Posts with tag mages

Ghostcrawler has a nice long screed over on the forums about Blizzard's theory about change. Way back when the first few patches went into the game, Blizzard had a plan to adjust a few classes at a time -- one patch would be all about Mages, while the next would be about Rogues. But right around Burning Crusade, they changed their mind -- no more large patches, and instead it would be back to lots of smaller changes.

Of course, nowadays, whether they mean to or not, we're back to the way it was -- patch 3.1 will have pretty huge changes for all of the classes, and everyone is getting a free respec. GC says that while the "progressive patching" idea was a good one, Blizzard just doesn't have the chance to take that time -- patching is a big undertaking, and the way they change the game just plain leads to putting a lot of changes in a big patch. He would love to have the team make smaller patches more frequently (tweaking instead of a complete revamp), but the way things are now, the system just isn't set up that way.

He also reiterates that Blizzard is designing the game, not the people who complain on the forums. Blizzard listens to what their customers have to say, but they make their own decisions from there. Sometimes, that means we complain about problems that don't get fixed (Cower bug, anyone?), and sometimes it means they hear us complain about things that turn out not to be a problem (back in beta, a few forum posters claimed Death Knights would never be able to tank, and we now know that's clearly not true). We can hope for more sequential changes in the future, but GC says that right now, the way the game works is that Blizzard fixes as they can, and those fixes will come out in large chunks like 3.1.

Each week, Arcane Brilliance reports on Mages and the ever-changing game they inhabit. This week, Arcane Brilliance has discovered, before anybody else, a couple of notes from the next build of the PTR:

Mage:
New spell: Anti-Anti-Magic Shell - Conjures a shell that makes a Mage's spells actually go through that cheap Death Knight Ability, Anti-Magic Shell, making it possible for a Mage to actually kill a Death Knight.

Death Knight:
New Spell: Anti-Anti-Anti-Magic Shell - Conjures a shell that counteracts the new Mage spell, Anti-Anti-Magic Shell.

Removed:

Warlocks

Disclaimer: Arcane Brilliance is totally lying. These patch notes could not possibly be more fake. But Arcane Brilliance can hope, right?

When I posted the Mage changes on Tuesday night, I was hoping that as the week went on we'd get some new information, perhaps some clarification or updated patch notes. Though other classes have gotten those things, Mages have not. I was also hoping that perhaps I'd be able to get my Mage on the PTR to test some of this stuff out firsthand, but that hasn't happened either. I keep checking my empty PTR character list (on the rare occasion that I can actually log in and the servers are up) with my fingers crossed and my brow furrowed, willing my bald, undead buddy to show up there, to no avail. Maybe next week.

In the meantime, I'm stuck doing what I imagine 99.9% of the rest of are doing: waiting and wondering and scouring the interwebs for info. This patch is far from finished, with the testing process barely underway. Some of the changes announced so far won't make it live in their current form, if at all, and there are undoubtedly other changes to come in future PTR builds. Today I'd like to discuss what we were told to expect, what we actually got, and what we hope for, with as little wild, unsubstantiated guesswork as possible (Actual amount of wild, unsubstantiated guesswork may vary). Follow me through the jump, won't you?

Arcane Brilliance is a Mage column on a weekly spawn timer. It shows up all of a sudden on your computer screen or your iphone and starts wandering about, waiting for somebody to come shake it down for loot. What does this rare and wondrous column drop, you may ask? It drops a magical potion that, when imbibed, grants the magical ability to waste about 15 minutes of your employer's time reading a column about Mages. Hurry up and tag it, before the guy in the next cubicle does!

I'm listening to a playlist full of old NES chiptunes as I write this, Zanac, Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, Crystalis, Shatterhand, Tecmo Super Bowl, Legacy of the Wizard--just some awesome old stuff, some of which comes from composers who went on to become even more awesome. I love the game music from that era; I find it absolutely amazing what those guys could make that tiny sound chip do. And yes, I am a massive and unrepentant dork. Why do I bring this up? I have the playlist on shuffle, and the overworld theme from Dragon Warrior just played, and it got me thinking about this week's subject: stats.

Dragon Warrior was my first role-playing game. It was my first exposure to such concepts as experience points, and leveling up, and hit points. Stats in games of that era were pretty simple. You had strength, which affected how hard you hit things, and agility, which...made you more agile? Who knew? That was about it. Hit points measured how many whacks you could take before you died, and magic points ran out as you used spells. There wasn't a whole lot to it.

When I first started playing WoW, knowing which statistics were important to my Mage and which weren't was comparatively simple too. As you leveled, you looked for intellect and spirit. At max level, you learned the value of a few other stats, like spell crit, spell damage, and spell hit rating. Generally, if it said "spell" in front of it, your Mage wanted it. Now, though, we have so many different stats--one covering every aspect of every spell we cast, and so many different ways to customize the amounts of each that your Mage's gear has--that it can be quite daunting trying to decide which ones to prioritize. Follow me through the break where we'll discuss the various caster stats and the relative value of each to our class.

Patch 3.0.8 brought in quite a number of changes to the game, many of which affect PvP directly. I wrote about most of the changes in the other day's column, but as you can imagine, trying to cover all the bases with all the classes can get quite hefty. So before I reach Blizzard levels of 'soon', I'm cheating and appending the rest of the class balance changes here and pretend the whole Wintergrasp fiasco never happened. Oh, and yes, that button should work now.

CLASS BALANCE
Mages
Despite all the calls for nerfs for many classes, for some reason Mages have tiptoed past the madding crowd and continued to Pyroblast unsuspecting enemies for 10k damage without anyone batting an eyelash. Maybe it's their Invisibility, I don't know, but Mages are incredibly powerful opponents in PvP but don't elicit calls for nerfs. Christian was right in saying that Frost is no longer the spec for PvP. It now shares the spotlight with Arcane, with the highest ranked Mage in the world sporting a 60/ 0/ 11 build (although a Frost-specced 20/ 0/ 51 gnome isn't far behind).

So you think Mages are strong in PvP? Well, they've just been buffed. Evocation's cooldown was reduced to four minutes, and with Arcane Mages having access to the improved Arcane Flows, they can Evocate every 2 minutes. It was never a viable tactic to try and drain a Mage, but even with the spark of hope given by the change to mana drain mechanics, Mages will never run out of mana. The extremely RNG behavior of Mirror Images Polymorphing the most unlikely targets has been curtailed somewhat with the range of the copy's Polymorph down to a mere 8 yards. This is pretty good.

Christian caught this one in his last Arcane Brilliance column, but I figured the rest of us non-Mages might like to know as well: Slow Fall will be castable on others in patch 3.0.8. Very exciting -- while there are a few other Slow Fall buffs in the game (and lots of parachutes, from all the vehicles in Northrend), now all you need to jump down from a high point in the game is a friendly Mage. We expect to see a nice jump up in the number of Slow Fall videos. Which, come to think of it, we haven't seen that many of lately. Guess the whole "flying mounts" thing has made Slow Falling for long distances not so interesting.

And while we're at it, before you say that you need Slow Fall to get the Going Down? achievement, you don't. First of all, it won't work, and secondly, there's a better way to do it: as you've probably heard by now, you can do it just by jumping off of the platform on the Scryers Tier in Shattrath onto the little canopy hanging over from the Lower City below. Everybody has their own place for that, of course, but that's the easiest.

Still, it'll be nice to have Slow Fall for everyone -- we can throw it on the list with Levitate as a class ability that's been spread around a bit. Is it still too limited to include in game mechanics? Could we maybe have an instance boss in the future that we fight with while falling down a long mineshaft, or on a falling platform?

So Alex's latest Know Your Lore on Dalaran got me thinking. Now, some part of me is still sort of annoyed that Rhonin was made archmage and the Horde got to enter Dalaran with nary a peep about their tendency to kill all those citizens of Dalaran in Alterac or Silverpine, but I have to admit, Dalaran is an amazing city.

Everywhere you turn, there's something interesting going on, and every shop has its own life. The Architecture is an amazing blend of human and elven styles that looks to have organically evolved from a rich magical culture, and the atmosphere is lively without descending into the constant laughing and lag inducing sparring of the Aldor and the Shattered Sun Offensive that plagued Shattrath's outer ring. It also feels livelier and more city-like than Shattrath's strangely alien fortress and adjoining shanty town.

Dalaran has been one of the most prominent nations in the Eastern Kingdoms since its founding, though it's actually quite small. A nation only thousands strong at its height has perhaps held more sway over world leaders in its time than any other nation, and has attracted the ire of some of the most powerful entities Azeroth has ever seen.

Dalaran, located in the heart of former Lordaeron territory, has been the center of Arcane knowledge since its creation, and could be considered the Humans' answer to Quel'Thalas, though the nation accepts Elves (and many others) in its ranks as well. Magic is Dalaran's lifeblood, and is even ruled through the strength and wisdom of its magi. Dalaran is a magocracy, a government ruled by a council of mages known as the Kirin Tor, elected by citizens of the nation. Their icon is the Violet Eye, with Violet being the motif used for the nation itself, and the color purple representing the Arcane as a whole in Warcraft (Arcane Missiles, Netherstorm).

Mages, don't worry, you weren't left out of the love light this patch. Not at all. The number of bug fixes in your section of the patch notes does outweigh the number of substantive changes, but one of the substantive changes is very significant. Let's start with a bang:

• Reduced the mana cost of Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Explosion.

That could practically read "reduced the mana cost of mages." Great stuff. Looking at the numbers from the last beta build, the reduction seems to be on the order of 10%, which is quite noticeable when applied to your staple spells.

Living Bomb, which has been something of a controversial talent, has also been polished a bit:

• Living Bomb: Mana cost reduced to be the same as Arcane Explosion; no longer causes the caster to stand up when the final explosion occurs, and it is now possible for each mage to have a Living Bomb active on a target.

Frost mages, I'm sorry, but there's a herd of small nerfs (nerflings?) for you in this patch:

The World of Warcraft Trading Card Game World Championships have started up this weekend in Paris, France -- there's some excellent coverage on the official site about all of the CCG gaming going on over there. They've got everything from a roundup of the swag bag to play-by-play on the featured matches and some good commentary on what kinds of decks players are bringing to the tables. All told, the players are fighting for a prize pool of $250,000 -- some serious cash for playing cards.

They're in the middle of Day 2 right now, so there's lots more tournament coverage to come from Paris. If you're a fan of the TCG, this weekend's your chance to check out what some of the top players are up to as they battle for the big prize.

Every Tuesday, or possibly Thursday when the writer realizes that nobody writing about moonkin DPS on the internet agrees with each other, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week Allison Robert, having Hibernated John Patricelli and run away as fast as her laser-chicken legs will carry her, examines the new moonkin talents and glyphs in 3.02 and Wrath.

I do apologize about the wait here, folks. There's been a lot of contradictory information from both the beta and an array of Druid bloggers on how moonkin are shaping up for Wrath. While a lot of this is just the normal ebb and flow of changes in the alpha and beta, most of it is fueled by a few new talents and the set of glyphs that will become available. All of these have the potential to seriously impact your gameplay and rotation choices, so Balance DPS is going to be (at least, from current appearances) a lot twitchier and more proc-dependent than its counterpart in the feral tree. In addition, you'll probably have to make a few hard choices that will be affected by what your raid's going to need from you (although there is a truly amazing talent deep in the balance tree that, no matter what else you pick, is going to be a significant raid DPS contribution). As Balance is the only spec that I haven't gotten to raid on, I didn't want to go live with this until trying to figure out which pieces of information were accurate and which ones weren't. Bear in mind that Blizzard is still tinkering with Balance as I write this.

For the guide to feral in 3.02, head here; for the guide to resto in 3.02, head here. You'll probably want to be familiar with the resto changes, as balance has traditionally depended on a few key talents in that tree, some of which have changed. Otherwise, read on for a comprehensive look at balance's new talents, updated skills, and glyphs!

We have a lot of profession questions today, but also a few about Achievements, the Beast Mastery 51-point talent, and what happens when you push Death Knights off a cliff:

Riley asks...

How is the Shaman Hex ability working? Does the target still have control of movement and does the PvP trinket work against it?

Hex is a the crowd-control spell for Shamans referenced by the devs at the class panel here, and it's been tinkered with a lot since we first heard about it. It was originally meant to be more of an emergency-only, short-duration CC. In its present form, Hex's duration has been increased to 30 seconds and it doesn't necessarily break on damage. However, in PvP the target can control where they go, the PvP trinket does work (you can also shapeshift out of it as a Druid), and it's considered a curse and can be dispelled by Mages, Druids, and restoration Shamans (who will have the ability do dispel curses with a 31-point talent Cleanse Spirit). Think of it as a somewhat odd combination of Counterspell, Fear, and Polymorph.

Our latest podcast is now available for your listening pleasure over on WoW Radio (and in iTunes), and we've got a few familiar faces returning to the fold -- Amanda Dean and Turpster are on this week, and we haven't talked with them in a while. Turpster is back from his trip to the US, and Amanda is back with a whole new character and a new PvE outlook. We hit on:

• Brewfest, how it's going, and whether it's safe for minors (or miners, as Turpster may have heard) to celebrate a holiday that revolves around drinking and riding rams fast right afterwards.
• The upcoming Honor reset that we didn't really have a problem with but that didn't happen after all.
• The Bejeweled addon and some other possibilities for official third-party addons
• And as usual we answered your emails, including where to get started with WoW Lore and whether Mages or Shamans cry more (I think Shamans probably cry more, but Mages do more unnecessary crying).
• Plus, we did a giveaway! One lucky listener picked up a code for a Papa Hummel's Old Fashioned Pet Biscuit (boy they're delicious, made from real pets!). And if you didn't win, don't worry -- I hear next week we'll have an even better prize to give away.

And yes, speaking of next week, we do this every Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern right there on WoW Radio -- if you've never listened to the show live, it's a hoot. Definitely give the show a listen this week (or subscribe to us in iTunes if you haven't yet), and we'll be back next Saturday as usual with lots more WoW news, views, and fun in tow.

Listen here on the page:

The latest episode of the WoW Insider Show is now up for your listening enjoyment over on WoW Radio. Unfortunately, Totalbiscuit (who runs things over there) tells us that they're having more issues with a Google false positive of malware, so this week will be the perfect week to jump on into iTunes and both subscribe to and review our show from there if you haven't yet. Right there in your music player, you can find all of our shows so far, and you can subscribe to get any new ones we do for free right on your new iPod touch (or whatever ya got). Topics on last week's show include:

• The usual email answering: we answered questions about why there are no Auction Houses in Shattrath or Dalaran, what to do when your guild won't let you roll on damage gear when they ask you to heal, and why getting Champion tabards at Exalted would be a horrible idea.
• We talked about PvE to PvP transfers and why they might be a problem, but probably won't be.
• Racial abilites (and the suggestion to free them up a bit) came up in conversation
• We hit on Mages and why they're thrilled with Mirror Image (stay tuned for more Mage talk next week).
• And finally we asked around for AH tips, so if you want to make more money on the AH, definitely listen in.

If you've got tips or questions of your own, definitely drop us an email: the address is theshow@wow.com. We do this every Saturday, so if you weren't free last week but happen to be around next Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern, jump on over to WoW Radio and tune in to hear us live. Thanks for listening, and enjoy the show!

Listen here on the page:

Jazle of Barthilas finally gives level 8 mages the guide they need to down those very tough beach murlocs (they are fishmen) in Westfall. According to this rising young star in the Mage community (he's 7 in real life), you need to start at max range, lay in a frostshot and a few fireballs, and 1 more fireball for the killer blow! After that, since he's 4 years above you, you will be bound to get something good soon.

This is probably the clearest and easiest guide we've ever read, and as many players say, rare is the Mage who can actually drop a mob 4 levels higher (even at 8). We can't thank Jazle enough for this advice -- we agree he is "bound to get something good soon," and his optimism and earnestness, on the Mage forums, a place normally full of QQ and tears, is totally refreshing.

Oh, and he's right: don't use sheep. It makes their health come back.

Thanks, Dan!

"Water?" I hear you asking. How could plain old mana water be Phat Loot? But this is no ordinary water, my friends -- it's also known as Cheater's Juice. This, dear readers, is Arena water.

Name: Star's Tears (Thottbot, Wowhead)
Type: Common Consumable
Damage/Speed: N/A
Abilities:

• Requires level 65. On drinking, restores 7200 mana over 30 seconds. Which isn't that great -- you can get this water from any Mage, right?
• But this water doesn't come from a Mage, and that's what's so special about it. It's the cheapest vendor water you can buy -- just 25s and two (that's right, two) Honor points per 5, in stacks of 20. Just one BG will earn you enough to not worry about the Honor points, and overall, you'll save money (probably even cheaper than that Mage you're tipping every time you log in) every time you buy it.
• And, as Arena players all know, this is the only non-Mage water usable in the Arenas. As the tooltip says, it's "carefully extracted for warfare use," so Arena players who can duck out of combat (Hunters, for example, can Feign Death out of combat and drink) can get back some mana fast even without a Mage in the group.
• Plus, as all Warcraft players (and bloggers) know, tears are the tastiest drink of all. Mmmmm tears. QQ moar pls.

How to Get It: This tasty drink is just a vendor away -- you've got to run to the Officer Accessories Quartermaster in each capital city to pick up your couple of stacks. That's Brave Stonehide in Orgrimmar, and Master Sargeant Biggins in Stormwind City. Give them your money and a couple of Honor points, and the drink is yours. Who needs Mages anyway?

Getting Rid of It: You could, um, drink it? Otherwise, you can sell it back to the vendor for 1s 25c, which is suprising -- these are the tears of stars, people! Famous people cried their eyes out just so you could have these!