Mage Review (Mages Rejoice)

[Morfiend]

And by Rejoice I mean, weep softly in to your corn flakes.

Due to significant talent changes, Mages will have all talent points refunded and can be respent. Training costs for all talent spell replacements have been significantly reduced.

Arcane Explosion is now instant cast and will no longer remove the Presence of Mind effect when used.

Evocation - Is now available to all mages (via trainer), starting at level 20.

Conjure Food now has a new rank (Rank 7) available in Stratholme.

Frost Ward now has a new rank (Rank 5) available as item loot in dungeons.

Mana Shield - Damage taken will now be absorbed by other absorb spells (e.g. Ice Barrier, PW: Shield) before being absorbed by Mana Shield.

Dampen Magic - Damage and healing reduction increased on ranks 3 through 5.

Amplify Magic - Damage and healing bonus increased on ranks 2 through 4.


------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------

Arcane Talents

Tier 1

Arcane Subtlety
Reduces your target's resistance to all your spells by 4/7/10, and all of your spell criticals cause 17/34/50% less threat.
Note: Functionality has been significantly altered.

Arcane Focus
Reduces the chance that the opponent can resist your Arcane spells by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Improved Arcane Missiles
Gives you a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Arcane Missiles.

Tier 2 (No changes)

Wand Specialization
Increases your damage with Wands by 5/10/15/20/25%.

Arcane Concentration
Gives you a 2/4/6/8/10% chance of entering a Clearcasting state after any damage.

Tier 3

Magic Attunement
Increases the effect of your Amplify Magic and Dampen Magic spells by 25/50%.
Note: This talent previously only affected Dampen Magic.

Improved Arcane Explosion
Increases the critical strike chance of your Arcane Explosion spell by an additional 1/2/3/4/5%.
Note: AE is now an instant cast spell, so this talent has been altered to add +crit instead of casting time reduction.

Arcane Resilience
Increases your armor by an amount equal to 50% of your Intellect.
Note: Evocation, previously in this location and now a trainer spell, has been traded for one that also gives mages an armor boost.

Tier 4

Improved Mana Shield
Decreases the mana lost per point of damage taken when Mana Shield is active by 10/20%.

Improved Counterspell
Gives Counterspell a 50/100% chance to silence the target for 4 seconds.

Arcane Meditation
Allows 5/10/15% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.
Note: Previously five increments of 3%, freeing up two talent points to spend elsewhere.

Tier 5 (No changes)

Presence of Mind
When activated, your next Mage spell with a casting time less than 10 sec becomes an instant cast spell.

Arcane Mind
Increases your maximum Mana by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Tier 6

Arcane Instability
Increases your spell damage and critical strike chance by 1/2/3%.

Tier 7

Arcane Power
When activated, your spells deal 30% more damage while costing 30% more mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 seconds.
Note: Damage and mana cost have been reduced by 5%.

Fire Talents



Tier 1 (No changes)

Improved Fireball
Reduces the casting time of your Fireball spell by 0.1/.2/.3/.4/.5 seconds.

Impact
Gives your Fire spells a 2/4/6/8/10% chance to stun the target for 2 seconds

Tier 2

Ignite
Your critical strikes from Fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 8/16/24/32/40% of your spells damage over 4 seconds

Flame Throwing
Increases the range of your fire spells by 3/6 yards.

Improved Fire Blast
Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Blast spell by 0.5/1/1.5 seconds.
Note: Previously in five increments; two skill points freed up.

Tier 3

Incinerate
Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire Blast and Scorch spells by 2/4%.

Improved Flamestrike
Increases the critical strike chance of your Flamestrike spell by 5/10/15%.

Pyroblast
Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 148 to 195 Fire damage and an additional 56 Fire damage over 12 seconds.

Burning Soul
Gives your fire spells a 35/70% chance to not lose casting time when you take damage.
Note: Previously three increments -- 25/50/65%. One talent point freed up.

Tier 4

Improved Scorch
Your Scorch spells have a 33/66/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Fire damage. This vulnerability increase the Fire damage dealt to your target by 2% and lasts 15 seconds Stacks up to 5 times.
Note: Previously five increments of 20%. Two more talent points freed.

Improved Fire Ward
Causes your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active.
Note: Was previously 20/35%.

Master of Elements
Your Fire and Frost spell criticals will refund 10/20/30% of their base mana cost.
Note: This is a new ability and, interestingly, affects more than one talent tree.

Tier 5 (No changes)

Critical Mass
Increases the critical strike chance of your fire spells by 2/4/6%.

Blast Wave
A wave of flame radiates outward from the caster, damaging all enemies caught within the blast for 160 to 192 Fire damage, and dazing them for 6 seconds.

Tier 6 (No changes)

Fire Power
Increases the damage done by your fire spells by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Tier 7

Combustion
When activated, this spell causes each Fire damage spell you cast to increase your critical strike chance with Fire damage spells by 10%. This effect lasts until you have caused 3 critical strikes with Fire spells.
Note: Significant functionality change. This used to grant a 100% chance to crit with your next fire spell. The cooldown is not listed.


Frost Talents



Tier 1

Improved Frost Nova
Reduces the cooldown of your Frost Nova spell by 2/4 seconds.

Improved Frostbolt
Reduces the casting time of your Frostbolt spell by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds.

Permafrost
Increases the duration of your Chill effects by 1 second and reduces the target's speed by an additional 4%/7%/10%.
Note: Additional speed reduction is new.

Tier 2
Note: Improved Frost Nova has been removed.

Ice Shards
Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Frost spells by 20/40/60/80/100%.

Frost Warding
Increases the armor and resistances given by your Frost Armor and Ice Armor spells by 15/30%. In addition, gives your Frost Ward a 10% chance to reflect Frost spells and effects while active.

Frostbite
Gives your Chill effects a 5/10/15% chance to freeze the target for 5 seconds.
Note: Previously a Rank 6 item. Was also previously five increments of 3%. Two more skill points freed up. Winter's Chill moved to Rank 6, with adjusted functionality.

Tier 3

Piercing Ice
Increases the damage done by your Frost spells by 2/4/6%.

Cold Snap
Instant, 10-minute cooldown
When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown on all of your Frost spells.

Improved Blizzard
Adds a chill effect to your Blizzard spell. This effect lowers the target's movement speed by 40/60/75%. Lasts 4.50 seconds.
Note: Movement speed reduced by an additional 5%. Effect duration tripled.


Tier 4
Note: Improved Frost Ward has been removed.

Arctic Reach
Increases the range of your Frostbolt and Blizzard spells and the radius of your Frost Nova and Cone of Cold spells by 10%/20%.

Frost Channeling
Reduces the mana cost of your frost spells by 5/10/15%.

Shatter
Requires 3 points in Frostbite
Increases the critical strike chance of all your spells against frozen targets by 10%.
Note: Apparently now only one increment.

Tier 5 (No changes)

Ice Block
You become encased in a block of ice, protecting you from all physical attacks and spells for 10 sec, but during that time you cannot attack, move, or cast spells.

Improved Cone of Cold
Increases the damage dealt by your Cone of Cold spell by 15%/25%/35%.

Tier 6

Winter's Chill
Gived your Frost damage spells a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance a Frost spell will critically hit the target by 1% for 15 seconds Stacks up to 5 times.
Note: Previously added three increments of 4% speed reduction to Chill effects. Was a Rank 2 item.

Tier 7 (No changes)

Ice Barrier
Instant cast, 30-second cool down
Instantly shields you, absorbing 454 damage. Lasts 1 minute. While the shield holds, spells will not be interrupted.

[pxib]

I imagine they'll be crying bloody murder rather than crying into their cornflakes, but that happens with any change. Priests got a major boost across the board, mages got their deck chairs rearranged. I'm nonplussed. My first character was a mage whom I abandoned at level 45 because I stopped being able to kill more than two mobs before I had to drink something (if not two things). I don't see any of this improving that.

Of course, I don't actually play anymore.

[Jeff Kelly]

Nerfs disguised as Improvements, minor tweaks and some (few) worthwhile changes. Im thoroughly unimpressed.

[Morat20]

Nice Shatter nerf there, and Arcane Subtelty is now a required talent -- reducing the crit threat by 50% can't be ignored. Crap, my frost spec mage is looking a lot less fun. Can't understand the focus on fire, given Blizzard's love of fire-immune bosses, and Master of Elements is just bloody stupid -- placed in the Arcane tree I could understand a bit better, but in the Fire tree?

Feels like Blizzard had a slot there with nothing to fill it.

Color me unimpressed, over all. Mages didn't needs a significant boost, but this seems pointless shuffling. A few decent choices, a lot of filler, and a few odd nerfs to things that weren't overpowering.

As best I can tell, people geared with +damage are going to be screwed, with +crit gear being far superior. Not the choices I would have made. I suspect the mages are going to be furious. (Mine's only an alt, and still mid-30s).

[bhodi]

A hearty 'meh' for me. Maybe I won't be leveling my 50 to 60 for end game raiding after all.

Edit: I misread combustion, it seems OK. One of my guildmates commented that maybe they are prepping to put invis back in; One of the complaints was the instant kill with combusted pyroblast letting mages invis autocrit kill at will.

[Evil Elvis]

If Shatter was actually nerfed, they've destroyed the best talent in the frost tree.  It's one of the only real reasons to spec frost for pvp.  Without it, frosts' burst damage is gimped.

However, if it's a mistake... then meh.  Moving evoc/iae to core abilities is nice for elemental builds, but that's it.  And judging by how little has changed, I don't see those builds become much more popular.  You still need to go 21 arc if you want PoM for that all important burst damage, and improved counterspell.   If they would have moved PoM down a tier, or imp counterspell down 2 tiers, I could make a case for maybe not going too deep in the tree, but I really can't see being without both of these in pvp.  Oh, and that 50% int to armor talent has to be the most embarassing thing I've ever seen.  Someone get the Blizzard devs a calculator for chrissake.

Other than that, it's just a few talent rearrangements, and a few small improvements.  Nothing like what was hinted at.  Very dissapointing.  I find it hilarious that they actually made Combustion worse, though.  Do they actually expect anyone to give up one of the nice 21st talent abilities in the other 2 schools for this?

I find it ironic that the hinted possibility of warriors getting Tactical Mastery was the best change in the mage talent review.

[bhodi]

I find it ironic that the hinted possibility of warriors getting Tactical Mastery was the best change in the mage talent review.

And all druids getting innervate as a trained skill.

[trias_e]

Shatter
Requires 3 points in Frostbite
Increases the critical strike chance of all your spells against frozen targets by 10%.
Note: Apparently now only one increment.

A nerf down to 30% I could see. 10%?  Ouch.  Frost is dead as a PvP spec.  Most you'll see is people going 30 fire/21 frost just for ice block now.  My 30 frost/21 Arcane build is now pretty terrible.  (I'll probably respec to 30 fire/21 frost...I'm addicted to ice block).  This is really annoying.


I think the new combustion is slightly better than the old one.  Personally, I think it should just be a straight +crit buff, similar to arcane power.  As it is, it is too based on luck and will definitely be frustrating.  The biggest problem with it is that usually your biggest spells come first...so you'll have your best chance of critting on a scorch, fireblast, or blastwave, which aren't that great.  OTOH, you could easily midfight have two almost guaranteed crits saved up, which would be great for taking out multiple opponents or healing opponents.  I would actually consider going full fire for PvP now, mainly since the new arcane talents are pretty bad (and 21 points just for PoM is a steep price to pay).


As I said, the new arcane talents are trash.  +5% crit to arcane explosion (+2.5% damage) is just horrible.  Maybe if it was +5% damage and +5% to crit it would be decent.  +armor based on int?  This is probably the worst idea for a mage talent I've ever seen.


Anyways, as it is, I really like 30 fire/21 frost, or 27 fire/24 frost based on these changes.  I think it will be versatile, can take out fire resistant and frost resistant mobs/opponents, and has good defense and offense.  For a build to do both PvE raiding and PvP you would probably need to go 3/21/27, just for the new arcane subtlety.  3 arcane/24 fire/24 frost is good as well, grabbing imp. CoC.  However, losing shatter almost makes elementalist builds as bad as they were before.  While you have IAE and evocation, you lose out on lots of burst damage.  TBH, I don't even know if elementalist will be viable with these changes in PvP until I try it.  It almost feels like they are pushing elementalist as the PvE spec, and Arcane as the PvP spec, when I was hoping they would both be viable in both settings.  Again, can't be sure until I actually get to try it out though.

[trias_e]

Edit: I misread combustion, it seems OK. One of my guildmates commented that maybe they are prepping to put invis back in; One of the complaints was the instant kill with combusted pyroblast letting mages invis autocrit kill at will.

Arcane Power will be basically the same thing with a 31 arcane/20 fire build.  Rev up a pyro and then PoM a fireball with AP enabled from invis....let's just say, I doubt it will happen any time soon.  Maybe when the expansion comes out and other classes recieve equally unbalanced (thus, balanced [right?...heh]) things.

[Modern Angel]

Shatter nerf a fuck up on IGN's part. From Tseric on a thread in the Customer Service forums:

"P.S. - Shatter was a miscommunication. It is 5 ranks of 10% increments, not one rank as initially reported. We have contacted IGN with the appropriate update information."

[trias_e]

Whew.  Elementalist builds own now.  Huzzah!

[Modern Angel]

There might be a lesson somewhere in there about making sure that patch notes for a MMOG go up on your site instead of a third party's...

[Morat20]

There might be a lesson somewhere in there about making sure that patch notes for a MMOG go up on your site instead of a third party's...

No kidding. I'm sure a lot of frost mages just had their sphincter unclamp, and had to shut down ultra-pissy emails. As for me -- my mage isn't far enough along to care, but Shatter was luring me to Frost in the first place -- glad to see it's still the same.

[Jobu]

I was about to post bloody murder about Shatter.

Moving Frostbite waaaay down makes me giddy beyond belief. That's the best frost talent in the tree IMO (especially paired with shatter), and I hated having to go 33 frost just to max that motha out. 21/0/30 might be fun to try out now.

The new Winter's Chill is weird. I never really liked incremental, stackable debuffs. They take up slots on raid bosses that every other class competes and whines for, and in solo/PvP you never get a chance to cast something 5 times before it's dead anyways.

The 50% of your Intellect armor buff also makes no sense to me. That's what, an extra 150-210 AC? Big whoop. Where's our +dmg from Intellect like priests got for Spirit?

And why did they keep Wand Specilization? I mean really.... next to improved distract, it's got my vote for worst talent in the game.

Overall, meh. The changes or improvements aren't dramatic or anything. http://www.wowhead.com/talent/ has the new talents up to play with. More interesting variety of specs are possible now I guess... which seemed to be their aim the whole time.


Edit: Actually, the more I look at them, the more I like it.

Master of Elements gives you some mana efficiency you would otherwise lose from Arcane Concentration if you want to ignore the Arcane Tree now. Ice Barrier cooldown is 30 seconds now! Shatter works on ALL spell trees, not just frost. A lot of very minor changes that I didn't notice right off the bat that are endearing me more and more to the review.

[trias_e]

Clearcasting is a 10% reduction in mana cost if you just cast the same spell over and over, and more so if you switch to arcane missles for it.

This one, even with a fairly generous 15% crit rate, is only 4.5%...not even close.  It needs to be double what it is now to compete with clearcasting.

The shatter change is great.  I'm actually considering going 31 fire/20 frost, the combination of the new combustion with shatter could be pretty devestating if they stack.

[Paelos]

Yes, we'll have sandy vagina mages for a month, then everyone will just cope or shut up. Mages needed nerfs in some places, but they got more than they deserved. They also needed buffs in places that didn't happen. The armor from int thing is just retarded. Why?

[Teleku]

Another nice thing that was confirmed by blue is that Master of Elements works for each crit an AOE spell does, and has no cap. So in other words, if you blast wave, and crit 4 things, you will gain %120 mana back.  Considering all the crit stuff they have added in, thats actually pretty damn neat (shatter makes this uber).  Doesn't help Arcane explosion, but there are many other alternatives to it anyways.

[SurfD]

<Begin Evil Laughter>
Master of Elements (3/3)
Shatter (5/5)
Frost Nova + Cone of Cold + Cold Snap + Frost Nova + Combustion + Imp Flamestrike + Blastwave
<End Evil Laughter>

Rather Frightening to consider what that could do in terms of Damage + mana returned.

Throw in the odd 8/8 Netherwind proc > Flamestrike, the fact that shatter procs off of ANY frozen enemy (anyone who frost novas ANYTHING is giving you free crits) and mages quite probably have regained their position as the pinnacle of AOE damage class bar none.

Now if only we had some way of dealing with the metric fuckton of aggro we are going to grab, instead of just splattering into gibblets every time some mob turns and looks at us.

(oh, not sure why you think so, but 15% crit is pretty low for a well geared mage.  I would have to calculate it, but i think i am sitting around 23-25% crit on average on the fire tree.

[trias_e]

Some specs I'm considering:

What I've got now, except better:  http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?oIxx0rzZZVVcdGVs

Balanced, varied, and can adapt to many situations.

Elementalist:  http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?kZVtrc0cuZVVckMVs

No explanation needed.  Trade imp. cs and PoM for great burst damage and control and defense.  Still sorta sucks against casters.

Mostly all frost:  http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?khZVZVAcuGAst

Just because it would be cool.

!?  trispec:  http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?RIxx0rzZxx0oZVVck0m

Why?  Shatter plus PoM pyro would be sick.  Your frostbolt and fireball are quite nice.  Suck:  No arctic reach or flamethrowing or blastwave or ice block.  This probably kills it compared to a 30 fire/21 arcane or 30 frost/21 arcane spec.  Still, I might try it out just for fun.


Very efficient scorcher:  http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?ohxxZVercfcut

Combustion/Shatter:  http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?RZVtrc0cutVVck0V

(oh, not sure why you think so, but 15% crit is pretty low for a well geared mage.  I would have to calculate it, but i think i am sitting around 23-25% crit on average on the fire tree.

Most mages aren't well geared...myself included.  I'm in mostly blues, and I've gone the +damage route like most  (+200 damage, +4% crit from equipment).  I'm not sure what the initial crit rate is, or how it scales with intellect, but I'm definitely not at 15%.

[Teleku]

Well, there is no way of seeing how much int adds to your crit.  However, people have tested the numbers, and I usually hear that most figure that 69 int = 1% crit.  Looking at my damage meter and crit percentage when I go dps, this seems pretty accurate.

Edit: yes, I actually ment 59, was a typo.  Hadn't heard it was confirmed though.

[Jeff Kelly]

Well, there is no way of seeing how much int adds to your crit.  However, people have tested the numbers, and I usually hear that most figure that 69 int = 1% crit.  Looking at my damage meter and crit percentage when I go dps, this seems pretty accurate.

It's 59,5 Int = 1% crit, as has been said by  developers on the official forums.

[Jeff Kelly]

I am very disappointed by the mage talent review.

Instead of killing some of the (more) useless talents (like wand specialization, improved fire ward, improved frost ward, improved dampen magic, improved mana shield) they actually created new useless talents (arcane resilience? WTF?)

They have nerfed arcane sublety and you will still need 10 - 16 points in the arcane tree because of arcane sublety (only talent to reduce some aggro), arcane concentration and improved counterspell so elementalist builds haven't become more viable than before. Basically the aracne tree is still a crutch.

Since arcane resilience replaces evocation as tier 3 you will actually have to take that if you want to spec arcane meditation or arcane mind. Oh and arcane power has been nerfed.

Master of elements would be a great talent if it weren't in Tier 4 of the fire tree. So you will have to spend 18 points in fire if you want to get that. So you either have to skip the arcane tree completely or you will not be able to reach 31 points in any tree.

frost has gotten the most modifications. permafrost has been moved to a much lower tier and only uses 3 skill points. but you will be forced to spec as far as shatter to really get the most out of the ice tree which is still tier 4, so you will have to spend 20 points ice or even 21 if you want to have ice block and you will most likely want to have arctic reach in instances.

So I think most mages post 1.11 will be tri-spec but as far as I am concerned I will be no longer a mage post 1.11. I am totally underwhelmed by the changes. +dam is fucked after 1.11, because most new talents rely on crits to work, which essentially made all of my gear obsolete. Mages will still be a one trick pony in most instances. Well elementalist is more viable than before but that doesn't change the fact that fire is mostly useless in endgame. So nothing has changed on that front. mages will mostly be spamming frostbolt in mc and bwl as it was before.

With the nerf to arcane sublety they have taken from us the only ability that efectively reduces aggro. This will be a huge pain in the ass on aggro sensitive fights like Vael, broodlord or most of BWL which will effectively reduce mage dps instead of upping them.

Mages might last longer in fights if they use master of elements but fpor me that was never a concern.

[Modern Angel]

Made my first trip to MC with my mage in my new guild. Fire is not gimped in MC. The only mobs immune to fire are Geddon, Flame eles and Ragnaros. I was flinging fireballs to my heart's content and doing just as much damage as I would do against any other mob. Dragons being immune to fire is another matter, of course...

[Chenghiz]

Instead of killing some of the (more) useless talents (like wand specialization, improved fire ward, improved frost ward, improved dampen magic, improved mana shield) they actually created new useless talents (arcane resilience? WTF?)

They changed how the warding spells work. Also if you take Arcane Resilience and get stuff like the Ironweave Battlesuit and other non-raid items along with Ice Armor, you wil have much better damage reduction than a rogue and on par with a hunter or shaman. That is far from useless.

They have nerfed arcane sublety and you will still need 10 - 16 points in the arcane tree because of arcane sublety (only talent to reduce some aggro), arcane concentration and improved counterspell so elementalist builds haven't become more viable than before. Basically the aracne tree is still a crutch.

50% aggro reduction from criticals is a nerf? That's interesting.

Oh and arcane power has been nerfed.

Like it should have been.

Master of elements would be a great talent if it weren't in Tier 4 of the fire tree. So you will have to spend 18 points in fire if you want to get that. So you either have to skip the arcane tree completely or you will not be able to reach 31 points in any tree.

You have to spec elemental in order to make full use Master of Elements? Say it ain't so!

frost has gotten the most modifications. permafrost has been moved to a much lower tier and only uses 3 skill points. but you will be forced to spec as far as shatter to really get the most out of the ice tree which is still tier 4, so you will have to spend 20 points ice or even 21 if you want to have ice block and you will most likely want to have arctic reach in instances.

You're complaining that you have to spec frost to use the good frost stuff. Again, why is this bad?

+dam is fucked after 1.11, because most new talents rely on crits to work, which essentially made all of my gear obsolete.

I must have missed the part where +damage gear didn't add damage any more.

Mages will still be a one trick pony in most instances. Well elementalist is more viable than before but that doesn't change the fact that fire is mostly useless in endgame. So nothing has changed on that front. mages will mostly be spamming frostbolt in mc and bwl as it was before.

And hunters will spam aimed shot, and rogues will spam SS or backstab, etc. Boo hoo.

With the nerf to arcane sublety they have taken from us the only ability that efectively reduces aggro. This will be a huge pain in the ass on aggro sensitive fights like Vael, broodlord or most of BWL which will effectively reduce mage dps instead of upping them.

As you yourself said, the new talents boost crit a lot, and incidentally arcane subtlety gives this nifty major boost to threat reduction for spells. Maybe this is for a reason?

[Jayce]

Yes, we'll have sandy vagina mages for a month, then everyone will just cope or shut up. Mages needed nerfs in some places, but they got more than they deserved. They also needed buffs in places that didn't happen. The armor from int thing is just retarded. Why?

Just a little repost, nothing to see here...

[bhodi]

I'll probably be using a crit fire raiding-only build for my mage...

http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?ohexz0ujZxxroMch

[Typhon]

I'm confused.  if these are the changes they are making... didn't they have better things to do?

Is it just me or does:

-----
Tier 6

Winter's Chill
Gived your Frost damage spells a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance a Frost spell will critically hit the target by 1% for 15 seconds Stacks up to 5 times.
Note: Previously added three increments of 4% speed reduction to Chill effects. Was a Rank 2 item.
-----

Seem like pure crap for a tier 6 ability?  Maybe that 1% is supposed to be 10%?

[Driakos]

I'm confused.  if these are the changes they are making... didn't they have better things to do?

Is it just me or does:

-----
Tier 6

Winter's Chill
Gived your Frost damage spells a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance a Frost spell will critically hit the target by 1% for 15 seconds Stacks up to 5 times.
Note: Previously added three increments of 4% speed reduction to Chill effects. Was a Rank 2 item.
-----

Seem like pure crap for a tier 6 ability?  Maybe that 1% is supposed to be 10%?

Sounds good to me. It is definitely more helpful for PVE, but 5% crit is not too shabby (297.5 INT, Buffs or gear to equal).  Especially if it helps frost spells from other sources as well, not just the caster.  Since you can never (usually) freeze bosses to the ground, you don't get the juicy Shatter chance on them.  So this helps out.

[SurfD]

Winter's Chill will likely work exactly the same way as improved scorch.  So ALL frost spells from ANYONE should gain the benefit.

And to whoever was complaining about the changes, AP / PoM cookiecutter builds will still be just as viable as before.  I mean, whoopdee doo, AP does 5% less damage now.  This is meaningless in PvP after a certain point.  Congrats, now instead of massively overkilling people in 2 shots with the AP Fireball + PoM Pyro combo, you will just slightly overkill them.  Speaking as someone who NEVER had more than 11 pts in the Arcane tree, i can say i wont miss it.

+damage is still quite fine, we just now have a reason to balance +crit with our damage instead of going massively 1 way.

[Jeff Kelly]

Winter's Chill will likely work exactly the same way as improved scorch.  So ALL frost spells from ANYONE should gain the benefit.

And to whoever was complaining about the changes, AP / PoM cookiecutter builds will still be just as viable as before.  I mean, whoopdee doo, AP does 5% less damage now.  This is meaningless in PvP after a certain point.  Congrats, now instead of massively overkilling people in 2 shots with the AP Fireball + PoM Pyro combo, you will just slightly overkill them.  Speaking as someone who NEVER had more than 11 pts in the Arcane tree, i can say i wont miss it.

+damage is still quite fine, we just now have a reason to balance +crit with our damage instead of going massively 1 way.

I couldn't care less about PvP. Arcane power is a talent that shouldn't even be in any of the mage trees to begin with. I care about PvE and PvE wise the talent review has done nothing to make mages better. In 1.11 every PvP mage will skill elementalist and will go for crit equipment and he will own the battlegrounds with ease, china farmers will rejoice because AoE farming will have become oh so much easier but for PvE it is merely the same ol' same ol'.

Some aggro-sensitive fights will even get more unpredictable for mages because we no longer have a flat aggro reduction for at least one spell and crits are something that you don't like to have as a ranged DD during boss-fights. Shatter will still be useless because apart from ragnaros and the odd encounter all mobs in raid instances are immune to frost effects. So after 1.11 hunters, warlocks, rogues and the odd fury offtank will still beat me as far as damage in boss fights is concerned. I will still mostly wand or use lower level ranks of spells in bwl boss fights (broodlord ftl) but hey at least I can now cast rank 7 bread that nobody uses.

All the changes have done is that now nobody needs to spec arcane at all since most mages only did so to get evocation and improved arcane explosion and now even PvP mages do not have to because the elementalist will be a viable alternative for the 3 minute mage if played right.

[MrHat]

Hahahahhaha.

Shaman review was l33t.

Toping off this tree, the 31-point talent, Elemental Mastery will now reduce the mana cost of the next spell by 100%, in addition to giving your next Fire, Frost or Nature spell a 100% critical strike chance. Also, the cooldown has been reduced to 3 minutes, from 5.

Hahhaha.

[Modern Angel]

I do not, as a rule, get class envy. I primarily PvE so I could give two shits whether I compete well with Night Elf Rogue #6098973 or not. But that shaman review coming out at the same time as the mage review? Horseshit.

[Paelos]

Hahahahhaha.

Shaman review was l33t.

Toping off this tree, the 31-point talent, Elemental Mastery will now reduce the mana cost of the next spell by 100%, in addition to giving your next Fire, Frost or Nature spell a 100% critical strike chance. Also, the cooldown has been reduced to 3 minutes, from 5.

Hahhaha.

Are you fucking kidding me? They are buffing shamans? Yeah, that makes zero sense.

[Rasix]

Well, the number crunchers haven't gone to work yet but.. those look like PVP buffs.

I thought the main shaman issue they were going to address would be PVE effectiveness and the raid effectiveness of totems.     Hey, this is great for me, if I ever come back it'll be on a more casual basis and that means PVP.  Now I can either make an even more kick ass melee shaman or a lightning bolt chucker with my ZHC and 6/8 tier 2 armor.

Way to open the door for more nerf shaman cries while sticking it to the raiders. Somewhere Fabricated is smiling :)

[SurfD]

cant remember where I saw it, but I just read a post that said mage talent changes are still in the "flexable" review stage.

-one flex review / change that may go in is that they may rework arcane subltety so the aggro reduction that used to be part of the talent will be spread evenly over all 3 trees (ie, Burning soul may pick up some flat aggro reduction to go with its cast time protection)

- another one they mentioned was another fluff spell added (in the form of droppable spell books in dungeons) that will let you chose different animal forms for your polymorph spell.  Turtle, Chicken, Pig, etc.  Supposedly to assist with figuring out who pollied what mob in large raid encounters like Domo / etc.