Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsMage class changes in patch 3.1, so far
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 6th 2009 at 2:05AM
You can subtitle this post: "Where's my Mage changes at, dawg?"While other classes have been getting some insane changes (no more consumable ammo for Hunter? Huh?), the Mage class was left with little information.
The only major change that really came out in the last day was that there will be a replenishment like talent added, taking the place of Improved Water Elemental. The overall effect will be similar to what Shadow Priests do with their mana regen.
Some of the other things, which we are assuming have been intentionally left vague, include changes to make spirit a more "useful and interesting" statistic for Mages, and increasing a Fire Mage's survivability. There is also a blurb about giving Frost Mages an Ice Lance "Shatter Combo" in PvE encounters.
So if you're like everyone else and scratching your head, asking where are all the more detailed changes... don't panic! We're sure there's a ton more to come.
Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.Filed under: Mage, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Gormakr Feb 6th 2009 9:38AM
No, it doesn't work this way. FoF works on the next 2 spells. It's not like Frost Nova/Frostbite in that if a spell leaves you and the target is still affected, it gets the shatter benefit. Once your second FFB is cast, the FoF buff is consumed and the Ice Lance won't get FoF treatment.
Rikitiki Feb 6th 2009 2:11PM
Yeah, um, have you actually tried it, Gormakr? It's really easy to test... figure out how much your Ice Lances hit/crit for against non-frozen targets, and then find a target dummy and try the FoF shatter combo I was describing. It should get the 3x multiplier if you do it right. It does for me, anyway.
Maybe this is a bug (in which case forget I said anything!) but I kind of assumed FoF was *intended* to give mages the shatter combo in parties or raids where your target is either immune to rooting effects or quickly broken out of them by other dpsers.
Momijizukamori Feb 6th 2009 5:04PM
It's a bug - one they never bothered fixing, but it's akin to being able to chain Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage together and get the Arcane Blast damage buff to both (which they _did_ fix because it was overpowered). If your latency is nice and steady, yeah, you'll get the Ice Lance in pretty often. If it's not, though? Nope. Also, Ice Lance scales terribly, so in another tier up of gear it doesn't matter if you can do it or not, you get more DPS out of just hitting frostbolt again than wasting 1.5 sec to cast Ice Lance.
Sunaseni Feb 6th 2009 5:22AM
What I wouldn't give to be able to raid as Frost... Since speccing Arcane, I've missed having my blue buddy around to help. Yeah, giving replenishment to the spec that NEVER goes OOM seems pointless, but hopefully huge sustained DPS buffs are coming to make use of that mana.
Fizzl Feb 6th 2009 5:31AM
changes to make spirit a more "useful and interesting" ...
Don't they say that every patch?
Pzinget Feb 6th 2009 6:01AM
Hey, you never know. Maybe they'll make a new unique icon for something...
Luis Feb 6th 2009 7:03AM
Funny, my mage's name is Douglasadams. :)
Strangewayes Feb 6th 2009 6:57AM
I don't think Frost is going to be looked at dmg wise for PVE this patch, it might be some adjustments to Spell Impact or Brain Freeze.
But mainly its going to be about changing the entire role of Frost in Raid from low dps. low replenshment to med dps, high replenishment.
Fire is probably going to have its 'slipperyness' adjusted so its more in line with frost and arcane.
sinthar Feb 9th 2009 4:25AM
Well if theres no dps adjustment as you say, then how the hell are frost mages going from 'low dps' to 'med dps'? As to replenishment - why? A frost mage doesnt OOM for about 15-20 mins, so they really need that mana regen for precisely......nothing. All it does is make them slightly more desirable in raiding, when you dont have mana regen in the raid a decent dps spec/class that can replenish mana in some way.
krizzlybear Feb 6th 2009 8:45AM
I honestly think people are understating the importance of replenishment in the Water Elemental. If mana issues are going to be as much an issue to healers as people are thinking, then Frost could definitely be a more attractive option.
And as a diehard frost raider, I welcome these changes quite openly. They are definitely recognizing most of the needs of PvE cryomancers (more utility, more DPS).
And since frost mages aren't having mana issues at all right now, how about making spirit useful by converting a percentage of that spirit into spell haste?
Gormakr Feb 6th 2009 9:38AM
How about making the Arcane Blast debuff not able to be dispelled by friendlies? I'm sick of being griefed in raids by my own priest and pally teammates thinking it's funny or mindlessly spammind decursive.
sinthar Feb 9th 2009 4:25AM
As a long standing raider - who prefered frost - i find these patch notes really quite lame so far. Without major changes raiding as Frost is a dying breed, and meerly changing the eles mana regen, which wasnt actually a 'mage' change as such, but something lumped in with the other replenishment changes, just doesnt do enough to make it a 'raid spec'.
TBH mages seem to be the bastard child of blizz. They occasionally do something nice for us - but try to ignore the fact we exist most of the time. A few bug fixes would be sort of nice - but im certainly not going to hold my breath for any - lets face is Blink has been bugged to death from day 1 - and Blizz WONT do anything about it. I dont know of any other bugs they have said that about (although i suspect theres a lot more than one)
In summery so far 3.1 is completely 'meh' for mages. Were not gonna get fixed, and the mana regens gonna go down. (so watch out raiding arc mages - cos it will hit you more than other specs)
Frank Feb 6th 2009 9:41AM
as a fire mage, i welcome actually being able to live longer in PvP.
Abraxxis Feb 6th 2009 10:08AM
I am very disappointed!
Where is our new icon for mage armor?
gonetotheedge Feb 6th 2009 10:12AM
replenishment should not be a talent. It should be a spell available to all mages not one build. Bring the player not the talent build. What would be better would to make Evocation impact the whole party and/or raid. With the glyph added the usefulness would really help out.
Thander Feb 6th 2009 12:15PM
That would be way to overpowered.
9k hp and 12k mana every 2 minutes to everyone in the raid?
It would blow replenishment out of the water. I could see them doing a minor version of this with a talent, maybe 10% of what you get goes to raid.
dreadpiraterose Feb 6th 2009 11:31AM
I don't use the water elemental, but I am excited about mana replenishment. Bring on the mana!
rai Feb 6th 2009 12:35PM
Can't believe blizz is giving replenishment to ANOTHER class
rai Feb 6th 2009 12:47PM
why should they? it's a spec for all the classes, not to mention they are giving the ability to too many classes as it is
rai Feb 6th 2009 12:49PM
bah, reply bugged, that was to comment 30, disregard