Well folks, the new patch is hot around the corner, with promises of a sample spoon of the glorious ice cream that is Northrend. We’re gonna cram in some news on the classes as much as we can, until it becomes old news when 3.0.2 hits. Until then, it is time for you, dear reader, to…
Meet the Mage!
What’s new about the mage come Wrath time? A boatload of things. Not as large of a boat as some of the other classes, like the shaman. They have more of a cruise ship, and we’ve got the S.S. Minnow. But beneath the small group of changes are some core power changes that are just all around pleasing.
Arcane
There’s a lot of new changes here, both early on in the tree, and towards the bottom. Up near the top we have Focus Magic- A buff that increases the chance to hit with all spells by 3%, and an additionally 3% for ten seconds after scoring a critical hit. This is a nice buff for any caster in the party, and the fact that an arcane mage could toss a battle buff on someone is quite a new utility indeed. Incanter’s Absorption- When you absorb a spell, you gain a portion of that spell’s power as temporary spell damage. This, among other arcane talents, really adds to the utility of an arcane mage being an anti-caster caster class. Arcane Barrage- Arcane Missile’s older brother. This is an instant cast, single target blast of damage with a high mana cost and low cooldown. This is sort of the arcane mage’s Fire Blast, but much less spammable. It’s great for some quick burst damage when mana isn’t an issue. Overuse it, and you’ll be empty faster than a liquor bottle on St. Patrick’s day.
Fire World in Flames- Increases the critical strike chance of a couple of major spells from each school by 6%. One of the problems with mages is that their talent trees do NOT lend themselves towards hybrid point spending. Lots of people put 99% of their points in the same tree, because the other trees do nothing for the spells they mostly cast. This is one of the new early tree talents to counterbalance that, making sure that once your done with your tree of choice, you’ve still got a lil something to look forward to. Firestarter- Critical hits from Dragon’s Breath or Blast Wave make your next Flame Strike an instant cast. I don’t know about the rest of you fire mages, but I rarely ever use Flame Strike. Why should I spend time casting a spell when I can instant cast things to death before they even touch me? With this new talent, Flame Strike can now safely slide it’s way into the instant cast rotation, making it a much sexier choice for the mage on the go.
Living Bomb- A debuff that lights a target on fire, and then makes them explode after a chunk of time. Totally awesome. “HELP! I’m on FIRE!” “NO! Don’t run over here you idi-KABOOOOOOM!” It used to have an effect where it would knock people upwards into the air from the explosion, but that has sadly been removed. Too bad, because the thought of launching people skyward with an explosion was too cool for school.
Frost Fingers of Frost- Any spells with a chilling component have a chance to grant you the ‘fingers of frost’ effect, making your spells against them count as if they were frozen solid. What’s this mean? Well, frost talents and spells grant ungodly damage against frozen targets, so having a target count as being frozen means the target should count on getting its ass frozen to the wall. Deep Freeze- Stuns the target for 5 seconds. Only works on frozen targets. A deadly new addition to the frost mage’s already formidable pvp arsenal. Stuns are the bane of many classes, as they mean that you are pretty much stuck getting hammered for the next few seconds, or that your opponent has a few free seconds to bandage his or herself. It’s an awesome getaway spell for pve, too. Freeze them, stun them, blink, and get the heck outta dodge.
With the move away from equipping gear that boosts a specific element, mage talents are also moving away from providing 0% synchronicity with each other, to the joy of mages everywhere.
