Fire mages are
ablaze with joy over today's
patch 3.3 PTR build, frost mages are a little iffy, and arcane is... pretty much completely untouched! Let's skip over any additional preamble and dig right in. Do note, however, that some of this is so far unconfirmed and comes from datamining. Considering these changes come from the PTR, any of it could change before patch 3.3 goes live.
Fire
- Improved Scorch: The debuff from this talent no longer stacks, and instead can apply the full effect from a single cast of Scorch.
- Glyph of Improved Scorch now increases the damage of your Scorch spell by 20%.
This is going to make a lot of raiding mages very happy. It essentially normalizes the debuff to match equivalent debuffs, like Improved Shadow Bolt. Streamlining an unnecessarily complicated debuff is a great thing. It'll lift a needless burden from mage DPS. And yes, there are mages
getting drunk in celebration this evening. It's somewhat disturbing, really.
Frost
- Frozen Core now also causes your Ice Lance criticals to reduce the cast time of your next Frostbolt or Frostfire Bolt by 0.4/0.7/1 sec.
- Glyph of Eternal Water - Your Summon Water Elemental now lasts indefinitely, but your Water Elemental can no longer cast Freeze.
Oh ho! What is this? Could it be an attempt at making frost raid viable? It's a pretty good move, too. The increased damage comes from having your pet with you nuking away at all times, rather than straight increasing the power of the mage's own nukes. The concern was always that if you pump up the frost mage, you make them even more dangerous in PvP, which is hardly something they need. PvP frost mages wouldn't want to lose
the Water Elemental's root, so you won't need to worry about this in the arena. It should work out pretty well. Assuming, of course, the Water Elemental and the frost mage get all the tools necessary to keep the thing alive in a raid.
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of
Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas.
WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Tags: arcane, fire, frost, frozen-core, glyph-of-eternal-water, glyph-of-improved-scorch, glyph-of-scorch, improved-scorch, mage, mages, patch-3.3, patch-3.3-changes, patch-3.3-wow, scorch, summon-water-elemental, water-elemental, world-of-warcraft-patch-3.3, wow-3.3-changes, wow-new-patch, wow-patch, wow-patch-3.3, wow-patch-news
Filed under: Mage, Patches, Analysis / Opinion
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Oct 13th 2009 at 8:15PM 
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 5)
alpha5099 Oct 13th 2009 10:43PM
Sounds very cool. I miss playing my Frost mage, and one of the big reasons I never got any further with her (aside from falling in love with a shaman), was that Frost really was the spec I wanted to play but it just didn't seem to be a respectable DPS choice. It's very cool to see some changes that might make Frost at least closer to competitive. I'm particularly interested to see how Frozen Core shapes up; as I understand it, Ice Lance isn't even really used in Frost raiding, but this could definitely change things.
Christian Schuetz Oct 13th 2009 10:55PM
This is sick! I'd rather roll a mage now than a lock!
Keleron Oct 13th 2009 10:59PM
My mains are Mage and Warlock, and honestly I am not happy about mages having permapets. Hunters and Warlocks were the only two pet classes, but then DK came along.. plate wearers with unholy magic similar to what many wished warlocks were and they have a pet too. Now mages? I liked the how I could play very differently between my busty mage and my dotting affliction warlock that utilized his pets.. now the two classes grow even closer to each other as destro is the warlocks main raiding spec and now mages with pets. I thought I remembered reading that blizzard was rather happy with us mages, and wanted our darker cousins to be further apart but it doesn't seem thats their plan at all. /confused
Keleron Oct 13th 2009 11:00PM
/wtb edit button for all the typos:(
tim Oct 14th 2009 3:02AM
No need to be confused.
1/3 mage specs (might) have a pet, and
1/3 DK specs have a pet.
That's one specific pet. DKs pet has some utility while it doesn't look like mages' will. Obviously both of those are a far cry from the pets that warlocks bring to the table. While I'd like to see warlocks have more use from their pets (and I wish Blizzard didn't try to make it 1 spec = 1 pet), I don't feel that DKs and mages will infringe on warlock/hunter pet territory.
When Blizzard suggested they want warlocks to be different from mages, they weren't necessarily talking about pets. They were, however, talking about things like making curses more central to warlock gameplay and making shards a unique feature rather than a "balance check." That's happening in Cataclysm.
That said, yeah, a permanent elemental might not be the most elegant solution but if I can raid as frost, I'm gonna take it.
Deltrus Oct 13th 2009 11:02PM
One more thing is needed to fix frost PvE; allow deep freeze to make the boss frozen without the stun. It really can't be that hard. Frostfire bolt for example, has a snare/dot on bosses that are immune to snare. Allowing deep freeze to work on bosses would increase PvE dps while not buffing PvP.
Every 30 seconds a mage could get a finger's of the frost proc, use frostbolt, use deep freeze, use ice lance, use frozen core frostbolt and Ice lance. If they have haste buffs, a mage could fit in another shatter combo. If GCD capped a mage could switch out frostbolt for frostfire bolt. This would be a VERY interesting and dynamic rotation with the 3.3 changes.
PS: Frost mages also need random water elemental names. For example, Frosty, Splashy, Tridus, Poseidon, Neptune, Oceanus, Tethys, Anapos, Squirtle (Jk), Triton or Aborius.
Omenemo Oct 13th 2009 11:02PM
I'm interested in how the new glyph will interact with the duration extension talent in frost...
Charlie Oct 13th 2009 11:45PM
indefinatley + 15 seconds is still indefinatley.
Aka, the talent is useless w/ the glyph if you have replenishment.
Cryogenist Oct 13th 2009 11:07PM
While I'm glad blizzard is finally considering helping pve frost mage why does the answer coming from a glyph? Why must we give up something that defines frost mages for the chance of a little bit more damage? This is just the Glyph of Frostbolt all over again. Something you use in a raid just to be on par with hybrids and the second your not fighting a boss you gimped yourself.
Charlie Oct 13th 2009 11:44PM
Did you even read the Frozen Core change?
Also, the glyph is super Bad Ass. Not only does the change increase frost's damage, it frees up 5 talent points (You don't need enduring winter assuming someone else in your raid has replenishment, nor do you need Cold as Ice to get your elemental up again)
Turtlehead Oct 14th 2009 7:22PM
"Also, the glyph is super Bad Ass. Not only does the change increase frost's damage, it frees up 5 talent points (You don't need enduring winter assuming someone else in your raid has replenishment, nor do you need Cold as Ice to get your elemental up again)"
The net gain is two points after you take frozen and they'll get plowed back into the existing optional talents (brain freeze if you are being silly, imp blizz, ice floes, clearcasting, absorption, frostbite, barrier, and newly cold snap) because it's not enough to reach anything new. I'd keep one in enduring to be safe (that's enough to keep up the buff in most cases) so 1 point gained.
Curious to see if they change Enduring. Feels like a good spot to do...something. (I just posted I'm disgusted by frost but I'm one at heart, still thinking of ways to fix it!) They could slap replenishment on Winter's chill or something, deep enough FFB mages won't reach it but a talent all frost raid take.
maybesew Oct 13th 2009 11:19PM
The change to scorch is pretty great, but it now makes that glyph pretty lame. 20% damage on a spell that you'll be casting every 30 seconds and doesn't hit hard in the first place.
devinbrady84 Oct 13th 2009 11:31PM
I'd bet serious money that the goal is making Fire a viable PvP spec with the Scorch Glyph. It's a step in the right direction.
Charlie Oct 13th 2009 11:42PM
There was a post on EJ that someone did some quick sims with a LB/Pyro/Scorch rotation. With Scorches higher crit rate and faster cast times its pretty close to Fireball and FFB.
Scorch = lower damage than fireball. But you'd be getting in more Hot Streak procs per encounter.
Anyone else think its kinda insane (and also awsome) that mages are getting close to 5 viable PvE Specs? (Arcane, Fireball, FFB, and now possibly Scorch and Frost).
Frank Oct 14th 2009 12:41AM
@Charlie: yes indeed, i DO think it's awesome! more survivability in PvP for me as a fire mage makes me very very happy indeed.
Charlie Oct 13th 2009 11:38PM
The Frozen Core change is pretty OP.
Lemons Oct 14th 2009 12:11AM
Yea...what are they thinking? Frost Mages are OP enough in PvP as it is without casting a 1.3 second frostbolt...which will really be more like a .5 second frostbolt with haste and icey veins active.
Anon Oct 14th 2009 12:25AM
Yes but you're still capped at a 1s GCD, and thus are limited to one Frostbolt every second, MAX.
Also, you couldn't chain cast these anyway, you'd be throwing out Ice Lances, which, if they did crit, would cause you to lose Shatter (nova breaks, FoF charges etc) so you're not going to be chain-casting Frostbolts every second.
Lemons Oct 14th 2009 12:56AM
That still doesn't stop a mage from firing off a .5 secs frostbolt, might as well be an instant cast.
David Oct 14th 2009 12:39AM
This is fantastic news that makes me want to play my mage again. A permanent water elemental and one scorch will actually make me use it!