Read more about Shadowlands ➜ https://worldofwarcraft.mgn.tv
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/sloot
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Slootbag
I get to sit down and chat with Mage masters Preheat, Dorovon, and Bjartuur to chat about a historic fan favorite to find out how they are faring in Shadowlands PvE!
Date of recording (for comparison of class/spec changes after): October 8, 2020
*Please note there has been some issues with video lag on Discord lately causing some audio/video desync, shouldn’t really affect anything though!
0:00 Guest Introduction
1:52 Mage History and Spec Development Pre-Shadowlands, Spec Analysis
50:28 Shadowlands Core Changes
1:05:56 Fire Shadowlands Talent Analysis
1:32:01 Arcane Shadowlands Talent Analysis
1:54:55 Frost Shadowlands Talent Analysis
2:39:33 Covenant Analysis
2:56:25 Soulbind/Conduit Analysis
3:19:45 Legendary Analysis
3:53:54 How Does Mage Look With Shadowlands Systems
4:19:15 QnA
4:35:45 Final Thoughts
Thank you to the guests!
Preheat
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/preheat
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LimitPreheat
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/preheat
Dorovon
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/dorovon
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dorovon9987
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/dorovon
Bjartuur
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/bjartuur
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bjartuur
Editor and Friend, mostly: https://twitter.com/Johnny_OneLung
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19:20 preheat is exactly right — IMO blizzard should steal from SE (FFXIV producer) when it comes to their approach to balance — the stat buffs like arcane intellect come from simply bringing a certain number of classes with a particular role (magic DPS, ranged DPS, physical DPS, tank, healer), but any class. That helps prevent degen gameplay like stacking warlocks or mages to the detriment of other specs and classes. Then balance classes/specs generally based on mobility vs. utility. vs. damage (skill cap too eventually). So you could never have an example like mage with high mobility, high utility, high damage, they'd have to drop one. But also specs like feral and survival would be uplifted — either getting more damage to compensate for the lack of non-standard utility, or something else from that trifecta.
The reason you have buffs is that without them you will just stack the currently highest dps class. No one will be happy when the optimal raid setup is 10+ warlocks.
There is 100% some slacking on behalf of Blizz regarding balancing. We pay $15 a month, this is one of the last true subscription games alive and the quality of service is horrible… Meanwhile, Fortnite was free making money off cosmetics and offered more updates.
Man 5 hours of mage talk…good lord have mercy on our souls. Sloot…i salute u man…gd lol
To put into perspective: Preheat believes that the top 3% of the player base is considered "average"
I’ve been leveling a mage (pre shadowlands patch) up to level 90 and all I do is arcane missile and blast for aoe and beat everyone in Dps every dungeon. I’m sure it’s different at end game but it’s most basic rotation I’ve ever played (this is my 2nd to last I was leveling to 120). I tried the other specs but arcane was just better in every way for dungeons and questing. U hit 2 buttons. Drink after each mob then double blink to catch up and aoe n missile….
Regarding as to why they dont balance enough using auras I would say it is because auras affect everything.
Let's say because of how stupid fire is they nerf fire with a 30% aura.
What happens to all the other builds that werent using this huge mastery or in general non optimized builds, there's many people including me that enjoy playing a build that might not be best, but it is fun and it could sim 75% dps compared to the most optimized build out there, I would have to suffer because the person with the ultra optimal build is OP.
I do agree blizzard definitely needs to focus on making changes more often but huge tuning knobs like that are only useful when a class overall is ahead, if it is one or two specific builds and every casual build is fine then you cant use auras, you have to specifically nerf what the OP build uses without screwing everyone else which at times can be hard.
I also get the feeling they are not balancing around optimal balance but around viability.
Dorovan should really stop smoking
I hope someone is collecting all the tears from these snowflakes to prevent us all drowning
Those mages were so PvE , I felt pity on them.
Arcane as a non-dot spread cleave spec could be cool.
@32:00 Wasnt the complaint before about fire's spread cleave being bad? Now they allow you to spread your ignite with another ability to a target doesnt that open up more types of fight fire could excel at?
"They can slack on tuning because we're all addicted and we're going to play WoW no matter what they do."
So people on the top end do feel this way. Interesting.
Good show
I mean…Ice nova works with glacial spike.
Thank you for making those awesome interview! It helps me understand even my class a bit better 🙂
It is a pity that wow employers don't watch such insightful content.
Thank you for these videos, I have been enjoying getting these insights into different classes. Will you be doing one for Priests, specifically for the healing specs or for all three specs? As someone who has mained nothing but Holy Priest for 16 years I would be very interested to see what people have to say about it.
Guy said he would still play a bad game fanboi lifer
Comet Storm and Ice Nova ia great in PvP. Also can be fun to play if you are doing lower level keys with friends or other content you outgear. So I like that it's there!
Give arcane a redesign. The spec seems so bland, and I hate that its another large cooldown burst window based spec like fire, but feels worse.
If you are doing mythic progression you care about performance until progression is done. Doesn't matter how long it takes. Could you kill boss by just playing better and not being fully optimized 2 months into patch? Sure, but getting better at the game is not easy and it's easier too optimize toon to be able to do more then to play it better.
Focus Magic should be an aura that gives you spell crit when your party crits with a spell and vise versa. Also a slight spell damage boost that is always up, like 3-5% spell power. If they crit with a magic spell you get 3% crit and if you crit you give the party 3% crit.
hell nooo you peeps! focus magic lottery is GREAT. cmon you guys!!!! We dont earn gold selling water or ports anymore…. Having plebs beg for focus magic? Those DELICIOUS tears when we give it to someone else? >.<
On a more serious note…. I completely agree with what Dorovon said… It's going to be hard for it to compete in that talent row. If it was baseline… that could work perhaps?
It's amazing how dull and underdesigned most specs are compared to shadowpriest. mage is about as exciting as hunter in terms of talent and build diversity.
i cant believe i just spended 5hs listening to some guys complain about the best designed class by far, mage has no real problems
On behalf of every other class in the game thank you blizzard for finally hitting fire mage with the nerf bat, now hit em again.
They could give Havoc to Arcane Mages. Here's the pitch:
Simulacrum (instant cast, 30 second cooldown, 10 second duration)
Conjure an arcane clone of yourself that fixates on your current target for 10 seconds. During that time, your spells casts are replicated by your clone but deal 60% of the normal damage.
That would be BEAUTIFUL.
Mage Problems… 1) We're not number one damage. 2) We need more blinks 3) We could use 1 more immunity.
These videos are great. Really thorough exploration of every single topic I wanted. Very very well done and thankyou _b.
here's how you make fire mages good to play in general, not ignore flamestrike forever and not rely on flame on:
when combustion is active, make each CAST of pyroblast give you a charge of fire blast, and each CAST of flamestrike give you 2 charges of fire blast
second one is debatable, but first one is so obvious. combustion feels bad when you have to do scorch and flame on is only locked because damage comes from combustion and you need flame on for that
additionally, either remove meteor (yes its a classic mage thing but it doesn't do shit, just like living bomb), or make them interact with smth like ignite. maybe meteor aoe increases flame strike damage or makes flame strike do more ignite damage?
Lol I don't know i have a iLvl 210 frost mage and use deathborne and have fleshcraft up for the extra int from bonus set and a boss fight in heroics or mythic+ and pull 9.5k low end and max 14.5 k single target and 7k to 10k consistently on mobs
No mage class should pick focus magic it was the same when in vanilla never used and a very week ability unless you and another mage put it on each other otherwise useless
YAY!!!! Thermal Void is back, I'm not a Glacial Spike fan. Also, I'm absolutely LOVING these class discussions Sloot! Thanks SOOO much <3
Him not clicking the talents he’s recommending for frost while he talks about them hurts my brain…
Next time can you please involve the real PreHeet. The selfish, whiny, entitled little dude doesnt deserve to be involved with the WoW community. PreHeat…shame on you.
Eew preheat is in this video. Sorry I really can't stand that guy. I love you sloot but preheat is the worst.
Why am I not surprised about this https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srenjt
When the preheat in your video talked like an absolute tryhard elitist who has delusions of grandeur with that overinflated ego by killing scripted computer controlled opponents, damn that says a lot about him
Preheat™
Is this Preheet or Preheat? I'm confused
Lol is that the fake preheet.
There's some great points here, for example at 3:57:30 BJ describes fundamental design issues in Fire mage. I think it's worth plucking out these parts of the video, and add in the description "Blizzard look here: ". I am probably being incredibly naive in thinking Blizzard watch these videos, but we could make it much easier for them to get to the fundamental issues, in which their low resourced dev team could benefit from.
Why didn’t they bring on the nice PRHEET?
too bad preheat's an ass. Limit defending him so far is way too 'method' like for stomaching.
Oh its the douche Preheat.
The way Americans say 'niche'…
Preheet is cooler than Preheat
I only have 1 question. Does Dorovon ever smile?