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Arcane Brilliance: Talent Show
Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week we're holding our breath to see what news will be revealed at Blizzcon! If I could have absolutely anything from Blizzcon this year specifically pertaining to mages, it'd be this: I'd like to know what the future of our tier 6 talents is going to be. It's already been acknowledged that they'd like to make changes to these talents. The devs know that the talents are an ongoing concern and really a major thorn in our side. It became clear to me just how I felt about the tier 6 talents as I was leveling my troll mage to 90 a few months ago. I went to do a dungeon as a fire mage and I evocated, and imagine my surprise when -- it triggered a long cooldown. I got some mana back. Nothing else happened. My invocation buff tracker remained at nothing. I happily did the rest of the dungeon without ever using evocate at all unless I needed mana. Then I realized that it was more fun to be level 88 than it was to be level 90.
Arcane Brilliance: Cataclysm beta highlights for mages
It's time again for Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that hasn't gotten a beta invite, despite an ongoing salvo of increasingly pathetic groveling at the feet of Blizzard's customer service department. Oh, the things that Arcane Brilliance would do ... It's shameful, really. So I want you guys to know that it's been difficult. I don't want you to assume it's been easy for me, this last run-up to the beta. There have been so very many things I've wanted to tell you but couldn't. I've wrestled with myself. There has been a hefty amount of soul-searching, an activity that -- for me -- requires spelunking gear and a machine gun that doubles as a flamethrower. But now the beta has dropped, the NDA has been lifted and it's open season on all the awesome changes in store for the mage class. In the coming weeks, we'll be going over everything in ridiculous detail, picking through every new build with a fine-toothed comb and just generally having a total nerdgasm on a weekly basis. There's so very much to discuss. In the interest of getting started, though, I figured that today I'll stick to what I see as the most significant changes. There are plenty of other places where you can get a full list of new stuff. That information's readily available. In the end, we'll get to everything, but I figure when you come here, it's for three things: analysis, opinion and warlock jokes. I hereby promise to deliver at least some of all three.
Arcane Brilliance: Why Mana Adept might not suck
It's time again for another Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that needs more screenshots. Yes, I'm reminding all of you that I need more pictures of mages to open this column with. They can be any pictures of mages, whether they're mages killing warlocks, or mages setting warlocks on fire, or mages destroying a warlock's self-esteem, or a mage stealing a warlock's lunch money, or a mage sneaking into a warlock's backyard and salting the earth so that nothing can grow there for a hundred years. Really, any mage screenshot will do. Send them to arcanebrilliancepics@wow.com; put "Mage screenshot" in the subject line, and sign the email with whatever name you want the picture to be credited to. My email's getting lonely. Seriously, all I get now are fake beta invites and porn. Sometimes in the same email. Mana Adept concerns me. I don't think I'm alone, in my concern, either. In fact, I think it's safe to assume that a very large percentage of arcane mages, upon reading about the coming mastery bonus for their spec of choice in the recent Cataclysm class preview, let out a collective sigh of deep unease. The mastery bonuses for fire and frost are fairly straightforward. Fire is getting a powerful DoT component added to all of their direct-damage fire spells. Frost is getting a damage buff applied to all of their damaging spells but Frostbolt. Compare those to the mysteries of Mana Adept: Bashiok 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. source Wait ... what?
Arcane Brilliance: Mages are fine! Now fix us.
Each week Arcane Brilliance saves the world, one Mage column at a time. Once, we did it by throwing the One Ring into a volcano. Oh, and this one time, we did it by slaying the evil Voldemort. And every once in awhile, we do it by traveling back in time and saving John Connor from the robotic clutches of Skynet. The Edward Furlong John Connor, not the Christian Bale one. Also, Arcane Brilliance doesn't go back as Michael Biehn or Ahnuld. Arcane Brilliance is totally Summer Glau. Yowza.So...with news flying around about upcoming patches, and changes on the horizon for other classes, I can't help but notice a strange, almost eerie silence over here on the Mage front. If this were a movie, somebody would say "It's quiet," and then somebody else would pipe up with "yeah...a little too quiet," and that'd be the moment when somebody gets grabbed by something big and scary, or something explodes, or Samuel L Jackson gets eaten by a shark or something. Seriously, I'm starting to get a little freaked out here.Now, don't misunderstand: I'm not complaining. I appreciate the recent Mirror Image change. I like that my copies aren't morons now. I really do. It's just that you have to go back to patch 3.1 to find anything even resembling a major change affecting the way Mages play the game, while other classes still appear to be in constant flux.This tells me one thing: Mages are good. We're set. Really, you guys have fun over there with your new class mechanics and what-not, we're fine over here with our...whatever. Yeah? You got yourself some new Druid bear-form art? That's cool, because we...um...we can turn stuff into rabbits now. That's right, suck on it.So apparently Blizzard thinks Mages are fine for now. I'm not arguing the issue; if you ignore that fantastic five minutes right at the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King when we were awesome, I'm hard pressed to think of a point in the history of this game when Mages have been in a more comparatively satisfactory position than we are right now. Our damage is competitive, and we don't suck in PvP. We can get raid spots. We can kill Warlocks. I'm not unhappy right now, really I'm not.
Arcane Brilliance: Patch 3.0.8, or Blizzard's love letter to Arcane Mages
Each week, Arcane Brilliance gains 5,000 reputation with the Kirin Tor by writing a column about Mages. That's right, I said 5,000. Are you reading this, Kirin Tor? I'm declaring myself exalted. Give me my dagger already, you selfish jerks.I may have mentioned this before, but I'm an Arcane Mage.I wasn't always. I spent my initial leveling days as a pure Fire Mage, and loved it. I spent a good chunk of time PvPing as a Frost Mage, and had a glorious time. But now I'm all Arcane, all the time, and I'm as pleased with it as it is possible for an unapologetic cynic like myself to be pleased with a thing.And so, as you can imagine, I look at the PTR 3.0.8 patch notes as Blizzard's Christmas gift to me personally. It's as if they decided, "yes, we would like to keep taking money from your credit card, Christian, and so make our product better specifically for you." Actually, that's probably exactly what they decided, only substituting the names of every person ever for my own. The difference is that for me specifically, they've actually been successful. Anytime you give me a patch that buffs my spec of choice specifically and also fails to nerf it in any way, your "give him what he wants and he will give us money for it" business model has been successful.Follow me after the break and we'll discuss what will hereafter be referred to as patch 3.KeepChristianHappy.8 (ok, maybe not...that's incredibly cumbersome), and all that it will change for Mages, especially those of the Arcane persuasion.
Arcane Brilliance: Preparing your Mage for patch 3.0.2, part 1
Each week Arcane Brilliance patches itself with new Mage content. These weekly patches are always full of buffs, and never any nerfs. They never contain any changes made for the sake of class balance. There are no bug fixes; because Arcane Brilliance has no bugs (or at least no bugs that can't be retroactively called "features"). This week, the patch notes read as follows:Mage: New spell: Polymorph: Corpse - 1% of base mana, instant cast, 50 yard range, transforms the target into a corpse, making it dead. While dead, the corpse cannot attack or cast spells. Lasts however long it takes for the target's ghost to run back to their corpse. Mages can now equip plate armor. Mana no longer goes down when casting, it instead goes up. Next week, I'll complain about this patch. It's totally not powerful enough. Also, Warlocks are OP.All signs point to this coming Tuesday being the day patch 3.0.2 arrives and turns the game on its head. Up will be down, left will be right, dogs and cats will live together, mass hysteria will ensue. We need to prepare for this coming insanity, if only so that we're able to give snarky answers to the many questions that will pop up in trade chat after we all log back in. I expect lots of "LOL WUT HAPPEN TO MY TALENTS?" and the occasional "I used my mount and it disappeared! Bug?"This week will be the first of two columns in which we'll go over the changes most important to Mages that we can expect come Tuesday. We'll begin with general changes, and move on to the altered trainable spells. The second part will appear Monday, and will cover the three talent trees and review the many changes we'll find there. Jump on past the break and we'll get started.
Mage mana costs to be slashed across the board
So Mages. Do you think you spend way too much mana to cast your spells? If you answered yes, here's some good news: The dev team agrees. However, says Ghostcrawler, they didn't want to reduce the cooldown on Evocation anymore, nor did they want to make Mage Armor so powerful that other Mage armors were no longer worth using. Thus, they simply lowered the mana cost on Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Explosion.Of course, we still won't know exactly how much until the next build hits the Beta servers, but it seems like it's got to be good news if it's anything of a significant cost reduction. Of course, some Mages are still hoping for a more active mana regeneration mechanic such as the Warlock's Life Tap, but in the meantime, hopefully this reduction is enough to make a difference. [Thanks to VyseV1 for the heads up!]
Mage's evocation: working as intended?
Over on the European forums, there's been some question over the Mage ability Evocation. High end mages are saying it's just not restoring enough mana to be useful. CM Aeus comes to the rescue with an answer -- though not the answer most Mages want to hear: We feel evocate is working as it is intended: it's simply highly dependent on how much spirit the mage has. Unfortunately, many mages seem not to like spirit that much and would rather spend their gem slots and enchants on other stats. This is fine, everyone has the freedom to choose what stats they want to focus on. Whereas in the past we forced a lot of spirit onto the mage's tier sets so that they would have good mana regen, to leave more room for flexibility and choice we have replaced a lot of that spirit with gem slots in recent gear.Mages, on the other hand, say that to maximize their DPS and justify their use in a raid, they're required to stack gear and gems that eschew spirit and add to their spell damage, thereby rendering Evocation useless. But if they want decent returns from Evocation, and enough mana regeneration to keep them going in long fights, they have to sacrifice their spot on the damage charts in order to equip more spirit gear. To this Aeus responds:No one's asking anyone to gimp themselves; just making it clear that choices have to be made when it comes to certain aspects.So, Mages, what do you think? Is Evocation working as intended -- or does it just not give Mages these days enough staying power if they're trying to keep to the top of the DPS charts?
Breakfast Topic: Mages, we love you!
I'm interested to know what you all love about each the various classes in World of Warcraft, going through them one-by-one. So here's the idea: today's topic is the Mage -- post a comment here and say everything you love about playing a mage, working with a mage, even the challenge of fighting a mage in PvP. There are plenty of places where all people do is complain in one way or another, but let's avoid that today. Let's think of today as "Mage Day" and put all our focus on saying good or encouraging things about them. Think of it as an evocation of love for our arcane friends.
