So who is considering re-rolling for WotLK?Follow

I don't quite understand the re-rolling requirements yet, other than that I need a level 55 toon (I assume I can keep the one I have, not have to trade it in or anything?), but I don't see why anyone would have to abandon a mage for a DK, unless you just mean, as a main.

I'm kind of tired of my mage right now, but not because of the class itself, just the HFP is irritating to me, as well as a couple of other things at the level where I am. I still want to grind past that and learn more about the class, as I do love it.

Haven't really played a mage long enough to be disappointed by the new talents, though. When I saw them, I thought "WOW!" :) Then again, I'm still new at it, and can be wow'd by smaller things than those who've been playing for a while.


Meanwhile, I'm leveling my lock and having fun with it too. I dunno that I'll jump on the DK train as soon as it starts, but I may, since there will likely be a ton of people doing it at the same time, thus lots of groups to quest and run instances with... Might be fun, might be a pita. I'll likely give it a try, though.

Trill

I thought Frostfire bolt worked as only one or the other school(with the requisite talents you have) at a time. Is there more about it you've found that I don't know?

According to this, Frostfire Bolt takes into consideration any Frost of Fire talent that effects general frost or fire spell.

Mega-IV is still a major, major nerf compared to a straight 15% damage, especially because it means they have to resummon their pet again. That might be a game-breaker for machine-gin-imp destro, because their imp will lose AI/Mark/Kings/Wis/Spirit.

The destro talent that gives +hit is worth ****, basically; locks still need 16% hit from gear to cap Soulshatter.

Two three builds that looks the strongest to me right now are the machine-gun-imp/fire destro, but that's *highly* dependent on raid damage and imp scaling; deep afflic with either 15 or 21 in destro (basically what's now UA versus Malediction/Ruin); or a modified Felguard/Ruin that grabs Demonic Pact. No matter what, it seems to be a nerf from straight 21/40 if gear is itemized anything like it is now.

I'm wondering. Since the bolt does fire damage primarily, might it not be more effective to take the two points from Arctic Winds(only works when the spell is doing frost damage) and put them into Ice Floes for a faster return on Cold Snap? And maybe Ice Barrier just because?



Edited, Jul 25th 2008 1:06am by Poldaran

Does Burnout not work like other talents and is an increase of the bonus, thus 25% of 50%?

I might be a little outdated on how crit multipliers worked. This is what I assumed:

.5 multiplier as base crit damage
.5 * 2 (Ice Shards)
.5 * 2 * 1.25 (Burnout)
.5 * 2 * 1.25 * 1.03 (CSD or equivalent)
= 1.2875 increased crit damage
1.2875 + 1 (base non-crit damage)
= 2.2875 damage on crit
2.2875 * 1.4 (Ignite)
= 3.2025 total crit damage

Though come to think of it, I thought I remembered CDS being multiplied on like Ignite (increased crit damage) rather than like Ice Shards (increased crit multiplier), which would change it to 3.2445 times base damage.

Edited, Jul 25th 2008 3:49am by lsfreak

I might be a little outdated on how crit multipliers worked. This is what I assumed:

.5 multiplier as base crit damage
.5 * 2 (Ice Shards)
.5 * 2 * 1.25 (Burnout)
.5 * 2 * 1.25 * 1.03 (CSD or equivalent)
= 1.2875 increased crit damage
1.2875 + 1 (base non-crit damage)
= 2.2875 damage on crit
2.2875 * 1.4 (Ignite)
= 3.2025 total crit damage

Though come to think of it, I thought I remembered CDS being multiplied on like Ignite (increased crit damage) rather than like Ice Shards (increased crit multiplier), which would change it to 3.2445 times base damage.


I pretty sure having Spell Power and Ice Shards works like this, so that's how I extrapolated it to Burnout.

.5 x 100% = .5(Ice Shards)
.5 x 50% = .25(Spell Power)
.5 + .5 + .25 = 1.25(Total pre-CSD bonus)
1.25 x 1.03 = 1.29( Total post CSD bonus)
1.29 + 1 = 2.29 Total damage multiplier of crit.

So assuming that, I'm getting:

.5 x 100% = .5(Ice Shards)
.5 x .25 = .125 (Burnout)
.5 + .5 + .125 = 1.125(Total pre-CSD bonus)
1.125 x 1.03 = 1.159 (Total post CSD bonus)
1.159 + 1 = 2.159 (Total multiplier pre-ignite)
2.159 x 1.4 = 3.0226 Total multiplier post ignite

Still a very respectable number, though.

Like Poldaran said, I am a mage. Pure and simple. No other class makes me happy like mage does. Does WotLK mean I won't get a choice spot in a great raiding guild? That's not a problem. I'm not raiding right now and I am still enjoying the game.

/begin rant
No one knows how the frost and fire talent bonuses will stack on frostfire bolt. The author of the arcane brilliance entry admits that he is speculating on how things might apply and that we have to wait for more data.

As I mentioned elsewhere, when I started in March of 2005 mages were the 2nd most popular class. Only rogues were more popular. Now we're narrowly 5th, if trends continue we'll be lucky to be 8th.

As far as endgame raiding (the only part of WoW that I care about) goes our class is broken. When things are broken people look for a silver bullet. That one change that will fix it. For mages there isn't one. Sheeping is way to limited to retain the "best" CC title. Hybrid classes can fill every raid function that we can better than we can and can survive more damage. I am not interested in hearing about ice block or other damage avoidance. Once the cool downs are blown (and they will be) there is no class as squishy as we are. DKs will make this worse.

Blizzard does not care what class we play. Every subscriber on every server could simply stop playing their mage and either move to an alt or start a new class from scratch and Blizzard would not care one bit. As long as we all pay our monthly fee and buy the biannual ex-pac, Blizzard is perfectly happy. There is only ONE thing I can do to influence Blizzard and that is to stop paying them.

I love playing a mage. I won't be re-rolling to another class. I've played everything but hunters enough to know that the only class I really enjoy is the mage. I have no interest in the DK. I'm a raider. I have no interest in the arena. While I occasionally BG with friends, by itself BGs are not enjoyable enough to spend money on. I'm frustrated by the failure of blizzard to provide us a definitive raiding roll to replace the DPS role they nerfed us out of. I'll level my mage to 80. I'll do the instances and rep grinds and attunment quests on the way to make him raid eligible. If when I get there there is not enough demand for mages for the new raids (as is the situation now for BC end game raids) I'll stop playing WoW.

/End rant

Wish I felt better...

Indeed, that is exactly how it works, though the Arcane Brilliance guy is worried that it won't continue to work this way, so that may be what MrFredII is talking about.

Well, as of now, it looks to me, that blizzard has no idea which one of our trees is for what. That raid-boss-freeze-thing (yes I am too lazy to look it up) for frost is like WTF... Fire get no real valuable DPS boost, and frost gets? While arcane seemingly gets nothing really interesting. And the other trees don't seem to get buffed for PvP?

Normally non-hybrid classes have a PvP tree, one for PvE and one for being sucky. Now we'll have a PvP tree, that gets nothing really good new, that will be also for PvE? I mean seriously... that one fire-crit-boost-talent consumes 1% of total mana O.o, isn't that about as useful in raids as being shot in the head while playing?

At least in my opinion I wish we were way up there with our damage, both in PvP and in PvE, and the very top in AoE damage. Also I'd love our aoe to hurt once again in PvP, because now you jump into a group of players and will only get silenced stunned feared, and if you're very lucky might manage to get some enemies down about 30%, that will get instantly fixed by a flashheal crit -.-

You seriously need to only watch a warrior dps or PvP video, when they use some aoe abilities... mages-are-king-of-aoe my ***... same with warlocks, though they also have to use a spellcast and its rather bad if the mob/players concentrate all damage on em, unlike with warriors.

At the moment, apart from some changes that should be made we're still quite ok, if the WotLK talens and spells stay this way, I'm quite certain we won't be anymore. But of course we have to look how tings work out, after all it wouldn't be the first time ppl go like "class x will be imba, and class y will totally suck", when everything turned out different later :p

On trash that is rootable, frostbite and that new frozen thingy will really create huge amounts of DPS I could imagine... If you are lucky the mob won't even get out of frozen state till its dead.

Not really. Yes, it hurts, but on the other hand, resto druids and survival hunters both have talents that restore 2% mana to healing targets or their party, and straight mana regen is getting boosted through the roof (going full Sunwell gear -> level 75 blues looks to be more than double your intellect and more than triple your spirit). Plus with the insane crit rate you'd be running as Frostfire (40% base would be normal methinks, spiking up to the crit cap of 100-misschance during Winter's Grasp), you'd be getting TONS of mana back from Master of the Elements, and on top of that Frostfire costs significantly less mana than Fireball.

It's also worth mentioning that, against Fire-immune mobs, you lose Ignite (it stays Fire-based).