With "dispell" Dummy was referring to abilities like Tranq Shot, that can dispell enrage effects - no matter if it is from a physical or magical source.

the whole discussion about DS being overpowered is silly. my buddy's war crits 15-18k with cleaves and my dk in very average (5.6k GS) gear can SPAM howling blast (armor-ignoring!) and pull 25k aoe dps in 5-mans. my ret in 6k GS struggles to get to 10k aoe with our worthless consecrate/HW combo, leaving me MAYBE 1HP, MAYBE 2 if i judged on the pull. generally packs die before i can even get a 3HP DS off, and it does half what the cleave or howling blast would do. Did I mention HB is spammable and cleave is a 3s cooldown with no bullshit HP-type requirement? they need to make it GIVE holy power, double the damage, and make it holy-type, period.

If they release the patch on Tuesday, will combat be worth using again or should we stick with Assassination until 85?

To my knowledge 4.0.3a isn't making any sweeping alterations to Rogues, only getting the ball rolling on The Shattering. For leveling most people will probably just tell you to play whatever you like more since it does not exactly matter. Not many people are interested in the theoretically highest dps spec at 83 with a mashup of almost random leveling greens and blues. So as I said; Play level as whichever spec you like more. I am probably going to level Assassination since It helps me a bit more when I get ganked.

I'm actually more worried about this semi-hidden item...

4.0.3a resetting our talents ? What has/is changing so much that we need this ? It's 2 weeks prior to cata launch and they're changing the talent tree enough to warrant a reset?

Ah, that explains it, thank you.

Hellord, have you heard anything back about the Stance issues? As you mentioned about a month ago, it just seems like a gimmick and really shouldn't be part of what we do. Is it intended that we stance dance to maximize our DPS now? This issue has been left by the wayside as of late, and with Cataclysm looming on the horizon I thought it would be important to discuss.

Simple question:

Have we determined what our preferred leveling spec is?

how to make your dps as hight as possible?

Hello EJ and the rest of the fellow mages out there.

Well I just noticed something quite nice the other day.. I quit wow a while a go, but now with the new exp pack comming up, I found some interest in the game once again.

So there I was testing out the new specs, Fire and Arcane (frost sounds interesting too, no offence).

I tried raid as fire and arcane, and I gave the buff Focus Magic to a raid member, then switched back to fire for AoE and trash. But I noticed that my fellow raid member still had the focus magic buff and that I still got the buff when (s)he critted.

I found that as a pretty nice thing, 3% more crit is quite good as fire, esspecially now when the combat stats are getting lowered..

There it is, focus magic works as fire (and I guess as frost as well). just a little tip, and a very good reason to dual spec arcane as secondary.

Let's hope Blizz wont notice this, even though I posted it here, (jsut couldnt let such an important boost stay in the shadows).

Best regards Mim, the fire mage with Focus Magic.

Thanks for the update, Lichloathe.