My point is that healers are already going to be pulling it over you. I'm thinking of the vashj fight when I say this. I've seen the elites/striders go after healers multiple times until we formed a strategy to combat this. I've never had one come to me by popping a mana pot and i do it every time in that phase.

The same thing goes for morogrim. We already have a healer pulling agro over other healers...i dont' see evocation threat pulling over him.

But as i said above...this could cause issues with agro sensitive transitions where low amounts of healing is done.

http://elitistjerks.com/252471-post1.html

Well, being forced to use a tranq air totem instead of a spell dmg totem is actually the definition of being threat capped.
At Lurker and Al'ar P1 aggro is really a non issue.

For the other fights all mages are effectivly threat capped (as well as all other dd's) at least at the beginning of the fight until you use your invis.
To maximize your dmg you should use your cooldowns (trinkets, destro pot, combustion, AP, etc.) as early as possible so that the cd is ready again as early as possible.

Now every Mage who thinks he isn't threat capped at all, when was the last time you could activate all your cooldowns right after the pull? How long do you have to wait normally until you can use your cd's without pulling aggro?

You can use a few arcane spells at the beginning because you will have sublety specced also as fire mage but that doesn't really solve the problem because you can't do your maximum dps with that wich again means that you are thread capped.

Even being able to start casting 1 sec earlier with a lower thread spell is a dmg advantage. In a short fight this 1 sec could easily be 1% more dmg.

I don't know about you, but I can usually start building scorch right after 2-3 seconds and at 6-7 seconds into the fight I pop combustion, the icon and a flame cap. Starting earlier then that has nothing to do with maximizing dps, it's just being dumb. If you tank misses the first few hits even that low threat AM will still pull aggro if the first two pulses crit.

I would argue that arcane is more likely to pull aggro then fire in the first 5 seconds of a fight, given how fire works with ramping up scorch, ignite damage and molten fury, while that first AM can already do it's maximum dps.

Thank fucking god.

Sadly, 2 things that have no impact on pve as we know it now.

The only impact I could see is frost potentially gaining a new talent to replace ice block.

That monster 'Why mages are complaining' thread on the mage forum has certainly played a role in this. I just wish he went into a little more details about other things discussed in the thread (besides mana gems.. lol)

Well, having ice block trainable really does make Mages a bit less of a raid-resource hog. It's not something noticeable when you have an encounter already learned but clearing all debuffs/granting self-invulnerability is pretty nice when you are learning something new. The second change might be interesting but it's pretty nebulous for the moment and only time will tell.

I'm away from the game for now but I imagine I'll still follow the magely changes they make. I'm still a little skeptical though to say the least.

Well, let's be honest here. I personally give a near zero value to ice block as far as pve is concerned, but I'm pretty die-hard for those matters. One the of things I can definately imagine is that people would spec 11 point into frost for cold snap. (Please, don''t ridicule me if I am totally off-base, I have 1500 rating and literally never entered an arena ) Hell, I could imagine going 2/48/11 for PVE purpose, I am pretty confident I can live without clearcasting.

Again, what will be interesting to see is what new talent will replace the lost ice block. They have to give a redeeming 21pt talent into every tree. It needs a successor.

I think there is little chance of getting that ice block before WotLK. So since the mage trees could be completely different by then, there is really no way to speculate how it will narrow down our pve choices even more. But there is no question it's a good thing for raiding mages...not for the aggro, but for the AE's that always seem to decimate mages. No more PvP gear on Rage, Gurtogg, etc. But you have to admit, Manly, IB is a big deal when learning fights like Archimonde.

For PvP it's the same thing, but less important imo. Frost will still be dominant with it's snares and pet. Plus Cold Snap. The real question is arcane and wth is up with that tree, especially if they make major changes in WotLK.

for iceblock to be truely significant in all aspects of the game it would have to have a much shorter CD...not cloak of shadows short..but maybe 2 or 3 min..while moving cold snap deeper in the frost tree. Overall a very positive change , just not quite what i was hoping for( no cast time invis, non channeled evocation, combining mage and molten armor, and few other crazy ideas).

This reset i speced fire to check things out before 2.3 and with our best tank tanking i only had to use invis on Bloodboil to stay below offtanks (we use 3 tanks), and i still pulled ~1.4k dps. Rest of the fights threat wasnt an issue and there was no need to use invis. On Teron i was pushing almost 1.8k dps and having a 50k buffer to aggro gain without tranquil totem was a suprise. In the end exept for the fights like Bloodboil your capped only if your tank sucks.

As long as frost receives an equivilent talent to what resto druids received for "giving up" Innervate (see: the awesome-ness that is Swiftmend), I can't see how this is not a great move. Very much looking forward to it.

Frost has enough pvp-related talents (Ice Barrier is arguably just as "un-necessary" for PvE, going with Manly's definition of PvE usefulness) -- frostbite/imp FN/shatter/arctic winds -- that 17/0/44 is still the PvP king. Should the new 21-point talent be something cool (ie, not a passive hypothermia cooldown reduction), frost is only going to become stronger for it.

I just spent about 30 minutes playing around with specs that would be viable in PvP and PvE, but the one thing that always stopped me from going deeper into the Frost tree was that 21 point talent spot.

For frost, as 2.3, to be really effective in PvE you need access to Molten Fury in the Fire tree. But the down side to that is you are already deep into the Fire tree and benefit more by going deeper. Then again, that damn 21 point talent could be awesome.

I also did a little playing around with some straight PvP specs, and one thing that kept bugging me was the viability of Dragons Breath, to go for it or not? It is another interrupt, but at the same time, its mana cost is way high compared to other spells.
But this is the one spec which seems interesting now: Mage (23/27/11)
Since mages biggest problem in arena is mana longevity, providing a reduction on Blink, and the passive mana regen is a huge boost, Impact, Blazing speed, all pure awesomeness.

Even with us knowing that Ice Block is now a trainable skill, the one thing that will prevent all theory crafting for the viability of frost in PvE full time is the damper of that 21 point talent hole. But now the options for other PvP builds are really endless.

33/28 could potentially make a comeback for the pvp crowd.

Trainable ice block is going to make us flat overpowered for raids. An immunity shield complete with debuff clearing is a big fucking deal even if it doesn't help us make huge numbers. It's likely this won't push through til WotLK though, and things will be completely different.

Well, considering I doubt I'll be getting COE in 2.3, and as such, not compete on meters, I fail to see how IB would help me a usefull addition to the raid. Swap mage in for decurse/aoe, swap out for other fights.

I never had a need for IB in learning shahraz pre-nerf, or archimonde (even pre nerf). The times it would have made a difference are so few that they simply are hardly worth mentioning.

But then again we have 5+ shaman on archimonde to deal with fear, in addition to WOTF and pvp trinket if all else fails.

Basically I pretty much expect to be back to pre-2.2 dps. I fully expect to see rogue>hunter/lock>mages>* like pre 2.2. We'll see how that goes.

Well your raids are run a lot better than most. You are able to deal with CoR on a lot of bosses that some guilds barely do with no CoR. Two warlocks, CoE/CoR to normal curses. But since a lot of guilds run with no use of CoR, it allows for a lot of mages to make full use of Fire. Should bring a third lock for the use of CoE, health/soul stones, and good damage, if it is possible.

But with Ice Block, you will be able to take more chances you couldn't in the past.

It does solve the problem of mages realistically not being able to healthstone in PvE (and god there's times i wish i didn't). But atm the choice is go oom on semi-long fights and wand (because you don't pop your mana gems and have to go to a worse trinket than braid), or pop gems on cooldown and pray you don't need to pop your healthstone.

Long overdue change, i was expecting this or taking mana gems off conjured timer.

On a side note, do mages still want spirit on their gear in sunwell? (Personally i've always wanted it off, but i know there's some die-hard fans out there)

Not using CoR doesn't imply that CoE should be used. For a lot of reasons, one should bring a third lock, and a forth or fifth one to replace a couple mages.

As a mage and a raid leader I can absolutely confirm what Manly and others have mentioned or alluded to several times in EJ threads. To min/max the raid it's hard to justify more than one or two mages.

Searix, with spirit not affecting evo, and with JoW/spriest/newly-buffed-manaspring, the case of both Arc. Meditation talent and Mage Armor making spirit viable is starting to wane... Given that we're not talking arcane (and I think it's safe to say that in 2.3 we aren't) I don't see any possibility that mages can't keep up with any length of fight's mana intensity.

Long story short, while I am a spirit fan, and I deffinitely loved telling my raid setup that I can be grouped with anything because I'm mana sufficient of my own accord, spirit is rapidly becoming pointless until we see what's in store for it in the future. We do know Spi will get a massive work-over, but we don't know what or when.

Let's just hope it's worth the wait

I liked spirit when I was at the T5 level of gear. The difference between a 6k or a 10-11k evocation made it really worthwhile, imo.
With the recent changes to evocation, I would like to see them change spirit into mp5 since almost no one will run around with mage armor now(unless you don't have a spriest of course).

Although I understand them not doing that, since that would make any choices about what armor to wear for what fight completely irrelevant. Unless they change mage armor mechanics of c...

It's really astonishing how underrated IB is from most mages, even in this forum.

So here a small guide to increase your dps with IB.

Most mages say that they can survive the encounters without IB, so IB is not really needed and doesn't helps your dps. While this sounds true at first, it just means, that most mages never really even thought of using IB "offensively" instead of just seeing it as a tool for the "oh shit" moments.

Here is a list of different uses for IB, I don't take T6 bosses as example because I'm not that expirienced with them.
Note: You always loose 1,5 sec gcd when iceblocking, but sometimes you can use this time for positioning. If the effect you want to IB is not instant, but casted you can IB 1,5 sec. before the effect occurs. Then you can cancel IB immediatly after the cast and start dps again instantly because cancelling IB doesn't triggers gcd.

• Break effects wich make you unable to do anything. You get additional dps time because you break ouf of such effects instantly after you get in. Some of these effects are dispellable by other classes, some are not. Even if dispellable most times you won't get dispelled because dispellers are effected also or have more important things to do / to dispell.
  Some of these effects you can also break with the pvp trinket, but why not euipping a trinket wich actually increases your dmg instead and use IB instead of trinket.
  -Fear,Sheep: Nightbane, Maulgar
  -Stuns: Maiden
  -"Cages": Illhoof, Hydross, Morowgrimm
• Prevent movements. How much your dmg actually increases depends on if you could also use blink to move and could afford the mana, or if you could do some dmg while moving (icelance, fireblast). And if you would have to move back to your old position if not iceblocked.
  -Aran: arcane explosion
  -VR: if an orb is sent to you, finish your cast, cast another (short) one, IB, wait for immune message ...
  -Solarian: bomb (see 2.3 patchnotes)
  -Al'ar: meteor
  -Vashj: Static Charge
• Removing debuffs wich lower your dmg / dps.
  -Hydross: Vile Sludge
  -FLK: whirlwind debuff
• Now something rarely useful, but extremely effective: Change your (personal) tactics for the boss, i. e. choosing positions / doing things wich are to risky for people without IB and help you dps'ing. My example is
  -Leotheras: when he is in human form, go to a smart* position ~ 20m distance and when he WWs don't move, just stand still and continue dps. *A smart position is close enough that you can dps as long as possible when he moves away but standing not in his route to the other people.
  For people without IB it's too risky to stand in such a position and not moving at WW, but you won't have to use your IB cd in most cases too.
  This is the extremly useful component. Not using IB cd, but just beeing able to IB increases your dps.
  ---
• Removing dots / preventing incoming dmg. Now this doesn't increase your dmg in most cases, but your healer will have some extra time and mana wich he may use with putting a dot on the enemy. Sometimes you'll have to use health stones/pots/bandages wich you could prevent with IB (e. g. Magtheridon 30%)
• More secure playing. Still the biggest advantage of IB. Even if a lot of mages say that they can easily survive without IB, have you really never ever died on a boss encounter? I mean deaths wich could be prevented with IB.
  I don't believe any mage who kills illidan and says that he never ever had a death wich could possibly have been prevented with IB.
  We assume optimal circumstands in this forum often because we need a compareable basis for calculations, but we play in the real world where execution, attention, gear and so on is not perfect every day. Especially when you are learning new bosses, things go wrong pretty often, this are the situations where IB can prevent your death and a whole wipe.

So you might ask the question how much dmg IB creates. There is no general answer. Some of the effects where you wan't to use IB are on timers and predictable, some are just random. Some hit the whole raid, some only single players or small areas. Sometimes you get not one orb from VR the whole fight, the other day a sequence of 3.

IB isn't worth 10% dmg but 0% is also definately wrong. In short fights even 1 extra fireball/frostbolt is easily 2% more dmg and there is a quite good chance that you can do something like that in most fights at least once.