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-Links-

• For some basic knowledge about Speccs, Stats, Rotations and more, read Vontre's mage_sweet_informational_thread first!
• If you still have Questions about Items, Speccs or want to know how to improve your/other mages dmg, have WWS logs etc. -> GOTO this Thread: mage_help_me_please
• If you just want to compare 2 items/speccs or want to know the value of different stats, go to Lhivera's Calc, (or Vontres spreadsheet) put your numbers there and choose your specc. Its really easy and fast to use.

List of Mage Links:
WWS analyzes, PVP thread, Mage help (speccs, items)
The 2 old TC threads: TBC Mage TC, How can Arcane dmg work
Spreadsheets and Calculators: Vontre's Mage DPS spreadsheet, Lhivera's Calc, [Mage] DPS Simulator
Other Threads: [Mage] Amplify/Dampen Magic Mechanics?, [mage] Arcane Blast-mechanic seriously broken?!



-Mage Changes in 2.4 PTR 2008-02-23

• Spell Haste: Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee and ranged abilities.
• Arcane Explosion: The damage cap for area of effect damage on this spell has been increased by approximately 50%.
• Icy Veins no longer stacks with Bloodlust/Heroism.
• Spellsteal will no longer overwrite a longer duration buff.
• Using low ranks of Fire Ward and Frost Ward spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
• Fire Ward: Using low ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing spells are penalized.
• Frost Ward: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
• Frostbite: When a frost spell is reflected back at a Mage, it is now possible for the Mage to suffer from the Frostibte effect.
• Ice Barrier: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
• Permafrost: This talent will now correctly increase the movement slowing effect of frost Armor instead of the attack speed slow.
• The casting bar will now display properly when casting Blizzard or Rain of Fire with spell haste.
• Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
• Blink, Slow, and Spellsteal have all had their mana cost reduced.
• Improved FireWard has become Molten Shields.
• New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
• New Improved Blink: For 2/4 (Rank 1/2) seconds after casting Blink, your chance to be hit by all attacks and spells is reduced by 25%. (Screenshot)
• Icy Veins has been changed, instead of increasing the chance your chilling effects will Freeze the target by 10%, it will now give you 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting. (duration remains the same: 20 sec).
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• Players can now only carry 80 Conjured Manna Biscuits at a time.
  

-Mage Changes in 2.3.2

• Iceblock is no longer a talent, but trainable for all Mages at lvl 30.
• Cold Snap is moved in the Iceblock position and its cd reduced from 10 to 8 min. Cold Snap will no longer reset the cooldown on Fire Ward. (Cold Snap + Ice floes = 6min 24sec)
• Icy Veins (IV) is the new talent wich takes over the old Cold Snap position in the Tree. Other Talents are unchanged, there are no prerequisites for the changed/new talents.
  IV "Decreases casting time of all spells by 20% and increases the chance your chilling effects will freeze the target by 10%." (old PTR: 25%)
  Lasts 20 sec. 3 min cooldown, 65 mana untalented. CD not affected by Ice floes.
• The mana gems min and max mana value have been modified slightly to provide a less random bonus to the mana.
  Rank 1 - Restores 390 to 410 mana. (Instead of 375-425)
  Rank 2 - Restores 585 to 615 mana. (Instead of 550 to 650)
  Rank 3 - Restores 829 to 871 mana. (Instead of 775 to 925)
  Rank 4 - Restores 1073 to 1127 mana. (Instead of 1000 to 1200)
  Rank 5 - Restores 2340 to 2460 mana. (Instead of 1800 to 3000 on PTR, 1136 - 1364 on live) and has 3 charges
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• CSD's gem requirement changed to "at least 2 blue" from "exactly 2 blue".
  

-Mage Changes in 2.3-

• Improved Fireball: The reduction in damage coefficient caused by this talent has been removed.
• Improved Frostbolt: The reduction in damage coefficient caused by this talent has been removed.
• Evocation now regenerates 15% of total mana every 2 seconds rather than increase Spirit based regeneration. (now int based)
• Detect Magic removed. All players may now see their target's beneficial effects at all times.
• (NEW SPELL) Ritual of Refreshment available on trainers at level 70. (needs 2 other people, costs 1 portal rune, 5min cd, 50 charges of stacks of 20)
• Arcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance mana costs reduced. (700mana and 1800mana)
• Arcane Meditation (Arcane) increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration.
• Remove Curse range increased to 40 yards.
• Fire Ward and Frost Ward now gain additional benefit from spell damage bonuses. Base absorb values of ranks 5 and 6 have been reduced.
• Ice Barrier now gains additional benefit from spell damage bonuses. Base absorb values of ranks 5 and 6 have been reduced. (Rank 6: Old: 1175 + 10% | New: 1075 + 30%)
• Hypothermia duration increased to 45 sec.
• Mage: Hypothermia changed back from 45 secs to 30 secs
• Portal Spells: Portal spells to capital cities can no longer be cast in battlegrounds.
• Polymorph: It is no longer possible to polymorph a player and have that player remain mounted. In addition, it will now always be removed correctly if multiple Mages overwrite each other's Polymorph.
• Ignite: This talent is no longer triggered by damage dealt by Molten Armor.
  
  --Other Mage related changes:
• Client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency.
• The new caster metagem will increase the spell critical rating by 12 and the critical strike damage by 3%. Keep in mind that it still can change. (chaotic skyfire diamond: req.: exactly 2 blue.) Design: Chaotic Skyfire Diamond - Items - World of Warcraft
• Players no longer gain the moving AOE radius bonus if they are jumping. (2 yard extra range removed)
• Mystical Skyfire Diamond: A cooldown has been added to this item's effect, but the chance for it to trigger has been increased. (chance seems 10%/15%, cd seems 45 sec, duration now only 6 sec, duration 6 sec is considered as bug)
• - Spellhaste and Mystic Skyfire Diamond affect Evocation
• - TLC nurfed, see WoW Forums -> Lightning Capacitor Nerfed on PTR?
  

-Summary of Changes 2.3-
-Arcane dmg nerfed drastically through MSD and TLC nerfs.
-(deep) fireball and frostbolt dmg increased. Fire and frost now best dps speccs.
-Overall maximum mage dmg is lower than in 2.2 because 2.3 fire and frost dmg is still below AM in 2.2.
-Lowered the dependency of arcane (especially AM) spells of specific items. (but made these spells nearly useless although).
-Lowered AE dmg through TLC nerf.
-Improved water and food creation and int buffs drastically.
-Slightly more absorb for shields.
-Reduced Mages raid support through removing of detect magic.

Fire and frost are both getting buffed big time with the removal of the coefficient. So everything depends now on how much the cooldown on MSD is. If its a big nerf to MSD, then deep fire may be back in vogue now.

This plus fireball and scorch both getting a bigger amount back from the spell-queueing latency fix than AM spec (a much more testing-required change than the damage tax to see just how much any particular person is getting back) are gonna give people some fun stuff to TC on the PTRs. But you're right, the MSD cooldown is the big unknown that will determine whether we might continue arcane's viability and/or dominance.

I think at this point in time, we still don't know how the new spell casting system works. If it works like adding a new /stopcasting in front of every spell, it won't help those people who are already using /stopcasting macro. If it turns out to be an actual spell queue system, I think AB spammers & scorch spamming are going to see a real noticeable boost in dps.

What in 2.3 improves Frost's PvE damage output as it relates to Fire and Arcane? There are only four PvE DPS changes in the patch:

1) Fireball coef -- buff to Fire
2) Frostbolt coef -- buff to Frost
3) CD on MSD -- nerf to AM Arcane
4) Increase in Arcane Meditation -- slight buff to Arcane, and more on endurance than DPS

The only reasonable conclusion based on these four is that Frost and Fire will improve in relation to AM Arcane. There is nothing to indicate that Frost will suddenly be on par with Arcane in terms of PvE damage, and certainly not Fire, which received an identical buff.

The PvE DPS relationship among Frost, Fire and Arcane has been tested in practice, not theory. Based on the patch changes I fail to see how Frost will suddenly become comparable -- unless there is something I'm missing.

After farming SC/TK/MH and BT with a full frost build for like 2+ months, i dont feel like the WE is that squichy anymore. You can do A LOT with good petmanagement, mostly with a /petpassive macro to keep/move him out of RoFs and similar stuff. The right timing is helpful as well, i.e. activating him on the right phases like Leotheras' demon phase or Supremus tanking phase. In the end i only see one encounter in BT were he can actually die unless the player screws up. Also notice that he regens life from VE too.

That's plain wrong for the sole reason of Arcane Explosion being affected by Shatter. Arcane might have still an advantage from having Arcane Impact, Spellpower and generally better mana regen - it's hard to tell. However, im absolutely sure that Shatter > Blastwave/DB.

The coefficient is considered in Vontres Sheet afaik and thus not hidden. Besides that, i'm quite sure most ppl never compared themselves with frostmages after the Arctic Wind buff, and still have the "old numbers" in their heads. Also note, that most frostmages waste DPS by using multiple Icebarriers, which doesn't really help winning the dmgmeter (although it surely helps beating encounters).

Hey guys, I dont really post much on EJ, I like to read TC though

I wanted to say that, even though MSD is getting changed, we just need to think of another way to use it. It's effect is pretty amazing, and im not sure if this has been stated or not (but I know we all think it in the back of our head), but Arcane Missiles is the spell that benefits the most from MSD. In terms of haste items and its effect on spells, the longer a cast time is on a spell, the more of an effect it recieves from haste. 5 ticks of AM in 2.5 seconds? Yes please.

In 2.3, I think fire will be back on top. However, I will always remember the lessons learned with AM spamming and will probably keep MSD no matter the nerf. I will play as a fire mage plays and when I get a focus proc, ill burn it on AM. Im going for the best in both worlds :P

Shatter? Really? Because you lose more damage by wasting a GCD on Frost Nova than you gain back from the effect of Shatter on the next Arcane Explosion.

And regardless, Flamestrike is what deep Fire should be using to AoE, and it definitely beats the pants off a Frost mage spamming Arcane Explosion.

The coefficient is definitely accounted for in Vontre's very thorough spreadsheet. And it's the reason the Frost DPS figure is so far below Fire before the Water Elemental's DPS is added in.

I try Frost regularly, it's a spec I enjoy. WE is a lot of fun. But it is thus far not really competitive.

I can proc shatter off other peoples novas too. I even see Arcane and Fire mages using nova more regularly than me also.

I am really sceptical if Flamestrike is the way to go due to its limited range and the high threat. I would limit the use of Flamestrike to MSD procs.

I'd say it's far below Fireball dps mostly b/c there are more damage enhancing talents in the Fire tree.

They shouldn't be using Frost Nova on groups of mobs. Firstly because it's almost no damage, and secondly because a Frost Nova'd mob will turn and hit the nearest target rather than the actual tank.

Flamestrike is definitely more damage for 10/48/3 than Arcane Explosion (due to higher crit and better talent support), but I already brought this up in the old thread.


The talents are a little worse for Frostbolt than Fireball, but the big difference is the Coefficient really limiting its scaling. Because the additional damage Fireball gains there is then multiplied by all the other talents.

Again, though, the intention is clear to me; Frost is for PvP. The added safety and control comes at the cost of DPS.

Why? It can proc off of Arcane Explosion/Blastwave/Dragon's Breath too. This is not a valid reason for casting Frost Nova while trying to kill a pack of mobs.

Again, it can proc off of any other AE spell which actually does damage, so not a reason to cast Frost Nova.

This is not a good thing to do to a pack of mobs. The ones that are nearest to you will turn and kill you if you are the nearest target on their threat list. The ones that are not will kill someone else. Any mob which is not nearest to its tank will hit something else, which is not a Good Thing(tm).

Valid reason for casting Frost Nova during AoE pull:

You got aggro on 1 or more mobs which may kill you and you need to get away from them, run out of the pack so that these mobs are separated slightly, then Frost Nova and Blink away. This makes sure the mob is rooted where it won't hit someone else who is not expected by the healers (or themselves) to be taking this kind of damage, roots it close enough to the tank for easy retrieval, visually separates it so the tank knows it needs to be taken back, and gets you away from it so you don't die either.

This is all Magery 101, though, I'm surprised it needs explanation.



Let's talk about something less obvious.

Now that we are fairly certain that MSD is a 45 second cooldown has anyone run the numbers yet of the nerfed MSD vs. the new Relentless(?) Skyfire Diamond? Let's assume MSD was bumped up to 10% proc rate (the actual value is now unlisted in the tooltip.)

I'd do it myself right now but I'm at work so i'm not sure I'd trust my numbers since I'm distracted with other things.