SV hunters bring Hunting Party.

"Your Arcane Shot, Explosive Shot, and Steady Shot critical strikes have a 100% chance to restore 2% mana, 10 energy, 4 rage or 10 Runic Power to all members of your party."

Yes, but now it's tied to specific shots and no longer procs off of autoshots. Explosive/Arcane share a 6 second cooldown, and Steady Shot has a 2 second cast time.

So every 6 seconds there will be one arcane/explosive shot and 3 steady shots... I think it's actually a buff and not a nerf.

Sorry if it has already been said, but it would be nice to add the group composition that benefits the most from having a mage. ie. Who wants to be grouped with us ?

Also, we could compare different group composition and try to find the ones that give the most raid dps/hps.

I know it's a bit redundant but it could give us easy to use arguments for raidleaders.

If a mage gains the most benefit from damage/mana/crit auras, then they'll get a spot in those groups as the best class to soak up the buffs. Right now FFB is well on its way to get the most benefit from crit and Arcane is traditionally well placed to benefit from +mana effects. Just as rogues gt placed with enhancement shaman/fury warrior/feral druid as the class of choice to soak their buffs, we may end up as the caster equivelant. Personally, i'm not against this idea.

The first two tiers of frost talents need another placement-review pass, as does points 13-15 of the Fire talent tree. Why did they switch elemental precision into tier 2 anyway? Its painful to spec points into 'wasted filler talents' for someone of any spec.

Given that we will have 71 talent points - '51 + 20' specs will be a very common for many players in WOTLK. I feel that every talent tree should have a clear way to put in the first 20 talent points usable by any spec, such that none are forced-to-take 'wasted filler points' simply to progress deeper. Examples are below.

Spec specific talents (aka useless to any other spec other than deep builds) can be mixed in, but there needs to be at least 20 points in the start of each tree desirable for all specs with a way to reach them. The lions share of spec-specific talents will obviously be deeper in the tree, where "+20" players wont be going anyway.

Frost talents: A raiding deep fire/arcane mage has no desire (or use) for Frost Warding or Improved frostbolt, yet will likely want to invest into Icey Veins (or Shatter/Frostbite, if your a frostfire bolt spec). The first three tier 1 points in Ice Floes are nice, but the remaining two feel like their being thrown away into Warding or Imp FB.

Solutions? Id suggest the three frost tier 1 talents are changed from (Improved Frostbolt + Frost Warding + Ice Floes) into:

- Ice Shards (5 points)
- Ice Floes (3 points)
- Elemental Precision (3 points)

Move improved frostbolt and frost warding up into tier 2. A frost mage will still pick these up and progress through the tree. An arcane/deep fire mage will pick up frostbite and just get the remaining (useful) tier 1 talents and simply overlook imp frostbolt/frost warding. All thats left is to change either Ice Floes or elemental precision to 2 points instead of 3 - and we now have 10 tier 1 frost talent points acceptable for any spec.

Fire Talents: A deep Frost/arcane mage who wants to pickup 18 fire for imp scorch can happily purchase the first 13 talent points in fire with no issue, but 13-15 are a bit of a waste.. Incineration+Imp Fire blast in tier 1, World in flames + Burning Determination in tier 2 is all fine, Impact in tier 3 - the remaining two points to get to 15 have to be thrown into wasted talents. Perhaps consider swapping master of elements and burning soul. A fire mage will still pickup both, but a frost mage looking to spend 18 points in fire will now be able to put the points into a useful talent (master of elements) for their spec, rather than fire talents that are essentially wasted.

Arcane Talents: The first 20 arcane points (for a 51 point frost or fire mage) are better, although the first five spent are debatable (Choice will be Arcane Subtlety + Arcane Focus, since no fire/frost mage will really want Improved AM) . Having -40% threat from subtlety should be useful for any spec, given the growing importance of AOE in WOTLK. Arcane focus (does the +hit only apply to arcane spells still?) im not sold on , but its not quite as bad as the 2 wasted points in each of the frost/fire trees. Id like the idea of changing Magic absorption back to 3 talent points and swapping it into tier 1. That would put the first 5 points of arcane as 3/3 Magic Absorption + 2/2 Arcane Subtlety.

The best way to fix arcanes first five talent points (assuming they want to stay with focus/subtlety only affecting arcane spells) is redesign (or remove/swap) the horrible Improved Arcane Missiles talent. Why is this talent in tier 1 anyway? Arcane Missiles will be used by deep arcane mages with Missile Barrage (40 points in the tree) and nobody else, so theres no need to put a talent of this nature in tier 1 - at least in its current implementation.

I heard no one here has figured out how the spell _currently_ works as of build 8788:

- If the mob with living bomb hits no target, only the dot ticks
- Whenever the mob with living bomb hits a target (currently only tested with mobs, not with hunters, etc), the explosion occurs kicking the mob up in the air and doing its damage. The dot is not consumed by it, the explosion can occur multiple times everytime the mob hits a target and has living bomb on it.

I just killed a 10k hp mob only with living bomb letting it hit on me.
If it stays that way, its really comparable with seed of corruption or even stronger because you can cast other spells meanwhile. But I doubt it

That would turn the 0/51/20 frostfire specc into 11/51/8 (+1). You lose a 6% multiplier and icy veins for a raid wide 150+ damage, if that's acceptable is up for debate. Personally I'd prefer it if they made raid wide utilities only reachable for deep speccs, preventing these insane hybrid speccs with the only purpose to provide utility.

I think this is intentional. A decreased need for Hit Rating is supposed to be a Frost perq, so a Fire or Arcane Mage needs to waste a few points if he wants to get it. Mana refunds on crits is supposed to be a Fire perq, so an Arcane or Frost Mage needs to waste a few points if he wants to get it. In short, I don't think it's intended, or even desirable, for a deep spec to have a painless route to the attractive talents even on the shallow tiers of a secondary tree. This helps to make sure that it's a more difficult decision whether to pick up those talents at the expense of some of the less-powerful talents in your primary tree.

In short, giving up 3 points in your primary tree to take Elemental Precision is a no-brainer, while giving up 8 points to take it may require some thought and more difficult choices. And that's good, as it encourages greater spec diversity.

The explosion originates from the player, not the target. i.e. I can cast living bomb on a target and run away, all targets that are within 10yards of my mage are getting hit for explosion damage every 2 seconds while the tick damage is ONLY happening to the target far away regardless if mobs are around it. Only when the target I cast living bomb on is within 10yards of the mage, will other targets take tick damage, along with explosion damage. It's all very buggy and should be fixed eventually.

Confirmed, I noticed this behaviour as well. It can be seen in Radikal Noise: I AM GETTING SO HOT at 0:11. The UD mage is hit by a 1.7k crit and bumped into the air even though he casts LB on Dr.Boom.