Lhivera

Quite honestly, you just plain learn to deal with this. Most of the fights you listed, it's just a matter of knowing when and where to use him. There are some where there really isn't much you can do, but they're a minority, or at least were up until Sunwell, which is where I stopped.

That said, it would be awfully nice for it to get the same Avoidance skill that Warlock pets get.

Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror. -Ming the Merciless

 

Daydreamer

And with all that it's amusing, in a rather sad way, that non-Arcane Mages *still* get very little to no benefit from Spirit... and frankly that's a problem I'm very surprised doesn't seem to be on the books to be addressed.

 

mako

Your current assessment of pet-unfriendly fights seems way off.

Naj - frost damage, lol immune elemental
Sup - no aoe damage during tank phase, the only time your elemental would viable be able to dps
akama - lol
bloodboil - positioning pet intelligently away from raid members removes all issues of potential splash. alternatively, cast during start of fel-rage.
ros - pets are immune to backlash in p2, and aoe in p3.
Illidan - intelligent summoning during human phases negates issues with flame burst.

So you have.... teron, with very limited splash, and mother.

However, it seems rather silly for water elemental to be made into a super mana tide totem of sorts. If the regen is considered significant and important, you will not want to summon your elemental near the start of the fight, and thus may lose the ability to summon it an additional time, or at least not benefit fully from the final summon, depending on the fight.

If mana is an issue for any roles, it will likely be targeted towards healers in wrath, so you could expect something along the lines of a frost mage being swapped into the healers group just to regen them.

Also, seeing blizzard's current infatuation with spirit, I would also see it as possible a water elemental's mana regen will be changed to be tied to spirit instead.

 

Zeldyrr

I don't usually play the "what I would do game" but in this case I'd be happy if:

-- Mages were given some brilliance aura/mana regen as the skill to replace shatter shield. That way it is available across all specs.
-- Make improved WE give avoidance (in addition to increased duration) which helps only the frost mage, and only in PvE really

But I doubt that is happening.

 

solbergb

Given how living bomb is shaping up I don't think you can rule out a 51+ fire build with either icy veins or arcane focus instead of 50/21 (that is more likely to be a frostfire build). I frankly don't understand the arcane rotations enough to even comment.

There may not be a "primary raiding" spec. Rather you'd get pairs...like arcane+frostfire or deep fire+deep frost combos. From what I'm seeing so far, you'll get more raid synergy with two different mage specs than two of the same kind, and DPS won't be all that hugely different betwen the most popular 4-5 specs.

Also keep in mind that what is best for 25 man may not be best for 10/5 man (2/47/11+1 works well in all of those. The popular 2T5+arcane-blast spam builds don't work as well without the mana support provided in a 25 man. In 5 mans, crowd control and utility stuff like dragon breath, permafrost, slow etc have a bigger impact than in the larger raids)

 

• Nurru

Except that with no worthwhile talents affecting it and no cast time decrease it becomes a question of whether that 2.5 second cast spell is worth using to waste mana at the end of a fight when a 3.0 Fireball or Frostfire Bolt could do significantly more in both base damage (Fireball) and crits (both).

19:31 <@Zyla> I fuck like a gorilla
19:31 <@Zyla> wait
19:31 <@Zyla> wrong chat room

 

Benlol

Unless I'm mistaken, the improved water elemental regen is still raid wide as opposed to group wise.

 

Thegoodman

Another potential issue with the WE utility is when we use it. Most mages will begin a fight by using 2 consecutive Water Elementals and another as soon as the CD is up.

Many healers will request that we save the WE for a time when the Mana regen is not wasted, which is counterproductive to our overall DPS.

Would there be a potential Arcane Blast while WE is up, Frostbolt when it isn't spec? I know that deep arcane is what makes AB spam possible, but a lot of mana may make it viable as well.

 

Lhivera

I think if you wait about 5-10 seconds and then summon the elemental, the regen won't be wasted; mana pools will be diminished enough that the Water Elemental won't be able to top them off as long as everyone's still casting. What it'll do is make the first two minutes of the fight very nearly mana-neutral, so that other regen/restore options can be saved for after that mark.

Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror. -Ming the Merciless

 

mako

My apologies, i missed that.

That would make WE regen significantly more powerful than I was thinking ><

It would definitely still bring up the issue of saving the WE for regen later in the fight when others need it.

 

solbergb

Given that scorch has a rampup and now applies to frost stuff too, I'd say you would want to wait 10s or so anyway to blow all your cooldowns (including WE) at the beginning of the fight, just like fire mages do now. If you wait for the scorch stack to be established, especially if there is only one scorcher, people will be down enough mana to benefit from the WE, most likely.

 

kadgar

Yes it's only a useful mana dump for arcane speccs. I remember someone in the old thread calculated that AB spem is (nearly) no dmg increase for a deep frost mage over frostbolts.


I think this is a too simple view. You have to consider 10 and 25 man raids here.
The first and perhaps 2nd such manasource (spriest/ imp. WE mage) will probably be useful (if not, you are right that mana mechanic has some serious problems).

In a 10 man raid you'll be happy if you have 1 such manasource and this will be very welcome and useful.
In 25 man raids, you'll have way more manasources and can easily reach the point, where you generate more mana than you use. But in that case, that doesn't mean mana is broken. It's just some unused utility, like today the Draenei Shaman spell hit aura in a haler or hit capped caster group, Paladins auras in several cases, etc.

 

Zeldyrr

That's tricky to balance then. If the improved WE brings no utility in 25-man raids (because mana is not an issue due to a whatever reason) than frost dps = fire dps = arcane dps. The value of that utility is 0% damage reduction.

But in the 10-man situation, where it is valuable, suddenly it should have a cost.

Which in my mind makes an active ability much more interesting. Imagine an active brilliance aura. When it is on, you give mana to the raid (be it 10-man or 25-man or just a 5-man group) but your personal damage is decreased while active. Now you have a choice (and a consequence). Bring utility when we need it or do damage when we don't.

Something like that is vastly superior than a passive ability that is there whether you want it or not and will forever be a source of arguments about utility versus personal DPS.

 

Sleepingspud

Has anyone thought about how the new downranking changes to spells seem to balance out the Imp. WE change? If max rank spells become the name of the game, it's likely mana consumption would go through the roof. Blizzard may be trying to offset the change by giving healers a larger mana surplus. I'm also pretty sure it was mentioned somewhere that encounters might have more AOE elements to them than previously.

 

◊ manly

Ok so heres the base mana cost for everything now. I am 0/0/0 and have no talents lowering the costs. All spells are max rank for lvl 77. Percentages are of the base mana.

Arcane Blast - 40%, 1184 (lol)
Arcane Barrage - 18%, 522
Fireblast - 21%, 621
Fireball - 21%, 621
Frostfire Bolt - 16%, 473
Scorch - 8%, 236
Frostbolt - 15%, 444
Ice Lance - 7%, 207
Deep Freeze - 8%, 236

Shadowbolt - 17% (cheaper than fireball, go figure)


Arcane Explosion - 25%, 725
Arcane Missiles - 34%, 1006
Focus Magic - 535
Mana Shield - 7%, 207
Polymorph - 12%, 355
Slow - 20%, 592
Spellsteal - 20%, 592
Remove Curse - 8%, 236
Blink - 21%, 620
Counterspell - 9%, 266
Invisibility - 16%, 473

Flamestrike - 53%, 1568
Blastwave - 28%, 828
Dragon's Breath - 31%, 917 (37% ?)
Living Bomb - 31%, 1095
Pyroblast - 22%, 651

Blizzard - 74%, 2190
Cone of Cold - 29%, 858
Frostnova - 8%, 236
Ice Barrier - 25%, 740
Water Elemental - 16%, 473

"Did the last bastion of arcane hope give up to the FFB gods ?"

please fix rolling deep wounds.

 

Lons

Those are some pretty insane numbers, I cannot imagine that our int is going to sky rocket as much as stamina just did in TBC and as someone that love my fire....what the hell is spirit gonna do for me on the cost of these spells?

 

Searix

Not only that, but if we move to a spirit required system, where does that leave caster dps? We already have to sacrifice any semblance of regen enchants/gems right now to even stay competitive.

 

Pintofbrew

I don't challenge any change to a more mana-intensive environment; interacting with the mana-bar rather than setting the group so as to ignore it is definitely more interesting. What puzzles me, however, is the Shadowbolt change.

Before the mana-cost changes, SB was way more expensive and this cost-hike was put down to roughly the same cost as it would have, just taking into account the new 30% regen in Wrath. Fine. Then it drops to the floor? Coupled with the excellent doubling of Dark Pact's effect.

"Do no offend the chair leg of truth. It is wise and terrible. Continue."
-Spider Jerusalem

 

Jarlyn

I think these sorts of issues need to be looked at as a work-in-progress. Downranking in particular is such a drastic change (particularly to healers), it's completely unreasonable to expect them to get it right on the first pass.

The issue with spirit is a legitimate complaint and I'm fully expecting (or at least, sincerely hoping) they'll work over our armors to give us some sort of scaling from spirit.

 

Arazan

There's no need to rework our armors to give us additional scaling from spirit. Mages are the best in the game for casting regen with 60% casting regen obtainable with the combo of mage armor and arcane meditation. Casting regen is the name of the new bluebar game... it's why warlocks will be using Fel Armor (which, in its current state actually gives two separate scaling benefits based on spirit), why balance druids will be spec'ing 55/0/16, etc etc.

Here's the problem with that system, though. First, not all classes have the same casting regen. A balance druid that doesn't spec Intensity or a dps priest who doesn't spec imp spirit tap or meditation has zero casting regen, while a mage using Mage Armor and spec'ed 3/3 arcane med has 60%. The disparity is huge when you're talking the mana costs manly mentioned... if you're talking 800mp5 in fsr, the difference between 60% casting regen, 30%, and 0% is massive. So do you balance casting regen around the 60%, completely screwing over the 30% and 0%'ers? Do you balance it around the 30%'ers, forcing all casters to spec whatever casting regen talents are made available while simultaneously giving 60%'ers a free pass to spam whatever inefficient but high dps rotation they want?

The only way I can see the system working in any semblance of balance is if they give all casters 30% natural casting regen, boosted to a max of 60% via talents and abilities. Then all classes have the same availability of regen and casters who spec for the 60% casting regen aren't handicapped by their bluebar.

 

Validus

I believe they do need to rework our armors or talents to incorporate spirit scaling for all specs. Mages, Hunters, Druids, Priests, and Shamans all have either raid or party mana regeneration abilities in WotLK. Looking at spell costs and additional sources for regeneration, mana does not look like an issue for non Arcane mages on single target encounters. If Mages are using Molten Armor for PVE, is there any reason for an elemental Mage to want gear with spirit on it?

It would be interesting if they adjusted Master of Elements to allow mana regeneration while casting for X seconds after a crit or have it restore mana equal to X% of spirit instead of spell cost. Another option would be to adjust Molten Armor to convert 100% of total spirit into Critical Strike Rating. A change to a base ability rather than a talent would be ideal.

 

RpgWizard