To forget to put up an email address for folks who might like to do something more than send me spam and porn links. That has been addressed and my email addy now sits off to the side under "About Me." And no, I don't apologize for not making it a link.
Erastus mentioned the frustration inherent in the patch changes for mages.
"On a more frustrating note, I have to say that I think it is kinda sad for WoW when the biggest change to the mage class is the ability to summon pepsi and candy machines."
Yeah. I understand perfectly. At the risk of sounding like I'm crying (because I'm not), the mage community rejoicing over "Summon Vending Machine" is a testament to just how much the class has been nerfed, especially recently. At least Blizz is attempting to address some of the issues with the mage class as a whole. It might take a while, but this new patch is a step, I feel, in the right direction.
Seper asked another question about PvP specs. What it essentially boils down to is this: if you want to be successful in PvP (especially Arenas), the classic mage build is 17/0/44. As of now, this is the best way to go by far.
17 points in the Arcane tree gives you the best PvP talent in the game. You want Improved Counterspell.
Improved Counterspell: Gives your Counterspell a 100% chance to silence the target for 4 seconds.
This stacks on top of the 8 second spell family lockdown. How you get to 17 points is up to you (though if you spec Wand Specialization for PvP, I'm revoking your Mage License).
Typical arcane talents -
2/2 Arcane Subtlety
3/5 Arcane Focus
5/5 Magic Absorption
5/5 Arcane Concentration (aka Clearcasting)
2/2 Improved Counterspell
Now to the Frost tree. What we want to do is freeze our opponents to get the most out of Ice Lance, which is your PvP bread and butter.
Typical frost talents -
5/5 Improved Frostbolt
5/5 Ice Shards
3/3 Frostbite
2/2 Improved Frost Nova
2/3 Permafrost
3/3 Piercing Ice
1/1 Cold Snap
2/2 Arctic Reach
5/5 Shatter
1/1 Ice Block (Get rid of DoTs today!)
3/3 Improved Cone of Cold
2/2 Ice Floes
1/1 Ice Barrier
3/5 Artic Winds
5/5 Empowered Frostbolt
1/1 Water Elemental
This increases our frost burst damage while giving every frost spell a good chance to freeze a target, setting them up for a chain of Ice Lance. Water Elemental will stay out for extra damage and another Frost Nova. I'll try to work out a fire PvP spec, but no high- ranked Arena mage would use it.
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4 comments:
omg i heart you so much right now!!!
Yah.. I luv frost.. i eat geared 70s and i'm only a 69 in greens and quest blues :p
I wanted to give fire a chance this weekend... though ultimately I will end up back at frost by monday :p
Thx!
Fire for life!
Actually, the console side changes to how spells are cast are working wonders for mage dps...
WoW insider had an Arcane Brilliance post on the topic I found fascinating...
I really don't know about the frost pvp build, tho. I keep seeing frost mages in lower rated matches going down to players like.. well... melvin. POM Fire seems a very viable alternative given the right team composure...
And that 45 sec hypothermia...
I'll find out soon, Majeure is 67.5, and I can rush her to 70 easily enough. Plus she has 4/5 of the target epics waiting for her in the bank... unfortunately, no decent +sta gear yet :(
The 45 second Hypothermia debuff is quite the frost nerf when it comes to Arena. As most higher- ranked Arena battles are about attrition and mana- drain, survivability becomes key. This is why Frost mages are practically the only spec in those teams.
When you go against a team with a healer, you, the mage, will not be able to burst down your opponents quickly. It doesn't happen. A lot of it has to do with the broken resilience rating, but combined with a healer, you'll be dead as a fire or arcane mage long before a similarly geared frost mage will.
I hit 70 yesterday morning.. and found a fellow mage for 2v2.
Hes fire until he can get some frost gear and i'm frost. I have a few epics and more on the way fairly soon i believe.
Last night we went 2 and 2. It was partly my fault for missing iceblock for the 2 lost matches.. but on the other hand It would have only delayed the end IMO.
Can't wait for that fire spec so I can hand it off to my pve specced friend :p
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