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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsMage buffs on the horizon
by Eliah Hecht 
Nov 7th 2007 at 9:16PM
Here's some more good news today for mages. On top of Hypothermia going back from 45s to 30s, Kalgan has stopped by the mage forums to promise some additional buffs in person. These probably won't make it into 2.3, but he says they'll go in "in the near future." My guess is that translates to 2.3.X or 2.4. It looks like Blizz is basically in a "buff" swing recently, which fits in with their general design philosophy -- start underpowered, and then build the classes up as necessary. Buffs make far fewer people angry than nerfs do.What are these buffs, you ask? Trainable Ice Block, and "to-be-finalized improvements to mana issues in longer fights" (source). We've been seeing more and more skills moved to trainable as the game has matured, from Evocate to Holy Fire to Improved Sap. Ice Block mades good sense to add to that list. Kalgan's reasoning is that IB is something they want to be able to design PvE encounters around all mages having, and that it helps open up the range of viable specs for PvP. As far as the "mana issues" improvements, it's hard to comment too much on that without any details, but efficiency is good. Any speculation on what they're going to do there?
Oh, and in a later post, Kalgan lets slip that mana gems are also slated to be buffed. Let that be a sort of after-dinner mint of buffage.
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Heilig Nov 8th 2007 12:42AM
The hunter forums are up in arms about this. A deep frost talent is becoming trainable, and we still don't get a trainable scatter shot. Sure, that's balanced. Working as intended.
Rerolled Nov 8th 2007 12:54AM
Warlock tears taste like cotton candy.
Ortai Nov 8th 2007 1:09AM
@20 You get your deadzone decreased, your Aimed shot gets a MS type debuff and has a reduced casting time, and you shead tears for a trainable Ice Block?
Charlie Nov 8th 2007 1:37AM
@20 its a not a "deep" frost talent. its 21 points.
Anyways, idk about scatter shot, but i think its nice. Most PvP mages get iceblock, and since 40/21 is a crap PvP spec, most will go deep Frost. a Trainable ice block makes Deep Fire and Deep Arcane (especially Deep Arcane) alot more viable. Prismatic Cloak, imp blink/imp mana shield, pom, AP, imp AM are great great great PvP talents, but you miss out on some of the best of those if you go 40/21 for iceblock. With the change you can go the real PvP Arcane Spec (49+/?/?) without having to worry about iceblock!
Its the same reason they gave mages Evo and IAE, because everyone was going into that spec in order to get those talents.
And being able to design encounters around IB will be nice.
Memzer Nov 8th 2007 2:09AM
Very nice buff for the mages out there, for both PvE and PvP!
Beefmonger Nov 8th 2007 3:05AM
*sigh*
Ice Block is not a deep frost talent. Thats like saying Presence of Mind is a deep arcane talent.
To the warlocks complaining about this. What is wrong with you? Unable to get a free kill against arc/fire mages anymore? Boo hoo, so now you might need to make an effort to kill those specs.
Mana shield really, really sucks.
"IB should definately count as a dispell so that UA can provide that burst damage."
Um, no. UA causes damage to the dispeller, right? So, that would cause damage to the mage... who is immune to all damage because he Ice Blocked.
"Granted, my gear is bad, but a frost mage who's well geared can still 3 shot me. "
What did you expect? A mage to have difficulty killing you when he severely outgears you?
And a question to the hunters: Since when did you people actually have trouble against mages?
jaded1 Nov 8th 2007 3:54AM
Very interesting that the devs are giving mages another talent for so-called viability and diversity for pvp/pve, yet they still don't care to discuss or consider how Restoration is still the only Shaman tree that's considered viable for pvp/pve by the majority of players both shaman and not.
Trainable Mana Tide, anyone?
But, aside from my Shamanistic Tears (I swear, that should be the name of the 41pt Enhancement talent), I say grats to all mages out there. This kind of love makes me want to reroll a mage.
Dipstick Nov 8th 2007 4:07AM
Great. So we're going to be seeing fire/arcane mages in arenas now with blazing speed AND iceblock.
Fantastic - some of the highest magic burst damage (bye armour!) coupled with excellent survivability.
Nuron_V Nov 8th 2007 4:40AM
Be careful what you wish for. Iceblock might end up being the next fearward. You can have it but t a price
Acariquara Nov 8th 2007 4:47AM
Trainable Felguard. At level 50.
Come on.
Wraeth Nov 8th 2007 8:57AM
"In order to PvP you MUST be frost, and that just isn't right... "
Uh...so in the same way that warriors typically need to be MS for pvp? Shockingly, quite a lot of classes have to spec a certain way to do pvp, or pve etc. Why should mages be any different O.o?
crapton Nov 8th 2007 6:19AM
"You get your deadzone decreased, your Aimed shot gets a MS type debuff and has a reduced casting time, and you shead tears for a trainable Ice Block?"
Couldn't of put it better myself. well maybe the spelling.
people actually "up in arms" about mages getting a much needed buff? please go outside and sample the fresh air next time.
Morrigän Nov 8th 2007 6:49AM
Later this week, on this very same blog: "CoS cooldown reduced to 30s".
But at least my Ritual of Souls has a shorter casting time now :>
innajunglestylee Nov 8th 2007 7:27AM
"Couldn't of put it better myself. well maybe the spelling."
You mean that you couldn't HAVE put it better. If you wish to point out people's spelling errors to look smart, at least use proper grammar in doing so.
This news makes me even more depressed about the state of the shaman as a DPS class. Can we hire mages and paladins to come to our forums and pretend to be us in order to handle our QQ? We clearly cannot do it properly given the way we have been treated over the past few patches.
Kugala Nov 8th 2007 8:13AM
Can't comment on PvP as I don't do it very much, but for PvE, while nice, this isn't exactly a huge buff.
The main use is clearing debuffs that can't otherwise be removed, but those generally are more annoying than lethal. Ok, sure there's a few out there like Garrote on Moroes that are a bit worse, but many of em are like Remote Toy on Kael that are just annoying.
There's also the immunity...but you can't do anything during that period. Sure, it'll drop aggro if you were stupid enough to pull it in the first place (Rare exceptions like Thaladred exist.). Sure, it'll let you avoid some attacks that you should have just moved to avoid, or used a healthstone.
In the long run though, I expect to see less "Whew, good thing I had Iceblock or else I'd have died." and more "Hey, I just did something retarded, I'll Iceblock to save myself. Nevermind the 2 other people I just got killed, or the 10 seconds of DPS time we just lost repositioning."
honkhonk Nov 8th 2007 9:01AM
19 - If you can spam fear and burn him down to zero HP then that top geared arena mage you played against as a fresh level 70 is a moron. Or was afk. More likely, you are just a liar. But I hope your delusions make you feel better.
squishy Nov 8th 2007 9:36AM
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA TO ICEBLOCK and bufed mana gems.
AND screw U to all you mage haters.
we are easy kill we still will be easy kills so shut up your whining u stupid jerks. if u are that upset about us getting IB(which just might come with another nerf/s)
then please go kill yourself. you are wasting precious oxygen
guesswho? Nov 8th 2007 9:50AM
QQing FTW!
amasen Nov 8th 2007 10:30AM
This is a fantastic change.
To the warlocks and Hunters who complain. Please stop. Right now. Hunters became gods next patch, and warlocks are still dominating forces.
I play a Frost mage, Disc/holy priest, and MS warrior in arena's and the one who has the most trouble is my frost mage. My only viable nuke is a 2.5 second cast spell that almost never gets cast due to constant inturupts. After that I rely on FIRE blast, and icelance when nova is on cooldown. Occasionally I can throw in a Cone of Cold when I need that instant-cast slow spell... But if I could respec out of ice... well then I'd have more than one gimmic (nova+ice lance), and that would make me viable.
ErsatzPotato Nov 8th 2007 10:36AM
For non-mages: Ice block is a 15 mana instant cast or ten seconds of immunity. It removes (almost) all debuffs when cast. Lasts ten seconds and can be canceled early.
5 minute cooldown. The Cold Snap talent resets Ice Block. 10 minute cooldown. Ice Floes talent reduces the cooldowns of both by 10/20%. Hypothermia debuff prevents a second ice block within 30 seconds. Another talent reduces the cost of frost spells, giving Ice Block a cost of 12 mana.
Sound great? It is. Note however that while blocked the player can do nothing, not even turn in place.
"it'll drop aggro"
True. To be clear though, ice block does not reduce threat. At all. It drops aggro while up because mobs don't target invulnerable players. (I'm sure you know this but a surprising number of mages don't.)
The new 21 point talent hopefully won't suck (dare I hope for PVE oriented to spread the trees around?) because ice block was the major reason for being frost in the first place. Barrier's nice, of course,
but raid you need the elemental just to come close to fire damage so it's not exactly a bonus.