patch-3.3
Hey, frost mages!
Don’t say we never did nothin’ for ya. Lhivera has done some interesting testing based on information about (gasp!) warlock pets. It turns out that warlocks do more damage if they force their imps to cast by macroing the imp’s spell with their main nuke. Lhivera wondered if this would work for frost mages and the answer is yes: he noticed a 27% increase in his own pet’s DPS, which he estimates could boost his raid DPS by 3.8-5.5%. Not too shabby!
To take advantage of it, you’ll need to change your frostbolt to this following macro:
#showtooltip Frostbolt
/cast Frostbolt
/use Waterbolt
Unlike /petattack, this command will not cause your pet to stopcasting and start over with every keypress (something I personally discovered doing Vezax hard mode, heh). So macro up, frost mages, and make Splashy work for you.
(And don’t tell Ais I helped you out. Getting punched by a gnome isn’t fun.)
Mage Lang Syne
So it is the last day of the year, and I know many other blogs are doing retrospectives. But we haven’t been a blog for very long, really – certainly not for a year. I remember like it was only yesterday that I was leveling up Aislinana as fire, eventually frostfire bolt for eventual Naxxramas and generally being a nerd about mage stuff when Wrath came out. I’ve gone from being a noob in t6 gear and casting frostfire bolts to a sleek mage in 245/258 level gear with a new main arcane spec. I never thought I’d come this far or be this different. In my heart I don’t think I’ve really changed much – the talent points, the gemming, the spell rotations have, but intrinsically I’m still the same person. I’m a dedicated, hard worker who always looks to be better, to come farther than I have before. I have Metaneira and certainly this blog to thank for that – as well as MMO Champion (I love you, Beebs), Elitist Jerks (EJB represent), WoW.com, and mage theorycrafters like Manly, Euripedes, Lhivera, Ataxus, Kyth, Sancus (even though he calls me fat). An extra big special thanks to my raid team and guild for always supporting me – you guys have put up with me being a horrible mage for four years now. I love you all.
But mostly, I have to thank you readers for making this past (short) year of blogging so amazing – I never thought I’d be in this business of writing down words and having people read them. Or that I’d be helping out countless mages with my thoughts on stuff. So a big thanks to every single person who is out there reading these things now. I know we’ve been kinda quiet lately – personal life stuff, raiding Icecrown and definitely my copy of WoW collapsing in a heap haven’t helped much. But we will return in the New Year with more spicy words than ever – you can buy the whole seat if you want, but you’ll only need the edge.
Who knows what this next year of World of Warcraft and magecraft in general will hold. I know we will be there, together.
(It won’t be going frost. Screw you, frost mages.)
Playing With Fire – Thoughts on the Icecrown 5-Mans
Blizzard has ignited a deep and abiding lust back in my heart – playing as fire spec. Ever since they released the three new 5mans, I have had an insatiable desire to flop back to my abandoned fire spec and blow everything up. Why is this? I guess it is finally time to do something other than run around in a room with no trash for once. Fire is pretty incredible for doing these heroics with – it doesn’t have quite the control that frost does for these places, but it definitely has the excitement and damage that I enjoy.
Ever since I switched from my “primary” spec to my “secondary” spec, it felt like coming home. It was a forbidden, sexy thrill. But let’s not forget about the instances, shall we? › Continue reading
First Impressions: Icecrown Citadel
Ais and I had our first peek at ICC this week. I think it’s safe to say we’re both enjoying the instance: I actually missed trash pulls and Ais is adorably geeking out over the lore. I’ve been a bit distracted during raids lately, but I thought I’d put together a few of my thoughts concerning the fights from the magely perspective.
Marrowgar
I stayed arcane for this fight, with good results: I was able to burst down the bone spikes quickly while doing solid damage to the boss. The only tricky things are the aggro reset after Bone Storms and the Coldflame, which is easily avoidable. (Pop frost ward if you find yourself taking a tick from it, particularly if you have Incanter’s Absorption.)
Lady Deathwhisper
Mages have a lot to do on this fight. In 25 man mode, random raid members will get MC’d, so be quick with a polymorph if you’re able. Depending on your raid’s strategy, you may be required to focus down adds or stay on the boss full time; either way, arcane is probably your best bet. Arcane has the superior threat reduction talents, which is very handy for DPSing down the adds (especially given that establishing and maintaining threat on them can be dicey): Ais stayed fire for this fight and found herself subject to a lot of unwanted attention. When Lady Deathwhisper empowers a Cult Fanatic, the mob will get a decidedly sexy spellstealable buff — these need to be purged off quickly, so you might as well get the benefit from stealing it. Apart from that, the fight is pretty straightforward: kill what you’re assigned to kill, avoid ghosts that are coming towards you, move out of death and decay. Piece of cake.
Faction Warships
I’m gonna level with y’all right now: I got my rocket pack and I promptly stopped listening to anything my raid leaders were saying. (Sorry Weazey and Gradar.) ZOOOM! My role was to stay on defense, so I flopped to FFB, cast living bomb on every single thing in sight, then spent my time doing Rank 9 and Rank 8 flamestrikes followed by blizzard. But, seriously: rocket packs. ROCKET PACKS. Um. I’ll pay more attention this week and report back.
Deathbringer Saurfang
All of the damage on this fight is physical, so buffing everyone with Amplify Magic is a good idea. Three of the four mages in my raid had 2/2 Magic Attunement so we split up the buffing responsibilities. I started out as FFB for the slow applied by the main nuke and so I’d have blast wave to knock back mobs close to me, but after one pull I swapped back to arcane: DPSing the mobs down quickly seemed more beneficial than kiting them around with frostfire bolts.
So, for the first four fights in Icecrown Citadel, arcane still looks to be the most beneficial. Fire or FFB will probably do better on Warships simply because of the AOE capabilities of living bomb explosions, but arcane will still do well enough. In short, arcane will do better on any fight where you’ll need single-target DPS or controlled burst; fire will do very well on any fight with multiple targets tanked near each other.
I think Ais and I have made it abundantly clear that neither of us are going frost any time soon. The buffs simply weren’t enough: simulations show it lagging drastically behind even frostfire bolt. Sorry, frost mages.
I hope you all enjoyed the first taste of ICC! It’ll be a while yet before we get more.
Patch day whooo!
It’s official: 3.3 hits today! Whether you’ve been meticulously following every change and quirk on the PTR or if you’ve been completely out of the loop for the past couple of months, we’re here to help you get caught up quickly. Our guides have been updated accordingly (3.3 Raiding Guide, Ding! 80!…Now What? (for new 80s), and our Mage Leveling Guide), but if you want to jump in as soon as servers are live (whenever that may be), here are the salient points.
Arcane changes
Arcane was left largely untouched, and still looks to be be top mage DPS for single-target situations. The big change here is a bit of utility: the Arcane Empowerment talent now also adds 3% increased damage by your party or raid after a critical strike with AE, AM, ABarr, or AB. This utility buff is the same as the one provided by ret paladins and BM hunters, so for 25 man raids this won’t likely make a difference.
Fire changes
Even though I’ve only played fire a handful of times since 3.2, I’m still excited about the scorch change: one cast of scorch now applies 5 stacks of the increased critical strike chance debuff. The Improved Scorch glyph has been renamed Glyph of Scorch and now increases the damage of scorch by 20%. (No, you don’t want to pick it up. Might be fun for a PVP fire build, though.) Given that mages and locks are the only ones who can apply the crit debuff, and given that fire does very well on fights with multiple targets (particularly if they are tanked near one another), we’ll still see many fire mages in ICC.
Frost changes
Here’s where mages got the biggest overhaul, though unfortunately the changes fell short of frost mages’ initial hopes. Deep Freeze was tweaked so that it now does damage to targets immune to stun (i.e., raid bosses). A new glyph was introduced for frost mages as well, Glyph of Eternal Water, which gives you a permanent water elemental but you lose the ability to cast the nova spell. Fluffy’s waterbolt spell’s mana cost has been reduced, so you shouldn’t have to worry about him going oom too quickly. (Longer fights may require a resummon, I’m not sure.) All these changes are nice, but frost still falls very short of the potential output of arcane, fire, or even frostfire.
Other mage-related changes
Black Magic went from being a piece of crap to being the best enchant for decently geared mages. It’s decidedly better for players who have a one-handed weapon, though it’s likely still an improvement for mages with staves equipped. You’ll want to download the latest version of Rawr to get a more accurate answer dependent on your own gear and raid buffs.
Mana costs on all lowbie spells have been reduced, which means that leveling mages (and other classes) will be able to use their spells without going oom after three casts. Attack has been changed to auto-attack, and it won’t even show up on a new mage’s bars now. These changes mean mages won’t spend levels 1 through 20 wanding and meleeing, so good job on that account, Blizzard. If you’ve ever thought about leveling a mage, now is an excellent time to start!
Fire mages will no longer be able to drop on top of a mounted player, cast unglyphed blast wave, and knock him off his mount. Pity — I have to admit I enjoyed doing that after the occasional WG battle.
That’s it as far as mage-specific changes, but there are dozens more affecting all areas of play. Full patch notes can be found here. So many changes! I’m geekily excited about the macro language changing so “@” now means “target=”, but I’m likely the only one. Hey, my polymorph macro is long enough as it is.
Good luck, mages! May your servers be stable! And, hey, if you’re in Ais’s and my battlegroup, you might run into us as we’re furiously pugging heroics. 
3.3 Looms On The Horizon
I think everyone can feel the growing storm clouds of 3.3 and how close we are getting to what is to be the last real content patch of this expansion. WoW.com this week effectively “called” that the patch, if no server problems crop up, will be dropping next week. Background downloaders have started sputtering to a start, whispers have grown to a din, and everyone seems to be effectively girding their loins. While there is quite a lot of criticism for how the raid content is being handled (with gating and smaller attempt pools), most people are just excited to finally get their chance to punch Arthas in the face.
So what have you been doing in the meantime, in the long wait for the endgame? I know Meta and myself have been pretty busy little bees lately. Everyone seems to have been up to something to occupy their focus if they didn’t wander away from Warcraft to Dragon Age or Left 4 Dead 2. Our raid team (which Meta is now a part of!) has been eagerly clearing hardmode content in Ulduar to polish off our meta-achievement for raid drakes and being punted by Algalon. I’m not entirely sure that we will get Heroic Anub’arak before the patch drops, but if we are successful this weekend, I at least should be zooming to Icecrown Citadel on a 310 speed drake at long last. Both Meta and I have been focusing on non-magey alts, I a ret/prot paladin, and she a boomkin! (A boomkin, gasp! This is mage sacrilege.) We also have been doing fun things like tons of heroics with friends, and running ZG every week on two sets of characters to get our mages raptors or tiger mounts. (No luck just quite yet on that front.)
I have also been daydreaming about what Icecrown will be like, because I’m a imaginative freako first and a mage second. I dream of us storming Icecrown and seeing all the crazy new bosses and being victorious. I know that for our guild, this raid instance will be the four-year culmination of our namesake and our “story” in the game. Seeing Arthas die will be both an ending to one chapter in our long lives together, but a start of a new one. It sounds all a little hokey, but we’re roleplayers, mannnnn.
As soon as 3.3 hits though, expect lots of amazing updates. We will also be correcting our guides to reflect any changes in the upcoming patch, especially the delicious scorch one!
Comment and tell us what your aspirations for Icecrown are, what you have been doing to kill off the boredom, or any other nattering you want to share!
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 3.2.2 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:
Full Mage Tier 10 Colors Available – Still Ugly!
What is this, I don't even
MMO-Champion posted a full mage and warlock set preview this morning, in a variety of rainbow colors. While warlocks manage to skate by with sets that feature a single tonal palette, we’re stuck with color combinations that strike me as more “acid trip” than “color harmony.” Full video of the mage set is found here.
Mage armor designers need to go back to art school as far as I’m concerned. If our tier set is like the orange-y one I posted up there, I’ll be happy. But if I’m stuck with magenta or green, I might just hide in RP gear out of shame until it is time to raid every week.
Mage T10 is Powerful Ugly, No One Surprised
What is this?
MMO-Champion just released some addition PTR info for 3.3, including tier set models for warlock and mage tier 10. Right now I’m rather flabbergasted at how ugly this is. I know that Icecrown is supposedly emulating some of the things we’d be fighting up on the glacier and indicate some level of camouflage, but this is just silly. We look like beat up a bunch reject Blood Princes and stole their clothes. It’s also is the same color palette as death knights. I’m hoping that other set colors get released because it’s a double insult to not only have a horrible set AND have the same horrible colors as another class. Least it isn’t purple, but knowing Blizzard, it won’t even be a cool purple like warlocks get if they do get around to updating the set colors.
The bone boots and mouth on the hat are making me boggle as well. Someone at Blizzard needs to just be taken out back and shot. Half of what’s wrong with this set is the hat design. The one saving feature of this tier are that the set bonuses are decent.
In other PTR notes, some updates for fire talents were included but seemingly are for PVP-oriented abilities:
- Burning Determination: The duration of interrupt immunity granted by this talent is now 20 seconds.
- Dragon’s Breath: The mana cost of this talent has been significantly reduced.
- Firestarter: When this talent is triggered, it makes the next Flamestrike cost no mana in addition to being instant.
- Blast Wave: The mana cost of this talent has been significantly reduced.
Finally, I really want a flying pony. Ghostcrawler promised me one.
Blizzard Nerfs Mage QQ – New 3.3 PTR Changes
Big frickin’ changes for mages just got dropped on MMO-Champion just now. Makes me wonder if Ghostcrawler just started reading our blog. Hold onto your chairs, ladies and gents and onto the sexy changes:
Fire
* Improved Scorch now increases spell critical strike chance against the target by 5% but no longer stacks. (Up from 1%, Stacks up to 5)
Ice
* Frozen Core now also causes your Ice Lance criticals to reduce the cast time of your next Frostbolt or Frostfire Bolt by 0.4/0.7/1 sec.
Glyphs
* Glyph of Improved Scorch is now named Glyph of Scorch and Increases the damage of your Scorch spell by 20%.
* Glyph of Eternal Water – Your Summon Water Elemental now lasts indefinitely, but your Water Elemental can no longer cast Freeze.
I cannot tell you how much myself or Metaneira are squealing right now. This is a big step up for both PVE fire and frost mages. It feels like all of the grousing that mages have been doing for the past couple years has finally paid off.
Scorch being changed from a stacking debuff to a single-application debuff now means that we get the benefit of the Glyph of Improved Scorch as it is now, with the benefit of being able to use our third glyph slot with fireball/frostfire bolt glyphs. This is a huge DPS bonus on every single fight – scorch can be kept up easily across both single and multiple targets with little time lost. This is such a major fix to the biggest flaw in playing fire in raids and makes it very not only comparable to other mage specs but other classes as well in both playstyle as well as DPS.
The scorch glyph is an obvious change since the scorch spell mechanics will be changing. Will it be a DPS boost against other glyphs? Time will tell.
The Glyph of Elemental Water is a big boost for PVE frost – it gives them the benefits of their pets and doesn’t hurt those who play frost in PVP. Will this, along with Frozen Core talent make raiding as a frost mage more viable? We’re very excited.
Metaneira will be testing the new build on the PTR shortly and we will report to you about these exciting, and frankly ground-breaking changes.
I’ll be over here hyperventilating like a little girl.
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