Arcane Brilliance: Patch 4.1 PTR for mages, (very) early edition
by Christian Belt 
Feb 26th 2011 at 4:00PM
So yeah. In case you've been stranded in some Mesopotamian nation or another without internet access for the past few days, we've got a new patch on the PTR. It's not the most earth-shattering patch we've seen, but for some reason I'm just inordinately excited about it. I woke up this morning with dreams of raptors, tiger/panthers, and armored bears fresh in my mind. I was quite sad when Zul'Gurub vanished from the game, but every time I flew over that part of Stranglethorn Vale and saw that the ancient troll city was still there, empty and tigerless, I felt a surge of hope that until the structures themselves vanished, the instance wasn't truly gone.
Just the idea that Blizzard is willing to take old raids and turn them into heroic 5-mans for me to churn through in my daily valor point farming efforts is a cause for celebration. Though old 5-mans get new life whenever you level a new alt through the old content, no single part of the game falls into misuse more completely than obsolete endgame content. To see some of it repurposed in such a relevant way, well ... I'm just giddy. Like a schoolgirl, only male and 30ish. Similar outfits, though. Cough.
So there's a lot there to look forward to, you may be saying, but what about mages? I come here to read about magecraft and also to hear about how warlocks drink their own urine. Where's the info on the parts of the patch that are specific to me? I hear you, reader who I just made up. Read on, and we'll talk all about the few but significant mage changes we can expect in patch 4.1.
A Band-Aid for Ignite munching
I mentioned this very briefly last week, but we need to revisit it because one of the announced changes in this patch is being implemented for the sole purpose of addressing this ancient bug in the mechanics of the fire tree. Here's the preliminary quote from Bashoik on the mage forums:
Bashiok:
Since the design of Ignite doesn't allow us to resolve munching (defined as multiple simultaneous crits that fail to properly proc Ignite) directly, we're thinking about a solution that would instead prevent Ignite from proc'ing on periodic crits. This might be a minor dps loss, but possibly no dps loss at all since it would stop most cases of munching. If it turned out to be a dps loss, we could compensate for it elsewhere. You're likely to see some experimenting in future patch PTRs. This is a pretty good example of something we can't hotfix, or rather wouldn't try. It's the kind of change that would likely have unpredictable side-effects.
Here's my take: Ignite munching has been around since patch 2.0. That's more than four years ago. I think it's safe to say that at this point, we're probably never going to see a direct fix. Bashiok all but says so. So rather than try to implement a fix he admits is impossible due to the design of the talent, we get this little line in the patch notes:
- Ignite is no longer triggered from periodic critical effects.
This may seem at first like a damage loss, since it seems like we'll be proccing Ignite less often now. The fact is, we don't really want Ignite procs from DoT ticks. At least, we shouldn't. Combustion relies upon casting at the most opportune time, when all of our most powerful DoTs are active on the same target. To get the best out of Combustion, we need to trigger it when we have a large Ignite DoT active. That means a Pyroblast Ignite, as opposed to a Living Bomb or Flame Orb tick Ignite.
In the current incarnation of the game, it's gotten to the point that many raiding mages are leaving Living Bomb and Flame Orb out of their early rotations entirely, so they can ensure a high-powered Combustion at the start of the fight. This change takes those smaller Ignite procs off the table completely and removes a large source of Ignite munching.
It isn't a fix, by any stretch of the imagination. Fire mages will continue to lose DPS due to lost Ignites. But this reduces the problem and will serve, until Blizzard decides it's time to rework the mechanic completely.
Further mana cost reduction for arcane
To further help arcane mages in their quest to become competitive on DPS with fire, it looks like Arcane Blast's mana cost will again be reduced on the PTR. Down from 7% base mana to 5%, this reduction to arcane's main nuke is welcome. Anything that helps us keep our mana pools full longer is a DPS increase, and DPS -- especially in longer fights -- is the area arcane mages need the most help in. I hope to see more improvements for arcane as the PTR process advances.
An almost inconceivably unnecessary mastery nerf for frost
One of the most disheartening parts of the patch is this apparent change to frost's mastery, Frostburn. The base damage bonus against frozen targets for frost mages is currently 20%. On the PTR, that bonus is 5%. I understand that as we progress into higher and higher endgame content, we'll also be stacking more and more mastery. That may be the reasoning here. Start the base lower so that the damage doesn't get out of hand later on as mastery levels skyrocket.
I don't know about you, but when was the last time you sat down and said to yourself, "Gosh, my frost mage is doing too much damage. It's only a matter of time until the rest of the caster DPS kicks me out of the guild for making them look bad." I'm pretty sure no one has ever said that, ever. Not once. In the history of time.
Like the Deep Freeze nerf that recently got hotfixed into the game, this seems like a kick in the groin to an already struggling PvE spec. Look, Blizzard, either you want frost to be PvE viable, or you don't. In the early stages of this expansion, it looked like you did. But these recent nerfs, which were entirely focused on lowering damage, make zero sense for a spec that wasn't doing that much damage to begin with. Generally, the idea when a spec is underperforming is to buff it. I simply don't understand this. Is frost just that overpowered in PvP? If so, man, there have got to be better ways of balancing it than this.
The promise of better AoE to come
This was kind of a throwaway line in the blue post announcing the PTR, but my ears perked up when I heard it:
Zarhym:
To start, we want to do a better job of balancing the AoE power of the different damage-dealing specs. You can expect to see some changes to this end made throughout the testing process.
I don't know about you guys, but holy cow, do I miss AoE. I don't miss the tank-everything-at-once, AoE-spam facerolls we saw in Wrath, but I do miss the days when my AoE spells had some bite to them. I miss being able to wade into the crowd at a Good Charlotte concert and know that a well placed Flamestrike/Blizzard combo would take out like 75 warlocks. No more, guys, no more. Now I have to kill my warlocks one at a time, like everybody else.
So you can see why any hint that the current pathetic state of AoE is going to be re-evaluated makes me very excited. Am I reading too much into this? Probably. But a mage can hope, right?
A freaking caster legendary
This probably isn't going to come in this particular patch, but it's in the data files now, which means it's coming. You can read Anne Stickney's full post on the subject right here:
Caster legendary news and speculation
I have waited so very long to get my hands on something with orange text that my mage could actually use, I'm not even sure how to feel now that we've gotten a whiff of this impending caster legendary. All I know is that I want it, whatever it turns out to be, and I want it as soon as humanly possible. We don't know much, but it seems that the item will drop somewhere in the Caverns of Time, which probably means in the upcoming War of the Ancients raid, which we know isn't coming in patch 4.1. If past precedence follows, it'll be a weapon, which to me suggests a staff, the most iconic caster weapon. I covet the barely formed idea of this caster legendary so wholly, so completely, that I can barely hold any other thought in my head.
If it has spirit on it, I swear to god I will end this world.
Every week, Arcane Brilliance teleports you inside the wonderful world of mages and then hurls a Fireball in your face. Check out our recent Cataclysm 101 guide for new mages or our mage Thanksgiving spectacular. Until next week, keep the mage-train a-rollin'.
Filed under: Mage, Analysis / Opinion, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Zeplar Feb 26th 2011 4:11PM
I doubt it will be a Spirit weapon. We had a Healer weapon in Ulduar and a Melee weapon in Icecrown. It makes sense to have a caster-DPS weapon now.
Sunaseni Feb 26th 2011 4:11PM
I believe the mastery nerf for Frost is a tooltip fix for a hotfix already applied, so nothing changed on that end on the PTR. It's still lame, having 15% weaker Deep Freezes and Frostfire Bolts, but Fingers of Frost keeps PVE Ice Lance the same damage, and a buff was given to Frostbolt to help make up for the loss of other damage. Still doesn't equalize it, but it's some consolation.
JonGalt Feb 26th 2011 4:15PM
Even on live, frost mages are not in a good place in PvP post 4.0.6, and if this mastery nerf goes live it will be the end of frost PvP for most people. Even in the 1800-1900 range, we don't have enough burst or survivability to be a serious threat. It's not like fire is a much better option, its way twitchier and has even less survivability with all the same problems of essentially 60-70% of damage being dispellable.
When even Vileroze says mages need some serious changes (post on the DD forums), then you have to raise your eyebrow.
Itchy Feb 26th 2011 4:22PM
I will join you in destroying the world if the staff has spirit on it, all we have to do is stick living bomb on everything at the same time.
Mages can blow up the entire world, Don't mess with us!
MusedMoose Feb 26th 2011 4:31PM
My fire mage is only level 53, so the issues with Ignite munching probably haven't affected me much - there's no real need to worry about DPS too much when you're still working your way up the level ladder. But it's good to know that, when she's 85 and cackling madly while setting everything from Hyjal to Uldum on fire, the Ignite issue will be less of one.
As for my arcane mage, AB costing less? I'm totally good with that. Seriously. Look at all the not complaining I'm doing.
Also, since someone pointed out last week that Lady Gaga is a fire mage (they linked the Bad Romance video as proof), I will now be listening to Lady Gaga every time I read one of these columns. Just sayin'.
Vani Feb 26th 2011 5:40PM
Yay Musedmoose remembered me!
Anyhow
I'm sure if you look close enough we would find a way to inexplicably link Lady Gaga to any known class and/or spec.
Except Warlocks, who, contrary to popular belief, are NOT crunchy in the good way, and they DO go straight to the region of Badonkadonk.
And they smell
jack.bell Feb 26th 2011 4:37PM
Arcane is actually out-DPS-ing Fire in levels 45-60. Mainly because they can keep pew-pewing for longer. Now, with this recent hotfix to Arcane Blast, this means that Arcane burn phases are way more sustainable. Fire just can't keep that Fireball spam up for a reasonable time.
I think Blizzard are trying to bring Frost to a support role in PvE. With all those freezes, and chills, mobs barely move at all, something doubly useful in Cata, where that kind of CC is actually needed for once.
Pyromelter Feb 26th 2011 5:33PM
The problem with a "support role" is that as a damage dealer, your primary job is always to do damage. Putting you on kiting adds on a raid encounter or two is all well and good, but you would be completely hosed when your job is to just do the most damage, and the other two specs are thousands of dps above frost.
Everyone in raids does some kind of supporting job, whether it's interrupting, kiting, cleansing, threat transfers, maintaining a buff, cc'ing. The point is, can you do that support job AND pump out a lot of dps? If the answer is no, then you're hosed, especially if there is another class or spec that can do some support while doing that dps.
The biggest issue here is really the PvP v. PvE thing. Frost was arguably overpowered in PvP, so they get nerfed, and PvE frost mages are like "WTF blizz, WTF." As well they should be. See my suggestions below on how blizzard can nerf frost pvp while buffing pve/frost damage.
mark Feb 26th 2011 4:38PM
if it has spirit on it i will burn ten warlocks a day untill it is fixed!
actually... thinking about that...
can you put spirit on it for a bit? :)
Throm Feb 26th 2011 4:41PM
Frost mages wewre the flavour of the month PvP class, and are being adjusted accordingly.
It sucks, but every class goes through it at one point or another.
Pyromelter Feb 26th 2011 5:26PM
None of those changes are going to heavily effect frost in pvp. They will still be able to 1v1 anyone by kiting and freezing and slowing everyone. Those changes will solely nerf frost in pve, and will force it back to what it was in wrath - a pvp only spec that will get you laughed out of raids if you dare try it in pve.
trickkelly Feb 26th 2011 5:48PM
Who cares who can beat who 1v1? PVP changes aren't balanced around 1v1. Further, a mastery nerf hurts PVP mages as much as PVE mages. One rarely if ever does damage to a unfrozen target or outside of FoF.
jsbeam Feb 26th 2011 4:42PM
I was completely disheartened for 4.1 when I saw the Frost nerf since that is my main spec that I enjoy playing and I'm already feeling the struggle to stay competitive with the top dps specs of other classes.
Pyromelter Feb 26th 2011 5:23PM
"Like the Deep Freeze nerf that recently got hotfixed into the game, this seems like a kick in the groin to an already struggling PvE spec. Look, Blizzard, either you want frost to be PvE viable, or you don't... I simply don't understand this. Is frost just that overpowered in PvP? If so, man, there have got to be better ways of balancing it than this."
Christian, this is a great, great point. I think this is one of the least talked about issues in terms of all of wow class balance. The reason for it is that people keep saying "Oh well you're pvp gods and have at least 1 top pve spec, so quit whining." I think that's bullcrap.
Having frost be raid-viable was great not only for mages but also for raid leaders, as frost mages are a potential source of replenishment.
The solution is pretty damn logical: Nerf Frost's PvP control, and increase their damage. The nerf to deep freeze damage, I'm sorry if it was oneshotting a few adds, but that nerf was really unnecessary. There are many ways to nerf frost in pvp - eliminate shattered barrier, increase the cooldown on Deep Freeze when used against player-characters, reduce the duration of frost nova on player-characters, reduce the freeze effect of ring of frost against player-characters.
Once you nerf all that control, you can add damage. Add an additional 25% damage to FFB when deep freeze procs. Make it like Frostfire Bolt! with an exclamation mark like pyroblast! and aimed shot!. Add that 25% onto the FFB dot too. And for pete's sake, revert the stupid deep freeze nerf. I also think you could increase the base cast time of frostbolt to 2.5 seconds, and have it scale in parallel with fireball. This will not only increase the overall damage and make haste much more worthwhile to frost, but it will decrease frost mage mobility and therefore increase the skill cap you need to do that damage. It also makes icy veins, bloodlust, and berserking much better since you aren't going to be getting your frostbolts under 1 second like you currently can with Early frost.
And there you go. PVE buffed with PVP nerfed, but still viable for both. I really don't understand why blizzard is determined to have frost mages be these masters of control without the damage. You can still let them have good control, but just not overpowered, while giving them better damage than they historically have had.
I really fear that if those changes go through, frost is going to revert to what it was during wrath, a pvp only spec that will get people laughed out of pve raids.
trickkelly Feb 26th 2011 5:44PM
If you were up to speed on the state of frost pvp (or if you were personally invested in it) you wouldn't be willing to invite all these frost pvp nerfs. Just the idea of bumping FB cast time to 2.5 seconds would make frost viability in arena virtually nil.
Pyromelter Feb 26th 2011 8:51PM
Trick, then buff Early Frost.
Yes, I don't do arena, ya got me there.
But for the longest time, frost mages were basically ultimate snare/freezer pvp'ers, with almost unparalleled mobility, and to compensate for that, their damage was significantly less. Back with 4.01 was around, people complained that they were getting killed within one deep freeze, and that is legit - if frost damage is so high that people are essentially getting one-shot, it isn't balanced, I don't care what anyone says. I'm not a homer enough to say "oh it's not balanced 1v1" - bullhonkey. It was OP, and it was nerfed, although one could argue that it was nerfed too much.
Now, if frost damage has been nerfed to the point where they can't really get anything done, then sure, re-buff. I still see a ton of mages as members of top arena teams right now however.
My suggestion is simply this: Lose some control, increase their damage. Increasing the cast time and scaling of frostbolt is a great way to do that, and if you want to give pvp mages that faster frostbolt snare, just increase the buff by the early frost talent. That buff can occur quite often even in a pve encounter to where it is a pretty significant buff that that talent brings.
The overall point is that frost has way too many good snare/freeze/utililty/damage mitigation spells. If their damage output is equal to other classes with all of that utility, there is no way a good frost mage who knows how to use those tools will ever lose to anyone. So we need to nerf frost's utility so that their damage can be brought up to be more balanced. This in turn would help PvE mages who are more focused on straight dps.
Also, you'll notice i suggested some "against player character" aspects of certain abilities. Just another call for blizzard to separate pvp from pve.
zaxson63 Feb 27th 2011 7:19PM
Blizzard will NEVER admit to messing up like they have. Simply put, they made a very stupid decision, and will never change it. Frost will once again be dead...and it's my favorite spec.
Andurael Azol-Nerub Mar 1st 2011 3:02PM
Pyrometer brings up a really good point ... the frost nerfs seem to be aimed at frost PvP and in true Blizzard fashion, they are more willing to kill a APEC as PvE viable in order to balance it's PvP counterpart. I've seen lots of complaints from frost PvE players on the forums, yet these are of course ignored.
Personally, I've been playing my Mage since the days of vanilla WoW. I've rolled in all three trees and primarily played PvE with casual PvP. Of all the specs, I like the current iteration of frost the best, I just like the play style. Arcane is too bland with AB spam to be fun for me, and Fire is ... to use someone else's description ... too twitchy and reliant on RNG. I don't mind that my DPS is potentially a little lower, as long as I'm within 1k of the fire mage in the raid, I feel I'm contributing well. But if Frost continues to be nerfed, I will be forced to roll with a spec I don't like as much, or to not use my Mage.
I just really wish that Blizzard would listen to good ideas coming from the Mage community for solutions. It really seems that they don't listen at all. How about taking something from the Warlock mastery book - I know, I know, wrong place to point to on Arcane Brilliance - and instead of making frost mastery a large buff against frozen targets, just make it a flat buff to frost damage period? Keep it simple, get away from the weird mixture of CC+Damage mechanics and all the complicated math associated therin, and perhaps balancing a spec that many players LIKE to play won't be such a problem?
I'm sorry for mentioning warlocks as a potential solution source, Christian, I really am. I will log on this afternoon and deep freeze ten warlocks as a penance.
Andurael Mar 1st 2011 3:10PM
APEC was supposed to be "a spec" ... the autocorrect curse afflicted me.
rkaliski Feb 26th 2011 6:53PM
Might I remind Mr. Belt that not only do male warlocks drink their own urine, they have to sit down to produce it because they lack the proper equipment to produce it. There are no female warlocks, only men who dress up in skirts to pretend they are females. Please note that while mages dress in a dress, we don't wear makeup.....at least I don't.