So the PTR buffs show now that:
- 3-target Frost being now dominated by Necrolords
- 3-target and 5-target Arcane being DOMINATED by Necrolords
- no big changes for Fire
Sauce — LOOK AT PTR SOULBINDS TAB — (remove space): cteer458.github. io/mage-sims/
I think this is honestly awful for Mages. Why? Because now changing specs becomes even more ridiculous.
Want to play Fire? - Nightfae or suck
Want to play Arcane? - Necrolords or suck on 2+ targets
Want to play Frost? - Venthyr, but know your “niche”, the cleave, is actually subpar
For anyone who wants to perform across the content, and would love to play more specs, while optimizing their performance, this is just a really crappy situation to be in.
Those wanting to play Fire/Frost were already spread and gated by having to choose between 2 covenants and basically sucking at one spec regardless of choice. At least Fire and Arcane could be fine with Nightfae.
Instead of making Nightfae equally good for Frost, or - if you’d like less people in Nightfae - making Venthyr equally good for Fire and Arcane, you’re throwing a third covenant to the mix and basically booting Arcane there. Because that’s what it looks like it’s gonna happen - their ST is the same with Nightfae and Necrolords now, but AoE is MASHED by Necrolords soulbind.
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And on a personal note, let me just say, I’m SO glad I don’t play Arcane. Necrolords are the single ugliest, stankiest, and gross aesthetic in Shadowlands.
I just worry other specs might get pushed there and that would be beyond gnarly. But that’s obviously just me and it’s subjective. The above though, it just doesn’t feel good.
Yeah it is only your subjective perspective, buff to Deathborne is good but not as good to pull players that play fire from NF to Necrolords or frost mages from Venthyr to Necrolords, i would suggest blizzard should buff Gift of the Lich conduit and add that along with increasing duration of Deathborn buff it will reduce cd of Deathborne by same or double the amount of duration increase. For example first rank conduit increasing Deathborn duration by 6 sec and it also decrease a cd of deathborne by 6 sec or double (12) sec, with such buff to this conduit it would make Necros almost best choice for arcane mages and every mage spec would have best different covenant to support diversity.
Tbh i think that people gets misleaded by top raider player’s.
As much as frost concerns Venthyr is the best covenant for raid content because in a bossfight you will have alot of consistency with Thrill Seeker. It gives you 20% haste every 20 seconds and thats huge.
But for M+ content Necrolord takes the lead. The reason is that Deathborne from Necrolords is a flat damage boost on demand. And considering that you already have access to Icy Veins + Bloodlust back to back makes Thrill Seeker irrelevant in a way.
Another thing is that you cant have control on when the buff will pop so you may actually get the buff between trash pulls which makes it a complete waste. And now that i read they are buffing Emeni Necro makes me even more satisfied because last night (didnt know about the buffs yet) i decided to dump Venthyr and switch to Necrolord.
Generaly i beleive that people should not blindly follow top player advices without reading the content those advices are ment for. I did the same mistake at start. I was between choosing Venthyr and Necrolord. I went for Venthyr because i’ve read somewhere that Venthyr is the best for frost mage.
Gosh I wouln’t want to be that much a meta slave, looks terrible experience to me
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Even your own source is showing you wrong though. Necrolord is best for arcane on 3 targets but not the best 5 again. And 3 target fights are rather rare anyways. Or none existant in the current content.
And 3 target frost still has Venthyr on top. What do you mean?
They are buffing underrepresented covenants which is great honestly. Since even if they turn out better than the current best it likely won’t be by much.
You have to check “PTR soulbinds” in the link to see how it looks with the PTR buffs I’m talking about here. What you’re looking at is the live state of things.
o/ first boss of theatre of pain
Even there you don’t want to cleave that much since you will push them closer together into their enrage. But yeah that is maybe the only fight you can really use it to do some insane dmg.
Ah I see it now, my bad.
Though even with those it doesn’t look much like a problem. Sure Arcane Necro is miles ahead on 3 targets but as stated that is rare to non existant in current content. Any other metric it seems Necro is definetly better now but not really dominating in anything else.
Honestly really cool that frost on five targets has all 4 covenants simming with .3% difference from another.
Though once again it is only sims and we need to be carefull how much value we give them. Frost at release was still simming as the best single target spec in the game and nerfed heavily because of it only for us to find out that they were actually the worst and had to get several buffs to be ok now.
Realistically if 2 different things sim 2% appart it’s likely way lower than that in actual practice since that sims are accounting for perfect play.
Fire is objective hot garbage for cleave, my 190 legendary is stabe outperforming 210+ ilvl fire mages in pugs raids, and for ST you can just swap for ST legendary. I would say fire actually need to be buffed to being competitive outside of try-hards/twich thots(hi preheat) scene. I hasn’t played wow in 24/7 regime for a long time, but for what is worth, i hasn’t meet even a single fire mage being able outperform frost in Castle LFR/Normal. Maybe i just doesn’t met them.
Yeah you right, fire needs buffs. Worse mage spec 
Right now necro is bis for an overall arcane mage Cause it’s second on raid and best on 3+ target. i never liked night fae so im really glad.
I like it on frost as well. It gives us the only thing the spec lacks. On demand burst.
Ofc i only do M+ content, in a raid content Venthyr’s Mirrors of Torment is overall better.
And yes i truly believe that arcane takes the most out of this covenant. Especially on cleave fights.
implying it is not
Dude, you can rrrrreeeeee-ing how much you like, but cold reality of it - without night fae, fire has zero cleave. So the BfA traditions of rolling on borrowed power/live support for fire, is well preserved in SL.
I have no idea what your quoting… fire’s cleave sucks, its aoe is good.
tbh even before this it was bad
I ruled out so many classes based on the fact they’re speccs Covenant BiS is different. this Expansion has been terrible on this, the concept of utitilizing different speccs in different enviroments.
it makes meta shifts affect players even more and alot more hassle because if u need to change specc, u also need to take changing covenant into thought.
its annoying. when theres several points that prove blizzard are capable fo designing em to fit all speccs equally.
Why do you say that? Wasnt this expansions theme a choice? Ever damn Covenant should be interesting and valid pick. Nothing will beat Night Fae unless there are drastic changes within Covenant Abilities and Soulbinds and Conduits. Stuff like Channeled Shield and Skeletal Mage are so bad you have no idea.
For fire mages (don’t know about arcane spec) Night Fae will still be superior indeed. But for frost even without the upcoming buffs i find Necrolord better than Venthyr. Btw i’m talking about M+ content not raiding nor PVP.
Necrolord gives us ST damage that we lack alot. Popping Icy Veins + Deathborne with RoP and any trinket available pretty much gives 14k dps on ST @ arround 205 ilvl.
Venthyr cannot push that kind of dps on ST fights under any circumstances.