All right, two more classes!
Warlocks will get an up-to-date Dreadsteed of Xoroth-like mount (like the Paladin mount, this one flies without any visible wings, just glowing hoofprints.) You speak with the guy who collected materials for the original mount quest (that got 86'd in Cataclysm) and he sends you to do a number of things.
There's some auction house stuff - a potion, some metal, and some gems - and a pretty quick collection of Moonkin blood from a place in Val'sharah, and then the thing that will probably be frustrating to you if the stars have not aligned: an item off of the final boss of an invasion scenario.
With that stuff gathered, you get a quick quest to on the Broken Shore requiring the use of your Succubus and then you get to go into one little solo-scenario that has you slaying demonic minions (that go down easier with a Felhound) before taking out an eredar and enslaving its demonic horse, which you then get to claim.
The Mage mount has less set-up, requiring you to gather three pieces of a device Antonidas was working on before he died. These require a little bit of combat but mostly just ample use of teleportation and using Dalaran's central tower portals.
Once you get all three pieces, you go to the Eye of Eternity and have three somewhat challening fights against the elemental energy trapped in each fragment. Once all three are defeated, the three pieces are linked together and you get your cool flying disk.
Showing posts with label Mage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mage. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Thermodynamics, Entropy, Time, and Why Respectable Mages Use Frost Spells
This is going to get seriously nerdy. Like, not fantasy nerdy but science nerdy. You have been warned.
One of the fundamental laws of the real universe is that as time moves forward, the entropy of a system (such as the universe) will increase.
What exactly do we mean by entropy?
First off - a caveat. I have a major in dramatic writing, not physics, and this is based on my sort of general curiosity and having read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. So if I get some details wrong here, well... I might get details slightly wrong.
Entropy is a way of measuring disorder. An ordered thing has a relatively small number of states it can be in, but as disorder grows, the number of potential states increases. Think of a chess game - as the game begins, there are only 20 moves you can make on the first turn (each of your pawns up one step or two, or your Knights going up and to the right or up and to the left.) But as the moves go on, the number of possible games becomes absurdly huge to the point where having a computer "solve" chess by calculating every possible game still rests outside our technical capabilities.
It turns out that the universe works a lot like that too. Energy in disorder - meaning that it's not all moving in one direction but causing particles to bounce around like your late-game chess pieces - is what we call heat. Something that is hot is actually something in which there's a bunch of energy, but rather than moving the thing in one direction, all its parts are going in different directions, bouncing into each other.
People have proven mathematically that entropy will always increase over time. When you run an air conditioner, for example, you cool your room by actually making the outside a little hotter - we think of this as ok because the relative volume of your room is so small that the increase to the outdoor air temperature is pretty small. But the net effect of running an air conditioner is that electrical energy is converted into heat energy, and the universe gets a little hotter.
This is so fundamental an aspect of reality that some physicists have hypothesized that it isn't so much that entropy increases over time as much as it is that time is simply our human perception of an increase of entropy.
Let that sink in for a moment.
So what the hell does this have to do with a video game about wizards and monsters?
Well, the Warcraft universe has six primal forces that each have an opposite number, and each of these has an affiliated type of magic. You have Life and Death, Light and Shadow, and finally Order and Chaos.
The magic of Chaos is Fel magic - used by Demons and Warlocks (and of course Demon Hunters.) It is most commonly manifested in the form of green fire.
The magic of Order is Arcane.
If Chaos and Entropy are almost synonymous, that would make Order a kind of opposite to chaos.
As far as we know, our universe doesn't have an Arcane force that counters the progression of entropy, which is why physicists think that in a very, very long time (we're talking a number of years that I don't even know how to spell out without using scientific notation) eventually all the potential energy in the universe will have done what it had the potential to do, and the only thing that will remain will be a perfectly even, dull heat - called the Heat Death of the Universe.
But with this Arcane force, there could be a counter-balance, allowing the universe to be preserved.
If using or generating chaos causes heat - which it does in our universe and certainly seems to in the Warcraft universe as well - then shouldn't Arcane cause coldness?
Indeed, the fact that mages can manipulate time and generate coldness through Arcane magic might actually just be two sides of the same coin.
But what about Fire mages?
Well, even though our universe tends toward heat, we can still cool down individual portions of it at the expense of heating up other portions. It would stand to reason that using Arcane magic to heat something up could be done, at the expense of cooling other parts of the universe.
But we have to imagine that, like the way the air conditioner actually winds up generating more heat than it cools, a Fire Mage would be cooling things down more than they're heating things up.
An air conditioner in reverse is actually a highly efficient heater called a heat-pump. A Frost Mage is basically using the "waste" product of his or her magic as the product - allowing the Arcane to do its work, cooling things, and using that cold to attack his or her foes.
Thus, a Frost Mage has a minimal environmental impact, while a Fire Mage will put more of a drain on the universe's heat. And it might be for that reason that Frost is considered the more classic and respectable type of arcane magic, while Fire is considered reckless.
As to Arcane Mages... Get back to me on that.
One of the fundamental laws of the real universe is that as time moves forward, the entropy of a system (such as the universe) will increase.
What exactly do we mean by entropy?
First off - a caveat. I have a major in dramatic writing, not physics, and this is based on my sort of general curiosity and having read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. So if I get some details wrong here, well... I might get details slightly wrong.
Entropy is a way of measuring disorder. An ordered thing has a relatively small number of states it can be in, but as disorder grows, the number of potential states increases. Think of a chess game - as the game begins, there are only 20 moves you can make on the first turn (each of your pawns up one step or two, or your Knights going up and to the right or up and to the left.) But as the moves go on, the number of possible games becomes absurdly huge to the point where having a computer "solve" chess by calculating every possible game still rests outside our technical capabilities.
It turns out that the universe works a lot like that too. Energy in disorder - meaning that it's not all moving in one direction but causing particles to bounce around like your late-game chess pieces - is what we call heat. Something that is hot is actually something in which there's a bunch of energy, but rather than moving the thing in one direction, all its parts are going in different directions, bouncing into each other.
People have proven mathematically that entropy will always increase over time. When you run an air conditioner, for example, you cool your room by actually making the outside a little hotter - we think of this as ok because the relative volume of your room is so small that the increase to the outdoor air temperature is pretty small. But the net effect of running an air conditioner is that electrical energy is converted into heat energy, and the universe gets a little hotter.
This is so fundamental an aspect of reality that some physicists have hypothesized that it isn't so much that entropy increases over time as much as it is that time is simply our human perception of an increase of entropy.
Let that sink in for a moment.
So what the hell does this have to do with a video game about wizards and monsters?
Well, the Warcraft universe has six primal forces that each have an opposite number, and each of these has an affiliated type of magic. You have Life and Death, Light and Shadow, and finally Order and Chaos.
The magic of Chaos is Fel magic - used by Demons and Warlocks (and of course Demon Hunters.) It is most commonly manifested in the form of green fire.
The magic of Order is Arcane.
If Chaos and Entropy are almost synonymous, that would make Order a kind of opposite to chaos.
As far as we know, our universe doesn't have an Arcane force that counters the progression of entropy, which is why physicists think that in a very, very long time (we're talking a number of years that I don't even know how to spell out without using scientific notation) eventually all the potential energy in the universe will have done what it had the potential to do, and the only thing that will remain will be a perfectly even, dull heat - called the Heat Death of the Universe.
But with this Arcane force, there could be a counter-balance, allowing the universe to be preserved.
If using or generating chaos causes heat - which it does in our universe and certainly seems to in the Warcraft universe as well - then shouldn't Arcane cause coldness?
Indeed, the fact that mages can manipulate time and generate coldness through Arcane magic might actually just be two sides of the same coin.
But what about Fire mages?
Well, even though our universe tends toward heat, we can still cool down individual portions of it at the expense of heating up other portions. It would stand to reason that using Arcane magic to heat something up could be done, at the expense of cooling other parts of the universe.
But we have to imagine that, like the way the air conditioner actually winds up generating more heat than it cools, a Fire Mage would be cooling things down more than they're heating things up.
An air conditioner in reverse is actually a highly efficient heater called a heat-pump. A Frost Mage is basically using the "waste" product of his or her magic as the product - allowing the Arcane to do its work, cooling things, and using that cold to attack his or her foes.
Thus, a Frost Mage has a minimal environmental impact, while a Fire Mage will put more of a drain on the universe's heat. And it might be for that reason that Frost is considered the more classic and respectable type of arcane magic, while Fire is considered reckless.
As to Arcane Mages... Get back to me on that.
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Wizards, Sorcerers, and Magicians in 7.0
Almost every class is getting some serious reworking done in Legion. Even classes that aren't getting resource systems taken away or added are seeing some pretty big rotational shifts.
Mages, though? Mages are pretty much the same.
There are of course some shifts, but as a whole, Mages are coming out of 7.0 with most of the tools they had in 6.2. Given that all three specs are going to look pretty similar, I'm going to go over all of them in the same post.
Frost:
The biggest change you'll notice right off the bat is that Frostfire Bolt is gone. Instead, we have a pure-frost spell called Flurry. This has a similar cast time and also slows the target, but it sends out three little bursts of snow at our target, landing in quick succession. It is still made instant by Brain Freeze procs, so it really just steps right into the part of our rotation previously held by FFB.
There are some talent shifts as well. Splitting Ice is now a talent instead of a glyph, and shares a row with Ice Nova, giving you a somewhat tougher choice. Also, with Multistrike gone you'll have to look elsewhere for good stats. Multi was always kind of derided as "worse crit," but given how you could more or less soft-crit-cap with Shatter and Haste was devalued by all the instant spells the spec has, I really liked it for Frost. Oh well.
EDIT: Something I hadn't realized is that the new Brain Freeze, affecting Flurry, now also causes Flurry to debuff the target for just over a second to act as if it is frozen. So you can actually game this so that if you cast a Frostbolt while you've got Brain Freeze up and immediately follow it with Flurry and then Ice Lance, both the Frost Bolt (which travels slower than Flurry) and the Ice Lance will now benefit from that debuff, getting the Shatter bonus. So that's different.
Fire:
One big thing is that Ignite will now automatically spread to nearby targets, giving you plenty of passive cleave.
Flamestrike is also now made instant by Hot Streak, letting you work that into your AoE pretty easily.
Combustion is now a self-buff that gives you 100% crit chance - way easier to use, but perhaps less interesting.
Arcane:
The biggest change here is that your mastery now simply increases your max mana, instead of increasing the damage you do based on your percentage of max mana. So I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot more long-term Arcane Blast spams to do burst damage, and you'll only have to conserve mana to ensure you don't go OOM.
Still, fundamentally all three specs play more or less as they do on live. Frost is still about shattering your enemies with Ice Lance and Flurry, Fire's still about blasting the big Pyroblasts and lining up your crits, and Arcane is still about maxing those Arcane Charges (now tracked as a secondary resource, finally) to get in more damage at the cost of mana.
Mages, though? Mages are pretty much the same.
There are of course some shifts, but as a whole, Mages are coming out of 7.0 with most of the tools they had in 6.2. Given that all three specs are going to look pretty similar, I'm going to go over all of them in the same post.
Frost:
The biggest change you'll notice right off the bat is that Frostfire Bolt is gone. Instead, we have a pure-frost spell called Flurry. This has a similar cast time and also slows the target, but it sends out three little bursts of snow at our target, landing in quick succession. It is still made instant by Brain Freeze procs, so it really just steps right into the part of our rotation previously held by FFB.
There are some talent shifts as well. Splitting Ice is now a talent instead of a glyph, and shares a row with Ice Nova, giving you a somewhat tougher choice. Also, with Multistrike gone you'll have to look elsewhere for good stats. Multi was always kind of derided as "worse crit," but given how you could more or less soft-crit-cap with Shatter and Haste was devalued by all the instant spells the spec has, I really liked it for Frost. Oh well.
EDIT: Something I hadn't realized is that the new Brain Freeze, affecting Flurry, now also causes Flurry to debuff the target for just over a second to act as if it is frozen. So you can actually game this so that if you cast a Frostbolt while you've got Brain Freeze up and immediately follow it with Flurry and then Ice Lance, both the Frost Bolt (which travels slower than Flurry) and the Ice Lance will now benefit from that debuff, getting the Shatter bonus. So that's different.
Fire:
One big thing is that Ignite will now automatically spread to nearby targets, giving you plenty of passive cleave.
Flamestrike is also now made instant by Hot Streak, letting you work that into your AoE pretty easily.
Combustion is now a self-buff that gives you 100% crit chance - way easier to use, but perhaps less interesting.
Arcane:
The biggest change here is that your mastery now simply increases your max mana, instead of increasing the damage you do based on your percentage of max mana. So I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot more long-term Arcane Blast spams to do burst damage, and you'll only have to conserve mana to ensure you don't go OOM.
Still, fundamentally all three specs play more or less as they do on live. Frost is still about shattering your enemies with Ice Lance and Flurry, Fire's still about blasting the big Pyroblasts and lining up your crits, and Arcane is still about maxing those Arcane Charges (now tracked as a secondary resource, finally) to get in more damage at the cost of mana.
Monday, December 21, 2015
Breaking Down (Burning Down?) Fire
We're getting pretty far with all the DPS specs, and many of the tank specs. At some point I'll have to go into pure-theory mode (ok, to be fair I've healed one or two dungeons as most of the healing specs - possibly never Shamans) with healers, but let's knock out the rest of the DPS'ers.
Fire Mages, like their Frosty and Arcane brethren, are not getting huge changes because, well, Mages in general have been pretty fun to play and true to their class and spec fantasies for a long time. In fact, you could argue that a lot of the changes coming are sort of to bring the other classes up to the elegance and strong design of the Mage.
Fire is getting some new toys and some upgrades to old toys. Probably the biggest change is that Combustion is getting changed from a powerful DoT into a powerful cool down (well, it's always had a cool down, but now it's more of a buff than an attack.) There's also a cool and very flavorful change to the Ignite Mastery which we'll get to.
So let's get into the Fire spells. As always, remember that this is based on an Alpha build, and while I don't expect to see the baseline Mage spells change too much given how little they're changing from the existing design, you never know.
Fireball is, of course, the primary filler spell you'll be casting most of the time. It has a 2.25 second cast time and deals fire damage to the target.
Pyroblast has a (baseline) 4.5 second cast time, dealing a massive amount of fire damage to the target.
Hot Streak is a passive causing your next Pyroblast or Flamestrike to be instant if you get two critical strikes from direct-damage spells in a row.
Enhanced Pyrotechnics is a fun passive that makes each Fireball that does not give you a critical strike give you a 10% increased critical strike chance, stacking up indefinitely, but ending once you do get a critical strike. I love this, because it ensures you never go too long without a crit.
Inferno Blast has 2 charges on a 12-second recharge, dealing a modest amount of fire damage to the target, but always critically striking. It is not on the global cool down and can be cast while casting other spells. Its main purpose, I think, other than giving you something to cast on the move, is a guaranteed Hot Streak once you've crit with Fireball.
Combustion has a 2-minute cool down, increasing you crit chance by 100% for 10 seconds, and gives you Mastery equal to your critical strike rating (it doesn't double-dip on its own buff, but it makes all the crit on your gear still worth something while it's up.)
Molten Armor gives you an extra 15% crit chance and reduces incoming physical damage by 6%, giving you a nice healthy baseline before you start stacking up crit (I think base crit without anything is 10%, so that's a baseline of 25%.)
Scorch has a 1.5-second castime, dealing a small amount of fire damage to the target, but is usable while moving, which is probably the only time you ever want to use it.
Flamestrike has a 4-second cast time dealing a fair amount of fire damage to anyone standing in it and slowing them by 50% for 8 seconds.
Critical Mass is a passive that multiplies the critical strike chance of Fireball, Scorch, and Pyroblast by 1.3.
Dragon's Breath is an instant-cast spell on a 20-second cool down, dealing relatively low fire damage to enemies in a cone in front of you and disorienting them for 4 seconds, though this effect breaks on any damage. It replaces Cone of Cold.
Mastery: Ignite causes Fireball, Pyroblast, Scorch, Inferno Blast, and Flamestrike to add a 9-second DoT to the target based on your Mastery and the damage of the initial spell. Subsequent applications of Ignite will roll over, so you'll get the full Ignite effect off of each spell without worrying about "overwriting." Also, every 2 seconds, Ignite has a chance to spread to a new nearby enemy.
So as you can see, most of this is familiar, but won't have to worry about finding the perfect sweet spot for Combustion - in fact, Combustion will basically turn you into a Pyroblast machine gun. Before we get into talents and artifact traits (which will add new parts to the rotation,) here's what we're looking at:
1. Pyroblast if there's a Hot Streak.
2. Inferno Blast if you have the "Warming Up" buff - basically if you just crit.
3. Fireball.
AoE's kind of interesting. With Ignite now spreading, you might be able to just keep up the single-target rotation on two or possibly three targets. But at some point you'll want to start using Flamestrike instead of Pyroblast. With a similarly really-long cast-time, you'll probably only want to use Flamestrike 4 seconds before the pull or if you get a Hot Streak proc. Scorch is obviously the substitute for Fireball when you're on the move, but everything else should be instant-cast in your rotation, so you just swap it out. And of course, you'll now just want to use Combustion on cool down - no prep required.
Fire Mages, like their Frosty and Arcane brethren, are not getting huge changes because, well, Mages in general have been pretty fun to play and true to their class and spec fantasies for a long time. In fact, you could argue that a lot of the changes coming are sort of to bring the other classes up to the elegance and strong design of the Mage.
Fire is getting some new toys and some upgrades to old toys. Probably the biggest change is that Combustion is getting changed from a powerful DoT into a powerful cool down (well, it's always had a cool down, but now it's more of a buff than an attack.) There's also a cool and very flavorful change to the Ignite Mastery which we'll get to.
So let's get into the Fire spells. As always, remember that this is based on an Alpha build, and while I don't expect to see the baseline Mage spells change too much given how little they're changing from the existing design, you never know.
Fireball is, of course, the primary filler spell you'll be casting most of the time. It has a 2.25 second cast time and deals fire damage to the target.
Pyroblast has a (baseline) 4.5 second cast time, dealing a massive amount of fire damage to the target.
Hot Streak is a passive causing your next Pyroblast or Flamestrike to be instant if you get two critical strikes from direct-damage spells in a row.
Enhanced Pyrotechnics is a fun passive that makes each Fireball that does not give you a critical strike give you a 10% increased critical strike chance, stacking up indefinitely, but ending once you do get a critical strike. I love this, because it ensures you never go too long without a crit.
Inferno Blast has 2 charges on a 12-second recharge, dealing a modest amount of fire damage to the target, but always critically striking. It is not on the global cool down and can be cast while casting other spells. Its main purpose, I think, other than giving you something to cast on the move, is a guaranteed Hot Streak once you've crit with Fireball.
Combustion has a 2-minute cool down, increasing you crit chance by 100% for 10 seconds, and gives you Mastery equal to your critical strike rating (it doesn't double-dip on its own buff, but it makes all the crit on your gear still worth something while it's up.)
Molten Armor gives you an extra 15% crit chance and reduces incoming physical damage by 6%, giving you a nice healthy baseline before you start stacking up crit (I think base crit without anything is 10%, so that's a baseline of 25%.)
Scorch has a 1.5-second castime, dealing a small amount of fire damage to the target, but is usable while moving, which is probably the only time you ever want to use it.
Flamestrike has a 4-second cast time dealing a fair amount of fire damage to anyone standing in it and slowing them by 50% for 8 seconds.
Critical Mass is a passive that multiplies the critical strike chance of Fireball, Scorch, and Pyroblast by 1.3.
Dragon's Breath is an instant-cast spell on a 20-second cool down, dealing relatively low fire damage to enemies in a cone in front of you and disorienting them for 4 seconds, though this effect breaks on any damage. It replaces Cone of Cold.
Mastery: Ignite causes Fireball, Pyroblast, Scorch, Inferno Blast, and Flamestrike to add a 9-second DoT to the target based on your Mastery and the damage of the initial spell. Subsequent applications of Ignite will roll over, so you'll get the full Ignite effect off of each spell without worrying about "overwriting." Also, every 2 seconds, Ignite has a chance to spread to a new nearby enemy.
So as you can see, most of this is familiar, but won't have to worry about finding the perfect sweet spot for Combustion - in fact, Combustion will basically turn you into a Pyroblast machine gun. Before we get into talents and artifact traits (which will add new parts to the rotation,) here's what we're looking at:
1. Pyroblast if there's a Hot Streak.
2. Inferno Blast if you have the "Warming Up" buff - basically if you just crit.
3. Fireball.
AoE's kind of interesting. With Ignite now spreading, you might be able to just keep up the single-target rotation on two or possibly three targets. But at some point you'll want to start using Flamestrike instead of Pyroblast. With a similarly really-long cast-time, you'll probably only want to use Flamestrike 4 seconds before the pull or if you get a Hot Streak proc. Scorch is obviously the substitute for Fireball when you're on the move, but everything else should be instant-cast in your rotation, so you just swap it out. And of course, you'll now just want to use Combustion on cool down - no prep required.
Monday, December 14, 2015
Breaking Down Frost (Mages)
Mage gameplay has kind of been a gold standard through Warlords as far as fun-to-play has been. As such, the Mage specs are not really changing all that much. Rather than tearing things down and building them up anew, each spec is really just getting some tweaks. They've all been pretty solid on the class fantasy and spec fantasy fronts (Mages magic at things until they die. Sounds about right!)
As such, this is going to be far less shocking than, say, the Survival or Demonology changes.
But I'm on a roll here, so let's get this one out there! As usual, take things with a grain of salt, since this is based on an Alpha build. That said, given that most of this is just a tweak to the existing design, I wouldn't expect anything super radical.
Frost is going to probably miss Multistrike more than other specs, given how easy it is to get instant spells that almost always crit (essentially giving you a low soft crit cap.) Also gone from the rotation is Frostfire Bolt, which I personally think is a travesty. Blizzard justified this removal by asking how a bolt of Frostfire would even work. Shouldn't the fire melt the frost? My answer? It's MAGIC! BECAUSE WE'RE MAGES! Seriously, Frostfire Bolt is one of the most gorgeous spells in the game, and I loved that Frost got to retain a little bit of out-of-element bleeding.
Ok, I've calmed down. At least on WoWHead, there seems to be some old information, like references to the lost beloved Frostfire Bolt, so there might be some out-of-date info here.
Frostbolt remains the heart of the rotation, taking 2 seconds to cast and dealing Frost damage while slowing the target by 30% for 15 seconds.
Ice Lance is an instant-cast spell that deals Frost damage to a target, and does double damage when the target is frozen (or if it "counts as frozen" thanks to Fingers of Frost.)
Frostbolt and Frozen Orb (Frostfire Bolt is still listed as well) have a 15% chance, and Blizzard has a 5% chance to give you Fingers of Frost, which allows you next Ice Lance or Deep Freeze to treat your target as if it is frozen. If you use Ice Lance with this, it will increase its damage by 140%, for a total of 380% of normal damage. You can have two stacks of this buff.
Shatter is a passive that increases your crit chance against frozen targets, multiplying it by 1.5 and adding 50% (so, against a same-level target, this effectively gives you a critical strike soft cap of 33.33%)
Frozen Orb has a 1-minute cooldown, sending an Orb of frost that lasts 10 seconds shooting forward (slowing down when it reaches a target) and that damages all enemies in its path and slows them by 30% for 15 seconds. The first time an orb deals damage, it automatically grants a charge of Fingers of Frost.
Brain Freeze is a proc that gives your Frostbolts a 10% chance to reset the cooldown on Frozen Orb.
Blizzard now has an 8-second cooldown, with a 2-second cast time. It deals Frost damage to a targeted area over time (I'd assume 8 seconds, but don't hold me to that.) Each time it deals damage, it reduces the remaining cooldown on Frozen Orb by 0.5 seconds.
Cone of Cold is an instant-cast spell on a 12-second cooldown, dealing light Frost damage to everyone in a cone in front of the caster and slowing them by 30% for 15 seconds.
Icy Veins is a 3-minute cooldown granting 30% haste and preventing all spell pushback for 20 seconds.
Summon Water Elemental summons your permanent Water Elemental pet. We don't have a list of abilities, but I'd assume that it's got what it has now - though we don't know the fate of Water Jet (personally I like it - giving you an option to deal with Fingers of Frost dry spells when you can't use Freeze.) There is a talent option that allows you to go pet-less, which makes Freeze one of your spells, so I'm confident that will be on the pet's bars.
Mastery: Icicles remains much the same, granting you an Icicle when you cast Frostbolt that is proportional to its damage that lasts 15 seconds. You can store up to 5 at once, and if you get a sixth, the oldest Icicle will launch at your target, or if you cast Ice Lance, all 5 will launch at your target in quick succession. (This portion of the Mastery really just effectively buffs the damage of Frostbolt.) It also increases the damage done by your Water Elemental.
Overall, the rotation looks mostly the same, but you'll be casting Frozen Orb considerably more. Given that it's only on a 1-minute cooldown, you're probably already casting it whenever it's up, but now you'll certainly want to do that all the time thanks to the new Brain Freeze. So before we get to artifact traits and talents, here's what we've got:
1. Ice Lance if Fingers of Frost is up.
2. Frozen Orb on cooldown (keep an eye out for Brain Freeze.)
3. Freeze if you can hit a target that is not immune to it - preferably two or more.
3. Frostbolt.
Once you get I want to say 5 targets or more, you want to start using Blizzard to get your Frozen Orb off cooldown instead of Frostbolt. Though if you can maintain Blizzard and squeeze in some Frostbolts, go for it, as you might be able to just reset Frozen Orb. With the changes to glyphs, the fate of Glyph of Splitting Ice remains a mystery. This is one of the few glyphs I've always thought is a 100% mandatory one, unless you're on a strictly single-target fight (and how many of those do we see these days?) Talents like Ice Nova and Comet Storm seem to be remaining, so you'll have other buttons in your actual rotation if you want.
As such, this is going to be far less shocking than, say, the Survival or Demonology changes.
But I'm on a roll here, so let's get this one out there! As usual, take things with a grain of salt, since this is based on an Alpha build. That said, given that most of this is just a tweak to the existing design, I wouldn't expect anything super radical.
Frost is going to probably miss Multistrike more than other specs, given how easy it is to get instant spells that almost always crit (essentially giving you a low soft crit cap.) Also gone from the rotation is Frostfire Bolt, which I personally think is a travesty. Blizzard justified this removal by asking how a bolt of Frostfire would even work. Shouldn't the fire melt the frost? My answer? It's MAGIC! BECAUSE WE'RE MAGES! Seriously, Frostfire Bolt is one of the most gorgeous spells in the game, and I loved that Frost got to retain a little bit of out-of-element bleeding.
Ok, I've calmed down. At least on WoWHead, there seems to be some old information, like references to the lost beloved Frostfire Bolt, so there might be some out-of-date info here.
Frostbolt remains the heart of the rotation, taking 2 seconds to cast and dealing Frost damage while slowing the target by 30% for 15 seconds.
Ice Lance is an instant-cast spell that deals Frost damage to a target, and does double damage when the target is frozen (or if it "counts as frozen" thanks to Fingers of Frost.)
Frostbolt and Frozen Orb (Frostfire Bolt is still listed as well) have a 15% chance, and Blizzard has a 5% chance to give you Fingers of Frost, which allows you next Ice Lance or Deep Freeze to treat your target as if it is frozen. If you use Ice Lance with this, it will increase its damage by 140%, for a total of 380% of normal damage. You can have two stacks of this buff.
Shatter is a passive that increases your crit chance against frozen targets, multiplying it by 1.5 and adding 50% (so, against a same-level target, this effectively gives you a critical strike soft cap of 33.33%)
Frozen Orb has a 1-minute cooldown, sending an Orb of frost that lasts 10 seconds shooting forward (slowing down when it reaches a target) and that damages all enemies in its path and slows them by 30% for 15 seconds. The first time an orb deals damage, it automatically grants a charge of Fingers of Frost.
Brain Freeze is a proc that gives your Frostbolts a 10% chance to reset the cooldown on Frozen Orb.
Blizzard now has an 8-second cooldown, with a 2-second cast time. It deals Frost damage to a targeted area over time (I'd assume 8 seconds, but don't hold me to that.) Each time it deals damage, it reduces the remaining cooldown on Frozen Orb by 0.5 seconds.
Cone of Cold is an instant-cast spell on a 12-second cooldown, dealing light Frost damage to everyone in a cone in front of the caster and slowing them by 30% for 15 seconds.
Icy Veins is a 3-minute cooldown granting 30% haste and preventing all spell pushback for 20 seconds.
Summon Water Elemental summons your permanent Water Elemental pet. We don't have a list of abilities, but I'd assume that it's got what it has now - though we don't know the fate of Water Jet (personally I like it - giving you an option to deal with Fingers of Frost dry spells when you can't use Freeze.) There is a talent option that allows you to go pet-less, which makes Freeze one of your spells, so I'm confident that will be on the pet's bars.
Mastery: Icicles remains much the same, granting you an Icicle when you cast Frostbolt that is proportional to its damage that lasts 15 seconds. You can store up to 5 at once, and if you get a sixth, the oldest Icicle will launch at your target, or if you cast Ice Lance, all 5 will launch at your target in quick succession. (This portion of the Mastery really just effectively buffs the damage of Frostbolt.) It also increases the damage done by your Water Elemental.
Overall, the rotation looks mostly the same, but you'll be casting Frozen Orb considerably more. Given that it's only on a 1-minute cooldown, you're probably already casting it whenever it's up, but now you'll certainly want to do that all the time thanks to the new Brain Freeze. So before we get to artifact traits and talents, here's what we've got:
1. Ice Lance if Fingers of Frost is up.
2. Frozen Orb on cooldown (keep an eye out for Brain Freeze.)
3. Freeze if you can hit a target that is not immune to it - preferably two or more.
3. Frostbolt.
Once you get I want to say 5 targets or more, you want to start using Blizzard to get your Frozen Orb off cooldown instead of Frostbolt. Though if you can maintain Blizzard and squeeze in some Frostbolts, go for it, as you might be able to just reset Frozen Orb. With the changes to glyphs, the fate of Glyph of Splitting Ice remains a mystery. This is one of the few glyphs I've always thought is a 100% mandatory one, unless you're on a strictly single-target fight (and how many of those do we see these days?) Talents like Ice Nova and Comet Storm seem to be remaining, so you'll have other buttons in your actual rotation if you want.
Friday, December 11, 2015
Breaking Down Arcane
Mages are the only class I haven't really touched on in this "Breaking Down" series. The main reason for that is that none of the specs look like they're really changing all that much. There are subtle changes, to be certain, but nothing on the level of, say, Survival Hunters, or even on the level of Frost Death Knights.
While my Mage is consistently Frost, I'm going with Arcane because of the change to its Mastery. Arcane has, since Cataclysm introduced the stat, really revolved around its Mastery, which until Legion will have increased damage done based on the percentage of your max mana you currently have.
In Legion, the Mastery will instead boost your max mana and mana regeneration as well as the bonus damage of your Arcane Charges (which will now be a secondary resource.) Thus, your damage will not depend on how much mana you currently have, but more on how much you're willing to spend. The danger, then, will not be of reducing your mastery bonus by too much and thus doing sub-par damage. Instead, the danger will be of not having the Mana to actually cast your spells. In a lot of ways, this mirrors how things were in Wrath of the Lich King. You will be able to have very powerful sustained burst (if that makes sense) but you'll pay the price for it by having to play conservatively for longer to get back your Mana.
As always, this is Alpha, so remember that both numbers tuning and playstyle design can and likely will change before this goes live. Let's get to the abilities!
Mastery: Savant will increase your Mana and your Mana Regeneration rate by equal percentages, while increasing the damage bonus of your Arcane Charges by a different percentage.
Arcane Blast is your main spell, with a 2.25 second cast time, it deals Arcane damage and generates an Arcane Charge. For each charge, the damage is increased by 50% (before mastery) and the cost is increased by 100%.
Arcane Barrage is instant, on a 3 second cooldown and consumes all your Arcane Charges. It increases in damage by 50% for each Arcane Charge and hits one additional target per Arcane Charge for 50% of its damage (on each extra target.)
Arcane Missiles has a chance to be activated by other damaging spells. It is channeled over 2 seconds, launching 5 waves of missiles over that time. It deals 50% additional damage per Arcane Charge and generates an Arcane Charge.
Arcane Explosion is an instant-cast spell with no cooldown, dealing damage to all enemies within 10 yards and refreshes your Arcane Charge duration as well as having a 30% chance to generate an additional one.
Arcane Power is a 1.5-minute cooldown lasting 15 seconds, increasing damage by 20% and increasing Mana costs by 10%.
You get the idea.
If you've played an Arcane Mage any time in the last few expansions, this should be familiar as more or less exactly how it has played before. The real change is with the Mastery. There could also be some interesting alterations thanks to talents and artifact traits.
Really I think what makes this Mastery change interesting is that it gives you far more flexibility - you can use your mana bar as you see fit, instead of always trying to keep it as near to capped as possible. If this design remains, you can expect to see Arcane Mages doing insane dps in short fights, as they'll be able to spam Arcane Blast.
Friday, December 4, 2015
The State of the Frozen Throne
With the Legion Beta live (fingers crossed for an invite!) players have been able to access some of the quests in which one acquires one's artifact weapons. I'm pleased to report (thanks to other websites like MMO-Champion) that these quests look pretty interesting, with special challenges that use your spec's skills. I don't know how challenging these will be (I think they'll have to be relatively simple, as this is the very gateway into the expansion) but there's also the added benefit that it will send players off in 36 different directions when the expansion starts. Not only will the "adventure mode" style of questing prevent bottlenecks, but everyone's going to be scattered to the four winds and off in twelve different class halls (not to mention new Demon Hunters, who will be doing their own starting experience before they get to these quests.)
Anyway, I've seen videos of the Frost Death Knight and Fire Mage quests, which both involve a trip to Icecrown Citadel. In them, we get some insight into what is going on with the Scourge and Bolvar, the new Lich King.
Spoilers beyond the cut:
Anyway, I've seen videos of the Frost Death Knight and Fire Mage quests, which both involve a trip to Icecrown Citadel. In them, we get some insight into what is going on with the Scourge and Bolvar, the new Lich King.
Spoilers beyond the cut:
Monday, November 9, 2015
Mage Class Blog Information
Mages have been in a pretty good place from a design perspective, with each spec already fairly distinctive. As such, the changes to the various specs are a lot less dramatic than we've seen with Hunters and Priests. So let's take a look!
Arcane:
Arcane Charges will now be a secondary resource - they'll still work pretty much identically, but have a unique UI element.
The main change is that Arcane has a new Mastery, Savant, which increases Mana and Mana Regeneration. The idea here is that you'll have greater control over your mana expenditure. I suspect this means that you'll be able to spam Arcane Blast when you have cooldowns up, but you'll just have to conserve to prevent yourself from going OOM.
Arcane also gets a fun cooldown, Displacement, which removes the cooldown on Blink for four seconds.
Sample Talent: Quickening
This makes your Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles stack up a haste buff that is removed when you hit Arcane Barrage.
Fire:
They've effectively split the uses of Inferno Blast. The ability now simply is a guaranteed crit to help you get a Hot Streak.
Notably, Heating Up won't proc when you have a Hot Streak, so you'll be encouraged to simply let loose your Pyroblast when you can.
For cleave-AoE, Ignite will now inherently spread to other targets when it ticks, which kind of works thematically.
Combustion has been totally redesigned. It now increases your crit chance by 100% and adds Ignite damage equal to your crit stat.
Sample Talent: Cinderstorm
A spell on an 8-sec cooldown that launches 6 cinders in an arc that deal a bit of fire damage to everything they hit - presumably to be used for AoE situations.
Frost:
The biggest change is that Frozen Orb is kind of taking the place of Frostfire Bolt. This makes me a bit sad, but it means that the Orb will now be a core rotational ability. Brain Freeze now resets the cooldown on Frozen Orb.
Beyond that, it seems to work largely the same way.
Sample Talent: Glacial Spike
This is a massive spell that requires 5 Icicles to cast, merging them with its own damage and freezing the target in place. With this talent, Ice Lance will no longer launch Icicles.
Mage Analysis:
Mages are not getting much in the way of change, which is fine, as the class was in a good place in Warlords. Personally, I'm sad to be losing Frostfire Bolt, given that the spell always had this kind of cool "how does that work? Magic!" feel to it. I actually wish that Frost and Fire could borrow a little of each others' element on occasion, as otherwise only Arcane Mages feel like the true wizard-savant types. Still, I don't think it'll be too hard to adjust to any of these changes. I know some will be sad to see Combustion simplified so much, but oh well.
Next up: Paladins
Arcane:
Arcane Charges will now be a secondary resource - they'll still work pretty much identically, but have a unique UI element.
The main change is that Arcane has a new Mastery, Savant, which increases Mana and Mana Regeneration. The idea here is that you'll have greater control over your mana expenditure. I suspect this means that you'll be able to spam Arcane Blast when you have cooldowns up, but you'll just have to conserve to prevent yourself from going OOM.
Arcane also gets a fun cooldown, Displacement, which removes the cooldown on Blink for four seconds.
Sample Talent: Quickening
This makes your Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles stack up a haste buff that is removed when you hit Arcane Barrage.
Fire:
They've effectively split the uses of Inferno Blast. The ability now simply is a guaranteed crit to help you get a Hot Streak.
Notably, Heating Up won't proc when you have a Hot Streak, so you'll be encouraged to simply let loose your Pyroblast when you can.
For cleave-AoE, Ignite will now inherently spread to other targets when it ticks, which kind of works thematically.
Combustion has been totally redesigned. It now increases your crit chance by 100% and adds Ignite damage equal to your crit stat.
Sample Talent: Cinderstorm
A spell on an 8-sec cooldown that launches 6 cinders in an arc that deal a bit of fire damage to everything they hit - presumably to be used for AoE situations.
Frost:
The biggest change is that Frozen Orb is kind of taking the place of Frostfire Bolt. This makes me a bit sad, but it means that the Orb will now be a core rotational ability. Brain Freeze now resets the cooldown on Frozen Orb.
Beyond that, it seems to work largely the same way.
Sample Talent: Glacial Spike
This is a massive spell that requires 5 Icicles to cast, merging them with its own damage and freezing the target in place. With this talent, Ice Lance will no longer launch Icicles.
Mage Analysis:
Mages are not getting much in the way of change, which is fine, as the class was in a good place in Warlords. Personally, I'm sad to be losing Frostfire Bolt, given that the spell always had this kind of cool "how does that work? Magic!" feel to it. I actually wish that Frost and Fire could borrow a little of each others' element on occasion, as otherwise only Arcane Mages feel like the true wizard-savant types. Still, I don't think it'll be too hard to adjust to any of these changes. I know some will be sad to see Combustion simplified so much, but oh well.
Next up: Paladins
Friday, December 12, 2014
Level 100 Talents - My Choices
Most of the perks we got in Draenor had little effect on the number of buttons we hit (I've got a wash - with Assassination's Slice and Dice becoming a passive but Frost Mages getting a new button in the form of Water Jet.) And in fact, most of the new talents are also designed to avoid increasing the number of buttons we've got to hit, lest they undo all the work they did in the ability squish.
There a lot of new talents, especially because they will now sometimes change depending on your spec - Druids, for instance, got effectively twelve different level 100 talents. So I won't go into every last one of them. But I figured I'd share my thoughts on the ones that I picked.
Paladin:
Protection: I went with Holy Shield. Now there's a couple reasons why I did that. The first is that Holy Shield used to be an active ability that was at the core of the Protection Paladin rotation (Shield of the Righteous - originally just a source of damage during Wrath, sort of became its spiritual successor.) At some point, Blizzard decided they didn't like the idea of reflective damage, but it looks like they changed their minds on that. Anyway, Seraphim and Empowered Seals seemed way too fussy to be fun to play with, and bringing back an old favorite, albeit in a totally different form, was hard to pass up.
Retribution: I went with Final Verdict here. The main reason is that, again, I'm not really interested in the fussiness of the other two, but Final Verdict isn't just a passive - it does alter your AoE rotation, albeit slightly.
Death Knight:
Blood and Frost: I had to go with Defile. For anyone who did not raid during Wrath of the Lich King, Defile was an ability that Arthas could use that, if you didn't react in time, could wipe the raid in mere moments. Obviously the DK version is watered down a bit - really acting as a souped-up Death and Decay - but there's a nostalgia factor, plus the fact that it works its way into your single-target rotation and benefits from Frost's mastery.
Rogue:
Assassination: Shadow Reflection is pretty simple to just macro with Vendetta, as they have the same cooldown. I like to use it right before I put up Rupture, which hopefully means ticks beyond the duration of the guy. Unfortunately, when you're packed in with the melee, you don't often get to see your clone, but it's a nice little reminder that Rogues have a little bit of magic to them.
Mage:
Frost: Comet Swarm is really cool, and I've been using it. I wouldn't say I'm entirely happy with it, though. Frost is all about ability synergy, and as far as I can tell, Comet Swarm is just one big burst of damage that you can hit twice a minute. You also want to make sure you use it on a target that isn't going to move in the next couple seconds, as it's really targeted at the ground beneath them. Still, the visual and the fantasy of the ability are awesome. I'm hoping they'll tweak it to make it fit in with the other abilities better.
Warlock:
Demonology: Demonbolt is kind of fascinating, as it adds a button, but actually simplifies the spec. Basically, you now use your Molten Core procs immediately in order to build up Demonic Fury. When you cap out or get near the cap, you hit Demon Soul (and I think the glyph works well for this,) and then proceed to blast away four times with Demonbolt, which will do massive damage and put you down to only a hundred or so Fury. Then you just build up in order to do it again. I've been beasting with Demonology since hitting 100 - I'm one point shy of heroics but I can regularly do 10k DPS.
My warrior and shaman are on their way up to 100. I'm hoping to have the Warrior there soon (and I'll be trying Gladiator's Resolve,) and probably after the holidays I'll take the Monk, Hunter, Druid, and Priest up.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Spec in Review: Mage Frost (with Good Info For All Mages)
So I'll first come out and say I haven't actually leveled from 90 to 100 in this spec yet - I've only done that with a Ret Paladin and Frost DK (2H variety.) But I have played around a lot with my favorite Mage spec, and I'll try to get all the pertinent details. I would have done Frost DKs, but frankly, they play more or less as they did in Mists.
Ice Lance - a stronger movement filler
With Fire Blast gone, Ice Lance has become the new instant spell to cast while on the move (if you don't have a Brain Freeze proc.) Its damage has been doubled, but its bonus against frozen enemies has dropped from quadruple damage to merely double damage. Which means it will do the same damage it does now (relatively speaking, given the item squish) when used in its typical stationary rotational way.
Water Jet - Making the Elemental more interesting
One Draenor Perk we'll be getting will teach the Water Elemental a new trick. This is an ability called Water Jet, which as a cool down, and is a channeled spell that does a bit of Frost damage to the target, but any Frostbolt cast at the target will automatically get you a Fingers of Frost charge. You can set this ability to auto-cast, but I suspect it might be better to simply have it hot keyed (and with the ability squish, you'll have room to do so) and to use it strategically. In my experience, it seems to always come off cool down right when I've already got several procs. The channel only lasts a couple seconds, so you'll need to be quick to get the maximum benefit of it. Still, it's a nice bit of on-demand FoF procs for any dry spells.
Blizzard and Frozen Orb - Synergized!
Blizzard, once the iconic AoE spell of all AoE spells, has kind of fallen by the wayside, particularly since these days it seems that Arcane Explosion is the go-to AoE for all three specs. Well not anymore, because Arcane Explosion, Blizzard, and Flamestrike are now all spec-specific! (Which... I'm actually fine with.) The more interesting thing is that one of the Draenor perks you'll get will cause every time Blizzard hits a target to reduce the cool down on Frozen Orb by a second. The idea, I think, is that we'll be expected to use Frozen Orb often for AoE, and to fill the gaps with Blizzard (and probably some Glyph of Splitting Ice-enhanced Ice Lances.)
Mana Regen Tier - Practically Gone:
The only super annoying thing in Mists of Pandaria for Mages was the mana-regen talent tier. At level 90, you suddenly had to use some maintenancey thing to perform decently. Incanter's Ward had to be kept fairly weak to make the others viable, so you'd either have to set up Runes of Power or throw in an Evocation every minute for Invocation.
The level 90 tier has been drastically changed. The sole survivor is Rune of Power (actually my least favorite of these,) but the mana regen aspect of it has been removed, so it's purely a damage buff, meaning that it shouldn't be mandatory for Arcane anymore. Joining it at that level are two new talents. Incanter's Energy is a kind of interesting, though potentially weird and tricky talent. Essentially you'll have an ebb and flow of power, increasing your damage by up to 30%, but with the bonus dropping down to 0%, while most of the time it'll be at 15%. I suspect the idea will be to save your big procs (in the case of Frost, Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze) for when you hit that peak. Finally, Mirror Image becomes a talent. Now, it's perhaps a little upsetting to see this ability - one we've had since BC, as I recall - become a talent that locks us out of other stuff, but the good news is that it now becomes a real damage cool down, where previously the damage it dealt was sort of nominal. I think it down deals something like 1000% more damage.
The Mage Bombs - Consolidated:
Bad luck if you liked a cross-elemental mage bomb, but good luck if you didn't really like dealing with DOTs all that much as a Mage, and would much rather leave that to the Warlocks thank you very much. The "Mage Bomb" is just a single talent, and changes depending on spec. Frost Bomb has been reworked, though. Now it's a somewhat passive debuff that you place on an enemy, but every time you hit it with Ice Lance (which as you'll recall, now does more damage against non-frozen targets than it used to) the target will explode with lots of Frost Damage.
There are now two other AoE oriented talents. Unstable Magic is the simplest, auto-pilot talent. It causes your Frostbolts (also Fireballs and Arcane Blasts) to occasionally explode, hitting other nearby targets for 50% damage. The other talent affects Frost Nova, turning it into more of an offensive ability. Each spec gets an elemental-themed version that works in a different way, but Frost gets Ice Nova, which basically does more damage and is targeted against an enemy, and is not a self-oriented AoE. It also has two charges.
Talents at the Cap
The three level 100 talents at the cap are all quite different. The first allows Mages to extend the duration of their major cool downs. With Thermal Void (the frost variation,) you'll be able to extend Icy Veins by two seconds with every Ice Lance. Probably not enough to have you just spam Ice Lance forever, but with some luck, you'll probably get a bit more out of the cool down.
Prismatic Crystal is the really weird one of the bunch. Casting it on an enemy will summon a Prismatic Crystal at their feet and have you target it. Only you can target your crystal, but all damage you do to it will explode for 30% extra damage, split evenly between the targets you hit. On a single target fight, this will be a pretty straightforward 30% damage bonus (assuming the boss doesn't move) for the duration of the crystal, but on AoE fights, I wonder if it's worth it. Definitely something to play with, though.
The third talent of the tier is your "big round thing" talent. Frost gets Comet Swarm, which is an awesomely satisfying ability. It's an instant-cast spell on a 30 second cool down that summons seven comets to land on your target, dealing a bunch of damage split between any enemy within 4 yards. There's admittedly not a lot of interactivity on this one, but it just means that every 30 seconds you get to summon icy death from space against your enemies, which is pretty awesome.
Multi-Striking!
Frost is one of the handful of specs to get the attunement for the new stat, Multistrike. While we're seeing a few new stats like Versatility and Bonus Armor, Multistrike is really being worked out to be on par with Crit, Haste, and Mastery, and Frost will theoretically favor this one. Given how many instant-cast spells we have, it's actually probably an improvement over our current favored stat of Haste.
Stay Frosty:
I don't know what the latest numbers pass is on this - tuning is always a tricky thing, and it can change wildly over the course of an expansion. But gameplay-wise, I think Frost Mages are looking great. We seem to have gained some cool toys while retaining all our favorite ones (except Alter Time, which I liked, even if I think I'm alone in that.) And the things we've gotten rid of are generally well-rid. Being able to opt out of Mage Bombs and Mana Regeneration talents is a big plus for me. And hey, the center-stage hero of the expansion (other than you, which they really do hammer home, plot-wise) is Khadgar, who, despite the shameful loss of his wizard beard, is awesome (and I don't know who the voice actor is, but I love how everything he says has a kind of unfazed, good humor to it, especially as WoW is a game where just about everyone tends to sound angry and growly.)
Ice Lance - a stronger movement filler
With Fire Blast gone, Ice Lance has become the new instant spell to cast while on the move (if you don't have a Brain Freeze proc.) Its damage has been doubled, but its bonus against frozen enemies has dropped from quadruple damage to merely double damage. Which means it will do the same damage it does now (relatively speaking, given the item squish) when used in its typical stationary rotational way.
Water Jet - Making the Elemental more interesting
One Draenor Perk we'll be getting will teach the Water Elemental a new trick. This is an ability called Water Jet, which as a cool down, and is a channeled spell that does a bit of Frost damage to the target, but any Frostbolt cast at the target will automatically get you a Fingers of Frost charge. You can set this ability to auto-cast, but I suspect it might be better to simply have it hot keyed (and with the ability squish, you'll have room to do so) and to use it strategically. In my experience, it seems to always come off cool down right when I've already got several procs. The channel only lasts a couple seconds, so you'll need to be quick to get the maximum benefit of it. Still, it's a nice bit of on-demand FoF procs for any dry spells.
Blizzard and Frozen Orb - Synergized!
Blizzard, once the iconic AoE spell of all AoE spells, has kind of fallen by the wayside, particularly since these days it seems that Arcane Explosion is the go-to AoE for all three specs. Well not anymore, because Arcane Explosion, Blizzard, and Flamestrike are now all spec-specific! (Which... I'm actually fine with.) The more interesting thing is that one of the Draenor perks you'll get will cause every time Blizzard hits a target to reduce the cool down on Frozen Orb by a second. The idea, I think, is that we'll be expected to use Frozen Orb often for AoE, and to fill the gaps with Blizzard (and probably some Glyph of Splitting Ice-enhanced Ice Lances.)
Mana Regen Tier - Practically Gone:
The only super annoying thing in Mists of Pandaria for Mages was the mana-regen talent tier. At level 90, you suddenly had to use some maintenancey thing to perform decently. Incanter's Ward had to be kept fairly weak to make the others viable, so you'd either have to set up Runes of Power or throw in an Evocation every minute for Invocation.
The level 90 tier has been drastically changed. The sole survivor is Rune of Power (actually my least favorite of these,) but the mana regen aspect of it has been removed, so it's purely a damage buff, meaning that it shouldn't be mandatory for Arcane anymore. Joining it at that level are two new talents. Incanter's Energy is a kind of interesting, though potentially weird and tricky talent. Essentially you'll have an ebb and flow of power, increasing your damage by up to 30%, but with the bonus dropping down to 0%, while most of the time it'll be at 15%. I suspect the idea will be to save your big procs (in the case of Frost, Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze) for when you hit that peak. Finally, Mirror Image becomes a talent. Now, it's perhaps a little upsetting to see this ability - one we've had since BC, as I recall - become a talent that locks us out of other stuff, but the good news is that it now becomes a real damage cool down, where previously the damage it dealt was sort of nominal. I think it down deals something like 1000% more damage.
The Mage Bombs - Consolidated:
Bad luck if you liked a cross-elemental mage bomb, but good luck if you didn't really like dealing with DOTs all that much as a Mage, and would much rather leave that to the Warlocks thank you very much. The "Mage Bomb" is just a single talent, and changes depending on spec. Frost Bomb has been reworked, though. Now it's a somewhat passive debuff that you place on an enemy, but every time you hit it with Ice Lance (which as you'll recall, now does more damage against non-frozen targets than it used to) the target will explode with lots of Frost Damage.
There are now two other AoE oriented talents. Unstable Magic is the simplest, auto-pilot talent. It causes your Frostbolts (also Fireballs and Arcane Blasts) to occasionally explode, hitting other nearby targets for 50% damage. The other talent affects Frost Nova, turning it into more of an offensive ability. Each spec gets an elemental-themed version that works in a different way, but Frost gets Ice Nova, which basically does more damage and is targeted against an enemy, and is not a self-oriented AoE. It also has two charges.
Talents at the Cap
The three level 100 talents at the cap are all quite different. The first allows Mages to extend the duration of their major cool downs. With Thermal Void (the frost variation,) you'll be able to extend Icy Veins by two seconds with every Ice Lance. Probably not enough to have you just spam Ice Lance forever, but with some luck, you'll probably get a bit more out of the cool down.
Prismatic Crystal is the really weird one of the bunch. Casting it on an enemy will summon a Prismatic Crystal at their feet and have you target it. Only you can target your crystal, but all damage you do to it will explode for 30% extra damage, split evenly between the targets you hit. On a single target fight, this will be a pretty straightforward 30% damage bonus (assuming the boss doesn't move) for the duration of the crystal, but on AoE fights, I wonder if it's worth it. Definitely something to play with, though.
The third talent of the tier is your "big round thing" talent. Frost gets Comet Swarm, which is an awesomely satisfying ability. It's an instant-cast spell on a 30 second cool down that summons seven comets to land on your target, dealing a bunch of damage split between any enemy within 4 yards. There's admittedly not a lot of interactivity on this one, but it just means that every 30 seconds you get to summon icy death from space against your enemies, which is pretty awesome.
Multi-Striking!
Frost is one of the handful of specs to get the attunement for the new stat, Multistrike. While we're seeing a few new stats like Versatility and Bonus Armor, Multistrike is really being worked out to be on par with Crit, Haste, and Mastery, and Frost will theoretically favor this one. Given how many instant-cast spells we have, it's actually probably an improvement over our current favored stat of Haste.
Stay Frosty:
I don't know what the latest numbers pass is on this - tuning is always a tricky thing, and it can change wildly over the course of an expansion. But gameplay-wise, I think Frost Mages are looking great. We seem to have gained some cool toys while retaining all our favorite ones (except Alter Time, which I liked, even if I think I'm alone in that.) And the things we've gotten rid of are generally well-rid. Being able to opt out of Mage Bombs and Mana Regeneration talents is a big plus for me. And hey, the center-stage hero of the expansion (other than you, which they really do hammer home, plot-wise) is Khadgar, who, despite the shameful loss of his wizard beard, is awesome (and I don't know who the voice actor is, but I love how everything he says has a kind of unfazed, good humor to it, especially as WoW is a game where just about everyone tends to sound angry and growly.)
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Evocation, Bombs, and AoE: Mage Concerns for Warlords and Beyond
I'm still not sure that I'm going to be doing an eleven-part series (having only played Shadow for Priests, I don't really feel like I can talk intelligently about the general issues of the class) but I thought I'd talk a bit about Mages.
I'm a big fan of Mages. I've never really played one as a main, and I've never really focused on one all that much, but I love the Mage aesthetic, I like their fast-paced, reactive gameplay, and I just overall think they're a cool class.
So what's going on with Mages these days? What might we hope to improve in the coming expansion?
The "Evocation" Talent Tier:
This is probably going to be at the top of everyone's list for what they want to see change. The tier 90 talents all pretty much conspired to make Mages less fun than they had been. Invocation requires you to use your Evocation ability every minute, and meanwhile nerfs your mana regeneration (making it unthinkable for Arcane.) Rune of Power also forces you to use it at least once a minute, but probably far more, as you have to stay close to the rune or you'll lose the benefit. Incanter's Ward could theoretically be the "opt-out" option, but the general consensus is that the Ward is really only competitive if you're able to benefit from the active bonus on cool down (which means the passive might as well not be there.)
While I usually try to avoid baby and bathwater situations, I think that this tier has basically got to go. Total redesign. Granted, perhaps Incanter's Ward could survive in some altered form, but I don't think anyone's excited about the idea of having to place Runes on the ground or having to Evocate every minute.
Mage Bombs:
Before Mists, Arcane and Frost were two of the last DoT-less specs. Today, I don't think there's a single spec (tank or DPS) that does not put some kind of damage-over-time effect on their enemies (actually, Prot Paladins might count, if you don't consider Consecrate to be one.) Fire was always the "DoT" Mage spec.
Is this a terrible thing? Perhaps not, but I think it would be nice to distinguish Mages from their Fel counterparts by making it clear that they are the direct-damage class, and Warlocks are the DoT class.
Admittedly, Frost Bomb is almost not a DoT. It only ticks once, so perhaps this is the "opt-out" choice.
The consequence of a Mage Bomb is actually not so much the DoT itself, but the effect that it has on AoE. Nowadays, the preferred method of AoE for Warlocks, Shadow Priests, and Balance Druids is multi-dotting. You switch from target to target, refreshing your damage effects so that they can tick away. It's probably ok for a few specs to do that, but Mages really seem like they should be exempt. The good news is that a recent blue post mentioned that they don't want Mages multi-dotting in Warlords, so I'm curious to see their solution.
Area of Effect per Spec:
It seems odd to me that each spec has access to three different true AoE spells that don't really overlap much. It seems to me that limiting Arcane Explosion, Blizzard, and Flamestrike to their obvious specs would be a nice step toward toolkit consolidation (and has the added appeal of not truly getting rid of any spells that people might be attached to.)
But in the absence of Multi-dotting, there's an obligation to make these spells a bit more interesting.
Here are some ideas:
Blizzard already seems like it should work pretty well with Frost. The slowing effect of the spell can trigger Fingers of Frost, and with the Glyph of Splitting Ice, you can get some decent cleave action with it. I'd like to see this synergy played up, perhaps using some kind of effect that Blizzard creates that will cause the Ice Lance to shatter and cause AoE damage.
Arcane Explosion has some interaction with Arcane Charges, so perhaps just having you spam it a bit and then let loose a big, cleaving Arcane Barrage would be a good enough system. My one qualm with Arcane Explosion has always been that you have to get in melee range for it. If I could change the spell, I'd make it targeted (perhaps one you could target friends or foes with, like Mind Sear - actually, same for Hellfire.)
Flamestrike has always been the most awkward of these spells, but the fact that you cast it and then do other stuff could position it in such a way that you'd lay down a Flamestrike and then spread out DoTs with an Inferno Blast.
Alter Time:
Alter Time is an ability that many find incredibly frustrating. Personally, I love it (half of why is that anything time-travel themed makes me feel like I'm six again, the other half being that it's pretty obvious how to use it for Frost - hit Icy Veins and Frozen Orb, and once you get a Brain Freeze and two Fingers of Frost, let'er rip.)
I hope that it is mostly preserved, and given that Temporal Shield already provides much of the Defensive benefit, perhaps it could be used more to preserve beneficial procs, making it a more obviously offensive cool down.
I'm a big fan of Mages. I've never really played one as a main, and I've never really focused on one all that much, but I love the Mage aesthetic, I like their fast-paced, reactive gameplay, and I just overall think they're a cool class.
So what's going on with Mages these days? What might we hope to improve in the coming expansion?
The "Evocation" Talent Tier:
This is probably going to be at the top of everyone's list for what they want to see change. The tier 90 talents all pretty much conspired to make Mages less fun than they had been. Invocation requires you to use your Evocation ability every minute, and meanwhile nerfs your mana regeneration (making it unthinkable for Arcane.) Rune of Power also forces you to use it at least once a minute, but probably far more, as you have to stay close to the rune or you'll lose the benefit. Incanter's Ward could theoretically be the "opt-out" option, but the general consensus is that the Ward is really only competitive if you're able to benefit from the active bonus on cool down (which means the passive might as well not be there.)
While I usually try to avoid baby and bathwater situations, I think that this tier has basically got to go. Total redesign. Granted, perhaps Incanter's Ward could survive in some altered form, but I don't think anyone's excited about the idea of having to place Runes on the ground or having to Evocate every minute.
Mage Bombs:
Before Mists, Arcane and Frost were two of the last DoT-less specs. Today, I don't think there's a single spec (tank or DPS) that does not put some kind of damage-over-time effect on their enemies (actually, Prot Paladins might count, if you don't consider Consecrate to be one.) Fire was always the "DoT" Mage spec.
Is this a terrible thing? Perhaps not, but I think it would be nice to distinguish Mages from their Fel counterparts by making it clear that they are the direct-damage class, and Warlocks are the DoT class.
Admittedly, Frost Bomb is almost not a DoT. It only ticks once, so perhaps this is the "opt-out" choice.
The consequence of a Mage Bomb is actually not so much the DoT itself, but the effect that it has on AoE. Nowadays, the preferred method of AoE for Warlocks, Shadow Priests, and Balance Druids is multi-dotting. You switch from target to target, refreshing your damage effects so that they can tick away. It's probably ok for a few specs to do that, but Mages really seem like they should be exempt. The good news is that a recent blue post mentioned that they don't want Mages multi-dotting in Warlords, so I'm curious to see their solution.
Area of Effect per Spec:
It seems odd to me that each spec has access to three different true AoE spells that don't really overlap much. It seems to me that limiting Arcane Explosion, Blizzard, and Flamestrike to their obvious specs would be a nice step toward toolkit consolidation (and has the added appeal of not truly getting rid of any spells that people might be attached to.)
But in the absence of Multi-dotting, there's an obligation to make these spells a bit more interesting.
Here are some ideas:
Blizzard already seems like it should work pretty well with Frost. The slowing effect of the spell can trigger Fingers of Frost, and with the Glyph of Splitting Ice, you can get some decent cleave action with it. I'd like to see this synergy played up, perhaps using some kind of effect that Blizzard creates that will cause the Ice Lance to shatter and cause AoE damage.
Arcane Explosion has some interaction with Arcane Charges, so perhaps just having you spam it a bit and then let loose a big, cleaving Arcane Barrage would be a good enough system. My one qualm with Arcane Explosion has always been that you have to get in melee range for it. If I could change the spell, I'd make it targeted (perhaps one you could target friends or foes with, like Mind Sear - actually, same for Hellfire.)
Flamestrike has always been the most awkward of these spells, but the fact that you cast it and then do other stuff could position it in such a way that you'd lay down a Flamestrike and then spread out DoTs with an Inferno Blast.
Alter Time:
Alter Time is an ability that many find incredibly frustrating. Personally, I love it (half of why is that anything time-travel themed makes me feel like I'm six again, the other half being that it's pretty obvious how to use it for Frost - hit Icy Veins and Frozen Orb, and once you get a Brain Freeze and two Fingers of Frost, let'er rip.)
I hope that it is mostly preserved, and given that Temporal Shield already provides much of the Defensive benefit, perhaps it could be used more to preserve beneficial procs, making it a more obviously offensive cool down.
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