remove please

There is a lot of talk about what we may or may not use to clear our AB stacks etc, but has it even been stated anywhere that AB will continue to work this way? Considering the Adept mastery and AM now being a proc based spell, one would assume there is a pretty good chance the functions of our AB stacks as we know it may not even exisit.

Well, it might be harder to achieve the hit cap, but mages WILL achieve it. If they can't get it through gear they'll gem it until they're capped. When bosses need more hit for 100% hit cap, mages will gear and gem more hit. Ultimately the result is that mages won't be missing. The concept of gaining mana through missing is as bad as an idea as gaining spellpower through taking damage was. This, however, could be exploited. This new change however is essentially refunding you the mana caused by a miss. I'd suggest it might be useful for other specs using Arcane spells but in the absence of any hit base talents we'll have the same chance to hit with all schools.

Don't get me wrong, regaining mana from a miss isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's a leveling or a pvp talent rather than a raiding one. The talent as a whole seemed like an odd one for the blues to highlight.


Flame Orb: I like the spell, I dislike the concept behind how it works. Having it fire as a straight line spell just seems incredibly unwieldy, both in PvE and PvP. It would really function better in a Princes style - that is it focuses on a target, deals small AoE on the way there, and explodes on impact dealing damage to the target and smaller AoE damage to those around. If they gave it a Princes size range (I admit this won't happen) it would be an incredibly fun ability to fire into the distance in BGs.

In the quest to make this spell function uniquely, however, they run the risk of making it function poorly.

Time Warp (level 83): You can't really complain about getting Bloodlust. It does feel slightly like we haven't really gained anything though - we already have this, the only difference is that we can push the button ourselves now. I'd be interested to see how the run speed works - ie will be be a short term dash or a long term 10% buff etc.

It does fit the Arcane feel, though I would have much prefered to see something new - ie a Time Stop effect for Arcane - that's really just wishlisting, however.

Wall of Fog: This will be fun in rated BGs. I suspect, also, that mages will play a part in kiting in certain PvE encounters. With three mages you could chain Walls of Fog for example to keep something permanently kited.

Arcane Missiles is being redesigned to become a proc-based spell: This will certainly make other specs more fun at low levels. I feel a little uncomfortable with all mages dishing out missiles but that's just a flavour issue. I will assume Missile Barrage will become 'passive' for Arcane. That is any missiles we fire will always be double speed, and perhaps the talent will increase the proc chance.

Something will need to be introduced to ensure Arcane can function at low levels - at the moment they're running out of buttons to push.

We are planning to remove spells that don't have a clear purpose. Amplify Magic, Dampen Magic, Fire Ward, and Frost Ward are being removed from the game, and we may remove more: At first glance I hate this. This is possibly because I've retained IA and still use wards on certain fights. If IA is being removed anyway most the incentive is gone. Still, in terms of additional survivability in the Wards are great, and in PvP there are several glyphs and talents that play off the wards.

Mana Adept: Arcane should be about mana management but I'm not sure this is the way to go about it. For a spec that can burn through mana faster than any other single target spec, adding the necessity to maintain full mana feels clunky. I can appreciate the effort to give us a more interesting mastery than just +arcane damage but this feels difficult to manage. Rather than gain burst as people are suspecting, we'll lose it, because under all cooldowns we will quickly burn through mana, meaning 10 or so seconds in we're already operating at lower damage.

Deathfrost: I wouldn't be surprised if this was tweaked to exclude Frost spells. If the bonus builds up to quick it's going to result in killer ice lances and frostfire bolts in PvP. Frost mages could potentially build up a stack via frostbolts then unleash a huge frostfire bolt/ice lance shatter combo. I think this is geared more toward the new Arcane proc than anything else.

Yeah. Remember, one of the reasons people tend to say "we'll cap hit no matter what" is because we've historically had to deal with encounters where a missed Counterspell or Spellsteal (or Taunt, for a Warrior) can be disastrous. But there's a simple solution to that problem, which GC has talked about as a possibility: just make it so those spells can't miss. If they do that, then Hit becomes just another DPS stat, and we'll only cap it if that's the most efficient use of our available itemization.