It is very boring, and worse: it takes no skill at all to do. I've missed Sheep so much in this expansion that I look for excuses to use it, and when I do people are very surprised. Same with Counterspell and Spellsteal. Those who know none but the AoE easy-mode of Wrath are going to get a pretty jarring wake-up call come Cata. Those who cultured their skills of using their utility and CC spells will be a fair bit better off.

I still CC in randoms whenever I can just to keep the CC skills up (you know, sheeping and keeping track of it in case it breaks). I'm going to feel real sorry for those mages that grow up in the gogogogo period, they might not even know where the spell is.

@Murabayashi

My mage got his first 60 levels in BC, but got the last 20 in WotLK, and I am sad I do not get the chance to sheep much! And I must agree with Counterspell and Spellsteal - I love them to pieces and wish I could use them more.

::Nod:: And it's tough to find a chance to learn them, and play with them in this environment. Everything's so "Go, go go!" and you hardly have any time to stop and think. Maybe the key here is to find a group of friends to run with who don't mind playing it slow a little, and even though it's not necessary, go through dungeons using a bit of proper strategy. Make a chance to play with these spells, or brush up on them if it's been a while. It's a shame we can't down-level our toons a little and run older instances with a proper challenge.

There is already a bad ass Arcane based AOE spell in game... Ick uses it in Pit of Souron... Explosive Barrage (i think) would be great AOE in PVE because the tank is likely going to be holding mobs relatively stationary and is PVP viable because all it does is force the enemy team to move... limit it to say 5 targets and have damage scale down with the more targets it has... give it the same range and threat generation as druids Starfall and the problem of arcane AoE is solved beautifully