WoD 6.0 Alpha patch notes

[Chill 5]

I agree that using it for the movement reset is probably underwhelming, but that would depend on the encounter. I'd simply point out that this can also be used to mitigate any number of things we've never been able to mitigate before because the damage wasn't squeezed into the four second Temporal Shield window. Part of what made TS so good was being off the global cooldown, but still, this talent is far from useless, especially when you consider that it is on a movement tier. I'm a bit floored that so many people are completely ignoring its defensive potential, especially with the healing changes in WoD.

 

In any case, if you honestly can't find a good use for it, then take Ice Floes or Blazing Speed.

[Sikkz 27]

 

- RIP Iceblock.  The replacement spell lasting 7 seconds less than iceblock, and perhaps not even eliminating DoTs and debuffs just plain sucks.  Our survivability is going way down in the cases something goes wrong.

 

 

You understand that Ice Block is only being replaced by that spell for those who take the talent, correct? 

 

It's not getting taken out of the game.

[Galatea 2]

I agree that using it for the movement reset is probably underwhelming, but that would depend on the encounter. I'd simply point out that this can also be used to mitigate any number of things we've never been able to mitigate before because the damage wasn't squeezed into the four second Temporal Shield window. Part of what made TS so good was being off the global cooldown, but still, this talent is far from useless, especially when you consider that it is on a movement tier. I'm a bit floored that so many people are completely ignoring its defensive potential, especially with the healing changes in WoD.

 

In any case, if you honestly can't find a good use for it, then take Ice Floes or Blazing Speed.

 

15:  Evanesce, Blazing Speed, Ice Floes

30:  Alter Time, Flameglow, Ice Barrier

 

Yeah, temporal shield was nice.  The lv 30 choice will probably be situational then.  We'll see.

 

You understand that Ice Block is only being replaced by that spell for those who take the talent, correct? 

 

It's not getting taken out of the game.

 

No I didn't - from the way it was phrased, I understood it was being removed.  Are you sure?  In that is indeed the case, it's all good, and sorry for the misunderstanding.

[Oltier 471]

Regarding alter time, I think it will still have a place in progression fights. To give a current example, with the 15 sec duration it could bypass all of the damage of a whirling corruption without a dps loss. I think it will still be a valuable ability in serious progression encounters without being a mandatory dps cooldown. It is kind of a let down to see one of the trickiest aspects of mage dps being removed but I think it will still be important to groups that are really pushing their progression.

My is: Think of early Temporal Shield. While in theory it sounded great, it was useless. It healed you back under 6 seconds the damage you took under 4 seconds, but there were no damage reduction connected to it. Realistically, you will want to have an actual damage reduction in that situation to help your healers out. You simply cannot risk getting killed, because Alter Time didn't expire in time/you didn't casted it again for the second time. Because of this, I still think it is going to be a very situational talent.

Oh, and it has 90 seconds cooldown. Too long.

Honestly, Temporal Shield felt pretty OP so i'm ok with it being gone.

For t6 i think we'll always go Mirror Images because cooldown stacking is always important, and Rune of Power remains a bit annoying. Incanter's Flow sounds interesting for reacting to our various procs, but i think it might vary too quickly.

I wouldn't say it was THAT op. It would have been almost on par with Ice Barrier if it had been on a GCD as well.

Yep, Mirror Image.. Unless patchwerk fight.

also i would add this, couldnt see it on apha patch notes, instead on wowhead page:

EDIT: These are Draenor perks:

Draenor Perks are a new type of leveling reward in WoD. When leveling from 91-100, you'll be randomly assigned one Draenor Perk each level that's appropriate to your class/spec, and when you hit 100 you'll have learned all of them.

-> frost

• 
  Enhanced Frostbolt: Frostbolt's cast time is reduced by 0.5 sec. This effect is disabled for 15 sec after you benefit from it.
  
• 
  Enhanced Ice Lance: Fingers of Frost can stack 1 additional time.
  
• 
  Improved Frost Nova: After casting Frost Nova, you will instantly teleport 10 yards behind you.
  
• 
  Improved Icy Veins: Increases the amount of Haste gained from Icy Veins by 10.
  
• 
  Improved Frostbolt: Increases the damage of Frostbolt by 20%.
  
• 
  Improved Ice Lance: Increases the damage of Ice Lance by 20%.
  
• 
  Improved Blizzard: Each time Blizzard deals damage, it reduces the cooldown of Frozen Orb by 1 sec.
  
• 
  Improved Water Elemental: "Your summoned Water Elemental now also knows the Water Jet spell.
  Water Jet
  Channels a jet of icy water at the target, dealing XXXX Frost damage to the target over 4 sec.
  The Mage's Frostbolts that hit the target while it is being blasted with icy water will grant a charge of Fingers of Frost."
  
• 
  Improved Frostfire Bolt: Increases the damage of Frostfire Bolt by 20%.
  

-> fire

• 
  Improved Flamestrike: Flamestrike no longer has a cooldown.
  
• 
  Enhanced Inferno Blast: Reduces the cooldown of Inferno Blast by 1 sec.
  
• 
  Improved Pyroblast: Increases the critical strike chance of Pyroblast by 15%.
  
• 
  Improved Inferno Blast: Inferno Blast now spreads the damage over time effects of Pyroblast, Ignite, and Combustion to 2 additional targets.
  
• 
  Improved Combustion: Increases the duration of Combustion by 20%.
  
• 
  Improved Scorch: After casting Scorch, your movement speed is increased by 30% for 3 sec.
  
• 
  Improved Fireball and Frostfire Bolt: Increases the damage of Fireball and Frostfire Bolt by 20%.
  
• 
  Improved Dragon's Breath: Increases damage of Dragon's Breath by 50%.
  
• 
  Enhanced Fireball: "When your Fireball fails to critically strike a target, you gain a 5% increased chance for Fireball to be a critical strike for 15 sec.
  This effect ends when Fireball successfully critically strikes a target."
  

-> arcane

• 
  Improved Arcane Barrage: Increases the damage dealt to secondary targets of Arcane Barrage from 50% to 100%.
  
• 
  Enhanced Arcane Blast: Each stack of Arcane Charge now reduces the cast time of Arcane Blast by 5%.
  
• 
  Enhanced Arcane Missiles: Increases the maximum stacks of Arcane Missiles by 1.
  
• 
  Improved Arcane Power: Arcane Power now reduces the cost of your spells by 10% instead of increasing the cost by 10%.
  
• 
  Improved Blink: Your movement speed is increased by 60% for 2 sec after using Blink.
  
• 
  Improved Evocation: Reduces the cooldown of Evocation by 30 sec.
  
• 
  Improved Arcane Blast: Increases the damage of Arcane Blast by 20%.
  
• 
  Improved Arcane Missiles: Increases the damage of Arcane Missiles by 20%.
  
• 
  Improved Arcane Explosion: Increases the damage of Arcane Explosion by 20%
  

Thanks for adding these.

Hell, if you miss temporal shield, just take Alter Time and reset it at four seconds every time you use it and pretend the patch notes said "We are buffing temporal shield to heal back damage instantly instead of over six seconds. Also, renaming it Alter Time and making it occasionally get you hilariously killed with a movement reset."

So it's not so great defensive after all? Why would I take a DEFENSIVE talent that might kill me, with 90 seconds cooldown, over a 100% defensive talent when I need a DEFENSIVE talent? Well, I guess that's the prize we have to pay for that 1 free GCD DPS increase.

- RIP Iceblock. The replacement spell lasting 7 seconds less than iceblock, and perhaps not even eliminating DoTs and debuffs just plain sucks. Our survivability is going way down in the cases something goes wrong.

So what cool features are we getting for our loses? None.

We get to scratch our heads and wonder how to integrate the new talents into our DPS rotations without any talent being in any way cool or doing something we can't do already. I'd much prefer utility spells - like breathing underwater, conjure glider, or a spell which attracts you to your target or something (like death grip or leap of faith in reverse) to what we're getting. Mages are bringing to raids less utility than ever now. All the level 100 talents are basically AOE talents - yay, we get to kill trash packs faster - woohoo!

Very disappointing.

Ice Block has not been replaced. Evanesce is a talent choice that will replace Ice Block IF you choose that talent.

But the changes are not terrible so I'd disagree with you on that. These are alpha notes, there will be lot more changes, just wait for them.

@Well ppl talking about alter time that its gonna suck and so

I found it kinda usefull and actualy dps increase. Imagine fight like on Sha of pride 25 man, and ur assigned to do the far prisons, u just do alter time before u start running there and u get free tp back or if u have to close distant rifts. It's really depresing running and just living bomb the boss or ice lance him whatever, HUGE dps loss. we will found out how its gonna be in practice

This is what I meant by: VERY SPECIFIC encounters. If some raidleader made you do that run to prison I'll just give you a gentle pat and hug you. Even then, you would have had Blink (double), Blazing Speed, Ice Flows, FoFs, BFs..

It's not useless. I can think of boss fights this tier where new AT is useful:

Sha, pop AT at the stack spot, run for a rift or to free prison then AT back

Seigecrafter, AT then blink away with Sawblade/Lazer, you can AT back

IJ you can AT before the knockback and retain your position and take 0 dmg

It's a shame we have to lose Temporal Shield for it but it's far from a useless ability now.

Obviously not useless, but it's still mehh... This spell had a great potential.. It was bit OP too, okay. But I don't think I would have ever used it if it wasn't for DPS increase, and I will possibly won't (unless the other defensive talents will be worse than this).

So does this mean that you think it will take you 15 seconds now to get the person out of prison instead of the previous 6 seconds which you now seem to find sufficient? Don't wish to remain stacked for those 9 seconds in case you get the Norushen buff? Too many things can change in 15 seconds that were unlikely to change in 6 seconds for Alter Time to be useful for this purpose any longer.

If you use Alter Time for a second time, it instantly ports you back.

I find it funny how many people hate alter time and begged for its removal. Blizzard puts a spell in that requires planning ahead and thinking on our end, and most of the population instantly resent it because its not a simple spell that you can just spam brainlessly on cooldown. I also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how people complain about it killing them. I was talking to this mage yesterday while I was doing Garrosh who claimed "Alter Time teleported me back into the desecrate and killed me! God I hate this fucking spell!". No. YOU KNEW desecrate was coming and you decided to pop alter time right before it went out, that's on you, not the spell. There are some occasions in which this is completely unavoidable, but not many.

I, personally, am upset the most about temporal shield being removed. Such an amazing defensive cooldown that rewarded players who used it correctly.

QUESTION....about this whole "Incanter's Flow" thing. I'm reading the tooltip, and by the way it's worded....it sounds like it's going to be passive. Can anyone confirm/deny this? It sounds pretty cool, but passive? Wut.

We actively fought FOR Alter Time. Well, they changed it but.. It became boring in my opinion.. I liked it as it was because.. It required brain, and luckily for me I have something like that.. Unless I'm drunk... That time it killed me.

Temporal Shield was a reward anyway.

Yep, I also understood that it is going to be passive which sound interesting. Basically: delay using your procs for when it is at around max potential. (ofc without wasting procs)

I agree that using it for the movement reset is probably underwhelming, but that would depend on the encounter. I'd simply point out that this can also be used to mitigate any number of things we've never been able to mitigate before because the damage wasn't squeezed into the four second Temporal Shield window. Part of what made TS so good was being off the global cooldown, but still, this talent is far from useless, especially when you consider that it is on a movement tier. I'm a bit floored that so many people are completely ignoring its defensive potential, especially with the healing changes in WoD.

In any case, if you honestly can't find a good use for it, then take Ice Floes or Blazing Speed.

It's not useless... It's just far worse than its superiors: Alter Time and Temporal shield.

You understand that Ice Block is only being replaced by that spell for those who take the talent, correct?

It's not getting taken out of the game.

Ice Block only gets replaced if you choose Evanesce.

[Archimage 98]

Note these are Alpha Patch Notes, they can still decide to not change some aspects. Changes influence PvE aswell as PvP. Also, these are WoD changes, so don't think "I'm going to use this when fighting Sha". Blizzard might or might not implement similar situations in the new raids, so the only thing we can do is wait to see what they implement, and then adjust our selections accordingly.

 

Some of my other opinions:

 

Evanesce: Reduced Duration Ice Block (No debuff) that allows ABC  . . . 3 Second Dematerialize(Monk). . Could work

 

Alter Time: Yes, this is a big nerf, not only did we lose Temp shield, but one of our DPS Cooldowns. Blizzard did say they are trying to reduce cooldown stacking, so the buff part is gone (No more Engineering BiS  ).

Now how do we salvage from this: Think of it as a 15 second temp shield(no dmg reduction) and you get your health back instantly, just make sure you press the button if you are going to die before the duration expires. Can you use this off GCD and while stunned?.  The average uptime of AT vs Temp Shield is almost the same, but the cooldown is too long to use on every major raid damage pulse. 

 

The change in Mage Bomb (from Multi-dot) to simply a single cast AoE damage spell simplifies the talent tier.

 

Unstable Magic (I hate RNG), this won't be that great for Frost since we don't cast Frostbolt as much as Fire/Arcane casts Fireball/Arcane Blast.

 

Since Shatter is Frost-only, so Frost Nova becomes less important for Fire/Arcane

Supernova: How high are they knocked up (Fall Damage)? How long does it take to reach the ground again (compare with normal Frost Nova)?

Blast Wave: Instant Flamestrike

Ice Nova: Frost Nova becomes ranged like Pet Freeze. . . 5 second less CD, but 4 second less Freeze duration.

 

Kinda sad how we lost one of our few heals.

Mirror Images: Dunno if my calculations is correct: 30/180 * (0.5 * 3) = Average 25% boost. Note its not a 25% spell damage boost since Mirror Images don't duplicate your spells, they only cast your filler spell.

Incanter's Flow: Timing will everything. They didn't mention Water Jet's cooldown, but you can Water Jet + Frostbolt when you only have 1-3 stacks, and unleash 3x Ice Lance while its at 4-5 stacks. Cast a few Frostfire bolts, and repeat.

 

Dislike the Brain Freeze change, more RNG. No Instant-cast makes less movement. Frostfire bolt has a longer cast-time than frostbolt, but acts if the target is frozen (shatter). Dunno if this is a DPET boost. Where is the FFB Glyph?

[Kver 65]

People, please keep it civil and on-topic, we're all mages, becoming enraged over the alpha notes is silly.

 

Also please be careful with spreading incorrect information, especially when it comes down to actual numbers. These notes are only useful for discussing mechanics or the "intended"(apparent) direction of a class or spec.

[Oltier 471]

Now how do we salvage from this: Think of it as a 15 second temp shield(no dmg reduction) and you get your health back instantly, just make sure you press the button if you are going to die before the duration expires. Can you use this off GCD and while stunned?.  The average uptime of AT vs Temp Shield is almost the same, but the cooldown is too long to use on every major raid damage pulse. 

 

Dislike the Brain Freeze change, more RNG. No Instant-cast makes less movement. Frostfire bolt has a longer cast-time than frostbolt, but acts if the target is frozen (shatter). Dunno if this is a DPET boost. Where is the FFB Glyph?

Exactly my thoughts of AT.

 

Indeed, the Brain Freeze change, as it is now is useless. Why would I cast Brain Freeze with that long cast time, when I could cast one and a half Frostbolt during that time? By the time I casted 2 FFBs, I could have cast 2 Frostbolts that -even if they didn't crit- will be on almost the same damage. If they crit, they will be on the same damage for sure.

So overall, if the Brain Freeze effected FFB's cast time got reduced to the cast time of Frostbolt, that would be great.

 

People, please keep it civil and on-topic, we're all mages, becoming enraged over the alpha notes is silly.

 

Also please be careful with spreading incorrect information, especially when it comes down to actual numbers. These notes are only useful for discussing mechanics or the "intended"(apparent) direction of a class or spec.

Wise words, my friend. However, arguing is not a bad thing if it's done with manners.

[Oltier 471]

Added new glyphs

 

• Glyph of Interruption - When you successfully Counterspell a target, the remaining cooldown on Counterspell is reduced by 4 sec.
• Glyph of Dragon's Breath - Increases the damage done by Dragon's Breath by 100%.
• Glyph of Regenerative Ice - You regenerate 4% of your maximum health every 1 sec for the duration of Ice Block.

[Ghanjo 37]

Lookslike we're getting the raid cooldown we have been asking for:

"Mages will bring Amplify Magic as a raid cooldown, which increases all healing received by the raid by 20% for a short duration" - from the interview with Celestalon

[Kver 65]

I'm not sure if I like that raid cooldown to be honest.

[Dutchmagoz 30]

Please read the new tool tip for WoD, not the current one:

http://wowhead.com/talent-wod#my\h0

 

Alter Time

"Alter the fabric of time. causing the caster to return to their current location and health when cast a second time, or after 15 seconds.

Effect negated if the caster dies within the 15 seconds before the effect occurs or moves too far away".

 

So, yes I missed the the "cast again" bit (I only use it for the buff snapshotting and either let it run it's course or cancel the buff [in which case you don't go back]), but the time did go up to 15 seconds.

So looks like you end up wasting 2 GCDs the same as double blink (and you still have to run one way).  I still have a hard time finding a good use for this new version of the spell.  There are much better mobility spells to use than this one.

 

AT is not on the GCD, so you're not wasting any gcd's on it. You can re-cast AT before 15 seconds are over, to get back to 100% hp, and back to whatever position you were in. 

 

Think of Siegecrafter: Alter time in the middle of the room, blink to the belt, jump in the pipe, kill the weapon on the belt, re-cast alter time, boom, you're back in the middle of the room. No need to wait till end of belt, or jump off with high risk of falling down in the middle. Loads of time saved, loads of potential damage/death saved. 

 

Another example (keep in mind, healing is becoming slower now): On for example thok, which btw will be much slower than it is now, waves will do less damage, but healers will also do less healing. You can alter time while you're on full hp, get 3-5 aoe blasts of damage till you're like 50% hp, and get healed back to full again by re-casting AT. Or using it while he's chasing you, double blink away, run away, etc, and after he's done chasing you, you alter time back to the place where you started.

 

Don't think one dimensional, think about all the posibilities you can do with it. 

 

I am going to state it right now: Mages will be one of the strongest ranged dps classes come 6.0.

 

We get amazing AoE for all 3 specs, great mobility for most specs, good cleaving, good burst, good single target, lots of utility, lots of survibility.

Edited April 6, 2014 by Dutchmagoz

[Akraen 230]

Moderator Note: In the name of consistency and to stop the spreading of often completely innocent, accidental misinformation, the moderation team will be fixing/editing/correcting/deleting/whatever-the-case-may-be to any incorrect info being posted here.

 

Moderators will only change/correct this information if we are 100% sure how it works.

 

In the meantime, if you see posters such as Durrtygoodz, Dutchmagoz, Aeres, Narsha, and a few others, they likely will have researched a lot and will provide quality info. Not that others can't post reliable info, but now is a time to be a healthy and positive skeptic, rather than a hot-head on a mission. Please keep cool guys-- don't debate too hard on something that is going to be changed ten times before live.

[Kver 65]

On MMO there seems to be a bit of a... consternation over our 6.0 talents, because they claim that talents should be available as options, not be used for "making" a spec work. Am I the only one who thinks that's nonsense? oO

[Akraen 230]

Any strong opinions over anything right now is nonsense. Alpha servers are struggling to even stay online. 2 weeks into beta is when to start actually thinking of stuff. :)

[Ulkjin 4]

really this talent tree is more than i could of ever asked for.

 

Tier 15 is amazing i can see myself using all 3 of these in a raid and pvp scenario depending on spec stats and encounter 

 

Tier 30 is also great (flameglow for lazy mages) but other than that ice barrier is a great small cushion  that you can use often and is never wasted. and not only is alter time a great burst oh shoot button but i think yall underestimate the power of its cheese factor. there were alot of fights in MoP mages could of abused if we didnt have to worry about are dps when thinking about Alter Time

 

Tier 45 still kinda sucks but is mostly for pvp

 

Tier 60 is amazing greater invis is the best oh shoot button in the game IMO. Cauterize is great for when your raid team is learning a fight and with the glyph of regen ice cold snap adds a ton of healing potential

 

Now on to the Great stuff, now number aside (because there pointless right now. this is like 5 steps before blizz starts balancing) let look at the design intent with these spells

 

Tier 75  

 Bomb spells, now for arcane and fire this is just more cleave with some potential great fire single target dmg. But for frost add this with the shatter nerf ( which needed to happen IMO) this MIGHT fix frost scaling issues        

              

 Unstable magic most likely best for single target dmg (cept for maybe frost) scale great with haste          

              

 Nova spells, great for some more burst and on a small cd so most likely going to be great early game and then die off imo also adds more utility specially for arcane that looks sick (also probably great for challenge modes )

 

Tier 90

Mirror Image  Great for front loading your dmg going to be for Spine of deathwing type fights 

 

Rune of Power i must say when I read this was staying I cried a little. But when i saw that they are making it last 3 min I started to think about it and really my biggest issue is that I had to cast it every min which made the ROT... not aloud to use clunky so i'll say bad. mix that with the fact that we have some real alternatives for movement crazy fight i am ok with it 

 

Incanter's Flow This is the biggest ? for me. I'm really going to have to play with it before i am sure but I could see this being good for frost Maybe fire but never for arcane just my first thoughts 

 

Tier 100

Main CD buff This talent is amazing for fire and frost arcane i am not too sure. Frost pair this with frost orb ice lance spam you will easily double the duration of icy vains, and for fire this is going to be amazing single target dmg buff and a fight depended cleave dmg buff, but for arcane idk i guess i dont think it going to effect it that much at most you'll get 12 sec that a lot but idk i just don't see as much potential there especial when you think about how arcane power also affect mana. personal opinion tho

 

Prismatic Crystal I honestly cant see this making live this CD is NUTS. 1 min CD with a 30% dmg buff. i know we will have to micro manege it but dang. But the real reason i cant see it making live is that fact we are going to be able to cleave off of it. imagine fire, your going to pair this with your burst which is combustion, and after that you going to impact spread it. on single target fight this is going to buff the dmg of bomb, ignite, pyro dot, and combustion by around 130%. everything i think of that will fix this cheese will make this talent very unattractive. it very possible blizz is smarter than me tho

 

​Meteor Spells this is the most boring talent for me i think it will be good early game bad late game. But it will make arcane pvp more possible in fact i think this with arcane nova and evo arcane will be the pvp spec imo

 

 

this talent tree make me very happy. there are really only 1 maybe 2 depending on balancing that i find issue with (flameglow and maybe incanter's flow) 

 

sorry for the long post really wanted to talk about this thanks for reading  

 

 

[Narsha 12]

In the meantime, if you see posters such as Durrtygoodz, Dutchmagoz, Aeres, Narsha, and a few others

Wooop, just hacked in and saw my name, appreciate it but gonna be open about it to those that don't know: I've been in jail since 1st of april and gonna stay here... for a while, at least over the summer so feel free to do all the theorycrafting and experimenting in beta (when it finally comes around!): Wish I could take part of it but good to know all the information is laid out for me when I return to regular life in some months!

Akraen, Kver and all you others that usually hangs around on irc knows the details if anyone wonders, I don't actually have access to internet and its forbidden to communicate with the outside world so short on time (and trying to read up on the patchnotes!) but hope everyone is good, beta comes around soon and you all get access so Blizz can get some good feedback!

#buffmages

[Akraen 230]

<3 Narsha 

 

Get out of there soon!