Originally Posted by Morganoth

*Battle Mages

Since we are still very early on in alpha, I thought I'd toss this idea out and see if it had any legs. A long-time wish of mages, and WoW-players in general, is to see a new class along the lines of a battle-mage. With warlocks getting a 51-point talent allowing them to transform into a demon, why not a 51-point talent for mages to allow them to become battle-mages? This could be a non-dispellable aspect the mage takes on, or a 45 second transformation ala warlock's demon form, but I prefer the former (and think it would be easier to balance that way). It would fit best in deep arcane (which as of now is only used for gimmicks or by some raiding mages).

Possible highlights of the new battle-mage:
-Increased innate armor and magic resistance for survivability
-Talent to reduce spell pushback
-Magic warding (an overall absorption bubble instead of fire- or frost-based)
-An offensive magic dispell
-High burst damage potential with PoM, AP, and Netherwind presence
-Slow actually being used regularly
-A new arcane AoE spell: Cast on a mob, it begins arcane exploding, damaging itself and nearby mobs
-Summon an arcane elemental that will protect you for x seconds

And then there are many more fun things that can make the spec fun to play and distinct from regular mage play. (Polymorph: Walrus) on a shortened cast timer for pvp. A medium cool-down mana absorption attack. A moderately strong melee attack. Reduced cooldowns on PoM and AP.

A lot of the talents and ideas listed above seem to be slanted towards pvp, but this spec could easily have pve viability. The cast rotation could even be pretty fun if it required an intermingling of arcane missiles, arcane blast, arcane barrage, and netherwind presence procs thrown in, with PoM and AP providing burst-on-demand.

Obviously there is a lot to add to this, but I think this would give the mage class something to get excited about for the expansion.