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Arcane Brilliance: Things I want to see changed, arcane edition
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we do what mages do best, if you don't count brutal warlock-murder: we whine. Oh relax; it's constructive whining. I promise. OK, I'm not going to sit here and pretend mages are terrible. I'll leave that to the official forums. The honest truth is that we're a more than capable DPS class, with two currently mediocre specs (one of which is making some substantial strides on the PTR) and one fairly spectacular one. We have one dominant PvP spec, and two others that can kind of hold their own if you don't look too closely at them. In this game, that's pretty much par for the class-balance course. So I'm not saying the end is nigh, Blizzard is the root of all evil, time to re-roll a death knight, I'm canceling my subscription and buying Rift, or anything else equally ridiculous. And I'm not going to spend a thousand words complaining about stupid things. We have it pretty good, all things considered, and I'm simply not jaded enough yet to ignore that fact. But the fact remains that the mage class has been pretty damn stagnant for some time now. We've now gone through two straight expansions with no discernible face-lift to speak of, while other classes have undergone some fairly seismic reboots. For the most part, that's not a bad thing. It means we're doing okay, or at least the class design team feels like we are. I tend to agree, but there are still a few nagging problems with our class that I feel need to be addressed. When the status quo has flaws -- even if those flaws are comparatively minor -- then maybe the status quo simply isn't good enough.
Arcane Brilliance: The new and improved arcane tree in patch 4.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. Unless it's a week when I move into a new house and Cox Cable decides my internet doesn't need to be hooked up on the same day week I tell them I need it hooked up. Also, why does my shower only produce cold water when the sink in the same bathroom is so hot it is capable of scalding flesh from bone, and why ... why when I flush the toilet does it sound as if my entire house is freeing itself from its terrestrial moorings and returning to the mothership? Before we begin, I'd like to see a show of hands. Are you a mage? Okay, good. Now, put your hand down if you're a fire mage. Hoo boy. We just lost a lot of hands. Now frost mages can put their hands down. Now warlocks who only came here because you secretly hate yourselves and want to hear about how much you suck. Okay. I see there are still some hands up. Arcane mages, you stalwart few: This column is mostly for you. While I was away, the PTR patch notes for 4.1 were updated, and there are more than a few important items for mages in there. Let's get the non-arcane news out of the way first, so everybody who's too good for a little Arcane Blast spam and Mana Adept management can move on with their day.
