Magerage

Eh, who am I fooling?

As a mage, I don’t have rage. That’s warriors.

I do have pointless QQ.

But for those at work, behind the tangled web of blocked internet, I will first give you the blue words before moving onward to my interpretations and whining.

New Mage Spells

Flame Orb (available at level 81): Inspired by Prince Taldaram’s abilities in Ahn’kahet and Icecrown Citadel, this spell allows the mage to cast a flaming orb that travels in front in a straight line, sending beams that cause fire damage to passing targets. Once it’s cast, the mage is free to begin casting other spells as the Flame Orb travels. While the spell will be useful to any spec, Fire mages will have talents that improve it, possibly causing the Flame Orb to explode when it reaches its destination.

Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It also temporarily increases the mage’s own movement speed. Time Warp will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you can’t benefit from both if you’ve got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

Wall of Fog (level 85): Creates a line of frost in front of the mage, 30 yards from end to end. Enemies who cross the line are snared and take damage. The mana cost will be designed to make Wall of Fog efficient against groups, not individuals. This spell is intended to give mages a way to help control the battlefield, whether the mage is damaging incoming enemies (Blizzard can be channeled on top of Wall of Fog) or protecting a flag in a Battleground. 10-second duration. 30-second cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to introducing new spells, we’re planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you’re familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

• Arcane Missiles is being redesigned to become a proc-based spell. Whenever the mage does damage with any spell, there is a chance for Arcane Missiles to become available, similar to how the warrior’s Overpower works. The damage and mana cost of this spell will be reworked to make it very desirable to use when available. This change should make gameplay more dynamic for the mage, particularly at low levels.
• We are planning to remove spells that don’t have a clear purpose. Amplify Magic, Dampen Magic, Fire Ward, and Frost Ward are being removed from the game, and we may remove more.
• The ability to conjure food and water will not become available until higher levels (likely around level 40), as we’re making changes to ensure mages generally won’t run out of mana at lower levels. Once mages learn how to conjure food and water, the conjured item will restore both health and mana.
• Scorch will provide a damage bonus to the mage’s fire spells. Our goal is for Scorch to be part of the mage’s rotation and a useful damage-dealing ability, even if someone else is supplying the group with the spell Critical Strike debuff. Scorch will provide the mage with more specific benefits, which can also be improved through talents.

New Talents and Talent Changes

• Arcane Focus will now return mana for each spell that fails to hit your target, including Arcane Missiles that fail to launch. We want Arcane mages to have several talents that play off of how much mana the character has and give the player enough tools to manage mana.
• The talent Playing with Fire will reduce the cooldown of Blast Wave when hit by a melee attack, instead of its current effect.
• Pyromaniac will grant Haste when three or more targets are getting damaged by the effects of your damage-over-time (DoT) fire spells.
• The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast spells using health when they run out of mana.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Arcane

• Spell damage
• Spell Haste
• Mana Adept

Mana Adept: Arcane will deal damage based how much mana the mage has. For example, Arcane mages will do much more damage at 100% mana than at 50% mana. If they begin to get low on mana, they will likely want to use an ability or mechanic to bring their mana up to increase their damage.

Fire

• Spell damage
• Spell Crit
• Ignite

Ignite: All direct-damage fire spells will add a damage-over-time (DoT) component when cast. The flavor will be similar to how Fireball works; however, the DoT component will be much stronger.

Frost

• Spell damage
• Spell Crit damage
• Deathfrost

Deathfrost: Casting Frostbolt places a buff on the mage that increases the damage for all frost, fire, and arcane spells. The only damage spell that won’t be affected by this buff is Frostbolt.

Whinings about the new mage spells:

Flame Orb – I like the concept of the “fire and forget” spell that I can launch and then start doing other stuff. But if it just goes in a straight line… what’s to stop my target(s) from, you know, just moving away? I’m not seeing a lot of scenarios where I’ll have opportunities to toss orbs down narrow hallways. Maybe the new instances will provide layouts that are conducive to this spell.

Time Warp – this is fucking ballin’. I will be making the following macro to accompany this spell:

/y It’s just a jump to the left
/y And then a step to the right
/y With your hands on your hips
/y You bring your knees in tight
/y But it’s the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane,
/y Let’s do the Time Warp again!

My apologies in advance to all who raid with me from level 83 onward. Of course, they won’t mind seeing as how the buff itself is awesome. And if we’re already Sated? (Not that pussy exhausted crap, I’m talking SATED) I still get the movement speed buff, suckers!

Wall of Fog – WTF? I see this as being amusing, but again, I’m not seeing current content where I would think this is terribly useful. (PvE, in PvP I think this will be a blast, get a whole bunch of mages working together, oh the fun we could have and the dirty words we could write). Now, I just ran ZA for the first time the other night (no Mojo, bastard little frogs) and there were a couple points that I thought this would have been spiffy to have. (ZOMG dragonhawk hatchlings!)

Whinings about changes to spells and mechanics:

Arcane Missile will be proc based – This makes me SEETHE. I LIKE my Arcane Missiles just the way they are, thank you very much. Casting a hasted Arcane Missile under an additional speed effect is like crack cocaine to me, I practically get high watching those missiles streak towards my target, all the while screaming PEWPEWPEW at the monitor. I want that on DEMAND, not off some lame ass proc. Arcane damage is all about choosing the right spells at the right time to make the most out of mana consumption. Without having Arcane Missile as being available at all times, I’m down to just casting Arcane Blast. No choice about it. Bone Spike? Hmmm, nope don’t have Arcane Missile proc, sucks to be me. Actually, sucks to be the boned individual waiting for me to wind up an Arcane Blast. I am NOT in favor of this change. QQ.

Removal of spells without a clear purpose – Amplify and Dampen? Hali-fucking-luyah. Fire and Frost Ward? Um, those have a clear purpose. So I am unsure of their purpose in removing these. I like those two spells. I like taking less damage. I also like Incanter’s Absorption. Removing these two spells means removing that… or… making it based solely on Mana Shield. I’m of two minds of that. One, I would like Mana Shield to actually be viable on a regular basis, I like the concept, but I don’t like the extreme mana consumption or having to take talents to reduce that. Meh, Cataclysm will fix it, I’m sure.

Removal of conjure food and water at low levels, making food/water combined – Food and water together? Yes please. Removal of it until 40? WTF? Conjuring is one of our staple goodies. I log in, I conjure. If I’m in a party, I conjure for the others. This is as close to cooking as I get on a regular basis.

Scorch – If I was a fire mage, that sounds cool. But I’m not, so whatever. =P

Whinings about New Talents and Talent Changes:

Arcane Focus – Um, spells missing? WTF? So I can not get to hit cap on purpose? Or waste procs on not casting Arcane Missiles. Are they taking away my crit? QQ.

Playing with Fire – Fire spell. Whatevs.

Pyromaniac – See Playing with Fire.

Burnout – OK, I will say that this one is cool, I like the concept, but it does seem a little warlock-y. Final verdict is pending, but since it’s a fire spell, meh.

Whinings about Masteries:

Arcane – I totally love this. The whole kit of arcane to me has always been about mana management and I’ve become a haste whore, so I’m looking forward to this. I think this will be an opportunity for the really good mages to step forward and bust some balls, and I hope I count among their number.

Fire – Sounds a little boring, to be honest. I mean, I’m sure the damage potential will be awesome, but it’s a passive reward for doing what you were going to do anyway. So just keep casting fire spells. Because that’s all you need to do.

Frost – I am intrigued. Why all three schools? Are they encouraging frost mages to use the new random fucktard Arane Missile proc? I am *thinking* I may spec my night elf mage frost. We’ll see.

Overall Whinings:

There are a couple changes I like conceptually but am worried they will take it in the ass during development and implementation. There are changes that I am crying a river of mage tears over. There are changes that I could care less about (fire wut?).

Of course, half of this won’t make it to release anyway…

And just remember, Cataclysm will fix it.