Dear Ghostcrawler,
Recently you’ve posted a few lengthy responses to the mage class and our concerns. I realize you might never read this little letter on this little blog on this little corner of the not so little internet. But I do have one thing to say to you, and I desperately hope that somebody will get this message to you.
Thank you.
I know you and your cohorts took a huge risk in revealing exactly what your thoughts are for mages and the vision you have for us as a class.
I know there are literally thousands of mages taking what you said, turning it against you, and just generally spewing QQ all over the place. Indeed, I have participated in these crying festivals many times.
But not this time.
What you gave us were answers. Maybe not the real, crunchy numbers many of us hope for and want, but what you gave us is worth far more than any paltry buff to this, that, or the other thing.
You were honest with us as a class. You told us “here is how we see the mage class and what we want to do”. You told us how you want arcane to work, how you want fire to work, how you want frost to work. Maybe some of us don’t like it. Maybe some of us do. Maybe we like what’s going on with spec A, but not B.
But all of us appreciate the fact that you said it in the first place.
I always hear people like Dr. Phil or that relationship advice expert on the radio talk about “closure”, whether it be related to a parent or some failed romantic relationship.
This is what you have given us, the mage community.
No longer do we have to guess, to wonder, to string ourselves along, not having any idea where we’re going. A disconnect between player and developer, if you will.
You’ve given mages worldwide the ability to say “alright, this is awesome” or “well… it’s been fun” or even “this is some goddamn bullshit”. You’ve given us the freedom to decide, right here and now, whether we share your vision, whether we want to continue down the road you are taking mages.
And for that… for that I say thank you.
We’ll see you at Blizzcon.
[...] plate (May 30, 2009) [...]
Fire as the ‘cooldown DPS’, that’s an interesting concept. I think it will last longer than DKs as the ‘cooldown tank’ a single DPS that burns cooldowns at the right time isn’t going to have the huge effect of a tank doing the same.
I have to say, I love that GC actually talks with the community and even gives answers which are better than “x is working as intended.”
It irks me when players are flippant with devs, and GC is one of the few I’ve seen who actually handles it really well, so props to him!
i agree that fire is all about lining up cooldowns, but unfortunately the current flavor of fire has no cooldowns. you’re pretty much limited to trinkets/potions in that respect (for personal cooldowns, anyway- there are still the external ones like bloodlust/power infusion that were mentioned). this is probably why i liked FFB better- there was another cooldown in the form of icy veins.
i totally agree with the sentiment of this post though. =D
I don’t know about you guys, but Arcane is getting some love…and I love that.
@ mike
Stacking Flamecap/Icy Veins/(Troll racial)/Bloodlust/Combustion all together was, in a word, spectacular.
It’s awesome to see the devs want to get back to that sort of thing.
Didnt know about GC’s further comments on mages. Any kind soul can post the comments here? Workplace blocked out the sites… DAMN IT!
I agree, it’s great that GC replied and took the time to post several lengthy responses. I actually took more from them than I did from our class Q & A!
Without wanting to devolve this into a discussion of the merits of various specs, Fire has another method of cooldown stacking and control – that is, Molten Fury. A Mage who blows his cooldowns willy-nilly like a 14-year-old in Amsterdam, firing off each as they become available, will do worse DPS than a Mage who lines them up for that sub-35% barrier.
Arcane is by far the most cooldown-heavy raiding spec at the moment, with IV, trinket, AP, PoM, and MI.
For me, Frost feels more of a “stacking cooldowns” spec than the others, with the importance of Water Elemental in its overall DPS. Stacking WE with Icy Veins (popped twice) and trinket and coldsnap during Heroism results in a significant dps increase.
If this playstyle was exclusively meant for fire, then I am really befuddled by what they want out of frost in PvE. Shatter combos can be too latency dependent for the spec to perform consistently well if at all.