Kuco
10-26-2007, 09:33
How I'd improve mages in raid and pvp without harming any other classes:
As of now, I think that the biggest detriment to mages in arenas is the OOM factor. All of the spell mana costs have scaled upwards into the expansion but mana pools have not scaled at the same rate. In addition, instant spells mana costs have scaled upwards at a rate much faster than the scaling of our mana pools. In smaller arenas, it's nearly impossible for mages to cast anything offensive outside of frost nova / icelance / water elemental. Once you begin casting spells like fireblast and cone of cold or arcane explosion (ha) you'll run out of mana far far before your opponent runs out of hitpoints. One of our best spells (and most fun), spellsteal, costs so much mana that you simply can't cast it more than once a match. There's a reason that mages downrank polymorph, frost nova and frost bolt. You have to save mana in any way you can. It makes the mage class unable to do healer + dps teams in arena, and those teams are the most efficient 2v teams. Have you ever seen any other class run away to try to drink?
For PvE, the highest damage mage spec (deep arcane) is rarely used. The reason for this is it's high mana consumption. In order for an arcane mage to deal competent damage they have to regularly be paired with one or more shadow priests in combination with chain-potting and BoW. Often still going OOM. I agree that raids are more fun when classes combine for synergy to make each other better, but in this case it's just to avoid OOM (0 dps). The mage is the only strict dps class with this issue. Rogues just have to stay alive, and every heal on a warlock results in a restored mana pool.
My idea for the mana pool issue is this: scalable mana per point intellect. I would scale mage mana pools in much the same way as crit rating scales but in the reverse. I'm unsure as to what the ideal increase would be at level 70, but 40-50% would noticeably improve mage efficiency. Bigger mana pools allow more time for our efficiency talents to take effect in raid situations. Bigger mana pools would better allow for mages to compete in arena.
*disclaimer* There are far better PvP mages than me (I PvP 0/6/55), and my observations on arcane raiding are based on about a week of raiding arcane. I also understand there are more mage issues that this idea would not fix, but this is not a catch all solution. It is just an idea to help.
As of now, I think that the biggest detriment to mages in arenas is the OOM factor. All of the spell mana costs have scaled upwards into the expansion but mana pools have not scaled at the same rate. In addition, instant spells mana costs have scaled upwards at a rate much faster than the scaling of our mana pools. In smaller arenas, it's nearly impossible for mages to cast anything offensive outside of frost nova / icelance / water elemental. Once you begin casting spells like fireblast and cone of cold or arcane explosion (ha) you'll run out of mana far far before your opponent runs out of hitpoints. One of our best spells (and most fun), spellsteal, costs so much mana that you simply can't cast it more than once a match. There's a reason that mages downrank polymorph, frost nova and frost bolt. You have to save mana in any way you can. It makes the mage class unable to do healer + dps teams in arena, and those teams are the most efficient 2v teams. Have you ever seen any other class run away to try to drink?
For PvE, the highest damage mage spec (deep arcane) is rarely used. The reason for this is it's high mana consumption. In order for an arcane mage to deal competent damage they have to regularly be paired with one or more shadow priests in combination with chain-potting and BoW. Often still going OOM. I agree that raids are more fun when classes combine for synergy to make each other better, but in this case it's just to avoid OOM (0 dps). The mage is the only strict dps class with this issue. Rogues just have to stay alive, and every heal on a warlock results in a restored mana pool.
My idea for the mana pool issue is this: scalable mana per point intellect. I would scale mage mana pools in much the same way as crit rating scales but in the reverse. I'm unsure as to what the ideal increase would be at level 70, but 40-50% would noticeably improve mage efficiency. Bigger mana pools allow more time for our efficiency talents to take effect in raid situations. Bigger mana pools would better allow for mages to compete in arena.
*disclaimer* There are far better PvP mages than me (I PvP 0/6/55), and my observations on arcane raiding are based on about a week of raiding arcane. I also understand there are more mage issues that this idea would not fix, but this is not a catch all solution. It is just an idea to help.