Mage class changes in patch 3.1, so far
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 6th 2009 at 2:05AM
You can subtitle this post: "Where's my Mage changes at, dawg?"While other classes have been getting some insane changes (no more consumable ammo for Hunter? Huh?), the Mage class was left with little information.
The only major change that really came out in the last day was that there will be a replenishment like talent added, taking the place of Improved Water Elemental. The overall effect will be similar to what Shadow Priests do with their mana regen.
Some of the other things, which we are assuming have been intentionally left vague, include changes to make spirit a more "useful and interesting" statistic for Mages, and increasing a Fire Mage's survivability. There is also a blurb about giving Frost Mages an Ice Lance "Shatter Combo" in PvE encounters.
So if you're like everyone else and scratching your head, asking where are all the more detailed changes... don't panic! We're sure there's a ton more to come.
Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.Filed under: Mage, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
ISMA Feb 6th 2009 2:12AM
nice changes
the water elemental replenish was kind of underpowered
first
Allen Feb 6th 2009 2:26AM
Nerfs incoming! Maybe if you Blink, Slow, and Barrage they will stay back!
Matazuma Feb 6th 2009 3:03AM
Thats the feeling I got reading the blue post
A hard Nerf a-gonna fall
Dalrint Feb 6th 2009 2:38AM
I want to know where my improved water elemental is going!!
It just won't be the same without big blue up most of the time. Maybe he's becoming a permanent pet?
God that would be awesome...
Kadamon Feb 6th 2009 2:45AM
That would be so OP...I'd freakin' love it.
Ilnara Feb 6th 2009 11:21AM
How would a permanent Water-Ele be "OP" exactly? It's uber squishy, worse than a ghoul in that respect, and, as far as our armor goes, along with the pet, even permanent, we wouldn't be as strong as a Hunter Or Death Knight with their pets out.
Not that I think Drippy needs a buff - like permanence, He's a Frost only talent anyways, and that would begin roping people into frost just for the WE, not because Frost is useful say, for raiding as it stands now. Which it's not.
And if they are going to buff frost say, for PvP, then Mana regen was indeed an issue, the lack of over all damage even despite the utility was another.
Ilnara Feb 6th 2009 11:23AM
oops..
"And if they are going to buff frost say, for PvP, then Mana regen was indeed an issue, the lack of over all damage even despite the utility was another."
I mean "PVE" not PvP.
Axel Feb 6th 2009 2:54AM
I guess we wouldn't be panicing over details if vague one paragraph posts weren't marauding WoWInsider today.
Axolotl Feb 6th 2009 3:00AM
Free respecs yay!!!
Ken Feb 6th 2009 3:09AM
Mages are like the last class that needs to be nerfed.
Tank Feb 6th 2009 9:30AM
And clearly you don't play this game. Care to comment on something you know about?
Max Feb 6th 2009 1:02PM
mages are decent for once. Rogues and Druids have been OP for two years now, and they never got nerfed.
stop your whining.
Miles Feb 6th 2009 3:11AM
I think it would be very cool to make a shatter combo which included deep freeze. Currently, it is possible to perform a sort of "extended shatter combo" with deep freeze taking the place of the ice lance at the end of the frost bolt, giving time for a second frostbolt AND an icelance, giving three spells benefiting from the +50% increased crit chance. This isn't useful in a raid setting as bosses are immune to deep freeze, and standard shatter combos (frostbolt with ice lance on second charge of "fingers of frost") are a dps loss once spellpower gets above the 1200-ish mark (due to the global cooldown preventing one from casting another frostbolt straight away and the lack of scaling with SP of ice lance).
I think a great mechanic would be to allow a "deep freeze" debuff (without the stun effect) to be placed on bossses (similar to the way the frostbolt debuff can be placed on bosses, but with an effectiveness of 0% - allowing torment the weak to be active) COMBINED with changing ice lance by either;
a) making it scale with spellpower the way frostbolt does (eg by modifying "empowered frostbolt" to "empowered frost" and having it affect ice lance as well) or;
b) removing ice lance from the global cooldown, allowing a frostmage to start casting the next frostbolt instantly.
I favour a, but this is possibly too great a buff for the class to be balanced in PvP. This could possibly be (at least partly) rectified by only allowing ice lance to scale when the target is "deep frozen". If a player gets deep frozen with their trinket on cooldown they are in deep trouble anyway, so an increase in the burst damage that such an unfortunate suffers would not be a huge decider in matches. I think the b option is even more likely to cause imbalance in PvP play.
This kind of modification would give frost magi a reason to pay attention to their screens, and introduce an element of skill into boss fights as frost, which currently only require one to press 1 repeatedly, occasionally refreshing ice shield if one is too lazy to move out of the way of the AoE.
Magician Bob Feb 6th 2009 4:52AM
The problem with removing ice lance from the global cooldown is macros that look something like this:
/cast ice lance
/cast ice lance
/cast ice lance
/cast ice lance
/cast ice lance
/laugh
..not that I wouldn't thoroughly ENJOY spamming that macro after applying a deep freeze to someone... but yeah, just a LITTLE OP.
Miles Feb 6th 2009 8:20AM
Well, I did say it would leader to an even greater imbalance in PvP.
/sigh - Doesn't mean one can't dream...
John C Feb 6th 2009 10:58AM
You could still remove Ice Lance from the global cooldown while keeping its own cooldown. This would allow a faster rotation of spells during boss fights but not become overpowered in PvP
Rhudaur Feb 6th 2009 3:19AM
I was hoping Frost was going to be turned into our Hypothermia tree, and we would be able to slow health loss in various ways till the healers could get to us, making us the next hybrid class.
If you can't out dps them, why not join them?
Punjab Feb 6th 2009 3:43AM
I hope adding replenishment to the Frost tree comes alongside changes that make it viable for raiding. Otherwise what's the point?
I'd love to raid as frost.
Nerfed Feb 6th 2009 5:05AM
I just hope they won't nerf arcane PvE because ppl QQ about the PvP burst damage. I really like playing my mage as arcane spec versus the pretty boring FFB spec. If they have to do something about PvP I hope it would be something like a longer CD on Abarr so that it doesn't affect the PvE rotation.
What I also would like to see is a solution to the scorch debuff so that it is viable for all specs so that any mage can bring a nice raid crit buff.
As for the replenishment I don't really have any comment apart from that frost doesn't have any real mana issues - at least not compared to arcane so the talent feels somewhat misplased.
Finally I am looking forward to what new wonderful use mages will get from spirit. Especially since Blizzard just stated that mana regen is too big as it is.
Apart from that; PvP as prot pally anyone? :P
Rikitiki Feb 6th 2009 5:19AM
I'm confused, don't frost mages already have a PvE shatter combo? When I get a proc of fingers of frost, I cast two frostfire bolts and deliver an instant ice lance or fireball (if brain freeze is up) just as the second bolt finishes. All three spells get the benefit of fingers of frost, and thus shatter. Combined with ignite, ice shards, and the T7 four-piece bonus, that's a really hefty chunk of damage as long as I'm paying attention to my procs.
As for raiding as frost, I do it. I use this spec: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZfVbcM0hhZhIcskfu0fzxfkh
It may not be the theoretically optimal DPS for me, but I get a lot of control and survivability out of it which is not to be discounted. And really, I think the DPS is pretty competitive... I often top the meters on both aoe-heavy and single-target encounters. The above nuke strategy combined with three or four water elementals and icy veins per boss fight makes up a lot of the difference from omitting the deep fire "glass cannon" talents.