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Lots of changes comming in the next patch...
Vakktn
Member Posts: 746
Well seems mages are finally getting their long overdue balance....they even have invisibility taken away TOTALLY... (But they are implementing it differently)
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=205723&s=blizzard#blizzard
Lots of changes it seems for classes 4 pages worth O_O... should be an interesting read 
. Now I know why its taking so long to get this patch out hehe
EDIT - God this patch was just released.... 753 MB patch... good god thats a spicy meatball.... must be ALOT of changes =D Now just waiting for the patch notes
Comments
Any word if the next patch is going to also be a new push? i.e. some more Beta invites? Or are they done inviting until they reach Open Beta?
Wow thats a long thread. Looks like 24 pages of the Mages losing their invisibility.
Currently:
Alpha: Guild Wars
Beta: AO: Alien Invasion
Playing: City of Heroes
Interested: WOW & EQII (yeah, both... deal with it)
Currently:
Playing: WOW & GW
I believe they said its just a patch.... but there will be more pushes later on...They didnt give an exact number of pushes or when its gonna be but they did say there would be one or more pushes.
And yeah thats a long long long thread lots of angry mages and lots of happy rogues
At 12:00AM EST August 18th, the latest patch went Live.
- Malkavian
"When you find youself sinking into Madness, dive" - Malkavian Proverb
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
Forum Stalker
Malkavian@mmorpg.com
"When you find yourself sinking into Madness, dive"
Woot patch notes..... GOD lots of reading.... looks like Ill be up a long long time tonight =P....
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/patch-8-17-04.shtml
Yeah i was going to post a news article on it but realised we dont do patch notes
Overall it had some changes made to all classes and HUNTERS ARE IN!!!!!!!!!!
Everyone and their Grandmother will be playing Hunter once the servers come up.
Wanna see one in action? Check out the webcam cause I'm calling in sick tomorrow!
- Malkavian
"When you find youself sinking into Madness, dive" - Malkavian Proverb
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
Forum Stalker
Malkavian@mmorpg.com
"When you find yourself sinking into Madness, dive"
WHooooo mages just got beat down hard with the nerf bat. Took out invis and nerf alot of spells. Sounds good to me cuz i'm going to be playing a rouge when i comes out heh. Although they might of went overbards with it. Well see how it plays out in the game!
-Randumass-
-Randumass-
Haha I might just put your cam on to watch hunters in action Im kinda interested to see what they can do
. Oh btw gotta love those "Sick days" hahahaha! 
Nah mages will still be powerful... Invisiblity and being able to pick locks was just too much... Ill probabaly stay away from mages period cuz I hate casting classes... after playing a Lvl50 Spellhowler in lineage 2 and being weak as hell compaired to the other classes (archers and dagger users mainly) no more spell casters for me.... I might however play a healer type class if the guild I join needs more for raids/instances...In addition to my rogue of course =P
About time on the mages...from what I have seen in videos and discussions...mages were really misusing that invisibility.
Looks like casting classes took the hardest hit on the game...with the exception of the Palidan...
GW Alpha Member
Legion of Exile
I won't be able to log in, until tonight... waiting impatiently... but just from reading the patch notes, I really don't have a problem with what Blizzard has done to me and mine (mages)
Now, if I can just survive the changes... reading them and putting them into action in game...
Picking locks?! This was something I've done, in game, a time or three, but hey? Thats what the rogue (notice how that is spelled) are for. I don't feel this loss in the least.
Invis, now this one hurts. I actually used this alot. However, I believe that it's loss is survivable. I'm thinking that I was using it alot, more as an exploit than a need. I mean, I didn't really need to scout ahead, when I could just blast my way past that mob
so, again, I'll just have to wait to see how reality matches what the patch notes say.
WoW Beta - Skirnir; Dwarven Mage (Beta Server, PvE)
Veni Vidi Castratavi Illegitmos
----------------------------------------
My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
Yea these changes look great. I'm looking forward to really playing a Hunter (from what the Beta players are saying, they're extremely fun) and going off catching some beasts...
I just hope they add some more testers so that we can have a chance to get in...
That's utter nonsense. Since when is "using" an ability the same as "misusing" it? Sorry to rant, but the whole Invisibility thing has been a pet peeve of mind from the earliest Mudding days up till now. Isn't the whole POINT of Invisibility that you can sneak up on people using it? So why whine when that's exactly how it was being used.
Further, I really hate that the PvP server is driving development for ALL the servers. Invisibility wasn't much of an issue for PvE, as far as I could tell.
Taking Invisiblity from Mages makes about as much sense as taking Swords from Warriors. Yeah, they use them to their best advantage. So? I'm not saying that the Nerf made Mages unplayable, I'm just saying that Blizzard better be REALLY careful, or they'll end up with the kind of situation faced by City of Heroes. In CoH, the Devs made a bunch of nerfs and buffs based on incomplete classes, and ended up shipping a game with only one competitive class. They're STILL trying to undo the damage they wrought by their last-minute Blaster buff.
It seems to me that Blizzard should have waited until all the classes were in, and had their Talents in place, before they started Nerfing. This patch has three major Mage nerfs, with absolutely ZERO play testing against fully functional classes. I'm not even playing a Mage, and it annoys me. THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO NERF. IMHO, of course.
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They care. We don't. They win.
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They care. We don't. They win.
Weapon-X its not the fact that they use it in PvP although i heard it was pretty annoying. Its the fact they use it to skip content. That was the original design of the game. Mages would g into a instance and cast invis and run to the boss and kill him, allowing many runs. Talents wouldnt of made a BIG difference to the overall balance beacause when they didnt have talents they were still really powerful.
I thought it was unfair
-Randumass-
-Randumass-
Well, see Randumass , you've gone and deflated my pompous rant with a valid comment.
Yes, blazing past content was a problem. Yet I still say that the problem lies not with Invisibility, but with the general MMORPG philosophy that says everything must eventually boil down to combat. I've seen this in game after game, with skill after skill.
Let's take another example- "disarm" or "steal". Most games won't allow these options, or make them really lame. Why? Because the only way they want you to be able to beat a Mob is by beating it death. This annoys me a bit. If you're a Thief, shouldn't stealing be every bit as valid as killing? But MMORPG Devs don't see it that way- everyone, from Mages to Warriors, Rogues to Barbarians, go about their trade in the exact same way- kill the monsters.
Now, while I agree with you about the the whole "avoiding content" thing, I also submit that maybe there should have been content that requires stealth skills, instead of just "run in all guns blazing" for each and every encounter.
I'm not even saying that Mages should have been the ones to have the Stealth skills. Just that it'd be nice if there were some reason to take spells other than to try and min/max your Damage Per Second.
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They care. We don't. They win.
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They care. We don't. They win.
In my opinion, the only thing thats making mages seem (and possibly BE) overpowered is that they're TOO well rounded. I mean its basically like this:
Summon Food: Mages - Summon Water: Mages - Mana Stones (IE free potions): Mages - Crowd Control: Mages -Extreme Frontloaded Damage: Mages - Crack Locks: Mages - Teleports: Mages - Magic Resists: Mages - Mana Shield (Melee Shield): Mages
They're basically everything in a can. They need to be either a utility class, or a damage class - to this day I don't get why they're both.
I can explain.
It's because they're Glass Cannons. Mages are the most fragile of all classes in terms of taking damage. You'll never see a Mage pulling Tank duties. You can't take way a Mage's utility spells, because if you do, they're useless for soloing. Great in teams, yes, but not much good on their own.
Plus, there are other issues. Let's just talk Game Theory for a second here. In almost every game, it appears that Mages or their equivalent are the major Damage class. But in reality, it's hardly ever true. Why? Because the damage that Mages do is set, whereas the damage that the Melee classes do tends to "creep". If you're a warrior and you want to do more damage, great, you go find yourself a bigger, badder Sword. But the Mage doesn't have this option. His fireball does what it does. He can't go loot a bigger, badder one. Eventually, Mages almost always end up sucking, and it gets written off as "whining" because people compare a Fireball to a Warrior's unarmed base damage. I've yet to meet the Warrior that was willing to unwield his weapon in PvP, just so my Fireball could Own him.
But again, I go back to saying that it was EXTREMELY unwise to Nerf Mages at this point. How can they possibly know that Mages were overpowered, when the other classes don't have their Talents?
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They care. We don't. They win.
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They care. We don't. They win.
Thats not totally true either though, a mage's damage isn't limited by his spells any more than a warrior's damage is limited by the weapons he can get for his level. Stat-wise, its comes down to strength and intelligence. Every addition to damage a warrior takes is a hit to his defense, just like a mage. I'm not saying take away their abilites to be a utility class, but if one class is THE utility class, its not smart to make them THE damage class.
It isn't the fact that they can do both, its that they're the ONLY class that can do both to such degrees. In the caster classes, they reign supreme in damage and verstaility. They're no weaker than a warlock in terms of defense, but in utility and damage - there is simply no comparison. So, if they get as much defense as the rest of the casters, more offense, and more versatility - where is the balance?
-edit: Oh, and they gave their steed a different name.
Warlock Changes :
Demon Breath renamed Unending Breath.Sacrificial Shield (Voidwalker) renamed Sacrifice.
Summon Nightmare cast time decreased to be in line with other mount summoning spells.
Nightmare renamed Felsteed.
Felsteed no longer purchased at the trainer, but rewarded via quest.
Found and fixed a bug that caused the cost per second of Health Funnel to be higher than it should be.
A failed Ritual of Summoning should no longer cost a soul shard.
Shadow Ward duration reduced, cooldown increased.
Curse of Weakness effect reduced at higher levels.
GW Alpha Member
Legion of Exile
Well, yes, they are far superior to Warlocks, but I think it's pretty much common knowledge that Warlocks are underpowered. A better comparison might be to Druids. Druids are by FAR the best "Jack of all trades" class in the game, wouldn't you say? Especially now that Druids can regenerate mana in Shifted form.
Back to the Mages- Let's ignore the other issues for a minute, and just look at the actual Nerf. It appears to my untrained eye that asside from the removal of the Invis and Unlocking spells, the tree that took the hardest hit was Frost. Frost? Was anyone complaining that Frost was overpowered? Sure, Fire took a hit too, but not the kind of hit that Frost took.
Frankly, I had no problem with the PyroBlast nerf. In fact, I never understood why it was a "talent" in the first place. Most other "Talents" just improve existing spells/skills. PyroBlast gave mages an entirely NEW spell. Weird, and not the way Talents should work, IMHO. I personally believe that they should yank PB from the Talent tree and stick it where it belongs, in the Fire Spell tree.
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They care. We don't. They win.
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They care. We don't. They win.
In my opinion, they nerfed Frost due to its ability to open the gates to other forms of power. While I don't agree with everything that took a hit, things like Frost Shield made mage battles next to effortless.
I have a 22 mage on the beta server as backing when I say that I had next to no problems fighting one to two mobs at a time. For the amount of damage I could take, it was easy for skills like Frost Shield to handle the CC for me. If not, I always have Polymorph and an instant cast AoE root.
Mages had lots of catches with the previous frost line. Frost Shield is basically a surefire escape plan from anything that hits you. Just run from it once its chilled, nail it with frost bolt, and finish the job. No real threat. If not, tap into the roots and Polys.
I'm not saying I agree with the degree of reduction in the frost line - if I had it my way, I'd simply make Frost Shield have a smaller chance of chilling mobs, something like a last defense. Mages are not meant to tank, regardless of how it used to be - this is why you're given umpteen forms of crowd control. Slow the mob - rooting any adds, nuke it into oblivion, and repeat. A mage stupid enough to not put his spells to work for himself, or to go into battle with less than enough mana - deserves to be a dead mage. You may call it a nerf, but a half dead warrior is the same way.
The only real change I've seen, is that many mage spells have become more useful.
Edit: And currently druids have lots of broken things like the warlocks. I know its unfair to compare to them, but they're the only real matches - period.