Focus Magic: Patch 3dot1

In this episode of Focus Magic, OMF covered the changes to mages in Patch 3.1!

Intro

Salutations, greetings and ELLO MON!! to you, my fellow mages. Welcome to episode number 5 of FOCUS MAGIC, the mage class segment for the AIE podcast. My name's Dahkar, or as you likely know me, OLD MAN FRANKS.

In this edition, it's all about Patch 3.1. WHat's it doing to us, what's it NOT doing to us, What it SAID it was going to do to us that it failed to deliver. Will we still rampage on top of the DPS meters? Will we be relegated to the bottom of the pile with a certain noobish enhancement shaman? Will Moosel ever forgive me for sending her to Stonard? All this and more, because Focus Magic STARTS NOW!

So let's run down the changes. Mind you, these were the most current changes at the time of this recording. Depending on when you're listening to this (HELLO FUTURE PEOPLE!) things may have changed.

We start with the current top raiding DPS spec at the moment, Arcane. Luckily for you guys, not much here is changing.

The changes to Arcane

• Arcane Blast's stacking effect is no longer considered a Magic effect and will not be dispelled. This is relatively minor, but sometimes is an issue with an overly helpful dispelling class that can't figure out what's hitting you.

• Next up is two changes that affect a big major change to Wrath in general, the mana regen mechanic change. As I see it, we're going to have less MP5 derived from int and spirit overall (40% less) but what we do have, we're going to get more of while in combat. Here are the changes for mages specifically

Mage Armor: Now grants 50% of mana regeneration while casting. Arcane Meditation: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.

So with Mage Armor up and Arcane Meditation fully talented, we'll have all the MP5 we have constantly going, casting or not.

• Next up is our new level 80 spell, Mirror Image. This spell got a significant PvP nerf - they no longer will cast Polymorph at all. However, there is a new Glyph of Mirror Image that will make a 4th copy of you when cast. Make of that what you will, but I doubt I'll be using it much. Mirror Images ARE getting the same AOE avoidance that hunter and warlock pets currently have, so you can expect them to survive longer, but the lack of ability to control their target makes them too unpredictable in PvE to use a Glpyh slot on

• Finally, there's the new Glyph of Arcane Barrage. It reduces the mana cost of Barrage by 20%. Okay, nifty. Still not a really good glyph option for the raiding mage over Blast, Missiles, and Molten Armor, but PvP mages might see some use for it.

The Changes to Fire

Let's move on to FIRE! I'm particularly interested in this one, as Dahkar has been running with a 18/53/0 Fire build lately, getting Torment the Weak and Fire's raw power to play with. It's been a lot of fun, so let's see what's happening to us.

• Well first up, Pyromaniac got the same treatment as Arcane Meditation. It Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting. Pretty much a standard change they made to all similar talents across all mana using classes.

• The other minor one is really a bug fix. The damage done by Ignite no longer receives modifications from effects that increase or decrease damage done by a percentage. For example, Curse of Elements and Earth And Moon both modify damage from spells cast by 13%. Ignite is supposed to burn for 40% of a fire spell crit over 4 seconds, but with these abilities it was gaining additional damage as well because it's classified as a different spell This is unintended, and this change will fix it.

• Now we have to get to the two big elephants in the room. THe first is the change to Improved Scorch. Improved Scorch formerly added a debuff that increased spell crit chance by 2% per stack, up to 5 stacks, for a total of 10% more spell critical strike chance. This has been nerfed to 1% per stack. Winter's Chill in the frost tree got the same treatment. To make matters more confusing, Warlock's improved Shadow Bolt has been changed to provide this same debuff. And as usual, under Blizzard's debuff homogenization effort, none of these three will stack with the other. So, if you've got a warlock with that talent, you may be wasting your time with the Scorch spamming. However, Blizzard is giving us a "selfish" passive bonus. Now Improved Scorch will also increase the crit chance of Fireball, Scorch, and Frostfire Bolt by 1% per point, up to 3%.

So what this means is, overall, your raid's going to lose 5% worth of spellcrit, but you only loose 2%. Blizzard's stated reason for doing this is that raids were getting overall too much crit in the current raids, and with gear improvements coming in Ulduar, crit chances were getting overall too high.

• Okay, so we've talked one big deal, let's go to the other: Molten armor is being changed. Now instead of a flat 3% extra crit chance (5% with the Glyph), it's going to be based on our spirit.

This is how Blizzard decided to make Spirit "a more interesting and useful stat for mages"

Here's the particulars: Molten armor alone will give you 35% of your spirit as Critical Strike Rating. With the Glyph, it's up to 50%. So what does that equate to.

In my current gear I have 294 spirit with no buffs. With the Glyphed Molten Armor, I get 147 spell critical strike rating. At level 80, 1% extra crit chance = 45.91 spell crit rating. So with my current spirit, I get about 3.2% crit chance. Ow. 2% less

Okay, let's add in some raid buffs. Let's throw on Mark of the Wild, Divine Spirit, and Blessing of Kings, all at max rank. That's abot 452 spirit, by my calculations. Using the crit rating to crit chance ratio I mentioned earlier, we get 9.8 percent more spell crit chance! NICE, 4.8% more than what I had!!

THis is going to vary, of course, based on your gear, but the overall consensus seems to be good. Now, should you stack spirit? Probably not, but it is another element you'll have to consider when choosing gear. Don't just offhand dismiss that piece of cloth with spirit anymore, take a look at it and see if it's better for you, and don't forget your stat prioritizations based on your spec either. I imagine a mod like Ratingbuster will go a long way towards helping you with this, when it's updated for 3.1

• One final change for fire: a new Glyph of Living Bomb. With it, The periodic damage from your Living Bomb can now be critical strikes. Ooooh nice. Keep an eye on this one, it will increase Living Bomb's damage, Possibly very significantly depending on your current gear, and in a fire/Frostfire build, it could be a great candidate to replace your Glyph of Improved Scorch if you don't have to provide that debuff anymore.

The Changes to Frost

FInally, let's discuss Frost, our PvP-excelling but PvE-red-headed-stepchild spec. We were promised more shatter combos in PvE for this spec. Did We get em?

• Well, here's how Blizzard decided to try giving them to us. Against targets higher level than you, the glyph of Ice Lance now causes the spell to do quadruple the damage, not just triple. Note the "against targets higher level than you" part. This is because Blizzard doesn't want the glyph making frost overpowered in PvP, but since most endgame PvE mobs are higher level than players (all raids and heroics, and most regular 80 bosses) this Glyph supposedly makes them a fun choice for PvE.

Here's the problem - Most bosses are immune to frostbite, so they can't be affected by Shatter. Blizzard gave us Fingers of Frost to compensate. The problem is that with Fingers of Frost, it's always been a better DPS choice to use another Frostbolt. This Glyph, sadly, does not change that.

• Winter's Chill got the same treatment as Improved SCorch. It's down to 1% additional crit chance per applicaiton, up to 5%, but it also gives Frostbolt and additional 1% crit chance per talent point, up to 3%. Also the debuff does not stack with the new improved shadow bolt.

• Finally, Improved Water elemental has been changed to "Enduring Winter". It continues to add 15 secdonds to the water elemental's duration, but now also provides the Replenishment effect every

time you cast Frostbolt to the 10 people in the raid with lowest mana. BLizzard's little attempt to add some raid utility to Frost.

• Unfortunately, it also has a problem. This one will require some explanation.

Replenishment ticks once a second. Whenever the buff is refreshed, the timer on this is reset, and it will not tick for another full second.

Frostbolt has a base 2.5 second cast time for a frost mage. If it is being spammed, the 10 people with lowest mana will regain Replenishment every 2.5 seconds. This means that Replenishment will be refreshed before it can tick three times. Every third tick will be delayed by half a second, reducing mana gain from Replenishment by approximately 20% (since there will be just 2 ticks every 2.5 seconds).

If the mage has enough haste to reduce Frostbolt cast time below 2 seconds, Replenishment will be refreshed before it can tick a second time. For a cast time infinitesimally below 2 seconds, this could reduce the mana gained from Replenishment by up to 50%!

This refreshing issue occurs with all spells and abilities which cause Replenishment, but all others are less frequent. The Priest and Paladin abilities which cause Replenishment have cooldowns. The Hunter abilities all require a crit. The Warlock abilities have a 30% proc chance. Only the Mage version has a 100% proc chance on a spammed spell.

The point of all this is that a mage with three points in Enduring Winter will hurt their party or raid's mana regen if more efficient sources of Replenishment are present.

• The solution? Put only one point in the talent. 33% chance to apply Replenishment should be fine for a 100% uptime while greatly reducing the number of ticks lost. However, this means a DPS loss for the mage, because now your water elemental has only 5 additional seconds of uptime instead of 15. This talent is truly broken as it stands, and does nothing to make Frost more raid viable. Blizzard has a lot of work to do here.

• Finally, there's three more Glyph changes to discuss

• Glyph of Deep Freeze now adds 10 yards to the spell's range. Good for PvP frost mages.

Glyph of Ice Armor increases resistance and armor by 50 now. Good for PvP again. Glyph of Ice Barrier Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your Ice Barrier by 30%. New Glyph, very nice for PvP frost mages. PvE frost mages can't afford to give up a slot for it.

A Question from Rov!

Finally, to wrap up our segment, let's take a question from my good buddy Rovinaire. He asks

"I know you said that the next episode was going to be about changes in 3.1, but I was wondering what glyphs do you recommend? In my particular case running Frost for instance, I feel I don't have a whole lot of choices."

Rov, I haven't done much in the endgame as frost, but here's the three major ones that seem to be the overall consensus as best: Frostbolt, Water Elemental, and Molten Armor.

Molten Armor is obvious, it gives you more crit, and since you should be DPSing in PvE with that armor up, any improvements are good.

The Water Elemental is also an obvious choice, it's your best DPS increase, it should be up as often as you can get it, and the cooldown reduction is awesome

Finally, Frostbolt. Extra 5% crit chance, but it removes the snare. Okay, yes, I know. I don't like it any more than you do. I HATE the fact that it exists. Why on earth there are so many glyphs that have NO downside, but this one removes everything that makes the spell unique, I don't know. But it does.

Now let me say this about it. If you have this glyph on, FROSTBITE and FINGERS OF FROST WILL STILL PROC, so you can still use this glyph and those talents together. There is NO change to the proc rate either.

So the only thing you DO lose is the movement speed reduction. I know, I hate it too, but there you are, it'll still work.

Outtro

That's it for this week, my fellow mages. Next week, I'm going to talk about that Deep Fire build I mentioned eariler in more detail. Until next time, this is Dahkar, aka Old Man Franks, reminding you to help control the gnome population, roll a troll today!