Warning for Lhivera: General Idiocy

Kaubel · 07/09/08, 9:38 AM

Post: [Mage] WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion
User: Lhivera
Infraction: General Idiocy
Points: 0

Administrative Note:

Message to User:

Make your point without excessively splitting the quote.

Original Post:

Originally Posted by Deedre

Lhivera, when Blizzard includes a 20% damage bonus to a nuke to a set, I take that a strong incentive to find ways of using that nuke as much as possible.

If Blizzard intended it to be a primary nuke, it wouldn't be +20%. It'd be +5-6%. Set Bonuses, like trinkets and metagems, are supposed to enhance a playstyle, not make the difference between viability and nonviability.

Again: we found a way to make it work. It's obviously not intended to be used that way. If it were intended to be used that way, then wearing 2xT5 forever wouldn't be the only way to make it work.

You yourself participated in discussions that complained about the fact that Blizzard wasn't codifying 2xT5 into the spell itself or into a talent, that they were "forcing" Arcane Mages to keep wearing 2xT5. Ask yourself why they're not doing that, if they intend for Arcane Blast to be your primary nuke? Simple answer: because they don't.

Long and short: they didn't intend, or even anticipate, the AB-spamming Arcane Mage, any more than they intended or anticiptaed the dominance of 0/21/40 Warlocks. Players figured something out that Blizzard didn't. That's all there is to it.

Furthermore, the arcane tree is designed to maximize both intellect and in combat regen -- and that regen is going to go to waste if AB isn't a large part of your spellcasting.

Arcane's in-combat regen advantage at the time was only 15%. Arcane's intellect advantage is also 15% (which produces less than a 15% increase in mana pool). 3-stack Arcane Blast costs 422 mana per second -- 316.5% the mana cost per second of Fireball. You really think the extra mana and regen was intended to fuel a spell that burns mana at more than triple the rate of Fireball?

Right now on live it's entirely possible to spam AB 80%+ of the time on quite a few fights with a fairly ordinary group comp and no innervates. All you really need is a shadowpriest. The changes to mana regen only made AB spam more viable.

Do you also believe that Blizzard intends for a spec to have a primary nuke that is only viable if you have a Shadow Priest?

Now for Wrath, I agree, they appear to be deemphasizing the nuke. I rather regret this, and so do most arcanists. We were looking for new talents to bolster the nuke, and chances are very good it will become near obsolete in pve unless they surprise us with another set bonus for it.

It won't be obsolete at all. It'll still be useful for its intended purpose: burning mana for burst damage. If you as a deep Arcane Mage have mana to burn at the end of the fight, you'll switch from a Barrage/Frostbolt rotation to a Barrage/2xAB rotation.

So far as live goes, if not AB, what on earth is the main nuke of the arcane tree? Did they really intend for deep arcanists to dabble with non arcane nukes that are necessarily weaker than those put out by dedicated frosties or deep fire mages? This does not compute. Why bother going deep arcane at all? AB is perhaps a failed and gear dependent experiment, but either it is an attempt at a main nuke or nothing at all.

See the posts on the previous page that engaged this topic. Blizzard doesn't design talents and trees for min/maxing.

I kind of feel like I'm telling you there's no Santa Claus; you're clearly invested in the idea of a nuke to call Arcane's own. But all you have to do is imagine a world without 2xT5 to know that it isn't Arcane Blast. In a world without 2xT5, AB spam is still the highest DPS for any spec other than well-geared Deep Fire. That speaks pretty damn clearly to its intended purpose.