Mages are the only class in the game which feels like it has gained nothing over the years. After Mists of Pandaria our toolkit of abilities and passives has gradually been decreasing thanks to the infamous pruning campaign from Blizzard.
In Shadowlands our baseline mobility consists of 3 abilities - Blink, Frost Nova and Alter Time. The first two abilities have been around since 2004. Alter Time is used more often as a defensive tool rather than a mobility tool, and still, its vulnerable to dispels, making it even harder to use effectively than it already is.
We also have Shimmer as a talent, but if you do the math, in the long run its actually a mobility decrease if you use both abilities on cooldown, with Blink adding up to ever increasing mobility compared to Shimmer as time goes on.
I’m trying to bring to your attention (and most importantly, Blizzard’s), that mage mobility has hardly improved 16 years after the game’s launch - on the contrary, it’s in the worst state its ever been, and that is mainly thanks to the massive pruning we’ve had to our toolkit. Not only have we lost a lot of mobility, but we have lost a lot of CC.
For example, let us take Rogues, primarily Sub Rogues:
- Two Shadowstep charges baseline
- Sprint (1 minute cooldown)
- Shadowstrike teleport
- Death From Above
- Fleet Footed (passive 15% speed increase)
This is an absurd amount of mobility for a class with one of the highest damage outputs in short intervals. And this is just one class.
Every melee class has gotten mobility increases, Warriors with Execute charge, Paladins with double steeds and undispellabe freedom, Shamans with a charge, Monks Tiger Palm legendary, and the list goes on.
Even DKs, the slowest class in the game, have gotten some love and have Death’s Advance baseline, with the ability to pick Wraith Walk. Might as well mention the ability to Double Grip and use Abomination’s Limb. Those abilities can be considered a mobility buff, as it allows them to bring in their targets to them.
Every Class has gained something, whereas mages have gained nothing.
Here are a list of notable abilities we have lost over the years:
- Mage Armors (Frost Armor as a passive was very helpful against melee. Currently it is baked into Ice Barrier and that is a bad thing. Once Ice Barrier is down you have no way to passively slow melee attackers. Frost Armor was also incredibly helpful to the other specs against melee).
- Frost Jaw (Incredibly useful ability against both casters and melee.)
- Deep Freeze (No need to comment on this ability)
- Cone of Cold (For Fire and Arcane)
- Blazing Speed (Incredibly useful mobility tool)
This lack of mobility has made certain specs, primarily frost, which are reliant on hardcasting a spell in order to fish for procs, incredibly gimped in pvp scenarios. In the past, Frost was able to get Fingers of Frost procs from all chilling effects, not just damaging abilities. This greatly helped it in continuing its damage output despite being heavily trained.
Another thing that further escalates our lack of mobility and CC is our level 40 talent row. We are essentially forced to pick between having more mobility, or having more CC. For a class that is lacking both, this is an extremely painful decision to make.
Solution:
A simple solution that would increase mage survivability and kiting potential as a whole is to reintroduce Blazing Speed in the place of talents which aren’t used all that often or should have been baseline from the start.
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Make Glacial Insulation or Ice Floes baseline for frost, add Blazing speed in its place.
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Make Blast Wave baseline for Fire, add Blazing Speed in its place.
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Make Slipstream baseline for Arcane, add Blazing Speed in its place.
Some people might say “but you’ll still pick shimmer over blazing speed”, however shimmer is highly overrated. Blink is far superior in the current meta, especially with the cooldown reduction conduit.
Another common arguement for the use of shimmer is that you need it in order to land polymorphs when someone hides behind pillars in arena, but you really don’t. Landing sheeps usually isn’t a line of sight issue, but a lack of mobility issue.
To be honest, I have no idea why Blazing Speed was even removed. It was a much needed spell in both its variations. In its second variant back in MoP it was much needed tool (which is why it got buffed), that allowed mages to get away from melee, which arguably had as much mobility as they do now (Rogue Burst of Speed comes to mind).
TL;DR:
Melee mobility has gotten better over the years.
Mage mobility has gotten worse over the years.
Give mage some of its mobility tools back.