So then. Some ideas and stuff on how to get spirit from something largely annoying and frustrating to something useful.
As was mentioned last time, spirit needs to be beneficial to all mages, regardless of spec.
The Butter Method
Taking what we already have and spreading it around.
One idea is to simply make Arcane Meditation base line. Sort of.
- Add the Arcane Meditation effect to all trees, or make it easily accessible to all specs.
Master of Elements: Your spell criticals will refund 10/20/30% of their base mana cost, and allows 10/20/30% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting.
The talent is already taken for pure mana efficiency, this simply expands on that role. Do the exact same thing for Frost Channeling, and that easily covers any conceivable raid spec. The mana regeneration portion of these talent points will not stack.
Arcane Meditation, then, would need a buff. How about “increases your spellpower by 5/10/15% of your total spirit”?
Another idea is to move where Arcane Meditation is, so that it is easily accessible to any mage. That is, first tier. Swap it with Arcane Stability, for instance.
Yet another idea is to do a weird combination of the above. First, move Arcane Meditation to the first tier so that any spec that wants it can take it. Second, add in an Arcane Meditation like thing to the deep end of the other two trees.
For instance, add yet another effect to Improved Water Elemental that allows 50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting, as long as your elemental is active. Stacking this with Mage Armor is not overpowered. 50% mana regen half the time, 100% mana regen the other half. That’s 75% average.
Tossing in Cold Snap for an extra elemental should balance out all those times the poor thing gets obliterated by AoE.
Alternatively, add the standard 30% passive to Brain Freeze or Chilled to the Bone.
The fire tree gets a similar treatment. Perhaps adding another effect to Hot Streak, which allows 100% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting for X seconds after casting Pyroblast. Or specify an instant Pyroblast, if mages stopping to spend 4-5 seconds to cast Pyroblast becomes worrisome.
Or, put the same effect onto Improved Scorch, and have it activate whenever Scorch crits.
Or add the 30% passive to Pyromaniac or Playing with Fire.
Point is, “Arcane Meditation” is available to anyone who wants it, but if you don’t have the points to spend for it (for any reason), you have viable alternatives deep in the other trees.
- Changing Mage Armor and Molten Armor
Essentially, have one armor meant specifically for PvP combat, and one meant specifically for PvE content.
For instance, let’s arbitrarily decide Mage Armor is for raiding and Molten Armor is for PvP.
Mage armor allows 30% of mana regen to continue while casting and adds a 5% critical strike chance. The current Glyph of Mage Armor remains the same, the current Glyph of Molten Armor ceases to exist.
Molten Armor deals fire damage to attackers, reduces the chance of being critically struck by 5%, adds a small amount of spell resistance, and halves the duration of harmful magical effects.
Glyph of Molten Armor could do something like “you automatically laugh at other players when they die” or something.
Anyway, the result of this would be that one armor is clearly for use in raids and is designed with that environment’s needs and gear in mind. The other, obviously, is for PvP.
The benefit to this is that all mages would then use the raiding armor when they raid. Thus, all mages would benefit from spirit when raiding.
Of course, all of this assuming that mages actually require additional mana regeneration. This isn’t true.
With the combination of mana gems, evocate, replenishment, paladin blessings and shaman totems, the need for additional mana regeneration doesn’t exist.
I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again. The majority of PvE mages will not use the current Mage Armor. They will use Molten Armor. The majority of PvE mages are specced (or are going to spec) 0/53/18, or a close variation thereof.
Elitist Jerks says a 53/18 FFB build is the strongest DPS option mages have. (Which it is). Thus, the masses of mages are going to spec that way for no other reason than the smart guys at the top said it was the best.
With this talent spec, these mages are going to use Molten Armor, as an extra 5% critical strike chance is superior to 50% mana regeneration. Two reasons for this. First, as stated before mages don’t have mana issues, so Mage Armor serves no purpose.
Second, thanks to Master of Elements, critical strike chance is a mana regeneration stat.
(Note: This post was initially going to be one post. In an effort to get away from posting single, massive posts that easily run 1500-2000 words, I have split this post into three parts.
Hopefully, this change will not only allow me to update more frequently, but also have the posts be easier to read.)
Yea.
I am definately going
18/53/0.
I’ve always loved the fire tree. And I want to see it work.
And as I take it, it would be more mana efficient, seeing I can use Mage Armor in combination with Arcane Med.
Glyphed, too, of course.
My guild, for the most part, is doing ok as far as mages not going oom. But they have to have a mana battery somewhere for this to happen.
As I see it, I want to be safe not relying on outside sources, and I’m just plain stubborn.
I leveled fire,
I raided fire in TBC.
I shall stay fire <3
And yes.
Arcane focus goes to whoever wins the
“I have the highest crit chance” game =P
Gear that includes spirit is wasting its budget on a stat that all dps – shadow priests and warlocks included – would rather spend on something else. Yes, locks and spriests get some benefit out of it, but not enough to make it a factor in comparing gear. It’s just a side benefit. So I’d say the simple solution is to give mages access to something that converts spirit into another stat (haste or crit, maybe) then we’re all on the same footing. But really, if spirit is so ubiquitous that you can’t avoid large amounts of it then I’d say Blizzard’s homogenisation of gear has gone too far. Spirit remains a stat that only healers actively stack, and I don’t see why there can’t be a big enough variation in cloth armor that you could choose to avoid spirit if you wanted to.
Casters can, sort of, avoid gear with spirit on it. There exists about one piece per slot in Naxx (normal and heroic) that does not have any spirit on it whatsoever.
It is possible to progress without getting any spirit at all, though it is very difficult to do so.
Another issue arises then, with that single piece of spiritless gear being considered best in slot by all the cloth casters.
Non-mage casters can pick them up as a sort of upgrade, until the really good piece comes along.
Similar to how a Fury warrior would pick up leather or mail pieces until a better piece of plate comes along.
Mages don’t, really, the spirit provides nothing, so those pieces don’t even count as an interim upgrade.
@ Theawàkening – I would agree that using Mage Armor and friends would be the best way to go if you don’t have reliable replenishment sources.
Most raids will have at least one, usually two or three or even four in addition to JoW, BoW and various totems.
Not all, and I can definitely see smaller guilds having mana problems.
It may be part of the issue, but all casters are balanced around having at least one source of replenishment. So if you don’t have one… you’re kinda screwed.
Though I would argue that a standard FFB build is still technically a fire build
What about giving mages Brilliance Aura (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=31308)? If the “aura” part of it is too powerful make it some type of minor spell that only affects you and not the whole party. I can see how this is what mage armor is supposed to be but I think that could probably use a buff (thank goodness for talents and glyphs that help it).
IMHO Mages shouldn’t ever have a problem with mana regen unless they are being mana drained.
What you’re touching upon is great and in reality, affects all casters, which is:
Shouldn’t a mana recovery talent be available for every caster tree instead of in one tree to promote diversity in spec?
and the corollary:
Why doesn’t Blizzard just make 30% mana regen while casting a baseline ability for every mana using class while replacing those talents with some more fun/optional talents.
I haven’t seen a good argument yet on why the abilities shouldnt be baselined.
I do sort of like the idea of baselining a 30% regeneration.
I think with doing that, you could make those talents enhance how much you actually reap from your spirit.
For example, the whole thing with intellect and spirit. Perhaps increase the effect int has on spirit in a talent.
The idea of infinite mana is coming up. That’s the next post. Man, you guys are good at this XD
Having the 30% mana regen as a base ability is an awesome idea. Though I still think speccing for it is a good idea, it just needs to have a version of it in every tree that would use it.
A version in all three mage, priest, and warlock trees. Put one in the moonkin tree.
It doesn’t have to be a new talent, just something attached to something that’s already there is fine.
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