WotLK Mage Talents (as of 7/28)

The mage deep fire tree is looking pretty meh. The new talents seem like Blizz wants to take fire down some strange pvp-viable route with more AE ability and and burst potential, and I don't really see anything that looks critical (Get it? Critical?!? I'm so lame.) for pve raiding, except Burnout and possibly Hot Streak. Honestly I don't even consider those talents critical for raiding. I just like to make cheap puns. These are some pretty mediocre additions to a tree that's supposed to be the high-damage raiding tree.

I poo-poo'd this talent outright upon intitial inspection but then I noticed that the percentage of mana lost upon critical doesn't change from 1% as you move up in ranks from 5% spell crit bonus at rank 1 to 25% spell crit bonus at rank 5. My first impression is this has to be a mistake and will get nerfed, but we'll see. Also the icon looks like a man with either serious Chili Breath or a flaming tapeworm trying to make its way down into his gullet. Does the icon give anyone else a vague uncomfortable feeling? It's a bit disturbing. Anyways...if this talent doesn't get nerfed into the ground it might be one of the few reasons that I can see for a pve mage to spec deeper into fire. Couple this with Hot Streak (100% spell critical chance after landing 3 crits in a row) and a boomkin and you might be cooking with gas.

I've always felt arcane tree to be the Party Tree of the mage specs. It's one of those trees where it's got some fun bells and whistles but I view it as more of an enhancing tree for the fire or frost trees than a standalone tree. Deep arcane to me is the equivalent of majoring in Classical Studies. You can read and write ancient Greek and wax poetic on Euripides's breakfast food choices impacting the nature of tragedy as we know it today, which makes you way cool at parties but not tremendously viable in other facets of life.* Better off minoring in that business and using it to enhance your business degree, nahmean Sparky?

That being said, arcane may be candy but there's some nice candy in there, and pretty early on at that. The only talent that's deep in arcane that I wish were a little higher up in the tree is Netherwind Presence with its 6% boost to haste. My suspicions are that Blizz wants to move arcane away from the HAY GUYZ WATCH ME SPAM TEH ARCANE BLAST PEW PEW PEW PEW WARES MAI SP ZOMG BACK TO FROSTBOLT LOLLERZ spec it has essentially become, and instead make it something that could actually require thought and rotations of other arcane spells. They've put in some sneaky AM-enhancing talents such as Netherwind Presence and added a spirit-boosting talent pretty early up in the tree, as well as an enhanced range effect to Magic Attunement. Magic Absorption looks beastly good now, and I like the decoupling of Arcane Meditation from Arcane Concentration; as a elemental major spec I don't generally need the clearcasting talents. I am quite pleased with the alteration of Arcane Impact to Spell Impact and allowing it to enhance critical chances on spells like Blast Wave, Ice Lance, and Fireblast instead of just Arcane Blast. As a matter of fact the early arcane talents got a nice little spruce-up, imo, which makes them all the more viable for using as an enhancement tree, particularly since there's so little that's worthwhile to go for in the deep fire tree. Don't be afraid to follow the old arcane candyman into his white van come WotLK.

And now, frost. My first impression of the new frost tree talents is "holy shit, can I raid with that?" Frost is still tops in control and survivability, which will always make it a very attractive pvp spec. However, there are some additions in the tree that I consider to be extremely viable for pve raiding, such as Improved Water Elemental. Point for point, the water elemental is the single biggest bang for your damage buck that a mage can talent into. Improving Evian's raid survivability and longevity will do more to enhance the damage a frost build can put out than any other talent. Other nice little additions include Winter's Grasp, which not only allows a frost mage to deliver icelance/shatter combos on raid-level bosses, but increases the chance to hit raid-wide by 2%. I'm almost afraid to talk about the potentially, completely, truly, disgustingly sickly ways this talent could be abused for as I really don't want Blizzard to nerf it. So I'll just say well done Blizz, keep up the good work, and don't touch a single goddamn thing in the frost tree (please). Bravo!

*Note: my sister is a Classics major and she's currently gainfully employed and making more money than I am. There are exceptions to every rule, which I hope also keeps deep-arcane-loving mages (and my sister) from burning me in effigy. My sister is additionally (and not surprisingly) way way way cool at parties.

Biscuit Bitch, or Maging in SWP

Ah, Sunwell Plateau. The pinnacle of raid progression. The end-game goal of every hardcore raider out there. The creamy filling of the WoW raid twinkie.

I admit I was tremendously excited about this zone going live. Our guild had just downed Illidan and it was a heady feeling being in a position to experience bleeding-edge raid content at the precise time it was meant to be experienced. Juicy!

After spending a fairly appreciable amount of time raiding Sunwell Plateau, I'd like to express my feelings in the form of haiku, tentatively titled "No mages needed in Sunwell."

Hey! Freebie int buff
Biscuit table at zone line
Warlocks, fear that mob

It is truly bordering on the comical how hard Blizzard has worked to phase the mage class out of high-end raiding. Our raid synergy is nearly non-existent. Our dps can be matched and easily beaten by warlocks. You could argue Kalecgos for decursing, but if you didn't have mages, there are other classes who can decurse. Mages have been reduced to a class where you bring one for scorch to make the fire locks happy, CC the trash, hoover up the excess Vanquisher drops, and portal out the people who need to respec mid-raid. Our DPS is secondary. Secondary. There is a zone-wide int and stamina buff that overwrites Arcane Brilliance, but does not overwrite Fortitude. If that's not a swift kick in the magenuts, I don't know what else is. I do not enjoy the feeling of having my beloved class treated thus. Once we were MIGHTY. We pew-pewed with wild abandon and produced jaw-dropping damage and topped the dps charts and epeened ourselves because we were MAGES, DAMMIT and yeah we sheeped some stuff too but we were really there for DOING BIG DAMAGE MWAHAHAHA! Mmm, damage.

It bothers me that I have to bust my absolute digital balls off in terms of consumables, cooldown management, and group synergies in order to even match a warlock's standard dps. If they've got the same advantages I do, forget about it. This is not the fault of the individual mage. It is a simple factor of game mechanics and until some things change or get tweaked, that's the way it's going to stay in Sunwell, at least. My raiding guild has gone down to 1 mage per raid being "optimal." If there's more than that, the other is along merely as filler, not because they're a mage. If there was some way warlocks got sheepcoil and summon biscuits, I bet we'd go down to no mages a night.

That being said, I do like Sunwell. I enjoy the challenging aspect of the fights and I like the idiot-check nature of the zone. Rule Number One of raiding: Respect the Zone. The minute you stop respecting the zone, the zone eats your face. I have seen this hold true in everything from Sunwell to Karazhan, regardless of gear level. Sunwell is a really steep learning curve. It will eat your face the second you drop focus. I like that. What I don't like is feeling like a second-class citizen on raids in Sunwell. Oh Sunwell, why must you be such a cruel, yet seductive mistress?