There have been several topics about this before, but they've all fallen off the screen many /moons ago with the exception of the FOK thread, which seems to be getting a lot of QQ attention. I don't want this to be a QQ thread like many of these turn into--"ZOMG, I can't keep up with [class I don't like]'s AOE! Nerf!" I do, however, not understand what the philosophy from Blizzard is on this.

It used to be that AOE was given exclusively to Warlocks and Mages and required very strong mana support to sustain, and it still does. I completely agree that it was too strong a mechanic for only 2 classes to have (I'm ignoring cleaving melee abilities right now). It required you bring x amount of mages and Warlocks to certain boss fights, or to simply speed up trash pulls. I agree giving AOE to more/all classes in some way or another is a good thing.

What I don't understand is the philosophy behind the new vs old AOE mechanics. Using a fairly gimmicky AOE rotation of Living Bomb, Flamestrike (Rank 9), Flamestrike (Rank 8), Blizzard, repeat, I can say I do very solid AOE damage on any sort of sustained AOE fight. However, it pretty much requires the stars to align. Flamestrike has a horribly small damage radius and often by the time you get the cast off, the Tank has had to move the mobs due to environmental damage or other factors.

The new mechanics such as FOK, Mind Sear, and the DK multi-target disease and other AOE abilities are very friendly to mobile AOE. I feel the numbers, for the most part, in AOE DPS are fair. However, I simply can't keep up in many practical scenarios. Mind Sear particularly bugs me because its mechanic is essentially a mechanic the Mage community has been asking to be implemented on Flamestrike for about 3-4 years.

Mana cost is the other thing that rubs me the wrong way. Once again, in old school philosophy, you were forced to make a decision regarding AOE--was it worth the high mana price? Were there really enough mobs in place to warrant tearing through your mana pool? All of the new AOE mechanics are either very renewable resources or very light on mana per second. Mind Sear is only 216 MPS (mana per second), excluding Shadow mana reduction talents and haste. To contrast that, Blizzard is approximately 302 MPS, Flamestrike is 326 MPS, Rain of Fire is 274 MPS, Seed of Corruption is 655 MPS (ouch), and Hurricane is 283 MPS. Most of the old abilities are about 50% more expensive than their new school counterpart. Of course you can argue that Warlocks don't care due to Life Tap, but that's ultimately more burden on raid healing.

/discuss

EDIT:

Also, threat generation is pretty incredibly high on AOE for pures as compared to Hybrids, but that's more generally speaking. It does, however, greatly hinder practical AOE DPS.

TL;DR: Why do classes who just received their AOE spells in WOTLK have an inherit advantage?

You know what I always liked?

The way Jaina uses her Blizzard.

It has a 2 second cast time and then it rains down on that area and she is free to do other things.

I think that would be pretty cool, you rain down blizzard, then use flame strike (Which I think should get a 2 second cast time as well EDIT: and an increased radius.) And then you take it away from there. (Maybe even repeating them having multiple blizzards on one area......?

I also want to see mana decreased. (I said this in another post, using blizz as an example because I know the most about it)

Blizzard
-25% mana cost. (So somewhere around 1500)
and a +10% in scaling or damage.

Might not sound like a lot but I think it's better then nothing.

I've been wondering the same thing as well. It truly feels like something the devs simply overlooked rather than something they intended. Flamestrike vs Mind Sear is the stark example that shines the light on this problem.

But basically, mage aoe is more expensive, less mobile, and generates more threat. It's kind of sad actually.

It might be worth pointing out that some spells (such as Blizzard) also have damage caps while other spells (such as Fan of Knives) do not. That's pretty lame.

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Q u o t e:
It might be worth pointing out that some spells (such as Blizzard) also have damage caps while other spells (such as Fan of Knives) do not. That's pretty lame.

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In a practical raid environment, it really doesn't matter. You're not going to see the damage cap in a 25 man raid.

I don't think we need huge changes to the way the old AOE works. If anything, simply lowering the mana cost so that when mobs do move, we can afford to immediately re-target our aoe spells.

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In a practical raid environment, it really doesn't matter. You're not going to see the damage cap in a 25 man raid.

I don't think we need huge changes to the way the old AOE works. If anything, simply lowering the mana cost so that when mobs do move, we can afford to immediately re-target our aoe spells.

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Oh, You could make A spell like Hurricane work like mind sear.

The target becomes the eye of the storm, taking no damage, but everything within 8 yards does.

Helps with movement.

:P I dunno, just trying ideas.

I'm pretty sure that Blizzard likes the "uniqueness" of Mind Sear. Asking for other AOE to be targeted like Mind Sear probably won't get you anywhere. It's just annoying that mages suggested that for Flamestrike about 500 times. Haha :-P

so it becomes a mix of seed of corruption and mind sear?

(seed of corruption deals no damage to the target when it detonates, instead hits everything around it)

Mind sear is worthless for small numbers of targets, because it doesn't hit the sear target at all. Its also terrifying to use because the spec we need to use to be competitive in raids doesn't have threat reduction, unlike all you guys with your threat reduction built into your range increase talents.

Make mage aoe act like death and decay or consecration. An AoE that behaves kinda like a dot and doesn't need to be channeled.

Mind Sear isn't that great, its just better than what you guys currently have. I would actually support mages/locks getting better AoE so I could get back to multidotting instead.

Mele classes like rogues and DKs can use their AoE and still have white damage and other types of damage increasing their DPS numbers, while casters can ONLY AoE, can not move, can be interrupted, have very hig AoE aggro, and lose a lot of mana when the AoE. I remember in Hyjal Mages and Warlocks used to be the AoE classes but now they are the weakest AoE classes. Seed of Corruption for example has a long cast time, very very high mana cost, not enough damage, and the aggro is insane and usually leads to a warlocks death. Shadow Priest AoE on the other hand is very low aggro, is more damage, and is much easier to dish out. I do feel like the ball was dropped on mage and warlock AoE, so I agree these two classes need their AoE updated for WotLK.

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Mind sear is worthless for small numbers of targets, because it doesn't hit the sear target at all. Its also terrifying to use because the spec we need to use to be competitive in raids doesn't have threat reduction, unlike all you guys with your threat reduction built into your range increase talents.

Make mage aoe act like death and decay or consecration. An AoE that behaves kinda like a dot and doesn't need to be channeled.

Mind Sear isn't that great, its just better than what you guys currently have. I would actually support mages/locks getting better AoE so I could get back to multidotting instead.

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Err you have threat reduction built into your shadowform O.o

30% is pretty damn high reduction too.

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Q u o t e:
Mind sear is worthless for small numbers of targets, because it doesn't hit the sear target at all. Its also terrifying to use because the spec we need to use to be competitive in raids doesn't have threat reduction, unlike all you guys with your threat reduction built into your range increase talents.

Make mage aoe act like death and decay or consecration. An AoE that behaves kinda like a dot and doesn't need to be channeled.

Mind Sear isn't that great, its just better than what you guys currently have. I would actually support mages/locks getting better AoE so I could get back to multidotting instead.

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Mage AOE has little to 0 threat reduction, depending on build. The most it ever has is 10%.

What I would like to see with Blizzard: The spell is channeled, but has no set duration. It costs a certain amount of mana per damage tick. Maybe you could even make it so the mage can move the blizzard around while channeling...

That's not going to work with Flamestrike. About the only helpful thing for FS would be to increase the radius, and decrease the mana cost. At least the damage is front loaded, so if the pack moves, you are not losing too much.

Edit: Of course, the problem being, a fix this big would probably have to wait for the next xpac.

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Err you have threat reduction built into your shadowform O.o

30% is pretty damn high reduction too.

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The shadowform threat reduction is to help cope with our utility effects and the aggro they cause. We have shadow affinity to help with everything else but its 3 talent points we can't spare from anything else.

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The shadowform threat reduction is to help cope with our utility effects and the aggro they cause. We have shadow affinity to help with everything else but its 3 talent points we can't spare from anything else.

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Probably more accurate to say it's 3 points that you don't want to spare from anything else. You are making a trade-off, more damage with more threat. Pretty much all specs have to make these kind of trade-offs.

An example for Mage's would be FB/TTW. We are making a trade. We get more single target DPS, but less AoE damage. And we lose all threat reduction on Blizzard, making AoE pulls very dangerous for us.

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The shadowform threat reduction is to help cope with our utility effects and the aggro they cause. We have shadow affinity to help with everything else but its 3 talent points we can't spare from anything else.

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To my knowledge Mind Sear does not cause those utility effects, thus gets a straight up 30% threat reduction.

How are Warlocks holding up in heavy AOE fights? I know my guild's Warlocks are a bit gun shy because of threat. What's everyone else's experience?

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What I would like to see with Blizzard: The spell is channeled, but has no set duration. It costs a certain amount of mana per damage tick. Maybe you could even make it so the mage can move the blizzard around while channeling...

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I think that would be awesome, for basically all the channeled aoe spells (Rain of Fire, Volley, Hurricane) that you target with the reticle (or whatever it's called), so you can start the cast and then drag the area of effect around (with the same range and LoS restrictions as the initial cast). As soon as I opened the thread this occurred to me and I'm surprised that the idea hasn't been roundly endorsed already.

That or just give casters the ability to move while casting and see what happens.

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I think that would be awesome, for basically all the channeled aoe spells (Rain of Fire, Volley, Hurricane) that you target with the reticle (or whatever it's called), so you can start the cast and then drag the area of effect around (with the same range and LoS restrictions as the initial cast). As soon as I opened the thread this occurred to me and I'm surprised that the idea hasn't been roundly endorsed already.

That or just give casters the ability to move while casting and see what happens.

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It would be awesome... As it stands, my fire aoe rotation would benefit from it because I wouldn't be so hesitant to cut off the last few seconds of Blizzard (DPM is important)