This. I had always wondered what it would be like to have a mechanic where you balance the line of no mana and high damage.
Then Blizzard releases the previews, I read them too quickly and get excited, then sad when I reread it.
I realized that Blizzard did indeed read my mind, but they did it backwards.

I have to agree. The general idea with arcane is you SPEND mana to get more damage... not save it. Ideally you want your last arcane blast to kill the boss while that AB brings you rmana to zero. This completely flips how that works.

But eh, as long as it's fun, who cares. I'm still gonna pewpew as a mage. Blizzard did a lot of really good things with mages in Wrath, so whoever the mage design team person is has done a good job - I have to imagine whatever makes it to retail will also be fun.

so a caster version of Ninja Gaiden's Unlabored Flawlessness? Arent mages getting a spell that let's us use health as mana? Was that a talent? I don't feel like doing research on the whole deal, but if it's an ability we can use anytime we want, that would be one option for keep your mana high.

This would be a very bad idea. Evocation is already a dps loss, and a mechanic that wants you to keep your mana low would only make this worse. Plus, the highest dps rotation right now is simply spamming blast, and this would only make that even more so.

A mechanic like this would make arcane far more boring, not more interesting.

The only problem with this would be that it would take a fairly long time for your dps to ramp up if you start with a full mana bar. There are ways around it, but it would ultimately lead to the bonus being basically nothing in order to quench the QQ if it were set up this way.

I just feel its not ABOUT giving us the best dps. When it comes down to it, blizzard isn't trying to make mages better, it's trying to make mages more interesting to play. I am looking forward to this mechanic because, although it leads to more spamming AB, it will make EVERY SINGLE AB thought about. Now you mindlessly spam AB...maybe it's just me, but I enjoy the thought of having to think whether casting another AB now, or starting over with an arcane barrage will lead to the most dps.

You finally addressed the aspect which I fear the most: fun.

I do have full confidence that whatever numbers will be tweaked by blizzard to make arcane spec viable, and arcane mages will output numbers comparable to other classes. Adjusting numbers is easy.

What I think blizzard will fail at, with this approach, is making it fun. Right now, each arcane blast is more and more fun because as it sucks your mana you do MORE damage. Bigger numbers. It's FUN. The penalty? Going OOM quicker.

With cataclysm, having each spell cast do LESS damage simply is not going to be fun. Think about it, you want things/ways to make you're damage go UP, not DOWN.

Intrinsically, having each cast do LESS damage simply isn't fun. I appreciate blizzard trying to make mages have a cool, unique aspect to the arcane spec, but the one they came up with just doesn't seem fun.

It's a perception thing, that's what I see being the issue here. Player mentality will, in the end, define whether Mana Adapt is fun or not. It's the whole "the glass is half full" "the glass is half empty" comparison. Blizzards version required you to look at mana gains as an extra +spellpower trinket.

I will disagree with any blanket statement claiming that a specific side of your mana bar makes this ability more fun.

The proposed version has the potential to frustrate a lot of people on long fights.
The reversed version will frustrate players on short fights.
Both versions will be frustrating in the new version of PVP.

The last point is very important, and is the key reason why the current proposed version of MA is flawed.

PVP combat will be significantly longer in comparison to what we have now. In this sense, the reversed MA is annoying because, unless you're fighting people that think using a mana drain on you is a good idea, it's either take a long time to reach your potential or you'll be reduced to just spamming Arcane Blast just to get your mana down.

Blizzards version, however, makes mana drains very appealing against a mage, and since the battles will go on longer, being stuck at low mana will become a burden that no ammount of mana-management will solve.


But back to PVE, the reversed MA concept would potentially be very very boring. Imagine arcane mages doing nothing but spam Arcane Blast until they're below 50% mana. A 2-3 button spec becomes a 1 button spec. That's not fun for most of us, no matter how big our numbers get. You'll also be limited to mid-range length boss fights. Anything shorter or longer that you're potency duration and you're suddenly gimped.

Both versions are flawed for various aspects of the game. Both can be perceived as not being fun. Blizzard's is more appealing to me at the moment, but until we know the thresholds, I wont commit to saying it's the correct direction.

@hawkins

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The way this currently reads (much speculation here) the less often you cast the more damage you do because you're not depleting your mana pool. Another thing we may not be factoring in here is that Blizzard is doing away with MP5 in Cataclysm so we may have to be more proactive in regenerating mana for that "extra oomph".

For those of us hit-capped (read: not benefitting from mana regen for missing hits) and high SP it looks like Mana Adept may mean kissing high DPS goodbye in favor of overall Damage Done. Higher DPS means more haste so we can cast more often, but it means running OOM faster. Add taking time out for Evocation + Mana Sapphire and DPS goes lower.

Looks like a vicious cycle here but again it's still too early to tell.

An inverse relationship is infinitely preferable.

Here's me from the beginning of March (well before the Mage Preview): http://www.mmo-champion.com/general-discussions-22/new-spells-in-cataclysm!/msg2240206/#msg2240206

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"Arcane Mages must absolutely receive some sort of spell that relates to their current amount of mana. Some sort of spell or cooldown that increases Arcane damage the lower your mana is, and decreases the more you have.

The idea, of course, is to present an interesting DPS choice where the player is tied between wanting more of his resource to continue the fight, or to blow through mana to maximize DPS and risk being incapable of recovering enough to effectively DPS. Skilled players would be able to reach the absolute limit and maximize on the DPS returns, while unskilled players will either go too far (losing overall DPS in the long run) or not far enough (missing out on potential DPS from this spell/cooldown).

Would add a high dimension of skill to the spec, and separate the good players from the less-skilled ones."

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I elaborate further on in the thread about the potential of having an "Inverse Mana Adept". Also, I wrote that post before it was known Masteries could actually add new gameplay mechanics, ala Shadow Orbs or Eclipse. (At the time, I just assumed Arcane would be "Mana Pool" or "Arcane Damage". Had I known Blizzard had bigger plans for Mastery, I would have definitely suggested the mechanic as a Mastery instead of a spell or cooldown.)

If my subscription wasn't currently out, I'd post a lengthy topic on Blizzard's WoW forums... ¬_¬

I don't actually play a mage but I love to comment on things i have little knowledge about, so here goes:
I'm assuming that the damage bonuses will be broken down into ranges of the percentage of mana left; i.e. If you're at 100%-75% mana you'd be doing 50% (completely arbitrary number) more damage. If you're at 75%-50% mana you'd be doing 25% more damage, and so on and so forth. This method would stop every spell being weaker than the next and avoids the less casting mentality.
A second, and more crazy, suggestion of mine is to scrap the current mechanic and instead have arcane mages gain their spell damage bonus from gaining mana. Say you pop a mana sapphire, you gain a 10% damage bonus.
It's the same general idea in that arcane mages are still interested in getting mana back and managing mana, but it lets them be less conservative in their spell casting.

mmmm we'll have to see see how it will be in reality, but I'm curious to see how many tanks will be freaked out by this mechanic.

The first spell the arcane mage casts will always be the most powerful one then. And I can imagine that a lot of mages will be tempted to use their cooldowns and trinkets and what not right at the beginning as well, so they can see their screen flash with nice crits. Must be a pain in the rear end to build up a decent amount of threat for tanks.

I can imagine that with this mechanic, it would be common practice before combat to strip off all your clothes to minimize intellect and mana, then redress to give yourself an artificially drained mana pool. I think any ability that forces us to deliberately gimp ourselves before combat to maximize dps while calling it a mastery "bonus" is a failed concept.

I also think it would soon be a joke about the stripping mages that I wouldn't exactly appreciate. Also I know some sadistic tanks (or hunters with misdirect) who would pull during the process just so I couldn't put clothes back on and have to struggle through the fight naked (the really sadistic ones would do it after I had recently cast invisibility).

No thank you!