Focus Magic: Patch 3 Point 2

In this episode, OMF talks about Patch 3.2 and asks his fellow AIE Mages what they love and hate about playing the Mage!

Intro

Hails, horns, and healing waves, my fellow guildmates! Welcome back to Focus Magic, episode number 11. Apologies for the delay on this one folks, last week was just a wee bit crazy for me, but we're good to go for now. If ya didn't know, I'm your host, Dahkar, or as you likely know me, OLD MAN FRANKS!

This week we're going to quickly cover patch 3.2 and how it's changed the mage class, and then we're going to take a look at what people are loving and hating about playing a mage from guildies who have one! I want to give people an idea of the awesomeness and the frustrations we experience when we log in. So let's get started with our Patch 3.2 roundup.

Patch 3.2

The patch did a lot of good for us personally, nothing earth-shattering, but some good changes.

The Living Bomb Change

The major one that everyone was all excited about was that Living Bomb is no longer limited to being on one mob at a time, you can now place it on multiple mobs. For a while, this made fire AOE tremendous, because we could have a constant stream of ticking fire DoTs, and if we had the Living Bomb glyph equipped, we would practically be chain-proccing Hot Streak with all those AOE Crits. Well, that's been hotfixed out, Hot Streak cannot be triggered by Living Bomb's DoT crits any longer. However, it also does not count in the "2-crits in a row" sequencing either. So if you hit with a fireball and crit, then a Living bomb ticks, and then the Bomb blows up and crits, you will still trigger Hot Streak. I do not know if this was previously the case or not, but that's the way she is now.

Empowered Fire Change

To compensate for the Replenishment Nerf, the talent Empowered Fire now gives mages 2% of base mana back every time Ignite burns (if fully talented)

Mana Cost Reductions

Reduced mana costs seemed to be a theme in this patch. Arcane Blast was reduced by 12%, and practically every frost spell was reduced by 15% as well.

Some Frost Changes

There were a couple of other Frost changes too: Empowered Frostbolt no longer increases Frost Critical Strike Chance by 2/4% (with Fingers of Frost/Shatter this was kind of a useless bonus) but reduces Frostbolt's cast time by 0.1/0.2 seconds. Minor buff, in my view. Permafrost also got a little PvP buff, it reduces the healing recieved by any target with one of your chill debuffs by 7/13/20%

These changes are good, even if they do little to make Frost viable as an endgame PvE spec, they're still a start. There is hope still that this will someday happen, Blizzard has stated in blue posts (seen on MMO-Champion) that they're trying to do this. I still use Frost in a few specific fights, like General Vezax, and as my BG spec.

Minor Change to Arcane

The Arcane Blast change is minor, the next patch however is looking more and more like Arcane will be brought back in a big way. I'll cover that in another episode since I haven't tested it out yet, but the reports are that in 3.2.2, Arcane will be competitive with Fire and Frostfire again!

OMG INVISIBILITY DOESN’T SUCK ANYMORE!

Finally, my favorite change to our class in this patch: The Invisibility change. Previously, Invisibility had a 3-second fade time. During that time our aggro would be reduced, and wiped completely if we turned fully invis. However, any damage, stun, silence, or faint breeze would break the fade, leaving us to get squished again.

Now with this patch, the only thing that will break invis is Stuns and Silences. No hostile effects will break the fade at all. No more losing Invis fades from raid damage. We have a good working version of Feign Death! Use this and use it often, my fellow Mages, and make your raid team mad when they all wipe and you LIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!

Love and Hate

Okay, so now, lets take a look at what other mages love and hate about playing the class. I started this thread in the AIE class forums, and I'll pass along some of the common responses.

Love

Most mages that responded all said that they love doing huge numbers in damage, love the ability to quickly get around the world (and not having the hearthstone set in Dalaran like everyone else), being able to make food/water so they never need to bother buying it, and the ability to AOE quest/grind. Evocation's quick mana regeneration and using Mirror Image as a temporary threat reduction and DPS increase came up several times too.

Yahyo says that she loves Polymorph Penguin (I agree penguins are kyoooooooot!), and, quote "our 'oh poop!' buttons". Going to guess she means Ice Block and Invisibility there.

Bonepaw came up with "Being able to send people to Stonard on a lark, Ability to Blink out of roots and snares, and 'Ice Block, Ice Block, Ice Block - good for combat and when someone drives you over a cliff'"

Gfitz mentioned the great spell artwork and being feared in PvP when you're at range. Feared as in, they're scared of you, not feared by a lock.

Atheldane loves Frost Nova-ing mobs that are going after healers and unleashing mass DPS until they start to come after him/her, and then popping Ice Block. I hope the tank came after them by that point, Atheldane, or you might have just gotten your healer killed! He/she is also looking forward to getting a motorcyle and driving people off cliffs and using slow fall!

Elbatcho and Vanterax love being suicide mages in PvP, using Frost Nova augmented by Blizzard/Arcane Explosion in Elbatcho's case, and Living Bomb and IceBlock in Vant's case. Vant even posted an awesome macro for spamming Living Bomb on multiple targets, go check it out!

Hate

Let's get to the hate side. Everyone hates being squishy, especailly in PvP against Rogues and Death Knights. No one really likes being constantly begged for food/water and portals much either. Early levels, mages have to seemingly eat and drink after every kill, and everyone hates that too. I'd say that yes, this one is true but it does improve as your spells get more potent and you get some mana regen talents and abilities, so have patience when leveling!

Gfitz hates "wearing dresses, how about some pants for crying out loud". I heartily disagree, they're robes, and wizards are supposed to wear robes, durnit!

Bonepaw doesn't like that Arcane gets more free hit rating than other specs and wishes we got a cool class specific mount like those snarky warlocks. I say, why look a gift horse in the mouth, Bonepaw!!

Atheldane hates how crappy our 51 point frost talent is, and I must agree. Deep Freeze still sucks. Badly.

A few people echoed this one "Looking for tank and healer"!

Best Summary

But I think Sangu perfectly echoed my feelings on this subject best when he said the following: "I love being a mage period. I hate watching the patch notes each and every release with nothing that really affects me except really minor changes. I tear up each time." Amen to that, Sangu. Maybe 3.3 will help. We can only hope.

Outtro

That's it for this edition of Focus Magic, guild mates. As always send me a tell in game or a Private Message in the forums if you have any questions or feedback for the segment, or an idea for something I can cover! I love getting those!

This has been Dahkar, aka OLD MAN FRANKS, reminding you, help control the gnome population: Roll a Troll today.