Hello! I’m Pyrha, a fire mage main for the last decade almost! I’m of the genuine belief that fire has been the best it’s been design wise in Shadowlands and I’m very happy with both its playstyle and its niche, however the talent tree shown has left me slightly concerned.
I’m just doing my part as a mage player to voice my criticism of what honestly feels like a mostly unfinished tree, for both the main mage tree and how it relates to fire.
So let’s begin with the criticisms of the mage tree:
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Minor complaint, but the whole point of a class tree is to have universal abilities for all 3 specs, while the spec tree decides which abilities are spec specific. It makes little sense for the barrier type to change depending on spec despite it being on the class tree. If you insist on it being on the class tree, then make it a generic “magic barrier” ability that then changes when you switch specs.
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It makes absolutely no sense for fire mage to ever have access to shatter. I appreciate that you’re allowing more multicasting options for mage but this passive is not it, fire’s entire gimmick is the fact that it can enter a burst window to guarantee crits, shatter could be useful to fish for hot streak procs on targets that can be cc’d, but the criteria is far too limiting. It would first need to be a target you can root, and then you need to fit your cast on that rooted target in that split second before it breaks (almost instantly in group content), and that is impossible outside of an instant cast proc of pyro or flamestrike. It’s far too restrictive and niche in its use to be incorporated as a universal passive for mage when 90% of its functionality on frost isn’t even its use on cc’d targets.
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Rune of power/Incanter Flow’s placement on the tree is very poor, there is a large myriad of content where you get zero use out of both slow and spellsteal, to lock one of our biggest throughput options behind either is a bad idea. If you insist on keeping rune of power (which I personally prefer if you don’t), then it needs to be far higher up in the tree.
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Likewise, from a thematic and functional perspective it makes no sense for shimmer and icefloes to be where they are, our strongest movement options should not be locked behind a bundle of cc and utility. It and the Blast Wave/Mass Polymorph node should switch places, on account of the right side of the tree being a lot more mobility oriented (incantation of swiftness, alter time, and temporal velocity)
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Same logic again, diverted energy is completely misplaced, it provides zero throughput and its primary functionality is sustain. There is no reason it should be gatekeeping one of our strongest cc’s as well as meteor.
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On that note, whats the reasoning behind the dragon’s breath cd nerf? (from 18 to 45 seconds) Im assuming the intent is so that you alternate the uses between dragon’s breath and blast wave which more or less fulfill the same purpose. Either that or you do not want the other two mage specs to have access to a spammable disorient. But in which case, fire should definitely get a talent in it’s spec specific tree that reduces the cooldown of Dragon’s Breath, and Alextraza’s fury could be nerfed accordingly if the concern is it being too strong. There’s no reason to gut one of our most powerful utility spells in M+, especially seeing as mage doesn’t bring a lot of it to begin with compared to other classes. A good talent to put this CDR on or next to would be Phoenix Reborn, which is likely there to accomplish the similar purpose of add control, though I imagine its proc rate would have to be reduced as a result.
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Both shifting power and time anomaly are locked behind a ludicrous amount of potentially unwanted utility, 3 points in frigid winds and 1 point in ice ward/ring of frost just to access shifting power is absolutely criminal, likewise, 3 points in flow of time and a point into greater invis to get time anomaly is arguably even worse.
This entire class tree suffers heavily from locking valuable throughput options behind pages and pages of utility that in the best case is situational and in the worst case is utterly useless in the encounter of choice. The point of the class trees is to provide the player options with how they approach their build, choosing to add or remove things that may or may not assist in the encounter of choice.
The mage tree runs completely counter to that, having to invest copious amounts of points into what feels like arbitrarily linked talents to get what you want.
And On the note of arbitrary linkage. Defensives, mobility, crowd control and throughput is all over this tree with no rhyme or reason behind why one is required for the other.
For instance, why do I have to choose blast wave and/or tempest barrier (cc and health) to access Tome of Antonidas (A haste buff) to then have access to Master of time, despite the fact I picked alter time ages ago by this point.
By the same token, why is shifting power, one of our strongest AoE throughput options locked behind 5 rows of nothing but crowd control and damage reduction.
This tree needs serious cleaning up. CC options, Mobility Options, And Defensives need to be all cleanly separated so you know how deep into any of the three you want to go. Overlap between the three can and needs to exist, but it needs to be an option, not a requirement.
Likewise, throughput options need to not be locked behind several rows of potentially undesirable utility and CC, a raid boss typically does not require any crowd control and yet I am forced to pick these options just to get to the damage portion of the tree. This is a philosophy also present on a few other trees and needs to be completely abandoned. Make the connection between different throughput options make sense, and make the CC, Mobility, and Defensives parts of the trees cleanly separate with the option of overlap should the mage choose to invest in it.
The fire tree in comparison has a much stronger showing but still has its own host of issues.
The core is strong, both spenders (Pyroblast and flamestrike) are early and the left side of the tree branches into single target while the right side branches into AoE, combustion is down the very center. All very elegant.
It’s once the tree begins to go a bit further down that it falls apart.
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For one, seeing as the way the tree is framed makes it seem like the left side is meant for ST damage and right for AoE, however theres the questionable presence of a lot of talents that do not belong on the side they’re on.
For instance, why is Alextrasza’s Fury and Phoenix Reborn on the ST side of the tree, while Pyroclasm, a notoriously ST only talent is on the AoE side of the tree.
And if the intent is not for one half of the tree to be for AoE and the other for ST, then the talents need a serious positional shake up. And it also needs to be easier to go to the opposite side later down the tree as well. -
Conflagration needs to be either moved to the left side of tree or preferably entirely removed. There’s no reason that a talent that only ever works off fireball should be below the one that asks you to hardcast flamestrike, I would replace it with flame patch.
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Improved blazing barrier needs to be completely removed, or baked in, no sane person on earth would ever spend a talent point on a very minor damage buff to getting hit.
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Master of flame is a very interesting concept to allow your fire blast to now be the component that spreads ignite, but ignite damage outside of combust seems like a frankly very boring way to play fire, I would remove master of flame altogether but bake the fire blast spreading ignite into flame on
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Speaking of boring ways to play fire, Improved Scorch needs a to be preceding searing touch, and ONLY searing touch. Playing it with searing touch makes sense and Imagine would be easy enough to use. However, it is also likely going to be the premier ST execute even on fights where you go Firestarter, and having to use a scorch that isn’t guaranteed to crit below 30% often is a horrible way to play. Make it so Improved scorch is only even an option if you go searing touch, or bake it into searing touch.
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Fevered incantation seems very arbitrarily placed, it seems like a natural fit next to Firemind, and I believe it should be an offshoot of it or a point preceding it.
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Likewise, Fire Frenzy is arbitrarily placed, and as we’ve seen in shadowlands is just a worse version of SKB, it should be placed as a precursor to SKB, which imo would result in a very fun build.
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I’m not sure what Tempered flames is meant to be, it seems like its expecting you to hardcast pyroblast for single target damage? It’s a new idea so I won’t knock it til we try it but it seems very unconventional, and honestly not very fun.
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I would like to see the return of infernal cascade, it is a conduit that genuinely adds a meaningful change to the rotation of mage with the upkeep of the buff, and I think would make an excellent talent.
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Finally, the biggest complaint, there is absolutely no reason to make us pick between kindling and fiery rush, this should NOT be a choice node, if anything they should precede each other. The reason kindling is so good atm in Shadowlands is specifically because fiery rush permits so many consecutive crits, making us pick between a fast but infrequent combust or a slow but frequent one is unfun, and feels like a straight up downgrade from our current gameplay. If ANYTHING needs to be changed about fire’s talent tree, it’s that we need to be permitted to pick both of these talents, they feed so well off each other and are an excellent pairing with SKB.
That’s my list of primary complaints, please take none of this as maliciousness, the folks over at Blizz have been doing an excellent job listening to their players recently and I’m confident that they’ll listen to criticisms of this tree. I’m just attempting to do my part.
Thank you for reading this far, and take care everyone!