So, the new batch of changes for mage was just posted and honestly, it’s just not good.
To me, it seems like blizzard is set to do 2 things with those changes, but accomplished non of this goals:
- Make fire mage more attractive
- Nerf arcane
Both things didn’t happen mostly because the changes, numerically, still does not change the status-quo:
SF arcane is still the top dps spec for mages, and fire mage still hits like a wet noodle (especially frostfire, which is currently just in shambles for fire).
I think fire is mostly fine when it comes to gameplay, but it’s really off when it comes to tuning. Living bomb will have to be buffed by WAY MORE, with higher proc rate, to make fire mage more attractive (especially in m+). Currently even after the changes, Living bomb sims way too low.
As for SF arcane: the damage nerf was long overdue and I can see the reasoning behind it. The issue is - the nerf did not nerf the numbers in a way that makes the spec more competitive and balanced with the rest of the mages specs because SF arcane is still top damage by a large amount, but the only difference is the gameplay is WAY worse.
I just don’t understand how can you repeat the same mistake again in such a short period of time. We double dipped on NP few weeks ago on beta, blizzard took it away from us, people complaint because it was an awful change that made the whole arcane revamp almost obsolete so they decided to keep the double dipping, and now they are doing the same thing: making a HUGE gameplay change that barely impact the numbers but makes the gameplay much worse - only now this isn’t beta and we are 3 weeks before the first season, having to learn our spec again and adjust to this god awful change.
Spell queueing has been a thing in the game since forever and so is double dipping. Either you remove ALL of it or you keep everything, because those inconsistent changes makes the gameplay even less fun and less intuitive for new players (so saying spell queueing in unintuitive for new players makes no sense in the first place).
TL;DR
It’s fine to nerf arcane mage DAMAGE, but please, for the love of christ, keep the gameplay as it was because it was the most fun this spec had since basically forever. There are at least 5-6 other things you came numerically nerf (even burden of power!) without changing the gameplay, such as mana cascade, phoenix, BoP damage bonus, etc.
Also, if you nerf arcane damage, please make up for it with better AOE since our AOE is medicore at best and further damage nerfs to our ST will make us obsolete in M+.