Mage changes

[Hymn]

Scale: Terrible < Stupid < CONFUUUUUUUUUUSE < Meh < Nifty < Cool < Tits


Flame Orb: Cool

Time Warp: Tits

Wall of fog: Nifty

AM being a proc: cool

Removing Wards: Stupid, I liked them.

Improving conjured food: cool, it sucks for the first 70 or so levels

Scorch being useful in a rotation: Tits

Arcane Focus: Terrible

Playing with fire change: Meh

Pyromaniac change: Nifty

Burnout change: Tits

Mana Adept: Stupid

Ignite: Tits

Deathfrost: CONFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE

[Suin]

any chance I can get you to paste the updates in here?  work firewalls make baby jesus cry

[Falaenx]

As requested.


In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we’ll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you’ll get an early look at what's in store for the mage class, including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents, and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.

New Mage Spells

Flame Orb (available at level 81): Inspired by Prince Taldaram’s abilities in Ahn'kahet and Icecrown Citadel, this spell allows the mage to cast a flaming orb that travels in front in a straight line, sending beams that cause fire damage to passing targets. Once it’s cast, the mage is free to begin casting other spells as the Flame Orb travels. While the spell will be useful to any spec, Fire mages will have talents that improve it, possibly causing the Flame Orb to explode when it reaches its destination.

Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It also temporarily increases the mage's own movement speed. Time Warp will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you can’t benefit from both if you’ve got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

Wall of Fog (level 85):Creates a line of frost in front of the mage, 30 yards from end to end. Enemies who cross the line are snared and take damage. The mana cost will be designed to make Wall of Fog efficient against groups, not individuals. This spell is intended to give mages a way to help control the battlefield, whether the mage is damaging incoming enemies (Blizzard can be channeled on top of Wall of Fog) or protecting a flag in a Battleground. 10-second duration. 30-second cooldown.


Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to introducing new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

    * Arcane Missiles is being redesigned to become a proc-based spell. Whenever the mage does damage with any spell, there is a chance for Arcane Missiles to become available, similar to how the warrior’s Overpower works. The damage and mana cost of this spell will be reworked to make it very desirable to use when available. This change should make gameplay more dynamic for the mage, particularly at low levels.
    * 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.
    * The ability to conjure food and water will not become available until higher levels (likely around level 40), as we're making changes to ensure mages generally won’t run out of mana at lower levels. Once mages learn how to conjure food and water, the conjured item will restore both health and mana.
    * Scorch will provide a damage bonus to the mage's fire spells. Our goal is for Scorch to be part of the mage's rotation and a useful damage-dealing ability, even if someone else is supplying the group with the spell Critical Strike debuff. Scorch will provide the mage with more specific benefits, which can also be improved through talents.



New Talents and Talent Changes

    * Arcane Focus will now return mana for each spell that fails to hit your target, including Arcane Missiles that fail to launch. We want Arcane mages to have several talents that play off of how much mana the character has and give the player enough tools to manage mana.
    * The talent Playing with Fire will reduce the cooldown of Blast Wave when hit by a melee attack, instead of its current effect.
    * Pyromaniac will grant Haste when three or more targets are getting damaged by the effects of your damage-over-time (DoT) fire spells.
    * The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast spells using health when they run out of mana.



Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Arcane

    * Spell damage
    * Spell Haste
    * Mana Adept


Mana Adept: Arcane will deal damage based how much mana the mage has. For example, Arcane mages will do much more damage at 100% mana than at 50% mana. If they begin to get low on mana, they will likely want to use an ability or mechanic to bring their mana up to increase their damage.

Fire

    * Spell damage
    * Spell Crit
    * Ignite


Ignite: All direct-damage fire spells will add a damage-over-time (DoT) component when cast. The flavor will be similar to how Fireball works; however, the DoT component will be much stronger.

Frost

    * Spell damage
    * Spell Crit damage
    * Deathfrost


Deathfrost: Casting Frostbolt places a buff on the mage that increases the damage for all frost, fire, and arcane spells. The only damage spell that won't be affected by this buff is Frostbolt.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we’re looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.


Additional Information
Quote from Blizzard staff
Flame Orb
Flame Orb is not channeled. It may have a cast time, but after that is fire and forget. We want to try the line idea because there aren’t any spells that work that way currently. Giving it a target to follow makes it feel more like a fancy dot – useful perhaps, but nothing that feels really new. It will be balanced for single-target damage, but if you can launch it in such a way that it will hit multiple targets, then you’re just being awesome. (Source)

Wall of Fog
Wall of Fog is not channeled. We don’t know yet how wide it will be, but wide enough so that it feels more like a trip-wire than an area like Frost Trap. (Source)

Hot Streak
We like the basic gameplay of Hot Streak. With lower crit rates all around, we hope that it will feel more like a bonus when it’s up rather than a penalty when it refuses to stay up. We may lower the magnitude overall for the same reason. (Source)

Arcane Missiles
On Arcane Missiles, the basic spell is pretty cool. The problem is the way the spell works makes the current design hard to balance. It’s either too expensive and low damage or the opposite problem. This is particularly true at low level, and meanwhile we think the mage experience at low level is also a little too repetitive. The change is that you can’t hit Arcane Missiles whenever you want. The icon is just grayed out. However, when you deal damage, you have a chance to get Arcane Missiles to light up and then you definitely want to hit it. At higher levels Fire and Frost may eventually phase it out in preference for other spells, or if we like the mechanic, it may be something even Fire and Frost do, just less often than Arcane. (Source)

Mastery Bonuses
On the topic of mastery bonuses, understand that this is a new design for us and very few people have seen them in action yet. We run the risk of specific masteries being so generic that the mastery stat isn’t interesting or so complex that what players really like about playing a certain spec gets turned on its head. This is the kind of thing that will require a lot of iteration and the reason we’re trying to cover the whole gamut of relatively complex to relatively simple to see what feels right. (Source)

Deathfrost
The reason behind Deathfrost (Frost mastery) isn’t to get Frost to spam Frostbolt more. It’s to get mages to spam Frostbolt less. If you hit nothing but Frostbolt, you’re wasting the Deathfrost bonus. (Source)

Food and Water
We’re shifting food and water to higher level because we don’t want players to have so much down time at lower level. We’re not trying to make it harder to level; we’re reducing the need to drink or eat so we’re bumping the actual food and water (though it’s really foodwater in the case of mages) higher. (Source)

Mana Adept
The intent behind Mana Adept (Arcane mastery) is that Arcane currently has a pretty fun mana management game going, at least at relatively high level. We thought it would be fun to extend that concept even further to where Arcane mages that use the mechanics to keep their mana high would do higher dps. I find many of the predictions that Arcane is doomed in PvE based on the very limited information you have at the moment to be quite premature. (Source)

Time Warp vs Bloodlust
On Time Warp vs. Bloodlust, we are really trying to give groups flexibility in who they bring to 10 player raids to an even greater extent than we did in Lich King. We heard over and over that shaman still felt like the one mandatory class in any raid. The more we hear “now there will be no reason to take me over X class / spec” the happier we will be. The reason should be that you’re a good player, not that your mere presence makes everyone else perform better. It’s fun to feel more powerful in a group – we get that, and we aren’t going to completely marginalize group synergy. But it needs to come secondary to the skill of the players involved. (Source)

Fire Ward / Dampen Magic
I understand some mages really like Fire Ward or Dampen Magic. Perhaps “no clear role” wasn’t the best choice of words, but we are trying to remove mechanics from the game that we think aren’t really cutting it. When asking players to put more buttons on their action bars from these new spells, we only think it’s fair to try and get some bar space back from the least interesting spells. Don’t worry so much about balance at this stage. Many things will need to be tweaked. Worry more about whether it ever felt like a fun decision to use these spells. (Source)

Rogue/Mage/Priest Arena Comp
For everyone focusing on the RMP Arena comp, I really think you’re going to see a shift to more PvP concerns in Cataclysm being about Battleground balance. There will still be players playing Arenas for sure, but a lot of the players currently doing Arenas are going to shift to rated BGs instead. (Source)

Healing reduction effects in Cataclysm
"All equivalent debuffs" means if you have the debuff today, you will have it in Cataclysm, but at 20% healing received. To avoid further confusion, we are talking about Mortal Strike, Furious Strikes, Wound Poison, Aimed Shot, Permafrost and Improved Mind Blast.

We are also strongly considering having all of these effect cause the same debuff, called Mortal Wounds, which is a physical effect and therefore undispellable. This allows the behavior to be more consistent regardless of who is applying it and lets us consider things like how easy it should be to dispel poisons (since Mortal Wounds would not be affected).

Heals will be smaller and health pools will be larger in Cataclysm, so we don't expect Mortal Wounds to feel as mandatory as it does today, but this is clearly the kind of thing that will require a lot of playtesting and feedback. (Source)

[FizzyMyNizzy]

Time Warp  is level 85
Ring of Frost is level 83


Not to sure which one i would go.. Fire or Arcane.. hmmmm

[Suin]

So, I've been happy with my arcane build up until this latest patch and the Fire shit just looks too tasty to turn down.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what the F I'm doing with the Fire build.  Everything seems like it's instacast if something is proccing, and scorch can be cast while moving, etc etc etc.

Could someone give me a simple breakdown of what the rotation looks like, and what I need to maintain? 

Do I need to always have 3 LB's going? 
Am I valuing crit over haste?
Yadda yadda.

<===  Noob Fire Mage

[Omegaman]

So, I've been happy with my arcane build up until this latest patch and the Fire shit just looks too tasty to turn down.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what the F I'm doing with the Fire build.  Everything seems like it's instacast if something is proccing, and scorch can be cast while moving, etc etc etc.

Could someone give me a simple breakdown of what the rotation looks like, and what I need to maintain?  

Do I need to always have 3 LB's going?  
Am I valuing crit over haste?
Yadda yadda.

<===  Noob Fire Mage

This explanation *ONLY* applies to level 80.  The fire game will change a good bit at level 85.

Fire has changed a little and a lot all at the same time.  In terms of rotation, it's much more dynamic now and you are rewarded very nicely for taking advantage of AoE opportunites.  DoTs and DoT damage is much more important now than every before.  

"Stand and Nuke" rotation:

LB > Hot Streak (Pyro) > Fireball -- look familiar? -- it is.  However, it's not as simple as this.  

• Maintaining Critical Mass is important, not just for you but for the raid if you are the only one in the raid applying the debuff.  Provided you have sufficient Hot Streak procs, your Pyroblast should be able to keep Critical Mass up on the boss.  If for some reason you lose your Critical Mass, simply cast a Scorch to reapply the debuff.
  
  
• But what about Impact?  When impact procs, your Fire Blast cooldown is refreshed (or supposed to refresh which I have found to be bugged because it isn't always refreshing the CD on what seems to be back to back Impact procs.  However, I've been unsuccessful to duplicate this bug with any consistency to nail down the exact reason for the bug).  By itself, Fire Blast isn't very powerful and alone casting it upon Impact proc will waste a GCD when you could be casting a more powerful Fireball and thus result in a dps loss.  However, Impact *will* refresh your dots on your target.  If you get a nice Pyroblast crit, you'll be doing very large Ignite damage in addition to the Pyroblast DoT.  In this situation, casting Impact before these DoTs wear off, will refresh the DoTs and extend the damage of these DoTs considerably.  In summary, there is a right and wrong time to use Impact.
  
  
• What about using Frostfire Bolt vs. Fireball?  Currently the numbers are still being tested on this.  You *will* need to equip Glyph of Frostfire to remain competitive with Fireball.  However, casting Frostfire Bolts will make it easier to max your dps from Impact and Combustion with the Frostfire DoT already being applied.  Personally, since I'm still learning how to max my dps using Impact/Combustion and from the little testing I've done, it still looks like Fireball is still higher dps.  This will probably change at lvl 85 with higher higher ranks (scale) of Fireball and Frostfire in addition to gear/haste values on our gear.  If you do some testing on this, please post your results.
  
  
• So what about my cooldowns?  Mirror Image and Combustion -- when do I use them?  Mirror Image hasn't really changed a whole lot except for the revamped Glyph of Mirror Image which is now a minor glyph and a dps loss over the previous version.  Early testing shows that the different spells from the Mirror Image are for aesthetics only and Mirror Images don't proc Winter's Chill, Ignite, or Arcane Missiles.  Don't equip this glyph thinking you are getting a dps increase -- not that there are tons of options for minor glyphs anyway.  Combustion, however, isn't so simple.  Combustion adds up all the current damage from the *current* DoTs on your target and adds them together to create a new DoT with the damage equal to the total of the other DoTs.  This damage is based on the DoT damage (i.e. 1000 damage over 5 seconds would be 200 damage) per second summed -- not the total damage of the DoT.   Ideally, you want to cast Combustion when you have all your DoTs on a target at the same time.  It will only add up DoTs from Ignite, Pyroblast, Frostfire Bolt (glyphed), and Living Bomb. Thankfully, we have a very nice, simple, and compact addon to handle this for us.  CombustionHelper is downloaded from Curse.
  
  
• The Living Bomb mechanic has changed in some important ways.  First, the damage from the Glyph of Living Bomb has changed, now adding 3% damage to the DoT.  Secondly, the damage from the Living Bomb when it explodes is now capped at 3 targets.  Also, the damage of the explosion at the end of the living bomb is capped at 3 targets.  Third, and probably most importantly, you *can* recast Living Bomb on a target currently afflicted by your Living Bomb.  In other words, you can clip the Living Bomb now when attempting to reapply it to your target.  Clipping Living Bomb could potentially be a huge dps loss -- so don't do it at any cost unless you are attempting to time it with maximizing your Impact and/or adding to your Combustion DoT.  I think you may be able to macro your living bomb to prevent clipping, but I've yet to find, write, or test one.  You asked if you need to maintain 3 LBs up?  I would think that if you have multiple targets ( >= 3 ) that won't die before the LBs go off on them, then you'd get some nice AoE damage out of them.  However, I caution you when applying them that you ensure you don't overwrite another one of your LBs thinking you haven't applied it to that target.  Additionally, you need to ensure you don't cast it on more than 3 targets at a time without thinking.  Just be much smarter than you were before the patch about applying multiple LBs.

The AoE game:

As I mentioned above, we now have some great tools and mechanics from out talents to make our AoE abilities very powerful if played intelligently.  Here they are in detail:

• Flamestrike (talented) is now instant cast.  It's essentially the same mechanic before but you don't need to proc an instant cast Flamestrike.  The new and interesting mechanic to the Improved Flamestrike talent is our Blast Wave.  If your Blast Wave hits >= 2 targets, then you'll automatically have a Flamestrike cast on the same location.
  
  
• As I mentioned above, Living Bomb is now capped at 3 targets.  This is great AoE damage when the explosions go off.  Just make certain you don't overwrite them or clip them.
  
  
• Impact now spreads DoTs to all (currently unlimited) targets in a 12 yard radius of your Impact target.  Understand all DoTs currently on your Impact target will be duplicated in both damage and duration to those targets.  This means, you'd be foolish to cast Impact on a target with DoTs on the target having only ~1 second left on them.  Timing of your Impact can mean very large dps numbers to almost negligible difference.  Use ClassTimer or some other DoT timer addon to track DoTs on your targets.  Fire in Cataclysm will be much more about "DoT watching" if you intend to min/max your dps with your abilities.
  
  

You were asking valuing crit over haste.  This is a very good question for Fire specs and has an extensively "mathy" answer.  Blizzard devs did something unique and headscratching with Hot Streak procs (relying on your crit % for procs).  They implemented 2 talents in our tree which are linked to each other (you can't pick up the Improved version without picking up the normal one) and completely counteract each other as you gain crit % -- Hot Streak and Improved Hot Streak.  Without going into the explanation, I'll just link the graphs from a couple guys who did do the math on the EJ forums.  From the graphs it would appear that the first talented Hot Streak no longer gives any benefit around 47% crit chance translating to around a 20% Hot Streak proc rate.  After 47% the crit/HS proc ratio is linear according to the Improved Hot Streak talent.  Does this mean anything over 47% is a waste?  It remains to be seen.  It hasn't been shown exactly yet if after 47% crit whether more crit, haste, or mastery is the better stat.  For now, from the graphs, it would seem that Blizzard intended 47% to be enough crit to keep the proc rate on Pyroblast (and consequently Critical Mass) sufficient for dps, but not distracting enough that you will always be procing it (pre 4.0.1), deeming the other fire talents/abilities useless by comparison.  Stay tuned...

[Suin]

Omega, first off...thanks a bunch for the great writeup.  I had guessed at some of the conclusions but wasnt confident in my interpretations.

I'm at work just now, so I cant check my armory to see where I'm at with regards to crit % to see if I'm over the 47% and should start working in more haste/mastery.

I'm really thankful for the link to the combustion mod as that was my biggest blind spot, knowing when to cast it for max benefit, and I hadnt even realised that it duplicated the duration so I think I was probably using it poorly in my testing. 

As you explained, I was under the impression that the mirror image glyph was more than simply cosmetic, so I'll find another one to swap in there.

Speaking to Critical Mass, I seemed to have a hard time keeping it on the boss dummy target with just the Pyro procs, but when I started working in Scorch it felt like I was taking a major DPS drop.  Is there some trick to maximising that by utilizing the talent where you can cast Scorch while moving?  Does that make it an instacast while moving?  (Admittedly, I dont know if I'm at/above the 47% mark so this may just be a case where I need to stack some more crit).

As for AE, the dummies in IF are situated where I could only work on 2 at a time so wasnt really able to see the whole 3 LB targets and getting the haste buff, and more targets for BW/Flamestrike.

Last question, is Fire really that much better than Arcane at the moment?  I'm sure I can eek out some more dps from Fire with more practice and not clipping LB to get the rotation down, but I know arcane very well and it seemed to have a bigger boost with the additional cooldowns.

[Omegaman]

Omega, first off...thanks a bunch for the great writeup.  I had guessed at some of the conclusions but wasnt confident in my interpretations.

No problem.

I'm at work just now, so I cant check my armory to see where I'm at with regards to crit % to see if I'm over the 47% and should start working in more haste/mastery.

Don't forget you'll get 5% spell crit from Critical Mass

I'm really thankful for the link to the combustion mod as that was my biggest blind spot, knowing when to cast it for max benefit, and I hadnt even realised that it duplicated the duration so I think I was probably using it poorly in my testing. 

Combustion doesn't duplicate duration - Impact does.  Impact simply refreshes the DoTs you currently have on your targets and spreads them to other targets with the same damage and duration left on your current target.  Also, realize CombustionHelper has been under heavy development (almost an update every 2 days), so check back often for potentially more features to the addon.

As you explained, I was under the impression that the mirror image glyph was more than simply cosmetic, so I'll find another one to swap in there.

I guess if there is some crazy mob or mechanic in Cataclysm (which I highly doubt) which renders one school immune to damage, then that'd be the only reason to equip that glyph.

Speaking to Critical Mass, I seemed to have a hard time keeping it on the boss dummy target with just the Pyro procs, but when I started working in Scorch it felt like I was taking a major DPS drop.  Is there some trick to maximising that by utilizing the talent where you can cast Scorch while moving?  Does that make it an instacast while moving?  (Admittedly, I dont know if I'm at/above the 47% mark so this may just be a case where I need to stack some more crit).

We lost quite a bit of spell crit since the patch.  Reforging your spirit or any extra hit on your gear can help you recover some of that.  Even assuming 50% crit, with a 2 second Fireball that's 15 casts, with 7.5 of them critting, and hopefully 2 of them will be back to back.  Scorch is only about 1.25 sec. cast, so casting it once in a while shouldn't kill your dps too much, considering your Pyros will refresh the Critical Mass debuff.  Additionally, if locks have Imp Shadow Bolt/Shadow and Flame, they'll be reapplying the buff much more often and you won't have to worry about it.

In terms of casting Scorch, it simply replaces Fireball/FFB in your rotation.  You can move 100% of a fight spamming Scorch and still keep LB up, cast Pyros on Hot Streak procs, and Impact -- because they are all instant cast.  I was moving 100% of the time on a Silvermoon test dummy and still proc'ing all my goodies and maintaining 9-10Kish dps in my gear.  Understand too, I actually got bored doing that because I stopped after about 5 mins of dpsing with 60% mana.  I think Scorching in Cata will be much more viable and will be used to replace Fireball/FFB in order to maintain a good dps rotation while not burning through your mana (pardon the pun).

As for AE, the dummies in IF are situated where I could only work on 2 at a time so wasnt really able to see the whole 3 LB targets and getting the haste buff, and more targets for BW/Flamestrike.

I don't know the alliance city training dummy configurations to tell you which city to go to test your AoE.

Last question, is Fire really that much better than Arcane at the moment?  I'm sure I can eek out some more dps from Fire with more practice and not clipping LB to get the rotation down, but I know arcane very well and it seemed to have a bigger boost with the additional cooldowns.

At the moment, Arcane *can* be pretty powerful -- not only getting your rotations correct, but if you are perfect with your use of Evocate, Mana Gems and are getting pumped with mana by other raid members (Hymn of Hope, Innervate, etc.)  This is a pretty blind statement because I haven't tested Arcane yet, but I think if you are getting pumped with mana, I think on a grossly non-movement fight, Arcane mages will probably still top a fire mage in total damage.  Additionally, Arcane seems really, really boring right now and doesn't seem to have near the complexity or dynamic rotation that Fire currently has.  To ask me which is *better* at this point is relative, esp. considering in 5 weeks, the game will change again for both specs.  I think focusing too much on min/maxing each spec right now in order to determine their relative strengths seems a bit of a waste of time.  But that's just me, hehe.

[Suin]

I guess the litmus I'm working with atm is that out guild hasnt downed LK yet and I'm trying to maximize what I've got on my mage to help us there as it seems my rogue's DPS has plummeted and I'm not terrobly confident in my DK Tank rotation so I'm thinking mage is my most likely contributor to downing LK in the next couple weeks.

[Omegaman]

If you are really only going/working on LK, Fire is probably the better choice.  Attempting to manage your dps/mana with arcane, at the moment might be frustrating with a 15 min fight, if you don't get any mana cooldowns from others.  Fire is a bit more consistant and having done LK 10 man on my mage as fire since 4.0.1, I struggled at the very very end for mana, but I also wasn't popping my mana gems efficiently, so I'm sure I would've been fine had I not screwed that up.  Anyway, just some thoughts and observations.

[Suin]

Preciate the insight.  I had kind of forgotten about the whole managing your mana to maximize dps part of arcane....so stupid.