Mage Talent Guide

• Arbitrator (Arcane Mage):

Deep Arcane appears to finally be able to stand on it’s own in WotLK. Arcane Blast has gone through quite a few changes and in it’s current state in 3.0.3 is not a spammable spell (unless you are in an execute like state), but a sequence of Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage, and Arcane Missiles during a Missile Barrage proc is a simple, yet powerful and highly mobile rotation.

• Pyromancer (Fire Mage):

Fire gains some nice boosts to AoE and retains it’s mantra of the raw damage tree. Rolling ignites still appear to have a few glitches though, which will hopefully be fixed in the near future. For solo leveling Fire is probably not going to be the most popular option, but is by no means a bad choice.

• Frost Maiden/Magus (Ice Mage):

No longer a utility or mitigation tree, Frost’s damage has been greatly buffed in the expansion. With the safety of multiple escape skills, a potent summonable pet, and high burst damage Frost will most likely be the leveling tree of choice.



Mage Loot

2H Weapons

Item	ilvl	Source	Zone
Damnation	213	Four Horsemen	Naxx 25
Greatstaff of the Nexus	213	Malygos	Eye of Eternity 10
Staff of Restraint	213	Sartharion	Obsidian Sanctum 25
Charmed Cierge	200	Four Horsemen	Naxx 10
Sulfur Stave	200	Loatheb	Naxx 10
Staff of Draconic Combat	200	Eregos	The Oculus Heroic

(more…)



The Art of War(craft): How Patch 3.0.8 changes PvP

Patch 3.0.8 brought in quite a number of changes to the game, many of which affect PvP directly. I wrote about most of the changes in the other day’s column, but as you can imagine, trying to cover all the bases with all the classes can get quite hefty. So before I reach Blizzard levels of ’soon’, I’m cheating and appending the rest of the class balance changes here and pretend the whole Wintergrasp fiasco never happened. Oh, and yes, that button should work now.

CLASS BALANCE
Mages
Despite all the calls for nerfs for many classes, for some reason Mages have tiptoed past the madding crowd and continued to Pyroblast unsuspecting enemies for 10k damage without anyone batting an eyelash. Maybe it’s their Invisibility, I don’t know, but Mages are incredibly powerful opponents in PvP but don’t elicit calls for nerfs. Christian was right in saying that Frost is no longer the spec for PvP. It now shares the spotlight with Arcane, with the highest ranked Mage in the world sporting a build (although a Frost-specced 20/ 0/ 51 gnome isn’t far behind).

So you think Mages are strong in PvP? Well, they’ve just been buffed. Evocation’s cooldown was reduced to four minutes, and with Arcane Mages having access to the improved Arcane Flows, they can Evocate every minute. It was never a viable tactic to try and drain a Mage, but even with the spark of hope given by the change to mana drain mechanics, Mages will never run out of mana. The extremely RNG behavior of Mirror Images Polymorphing the most unlikely targets has been curtailed somewhat with the range of the copy’s Polymorph down to a mere 8 yards. This is pretty good. (more…)



Mage Macros

Deep Freeze and Deep Freeze Focus
Will cast Deep Freeze on your target if macro is pressed normally. If shift is pressed with the macro it will cast Deep Freeze on your focus target.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [mod:shift,target=focus] Deep Freeze; Deep Freeze

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Quick Ice Block
Stop whatever you are casting and cast ice block. A second click will remove it.

#showtooltip Ice Block
/stopcasting
/cancelaura Ice Block
/cast Ice Block

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Counterspell / Focus Counterspell
Stop whatever you are casting and cast counterspell. Holding down shift will cast it on your focus target instead of your current target.

#showtooltip Counterspell
/stopcasting
/cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] Counterspell
/cast [nomodifier:shift] Counterspell

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Summon Water Elemental / Pet Nova
Summon your Water Elemental if it is down. If you water elemental is up, it will use your pet’s ranged nova.

#showtooltip Summon Water Elemental
/cast [nopet] Summon Water Elemental
/click PetActionButton5

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AP/Trinket/POM/Pyro
Blow all your cooldowns and launch an instant Pyroblast.

/stopcasting
/cast Arcane Power
/stopcasting
/use Icon of the Silver Crescent
/stopcasting
/cast Presence of Mind
/stopcasting
/cast Pyroblast

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Decurse
Casts Remove Lesser Curse on your target, and if you’re targeting an enemy, it decurses you. Nothing happens if you click the macro on an ally who doesn’t have a Curse.

/cast Remove Lesser Curse
/stopcasting
/cast [target=player] Remove Lesser Curse

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