New Mage Talent Trees Revealed

[MongoJerry]

IGN has posted the new mage talent trees. Take a look!

http://pc.ign.com/articles/704/704665p1.html

[MongoJerry]

It seems to me that most of the changes are designed to free up talent points to allow mages to choose more talents than they previously have been able to. Evocation has been changed to a trainable ability and Arcane Explosion will now start off as an instant cast spell. That frees up some talent points right there. Plus, many other talents require fewer talent points to have the same effect. Otherwise, the changes seem like minor adjustments. Arcane Power has had its damage and mana cost reduced by 5% while other abilities have had their strengths slightly increased. I'm not seeing any new "toy" abilities like priests got with Power Infusion, Lightwells, or the new versions of Spirit of Redemption or Holy Nova. Maybe more mages will get Blastwave now, because they don't have to spend so many points elsewhere? That's about the only playstyle change that I can see coming from this. I do see that going Ice/Fire will be more viable in the future.

[lemekim]

That seems to be the impression that I got from this revision as well. A few nerfs to the burst damage - Arcane Power (not Power Infusion btw!), Shatter now being only 1 point, and even Combustion is changing to a different effect. The freeing up of the points, the general rearrangement of talents and some new talents seem to be aimed at boosting Mage's average damage (and it probably did go up, but I have not done the numbers).

I also really expected some new talents that will help Fire mages in PvE, especially given Naxx is right around the corner. With a lot of spell damage, Frost can put out the damage not that far behind Fire, while using only 1/2 or so mana - and that Fire damage is limited by aggro anyway. I'm really confused there - it's like Blizzard wants mages to be useless in Naxx.


Now, before mages start screaming in protest, Blizzard did mention that they are implementing some new things that will help with the downtime between fights and are modifying the aggro system. We will see what will happen of that.

Caution: Math

Also, here is my attempt to quantify the new Combustion - is it better or even worse then before? It might seem that the new Combustion is better - but with a good crit percentage, the new combustion "charges" could have been eaten by crits that would have happened anyway.

Assuming a normal fireball spell with some moderate +damage and with the appropriate talents - we can easily achieve 900 damage fireballs. Let's also assume 25% crit - a fairly high number, but achievable thanks to talents/items, and something that a lot of Fire mages will probably want to go for with the even higher orientation for crits in the new Fire tree.

A crit on a fire spell gives mage 2.1 times the damage of a normal spell, thanks to Ignite. On average, ignoring resists, our 900 damage fireball will do ~1150 damage.

Old Combustion - With 100% crit, our fireball will do 900 * 2.1 = 1890 damage, or 740 extra damage.

New combustion - We have to figure out when will the 3 crits happen on average. With the new 35% crit, and severaly simplifying, it will happen on average at 9 fireballs. On average, with 35% crit the fireballs do 1250 damage. This translates to about 100 extra damage per fireball, 900 extra total damage.

Thats a very small difference between the two, at the cost of losing the guaranteed burst damage that the old Combustion gave. Unless the cooldown is significantly shortened, I really don't see people using this talent at all.

[oldmandennis]

IDPAM (I don't play a mage), but I'm underwhelmed by this. It seems like they mostly just freed up talent points, allowing mages to take 5-10 more talents, rather then forcing new and tougher choices about what to do. There's only one talent I can see that would encourage the "elementalist" build.

Here's hoping they put more thought into the shammy one.

[castille]

Old Combustion - With 100% crit, our fireball will do 900 * 2.1 = 1890 damage, or 740 extra damage.

New combustion - We have to figure out when will the 3 crits happen on average. With the new 35% crit, and severaly simplifying, it will happen on average at 9 fireballs. On average, with 35% crit the fireballs do 1250 damage. This translates to about 100 extra damage per fireball, 900 extra total damage.

Thats a very small difference between the two, at the cost of losing the guaranteed burst damage that the old Combustion gave. Unless the cooldown is significantly shortened, I really don't see people using this talent at all.
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See, I'm reading this as: first cast of fire spell is now 35% crit, if that doesn't crit, the next one is 45% crit, etc. Then it only goes away when you have crit three times. To me, this seems to mean that if you're fast, you can get three -really- fast crits, or at least, you -will- get three crits, making it better than the old Combustion, which only guaranteed one.

[Lissa]

IDPAM (I don't play a mage), but I'm underwhelmed by this.  It seems like they mostly just freed up talent points, allowing mages to take 5-10 more talents, rather then forcing new and tougher choices about what to do.  There's only one talent I can see that would encourage the "elementalist" build.

Here's hoping they put more thought into the shammy one.
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I agree. I have a lv 31 Mage and overall, the talent changes seem very underwhelming to me. I would almost venture that the Mage talent review is on par with Paladins.

I have a feeling that there is going to be a lot of yelling and screaming going on in the Mage forums and General forums at Blizzard when the forums come back up. <_<

[lemekim]

See, I'm reading this as: first cast of fire spell is now 35% crit, if that doesn't crit, the next one is 45% crit, etc. Then it only goes away when you have crit three times. To me, this seems to mean that if you're fast, you can get three -really- fast crits, or at least, you -will- get three crits, making it better than the old Combustion, which only guaranteed one.
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Ah, yes, now that I am rereading that talent, that's exactly what it seems to imply. That makes the math a bit more difficult - going back to the math, I estimate that on average this will last 6 spells, which would make it about 1400 average damage for those 6 spells, or 1500 extra damage - somewhat in line with the bonus damage that AP provides, but with longer cooldown. That's quite a bit better then before, however it does have some downfalls:

1) It's not exactly burst damage on demand, as the old combustion was, which makes it less desirable for PvP.
2) It's fairly useless with AOE spells - with many targets, at least some of them will crit, using up the charges in 3 casts - and Combusted Blastwave is a thing of the past (although that could have been Blizzard's intention)

I do see some interesting possibilities in PvE now - one scenario is to use this spell after a Fireball crit - Combustion + Fireblast/Fireball/Scorch spam to try and keep the ignite up on the target, but the long cooldown might make it not worth it.

[Xanthix]

IDPAM (I don't play a mage), but I'm underwhelmed by this.
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I have to disagree. My mage friend is very excited about this review. They have freed up a ton of talent points so mages can be more versatile and go for more +damage abilities. They have added Master of Elements, which allows elemental builds to survive without arcane's mana efficiency. And they added a bunch more mana regeneration and +crit to arcane for those who choose to stay there.

One impressive number is that now a mage could have a constant 50-60% mana regeneration while casting, due to Mage Armor, the talent, and 30% of all elemental casts being refunded.

[MongoJerry]

I also really expected some new talents that will help Fire mages in PvE, especially given Naxx is right around the corner. With a lot of spell damage, Frost can put out the damage not that far behind Fire, while using only 1/2 or so mana - and that Fire damage is limited by aggro anyway. I'm really confused there - it's like Blizzard wants mages to be useless in Naxx.

I'm always confused when people suggest fire mages aren't good in PvE, because the mage who consistently puts out the most damage on our raids is a fire mage. The only thing that held fire mages back in the past was that the first two raid dungeons introduced to the game had mobs with a lot of fire resistance. However, that isn't the case in AQ40 and anyway, there has been a lot of gear introduced that negate resistances on targets. A frost mage's damage is limited by aggro as much as a fire mage's damage, so I don't see benefit either way there. You're right when you said that a frost mage's mana efficiency is better, but again, I haven't heard any complaints from our fire mages about lacking mana. Also, keep in mind that fireball, as a 3.5 second cast spell, benefits more per cast from +damage gear than icebolt (a 3 second cast spell). That plus fire's natural ability to deal more damage per attack allows fire mages to use lower ranks of their spells both to improve their mana efficiency and keep under the aggro cap.

Also, here is my attempt to quantify the new Combustion - is it better or even worse then before? It might seem that the new Combustion is better - but with a good crit percentage, the new combustion "charges" could have been eaten by crits that would have happened anyway.

Actually, my initial reaction was that this change to Combustion was a huge nerf, but your math showed me it isn't as bad as I thought. A lot of it depends on how long the buff lasts and how much critical strike% you have already. If you have a lot of critical strike%, it helps less, because as you said, the charges will be eaten by crits that would have happened anyway. If you have a low amount of crit%, then you get helped a lot -- but only if the duration of the buff lasts long enough for you to get three criticals in that time.

My feeling is that the idea behind this change to combustion is to reduce its impact on PvP (fewer "Omg! I got killed by a 7,000 damage pyroblast!") and yet help fire mages in PvE deal more damage. It's an interesting way to go about it.

[lfd]

That seems to be the impression that I got from this revision as well. A few nerfs to the burst damage - Arcane Power (not Power Infusion btw!)

Er, reading comprehension error :) what MJ said was:

I'm not seeing any new "toy" abilities like priests got with Power Infusion

meaning mages don't seem to have got anything new to play with like the priests did, although you could argue that with the increase in available points, some arcane/ice mages will now be able to rethink and get some fire talent skills as well.

Shatter now being only 1 point
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...has been confirmed to be a miscommunication; it's 5 skill points rising up to 50% increased crit as before, but now effects _all_ spells. Frost Nova / Blast Wave, anybody? :D

[MongoJerry]

See, I'm reading this as: first cast of fire spell is now 35% crit, if that doesn't crit, the next one is 45% crit, etc. Then it only goes away when you have crit three times. To me, this seems to mean that if you're fast, you can get three -really- fast crits, or at least, you -will- get three crits, making it better than the old Combustion, which only guaranteed one.

Oh! I hadn't read it that way, either. If that's the case, then it becomes much better.

One impressive number is that now a mage could have a constant 50-60% mana regeneration while casting, due to Mage Armor, the talent, and 30% of all elemental casts being refunded.
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Elemental criticals have their 30% of their mana refunded. That's a big difference.

[MongoJerry]

Er, reading comprehension error :)&nbsp; what MJ said was:
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No, just a quick edit job by MJ, after seeing Lem point out his mistake. Penguin jedi mind trick move. "You didn't see anything."

[lemekim]

Edit: Well, looks like Mongo beat me to it =(

Er, reading comprehension error :)  what MJ said was:
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Not quite =(. Mongo already fixed his post, specifically this part:

Arcane Power has had its damage and mana cost reduced by 5% while other abilities

Which said Power Infusion before =( Mongooooo!!!!

[MongoJerry]

...has been confirmed to be a miscommunication; it's 5 skill points rising up to 50% increased crit as before, but now effects _all_ spells.&nbsp; Frost Nova / Blast Wave, anybody? :D
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Woah... that makes things very interesting. An elementalist spec gets even more interesting.

[Quark]

I agree.&nbsp; I have a lv 31 Mage and overall, the talent changes seem very underwhelming to me.&nbsp; I would almost venture that the Mage talent review is on par with Paladins.

No way. This isn't some random shuffling of talents and making one tree completely pointless in the end game. Each tree still has a purpose, that's much more than can be said for paladins.

I have a feeling that there is going to be a lot of yelling and screaming going on in the Mage forums and General forums at Blizzard when the forums come back up.&nbsp; <_<[right][snapback]108953[/snapback][/right]

Dude, there was a lot of screaming in the preist forum last patch.

[Quark]

(Warning: rant about Blizz forums ahead)

If I see one more mage post that the "Arcane Subtlety" change is a nerf I'm gonna explode. Are these people complete idiots?

First they spend months upon months complaining about player's resistances slowly raising due to Tier1/Tier2 sets and MC/BWL having a lot of fire resistances in it, then they ignore all the changes that counteract this?

First they spend months detailing how useless Arcane Missiles is endgame, then they complain when their aggro reducing talent affects Frost and Fire?

[MongoJerry]

(As mentioned on the Lurker Lounge front page, which is a hip happening place now...)

If you're trying to figure out your mage talent spec for 1.11, Wowhead has produced an updated mage talent calculator for you to try. Understand that this is an unofficial talent calculator based solely on the information released on IGN's website this morning, so errors are possible. However, the calculator is quite good and worth playing around with.

As an example, one of my guild's frost mages is now considering an ice/fire build.

For more suggestions, see the Lurker Lounge front page.

[Wogan]

Also, keep in mind that fireball, as a 3.5 second cast spell, benefits more per cast from +damage gear than icebolt (a 3 second cast spell).
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That is actually incorrect. Well, if you are looking at the untalent version of each spell, they gain equal amounts of damage per second from +damage gear. However, if you improve the cast time of each spell so that Fireball is 3.0 and Frostbolt is 2.5, Frostbolt actually gains more damage per second from damage gear than Fireball.

[vor_lord]

IDNPMOAM (I do not play much of a mage) but some parts of this are interesting.

But the Winter's Chill talent looks terrible for a Tier 6 talent:

Tier 6

Winter's Chill
Gived your Frost damage spells a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance a Frost spell will critically hit the target by 1% for 15 seconds Stacks up to 5 times.

At tier 6 compare the Arcane Instability talent. 1 talent point for 1% crit to all spells. This one requires you stack it and apply it? Terrible talent.

I'd guess many frost mages will be headed back to getting Presence of Mind. Ice Barrier is good but now that you can get Frostbite and shatter with fewer points...

[teske]

IDNPMOAM (I do not play much of a mage) but some parts of this are interesting.

But the Winter's Chill talent looks terrible for a Tier 6 talent:
At tier 6 compare the Arcane Instability talent.&nbsp; 1 talent point for 1% crit to all spells.&nbsp; This one requires you stack it and apply it?&nbsp; Terrible talent.

I'd guess many frost mages will be headed back to getting Presence of Mind.&nbsp; Ice Barrier is good but now that you can get Frostbite and shatter with fewer points...
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Not just *your* frost spells. Everyones frost spells. One mage for all.^^