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Q u o t e:


Wait, GC, did you really make this change but not lower the base damage of Arcane Barrage? It is already ridiculously powerful in PvP, now if we let an arcane mage get off a single cast, it'll do 30% more, and stack with Arcane Power?

This is pretty ridiculously overpowered.

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As a practical matter, how often is a mage in pvp going to get off an arcane blast?

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Q u o t e:


I don't want to turn this into a hunter thread. I also want to suggest that you don't need to dress up a legit question inside of so many accusations of conficts of interest or whatever. I generally don't like to reward questions or statements with this tone with a blue response. However, this is a concern I want to try to address so I'll make an exception.

Our (the class and item designers) primary concern is with the game design, not with public relations. We don't approach the classes as a parent might approch their children, making sure that everyone gets the same number of gifts under the tree or whatever. Instead we have a list of concerns that we work our way down. One concern was "Man, hunter dps seems really high in PvE." Another was "Arcane just isn't viable in PvE." We bump things up and down on the list for various reasons, and a lot of it has to do with what other tasks or projects we are working on at the moment. Some are trivial changes and some are quite complicated and require code. You learn very quickly working on WoW that you can't fix everything at once. It's a gigantic game. The best you can do is triage, or just slowly start working your way through the list. We are our own biggest critics and we always think there are things we can improve.

You should not interpet the order in which changes come out to mean all that much. We do try to address "pressing" or "critical" problems faster, but which issues those are varies wildly depending on which class you ask.

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Well hey maybe you can wake up from the lala land dream that you're in and realize that "Man, Rogue dps is pretty HORRIBLE right now outside of the HAT bug."

Do we need to drive over to California and pinch you out of this dream that you're in?

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Q u o t e:
I'm not sure what that has to do with my question. Again, I want more damage to come from the stacking buff, and less from the base ABarr damage. This has nothing to do with PvE DPS, you can maintain the same numbers while nerfing ABarr's base damage.

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But then Barrage would no longer be used in PvE. This is why Blast was nerfed to begin with; people used it exclusively. If Barrage were to be nerfed in damage, it would no longer be worth the opportunity cost of a GCD. I suspect non-MB Missiles will become the preferred Blast filler.

Not that I disagree that Barrage is too good, even in its current state, for PvP but I don't think you fully grasp the PvE implications it would have if it were nerfed.

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Q u o t e:


Spamming arcane barrage over and over = skill.

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I didn't say it was "skill."

I said having to cast Arcane Blast as a requirement for Arcane Barrage to do any noticable damage would be lame.

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Q u o t e:


The best you can do is triage, or just slowly start working your way through the list. We are our own biggest critics and we always think there are things we can improve.

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GC,
We mages have 2 specs that work. Both Frost and Frostfire specs put our dps way above rogues.
I still don't see why you fix arcane before fixing rogues.

While you're here GC, what do you and the design team think about in terms of frost PvE DPS and fire PVP? Is it about where you want it? To low? high?

I've been playing a mix of frost, fire and FFB (in PvE), and I feel like frost has big issues in PvE DPS. With the changes to arcane, frost may very well be worse than arcane with the changes while not losing much as an exceptional PvP spec. In addition, fire has big issues with PvP. Considering arcane does both so well (assuming the changes make PvE DPS competitive), are you all considering taking a look at frost and fire to make sure they also remain competitive in both areas of the game respectively? Do you see what I'm getting at?

1) Arcane Blast damage buff should only work with AB & AM. There's already a worry that arcane is to powerfull in PvP.

2) I HATE Tormat the Weak. Any time you have a talent like this that increases damage by a huge percentage. Blizzard needs to take that into account when balancing. Making it a [i]must have[/i] talent.

3) Arcane Mages are still the only mages with a use for Spirit and we're not even going to need that spirit with the suggested evocation changes.
***Suggestions***
A) Drop the new elemental precision to tier 1 in the frost tree.
B) Change Arcane Focus to a ability that actually uses Spirit. Examples: More mana, +spell damage, +spell haste, +spell crit, etc.

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Q u o t e:


GC,
We mages have 2 specs that work. Both Frost and Frostfire specs put our dps way above rogues.
I still don't see why you fix arcane before fixing rogues.

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Ayrton is spot on. GC why do you keep playing hide and seek? Man up and give us a concrete answer.

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Q u o t e:


It actually does affect raiding mages and benefits competitive warlocks more than they realize. There was a bug where a Frosfire mage was actually double-dipping by getting 3% hit from frost AND fire or 6% total. With the change, it is always 3%.

Arcane will technically be able to get 6% but they need it.

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Great! Now lets hear how this helps Elemental Shaman.

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Q u o t e:


It actually does affect raiding mages and benefits competitive warlocks more than they realize. There was a bug where a Frosfire mage was actually double-dipping by getting 3% hit from frost AND fire or 6% total. With the change, it is always 3%.

Arcane will technically be able to get 6% but they need it.

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Damn. We were hoping you wouldn't notice :)

GC ; quick question.. Threat..

Little story..

Ran Nexus a few times (with a hunter) For reference, (because i know this matters) He was lvl 74 at the time and I, lvl 78 at the time. Obviously, I have at least a spell ranks power on him (and am a solid 4 levels above the dungeon cap) , but I found it extremely frustrating in trash and boss fights because I literally would have to wait till a mobs health (trash pulls) was clipping 60% before landing ANY damage without pulling aggro. (My hunter friend seemed to stand there with impunity and nont afraid of the Agrro at all, plinking away. (I know this is't a hunter thread sry,)

Anyways, my question... how do you guys do threat assessment for the Magus?? I mean, I assume our threat is pretty high as a design because of our over all damage potential, and one time burst damage.
But I was pulling aggro even without critting. Now admit, I'm not a min/maxer, and there are lots of things that I simply can't even comprehend about threat calculation.

On an aside my gut reaction to hunter DPS was to up their threat generation.. like us, this is what (in my eyes) is the limiting factor in keeping Magus from completely running away from other DPS classes on Raids.

I guess (sorry for the convoluted post) I'd just like to understand how you guys approach that particular mechanic in regards to a classes DPS. Should I expect the same sort of aggro gain in my 80 heroics, or is this simply anomalous to the situation I'm currently in alone?

Thx!

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Q u o t e:


I don't want to turn this into a hunter thread. I also want to suggest that you don't need to dress up a legit question inside of so many accusations of conficts of interest or whatever. I generally don't like to reward questions or statements with this tone with a blue response. However, this is a concern I want to try to address so I'll make an exception.

Our (the class and item designers) primary concern is with the game design, not with public relations. We don't approach the classes as a parent might approch their children, making sure that everyone gets the same number of gifts under the tree or whatever. Instead we have a list of concerns that we work our way down. One concern was "Man, hunter dps seems really high in PvE." Another was "Arcane just isn't viable in PvE." We bump things up and down on the list for various reasons, and a lot of it has to do with what other tasks or projects we are working on at the moment. Some are trivial changes and some are quite complicated and require code. You learn very quickly working on WoW that you can't fix everything at once. It's a gigantic game. The best you can do is triage, or just slowly start working your way through the list. We are our own biggest critics and we always think there are things we can improve.

You should not interpet the order in which changes come out to mean all that much. We do try to address "pressing" or "critical" problems faster, but which issues those are varies wildly depending on which class you ask.

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Can you blame a hunter or a lock for asking these questions? People will call the situation on how it emerges. Its extremely curious and rather amusing that mages now have 2! PVP tree's to play around with where as locks/hunters struggle to even basically hold on in PVP. The burst potential of arcane has just been sent soaring through the roof.

The perceived equality among classes just does not seem to be visible here. Pretty much all your focus is on buffing mages. This is not a new development . Patch 2.3 onwards has been one mage buff or the other.
In such a light don't the remaining classes have a basic right to at least try and get a feel of where it is the direction of their class is headed?

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Q u o t e:
The buffs here are designed primarily to make Arcane more competitive with Fire / Frostfire builds in PvE. Because they could end up buffing Arcane in PvP, we are prepared to adjust the damage of say Arcane Barrage if needed, but we want to see these in action on the PTR first.

Mage PvE damage in general is something we are keeping a close eye on. With the recent hunter changes, many of which were nerfs to PvE damage, we want to make sure mages now don’t break away from the pack of damage-dealing specs.

1) Evocation – cooldown reduced to 4 min.
2) Arcane Flows – now also reduces the cooldown of Evocation by an additional 1 / 2 min.
3) Arcane Blast – overhauled. Will now increase the damage of your next Arcane spell by 15%. However using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge, but instead increases the mana of your next Arcane Blast, up to a maximum of 3 stacks (and a 45% buff). You can alternate Blast and Barrage to keep buffing Barrage, or you can build Blast up higher for a heavy mana cost.
4) Torment the Weak – now works with Arcane Blast and does bonus damage to targets afflicted by any kind of slowing effect (e.g. Thunder Clap).
5) Elemental Precision – renamed Precision and now works on all spells.
6) Improved Blizzard – snaring effect reduced to 20/40/50%.

EDIT: We recently made the Arcane Blast stack 15/30/45% to your next Arcane spell.

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Making arcane mages channel for 8 seconds every 2 minutes isnt a great fix for thier mana management problems, since it is a dps loss. but its better than wanding.

Torment changes are very good, should be pushed higher up the tree, or you're basically giving 12% more damage to a lot of mage specs, not just arcane.

I dont like the blast plans. This will allow you to ramp up an even more powerful burst attack if you can get off a spell in pvp, and 15% boost to Abr wont bring arcane back up to frostfire levels. Stacking may have merit, its hard to tell without getting my hands on it in ptr.

The base damage of the spell, ie how good it is without any stack needs to be as good as fireball, if not better, to be competative with a deep fire build. Considering the stack will fall off any time you cant stand still and chaincast.

-Moon

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Q u o t e:
Affix, as I mentioned we'll have to keep a close eye on Arcane Barrage. We didn't think Arcane's dps would be competitive with Frostfire if we nerfed Arcane Barrage. It may be challenging in PvP to get the stacks up high enough (the buff can be dispelled). The risk that IF the mage gets enough stacks, then there is a BIG BIG BIG Arcane Barrage coming. Totally valid concern.

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Is this some kind of confirmation that you intend for Frostfire to be the dominant PvE spec? Here's some numbers for you:

With the best-in-slot items available, in an ideal 25-man raid (and it's not hard to get an ideal composition, you're always going to have at least one warlock, or one shaman, or one boomkin, or something to give the buffs you need)... Frostfire spec (0.53.18) is putting out well over 5800 DPS. This number increases even more when you take into account the 10% frost damage buff from Rune of Razor Ice. And this is just average. This isn't accounting for things like freak RNG where crit rate is 70% and you end up with 6500-6600+ DPS.

The best that a Fireball build can get (18.53.0) is around 5200 DPS. And they don't have any 10% extra buff from DKs to inflate that even more. Frost and Arcane (before these changes, anyway, we'll see) aren't even worth mentioning.

Why is it that Frostfire Bolt is essentially Fireball rank 17? Think about it:

For Fireball 15.83.0 spec to be competitive to Frostfire, you need to have the 12% damage bonus from Torment the Weak. Your comment on it does not say that bosses can now be afflicted by slowing effects that were previously unafflicted by it. It says it affects targets that are normally afflicted by it. I take this to mean that we're still left with the "Slow" spell as the only means to apply a snare effect to a boss, thereby providing the 12% damage bonus.

And even with the 12% bonus damage to Fireball from Torment the Weak, you'd have to take 3 points out of Arcane Medition (30% in combat regen) to put them in there. Fireball builds are already hurting for mana, where Frostfire has no mana concerns whatsoever. The spell costs significantly less than Fireball, and you get another 10% less cost from Frost Channeling.

It's awesome that you're addressing Arcane tree. But to say that you want to buff arcane to bring it "in line" with Frostfire worries me. Frostfire bolt is so far ahead of every other spec, and substantially further ahead when freak crit streaks occur, that it's not a fair comparison. If you were buffing arcane to bring it in line with Fireball build, then yes, that would be cool. And then if you were addressing Frostfire, that would be even better.

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Q u o t e:


I'm not sure what that has to do with my question. Again, I want more damage to come from the stacking buff, and less from the base ABarr damage. This has nothing to do with PvE DPS, you can maintain the same numbers while nerfing ABarr's base damage.

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With the buffs GC described, the stacking buff is much more significant.

Currently on live, there's no reason to ever stack the buff. Doing so creates no noticeable increase to dps and vastly reduces mana efficiency.

With the new buffs it might well be worth it to stack the buff. For instance in PVE:

AB --> AB --> ABar --> repeat. The ABar hits 30% harder because of the stacked buff so the stack is very worthwhile. If mana permits you might even try 3xAB. Its a huge loss of mana efficiency and could only be sustained for short periods of time, but on the upside 2-minute evocates should help quite a bit.

Need a more mana-efficient rotation? Switch to AB --> ABar --> repeat. This rotation is similar to what arcane mages on live now use, though the 15% extra damage to arcane barrage is quite welcome.

All-in-all, I'm quite looking forward to these changes. I'm not sure it will be enough to put arcane close to frostfire considering the massive lead frostfire had in PVE, but my initial impression is these changes go a long ways to addressing arcane mage concerns:
* more competitive dps
* retains ability to dps on the move.
* variable cast rotation dependent on mana which maintains the spirit of arcane PVE spec in BC.

You can't test any serious PvP, no resil gear is available. As far as PvP goes we are still in S4 @ lvl 70.