= not going to happen.

Edit: Just to clarify for those who might miss it, Shatter is teir 4.

It's 8 seconds base, so it'll be 9 seconds on a 10-second cooldown. It's alright for kiting in open areas to have the mobs unsnared for a bit, but it's a little more tricky in confined areas. I'm fairly sure the ZG farmers will find a way around it, but it will take mad skills.

frostbite proc + combustion + fireball + frost nova + cold snap + fireball + frost nova + fireball + fireblast= ?

Assuming 20% base crit chance with fire spells, that works out to something like a 86% chance to crit on all three fireballs.

Edit: You can still be 0/31/20, Brilliance.

Seems a little much, though I find it hard to believe that you can make a 'typo' where Frost spells is replaced by All. Then again, this is all pre-PTR, so let's see how things play out eventually. For now, I think there are some pretty nifty builds for people to play with.

Tier 4 means 20 talent points spent. You should be able to do Combusion + Shatter for Elemental builds.

If you figure 10% for a base chance to crit, you're talking about an absurd 66% crit chance (10+50 shatter+6 critical mass) to fireball somebody that got frozen if you hit Combustion, then a 70% chance with Fire Blast-- unless the first hit crits, then boost the second hit by 10% if they both land at the same time. Not to mention you could do it from further away since Fire Blast has a much longer range than Cone of Cold does. Hit cold snap and do it again, with an even higher chance to crit on the fireball/blast. The last shot will be damn near guaranteed to crit.

[This assumes that your first shot under Combustion does not have a bonus 10% to crit, if it does, it's even more absurd.]

Don't forget to throw in a blastwave at some point.

Uhm ? Its was nerfed down to 30%

Interestingly, Ming (love him or hate him) pointed out the possiblity of the following:

POM, Pyro, 4/5 Shatter. Probably a very limited build in practice, though.

Sounds like a pro duel spec which of course is the most important part of the game.

True, a mage with that build would pretty much just be a one-trick pony, reduced to futility whenever that trick wasn't available or failed to work.

Sounds perfect!

It seems like something of a one-trick pony build. Also I really don't know what this obsession is people have with pyro if you're not going down the fire tree anyway. It barely hits for more than a fireball.

Regarding Ming, anyone of seeming competence that still posts in the official boards is suspect in my mind.

Edit: Screw you both. You're stealing my thunder.

edit: deleted, totally unnecessary after saramin edited.

Incidentally, Saramin, I have a good friend who went by exactly that nickname in real life. Her name was Sara, and she played the theremin, and thusly...

We'll see how it all pans out in practice, but the fact that people are discussing elementalist builds with a straight face certainly is a good sign.

I have a hunch that a few of our mages may be interested in Mantle of Phrenic Power and Leggings of the Festering Swarm next time they drop.

Incidentally, IGN has updated shatter to reflect the 5 points into the talent.

It still reads "of all spells".

Wasn't directed at you, if that's how you took it. Just gurg and beef made the same point as me 30 seconds before I could. Regarding the other thing, I'm neither female nor have any musical talent. Just a handle that's stuck.

Anyway, the changes are starting to grow on me. With frostbite moved everything in frost lower than iceblock is in no way worth sacrificing points in other trees, but aside from that it's nice to see some actual synergy that moves mages beyond the binary frost/fire decision.

Also, http://www.wowhead.com/talent/ should be updated shortly for anyone who's feeling twitchy.

Nah, I take very little seriously, least of all the internet. Pretty much just math and food. I simply had made a point in my post that, after your edit, was just plain unneeded.

My mage may level past 40 after all; I was worried, since he's pretty much designed around a single-target shatter grind strategy (because for all the attempts I made at AE grinding? I am not good at it. But kiting is fun.) and the shatter nerf would have hurt that... except it wasn't a nerf, at all, so now I'll play around with him again, I think.

MY PRECIOUS

Welcome to my world, mages.

Elemental build here I come!

I just don't understand why they remain so adamant on caster threat reduction.

They do realise there is this class called *hunters* in the game right? Or that a warrior outputting similar dps to a mage is a lot healthier for it, thanks to his 5K hitpoints and plate armour etc? And if a warrior pulls aggro, at tleast the mob isn't moving half way across the raid force...

I dunno, seems like a bad talent change from a raiders point of view, simply as it addresses none of the main concerns - we have no aggro control, we have the least number of options for spells out of anyone, and we intereact the least with the game. (woohoo, frostbolt frostbolt frostbolt. Then some more frostbolt).

I'm hoping theres some more general caster stuff in the patch that will come out at E3, because otherwise this is just EQ all over again - mages will be wearing 3 piece NW until the end of time...

A couple of additional quick thoughts:

First off, I think Shatter working for all spells would probably serve as a great impetus for elementalist builds, especially with Frostbite being a prereq. Freeze with Frostbolts and then get some massive Ignites from Fireball, Scorch, Fireblast combos at range. Such builds would almost universally biased toward Fire, though... Fire Power >> Winter's Chill right now.

Second, I wonder how Master of Elements will work with AoE. Will you get 30% of your mana back if you crit more than once, get 30% mana per crit or will it be balanced around Blizzard's Rule of Three for AoEs (you'll get 10% per target your Flamestrike crits). When you consider that your average Fire mage has 21% chance to crit on Flamestrike from talents alone, Master of Elements will make Flamestrike the most mana efficient vanilla AoE in the game.

And if Shatter affects Fire spell crit rates, then you could go Frost Nova, Flamestrike->Blastwave, Cold Snap, Frost Nova, Flamestrike->Cone of Cold for that extra kick in the teeth.

Finally, I wonder if there's a way to make an effective tri-spec that incorporates Shatter, Ignite and Presence of Mind.