Video summary
The video provides an in-depth analysis of the new Orc Mage rework introduced in WoW Forever, focusing primarily on significant updates to the Arcane specialization. The speaker notes that while Mages were historically one of the best-designed classes in Vanilla WoW and thus rarely touched by previous reworks, this update introduces substantial changes. Key additions include the new spell Arcane Blast, which deals direct damage and increases the potency of all other spells when stacked up to four times. Furthermore, talents like Missile Barrage have been enhanced to give Arcane Blast a chance to trigger on Fireball and Frostbolt, effectively allowing Mages to utilize their classic Elemental spec abilities alongside their core Arcane toolkit. These changes aim to open up more avenues for playstyle variety while maintaining the class's fundamental identity.
In addition to the Arcane tree, the rework heavily integrates abilities from the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions into the Vanilla experience. The Fire specialization now features talents such as Hot Streak, which reduces cast times after critical strikes, and Scourge, which applies a fire vulnerability debuff to increase damage output. The Frost tree has also seen updates with new spells like Ice Lance, designed specifically for dealing massive damage to frozen targets, and improved versions of existing abilities like Cone of Cold and Winter's Chill. The speaker observes that these additions essentially merge the power levels of later expansions into the original game version, creating a hybrid build that feels significantly stronger than the classic Mages players remember from the early days of the game.
Despite the excitement over new mechanics, the presenter expresses concern that the rework might be too powerful, potentially unbalancing the Vanilla environment. The accumulation of talents like Arcane Blast, Hot Streak, and Ice Lance creates a rotation that feels more complex and damaging than intended for the original era. While the speaker acknowledges that Blizzard did a good job in expanding the class's capabilities and adding depth to the Frost and Fire trees, there is a lingering worry that combining these high-level features with Vanilla mechanics could make Mages "gods" relative to other classes. Ultimately, the video concludes that while the rework adds interesting flavor and variety, it risks overdoing the power level by bringing too many expansion-specific strengths back into the base game without sufficient adjustment.
Read the full video transcript
All right, time for the next class that
we're going to look at today in WoW
Forever. We're looking at the orc mage.
New class race combo. All right, so new
mage talents. Let's see. Let's see what
they did with mage. Okay, let's start
with arcane damage and wands 25% wand
spec. Arcane focus increases your chance
to hit with arcane spells.
Improve channeling gives you a chance to
avoid an eruption caused by damage while
channeling radians and things. I feel
like these kind of talents should be
changed to two points, but is that too
OP? I think it might be too overpowered
because arcane missiles, it's a little
bit different. Here's the thing. See,
mage looks the same at first glance. The
truth is, so here's the thing about
mage. Mage is one of the most
well-designed classes in Vanilla WoW.
Much like Rogue, and for this reason,
whenever you had the original Vanilla
WoW, they ended up not actually changing
mages. Like I think I think their rework
was literally the last patch. The last
rework was mage and rogue. Those were
the two last reworks because they ended
up they were so good. good. They like
didn't really need to change almost
anything. So, because of this, I would
expect that not too much changes with
mage and even rogue, but more so like
they get a little bit I think you
account for certain things a little bit
more. Okay. Arcane subtlety reduces your
targets resistance and all the threat
caused. Magic absorption increases your
resistance by five, sorry, by 10. Cause
all spells to you fully resist to
restore 2% of your total mana. Can I
trigger more often than one time per
second? Arcane Concentration, 10% chance
of clear casting. Arcane Resilience,
increase your armor by an amount equal
to 50% of your intellect. Arcane
Geometry, increase the range of your
arcane spells by six yards. Arcane
impact increases the critical strike
chance of your arcane spells by 6%. So,
you have a lot of stuff that increases
your arcane spells. Uh oh, Arcane Blast
is added. They added Arcane Blast to
vanilla. 11 points. Blast the target
with energy, dealing 95 to 104 arcane.
Each time you cast arcane blast, the
damage of all your other spells is
increased by 10% and the mana cost of
arcane blast is increased by 175%.
Effect stacks up to four times and lasts
8 seconds or until any other damage
spell is cast. That's cool. I think it's
cool they add an arcane blast. Arcane
shielding decreases the mana lost per
point of damage taken when your mana
shield spell is active by 17. What's
this? 33%. Increases the resistance
granted by your mage armor spell by 50%.
Improved counter spell, you know, same
thing, 4 second blanket silence. Allows
what is this? 50% of your mana regen to
continue while casting arcane
meditation. Missile barrage gives your
arcane blast spell a 40% chance and your
fireball. Frostbolt and frost firebolt.
Oh, they added frost firebolt. I talked
about this the other day that I think
that mages should have like like I think
arcane mage obviously but like elemental
mage that was the spec that people used
to play back in the day like elemental
mage but it was like kind of ass. I
think supporting things like elemental
mage is like really important for
classic plus like exploring the other
sort of um avenues of like having your
spec and stuff like that. Reduce the
channel dur what reduce the channel
duration of your next arcane missiles by
100%. Reduce mana cost by no 50%. Reduce
the mana cost by 100% and missiles will
fire every half second. I thought it was
100% for a second. I saw that wrong. I
was like, "Oh my gosh." Like,
it's still going to be fast. Presence of
mind, arcane mine, increase your
intellect by 10%. Increase the critical
strike damage bonus of your arcane
spells by 100%. Arcane Instability
increase the damage done by all your
spells by 3% and your critical strike
chance with all attacks by 3%. Arcane
power. Dude, I think they did pretty
good with the mage arcane tree. So, even
though the general shape of the tree is
is mostly the same, you add arcane blast
and you're really opening things up for
them, man. Like,
this is pretty cool. Arcane rotation is
Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane
Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast. And
then whenever you get a proc for missile
barrage, you switch to arcane missiles.
Uh, fire tree, incineration, uh, 6% crit
for fire blast to icecelance and arcane
blast and scorch, ice lance, icecelance
and manila. Dude, actually, I'm going to
be honest. I said that I expect them not
to change mage too much, but like even
if they add a few of these abilities
like an Iceland and arcade blast, if you
add them all, then all of a sudden it's
like, wait a second. Am I just playing
like burning crusade mage in vanilla and
they're just gods? Wake of fire.
Increase the reduce the cool down of
your fire blast by 2 seconds. Killing a
non-trivial target. Increase the
critical strike chance of your next fire
blast cast within 20 seconds by 25%.
Improve fireball reduce the casting time
of your fireball and frost fire bolt
spells by.5 seconds. Okay. Ignite your
critical strikes from fire damage spells
cause the target to burn. Ignite. Okay.
Same uh flamethrowing more range. Impact
give your fire spells a chance to stun.
Burning Soul gives your fire spells a
200% chance to not lose casting when you
take damage and reduce the threat you
cause. Okay. Threat reduction for fire.
Flame strike increase the critical
strike chance of your flame strike by
15%. Uh pyro blast is the same 6
seconds. Improve scorch. Scourge has a
100% chance to cause your target to be
vulnerable by fire damage. This
vulnerability increases all fire damage
you deal to your target by 9% and lasts
30 seconds stacking up to five times.
Improve fireward. cause your fireward to
have a 10% chance to reflect fire spells
while active. Hot streak, your
non-periodic critical strikes with
fireball, frost fireball, fire blast,
and scores grant hot streak for 15
seconds. Hot streak reduces the cast
time of power blast by 25%. Stacking up
to three times. What expansion is hot
streak from? This is this is like the
the burning crusade group finder.
There's wrath. Yeah. Increase the
critical strike chance of your fire
spells by 6%. blast wave, firepower,
more damage, master of elements, your
fire and frost critical strikes refund
10% of their base meta cost. I think
master of elements should be higher up
in the tree. So an elemental or like a
trispec mage should get it like maybe
one more. I mean they can still get it
now I guess. When activated the spell
causes your fire damage spell hits to
increase your critical strike chance.
Oh, it's the same.
>> It's the same.
>> It's the same. They increase the gold
destruction ris
increase the damage done by your fire
spells by 10%. Okay, this is a lot of
the same. Very sy. I think I think what
they did is like it kind of feels like
they matched burning crusade and wrath
mage into this frost warding increase
the armor and resistance given by your
frost armor and ice armor spells by 15%.
In addition, gives your frost ward a 10%
or 20% chance to reflect frost spells
and effects. Improve frost bowl. Reduce
the cast of frost bowl. Increase your
chances with frost and fire by 5%. Ice
shards
critical strike damage bonus your frost
spells by 20%. Perafrost.
Yeah. So, I mean, ice shards was already
a thing. It was the extra crit from
whatever. Perafrost increases duration
of your chill effects by 33%. Reduces
the target speed by an additional 9%.
Uh, reduces the cool down of your frost
nova spell by 2 seconds. 4 seconds.
Frostbite gives you chill effects a 15%
chance to freeze the target. So far it's
all the same, but some of the the shape
of the tree has slightly changed, I
think, but it's all the same stuff.
Increase the damage done, which is the
mana cost and the threat. Ice lance is
new. It's a talent for uh 300% damage
against frozen targets. Add a chill
effect to blizzard. This is mage is very
similar. Shatter increase the critical
strike chance of all your spells against
frozen targets by 50 by 50%. Was it 50%
before or was it 100%. I mean, so it
wasn't a 100% chance to shatter. I
thought that it like doubled your crit
chance for some reason, but no, it's
just a flat 50%. You become encased in a
block of ice thingy from all. Okay. Ice
block, same thing. 10 seconds.
Arctic reach, same thing. Improve cone
of cold, 36% more cone of cold damage.
Cold snap, same thing. Fingers of frost
give your chill effects a 30% chance of
granting the fingers of frost. Winter's
chill gives your frost damage spells a
100% chance to apply winter's chill
which increases the chance your ice
lance and frost will crit. Okay. And
then finally, ice barrier
instantly shields you, absorbing damage.
Classic dude, the mage actually changed
a lot as a class because of adding some
certain things in deep fire and certain
things in in arcane. I think [music]
they did a good job. I think they might
have overdone it. I don't know because
they kind of just made like the wrath
and burning crusade mage into the
vanilla mage a little bit. Excuse me.
You have hot streak, you have Iceland,
you have arcane blast. It's hard to say.
I mean, I just hope it's not too strong.