Feedback: Mages

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Community Manager
#1 - June 5, 2024, 7:07 p.m.
Blizzard Post

In this thread, we’ll be testing and talking about Mages in The War Within. Look here for posts from the development team as adjustments and bugfixes are made throughout the testing period.

Please note that off-topic or inappropriate posts will be strictly removed.

The War Within Beta

All classes’ Hero Talent trees are available for testing. Please keep in mind that this is a Beta environment:

  • There may be UI elements on the talent panel that are placeholder, including things like talent icons, text, or final UI art.
  • Some talents may not be functioning yet, or may be marked as not yet implemented (NYI).
  • Some new spell visuals and audio may still be a work in progress.
  • There are some talents that are not fully tuned yet. This is expected, and we will implement tuning adjustments throughout testing.

The combat design team has two big areas of focus at this time:

  • Finish work on changes to talents, especially wherever Hero Talents still need adjustments.
  • Fix bugs that are blocking testing of new talents.

Working from Feedback

Alpha feedback thus far has been of great benefit to us.

Now that we are entering Beta, our focus on Hero Talent trees is shifting away from reworks and design changes and towards tuning and refining. We want to thank you so much for all the forum posts, videos, and discussions all over the internet. Your feedback and impressions have been invaluable for bringing their identities to life and making them fit into what you love about the classes you play.

We are looking forward to hearing from more of you as you get a chance to try Hero Talents for yourself. We are specifically interested in feedback or impressions on these topics:

  • Hero Talents that you feel are “required” for your spec in a type of content, such as raiding or Mythic+, or that push you towards picking a specific tree. This could be due to damage profile, utility, defensives, or something else.
  • Hero Talent trees that you feel are either too strong or too weak in power level compared to other options.
  • Hero Talents whose functionality is confusing, unclear, or difficult to track during gameplay.
  • Hero Talent choice nodes that you feel could offer more meaningful choices.

Again, Thank You

Feedback throughout the Alpha test was highly impactful on our design of the game, and we look forward to refining every class with you in the Beta. Thank you!

The World of Warcraft Combat Design Team

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Community Manager
#540 - July 30, 2024, 10:28 p.m.
Blizzard Post

We’d like to call your attention to adjustments we’re making in the next Beta build.

  • MAGE
    • Hero Talents
      • Frostfire (Frost/Fire)
        • Frost
          • Frostfire Living Bomb damage multiplier increased to 175% (was 100%).
      • Spellslinger (Frost/Arcane)
        • Frost
          • Controlled Instincts cleave percent increased to 30% (was 20%).
          • Volatile Magic damage increased by 100%.
      • Sunfury (Arcane/Fire)
        • Arcane Phoenix area-of-effect non-exceptional spell damage increased by 30%.
        • Arcane Phoenix Arcane Surge damage increased by 30%.
    • Arcane
      • Clearcasting is now learned at level 10 (was level 11).
      • Mastery: Savant’s Arcane Barrage damage bonus increased by 100%.
      • Mastery: Savant’s Arcane Blast damage bonus increased by 50%.
      • Arcane Barrage damage reduced by 8%.
      • Arcane Blast damage reduced by 6%.
      • Arcane Familiar damage increased by 50%.
      • Magi’s Spark now has a 2 second grace period after the initial Arcane Missiles proc where the caster will continue to echo Arcane Missiles damage.
      • Fixed an issue where Magi’s Spark damage echo windows for Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage were shorter than Touch of the Magi’s duration.
      • Fixed an issue preventing Energized Familiar from granting Mana.
      • Fixed an issue that was allowing the last stack of Nether Precision to be double-dipped by spell-queueing.
    • Fire
      • Lit Fuse chance to trigger reduced to 4%.
      • Explosive Ingenuity chance to trigger reduced to 3%.
      • Living Bomb damage decreased by 75%.
      • Scorch damage increased by 25%.
      • Improved Scorch now increases damage taken by 7% (was 6%).
    • Frost
      • Death’s Chill maximum stack count increased to 15 (was 12).
      • Death’s Chill spell damage bonus decreased to 1% (was 2%).
      • Ray of Frost damage increased by 20%.
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Community Manager
#851 - Aug. 2, 2024, 9:31 p.m.
Blizzard Post

Hello Arcane Mages!

We’ve been closely watching Arcane, and in particular, the discussion around the most recent change to fix the ability to double-dip on the last charge of Nether Precision with Arcane Barrage.

While opinions on this change have not been unanimous, it’s true that the existence of this bug does deepen the rotational gameplay of Arcane. Given the current state of Arcane and our vision for the spec in The War Within, we’re opting to revert our bug fix for now and allow players to continue to double-dip on the last stack of Nether Precision.

You should see this change on the Beta in the coming days.

As always, thank you for your continued feedback!