arcane-talents
A Tree Grows in Beta – 31 Point Talents and Specializations
An image of the new 31 point talent trees for mages from beta.
On Tuesday, the latest beta build (build 12479) got rolled out along with some major changes – not only did Deepholm get opened up for level testing, but the new 31 point talent trees that the boards have been buzzing about since Zarhym dropped the bomb a week ago. My first thought on seeing the new trees was, “Oh my god, is that it?” (Insert “That’s what she said” joke here.) They really are very small, very concentrated. But are they enough? It looks like Blizzard really does want to pare down most of the passivity and go straight for novelty, fun stuff and power. But most people, like me, are definitely questioning how useful some of these talents will be.
At first glance, it looks like there are still a very straight division between “PVP” and “PVE” talents, with the exception being that you have to take some of the fun (or PVP-oriented) talents to flesh out a PVE/raiding build. While this might provide slight utility or benefits to raiders, it makes me wonder how useful they truly will be over the long run. Things like Improved Blink definitely have a place considering how high movement fights are right now in ICC, but will that change in Cataclysm?
MMO-Champion has provided a talent calculator for the new builds here, if you want to look for yourself: http://wowtal.com.
Let’s take a look at some of the talents and specialization aspects of the new trees.
Cataclysm Class Preview for Mages: Let’s do the Time Warp Again!
Aislinana: For those of us who were up late Friday night (at least in the US) to catch it, the mage class preview for Cataclysm is out and boy is it interesting. Already there’s been some boos as well as some resounding cheering coming from mages and other classes alike. Additionally, Ghostcrawler has posted more information from Blizzard Saturday in order to clarify some of the more vague notes from the preview. We will be including that with our own thoughts and concerns with the changes that might be implemented in the expansion.
Metaneira: Yeah, yeah, I know we’re late. Ais and I spent Friday night drunk and in ICC, so we didn’t get the jump on it like we wanted to. 
Preview located here; Ghostcrawler’s follow-up comments can be found here.
On tanking, mages, and why rogues should die in fires
I know Ais has already apologized for the lack of updates, but I’m going to throw in another apology from myself. The past few months have been fairly hectic in that “real life” thing I occasionally indulge in: interviewing for new jobs, having a relationship end (and on the day before Valentine’s Day, too, which is good because I hadn’t met my dramatic irony quota that month), and generally trying to get more organized and focused. I’m doing pretty well now, though, and can invest more energy in projects like this site.
In game, I’ve been spending a lot more time on my tanks: my 80 prot warrior and my 80 prot paladin. Maybe it’s just making up for years of being squishy, but I love standing in front of bosses and protecting my raid. There’s still a lot of pressure in tanking: blowing your cooldowns at the right moment, making sure you’re positioning the mobs in the best possible way (I like to face them towards Ais’s boyfriend so he gets cleaved), and pushing buttons frantically to stay on top of the DPS who are just dying to rip aggro off of you. (Okay, the paladin tanking isn’t so much frenzied button pushing as lazily hitting them in order. I love my pally but warrior tanking is much more interesting and dynamic.) And yet, I don’t feel as stressed while tanking: no one’s going to spam Recount after a battle and point out how I did compared to everyone else. I can focus on being a member of a team, and working with everyone to achieve a certain goal. It’s a nice change of pace from DPSing on my mage, where I’m almost secretly hoping a rogue stands in fire and dies so I’ll beat him on the charts. I’m more than happy to give up ten-man raiding on my mage in favor of doing it on one of my shield-wearing girls.
But I do love my mage, and ICC has gotten better for Ais and me lately. I think the ranged DPS in our raid have really started working together to point out how we can make the fights a bit easier on us, and we’re beginning to function as a team. Tensions were high for a while, but I think our melee have finally realized that it’s not that half our raid is bad, it’s that the fights and our strategies for them were vastly favoring their playstyle. We’ve adapted some strategies, aired our frustrations, and I think we’re back to being a fairly laidback, happy group. (Until I watch someone keyboard turning to run out of Sindragosa’s death-grip, that is. RAGE.)
Enough about what I’ve been up to. Here’s a few of my thoughts about mage raiding in ICC:
1) Incanter’s Absorption is still worth it if you can get shielded reliably. In my raid, we’ve done crazy things where I’ll get fed shields on Rotface while I’m standing in the slime to DPS. The numbers I put out are nuts, but it just seems so gimmicky and stupid. I am actually looking forward to the nerf: too many mage mechanics are already dependent on very particular and often dumb things (Torment the Weak, I’m looking at you), and IA has always felt cheap to me. Is it fun to get shielded and watch your spellpower shoot up? Sure. But I don’t like sucking up to a disc priest and then standing in fire just to do more damage. (Note: this is no longer relevant after 3.3.3: IA is not nearly as valuable as it was since it only procs off of your own frost/fire ward and mana shield.)
2) Once you get two piece mage T10, your rotation may change slightly. The top DPS rotation still is stacking Arcane Blast to four and then using Arcane Missiles when Missile Barrage procs. However, the haste boost from consuming MBAM means that your less mana-intensive rotations aren’t that far off from the highest DPS rotation. If mana is a problem for you, don’t feel bad about using MBAM when it procs after the second, third, or fourth AB.
3) Four piece mage T10 is the most ridiculously awesome set bonus in the world. Other set bonuses look at mage T10 and weep, for they will never be so amazing. It’s especially fun when we do our weekly raid quests in Naxx and have a fight that lasts only 45 seconds—you just can’t touch a mage who blows Quad Core, Arcane Power, Icy Veins, and trinket(s), and who doesn’t have to worry about mana. I am actually really surprised it hasn’t been nerfed yet.
3) Yes, we’ve heard about proposed fire changes. I think that with the IA nerf, the combustion change (down to two minutes from three, thank goodness), pyroblast now benefitting from TtW, and the Glyph of Fireball change (instead of 5% crit, the cast time on fireball is reduced by .15 seconds), fire might be more in-line with arcane mages. Maybe. Arcane gives you controlled burst and amazing single-target DPS, which are both crucial in ICC encounters. Fire does well with multiple targets, but so far that’s only Gunship. (Dreamwalker has lots of adds, but they need to be burst down quickly and a lot of them won’t be up long enough for living bomb to explode.) But we’ll see: I know Ais is itching to get back to blowing stuff up with fireballs.
4) I hate trinkets so much. So very much. I lucked out and got a Muradin’s on my first ICC 10 run, but my guild has seen exactly one Reign drop in our TOC runs. Another one dropped on a pug Ais and I were in, and it went to a warlock in our guild—who then picked up the first (and only) DFO we’ve seen. I was trying to move away from the years-long feud between mages and warlocks and instead unite ourselves against rogues and DKs, but, man. *shakes fist at our warlock guildmate* I just know I’m going to be using Talisman of Resurgence until Cataclysm. (Of course, that’s not the worst of it: if I want to go back to fire for a boss fight, Rawr tells me I should use Dying Curse. *twitch* I’ll stay arcane, thanks.) Trinkets can suck my non-existent junk.
But, all in all, WoW has been treating me well lately. I love that Ais and I got Starcaller on our alts (especially since, uh, I might have been drunk at the time); I managed to get a Blood Queen’s Crimson Choker in my Sack of Frosty Treasures, which netted me quite a nice chunk of change; and we’re working on getting another mage friend of ours a Tiny Voodoo Mask trinket so we can do a voodoo gnome parade with -wait for it- 24 voodoo gnomes. (We’ll be glyphing for mirror image, of course.) Ais and I have done it with just the two of us and I will say that 14 pygmy gnomes RP walking through Dalaran will turn heads. I highly recommend it. I’m meeting new people, having fun goofing off on alts, and raiding doesn’t feel quite so tedious lately.
I hope our mage readers are faring well! How is Icecrown treating you?
Ding! 80! …Now What? (The Guide)
- Updated for 3.3. Changes have been made to Gear and Spec sections to reflect content in-game.
So you have decided to roll a mage and fate has allowed you to hit level 80. Congratulations!
You made it to the big-time…and now you’re scratching your head. What do you do now? You’ve had fun levelling but now you have all sorts of things to worry about as a new 80 – do you just do heroics? Raid? Run circles around Dalaran? There’s lots of things to consider and all of it is confusing. Sure, you could just ask your guild, but a lot of times people who have been level 80 for a while just point you at Elitist Jerks. This is not always very helpful because it’s tailored for progression raiding and min-maxing. That’s why we’re here to give you some information specifically for the new-to-80 mage (who is interested in PVE). Some of this info has an overlap with Meta’s raiding guide, but I will be explaining some basic things with a little more detail. If you are looking to jump right into raiding, her guide might be more beneficial.
Table of Contents:
The New Hotness – Incanter's Absorption
I’ve been scratching my head for blog topics after our Great Reader Windfall of Aught Nine, and this one came to me via my friend.
He asks: “What’s up with Incanter’s Absorption?!”
Both Meta and I are pretty big proponents of this talent. Most people only heard of it back when it got nerfed during Naxx content due to the insane soloing a mage did in the Military Quarter by spell-stealing Bone Armor – the talent effectively allowed the mage to gain boss-level spell damage due to absorption mechanics from the armor. It’s been hotfixed since then to cap your effective SP gain to no greater than 5 percent of your health.
Still, why is this noteworthy? › Continue reading
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