Beta Mage Videos/Streams/Data/Discussion

[I-Swizzle-I]

As promised, here's a revised sticky to replace the old one. If you got strangely attached to the other one, then I'm sorry (I haven't deleted it, just unstickied and locked) but I hope I can make you giggle like a girl again with this one.

Important Changes:

Mage (Forums)

• Item - Mage T14 2P Bonus - New: Increases the damage done by your Arcane Barrage spell by 15%, increases the damage done by your Pyroblast spell by 5%, and increases the damage done by your Ice Lance spell by 5%.
• Item - Mage T14 4P Bonus - New: Increases the damage bonus of Arcane Power by an additional 15%, reduces the cooldown of Icy Veins by 45%, and reduces the cooldown of Combustion by 20%.

Baseline

• Frostfire Bolt now slows the target for 8 sec, down from 9 sec.
• Mage Armor now increases your Mastery by 2717 at Level 90.
• Polymorph (All versions) now has a 30 yards range, down from 35 yards.
• Slow Fall no longer requires a reagent.

Talents

• Invocation now reduces the cooldown of Evocation to 10 sec.
• Scorch now costs 0.1% of Base Mana.
• Temporal Shield isn't on the global cooldown.

Frost

• Brain Freeze now causes your next Frostfire Bolt to be instant cast, cost no mana, deal 25% additional damage, and act as if your target were frozen for 15 sec.
• Fingers of Frost no has a 12% chance to proc from Frozen Orb hits, down from 20%. Now also has a 4% chance to proc from Blizzard ticks. Now has a 9% chance to proc from Scorch, up from 8%.
• Frostbolt now snares for 8 sec, down from 9 sec.
• Mastery: Frostburn now scales from 150% of Spell Power, down from 250% of SP. Now also increases the damage done by your Water Elemental by 150% of your Spell Power.

Arcane

• Arcane Charge now also works with Arcane Explosion.
• Slow now increases casting time by 50% on creatures and 25% on players.

Fire

• Combustion base damage has been increased by 30%. No longer affected by Flamestrike effects on the target.
• Inferno Blast no longer affects Flamestrike effects. Now affects enemy targets within 10 yards, up from 8 yards.
• Pyroblast now requires single-target direct damage Fire spells to proc.

Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Arcane Language - Your Arcane Brilliance spell allows you to comprehend your allies' racial languages.

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Combustion now increases the direct damage of Combustion as well.

Streams:

Mage Leveling and Panda Mage

Videos:

Nord Productions

*Credit to Frah*

Fire mage gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEq782pscXU

Arcane mage gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8HHb64jgB0

Frost mage gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23NZU08TIgs

Mage Glyphs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFuE_3FgsEs

Mage Talents
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdMvVEKNtg8

Patch 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAVHUAwj4kQ

Tier 1 talent analysis (raiding) + missed info video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip2pEaY4Pao
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU3a-MMJ_vk

Tier 2 talent analysis (raiding)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NadFg4rEE-M

Tier 3 talent analysis (raiding)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TAFofkruH4

Tier 4 talent analysis (raiding)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOjGlJAppHQ

Swizzle Mini-Blog:

Okay, first Mini-Blog entry, and it's going to focus on Fire and Frost (I can't get Arcane on my Mage and I haven't been able to copy another over either). First off, I want to explain that I do NOT want Fire to return to its iteration from the end of WotLK...just felt like getting that out of the way.

With that done...I'm personally extremely upset with the current form of Fire on Beta. From a design perspective, I can see what Blizzard was shooting for. The spec FINALLY does feel less random, but it also become cumbersome and clunky to remove that randomness. While I was able to constantly line up Combustion with solid Ignites, I was only able to do so by basically ignoring half my spellbook. The biggest change I can name from previous expansions is that Pyroblast suddenly became our strongest DoT, even stronger than Living Bomb and Ignite barring enormous Mastery values (I'm going to address this issue in respect to both Frost and Fire). Flamestrike isn't even worth casting 90% of the time...it just does so little damage and contributes approximately 5-10% of Combustion damage. On that ground, for what it does, Flamestrike's cast time and cooldown are both too long. The simplest fix would be to fix the scaling (which they moved towards in the last build), but the cast time and CD on Flamestrike add clunkiness to the rotation.

Here's what I mean by that. Ignite now "rolls", but only procs form DD single target spells. It sounds great, but when you realize the duration is still 4 seconds, maintaining every debuff you need for Combustion becomes annoying. Not only do you need a strong Ignite (which you can only get from a Fireball or Pyroblast Critical Strike, Scorch actually lowers the damage done by Ignite so...yeah), but you need Pyroblast and Flamestrike, if you're gunning for perfection. However, having to place and cast Flamestrike only leaves you with 2 seconds on Ignite, and even though Combustion is not on the GCD currently, there are issues with the application of the debuff causing it to simply not register your Ignite on the target.

What I'm trying to say is that the mechanics work against eachother. The best thing to do would be reduce Flamestrike's cast time by 0.4 seconds...or my personal favorite: simply extend the duration of the Ignite debuff by 1 second while keeping the damage/DPS the same. Either change would guarantee better rolling and better fluidity in the spec, but the latter would give a better result overall for the spec (applying bombs and what not while maintaining Flamestrike and moving all hurt Ignite, as does the travel time of your other spells). PoM and Inferno Blast are REQUIRED to keep Ignite rolling while maintaining everything else the spec demands as well. There isn't really much skill involved with this feat, it simply isn't fun, and in a video game the user experience is tantamount.

Further...fuck Living Bomb. Sad to say, the spell has been left behind by the newer Bomb spells. The utility Frost Bomb brings and the ABSURD damage Nether Tempest brings make the old spell seem lackluster. Even when fully specced for Fire and glyphed with Inferno Blast, the AoE damage provided by LB is inferior to Nether Tempest. Here's a comparison: limiting myself to LBs target cap of 3 targets, LB dealt approx. 20 hits of damage over the duration of 3 of them whereas Nether Tempest did about 117 hits of damage. Granted, those hits were far weaker, but the accumulated damage was actually higher. Coupled with the average health of most AoE mobs in a boss fight, there would be no reason to ever NOT take Nether Tempest. All LB needs is an increase in damage to keep it inline, but it just seems bland in comparison since it does nothing for Combustion anymore.

Okay...on to Mastery. Out of the two specs I played, Fire's Mastery is too weak whereas it is too good for Frost. From what I could tell, the base Mastery for Frost has been raised again. On live, my gear gets me to 31% increased damage on Frozen targets. Carrying over the same gear to beta grants me 50% increased damage on Frozen targets, and that damage is quite ridiculous. This fact alone makes Frost feel far more bursty and balance plagued than it does on live, and this needs to change. Damage from the spec needs to move away from Ice Lance and into another spell, otherwise we're going to hear a lot of complaining and the spec will play far more RNG than Fire does currently. As for Fire's Mastery, it's simply too weak. The base damage is 17% burn which I could get to 29% with full Mastery buffs. I don't know how long it would take to get back up to the 40% we have now, but the damage just isn't there. Having my Pyroblast Crit for 81,000 feels muted when Ignite only goes up to 11,000 from it. Again, this is a simple numbers tweak, but they need to make sure the damage actually rolls, I hate seeing those "nice" Ignites disappear due to a weaker hit/crit after.

Discussion (you fill this in with your posts):

[Imnick]

The only video you need
Still praying they don't fix this "bug"

[Fennor Angrithon Virastar]

Also, not every spell is affected the same by haste. Especially not DoTs and spells with a very short cast.

DoTs and casts on the GCD might be an exception, but generally it is the same for every spell. If having 12800 haste rating (just an example) means that we can cast spell A 100% faster, we will also be able to cast spell B, C, D and every other spell 100% faster if the spells are not already at 1 sec GCD.

For spellpower it is different. According to http://lhiveras-library.com/wow-spells 761 spellpower increases frost bolt's damage by ~100% at lvl 90. But fireball's damage isn't increased by 100% if we have 761 spellpower, it is only ~80%. For arcane blast it is even ~109%. My question just is, why do they have to scale differently? Why isn't it simply 100% for every spell at 761 spellpower?

[I-Swizzle-I]

Just before I forget, if anyone has any good Mage Beta videos or w/e that they think the community should see, feel free to contact me even though the sticky is up.

[Neichus]

I sort of skimmed over the Arcane video, but didn't watch the whole thing (I'm in beta and it was just plain boring to watch since I knew it). If this was touched on already I apologize.

Just eyeballing it on beta it appears to me that, in rough:
-Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles do the same amount of damage in the same amount of time
-Arcane Barrage does slightly less damage than either on a single target

Since AM and AB are so close in damage, it seems that using AM on proc would be higher long term DPS assuming you aren't at 100% mana. However, I was also thinking about how you can now store up to two AM procs at once. Perhaps you'd want to use that to get the last few Arcane Charges or even store these up so that once you reach 4 Charges you can still cast two high-powered AMs before wiping the stack with ABar.

It seems like this would be dependent on which level 90 talent you chose (Rune of Power always just in a "conservation" cycle while Invocation promotes boom-and-bust), but not going to worry about that until we can actually get to level 90.

[Pasture]

The only video you need
Still praying they don't fix this "bug"

I don't see why they would. It's not really a bug. Practical uses are limited too.

[Levia86]

The only video you need
Still praying they don't fix this "bug"

You get the same effect with Rocketboots Xtreme and slowfall that have been in game since TBC.
Or by dueling a shaman on high ground and let him knock you off with their thunder ability (you apply slowfall on yourself on both ofc).

[Imnick]

You get the same effect with Rocketboots Xtreme and slowfall that have been in game since TBC.

Oh I know, I've been jumping off things with rocket boots for years.
This Blink glyph moves you far faster and further than boots do.

[Levia86]

Oh I know, I've been jumping off things with rocket boots for years.
This Blink glyph moves you far faster and further than boots do.

Then they should indeed keep it as it is =D
Remember once when a shammy friend knocked me off the temple of storms in storm peeks (the high mountain with a throne) and I flew half the way to the maelstrom on the map before fatigue finally killed me ^^

[I-Swizzle-I]

Just a wee bit of an update since I logged in on my Mage for a brief period now (character was bugged out and dancing the whole time so I didn't stay long): Presence of Mind, Temporal Shield, Frost Bomb, Conjure Refreshment, and Rune of Power had spiffy new icons. PoM had such a spiffy one that I almost specced into it.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

The only video you need
Still praying they don't fix this "bug"

I love it to death, but it changes what blink is at a fundamental level. Current implementation is a test. It'll become a teleport proper soon enough.

Edit: The movement buff on GoMomentum is +1000% run speed. This puts nitros to shame. This puts TBC rocket boots stacked with darkflight to shame. I launched myself off temple of storms in storm peaks as was said above, I actually hit the zone ceiling before I left storm peaks.

[Emberess]

any news on Alter Time , our 87 talent?

[I-Swizzle-I]

any news on Alter Time , our 87 talent?

The level cap is still 86, so...no.

[Azlarn]

The level cap is still 86, so...no.

The level cap is 87 as of today, I can't see anyone being 87 yet but I can gain experience to 87, which previously when the cap was SURELY 86, I couldn't.

[Methusula]

The level cap is 87 as of today, I can't see anyone being 87 yet but I can gain experience to 87, which I previously when the cap was surely 86 I couldn't.

i wanted to bust out 87 as fast as possible to check out the talent and report on it. The beta build was just too crashy to get anywhere. I decided to go sit in an inn and build rested xp and hit it again tonight.

[Azlarn]

i wanted to bust out 87 as fast as possible to check out the talent and report on it. The beta build was just too crashy to get anywhere. I decided to go sit in an inn and build rested xp and hit it again tonight.

Servers are stable atm (at least Mekkatorque is), people are questing in the Valley of Four Winds.

[Methusula]

Servers are stable atm (at least Mekkatorque is), people are questing in the Valley of Four Winds.

Yeah i assumed they would be ok by now. I just cant get on beta till later.

[NPI]

I tested Arcane explosion: it actually generates arcane charge, but does not benefit from it.
Also improved invisibilty seems not reducing falling dmg, I wasn't able to test with anything else yet (as server was unstable)

[Methusula]

I tested Arcane explosion: it actually generates arcane charge, but does not benefit from it.
Also improved invisibilty seems not reducing falling dmg, I wasn't able to test with anything else yet (as server was unstable)

I wonder what will end up being the go to aoe "rotation". maybe nether tempest, ae to stack charges, barrage?

[I-Swizzle-I]

I wonder what will end up being the go to aoe "rotation". maybe nether tempest, ae to stack charges, barrage?

From my experience, the best AoE tool we have right now is Nether Tempest, for both Fire and Arcane, whereas Living Bomb is oddly better on single targets. That's actually my biggest gripe right now, compared to the two new "bomb" spells, LB is out dated and weak.

Rant aside, your rotation sounds about right if they allow AE to proc Charges come live.

---------- Post added 2012-04-13 at 12:08 AM ----------

Actually, that's going to be my first blog entry...a giant rant on how clunky and ill conceived the new Fire playstyle is. I'll also put in a quick mention for Frost which Kuni will probably like/pick apart.