New Blue Post Regarding Fire Mages in WotLKFollow

Living Bomg will have its uses in PVP I agree..i am really not a fan of PVP, but I understand the need for the gear and even in some raid fights and instances pvp gear is better. That being said a mages weakness in pvp is most rogues,warriors, and getting swarmed. Living bomb will now help you fight them. While they stun lock you and beat the **** out of you said rogue and warrior get to take damage and in the end take a nice chunk...and hopefully with a few nice ae spells or instant spells they die. I honestly think Mages are gonna see alot of nice changes..call me crazy, but I enjoy playing my mage.

Based on the talent trees, I'd be surprised to see a sac spec being top damage, to be honest. Personally, I'm thinking that we'll see Imps out there kicking butt a whole lot more often than we do now.

And with Demonic Pact, I see Demo warlocks w/ Felguards being used in raids a lot more often too.

Edited, Aug 8th 2008 11:39pm by Poldaran

There was a blue post (can't find the link anymore) where they actually admitted to have overdone it with Warlock damage due to the stacking % buffs (sac, 4T6, SP etc.) and SoC triggering in raids. Judging by what they are saying now, they do see that mage damage should be close to a Warlocks, or even slightly above. Reasons are comparative raid utility (amount of buffs/debuffs, gstones, soulstones etc.) and survivability (mostly HP). Look at the changes to Scorch and Winter's Chill for raid utility.

They do intend for Warlocks to function best with a pet, hence the improvements to them.

And the post above clearly points to high single-target AND AoE DPS. They can still do a lot with spell coefficients to fine tune relative DPS.

Also, Living Bomb will work on bosses (minus the knock-up) to increase single-target DPS. Since it's now targeted, it does trigger GCD.

AoE would probably look like this (no haste): LB, DB, (instant) FS, BW, AE, AE, AE, AE, LB, AE, mixing in LB, DB, FS and BW every CD.

Anyone else hearing it sound like the Oboards in here?

I'm gonna be honest, I come here because this place isn't the Oboards. I love that we have an environment filled with levelheaded people who don't threaten to quit the game or reroll every time they feel slighted by the game's developers. It hasn't been like that the last few weeks. There has been a lot of "doom and gloom ZOMG WE'RE TOO WEAK /gamequit" kind of talk around here, and I know I for one am tired of it. So I'm going to do something about it within the rules of the forum.

From here on out, whenever someone talks as though the devs are out to get them, that's a technical foulratedown.

Sure, we all get disheartened. But there's no need to overreact. Not here. Not on my watch. Not while I can still do something, no matter how minor, about it.

Along those lines....dusted off my 60 mage last night to try to get him to 70 for the xpac. Ran Ramps. Now it's not BT or anything, but it reminded me -- god, mages are fun. So what if they don't scale as well as locks in T5. Sheeping, counterspelling, throwing flaming death, saving the healer multiple times by nova'ing or kiting away from him mobs he aggro'd.... I wonder too what Blizz is doing sometimes but we should all relax and enjoy the class while we wait.

Edited, Aug 12th 2008 1:23pm by tuskerdu

Job Title: Mage
Job Category: DPS

World of Warcraft, Inc. is actively seeking highly skilled individuals for a unique adventuring experience. This requisition is for the job title MAGE, a class with heavy DPS and raid/group utility.

The successful Mage candidate will possess the ability to hurl highly potent magical spells at aggressive monsters in a highly dynamic and ambiguous environment. Intellectual horsepower, the ability to deal with ambiguity, and a drive for results are highly desired traits.

Job Duties:

The successful Mage candidate will be responsible for the following activities:

1. Waylay aggressive monsters with powerful spells, both individually and en masse. Attention to detail, particularly to threat meters, is critical. The ability to become Invisible is particularly helpful in reducing likelihood of death and dismemberment.
2. Handle "difficult" monsters by way of crowd control, snare, or rooting abilities. Again, dealing with ambiguous situations is common practice.
3. Provide powerful buffs to team members by way of imbuing additional intellect, magical dampening and/or amplification, and provision of catering services. Also provide additional buffs through use of previously mentioned damaging spells.
4. Interrupt monsters or individuals who wish to do harm to you, your group, or your raid.
5. Occasional use of familiars for additional damage infliction on those tough-to-get-out stains (based on spec, see manager for details).

Role Requirements:

The successful Mage must be able to perform the following:

1. Handle multiple targets successfully, either through kiting, crowd control or pure awesomeness.
2. Lift more than 50 pounds on occasion (that's your computer going to your friend's house for LAN parties).
3. Frequent use of a computer. Ergonomic devices for mitigation are the responsibility of the candidate.
4. Heavy alcohol consumption is allowed, but must conform to the rules and by-laws of the specific guild organization that the mage joins, and must not interfere with the Job Duties. Eating beforehand is highly encouraged.

World of Warcraft, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and has a diverse team to accomplish it's goals of world domination.

People still do this these days.... stop using the game manual as a basis of asking for a buff and to nerf the other classes. Its outdated and in many cases irrelevant. It did not mention at that time that you will be only useful with one spec in MC (frost), that PoM-Pyro will be called the 3 min mage spec. It also never mentioned that you need to use 3 talent points to make arcane explosion an instant. Without it no one would take you for groups.

You want to quit game or reroll Warlock? Go right on ahead, I encourage you to. Remember how you ate warriors for breakfast most of the time? Prepare to be breakfast. Every class has its problems, sure Metamorphosis sounds fun and cool but its a demonology spec that lacks the fire power and lasting power of destruction or affliction. The current talent trees are filled with talents that make you sacrifice something to get something. At the very least, we are still given some form of versatility. It does get depressing at times, but given the recent movements on Blizzard's part they are really looking at normalizing us with some vision in mind. Some of their decisions taken at TBC proved to have backfired (Kalgan:Jaw dropping mage dps) and some proved to be too powerful in PvE (SoC pwns all). The lack syngery is now finally being looked at and is being addressed from other classes as well. We cried for synergy for as long as I recall and now we are getting it. In the time when I play WotLK and top a dps meter, I want to know its because I did it with my playing ability and not because my class had overblown spells.

You make the assumption that "rational arguments" are more persuasive than emotional ones. Clearly they are for you, and btw for me as well. However that is not true for all. Ok - so what purpose is served by attempting to focus player attention on the plight of the mage in WoW? Especially in a non-official board. I offer you three points.

1: no QQ intended blizzard has consistently diminished the raid utility of the mage since before the introduction of BC. I contend that this reflects not a misunderstanding of mages, but a desire to get a more even distribution of active classes in the player community. If you look at the census data mages have gone from the second most popular class to fifth at the expense of classes that have been treated more favorably.

2. There is a natural human tendency to equate any favorable comment toward the class that they play as a move toward a solution. In fact most of the blue posts reflect an attitude of throwing us a bone rather than acknowledging the very real problems that they (blizzard) have created for out class. Further it shows a strong resistance to fixing the fundamental problems in PvE class balance.

3. Rewriting the contract (ie: the manual) is only fair if BOTH parties agree to the new deal. Blizzard's comments, IMO, make it clear that they feel that they are free to alter the class purpose with the sole justification of their now stated original intent. I find that unacceptable.

Based on the above points I think that it is reasonable to operate on the premise that no amount of math or rational discussion between the mage player community and the developers will get them to "fix" the mage class. They fully understand what the consequences of their decisions are and at the moment are proceeding along a path that I feel is bad for this class. Therefore the ONLY lever we have left is to appeal to the players of this class on EVERY level that is likely to get them to see what is going on. Get them aroused and to put pressure on Blizzard as a group. Because the decisions about what will happen to our class is driven by the simple concern of how many subscriptions will be gained of lost.

Feel free to rate me down. I have few posts here and it won't take long to get me unseen. But my opinions and views are at least as well grounded as yours. My motivation is far more complex than simply wasting your or anyone's time b*tching. For those of us who love end game, we need to mutually recognize the issues with our class and then speak with a coherent voice to get it fixed. Making that happen now BEFORE WotLK arrives is my goal. No more, no less.

Edited, Aug 13th 2008 8:22am by MrFredII

You are essentially suggesting that a business does not act rationally, and will not act in it's best interest. That alone should dismiss your argument. The only people who do not accept rational arguments over emotional ones are A) children or B) psychologically imbalanced. As a parent, I deal with the former as parents should, with correction and the word "no". With the latter, well I don't associate with many crazy people, and that's probably just as well.



This is a fallacy. Blizzard has the right to do as they please with the game, just as you have the right to cancel your subscription. Their actions and your actions are not hinged on one another. You are relying on information that is almost four years old and trying to use it as an ironclad contract, when it is nothing of the sort. Back then ignites rolled, spirit had a "purpose" and people were still of the opinion that "of the eagle" gear was the best thing in the history of the world. Remember what our trees looked like pre-1.11? Here, let me show you.

Times change. Accept your situation or leave it.



And that's just it, isn't it? You feel like this is bad for the class, yet you have no information of what the raid encounters in WotLK are going to be like. They have full information and you do not. If an entity has all information available, and has divergent paths that will lead to success or failure, do you honestly think that that entity will choose failure? Lemmings aside, the answer is clearly no.



Again, this is wrong. Blizzard has never been in the business of making people "happy". They have always been in the business of making games that are well designed and polished. Subscriptions come and go, but good game design makes money.

If you are truly wanting to QQ, do so on the O-boards. That's where Blizzard spends most of it's time looking for feedback. If you honestly feel that Whining With One Voice will affect class change, then compartmentalize it to the official forums. Leave the Alla forums, EJ, and other bastions of constructive, measured discussion alone.

At its base it comes down to a player's motivation to play a mage. As is no doubt clear from my various comments, I signed up for the "glass cannon" role. After the arrival of tBC, that role was pretty much made impossible. Since then there has been a search for the new mage role in raiding. With the mage's lack of survivability comparable DPS isn't going to cut it. As raiders we min/max to maximize what we can contribute to a raid. In the case of mages to date that has been DPS. Raid leaders min/max special skills, tanking, healing, and DPS across the raid. Thus the various classes that can fill a role complete against each other for a raid slot. Since a dead player can not contribute anything to the raid, survivability factors into this calculation. Also special abilities, or raid wide buffs or target debuffs, lumped under the term utility, make some classes, or combination of classes, more desirable than others. The reality is that at this point mages have lost the DPS race, have the least utility, and the worst survivability.

Will the WotLK changes fix this? Have we seen comments from the devs on the Beta forums that reflect that they understand this?

Some of the comments and changes are favorable. However, I suggest that you read the beta discussion forums for our class. There are comprehensive and detail explanations of the basic reasons why, unless the class undergoes a comprehensive redesign, it cannot equal the utility of the classes against which it must complete for raid slots. Further in the AoE trade off, more classes are getting AoE. These classes are superior to mages in utility and survivability. Lets assume that WotLK instance design make AoE much more important. The raid leaders decision will likely not be based on which classes AoE is best, rather it will be based on which class mix bring the most overall capability and enough AoE to get the job done. For "king of AoE' to secure us a raid slot either it must be an adjunct benefit that we provide at NO sacrifice to our single target DPS (which itself need boosting), or it must be so much more powerful than other classes AoE that it makes up for the other areas in which our class is lacking. I offer you the observation that it seems impossible to give a class that kind of AoE damage and not completely unbalance PvP. While I care little about PvP Blizzard and a large vocal player base does. Such a change is highly unlikely.

Back to the motivation to play a mage. I offer you this observation. While there are a variety of reasons that a player selects a class, it is unlikely that the majority of players, at least raid focused players, picked the mage class because they were seeking a utility role. I submit that most of us picked mages because we liked blasting things with the frost, fire, or arcane spell of our choice.

Our ability to continue to play a mage in end game is dependent on a class vs class balance that makes mages THE choice for 2/3 slots in a 25 man raid and 1 slot in a 10 man raid. Blizzard's stated goal of homogeneity of classes for roles makes this even more difficult. If hunters, mages, warlocks, death knights, etc can all fill the ranged DPS role equally well, why would a raid leader bring more one member of the classes with less utility or survivability? Why indeed bring more than one of the class which has the least of both?

These points have all been made in great detail in the beta forums. Some comments from the devs seem to acknowledge these points only to be followed by comments that either deny them or seem to reflect a lack of understanding. I too am passionate about this game and this class. My post that set off this side thread was a reaction a comment that, to my mind, continues to reflect either a lack of understanding or concern for my chosen class.

Im only SSC/TK with 1 Hyjal boss down, but if the healers dont get to you with 85-9000 health raid buffed from the AE's I havent found that another 2k as being a warlock will help. Not to mention that that 2k could easily have just been taken away to make mana and thus leaving them at our health.

Ill take Ice block over 2k more health any day so I agree with the raid survivability being a moot point. I mean cmon, if we are to take a hit from a raid boss aside from the tank (likely a failed attempt at this point) and possibly a fury warrior, we are the least squishy DPS. Ice block > 400% armor boomkin. AE damage just get some good healers and bandaids=P.

Again, im not BT/sunwell so I can not attest to the survivability issues present there.

I see no reason to. Not yet. I will be following them closely once level 80 and Naxx are unlocked. As of yet, we have only partially complete stories of what'll be going on, and I don't like to get myself worked up over something that I can't make a completely informed decision on, so I really don't see the point.