Deedre

Zaldyrr, arcane is actually looking pretty hot for pvp, and has some amazing burst damage potential. ABar+NP proc+AP/POM/Pyro? Ouch. (I'm anticipating nerf cries to this already.)

As a long time arcanist, I'm fairly giddy about the possibilities. As Lhivera keeps pointing out to me, this is the mobility spec, and that surely is going to make a difference in pvp.

 

Alvira

What I like about arcane barrage is that you can cast that on the run. This solves a lot of the issues mages in general had for raiding where if we come across a high mobility fight, our DPS would plummet. Becaue we have to stand in one place to cast our spells.

With fireblast and arcane barrage, Arcane specs will be the ones most able to DPS while running from point A to Point B in a boss fight. This will considerably solve an inherent flaw that mages face in raid encounters. Locks did not have this problem because their DOTs were still ticking even as they repositioned themselves.

 

Sorcerer

I can't believe people at still around 1vs1 situations. Claiming that mage armor is superior to locks or dispelling classes and we got best tools around vs melee, ok it is but have you EVER played 1vs1 in arena? You didn't, how often do you face a warlock + another melee or melee + offensive dispeller + defensive dispeller? Pretty much always, not counting the RWD where a rogue alone is able to lock you out giving another melee a free kill.

Choosing mage armor you don't get dispelled, but melee sqeeze you. If you go with ice armor you get dispelled and same scenario happens. Ain't even gonna comment when double melee traines a mage.

However we have yet to see any 3s/5s arena on F&F alpha so its too early to say but considering new tools other classes get im scared.

 

Lileith

I'm also scared with all the "Immun to every cc for 20 seconds" they seem to give to every melee damage classes (Hunter and now Shaman and Druids).
No matter which armor we will use, cat druids with 45%+70% run speed with dash spamming 20 energy mangle or 21 energy shred while immun to every cc will be an "Iceblock or die" situation.

 

Pintofbrew

I'm mostly responding to you because I feel sorry you made an effort on your 1st post and everone ignored you with the on-going at the time massive quote-fest argument of Arena 1v1.

As a disclaimer, I see PvP as utterly irrelevant, enjoy PvP feedback from people who do it, not me.

In PvE terms, firstly your arguments:

1) Mana issues have been looked into heavily, with the mana gem changes, the meditation change (15%->30%) and then the spirit changes. Many classes are losing efficiency in WotLK (locks and shamans for a start) while others are gaining (healing priests) to make the manabar more of a resource you -care- about rather than an If-gate. As in "if I have mana, I don't care"

2) Frost pushback is an integral part to Frost and has been partially addressed with the change to IV. Do not expect more than having I-Barrier, which will almost triple by 80, Shatter Shield, IV -and- pushback protection as well.

3) Not relevant to PvE, thus I don't care.

4) It has been noted the problem with Blink is a problem with Pathing in the game, not with the spell. Please stop insisting on fixing Blink, when the problem does not reside with the spell but with how the whole game periceves two-dimensional space. Blinking backwards is a result of Latency making you see your sprite and being at a different place. Just as you may seem to be in melee range but "too far" otherwise. Asking for Blizzard to change the pathing system just to fix Blink is like asking the world to stop using cash because it makes your wallet bulge and is thus uncomfortable. It won't happen, get used to blinking accross flat, even terrain. Demanding i-Blink to solve the problem is also as relevant as asking your dentist to give you car insurance. Being dissatisfied at i-Blink is also being short-sighted. You clearly did not see the synergy between i-Blink and the new and improved Magic Absorbption. A new must-have for raiding.

5) Spellsteal's cost was subsidized, as was Blink's, and Slow's, in the last patch. You may recall it used to cost around 645mana while now it's a lot more reasonable 430~.

6) See above.

7) Unknown quantity. First step has been removal of CoE/CoS. I'd say that's a big triumph. And looking at the state of locks, I'd say we're not too bad, thanks. I'd even go as far as saying: Given Blizz will change that in 2.4.3, they're pretty damn well aware that lock-mage equilibrium needs a good healthy nudge. And they're doing it months ahead of WotLK.

8) It's being reduced from 4 to 3, and talents take it from 3 to 1. Talents, which can be had in either Arcane or Arca-Fire hybrid 33/38/0. I don't see why you should be "not impressed", it's completely in line with other agro wipes. Vanish costs a rogue a GCD to get back into action, for FD the hunter must stay down for a nominal amount of time or else it doesn't "register" and does fuck all, and while locks do have an instant wipe it's only a 50% dump and not a full wipe, like ours.

9) As a matter of fact, now that arcane spec focuses around int-pool, yes. For one talent point you gain more armor than you'd have if you had Frost Armor on. I'd say that's not bad value at that tier. Bear in mind, with AE you're very likely to be in melee range of AoE, and it's not exactly rare that you may pull one or two mobs off your tankadin while AoEing. I value a 2% physical mitigation thus, quite highly, thanks. Perhaps not as good as Prismatic Cloak, granted, but it's certainly non-trivial. I'm not going to argue it's a great talent, but for one point I can think of many worse ones. Particularly at tier 2. Back when even arcane mages had 450int, it was bad. Now I raid with 900int buffed, it's much better.

10) Netherwind Presence does not allow Pyro. This would be rather silly. It would also pre-emptively ruin any chance of a non-11 fire arcane spec to survive. Pyro remains an arguably useless spell. What it needs is to gain a CD and a late-fire cast-time reduction, just like Soul Fire.

I disagree with your thesis that "our old issues are not solved". All I see in the so-far WotLK changes are changes that have the potential to be either great, good, or moderate. I don't see any bad changes. Compare with other classes and the state they're in: Shamans look as good as we do, barring Elemental, Locks look much worse, Warriors look the absolute definition of Boredom and Nothing-New-Here, Rogues got treatment like we did, just less of it and Druids got what they deserved in Moonkin, though a little too much, and nothing particularly inspiring in either resto or feral.

Not that I'm using others as a comparisson, I'm just pointing out: You look at the WotLK FFA notes, look at our expectations, and surmise that we're dealt a bad hand somehow, not realizing that it's way early to judge what is clearly in development against what you expect from something fully developed. This thread is much better served theorizing and assuming, running TC and attempting to understand the Dev's intentions rather than being judgemental and disappointed at something you're not supposed to know which is in a state in which you weren't ever going to see otherwise.

PS. It'll serve you well if you're more attentive with grammar. No offence at all meant, nor am I attempting back-seat moderation, but you're probably aware by now that "and many many more." may be grounds for a report.

 

Thegoodman

I wouldn't jump to conclusions with the "lack of attention" given to Mage mana issues. At this time, we have no idea what the itemization will be in WotLK and for all we know Intellect could receive a boost similar to what Stamina received in the Vanilla-BC transition. Mana was less of an issue in pre-BC and could just as likely be as irrelevant an issue in WotLK.

 

Lhivera

In terms of damage mitigation, Magic Absorption is clearly dramatically improved. However, in terms of mana regen on full resist, will we really see that happen more often now that resistance is so much more granular?

And can be resisted, while ours can't. And since it counts as a Demonology spell, neither of the +Hit% talents will affect it.

Or even a reason to cast it on a proc. Like, add 100% haste on your next Pyroblast cast to the Hot Streak proc or something like that, giving you an occasional situation where Pyroblast is clearly the superior spell to cast.

 

Kludge

Lhivera: you said that frost going to be non-binary will hurt its dps can you give me a quick explanation on this?

All it means to me is now frost has a chance to do a partial resist instead of a full resist which means that it could do a little less damage then a full hit but its still doing damage.

Is it because it has less of a chance to resist when comparing binary and non-binary spells?

 

• RoboStac

Non-binary spells against bosses currently have a completly unavoidable ~5% partial resist rate. Frostbolt avoided this by being binary, so would do full damage, 99% of the time if hitcapped.

 

Kludge

Thanks that cleared it up.

 

Jonny_Monroe

I don't really consider this to be an issue with MA, since some top arcane specs pick it up as filler (i'll link them in a minute - working). The 10% incriments still doesn't affect binary spells (many raid AoE effects - not least of all the numerous encounters which blow off an AoE silence. ALL magical CC effects).

An amusing thought - if i'm in a BG with MA, Mage armour and shadow protection, it would actually be beneficial for a lock to NOT put his pet on me, since it'll only act as a mana battery and won't break fireward/shatter shield before it could be killed anyway.

Can anyone provide a formula that gives a good overview of resistance --> 100% resist chance? I'd like to know how effective resistance will be for an arcane mage in terms of MP5 (when applied to known WotLK encounters).

---------------------------------

Arcane/frost:

War Pirate :: Mage WotLK Alpha Talent Tree

Right now, thats my 10-man spec. It gives me versitility in the form of reliable CC, melee kiting, good damage output, on-demand burst damage, caster tanking, and it works well with a good veriety of stats and hopefully won't be too hard on mana.

Oh, and its not too depentant on external buffs or stacking some form of 'vulnerability'.

 

Darkmantle

I'm not sure what warlocks you raid with but the vast majority of raiding warlocks are destruction and are lucky if they get to cast 1 dot Curse of doom. Which only needs to be done once every 60 seconds for 200 dps. The rest of their damage is from straight nuking just like a mage. An affliction warlock is sufficiently less dps than a mage that it doesn't matter.

 

Alvira

Some fights involve a fair bit of running. Even a destro lock has DOTs. Just because their DOTs are weaker doesn't mean they can't or won't use them in such situations. There are so many raid boss fights involving running around in TBC I don't think I actually need to list specific examples. But we do have those situations where we have to run around, or reposition, etc etc. And even destro locks can put up a DOT before they run, while hunters will continue to fire their bows as they are running.

Mages will stop spellcasting completely just to run around and reposition. Its too much to ask Blizzard to design fights where ranged DPS just stands there happily spamming spells (where's the challenge?). So, movement heavy fights will continue to feature in future content. Arcane Barrage allows a mage to overcome some of non-casting downtime. It would need more skill since you have to keep your facing even as you position. But it now allows arcane mages to keep up a certain amount of DPS even during movement phases.

 

Anedris

A destro warlock who puts up DoTs before movement loses DPS over one who simply fires one more shadowbolt. For a t6+ geared warlock a shadowbolt (or incinerate) is more damage per cast time than a DoT (apart from CoD). There is absolutely zero reason such a warlock will ever cast a DoT that is not CoD, no matter how much movement may be required.

Warlocks gain from movement fights because they can lifetap while moving. It has nothing to do with DoTs.

 

Alvira

Well, some curses are instant cast. So, you can cast them on the move, or just allow them to tick while moving. Mages usually have long cast time spells. So, we can't really concentrate on casting if we have to move around so much. I am just pointing out that this is one area where mages would have little options to push DPS, if its a movement heavy fight. Locks at least have some options. Same for hunters. So, arcane barrage helps us in this respect.

 

alienangel

Well, in most situations you need to run currently (burn, encapsulate, conflagrate) it's not advisable to wait to finish a DoT cast before you start running. So the warlock only benefits from DoTs while moving if he can cast them while moving - and I could be wrong but IIRC the only instant cast DoT a destruction warlock has is CoA, and he's likely not casting that in favour of keeping CoR/CoE/CoS up.

Hunters generally don't keep casting their bows while running, you need to be standing still to cast any shots other than arcane shots or a sting, neither of which are spammable or particularly damaging (arcane is maybe 1100 non-crit, serpent sting is ~1000 and can't crit, so if anything mages with a single fireblast are better off for insta-cast dps). If you're careful you can watch your autoshot timer and make sure you come to stop just as autoshot is ready to fire again, but this slows down your ability to get away from big hurty things, and still rules out steady shotting.

 

Alvira

Arcane barrage isn't going to let a mage do full DPS on the run. Its the same thing. We have to twist around to face the boss, and trying to do that while running away if going to be a challenge too. But it will still be better than zero DPS and at least the option is there. Similarly, even a lock that puts up a curse of doom while running around is doing some DPS (even if it goes off 1 minute later). And same thing goes for a hunter. Sure, you won't be doing a lot of fancy moves and you won't be doing maximum DPS. But at least you will be doing some kind of damage while you are running (even if its autoshoot). Typically, mages do little to zero DPS running around.

 

Suggestive

You're never going to put a curse up while moving, unless you get lucky, have 4 warlocks in and CoD drops right as you move. The impression that DoT's ticking while you move allows more DPS is a fallacy, because its all about damage per cast time. Unfortunately that impression is widespread even among warlocks who should know better. Even for an affliction lock, unless his DoT's drop up perfectly in line with the occasions he has to move, he has little to no advantage over an other caster.

 

alienangel

I'm probably missing something obvious (I'm just stumbling into this thread, sorry >.>), but what stops a mage from fireblasting while moving, causing him to do zero DPS? The damage from a fireblast is comparable to the damage from an arcane shot (I'd guess it exceeds it actually).

The lock won't be casting CoD or CoA unless he's the 4th lock in the raid and isn't responsible for keeping up CoS/CoR/CoE - with upcoming changes he could get away with being merely the 3rd lock, unless your raid wants you to keep up CoW I guess. But my understanding of it is that in that situation the lock would be keeping CoA up for dps in addition to shadowbolt spam while standing still anyway, so this isn't extra DPS, it's just a more convenient time to recast CoA if it happens to be fading while you're moving.

 

Alvira

COE is merging with COS. So, more options to put up curses for locks.

Fireblast has a long cooldown and has a relatively short range. The short range especially is a killer. Usually we are standing at max range to DPS. Running in closer to fire off a fireblast when we are supposed to be running away is not a good idea.

 

alienangel

Yes, we mentioned the merging of curses. That just means instead of only benefitting the lucky 4th warlock it benefits the 3rd warlock too. And as said, it doesn't really benefit either of them, since if they're not responsible for keeping CoE+CoR up, I believe it works out as a large DPS gain for them to be keeping CoD up continuously anyway, even if not moving - the fact that they need to move sometimes does nothing, unless CoD happens to tick during a movement.

The cooldown on Fireblast is 8s? Compared to 6s on Arcane Shot. Since you're hopefully not moving for even 6 whole seconds at a stretch, neither cooldown is relevant to the comparison. The short range on Fireblast is though, sorry I didn't know about that.

 

Deedre

Meanwhile, on the newest PTR mage armor, molten armor and fel armor are no longer dispellable nor can they be spellstolen. Confirmed by Zaldinar on the official forums.

Edit: same goes for frost armor.