World of Warcraft (en) Forums -> Mage questions answered

Vaneras

Blizzard Poster

0. Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:01:27 PDT

Hi everybody

The developers have answered a few Mage related questions. Some of you may have seen this already elsewhere, but in case you have not, you can find it below:

Q: Why is the molten armor spirit change a nerf to pvp, solo, and anyone not in full 25man epics / raid buffs?
A: Realistically, most mages are never going to notice a change to crit while soloing unless it was a really large number. Soloing is generally not difficult and you are generally going to defeat everything you fight within a few GCDs. For PvP it is a nerf to those mages using Molten Armor, but very few mages use Molten Armor in PvP. If we like what the Molten Armor change does, then we might consider doing something similar to other mage armors down the road.

Q: Why is spirit still significantly less valuable for us than warlocks? Why is it still better to use non spirit items except for in the few cases where the spirit item's ilevel was higher to begin with?
A: Apples to oranges. Agility is significantly less valuable to mages than it is to rogues. Yes, We realize you don't share gear with them, but if your concern is that warlocks will end up doing more damage as a result of that Spirit on their gear, we understand the concern and we think we have it under control.

Q: Why was scorch singled out as too powerful when it is obvious there are other raid buffs just as powerful?
A: For starters, because characters already had very high crit numbers in the first tier of content. We aren't really trying to make all buffs equal at this stage. Sunder, for example, is still a huge damage multiplier for classes that do physical damage. But buffs that feel like they do swing the pendulum too far are good things to discuss on these forums.

Q: Why do mages still have an archaic evocation tool that is risky and can virtually kill our dps like no other class has to deal with? Why can we be screwed over through rng because of this?
A: We understand the problem with Evocate in PvE. We aren't likely to turn it into Innervate, but we would like to come up with a solution that keeps you from getting boned when you happen to take a big blast of AE damage. We will also point out that there is a skill difference here too. Good mages know when the best time is to use Evocate (say KT just did a big blast so you know it isn't happening again). Less-skilled mages hit it the second they need it without paying attention to their surroundings.

Q: Why do improved scorch and winter's chill still have no personal benefit? Why is it still a dps loss and the cost of a major glyph to make use of scorch? What is the point now that warlocks will apply the debuff with their main nuke?
A: Selfish benefits are something we would like to add to all talents. For those we haven't done yet, it is usually because we would have to nerf the tree somewhere else to make up for the inflated damage. One of the questions we often ask ourselves is whether a class would already take that talent just because it's such a good talent for them. For example, if Battle Shout was a talent, almost every warrior would still take it even if they knew 100% that another player could provide the buff in a group. Why? Because it still grants them so much damage when solo, in BGs, etc.

Q: Why is frost still horribly lackluster in pve? Why is frostbolt still spammed and the ice lance glyph does nothing to fix this?
A: We can't make Ice Lance any better without making Frost even more deadly in PvP. We talked about making the glyph better, and we still might, but the problem is most PvE Frost mages take the glyphs of Frostbolt, Molten Armor and Water Elemental already, *and* inflating the glyph to something like 8x damage would make Frost mages the most insane leveling spec in the world.

Ideally, yes, we would love to get Frost into PvE and Fire into PvP in a bigger way. In the grand scheme of things though, mages have Arcane, Fire and Frostfire specs doing very competitive dps with each other in PvE and Frost and possibly Arcane as viable in PvP. That's definitely an improvement over where the class has been historically, so while it is something we want to work on, it doesn't feel like a crisis.

Q: Why has it been some five ptr builds with absolutely zero attention to our concerns? We aren't just complaining for the sake of it, and we're not all looking for massive damage buffs. Some of us would like to see our legitimate concerns at the very least commented upon.
A: Just understand that your concerns and our concerns are not always in perfect agreement. We like to get feedback from the community, but ultimately we don't sit down and say "How can we address all these problems that the community wants us to fix?" We have to do what we think is right for the game. Sometimes you are going to applaud those changes and sometimes you might not "approve" of the change.

[ Post edited by Wryxian ]

Community Team - English

The Epic Mug of Vaneras - The Alebringer: http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z57/Vaneras_bucket/EpicMug.jpg

Ezee

< TRA >

Thunderhorn

2. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:05:25 PDT

hmmm

I apreciate you taken the time to anwser the concerns of players on here
but what your saying about MA in PVE is wrong

I have my mage on the PTR and MA is 3% less crit in pve gear (T-7.5)

And your coments on evocation is not what people are asking
we are asking for an evocation that can be used while moving.

nice to see you have your eyes on the posts, but what you said hasnt helped

there are still warriors / shadow priests / shamens who can smash damage meters
over a char that only has one role in the game.

[ Post edited by Ezee ]

Booztx

Ravencrest

4. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:08:43 PDT

All I got from this was:

Yeah, mages are fine.

Which is a lie.

Casterdps

< Phase Two >

The Maelstrom

6. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:14:13 PDT

Q u o t e:
seen those on us forums this morning, welcome after, nice copy paste.

and edit: i dont think the mage community will settle with that [crap].

Did you read the first lines of his post? Of course this is a copy paste, and he did it because not everyone reads mmo-champs blue tracker or the us forums.

Anyway, thanks Vaneras, but I wont be happy as long as my mage has to wand in longer fights unless there's both replenishment and JoW up(especially when there's any aoe at all involved). But the developers seems to think guessing the amount of aoe needed before hand is a fun mechanic, and that wanding is an acceptable punishment..

Tigersye

< Syrinx >

Burning Blade

7. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:16:33 PDT

Yes the 3.1 changes have so far Obliderated Fire PVP. I think that unfortunatly the developers might have given up on this. If fire is bad now on the PTR it is even horrible. All fir pvp mages will be forced to use Frost armor, will lose 10% crit from Scorch and Molten armor and the Molten armor Impact procs are also gone. Things are NOT going in the right direction.

Vahu

< DarkStorm >

Al'Akir

8. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:16:47 PDT

I dunno if you can call this ANSWERED, its more like responded. Example, i dunno any "skilled" mage which can prevent voidzones at KT(while using evoc), i could continue, but i would rather not, cause this is europe team and i dunno if its really worth the effort after looking at blizzard respond, but better attension is at link bellow.

Vaneras, you should add this line:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15661687838&sid=1&pageNo=13#248

And if you will read this thread carefully it kinda shows that blizzard lacks a lot info about actually status 3.1 about mages in PvE, or do they?:P

[ Post edited by Vahu ]

Lunarrei

Dunemaul

9. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:18:00 PDT

What about the mage's lack of utility and falling behind in damage output?

This is just silly. If a raid leader has a last spot in a raid to fill and he has a choice between all possible equally skilled casters, who is he going to choose? A shadow priest with 100% misery uptime and replenishment? Or the elemental shaman with extra totems and self-ress? Or the Moonkin with extra Innervate, Rebirth, haste and crit buff? Or maybe the warlock with en extra soulstone, summoning stone, CoE, crit debuff and pet buffs? Well, it's definitely not going to be the mage since no mage is going to invest 3 talent points into a debuff that is much easier provided by warlocks...

Snoopz

< Animosity >

Defias Brotherhood

10. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:22:24 PDT

Q. Why cant you undertand that some specs are pvp specs and therefore should not be considered for both. Especially with the new Duel specs coming into play.

A. You want everything to be the same maybe?

My Point here- Every class has pve and pvp builds why try to make frost a pve build when the Arcane and Fireball specs are fine. And a skilled mage can also use arcance pvp.

Q. Will i benefit from these changes

A. Probably not because the changes are a nerf when you think about

my point here - why are you nerfing a class that can not as it is now top dps. Nerfing a class that is far to squishy. it doesnt make sense.

ok so there are many questions i could ask but iv gotten bored now rofl i guess i just go into uldar stand 40 yards back and most likely use the same moves i using now to but to a less effect and without having to apply scorch my move rotion will be like 2 moves because thats what i enjoy.

if you want you can give me some real answers to these questions

Q. Were does a mage fit in, poor form of CC and poor raid buff. Lacking in damage. Am i really just there to blizzard the trash?

Q. Why force a stat like spirt onto use when stacking SP has always been more effective.

Q. How can you say people are critting to much why you have made the gear with that much crit on it? Are you going to say that we are casting to many moves if we stack a lot of haste?

Q. I dont care for PvP im in love with PvE. So why try making a PvP build into a PvE one. Should i go farm for PvP gear also and they say look at me in my PvP gear i DPS :P ??

Q. Why are you continuing to try and change the arcane build for PvE, currently is a great build and fun to play with the challenge of keeping mana up for the fight. Probably the most demanding build iv played. So why try to take away my Arcane Barrage damager. its just not right?

Let me quote the late great word of Colonel Sanders, "Im to drunk to taste this chicken"

Tiga

< Phoenix Rising >

Khadgar

11. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:24:24 PDT

I think making frost desirable in PvE raiding should have been a higher priority than trying to get ice lances into the game. There's no point in implementing a feature that only a few frost-crazy people with very flexible guilds will use. Closing the DPS scaling gap a bit would have brought more people back into raiding as frost, but if the patch goes out with the current class changes, frost raiding will be virtually extinct.

I always assumed that when hunters were assured that hunter DPS would be rebalanced for Ulduar, that the assurations also included balancing frost as a PvE spec. I realise now that there was no such promise and that frost mages are not a class.

Cinondra

< Clarity >

Ravencrest

12. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:24:33 PDT

I find that the Molten Armor in PvP argument made contradicts the general design philosophy Blizzard seem to have and actually walks hand in hand with some ideas that I dislike. Some here say nobody specs fire for PvP, don't bother making it a PvP tree. Blizzard say, few spec fire for PvP, so we're trying to make it a more attractive PvP spec. I fully support Blizzard's philosophy here!

But now it's said that few use Molten Armor for PvP, so it's no big deal that it's a PvP nerf. Firstly, yes few use it, I mean in order to use it you have to be very certain that you're not going to get attacked (Ice Armor, or Mage Armor if it's casters) and that you're not going to get CC'd (Mage Armor)... where does this happen, I don't know; even with my limited arena experience I'll say that no one is left alone.

In PvP we have a very conscious choice of what gear we equip ourselves with; we don't "end up" with a piece that happens to have spirit; we buy it or we don't. I can think of exactly one guy who ever mentioned pursuing the spirit gear. Point is, you'd need to make spirit far more attractive for PvP to make us consider using Molten Armor come this change.

I don't intend to digress by babbling about all the ways in which Molten Armor could be improved for PvP (though I have to slip in - critical strike damage reduction?), but rather a simple way to give the crit back to the brave (or foolish) PvP fire mages (or those of other specs that use Molten Armor); make resilience give crit when using Molten Armor. Ignore the logic -- what you get is a situation where it scales in both environments with stats that very rarely "overlap" - and hell, if both benefit it at the same time then so be it; as I said, it's not like we have too many incentives to use the spirit PvP gear.

Be yourself! Unless, of course, you are a jerk. Then it's probably better to be someone else.

"We do not balance 1v1 PvP." - Ghostcrawler =)

Dcdarkling

< The Rise of Legends >

Steamwheedle Cartel

13. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:30:30 PDT

A: Apples to oranges. Agility is significantly less valuable to mages than it is to rogues. Yes, We realize you don't share gear with them, but if your concern is that warlocks will end up doing more damage as a result of that Spirit on their gear, we understand the concern and we think we have it under control.
Q: I think its more a point of 'Why dont we get other stats we can use more? Spirit doesnt do much now. And I havent seen alot of changes, on paper, which would make me go wanting spirit in 3.1

A: We understand the problem with Evocate in PvE. We aren't likely to turn it into Innervate, but we would like to come up with a solution that keeps you from getting boned when you happen to take a big blast of AE damage. We will also point out that there is a skill difference here too. Good mages know when the best time is to use Evocate (say KT just did a big blast so you know it isn't happening again). Less-skilled mages hit it the second they need it without paying attention to their surroundings.
Q: There actually was a nice suggestion about this a bit back. Did you consider that option? It had to do with making it a dispellable buff. When the buff is active you cant move or cast, but your mana/glyphed health is regenerated unless dispelled. If you would move/cast the buff would end.

A: Selfish benefits are something we would like to add to all talents. For those we haven't done yet, it is usually because we would have to nerf the tree somewhere else to make up for the inflated damage. One of the questions we often ask ourselves is whether a class would already take that talent just because it's such a good talent for them. For example, if Battle Shout was a talent, almost every warrior would still take it even if they knew 100% that another player could provide the buff in a group. Why? Because it still grants them so much damage when solo, in BGs, etc.
Q: That wasnt really a answer. Lets take frost, since im pure frost. Ath the current test on the PTR the chill is 5%. That will lower DPS in general. Its not that we want it, its that we need it. Frost damage is low as is. And our 'signature abilities', or snares and freezes dont work when we really need them. (inworld bosses, some elites, resistant mobs). Compared to a dull damage class this is actually a real problem.

A: We can't make Ice Lance any better without making Frost even more dealy in PvP. We talked about making the glyph better, and we still might, but the problem is most PvE Frost mages take the glyphs of Frostbolt, Molten Armor and Water Elemental already, *and* inflating the glyph to something like 8x damage would make Frost mages the most insane leveling spec in the world.

Ideally, yes, we would love to get Frost into PvE and Fire into PvP in a bigger way. In the grand scheme of things though, mages have Arcane, Fire and Frostfire specs doing very competitive dps with each other in PvE and Frost and possibly Arcane as viable in PvP. That's definitely an improvement over where the class has been historically, so while it is something we want to work on, it doesn't feel like a crisis.
Q: I think I partially covered this a block up? Frost has a nice time leveling but there enought holes in the road. Im the only DPS, as a pure frost, I know who had to ask others to help on nongroup quests, qualified green, because the mobs were immune to freezes and snares.
Now I can live with this but its not a reason to lower damage for frost on lvl80.
Frost can be great in PvP but not that great. nuking 20k times 2 (DK) down is a 'forget it' except perhaps for the most hardcore players.
Changing some glyphs or talents to make difference on what it does PvE or PvP wise could fix a lot.

A: Just understand that your concerns and our concerns are not always in perfect agreement. We like to get feedback from the community, but ultimately we don't sit down and say "How can we address all these problems that the community wants us to fix?" We have to do what we think is right for the game. Sometimes you are going to applaud those changes and sometimes you might not "approve" of the change.
Q: I will understand this view. But partially I do disagree. In the end you cant 'just' balance for PvP, PvE and for both for casual and common. But right now the focus seems to be on PvP. With us needing to actually level on PvE that feels wrong. I might judge this focus wrong though.

I am sure you all missed tons of valid questions from us mages but I will leave it to this for now. Im sure the others will fill them in. I as frost dont feel totally able to comment on fire or arcane.

>way to many typo's<

[ Post edited by Dcdarkling ]

Within the withering cold, only death awaits
---------
Dcdarkling >> 80 Blood Elf Frost Mage
Deathcrow >> Lvling Tauren Tank

Feego

< The Triforce >

Jaedenar

14. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:32:38 PDT

Mage armour was used in pvp before your intended nerfs to the ground, here are examples:

Mage armour with impact worked great v rogues
It worked great V hunters

Actually it works great V every class, but especcially rogues.

You see mage armour allowed a 5% crit REDUCTION, which blizzard are missing and worked with impact making that rogue who attacked you, have a lower chance to crit your face off and ontop of that you could stun him from him damaging you.

Now what is the point of it?

There is ZERO reason to use it in PvP now, not one reason at all.

You killed it for PvP, dead! You could not have killed it more.

You nerfed impact.
You nerfed how it works and made it require SPI.

THERE IS NO SPIRIT ON PVP GEAR FFS! or the ones that do have it, is such a poor choice and if you think a PvP MAGE is going to take SPI gear for a skill that is now redundent your clearly delussional - Which PvP mage would take SPI?

Yes you killed it for PvP, where before it was fine.

No one asked for it to be changed, no one expected it to be changed.

Also having blazing speed and Disarm in the same tree seems pritty dam crazy!

[ Post edited by Feego ]

Goma

< Aegis >

Wildhammer

15. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:37:19 PDT

Thank you for the post. Whilst I am still worried about some things it is nice to see that some of our questions have been answered and that it has been done in a clear way. The time taken to do this is appreciated and give us an understanding about what has been done and why.

I am sure that there will still be alot or disscustion, argument, and complaining about this, but I am sure that the mage comunity will feel better knowing that our complaints and worries are not being ignored and that the changes have been made for good reasons and with thought, not just, as some feard, because other people were complaining.

Goma.

EDIT: I hope that people will put there replys in a reasond maner in line with the origonal post, and if they have any problems refute and rebuff them in calm and frendly way. If we do this we may get this kind of responce a little more often.

[ Post edited by Goma ]

Ezee

< TRA >

Thunderhorn

16. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:40:28 PDT

you have taken a wasted atribute "spirit" and turned it into a nerf for us

shame on you bliz

tbh why dont you leave things as they are then come patch day we will be actualy better off

Feego

< The Triforce >

Jaedenar

17. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:42:09 PDT

Q u o t e:
Tbh why dont you leave things as they are then come patch day we will be actualy better off

Agreed.

Pulmas

Kazzak

18. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:43:47 PDT

Q u o t e:
Mage armour was used in pvp before your intended nerfs to the ground, here are examples:

Mage armour with impact worked great v rogues
It worked great V hunters

Yes I always pop up my mage armour when i see a rogue or a hunter =)

Habardeen

< Alter Ego >

Argent Dawn

19. Re: Mage questions answered 20/03/2009 06:44:16 PDT

the pvp mage situation just got nerfed with the impact.
i really dont understand this.

while it is good to have a controlled stun, speaking of survivability (which is THE problem there) well it decreased with this new impact.

but what about the frost tree? dont you see that ice lance mechanic in pve cannot work unless you give use a crazy multiplier? you should work on cross tree talents like brain freeze. seriously.

Forum > Classes > Mage