Posts with tag mages

You've got your gear, you've got your enchants, but as they say you're not properly dressed unless you wear something with sparkle. This is where Andúnë's thread on the European forums comes in. He took the time to enumerate the advantages and disadvantages surrounding several of the meta gems at a Mage's disposal.

Now that the Mystical Skyfire Diamond now walks with a bit of a limp, this sort of thread is an excellent reference for selecting something else to toss in your Collar of the Uber Mage. Basically the commentary goes something like this:

As it turns out, there's a whole heap of great items out there for leveling mages. There's so very much available that sometimes it's hard to pick and choose what to look for at any given level. That's where we come in. The last couple of weeks we've been doing the research so you don't have to, coming up with suggestions for items that will help you in your quest for magey world domination.

As the levels get higher, the situation with mage gear gets more complicated. While on the one hand more options are open to you, selecting between those options becomes more important, as this is gear you will wear longer. Simply put, since it takes longer to level between levels 40 and 60 than it does to level between 20 and 40, the gear matters more.

It's at this point in the game that you want to start looking into getting some lower level enchants on your gear to give you the best possible performance out of your armor. If you happen to have trained in enchanting along with your tailoring, then you're ahead of the game.

I thought that this week I would spend some time going over some of the mage specific items currently in the game. Realize, of course, that the selection of gear is a personal decision, and no one can tell you how to deck out your mage. These are just some suggested items I found useful as I leveled my mage. Also, I play an alliance mage, and the horde mage I have leveled isn't above level 16 last I checked, so if there are items you know of that your fellow mages would find valuable, please let us know. After all, this column is all about learning together how to improve ourselves as mages. Also note that this isn't a comprehensive list by any means. I've simply pulled a selection of items from the vast choices out there to try to give you some idea of what is out there.

We're going to start at the beginning, since I've heard it's a very good place to start, and move chronologically up through the levels. Our first segment will be on items for mages levels 1-20, so those of you that are higher level, hang in there, more is most definitely on the way.

It's time once again to celebrate our mageness with Arcane Brilliance, and this time we're going where I certainly have not gone before: the PTR. I finally got my character transfers to go through, and my immediate thought was to slip on into the PTR and check out how the changes to mage spells and talents affected my character with the addition of Patch 2.3. A lover of experiments, I figured one was in order, and so happily spent the morning blasting things in the name of gaming science.

The parameters of said experiment were the following: I used the same spec on both the PTR and the live server, and decided that for simplicity's sake I would record data on three separate types of spell damage: using only Fireball, using only Scorch, and using my normal spell rotation. Now, you'll notice that my spec is a basic fire spec, newly reclaimed after some time spent as a blended POM/Pyro mage. I have decent gear, not the best, not the worst. I would say that I wear middle-of-the-road items, some Tier 4, Spellstrike and Spellfire, and the enchants and gems I have are also of the meh category. They aren't terrible, but I haven't had the opportunity to deck out this mage with all the snazzy +12 spell damage gems I would like. So the following are the experiences of a mage with some lower-end raiding gear, a fire spec, and a curious nature.

So there is all this information oozing out all over the internets about the patch, and since the other classes aren't really my priority, we'll look at the really important stuff. First off, let's look a little at what information is different from what we originally knew about the patch and how it related to mages. We knew we had a new spell coming, that the damage coefficient was being "obliterated" as Drysc said, and that we would see changes to Arcane Meditation and Ice Barrier. This is what we know now:

First off, let me begin by restating my original premise: no one can tell you how to play, or in this case who to play. In the end, it is you who log into the game, it is your set of characters that load in with the resounding intro music plays in the background. But maybe you read Arcane Brilliance and said to yourself, "hey, maybe I might like to try my hand at playing a mage." Here's the short and the long of it.

I have a group of friends that enjoy trying out new characters. Sometimes they ask me this very question, and I reply with some questions in return. First is the easy one: where do you prefer to be in a fight? Do you want to stand up close and personal, breathing in the putrid stench that is the monster's breath, hacking away at him piece by piece? If so, then a mage isn't for you. They are a cloth-wearing DPS class, and with the exception of a few fights, we are standing at the back of the crowd dealing death from a safe distance.

Also, I like to ask: How difficult a challenge are you looking for? Mages are not the easiest class to play. They take a lot of juggling. With the various spell resistances of the monsters in Azeroth and Outland, a mage has to keep constantly aware of who they are fighting. Your spell rotation can be totally different depending on who or what you are up against. I've heard it said that anyone can play a mage, but few play them well.

Nerfed is unhappy about the idea of the Ritual of Refreshment, the one announcement that came out of BlizzCon that sent me into a personal state of rapture. As he sees it, allowing players to pick and choose their water is cumbersome and redundant. Luckily Drysc has come to the rescue with some refinement on what the spell will actually entail:

Ritual of Refreshment gives Manabiscuits, which restore 7500 health and 7200 mana over 30 seconds. It's just about making life a bit easier for the mage, now everyone can grab what they want. We're not attempting to or currently buffing the water/food you would normally conjure.

Mana biscuits are delicious little items that I used to spend an unhealthy amount of scourgstones on back before the Expansion was released. Knowing that the Ritual of Refreshment will have this simple but effective sustenance for my party not only makes me happy, it also makes me a bit nostalgic for those days of grinding Argent Dawn rep. But I digress.

It seems that there is only good news coming about this particular spell, although I would love to see a little improvement in the amount of mana the ritual provides. After all, there are three types of healthstones available from a warlock's soulwell, aren't there?

Arcane Brilliance is back again, if belatedly so, to fill your day with more magey goodness. I thought that this week we would look into some of the finer points of magecraft. No matter how good you are as a mage, at some point you will have to shift your focus from your technique to your gear.

The bonuses to your spell schools can mean the difference between being at the top of the DPS charts and wallowing in your own caster tears somewhere near the bottom. But building up a huge amount of spell damage gear, although good, may not be the most effective way to epic out. There are two other stats mages need to look at, specifically spell hit and spell crit, and without knowing the proper balance between these three stats you will never be the best mage you can be.

First, let's look at the stats themselves.

Keen and Graev have a good post up about why (according to them) players prefer playing DPS roles. Statistically, it appears to be more or less true-- according to Warcraft Realms, four of the five highest class percentages are traditionally DPS classes: Mage, Rogue, Warlock, and Hunter. Warriors also have a higher population, but it could be argued that only 1/3 of the Warrior specs (Prot, as opposed to Arms or Fury) out there are actually meant for anything other than DPS.

So why do players seemingly prefer to play DPS? K&G give three main reasons. They cite something they call "Big Number Syndrome," which is the idea that unless you're dealing big damage, your class is worthless. They say that doing DPS requires less responsibility-- tanks and healers have to pay attention to everything, but DPSers choose a target and kill it. And they say that DPS classes level faster, which seems anecdotally (at least) to be true-- more damage means a faster kill, which means XP more often.

In general (very generally, in fact), I tend to agree. For these reasons, some people are definitely drawn to the DPS lifestyle. But I don't think that these reasons are why people chose these classes in the first place. Hunters, for example, have pets, and I think that's a much bigger draw to the class than "big number syndrome" ever was. And let's not forget that these are more or less the most archetypal classes in the game-- someone who's never played the game probably would immediately know what a "Mage" or "Rogue" could do, whereas a Shaman (the lowest class population, according to the census) is a little harder to explain.

So I think K&G are putting the chicken before the egg-- these things may be true about DPS looking back (and they may in fact be reasons people choose DPSers as alts). But when people first choose a class to call their own, I think it's a little simpler than that.

[ via Hardcore Casual ]

It's time again for Arcane Brilliance, your one-stop mage shop for all your magical caster needs. Last time we spoke about the macros mages should know and love, those little additions to your game play that will make you even more uber than you already are. At the end of that article I mentioned we would next talk about the addons that mages simply shouldn't do without, and even the comments in that article mentioned a few (thanks for stealing my thunder guys.)

This isn't to say that as a mage it is required that you use mods when you play. Think of these more as the added features on your luxury sedan, the DVD player and the auto-adjusting seats. The mods I use are an extension of the way I already play, but they don't play the game for me. Try them out, see if they work for you, and let us know how it went. Like I've said before, no one can tell you how to play your class; we can only suggest things that might make playing your class easier or more fun.

I used to be a mage purist. You know the type, those that would never load a mod, never write a macro for fear that it would taint the game. That was up until I recently discovered a little thing called focus. Now just about all my spells are macroed in one way or another, and I am a happier, more efficient mage for it. I thought this week, seeing as how it's been a while since Arcane Brilliance has posted, I would spend some time going over those macros that I use on a daily basis. If there are any that you particularly love, feel free to let us know. I'm always keen on adding to my collection.

Once again we're back with Arcane Brilliance, where we discuss all things mage-like. This week I'd like to talk a bit about our roots as mages in the World of Warcraft universe. In order to understand who you are and where you are going, sometimes you have to learn about where you've been. In this case, both our past as mages and our future are tied to the same place, namely Dalaran, or more specifically The Magical Nation of Dalaran.

Arcane Brilliance is a little late today, but for a pretty good reason: I'm writing the column from the floor of the Anaheim Convention Center. Seeing as how we are coming to you live from BlizzCon, I thought it might be of interest to show you how mages are receiving the love from the Blizzard dev team. The first class panel didn't give us much in the way of new info on the mage, but there certainly were a lot of references to mages during the convention.