WoW The War Within Beta - Mage Changes (July 24, 2024)

World of Warcraft The War Within Beta developers have introduced more changes to the game in their recent development notes. With that in mind, we will take a look at all of the Mage changes so we can get a better understanding of how the class will perform in the newest expansion. 

The War Within is looking promising so far, as the majority of the community seems to be embracing the new approach from Blizzard in regard to balancing, quality-of-life changes, and overall class design ideas, along with the new Hero Talents system.

WoW The War Within Beta Mage Hero Talent Changes

Frostfire (Frost/Fire)

• Frostfire has been updated to use Fire Mage’s Living Bomb behaviors and now benefits from talents that affect Living Bomb.
• Excess Fire now applies Living Bomb at 75% effectiveness for Fire Mages only.

Developer’s note: We’re aware of an issue where Frost Mage’s Living Bombs are also being cast at reduced effectiveness. This will be fixed in a future build.

Spellslinger (Frost/Arcane)

• Embedded Splinters maximum stack count reduced to 8 until Splinterstorm is learned.
• Controlled Instincts no longer has damage variance.
• Controlled Instincts damage is now capped at 5 targets and no longer splashes.
• Volatile Magic now correctly damages the primary target having its Embedded Splinters removed.
• Volatile Magic now deals one instance of damage that scales based on the number of stacks removed.

• Frost Splinter damage increased by 100%.
• Embedded Frost Splinter damage increased by 100%.
• Frost Splinterstorm damage increased by 100%.
• Splintering Orbs’ Arcane Orb now only grants 2 Splinters per target hit (was 4).

Sunfury (Arcane/Fire)

• Burden of Power now increases the damage of Arcane Blast by 30% (was 15%).
• Phoenix non-exceptional spell damage increased by 20%.
• Phoenix Greater Pyroblast damage increased by 30%.
• Phoenix Arcane Surge damage increased by 100%.

WoW The War Within Beta Mage Changes

Arcane

• Arcane Barrage damage reduced by 65%.
• Arcane Barrage damage increase per Arcane Charge increased to 90% (was 30%).
• Arcane Blast damage increased by 10%.
• Concentration now procs 3 times per minute (was 2).
• Arcane Echo now has a 0.2 second cooldown between procs.
• Arcane Echo damage increased by 25%.

Frost

• Ice Lance damage increased by 10%.
• Glacial Spike damage increased by 10%.
• Flurry damage increased by 12%.
• Blizzard damage increased by 50%.
• Frozen Orb damage increased by 10%.
• Comet Storm damage increased by 10%.
• Splintering Ray’s Ray of Frost damage increased to 30% (was 25%).
• Splitting Ice’s Ice Lance damage to nearby enemies increased to 90% (was 80%).
• Cone of Cold damage is increased by 100%.

Fire

• Pyroblast damage increased by 5%.
• Phoenix Flames damage increased by 10%.
• Fireball damage increased by 20%.
• Flamestrike damage increased by 10%.
• Quickflame Flamestrike damage bonus increased to 25% (was 20%).
• Flame Patch damage increased by 30%.
• Living Bomb damage increased by 100%.

Developer’s note: Living Bomb’s frequency has been creating performance issues in high-target scenarios. The following changes are targeted at reducing damage events while only marginally affecting throughput. We’ll be keeping an eye on how these changes affect Fire Mage and will make adjustments as necessary.

• All talents that affect Lit Fuse’s proc rate have been reduced by 50%.

  • Lit Fuse
  • Explosive Ingenuity
  • Explosivo
• Explosivo’s Living Bomb damage increase during Combustion reduced to 40% (was 50%).

Developer’s note: Talents that grant a guaranteed Living Bomb gain a lot of power from these changes, so we’re adjusting them to compensate.

• Deep Impact’s cooldown reduction reduced 10 seconds (was 15 seconds).
• Living Bomb is now target-capped at 8 targets and no longer splashes.
• Living Bomb visual effects now have reduced visual fidelity in raid groups.

And that covers all of the Mage changes that were announced in the most recent development notes for The War Within Beta. You can check out the full notes, here.