Okay, let's talk shop here for a second folks. With 5.3 on the PTR already, and 5.4 being the SoO, I have a sneaking suspicion that many of you are generally dismayed with the state of the Mage class midway through MoP. I get that, I really do (I survived the Sunwell days...I lived through Ulduar, I WAS THERE WHEN THE FIRST BOSS OF TWO RAIDS IN THE SAME TIER HAD OPPOSITE IMMUNITIES TO TWO OF OUR SCHOOLS FORCING A RESPEC EACH DAMN INSTANCE UNTIL YOU HAD TWO PIECE T5 AND WERE ABLE TO GO ARCANE), but my understanding is not the point of this thread.
I'm here to tell you to stop thinking about radical changes for MoP: they simply aren't going to happen. All we're going to get now (since I understand the Blizzard patch cycle all too well, I know that they're already half done with the 5.4 work and have started conceptualizing the next expansion) are tweaks and balancing changes. I'm not telling you to not complain, what I'm telling you to do is complain construcively. Instead of worrying about how we're going to do in SoO, we need to figure out what went wrong with MoP and focus our attention on fixing the class in whatever expansion 6.0 brings us.
What I'm doing now is giving us a nice venue to do just that! Instead of 4039248029384092834092783986287562873462983479234 different idea threads that only serve to give me high cholesterol, let's just narrow it down to one...this one!!
I'll put my ideas in here when I come up with something good (that functions in WoW and is actually viable mathematically) and keep the OP updated with what I find to be the best ideas. If we all try hard enough, we can approach Blizz before the start of beta with a solid list of suggestions that would be free of any MVP involvement (just to keep you guys happy) and move forward to making sure we're both super fun and actually balanced next time around.
So there you have it, now get cracking!