I don't think you can justify having counterspell getting a reduced CD when Warriors just got spell reflect's CD increased to counterspell levels

Did they? Maybe I should make a warrior one of these days.

Okay, I'll settle for not letting it fire when the target isn't casting. Which won't happen either, since various Remove (bad thing) spells just got hit by the nerf bat too. But I can dream.

I think you people are reading too much into his comment. 24 seconds IS a really long time- so much so that mages are effectively useless for consistant interrupts on ANY FIGHT. We have an "omg interrupt", but in about 60% of fights, counterspell is useless. Sure, in pvp its AMAZING, but theres a price to pay, which really hurts pve. Especially when I can't assist my raid interrupt on Maloriak, and the rogue keeps not kicking.

I think 24 seconds, though long, is a good place since it's such a strong spell-lock. Yeah, it sucks if you miss, but that's the thing about it, it's so strong that it must be used properly. Setting it to not fire when your target's not casting would lead to it turning into a skill-less ability you can just spam all the time without fear of wasting it.

I think the game needs more skill gates, spells like CS that are hard to use properly and punishes poor use, while very strong in the hands of capable players. Frost is easy enough to take down a great deal of (albeit unskilled) players, we don't need a 100% chance to interrupt their emergency heals.

Cheese: Simple solution. If you're rogue's not kicking, he needs to be kicked from the raid. If someone's not doing their job, why waste the other 9/24 people's time? If he doesn't want to play, don't let him.

Mage's CS is more than enough to interrupt two Release Aberrations per cycle, so long as you've got backup to interrupt during the green phase and a separate interrupt for Arcane Storms. (You DON'T want to interrupt EVERY one before the green phase.) This'll total at least 2 DPS with interrupts if the Maloriak tank can help out with the one Release Aberration during the green phase. If something's hard, you improvise and figure a way around it. That's how raiding goes.

Yea the long CD on counter spell makes mages useless in PVE interrupts, cho'gall on its own is a pain to interrupt and if you interrupt while someone else interrupts you get a long CD and no reward for the interrupt (you didn't even interrupt anything). Also I get put on hydro lance duty with another long CD person and we switch off, manageable, but many new groups think hydrolance is on a longer CD, which is not even close to true. Feludius gets 2-3 hydrolances off before I even get to try to interrupt again (god forbid you do it early or late and still take the CD). I understand the PVP balance, but mages need a good int for PVE (maybe make the CD long in BG's, arenas, and TB?).