General Mage Notes wrote:
-Counterspell lockout duration reduced to 7 seconds, down from 8.
-The mana costs of Arcane Brilliance and Dalaran Brilliance have been reduced by approximately 16%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
-Flame Orb now ignores critters.
-Polymorph now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
-Ring of Frost: Radius shrunk to 8 yards, and inner "safe" radius is now 4.7 yards (exactly matching graphic). Dispelling the effect of Ring of Frost will now make the target immune to being refrozen for 3 seconds. If a second Ring of Frost is cast by the same mage while the first is still active (via Cold Snap), the first will now disappear and cease functioning. In addition, Ring of Frost now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds
-The mana costs of Arcane Brilliance and Dalaran Brilliance have been reduced by approximately 16%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
-Flame Orb now ignores critters.
-Polymorph now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
-Ring of Frost: Radius shrunk to 8 yards, and inner "safe" radius is now 4.7 yards (exactly matching graphic). Dispelling the effect of Ring of Frost will now make the target immune to being refrozen for 3 seconds. If a second Ring of Frost is cast by the same mage while the first is still active (via Cold Snap), the first will now disappear and cease functioning. In addition, Ring of Frost now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds
My Take: PvP changes, mostly, as well as some bug fixes and slight adjustments. Since I don't PvP much, can't really comment on how big the changes are for PvP.
Arcane Notes wrote:
# Arcane Barrage mana cost has been reduced by 8%.
# Arcane Blast mana cost has been reduced by 12%.
# Slow now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
# Arcane Blast mana cost has been reduced by 12%.
# Slow now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
My Take: The arcane changes could prove to be kinda awesome, possibly allowing for longer burns or more Arcane Blasts during your neutral mana cycle. The PvP change seems fairly reasonable.
Fire Notes wrote:
# Fireball mana cost has been reduced by 25%.
# Firestarter now allows the mage to cast Scorch while moving (regardless of which armor spell is used), and no longer eliminates Molten Armor's critical strike chance reduction.
# Flashburn (Mastery) benefit per mastery has been increased by 12%.
# Living Bomb mana cost has been reduced by 22%.
# Firestarter now allows the mage to cast Scorch while moving (regardless of which armor spell is used), and no longer eliminates Molten Armor's critical strike chance reduction.
# Flashburn (Mastery) benefit per mastery has been increased by 12%.
# Living Bomb mana cost has been reduced by 22%.
My Take: The change to Firestarter means we now have options in choosing our armor used based on the fight(specifically the mage armor's ability to reduce debuff duration is something that will have to be weighed on fights where debuffs are powerful enough). That said, the changes to fireball and Living Bomb make the mana regen portion of Mage Armor much less useful, also prolonging our burn phases no matter what armor we choose. And the buff to the mastery is kinda cool. Whether these changes will be enough to bring us in line with other DPS classes is beyond my will to try to math out. We'll have to keep an eye on EJ and see what they come up with as far as numbers.
Frost Notes wrote:
# When a mage uses the Invisibility spell, it will now also cause their pet Water Elemental to become invisible.
# Deep Freeze damage done has been reduced by 20%.
# Fingers of Frost can no longer be dispelled and now also increases Ice Lance damage by 15%.
# Frost Specialization now only grants 2 base points of mastery (instead of 8), reducing all Frost damage to frozen targets by 15% from previous values. However, Frost Specialization now increases base Frostbolt damage by 15%.
# Deep Freeze damage done has been reduced by 20%.
# Fingers of Frost can no longer be dispelled and now also increases Ice Lance damage by 15%.
# Frost Specialization now only grants 2 base points of mastery (instead of 8), reducing all Frost damage to frozen targets by 15% from previous values. However, Frost Specialization now increases base Frostbolt damage by 15%.
My Take: As I'm not a frost mage, I really can't comment on how these will affect us. Hopefully someone here will have some insight into what this means.
All in all, I generally like the changes thus far. Keep in mind that this is likely not a finished list. They'll still be tweaking things as they test them, but right now I'm optimistic.
For some more in depth info on what the changes mean exactly(like the spell costs), check this out.
