I agree with #11, and I can't really see the motivation Blizzard has to reducing the damage of fireball and frostbolt. Fire mages can be happy with it for PvP, but in PvE they're as much affected by the dmg nerf as we frost mages.
The buff on the mana shield doesn't compensate for the reduced damage, absorbing a little over 700 damage isn't really needed either with regard to the huge amount of HP we gain in TBC anyway...

Yes, we mages WANT to be squishy, but get the most damage instead, that's what our role as a 'glass cannon' is all about. Damage is the keystone to our survivability, the 'kill it before it kills you' aspect of our class.
Maybe they just wanted to make the arcane spells (missiles and blast) more of an alternative, or force mages into speccing improved fireball/frostbolt if they use them for sustained damage (so speccing in the tier 8 talents to compensate for a nerf in the tier 1 talents)...

As for the other changes in the patch, I do see the reason behind cutting the damage of silencing shot and arcane shot (they were way too strong in PvP against clothies), but the damage reduction of SW:P wasn't necessary...

All in all the changes in the patch are wasted, don't fix if it ain't broken...

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