Ghostcrawler on the state of the Mage
by Eliah Hecht 
Feb 3rd 2009 at 7:00PM
The tension between PvP balance and PvE balance is once more giving the developers a hard time. Ghostcrawler has made a post on the state of the Mage, and it runs roughly as follows. They're happy that Arcane is "starting to feel like a viable alternative" to Frostfire for raid DPS. However, they're concerned that Arcane does too much burst in PvP, and they need to figure out how to fix that without hurting Arcane too much in PvE. Argh! Can we just introduce different rule sets for PvP and PvE and be done with it? The devs have been saying similar things for Rogues since LK launched: too low in PvE, but we can't make them any higher in PvP or they'll be imbalanced.
He also touches on a few more points that don't make me want to hit things. The Improved Scorch debuff is "too much of a unique snowflake" in the new buff system, forcing exactly one mage per raid to spec for it and spend a fair amount of time casting Scorch to apply the debuff (compare Winter's Chill, which is applied passively); presumably, it is going to be addressed by making it easier to apply for Fire and/or castable by Arcane and/or other classes. Making frost-based Frostfire specs competitive is also "definitely a concern, but lower priority than these other issues."
Finally (and going back to PvE vs PvP), they would like to find some way to make Frostbolt builds competitive in PvE again (the phrase GC uses is "'Shatter combo' vibe"). However, so far, they haven't thought of a way to achieve this without buffing Cone of Cold Ice Lance [thanks, Bubsa], which they don't want to buff in PvP. Wouldn't it be simple enough to remove PvP from the game just make Lance do less damage or whatever in PvP?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Bob Feb 3rd 2009 7:06PM
WTB separate PvP rules/stats. PST!
Kakistocracy Feb 3rd 2009 8:40PM
Try casting Polymorph and you'll see we already have different rules. An expansion of that is what is called for.
JDM Feb 4th 2009 1:07AM
I also agree that stats/mechanics should operate differently in PvP than PvE.
I don't PvP (except when horribly bored, ie not often!), so I could care less about issues in bg's/arenas. I am a raider, and it makes me cringe every time they nerf my PvE mage because of PvP imbalances. Honestly, what does one have to do with the other?
Deadlock Feb 4th 2009 6:32AM
Would be better just remove PvP until it gets a complete rework. Twinks have basically ruined all pre-80 pvp anyway.
They could add a fourth, pvp orientated talent tree that you automatically switch to in arenas and pvp zones. Much like how dual-specs will work.
Azhariel Feb 3rd 2009 7:10PM
Simple, remove Arcane mages.
Bob Feb 3rd 2009 7:13PM
Simple, you're an idiot.
therationalpi Feb 3rd 2009 7:16PM
I can see the concern with Arcane, and my suggestion would be to offset nerfs to burst damage by improving Arcane blast. Arcane blast is the big difference between raid Arcane and PvP arcane rotations, so tweaking that would be the optimal solution.
As for frostbolt, a major change they could make is to change the behavior of fingers of frost. Right now, FoF just gives you two spell casts that behave like frozen targets. What it should do, to get that shatter combo feel, is give you a time limit. This way, you have an incentive to let loose an Ice Lance/Cone of Cold right at the end of the timer for extra damage. This would be applicable to pvp as well, but honestly, in PvP most of your shatter combos are on legitimately frozen players.
Anthony Feb 3rd 2009 7:18PM
How would you separate the rules in a world environment?
Arena & BG's are different because you 'zone' in, but pvp in general including world-pvp & wintergrasp are another issue.
How could you have a different rule set for that?
What if the incoming Dual-Spec did not land as we expect but instead the dual spec feature was divided by PVP and PVE. you choose/talent/glyph one PVP spec and one PVE spec.
That is the only way I could see a differentiation of rules come about.
Iamnotalie Feb 3rd 2009 7:29PM
Just change the way spells work, or coefficients, when cast on players. It doesn't need to be based on zone.
Zul Feb 3rd 2009 7:34PM
Most of the issues are from arena combat... BGers are less "hardcore', so balance is less needed and it is much larger scale so balance is achieved by variation...
Solution - remove arenas. If you want hardcore team based pvp, create an mlg account and buy COD.
WoW is a PVE game. Pvp is just a nice little bonus (at least until BC...)
Azradesh Feb 3rd 2009 7:40PM
Simple. Spells/talents/etc do one thing to mobs, and another to players/pvp tagged mobs
Eternauta Feb 3rd 2009 8:01PM
*How would you separate the rules in a world environment?*
Simple, add "player" to the classification of pc's (that is: humanoid).
That way, you can have spells that affect players in a different way than they affect mobs.
Example: "Throws a bolt of whatever that deals X damage to the target (deals Y if the target is a player)."
Simple. Effective. WIN.
Drakt Feb 3rd 2009 8:30PM
Zul, WoW Isn't a PVE Game, it may have started as one, yes. But it's not anymore.
If Blizzard got rid of the arena, WoW Would loose Half of its playerbase.
If it was a PVE game they would not have PVP and PVE servers.
I don't like PVE, you don't like PVP, what makes your needs greater than mine? Removing the arena would be the biggest mistake blizzard could ever make.
The best way would be to have a different ruleset for players and monsters, it would totally fix all blizzards problems, There would not be half as much QQ.
Kakistocracy Feb 3rd 2009 9:05PM
CC is already attuned to act one way when used on players and another way when used on mobs. Is there a reason most people depict as an insurmountable challenge the process of applying such an interaction to other spells?
me Feb 3rd 2009 10:30PM
@Drakt I highly doubt 1/2 the player base would leave over arena being removed from the game. I would be VERY surprised if 1% of the player base participates in Arena.
Developing game balance around the small arena player base doesn't make sense.
I think part of the reason Blizzard is trying so hard is they wanna make inroads into the esport field.
JDM Feb 4th 2009 1:15AM
@me:
While I wouldn't go so far as to quote an amount which play arenas, I do recall an article here not long back which quoted a Blue saying that only ~1% are raiders (was in tBC times? I forget). I wouldn't be surprised if ~1% were arena as well, but i dunno. 98% of WoW too casual to raid or PvP? Seems a little high, in my opinion.
@Anthony:
Much like everyone seemed to have mentioned here, the rulesets would be on a per-mob basis, not per-zone.
sterny Feb 4th 2009 3:19AM
I think certainly that editing spells when in PvP is definitely the answer but will be somewhat sad for Arcane Mages, but i do think that a problem here is that the frost spec hasn't been buffed or added to during this expansion, it really has received its only changes in patch 3.0.1, and this would "distract" most mages from the arcane/frostfire problem for a while.
Frostfire spec does need to be rebuffed to achieve level ground with Arcane (looking from a "recount" perspective), otherwise arcane could be the (scarily enough) the only spec we see in most raids or if not then most PuGs (as a mage in a guild raid could be told to spec a certain way even if it means less Pew Pew).
Bubsa Feb 3rd 2009 7:31PM
FYI, GC has gone back to edit his post, replacing Cone of Cold with Ice Lance.
Makes a lot more sense now!
baldbull Feb 3rd 2009 7:41PM
PvP and Arenas are great, but it's unfortunate that these two aspects are being focused on heavily. I do not believe that the Arena system should continue much longer; it doesn't add anything to the game beyond simply displaying the size of one's epeen. If anything, it can take away from the story/game anytime they have to make significant changes to a class due to something in PvP. Battlegrounds make perfect sense, as it really opens up the struggle between the Horde and Alliance.
Personally, I'd like Arena's to have a "final" season where people can compete, get their welfare epics, and be done. Let's allow the developers to spend less time on Arena's and more time on new PvE content.
Cyanea Feb 3rd 2009 7:43PM
See...I don't Arena, but I think they have every right to play the game their way as you do yours.
But I second (third? fifteen millionth?) the call for different PvE and PvP rules.