[2022] Feedback: Mages

In this thread, please post your feedback on the revamped Mage talent tree, once you’ve had a chance to test Mages in the Alpha.

Thank you.

Hello Mages!

In this week’s Alpha update, there will be a number of updates to both the Core and Spec trees for the Mage Class. We’d like to talk a bit about our design directions for this iteration and the improvements we’re looking to make.

Core Tree

The Core tree is seeing the heaviest redesign. Our goal has been to increase options by adding new spells, reducing overall multi-point nodes, cutting all existing 3-point nodes, and improve pathing. Several choice nodes have been split into standalone nodes to increase utility options. We’ve also been looking to reduce the number of nodes that may feel required. Cone of Cold will be moving baseline to improve the base kit and remove dependency issues.

Here are some examples of spells you can expect to see:

• Reflection – Teleports you back to where you last Blinked. Only usable within 8 seconds of Blinking, 45 second cooldown.
• Volatile Detonation - Greatly increases the effect of Blast Wave’s knockback. Blast Wave’s cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds.
• Time Manipulation - Casting Fire Blast/Ice Lance on Frozen targets/Arcane Missiles reduces the cooldown of your loss of control abilities by 1/2 seconds.
• Energized Barriers – When your barrier receives melee attacks, you have a 10% chance to be granted 1 Fire Blast/1 Fingers of Frost/1 Clearcasting charge. Casting your barrier removes all snare effects.

Some of this work is ongoing, and you can expect to see a couple of nodes marked NYI (Not Yet Implemented) for now.

Fire Tree

We felt the pathing in this tree has not allowed for enough exploration due to nodes that feel required. We’re looking to reduce the number of “mandatory” points by moving a few spells baseline, such as Hot Streak and Fire Blast Rank 2, and providing more options below gate 1 and 2. Phoenix Flames will also be moving up to above gate 1.

Frost Tree

A good amount of feedback for this tree has been related to the Icy Veins nodes and how required they feel, which is leading to little choice in the bottom third of the tree. We’re looking to allow for backtracking and additional choice. To help accomplish this, we’re making all 3 point nodes into 2 point nodes and reducing the point count of the Icy Veins related nodes below gate 2. Additionally, Winter’s Chill functionality will now be baseline when Flurry is learned to allow for more point flexibility.

Arcane Tree

The Arcane tree has been updated and will have quite a bit of re-organization of talents to better open up options as you navigate through the tree as well as make a few talents that felt previously inaccessible a little easier to access. Cooldowns on some abilities have also been adjusted to better flow with Arcane’s 45/90-second windows. Below is a highlight of some of the changes you can expect in the next alpha build.

• Arcane Bombardment – Reduced to max 1 rank, down from 2.
• Arcane Echo – Reduced to max 1 rank, down from 2.
• Arcane Surge – Now grants a burst of mana on cast so that the player can immediately start casting Arcane Blast
• Arcane Orb – Moved up the tree. It’s now available before the first gate and directly after Arcane Missiles.
• Rules of Threes - Now a choice node with Arcane Familiar. This choice node has swapped places with Arcane Tempo
• Evocation – Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds, down from 120 seconds.
• Improved Evocation – Cut
• Siphon Storm – Converted to a single node (was previously a choice node with Improved Evocation).
• Charged Orb – Now available after unlocking the first gate (Charged Orb grants Arcane Orb 1 additional Charge).
• Orb Barrage – Converted to a single node (was previously a choice node with Orb Barrage).
  • Now also reduces the cooldown of Arcane Orb by 2 seconds when Clearcasting is consumed.
• Nether Tempest - Position on the tree has moved toward the center of the talent tree as a choice node with Reverberate connecting from Mana Adept and Improved Arcane Barrage.
• Conjure Mana Gem – Now restores 25% Mana, up from 10% Mana.
  • Now grants 5% increased spell power for 10 seconds baseline.
• Cascading Power – Now grants up to 2 stacks of Clearcasting when consuming a Mana Gem (previously granted Spell Power).
• Enlightened – Moved lower into the tree (from Row 6 to Row 8).
• Resonance – Moved to Enlightened’s previous position.
• Presence of Mind – Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds, down from 60 seconds.

Thank you for all of your testing and feedback so far. We’ll address some of the remaining tweaks and NYI spots in a future build soon after the next.

The full list of changes in today’s update:

• Class Tree
  • Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
  • New
    • Volatile Detonation – Greatly increases the effect of Blast Wave’s knockback. Blast Wave’s cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds.
    • Reflection – Teleports you back to where you last Blinked. Only usable within 8 seconds of Blinking. 45 second cooldown.
    • Energized Barriers – When your barrier receives melee attacks, you have a 10% chance to be granted 1 Fire Blast/1 Fingers of Frost/ 1 Clearcasting charge. Casting your barrier removes all snare effects.
    • Freezing Cold – Enemies hit by Cone of Cold are frozen in place for 4 seconds. Your spells will not break this effect.
    • Time Manipulation – Casting Fire Blast/Ice Lance on Frozen targets/Arcane Missiles reduces the cooldown of your loss of control abilities by 1 second.
    • Temporal Warp – While you have Temporal Displacement or other similar effects, you may use Time Warp to grant yourself 30% Haste for 40 seconds.
  • Class Talents
    • Cone of Cold – Now learned baseline for all Mages.
    • Meteor – Now deals 20% additional initial damage for Frost/Arcane Mages.
    • Shifting Power – Now reduces spell cooldowns by 12 seconds (was 10 seconds).
    • Arcane Warding – Now reduces magic damage taken by 2/4% (was 3/6%).
• Arcane
  • Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
  • Arcane Bombardment – Now increases Arcane Barrage damage to enemies below 35% health by 100% damage (previously was 50/100% but has been reduced to a 1 rank node).
  • Arcane Echo – Damage increased by 60% and max ranks reduced to 1 (was 2).
  • Arcane Surge – Now grants a burst of mana on cast so that the player can immediately start casting an Arcane Blast.
  • Rule of Threes – Now a choice node with Arcane Familiar, both have moved to row 5 (swapped with Arcane Tempo).
  • Evocation – Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds (was 120 seconds).
  • Improved Evocation has been removed.
  • Siphon Storm – Converted to a single node (was previously choice node with Improved Evocation).
  • Orb Barrage – Converted to a single node (was previously a choice node with Orb Barrage).
  • Orb Barrage – Now also reduces the cooldown of Arcane Orb by 2 seconds when Clearcasting is consumed.
  • Prodigious Savant – Increased value to 20/40% (was 10/20%).
  • Nether Tempest – Damage increased by 15%.
  • Nether Tempest – Position on the tree has moved toward the center of the talent tree as a choice node with Reverberate, connecting from Mana Adept and Improved Arcane Barrage.
  • Reverberate – Position on the tree has moved toward the center of the talent tree as a choice node with Nether Tempest, connecting from Mana Adept and Improved Arcane Barrage.
  • Conjure Mana Gem – Now restores 25% mana (was 10%), and grants 5% increased spell power for 10 seconds baseline.
  • Cascading Power – Now grants up to 2 stacks of Clearcasting when consuming a Mana Gem (previously granted Spell Power).
  • Presence of Mind – Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds (was 60 seconds).
• Fire
  • Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
  • Hot Streak has been moved to be baseline.
  • New Talent: Fervent Flickering – Ignite damage has a 5% chance to reduce the cooldown of Fire Blast by 1 second.
  • Fire Blast – Now always crits.
  • Incendiary Eruptions – No longer a choice node.
  • Pyromaniac – Swapped positions with Pyroclasm, now a choice node with Molten Skyfall.
  • Fiery Rush and Kindling no longer a choice node.
  • Improved Blazing Barrier has been removed.
  • Fire Blast Rank 2 talent has been removed.
• Frost
  • Ice Lance – Damage reduced by 10%.
  • Wintertide – Now a 2 point node. Ice Lance damage increased by 20% (was 30%).
  • Chain Reaction – Now a 1 point node. The Ice Lance damage increase effect is now 1% (was 1.5%).
  • Arctic Piercing – Empowered Ice Lances deal 5% damage (was 10%).
  • Fractured Frost – Frostbolt has a 25/50% chance to hit up to 2 additional targets (was 20/40%).
  • Icy Propulsion now reduces the cooldown of Icy Veins without requiring Icy Veins to be active. Now a 1 point node.
  • Icy Propulsion single target ability cooldown reduction is now 2 seconds (was 1 second).
  • Snowstorm – Now a 2 point node.
  • Winter’s Chill functionality is now granted by default when Flurry is learned.
  • Winter’s Chill talent has been removed.

Notes for today’s update:

• Class Tree
  • New Talent: Sloooow Down – Slow applies to all enemies within 5 yards of your target.
  • Blast Wave – Cooldown increased to 30 seconds (was 25 seconds).
  • Temporal Warp – Now causes Time Warp to not trigger its cooldown if cast without a sated or equivalent debuff.
  • Time Manipulation – Now requires Clearcasting Arcane Missiles. No longer decreases the cooldown of Blast Wave.
  • Shatter – Removed from class tree.
  • Added additional connections to Ring of Frost.
  • Frigid Winds – Effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
  • Tempest Barrier – Effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
  • Diverted Energy – Effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.
• Fire
  • Split up the Firestarter and Searing Touch choice node above gate 1.
• Frost
  • Shatter – Replaced Shatter Rank 2 and includes both effects.

In this thread, we’ll be testing and talking about Mages in The War Within. Look here for posts from the development team as adjustments and bugfixes are made throughout the testing period.

Please note that off-topic or inappropriate posts will be strictly removed.

The War Within Beta

All classes’ Hero Talent trees are available for testing. Please keep in mind that this is a Beta environment:

• There may be UI elements on the talent panel that are placeholder, including things like talent icons, text, or final UI art.
• Some talents may not be functioning yet, or may be marked as not yet implemented (NYI).
• Some new spell visuals and audio may still be a work in progress.
• There are some talents that are not fully tuned yet. This is expected, and we will implement tuning adjustments throughout testing.

The combat design team has two big areas of focus at this time:

• Finish work on changes to talents, especially wherever Hero Talents still need adjustments.
• Fix bugs that are blocking testing of new talents.

Working from Feedback

Alpha feedback thus far has been of great benefit to us.

Now that we are entering Beta, our focus on Hero Talent trees is shifting away from reworks and design changes and towards tuning and refining. We want to thank you so much for all the forum posts, videos, and discussions all over the internet. Your feedback and impressions have been invaluable for bringing their identities to life and making them fit into what you love about the classes you play.

We are looking forward to hearing from more of you as you get a chance to try Hero Talents for yourself. We are specifically interested in feedback or impressions on these topics:

• Hero Talents that you feel are “required” for your spec in a type of content, such as raiding or Mythic+, or that push you towards picking a specific tree. This could be due to damage profile, utility, defensives, or something else.
• Hero Talent trees that you feel are either too strong or too weak in power level compared to other options.
• Hero Talents whose functionality is confusing, unclear, or difficult to track during gameplay.
• Hero Talent choice nodes that you feel could offer more meaningful choices.

Again, Thank You

Feedback throughout the Alpha test was highly impactful on our design of the game, and we look forward to refining every class with you in the Beta. Thank you!

– The World of Warcraft Combat Design Team

We’d like to call your attention to adjustments we’re making in the next Beta build.

• MAGE
  • Hero Talents
    • Frostfire (Frost/Fire)
      • Frost
        • Frostfire Living Bomb damage multiplier increased to 175% (was 100%).
    • Spellslinger (Frost/Arcane)
      • Frost
        • Controlled Instincts cleave percent increased to 30% (was 20%).
        • Volatile Magic damage increased by 100%.
    • Sunfury (Arcane/Fire)
      • Arcane Phoenix area-of-effect non-exceptional spell damage increased by 30%.
      • Arcane Phoenix Arcane Surge damage increased by 30%.
  • Arcane
    • Clearcasting is now learned at level 10 (was level 11).
    • Mastery: Savant’s Arcane Barrage damage bonus increased by 100%.
    • Mastery: Savant’s Arcane Blast damage bonus increased by 50%.
    • Arcane Barrage damage reduced by 8%.
    • Arcane Blast damage reduced by 6%.
    • Arcane Familiar damage increased by 50%.
    • Magi’s Spark now has a 2 second grace period after the initial Arcane Missiles proc where the caster will continue to echo Arcane Missiles damage.
    • Fixed an issue where Magi’s Spark damage echo windows for Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage were shorter than Touch of the Magi’s duration.
    • Fixed an issue preventing Energized Familiar from granting Mana.
    • Fixed an issue that was allowing the last stack of Nether Precision to be double-dipped by spell-queueing.
  • Fire
    • Lit Fuse chance to trigger reduced to 4%.
    • Explosive Ingenuity chance to trigger reduced to 3%.
    • Living Bomb damage decreased by 75%.
    • Scorch damage increased by 25%.
    • Improved Scorch now increases damage taken by 7% (was 6%).
  • Frost
    • Death’s Chill maximum stack count increased to 15 (was 12).
    • Death’s Chill spell damage bonus decreased to 1% (was 2%).
    • Ray of Frost damage increased by 20%.

Hello Arcane Mages!

We’ve been closely watching Arcane, and in particular, the discussion around the most recent change to fix the ability to double-dip on the last charge of Nether Precision with Arcane Barrage.

While opinions on this change have not been unanimous, it’s true that the existence of this bug does deepen the rotational gameplay of Arcane. Given the current state of Arcane and our vision for the spec in The War Within, we’re opting to revert our bug fix for now and allow players to continue to double-dip on the last stack of Nether Precision.

You should see this change on the Beta in the coming days.

As always, thank you for your continued feedback!