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Arcane Brilliance: Patch 5.1 preview for mages
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week we realize there's a significant patch coming out any minute now and we haven't even mentioned it yet. Seriously, didn't we just get a whole expansion like yesterday? I'm still trying to figure out what a Shado-Pan is. I hope it's something I can use to make pancakes. So the build of patch 5.1 that's currently up on the PTR is tagged as a release candidate, which means that the patch could legitimately drop any week now. It's time we discuss it. We're getting new factions, which thank God, because I keep saying to myself "Self? I sure wish we had more daily quests to do," which my self responds to by punching me in the damn mouth. We're getting a fight club Brawler's Guild to distract us from all those dailies. They're bringing back Wintergrasp and Tol'Barad! We can solo all the old raids without being in a raid group! And of course, we're getting the requisite bunch of tweaks and fixes and quality of life improvements that always come with a patch like this. But as always, I'm more focused on the changes that specifically affect mages. And while there's nothing here that will make or break the class, there are some class changes in 5.1 that will have a definite impact on the mage class as we delve further into Pandaria.
Mage glyph changes in patch 5.0.4
When the new 5.0 patch flips over on Aug. 28, will you be ready with glyphs? Blizzard is recycling old glyphs instead of making new spell IDs and charring old ones. Some glyphs are staying the same, some are new, but some share IDs with old Cataclysm glyphs. Below is our list of new or changing glyphs for mages. This is not a list of changing tooltips, just which glyphs you ought to have if you want to automatically have the new glyphs when the patch flips over. Mages have no new glyphs but seem to be the masters of musical glyph chairs, namely Icy Veins and Cone of Cold. If you currently have both, you will have both, so get both just to be sure. Glyphs that are changing into new majors: Arcane Power becomes Arcane Explosion Arcane Blast becomes Arcane Power Frost Armor becomes Armors Fireball becomes Combustion Icy Veins becomes Cone of Cold Mana Shield becomes Counterspell Ice Barrier becomes Deep Freeze Living Bomb becomes Fire Blast Frostfire becomes Frostfire Bolt Cone of Cold becomes Icy Veins Mage Armor becomes Mana Gem Blast Wave becomes Remove Curse Dragon's Breath becomes Spellsteal Deep Freeze becomes Water Elemental Glyphs that are changing into new minors: Slow Fall becomes Arcane Language Conjuring becomes Conjure Familiar Molten Armor becomes Crittermorph Arcane Barrage becomes Illusion Arcane Missiles becomes Loose Mana Pyroblast becomes Momentum Arcane Brilliance becomes the Porcupine Armors becomes Rapid Teleportation It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Arcane Brilliance: On the 12th tier and the set bonuses thereof
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we'll be discussing the Firelands patch and the sweet new mage gear it will be providing to us. Also, what is that thing sticking out of our helmets? Is that a tail? Made of fire? A flaming headtail of magical might? So we're only a few weeks into patch 4.1, and already our sights are focused squarely on patch 4.2. You can hardly blame us, though. I mean, while I am thoroughly enjoying the current patch, what with its freshly recycled 5-man content and its new Dungeon Finder Call to Arms that I don't seem to benefit from in the slightest (my queue times are right back up to 30 minutes, thanks), but I think we can all agree that for a major content patch, 4.1 was substantially light on ... well, content. Not so with 4.2. Patch 4.2 will be bringing us the Firelands, which is apparently a raid where epic cupcakes fall from the sky like rain, hardcore raiders experience orgasms just by zoning in, and we all ride flaming unicorns across lava bridges to do battle with volcanic dragon manticores. I'm not kidding. The entire raid sounds like something you'd see painted across the side of a rock band tour van in the '70s. We're also getting two new daily quest areas with their own epic loot vendors, and yes, the game's first legendary staff. And no, it doesn't have spirit on it. New raid content means new tier sets, and this time around, we're reaching a cool dozen. The tier 12 set bonuses are interesting, to say the least, and bear a bit of looking at. Keep in mind, though, as we discuss these bonuses that we're still early in the PTR process, and everything on the test realms right now is entirely subject to change -- which is, in this case, a very good thing.
Arcane Brilliance: Stealing spells for fun and profit
Arcane Brilliance is back this week, better than ever, and with 100% fewer warlocks. Holy crap, right? It's good to be back. I have to say, I feel a little dirty. I've got warlock stink in my clothes. Not only that, but they kind of trashed the place. There's felhound poo everywhere (not to mention voidwalker poo -- shudder), Soulwells in the bathroom, summoning portals littering the lawn ... I won't even tell you what they did to the pool. There was a succubus passed out in the backyard when I got home who had no idea where she was; her eyes looked haunted. Oh well. My lawyer advises me not to speak publically about what the mage party was like over at their place. I will say this: I totally didn't flush the toilet before I left. And strudel? So tasty, but not entirely kind to my intestines. Just saying. Anyway, things are relatively back to normal now, and hopefully we can move on and have a productive mage column this week. Still, you have to admit ... that was kinda fun. This week, we'll be talking about what I firmly believe to be the single most underutilized ability in the mage spellbook: Spellsteal.
Mage solos Naxxramas Military Quarter
WoW Insider's inbox has been absolutely flooded with tips about the video you see above. Yes, what you're seeing there is a Mage soloing the Military Quarter of Naxxramas. Not the 10-man Naxxramas, but Heroic Naxxramas.This crazy stunt comes from the same crew that pulled off the two-man Loatheb kill, and uses another pretty funny gimmick. This one uses a combination of Spellsteal on specific mobs, a talent called Incanter's Absorption, and a talent called Burning Determination.The Bone Armor that is cast by the Death Knight Cavaliers was able to be spellstolen, and it absorbs 1,200,000 damage. You could get up to hundreds of thousands of points of spell damage, in theory. In practice it probably comes out to much less than that most of the time. Still, as you can see from the video, 100,000 spell damage was completely possible. Burning Determination was necessary because those same mobs like to spam Strangulate.
Other patch 2.4 reveals: Fishing quests, Pally gear, and Spellsteal tweak
Lots of activity today over on the forums from the Blizzard CMs. A few miscellaneous items in patch 2.4 that are sure to make people happy: First there is the fishing daily. Blizzard is continuing their trend of increasing the number of daily quests we can choose from. Drysc tells us that in 2.4 we'll be able to visit "the mysterious old man" near Silmyr Lake outside of Shattrath for the quest. Second, all of the Retribution Paladins will rejoice with the increase in damage their gear will provide. While we haven't been told exactly what the changes will be, we were told that overall stats will be tweaked. Third, Mages will enjoy a minor tweak to their Spellsteal ability, in that it will no longer override a buff that's longer in duration. And finally, healing grace will now reduce the chance that all of your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.
100 amazing Mage tricks
If you're a Mage, this thread from the EU forums is definitely worth a read-- it's based on a Warlock tips thread (which I looked around for but couldn't find-- if you see it, let me know and I'll link it up for the locks) that basically ran down 100 basic and advanced tips for players of that class.If you're a super advanced Mage, you probably already know most of this stuff. The basics are here for sure-- use Blink judiciously to move in an out of range, use Sheep to interrupt casters, and downrank utility spells in PvP. But there's some other interesting things here as well-- I play a Shaman, and my first step when fighting mages (well, right after Grounding Totem) is to Purge all those buffs off. So casting Ice Barrier during my spellcast is ingenious-- either I have to interrupt to purge, or just let the barrier eat the damage.Especially for beginner mages, this stuff is gold. If you're in the mood for tips on how to make your mage better, check it out for sure.Update: Here's the Warlock thread. Thanks to everyone who sent it to me. Also, apparently the Warlock thread was based on a Warrior tricks thread. Anyone seen that one?
WoW Moviewatch: Spellstealin'
When Elizabeth said Spellsteal was crazy cheap fun, she wasn't kidding. Spellsteal is the new level 70 Mage spell that steals a beneficial magic effect from an enemy (it only works sometimes, but being as my mage is only around 25, I couldn't tell you offhand exactly where it works and doesn't). Stiil, as the video shows, a mage with spells he's not really supposed to have can get a little crazy. Now, I'm also told this no longer works (most likely this is an old movie, and Spellsteal was tweaked to not work with this AoE spell). But I'm guessing we're just scratching the surface so far on all the ways Spellsteal can be used to full effect.
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Adventures in Beta: Fun with Spellsteal
Second in our series of easily abused Burning Crusade spells is the mage's Spellsteal. This spell, obtainable at level 70, steals a beneficial magic effect from the target. The magic effect lasts two minutes. The fun thing about Spellsteal is that it's completely random. Sure, you can steal that warlock's Demon Armor - you can also end up with his Rank 1 Prayer of Fortitude, overwriting yours. Try for that shaman's Bloodlust and you might get Lightning Shield. It's like a giant roulette game with every buff in the world available!
