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Arcane Brilliance: Things I love most about my mage in patch 5.0.4 (so far)
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, I'm taking a few precious moments that I'd otherwise be devoting to farming Tol Barad commendations so I can buy my Fox Kit to hammer out an ode to all the things I'm loving right now about patch 5.0.4. I hope you people appreciate my sacrifice. Seriously, guys. There are literally thousands of warlocks who are only still alive right now because the time I spend writing these columns is time I'm not spending killing warlocks. There was a point on Tuesday night, while trying out my new rotations in the LFR against Ultraxion (several times, thanks to a long string of tanks who apparently have never used a taunt before), where I fully realized that my arcane mage had Living Bomb. I mean, I knew about it, had tried it out on the beta, but had never raided with it and actually inserted it into my rotation. So there I am, blasting away with my arcane mage and his new decidedly-more-than-one-button rotation, and I see that Living Bomb button on my action bar, and I press it, and then a few seconds later it explodes and I refresh it, and what's this? Am I crying? Yes ... yes, I'm crying like a child while I blow up that giant dragon. So I'm happy with patch 5.0.4. I know not everybody is. Most of the complaints seem to revolve around the new talent system, which we'll get to in a minute. But me? I am completely on board. I have my quibbles. (Why do my Mana Gems vanish after logout again? I thought we fixed that annoyance a few patches ago.) But any minor issues I notice quickly drown in the massive wake of all the happy. And there is a lot of happy.
Arcane Brilliance: Familiars, porcupines and Frostbolt healing, oh my!
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we'll be discussing a few of the more recent additions and tweaks to our class on the Mists of Pandaria beta. Some of them are awesome. Some of them are silly. And some of them are porcupines. You see that thing up there in the picture? That tiny little legless flaming elemental from vanilla WoW? That's one of our three new familiars. That's right: familiars. I've actively campaigned for mage familiars in the past, even as far back as this crusty old post from 2008, in which I also wished for more portals, a Blink spell that actually worked, and a rumored new ability called Mirror Image, which I believed would prove to be a combination of a bacon double cheeseburger, the second coming of Christ, and a double rainbow out of a leprechaun's butt. So young! So naive. I always imagined my mage running around with a tiny furry minion, maybe mouse with glowing eyes, or an ominous crow, possibly animated by Don Bluth, that would do my bidding and tell me which cottage in the forest Princess Aurora was hiding in. I imagined a wizardly pet that would be always by my mage's side, part of the persona, perhaps conferring a passive buff or something. Well that isn't quite what we're getting here.
Arcane Brilliance: My Mage wishlist
Each week Arcane Brilliance endeavors to give you a tiny peek into the vast and mysterious world of Mages. This peek comes at the cost of your very soul. Really, it totally does. Ok, so I'm lying. Your soul will be fine. No soul-related problems will come from reading Arcane Brilliance. That we're aware of.Mages complain a lot. We do. A stroll through the first couple pages of threads over on the official Mage forums is more often than not like a guided tour of QQ central. For instance, as I write this there's a four-page topic on quitting the game over not being able to downrank spells anymore. Yes, it's terrible, but apparently a level one Warrior is considering leaving the game because he can't save a bit of mana on his main by casting rank 1 Frost Nova. I sense a great disturbance in the Force, as if one first-level Warrior cried out in terror and was suddenly silenced. I think we all share a great sense of loss here.To be frank, in these heady days of Living Bomb spells that look like they might actually be useful, Frostfire Bolts that have the potential to be very, very powerful, Deep Freezes that have become instant cast and do nice damage, an Arcane tree that looks as if it can stand alone as a high-DPS tree, and of course Polymorph: Penguin, I feel as if there simply isn't much left for us Mages to complain about. In fact, as the Wrath beta progresses, I find more and more about our class that inspires an overall sense of optimism.Still, I dream of better things. I'm happy at the direction we appear to headed in, but there a few things I wish for our class--a short list of improvements, most of which I have wanted for a very long time. I'm not finding fault, just wishing. A Mage can dream, can't he? Join me after the break for a brief Mage wish-list, the things I dream of when I'm not setting fire to Fel Orcs.
New pets for Everquest from LoN: Forsworn
Legends of Norrath saw its first expansion Forsworn released a few days ago, and along with the new loot cards that offer in-game items to use, there are new cards that grant pets as well. EQ Players has featured the pets that LoN collectors can look forward to claiming in EverQuest.There are three familiars that Forsworn introduces to EQ, the Familiar of Queen Eletyl, the Familiar of Lady Vox, and the Familiar of Zi'Thuuli the Granite Claw. These will be pint-sized versions of their mighty likenesses, and really, who doesn't want to roll with a miniature Lady Vox in tow?Pictures of all three of the new familiars are available at the EQ Players feature page.
