Melee mages!

I dinged 80 and finally got the Mirror Image, the spell which is supposed to be at par with metamorphosis or exotic pets in coolness. I popped the spell, which summoned 3 copies of myself. They didn't seem to do anything until I hit a monster with a spell. They then fireblasted and ran into melee range with the mob, only to be summarily slaughtered. Oh well, perhaps I just don't know how to use the spell.

Try #2. This time I started with a Frost Nova, and the images fireblasted and started pelting the enemy with frostbolts. So far, so good. But why isn't the mob's health budging? I looked at the combat log, which showed that the mirror images only do about 100 damage per fireblast, and around 250 damage per frostbolt. Er.. what?

Try #3, PvP. An Alliance shadowpriest used Shadow Word: Death to kill one of my mirror images, which aggroed the other two. One of them casted Polymorph:  Penguin, and the other.. casted fireblast. Great, they're not only ineffectual, they're also morons.

Try #4, water elemental. Considering that the mirror images seem to use only frostbolts, polymorph and fireblasts, I wanted to see what they would do against a frost-immune mob. Sure enough, after the initial fireblast they didn't cast frostbolt.. instead, they started meleeing the elemental. And not only that, they were doing around 600 damage per glancing blow! They're actually more effective in melee than with spells. I feel bad complaining about my copies meleeing in various quests: the AI was obviously making the most of it's abilities.

Taking It Slow

Because I've been using the Only Spec for quite some time, I think I'll start with a fairly conservative 0/60/11. It has all of the oldies and the new fire goodies as well. Also, I currently don't have the mats for a Soulfrost on my Tempest of Chaos.

Negative synergies

While browsing the WotLK alpha wiki I spotted these two talents:

Burnout - Increases your spell critical damage bonus with all Fire spells by 5/10/15/20/25% but every time you critical with a Fire spell you lose an additional ?[internal entry blank]% of your total mana.

Hot Streak - Any time you cause 3 spell criticals in a row you have a 33%/66%/100% chance the next spell will gain 100% increased chance to score a critical hit.

So, if you crit you'll burn a percentage of your mana, and if you happen to chaincrit you crit some more. Hopefully Hot Streak has an internal cooldown or a counter that resets whenever it activates. But even then the "synergy" between these two talents can be devastating to the sustained damage of fire mages. Assuming you don't overaggro first, that is.

Things left unsaid

WoW Insider has a few articles on mage vs warlock rivalry. And I'm a bit conflicted on what to say.

I could say "I told you so". I could say that they need to QQ less and pew pew more. I could say that I outdamage warlocks. I could say that complacency kills. I could say that our arsenal of AoE skills balances things out. I could say that the utility we provide is enough to tip the scales. I could say that nobody is a "pure" class anymore. I could say it'll be better in 2.4 or at the Wrath of the Lich King. I could say that Blizzard just needs to fix the itemization. I could say a lot of things. I could even say that I don't care anymore.

But I'd just be lying.

Fighting my inner demons

Kalgan:

Mages will get new abilities in the expansion too, believe it or not. In fact, we intend to tone down how strong of a counter warlocks are to mages through the wotlk spells/talents.

Must.. not.. make.. a.. cynical.. comment..

Oo, shiny!

We're back in Black Temple after the holidays and proceed to Teron Gorefiend without major hitches. But then I do something completely foolish that had me cursing myself for the rest of the evening (and probably the next week). I bid on the Robe of the Shadow Council.

A caster robe with decent stats, lots of spelldamage and spell crit. How's that bad? It's bad because this item level 141 robe was worse than the item level 105 robe I was wearing, the Frozen Shadoweave Robe. Let's look at the stats, shall we?

Robe of the Shadow Council:
37 Stamina
36 Intellect
26 Spirit
28 Spell Critical Strike Rating
73 Spell Damage and Healing

Frozen Shadoweave Robe
30 Stamina
20 Intellect
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Socket bonus: 3 Spell Hit Rating
72 Shadow Damage
72 Frost Damage

At first glance, the choice seems obvious. Roughly the same spelldamage, but the former has more spell crit. As always, the devil is in the details, or in this case, sockets. If you equip the Frozen Shadoweave Robe with a Veiled Noble Topaz, (+4 spell hit and +5 spell damage) and a Glowing Nightseye (+5 spell damage and +6 stamina), you'll increase the stats by 7 Spell Hit, 10 Spell Damage and 5 Stamina.

Let's look at the new stats.
36 Stamina
20 Intellect
7 Spell Hit
82 Spell Damage.


Now, is 9 Spell Damage and 7 Spell Hit worse than 28 Spell Critical, which is 1.27% crit? Nope.

Let's factor in the remaining stat differences. 1 extra Stamina equals 10 hp, and 16 extra intellect equals +0.2% more crit. If you factor in Improved Divine Spirit from a friendly priest, you get 2.6 extra spell damage (10% of your Spirit) from it. So here's the final results:

+10 HP
-6 Spell Damage (rounded)
-7 Spell Hit
+1.29% Spell Crit

With my gear, that's roughly a 20 dps loss. Giving up 20 dps for 10 hp is simply not worth it. And as a final reminder, this is a comparison of item level 105 and item level 141 robes. Pre-Karazhan loot should not even compete in the same league as Black Temple loot and definitely not outperform it. I could go on a rant about how clueless Blizzard item designers are, but.. It's not the fool who asks, it's the fool who pays. In this case, me.

Schizophrenic set design

The Hunter’s Mark recently discussed hunter set bonuses, so I'll do the same for mage sets.

As a rule, mage set design has always been.. schizophrenic. There's the sets with simply awful bonuses: Magister (dungeon set 1), Sorcerer (dungeon set 2a), Ironweave (dungeon set 2b), Vaulted Secrets (AQ20), Incanter(dungeon set 3a). People who designed those sets have no idea of overall mage gameplay. No intelligent mage is going to stand still and let his Mana Shield absorb hits while chaincasting Flamestrike. Not only it's suicidial, it also fails to provide adequate DPS due to having to recast Mana Shield. Even a Mana Shield amplified by set bonuses is only going to take 2-3 hits at most from non-raid mobs before crumbling, which means you have to recast it. Recasting Mana Shield leaves no time to take advantage of the reduced cast time on Flamestrike, so you end up doing minimal DPS and using all of your mana while doing it.

Then there's the okayish sets, like Arcanist(tier 1), Enigma(AQ40) and Tempest(tier 6). Definitely worth collecting, but could be eclipsed by careful itemization. If you head to Molten Core wearing Magister, Arcanist is certainly an upgrade. It's less so if you have cleared Zul'Gurub or gotten most of the better level 60 blues. Still, the decent 8-piece bonus of -15% threat helps a lot.

Enigma has a spec-specific set bonus, but makes up for it by having pretty hefty stats and a nice proc for boss fights if you didn't have Spell Hit capped (most mages didn't).

Tempest is currently the set with the highest itemlevels of mage gear, so it's best by default. It might eventually be eclipsed by stuff that drops from the Sunwell Plateau, but will hold up pretty well until that. The 2-piece bonus is a bit underwhelming when compared to the equivalent Frostfire one, but the 4-piece bonus is exactly what mages need: more damage.

Then there's the nifty sets, worth having for simply the set bonuses: Netherwind (tier 2) and Frostfire (tier 3). All set bonuses are useful and the items themselves are nothing to scoff at. Furthermore, the set bonuses are useful for all mages, regardless of spec.

Finally, there's the bizarre sets. Aldor (tier 4) is mediocre as a PvE set, but has a few of the most useful set bonuses ever for PvP. Pushback immunity and shorter cooldowns on PoM/Blastwave/Ice Block. Either of those bonuses would have been welcomed with cheers if those were put into the Gladiator set(s).

Then there's Illusionist (Zul'Gurub), an another oddball set. It has the bread-and-butter spelldamage bonuses, but then mixes the promising set up with reduced mana cost to buffs and Flamestrike cast time reduction. Even pre-nerf, Arcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance mana costs were a non-issue. When you are buffing, you usually have plenty of time to do so. And since you can conjure your own mana drinks, you always have ample mana. Then there's the Flamestrike bonus. An okayish generic set which has a spec-specific set bonus in the end? And to get the said set bonus, you have to wear Hazza'rah's Charm of Magic, which boosts Arcane damage, not Fire. Is Illusionist a generic set, a fire mage set or an Arcane mage set? I really cannot say.

Finally, there's Tirisfal (tier 5). If there ever was an argument why mages should get alternate sets like most of the other classes, Tirisfal is it. It's exclusively designed for Arcane mages. For all others, Arcane Blast not only provides substandard DPS, it also is an order of magnitude more expensive than the other nuke spells (Fireball, Frostbolt). No sane frost/fire mage would ever want to make it even more expensive.

Mage Class Concerns

Vaneras has requested feedback on the mage class. I've posted on the thread as well, but here's the short version: Inferiority Complex.

Oh, you wanted the long version? Quoting Wikipedia:

An inferiority complex, in the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis, is a feeling that one is inferior to others in some way. Such feelings can arise from an imagined or actual inferiority in the afflicted person. It is often subconscious, and is thought to drive afflicted individuals to overcompensate, resulting either in spectacular achievement or extreme antisocial behavior, or both. Unlike a normal feeling of inferiority, which can act as an incentive for achievement, an inferiority complex is an advanced state of discouragement, often resulting in a retreat from difficulties.

Overcompensation? Check. Extreme antisocial behavior? Check. Advanced state of discouragement? Check. Retreat from difficulties? Check.

Is it simply in our heads? Most of it, yes. But there are some real issues, some of which I listed on the feedback thread. Since the thread rules forbade me from discussing them at length or offering suggestions, I'll do it here. Since 95% of my non-RP playtime is either raiding or preparing to raid, I'll ignore 5-man PvE and PvP completely. Off we go then.

Provide a brief description of the areas you feel are most in need of improvement (you may list a maximum of three issues and each issue should be described in one or two sentences).

• Itemization. With the change to Evocation, Spirit is even more useless than it was before, yet it's still very "expensive" to have on an item. This makes all items designed for mages objectively worse than the corresponding warlock items. Even if the differences in individual items are small, they do add up when you compare full sets of gear.
  To fix this, Spirit either needs to removed completely, made significantly cheaper or made worth having at the current cost. Cheaper Spirit would also benefit healers, who do have spell rotations which allow Spirit to work.
  Spell Peneration is an another "junk" stat. Although it's rarer than Spirit and can be useful on some Black Temple bosses.. most of the time it's useless. One way to make it more useful would be to re-introduce the concept of negative resistances. If your Spell Penetration reduces the resistances of your target below zero, he would take extra damage. This would make Spell Penetration useful in fights where the target has zero resistances, such as.. almost all of them.
  
• Comparatively low DPS, in both single-target and AoE. Partially caused by poor itemization. Even with our top-of-the-line gear and min/max:ed talents, we get outdamaged by hybrids on single-target DPS and by warlocks on AoE DPS. I admit that while this can be more about individual skill, (lack of) class synergy and gear, the effect is still real and feeds the inferiority complex.
  But there are some issues that truly require Blizzard's attention, such as Seed of Corruption. The spell itself is pretty nice. A decent amount of AoE damage that doesn't require active targeting and can be chaincasted from a distance. The trouble is that Seed of Corruption scales with other AoE while mage spells do not. Any source of damage can trigger the Seed of Corruption, so if there are other sources of AoE damage present (such as mages), the Seed will detonate immediately for 1200 damage (non-crit, without spelldamage). No AoE spell in the game can compete with the Seed of Corruption in such a situation. Either the scaling needs to be removed or introduced into other spells.
  Single-target DPS inferiority can be divided into two subcategories: Melee and shadow priest + warlock. Melee should always do more DPS than mages because melee DPS is more hazardous than ranged, but the huge variety of melee buffs and procs tilts the favor heavily to melee. Melee classes benefit from increases to their base stats, while the +crit gained from Intellect is mostly neglible. Therefore paladin, shaman and druid buffs benefit melee much more than they benefit casters.
  The other side of the inferiority is shadow priests and warlocks. A competent warlock can already outdamage a mage, but a warlock coupled with a shadow priest can rack up numbers that mages can only dream about.
  Unfortunately, figuring out a way to fix this without introducing more imbalances is hard. Mages do need some classes to buddy up with. Elemental shamans and moonkins could be viable candidates, but the synergy needs to be reciprocal. Aside from Winter's Chill (which is only benefical to Frost Shock) and Fire Vulnerability (which is only useful to Flame Shock), there isn't that much that the mage can provide. The one common thing that these three classes do have is the need for spell crit. Elemental shamans have their totems and Moonkins have their aura, so mages would need something similar. Like a Winter's Chill that worked with all spells.
  
• Mana economy. To try to keep up with other classes in DPS, mages need to sacrifice mana efficiency completely. The design philosophy behind mage tier 5 set and the whole Arcane tree is a perfect example. We need to literally burn much more mana (which we don't have) than other classes to do less damage than they do. The upcoming reusable mana gems will alleviate this somewhat, but don't remove the problem altogether. Mages would need a lot more intellect to wean their addiction to mana potions, and increased +spell crit from the intellect wouldn't hurt either. Add in additional scaling mechanisms as Master of Elements and 3-piece Spellfire set and we might have something viable there. To get that intellect the stat needs to be made cheaper, just like stamina was made cheaper for the Burning Crusade. Warlock gear would delegate those freed item points to stamina (which provides them a dual benefit), while mage gear would get much more intellect-heavy.
  

Yes yes, I love Icy Veins as well!

Since everyone else (and their dogs) have commented about the mage changes in 2.3.2, so must I. Let's get the easy parts out of the way first.

Trainable Ice Block: A vital skill for any PvPer who wishes to live at least 10 seconds. The same reasoning which allowed Improved Arcane Explosion and Evocation to become core class skills applies here as well. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that it wasn't done sooner. Previously I was worried that removing Ice Block would remove one of the few spells that make the frost tree distinct from Fire and Arcane. Fortunately, I was wrong.

Conjure Mana Gem (rank 6), which restores 1800-3000 mana and has three charges: Again, a no-brainer. The current rank 6 Mana Gem was simply pitiful, enough for only a few spells. This one is equivalent to a Super Mana Potion, only on a different cooldown.

Then the juicy part. Icy Veins:

Icy Veins (NEW Frost Talent) decreases casting time of all spells by 20% and increases the chance your chilling effects will freeze the target by 25%. Lasts 20 sec. 3 min cooldown. It is now in the Cold Snap position in the talent tree.

Although Blizzard did break Frostbite completely, a fix is scheduled to appear just in time for this gem of a skill. 20% Spell Haste for 20 seconds is a very nice DPS increase, especially if it also affects the Water Elemental. Some testing is required to see whether this stacks with other periodical Spell Haste effects, but I wouldn't be surprised if some Black Temple & Zul'Aman-farming troll frost mage was already drooling about the concept of being able to chaincast Frostbolts almost as quickly as the Global Cooldown allows.

As for the PvP side, +25% proc rate for Frostbite is pretty significant. Coupled with the casting speed increase it means that a well-timed Icy Veins allows the frost mage to both disable his opponent and follow up with a devastating Shatter combo before he is able to react.

..which is why I doubt that this talent survives the outcry.

Too good to be true?

Taken from the preliminary 2.3 patch notes:
Mage

• Damage coefficient reduction is removed from Improved Fireball/Frostbolt. (Source)
  
• New spell : Ritual of Refreshment. It will allow players to pick up their own stack of food/water, similar to a Soulwell. (Source)
  
• Evocation restores 15% of your total mana every 2 seconds instead of being a spirit-based mana regen increase. (Source)
  
• Arcane Meditation is being increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration. (Source)
  
• Ice Barrier gains additional benefit from spell damage bonuses. However, the base absorb values of ranks 5 and 6 have been reduced. (Source)

Engineering

• New Recipe - Field Repair Bot: Dropped(?) by Gan'arg Analyzers in Blade's Edge Mountains
• New Field Repair Bot is able to buy/sell
• Flying Mount added for Engineers. Regular and Epic version.

Fishing

• Fish Tracking may be learned from a journal, fished from crates
• New fish added near Karazhan and Zul'Aman

Cooking

• New Daily Quests
• New recipes added for fish found near Karazhan and Zul'Aman.

Mage and Engineering buffs in the same patch? Who are you and what have you done with Blizzard?

Mage vs Warlock itemization

I've been watching the "debate" about Evocation with some amusement. Like most mage issues, this is about feeling inferior to warlocks. And in a way, is more of an itemization issue than a specific skill issue, not unlike the one protection paladins face versus protection warriors.

Simply put, a PvE mage needs more types of stats than a warlock.

Mage:
+Spell Damage
+Spell Hit Rating
+Spell Critical Rating
+Mana per 5 seconds
+Intellect
+Stamina
+Spirit

Warlock:
+Spell Damage
+Spell Hit Rating
+Stamina
+Intellect
+Mana per 5 seconds

Each item has a set amount of "item points" at their disposal, depending on item level and rarity. These points are used to "purchase" stats. Different stats also require different amounts of points. For example, Stamina is cheaper than Intellect and Spell Damage is cheaper than Spell Critical Rating.

If we assume that mage and warlock items have the same amount of item points at their disposal, warlock items will always have superior stats, since the item points are spread between fewer and cheaper stats.

If you are a smart mage who wishes to optimize your damage, it is very tempting to skip mage gear and use warlock gear exclusively, even if you won't benefit from all that stamina as much as a warlock could. Many have done exactly that, and I'm one of them. I'm offsetting the negative sides of this choice with a liberal use of consumables.

In a sense, the mage itemization is also a vicious circle. If you are running out of mana even after all of the tricks mentioned in the original thread and here, you might feel tempted to stack up on spirit, but that gimps your damage. Since you do less damage to the raid boss it won't die as quickly and thus the fight gets longer. Which of course requires more spirit gear for you _and_ the healers.

Damn you Faxmonkey!

Some time ago the mages' Spellsteal was nerfed. Buffs that we stole used to take into account our spell damage. While it was fun stealing aggro from bear tanks with 1.7k ticks with the Astromages' Fire Shield, Faxmonkey found an another mob with Fire Shield in a much more interesting location. Alterac Valley. Soon afterwards, the nerf arrived.

Fun with Spellsteal

Fun with Spellsteal,
originally uploaded by Shalkis.

An observant mage can have a life-altering experience with Spellsteal.

Burning Crusade talent updates

WoW Insider has the scoop on new talents. Arcane tree gets a quite intersting 30-point talent called Spell Power, which increases critical strike damage bonus by 50% on all spells. Combined with Ice Shards, that means +150% crits. I suddenly feel tempted to reconsider my deep frost spec..

Burning Crusade mage clarifications

The Defias Messenger got new information on upcoming mage changes on the Burning Crusade. Apparently the Water Elemental is not on a timer, and won't despawn on his own. It's not intended as a tank, but as a source of extra ranged DPS. This makes the reagent cost much more tolerable. Ice Lance is currently underperforming, and will probably be changed as well. Invisibility will wipe aggro, but the post doesn't say whether it can be used on raid bosses.