Mage Spirit

[us2006027321]

In the last patch, Blizz took the nerf-bat to Spirit all over the place. I play a Mage. To expand on that, I have a Mage fettish. I have three Mages: one is at the BC cap (no Wrath xpac... QQ!), and I'm in the process of leveling the other two. I haven't noticed much of a difference in my capped Mage. He's Arcane, he's level 70, and he's spec'd to not need to worry about mana regen. (I do ~1.8k dps by myself and ~2.1k dps on a long fight in heroics before I have a crap-ton of raid buffs on me. It's wicked. If you don't believe me about my personal dps, here's my screenshot on a training dummy. ) However, on my other two Mages, leveling has become, to be frank, a royal pain in the ass.

Blizzard tripled my down-time between fights at lower levels, and I'm not thrilled about it. I used to level Fire because I could just pewpewpew my way through quests, but I've had to switch to Arcane just to try and avoid the kick in the bullocks. With it spec'd, the cool-down on Evocate is still too long, and we all know how broken lower level water summoning is... (Right now, my level 40 Mage summons water that returns ~2k mana, and he has ~4.5k mana. This is particularly obnoxious when I'm pugging an instance with people who don't want to wait for the mana users.)

What's a good solution? Obviously, Blizzard thought Spirit was broken, so we can't ask them to put it back how it was. We could ask them to change how much mana drinks refund, but that would be disproportionate with the drinks npc vendors sell. Would reducing the cool-down on Evocate be viable? What about changing the levels at which we get to summon useful drinks? At higher levels, Mages get mana gems with 3 charges on them; would a slight reduction in cool-down on mana gems and adding 2 charges to all the lower level gems be a good idea?

What's a good way to reduce mana down-time for leveling Mages?

[us2006027321]

I posted this in the Suggestion and Mage forums today. I'm still looking for feedback from you guys. You think Blizz will go for any of my suggestions?

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Recently, there was a change to the way Spirit works. This may have worked out well for end-content raiders or Arena kings at level 80 who aren't Mages, but for me, this isn't going well at all. My downtime has nearly trippled as a result of the change.

I am a level 43 Mage with 4,021 mana (this is Frost spec'd with no buffs). At my level, I currently summon water that restores 1,992 mana. I have a gem that will restore 550-650. I have Evocation, and that restores 60% of my base mana. The gem and evocate both have cooldowns associated with them. With the change in Spirit and nothing done to offset it out of combat, refreshing my mana has become extremely cumbersome, especially when I'm in an instance with people who don't want to take the time to let me regen mana so I can dps and not be dead weight in the party.

I have a few Mage specific suggestions that may help. Any one of these would be fantastic. A combination of two of them would be cool. All three would likely be over-powered, and I don't expect it to happen that way.

1) Evocation — I know the cooldown on Evocation used to be 6 or 8 minutes. I also know that when 3.0 happened, that cooldown was decreased to 4 and that there are Arcane talents that can decrease it further to as low as 2 minutes. In the leveling process, with Spirit as it is, and no other options available at the moment, Evocation can't come up fast enough. My suggestion would be to make the cooldown a flat 2 minutes for all Mages and remove the cooldown reduction on Evocation from the talent, Arcane Flows. I don't see this having much of a negative aspect on the PvP portion of the game if any when one considers that there are already Mages in PvP who have this, so I don't foresee an imbalance. The upside would be less mana downtime for all Mages, regardless of their spec.

2) Mana Gems — At higher levels, Mages get mana gems that have three charges on them. Change the lower level mana gems so that they have three charges on them also instead of just the one. This means less time summoning gems and regenerating the mana spent to create them, and more time being able to use them in the middle of fights when one is out of mana. I don't see this having any negative impact on higher level raids or PvP, so I see balance in the game staying fairly maintained.

3) Conjured Water — I know different Mage waters have been made available when they are because the water that is available from the vendors needed to stay balanced with them, so I'm not going to suggest an increase in the mana granted from the current conjured water spells. My suggestion is to create Mage specific water that restores 90% of a Mage's base mana. It would be soulbound on creation and not passable to anyone else, and it would not replace the Conjure Water spells the Mages already have for other players. It would be one spell with one rank that is for them and them only. So, it would read:

Conjure Mystical Water Requires level 20 Mana Cost: 30% of base mana Summons 10 bottles of water for the Mage to drink that refreshes 90% of the Mage's base mana. This item may not be used by anyone but the Mage.

The positive impact I see this having on the balance of the game is that leveling time is spent less in waiting for mana and more in leveling, 5-man instances will go more smoothly, and high level raids will spend less time waiting for Mages to get themselves ready between fights. I see the off chance that this could negatively impact the balance of the game for PvP in that Mages might run out of combat in the arenas to regen mana really quickly, but if that's really a worry, just make it an item they can't use in the arenas, and it's fixed.

Those are my suggestions. Thanks for taking the time to hear them. ^^

[Verissi]

I have a few mages myself and wasn't really hit too hard by the spirit changes...mostly because spirit was awful for us for so long (outside of arcane specs, but arcane didn't stand on its own legs for quite some time).

Wall o' text incoming

I've almost exclusively done my level grinds as frost, but lately have been playing more with fire specs on my lower levels for a few reasons. I do have downtime, but it's not significantly longer than it was before. Obviously frost had less, but that wasn't unexpected. I've also tended towards skipping instances along the way through my levels. They're fun, but I already have too many alts at cap level (and two accounts, so I can run myself through them if I really cared to) and the levels fly by these days anyway even without them. My common joke is that I sneeze and gain a level now

On to your suggestions...

I like the idea for mana gems. I've always found it a bit silly that lower-level mana gems never received the "charge treatment" that cap-level gems got. With the potion changes, I would think that adding charges to all mana gems would actually give lower level mages a bit more to work with and allow them to get into the same habits for mana management that they'll need at 80.

As for conjured water, I somewhat agree with your suggestion, but have some reservations. I've never seen the problem with having conjured water/snacks outscaling vendor-provided refreshments. Other classes already have discrepencies between vendor and player-made items, so why should food/water be any different? Examples abound, but the most common has always been ammunition (pre-BC, best was from Scale of the Sands, with engineering ammo falling behind even other factions' ammo; in Wrath, engineer-produced ammo is significantly better than vendor-bought). Back to the topic, though, mana and health pools quickly outpace what any food/water can replenish, and yet we still have refreshments that do not scale in any way. My DK has over 30k health and my undergeared holy paladin has 20k mana...neither of which can be filled by a single strudel, and it's just going to get worse (I'm not far from needing two complete strudels for my DK). Many people have suggested percentage snacks, but I'm more inclined to just say "buff conjured snacks altogether" instead of going to a fixed percentage. I don't mind eating more than once, but when I can foresee reaching two full eating sessions, it screams "increase their effectiveness by 25%" at the very least.

I absolutely cannot agree with an evocation change, though. I don't have Arcane Flows at all (none of my mages are arcane currently) and still don't bump into the cooldown timer enough to worry about it. I can understand arcane specs having a talent to reduce the cooldown, since let's face it, arcane can be a mana sink, but I prefer it as a perk to a spec that isn't all that efficient to begin with. Frost simply doesn't need Arcane Flows or any reduction, in my opinion, as it's already an efficient spec, same goes for FFB specs. Fire could benefit, but it's not really needed (again, my opinion, and speaking mostly from an 80 perspective). No doubt it would help lower level mages, but Arcane Flows is not a 35+ point investment, 2-point talent for nothing even ignoring the other benefits of it. Making the evocation cooldown part of it more accessible or baseline would only make fire and frost more powerful and more efficient with no trade-off made...something which I just don't personally feel is needed and could potentially be overpowering in many situations (don't ignore the glyph as well).

Honestly, I like that mages aren't warriors, rogues, or warlocks, e.g. they can't just keep dumping damage as long as they have health. We've got more tricks and survival mechanisms than many classes, and a few ways to help us with mana both in and out of combat (much more than priests, for example). Blizzard has made some comments that they want to look at lower levels again with respect to the spirit changes, but I'd rather see them do that across the board and do something from that perspective so it benefits all mana users. As noted, I do like some of the ideas as a mage of both cap and lower levels, but I think those should be done to solve problems beyond the changes to spirit-based regen.

[Seerah]

Since I'm taking a hiatus atm from WoW, I haven't played with the new spirit changes. However, I will say that Evo cooldown used to be 10 minutes. The first time it was lowered, I was like, "woot!" The second time, I was like, "Again? Okay... woot!" When I saw the talent to reduce it more (I've been arcane for 5 years) I thought, "wow... okay." Any further reduction that you propose just makes it way too much. You don't need Evo that often.

Charges for the mana gems, sure.

Higher water... Since you don't remember Evo being at 10 minutes, I will assume that you don't remember this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvd5hpX2dy8 There was also a long running joke back then that the next tier of mage shoulders should look like those water machine jugs. Oh- and there was a mod to aid mages (or raid leaders) in handing out food and water called... Vending Machine. Soulbound would solve these issues, of course, as you've already stated. But then you'd get Pallies, Priests, etc. complaining that they can't use that water, so...

[Verissi]

Originally Posted by Seerah Higher water... Since you don't remember Evo being at 10 minutes, I will assume that you don't remember this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvd5hpX2dy8 There was also a long running joke back then that the next tier of mage shoulders should look like those water machine jugs. Oh- and there was a mod to aid mages (or raid leaders) in handing out food and water called... Vending Machine. Soulbound would solve these issues, of course, as you've already stated. But then you'd get Pallies, Priests, etc. complaining that they can't use that water, so...

Hahaha, I remember those jokes (and the old doctored screenshot), not to mention the ugly chore of showing up to raids 30mins early just because I had to start conjuring food/water...*shudder*. People already prefer "free" (to them ) refreshments to vendor purchasing, so I don't think having refreshments being better would make it significantly harder on mages. Even if they buffed vendor-sold food as well, I'd be happy enough. My overall issue is more that health/mana pools scale so significantly beyond existing refreshments that it's silly, and it's a problem that applies to all levels. Even a 10-15% increase in effectiveness would be nice.

[us2006027321]

Originally Posted by Seerah Since I'm taking a hiatus atm from WoW, I haven't played with the new spirit changes. However, I will say that Evo cooldown used to be 10 minutes. The first time it was lowered, I was like, "woot!" The second time, I was like, "Again? Okay... woot!" When I saw the talent to reduce it more (I've been arcane for 5 years) I thought, "wow... okay." Any further reduction that you propose just makes it way too much. You don't need Evo that often. Charges for the mana gems, sure. Higher water... Since you don't remember Evo being at 10 minutes, I will assume that you don't remember this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvd5hpX2dy8 There was also a long running joke back then that the next tier of mage shoulders should look like those water machine jugs. Oh- and there was a mod to aid mages (or raid leaders) in handing out food and water called... Vending Machine. Soulbound would solve these issues, of course, as you've already stated. But then you'd get Pallies, Priests, etc. complaining that they can't use that water, so...

Actually, it was the switcher vids and listening to about a quarter of my friends gripe about conjuring that got me *into* WoW. I wanted to get the inside joke. Now, I have portals, and I know things too. LoL

As for Evo... I joined not long after it had just been reduced to 8 or 6 (I don't remember which it was). When Blizz beat it down to 4, I was ecstatic. Like you, I didn't think that was necessary, but I was thrilled nonetheless. This Spirit nonsense is such a kick in the junk, and the fact that food isn't appropriate stat'd to meet the needs of high mana players is ridiculous. Something should be done. My Evo suggestion may be something of a modest proposal, but it's something. Blizzard doing any of those three would be cause for a /cheer.

If the Pali's and Priests want to QQ that they don't have Conjured Mystical Water (I'm proud of that), they can reroll Mage. I don't have Fear, Heals, invinci-bubbles, Ret auras, Hammers of Justice, face-melting shadow lazers or any of the other hax they do, so they can get over themselves. They aren't having the problem keeping up with mana that Mages are.

[Jesamyn]

Spirit isn't a big deal, and I'm not really having trouble with mana management in general. Instead of charges, I'd rather see more mana per munch. Considering that I generally have ~23K mana when raiding (buffs), 3300-3500 on a mana gem is not a huge amount, even with the 40% buff. Since I'm wearing at least two pieces of T7, I use mana gems as part of my 'blow cooldowns' regimen or if I'm really low and just need a bit more to get the last few hp's on a boss. Otherwise, I just time evocations.

That being said, I'm not having trouble with mana regen lately anyway. I did adjust my rotation to hit a balance of dps without chewing through mana rather than just most dps possible.

(Caveat...if you decide to armory me for some reason, I run arcane for raiding, but I run frost for solo questing. Mana, crit, and sp are higher in my arcane spec.)

[us2006027321]

Originally Posted by Jesamyn Spirit isn't a big deal, and I'm not really having trouble with mana management in general. Instead of charges, I'd rather see more mana per munch. Considering that I generally have ~23K mana when raiding (buffs), 3300-3500 on a mana gem is not a huge amount, even with the 40% buff. Since I'm wearing at least two pieces of T7, I use mana gems as part of my 'blow cooldowns' regimen or if I'm really low and just need a bit more to get the last few hp's on a boss. Otherwise, I just time evocations.

Yeah, on my 70 Mage, I'm not having any issues with the Spirit changes at all, and I've noticed nearly no difference. On that part of it, I'm with you. It's clear that it needed to happen for appropriate end content scaling. It's made lower levels unbearable though.

[Verissi]

Do you think it would be helpful at lower levels to cut eating/drinking time down to 20secs with the same replenishment benefit? At first glance, I can't see any unbalancing aspect to a change like this, but I may be overlooking something. If downtime is the issue and in-combat regen/replenishment isn't something that needs to be touched, I would definitely think this would be a nice way of at least reducing the problem.

The biggest issue, really, is perception. I know when I am drinking, I feel like I'm doing nothing (others do too if they're waiting for you or the healer to drink). Doing nothing for 30secs or maybe a minute (for two drinks) is a long time to be sitting there feeling that way. If I was only sitting for 20/40secs or less, it would lessen the perceived impact on everyone, I would think. It would also help all mana users to feel like less of a burden for speed runs and such.

Just tossing that one out there...I've been sitting on that idea for years now but it was never a big enough issue until recently.

[us2006027321]

That's a really practical solution, and if Blizzard is willing to do nothing else, that would be a wonderful step toward concession. The only problem would be that Mages would still be the longest drinking and regenerating class in comparison to everyone else, and in less rational minds, they would still be "waiting" on the Mage.

[Verissi]

Originally Posted by us2006027321 in less rational minds, they would still be "waiting" on the Mage.

Meh, just tell them to do more dps so you use less mana I agree, though, that mages will often be the targets for "I don't want to wait while you regen" angst. At least something like this would take the edge off of it. I've never been the type to even care about speed runs and am allergic to PuGs, so I rarely encounter it personally. I also doubt that you could satisfy the truly impatient at all unless you had no downtime at all.

[PerfectH]

Um, I don't know if this relavent to the OP's complete question, because I only had time to read part of the question (I'm at work, shhhh), but for leveling a Mage, I've found leveling as Frost is the way to go, at least until you are geared well where mana regen isn't a big issue.

Frost doesn't use that much mana, however, it does have enough power to take down mobs within a two-level range. You'll probably hear from a lot of other Mages saying "Frost suckz caus u cant dps fo sh!T", but this is nonsense.

While we can all agree Frost isn't too great for Raiding or running instances, I bet you 9 times out of 10, you'll almost never have to stop for more than a total of 30 seconds during an entire instance run to regain your mana. Frost is very conservative about mana, so if mana consumption is the problem; go Frost.

Now then, I did admit before I didn't read the entire post because I have to scoot now, but if this wasn't what you were asking, please disregard this message and read on past this.

[Seregsarn]

Get glyph of evocation it doubles you mana regen, and glyph of (mana jewel) I'm not sure of the exact name for the second glyph but it effectively gives you 40% more mana from you mana jewels. Both are helpful for fire mages.

[lilsparky]

i haven't run my mage in a while, but the mana part was alway something that was just part of the class. then i leveled a lock and realized that they have pretty much no down time. the thing to consider with mages is that they drop bombs and then have to "reload". if you can chew thru 10 mobs and drink up to full mana in the same amount of time that somebody else can, then it's just the nature of being a mage that you slaughter then rest.

if you're running behind in instances, then throttle your damage output. don't bother attacking anything that's below 30% health with somebody already on it. if they aren't going to wait for you, then avoid oom and make them do more of the work.

if soloing mages still fall behind in the kill/rest cycle then it seems to me the simplest answer is to adjust the mana requirements of the lower level versions of the common leveling spells. no need to change basic mechanics, just make spells use less mana until mages can generally kill mobs at the same pace as other classes.


oh and with regards to the conjured water, people used to call me "lilsparklets"

[Mycroftxxx1]

Everyone *knows* mages are Irish.....


You know.....


Fight, drink ...... Fight, drink ..... Repeat.

[Taryble]

Mycroft, like the song says, "We drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and fight, fight! Yeah, we drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and fight, fight!"

Gotta love the Dropkick Murphies.

[us2006027321]

Originally Posted by Mycroftxxx1 Fight, drink ...... Fight, drink ..... Repeat.

LoLololoLOLoloLOLOlololOL You know it's true, too. ><

@ everyone who says go Frost:
No. I respec'd Frost and went to a training dummy. I took every dps talent I could in the Frost tree and even some of the applicable ones in the Arcane tree for mana regen and the applicable ones in the Fire tree for more dps. My mana regen was great.

My dps was cut in half.

No.

[Syxx]

Originally Posted by blackhole isnt this stuff exploits?

Talking about Mage talent builds and how Spirit effects mana regen?

[MidgetMage55]

Originally Posted by Syxx Talking about Mage talent builds and how Spirit effects mana regen?

I get the feeling its just an advertiser trying to get a few posts in. The signature is rather suspicious.

[Syxx]

Originally Posted by MidgetMage55 I get the feeling its just an advertiser trying to get a few posts in. The signature is rather suspicious.

Seems to be and Goodbye advertiser! Poof, like magic.