It definitely is a "wait and see" thing, but if the exchange rate is just really, really, bad, it would still give the feel to warlocks. Don't know if anyone knows Shadowrun, but the Fire Mage thing feels more like "drain", the strain of casting too powerful of a spell, while warlocks are most assuredly more of a "blood magic", cut yourself for Power type deal.

Still, the rolling fiery ball is definitely more a warlock thing. Conjuring tools of doom is all warlocky, and we could use some AE!

But the difference is the details. Burnout just increases your mana pool by at most, the amount of health you have minus one, whereas Lifetap is the Warlock tool for nearly limitless mana without the need for a healer throwing spells at you. Warlocks can regenerate their own health, and fast: Haunt, Siphon Life, Drain Life, and a talent in Destro I think. Lifetap is still the better of the two. :P

The huge difference I can see between this and warlocks (esp from an alt healers point of view) is that mages will be taxing their health ONLY in combat... and usually at the most stressful parts of a fight for a healer; so they aren't really tapping into a healers mana pool at all but giving them more of a headache...

AND at the end of combat... that healer will fill up your health but we're still going to have to eat our strudel where the loc can lifetap away and be full in seconds...

on that note and extremely off topic... when are they going to make food (common place outside of festival rewards) that scales with how much mana we have?