec.
makes Deep Freeze castable also on targets which are under Winter's chill effect.
reduces enemys range (spells, bows, perhaps meele) by 50% while they are frozen.
silences enemys for 1 sec. when they get frozen.
adds a "frozen" or "considered as Frozen" effect to Deep Freeze stun.
protects your WE with your Ice Barrier when cast (an additional Ice Barrier is cast on the WE, or WE consumes mages Barrier when it gets dmg)
buffs WE - more health / manareg / AoE avoidance / additional manareg aura like healing actually / gives WE the mages + hit\crit\haste\penetration stats / let the WE go into iceblock synchronously with the mage / gives the mage 25%/x% of total spirit as spell dmg buff as long as the WE is alive.
08/05/08, 9:22 PM
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