Blink Fixed?

Is it true? Can it really be? Ghostcrawler has said that in 3.2.2 they fixed a lot of the issues with Blink. I don't know if it's true or not, since I haven't been blinking around lately. But wow... that would be cool. Then again... it's only taken them what? like 5 years? Oh well... better late than never.

Spell Rotation for Single Target Fire Spells - Revised

Over two years ago, I wrote a post about Spell Rotation for Single Target Fire Spells. To this day, it is still, by far, one of my most popular posts as far as hits it gets. Nevermind the fact that it's 2 years old. Google doesn't recognize that when people start searching for it. "Fire Mage Spell Rotation" is what people are generally searching for, and that's how people find that old post. So, I thought it only fair that I update the post. Why, after all these years, am I deciding only now to update it? Honestly, I have no idea. lol. Nonetheless, here it goes.

Mages are created for damage. We harness the raw arcane energies and unleash them on our foes. Sure there's a couple of "perks" that we get with free food and water (which I really miss when playing my shaman), and portals to practically everywhere (which isn't as big of a deal if you have Astral Recall). We also have one of the best CC's in the game... not that that's really used much anymore, but I digress.

As a history lesson (and for anyone leveling a mage), fire mage spell rotation has historically been about a number sequence. Something along the lines of 7 fireballs and then an improved scorch, rinse and repeat. But it's really more of a priority system now, much like shadow priests have been for years, with a bunch of if-this-than-that-else-that's.

Let's go through the spells in the "typical" order. I'll explain the spell, talk about some of the talents that support it, explain when to use it in a single target sequence, and then you should be good to go.

Scorch - As a fire mage you'll generally want to start off hitting the boss with this spell. The main reason is because of a talent that you will want to have called Improved Scorch. As you can read from the tooltip, after 5 applications of Improved Scorch, all spells (yours and others) will have a 5% increased chance to critically hit. So, you want to make sure this is on the boss at all times. If you choose, there is also a Glyph of Improved Scorch that will mean you'll only have to cast this spell once before going on with the rest of your rotation.

All of that said, if you have a Frost Mage (Winter's Chill) or Afflication or Demonology Warlock (Improved Shadow Bolt) in your raid/party, you can completely ignore Scorch. All of the Frost Mage's spells will add the Winter's Chill effect (same debuff as scorch) and the Warlock usually uses their filler spell, Shadow Bolt, in between casting DoTs anyway. So, you can ignore it if somebody else is taking care of it.

Pyroblast - This spell is probably the biggest reason we're no longer a number sequence class. And more specifically, it is this spell in unison with the talent Hot Streak. So, whenever you crit twice in a row (which generally happens quite often), you can let this insta-pyro go. You do want to make sure that you have the full 5% increased crit debuff up first so that the spell has a greater chance to crit, but after that, let it fly. I do suggest a mod such as MageAlert to let you know when Hot Streak, Brain Freeze, or Missile Barrage proc. It's an audible way to let you know that it's ready. I just don't see the tiny little buffed button otherwise.

This spell is also towards the top of the prioritization since it's a huge hit AND you want to make sure you clear the crit table. If you crit twice and keep casting another spell, you could be sitting with an insta-pyro ready to go while you continue to crit. Cast the spell, go back to what you're doing, and then you have the opportunity to get another double crit for another insta-pyro! Additionally, there's a nice little DoT on this spell as well. It's not a lot, but it does help.

And finally, because we only cast this spell when we have Hot Streak up, it becomes a type of mobility spell. Need to reposition yourself? If you have the time, you can wait until Hot Streak procs, and then move as the 1.5 second global cooldown has triggered.

Living Bomb - If you haven't proc'ed Hot Streak with your Scorches, it's time to get your Living Bomb DoT up. Keep this spell up on your target as much as possible. You can't refresh this DoT; you have to wait until the final explosion until you cast it again. So, it's unlikely that you'll have Living Bomb on a target 100% of the time. Aim for the most, but you don't want to be sitting there waiting for it to go off.

For example, if you've just finished casting Fireball and there's 0.5 seconds left before Living Bomb goes off, what do you do? Do you sit there for 0.5 seconds waiting for the Living Bomb to explode? No. You cast another Fireball, let that fly, and then reapply Living Bomb.

Again, this is one of the mobility spells. If you have to move, this is a good insta-cast spell. You may even be able to justify using that 0.5 seconds in the example to move and then cast this spell as you're continuing to your destination.

If you're this far into fire and you have this spell, you'll also want the Glyph that goes along with it. Everybody loves more crits, right?

Fireball - This is where it comes down to what type of Fire Mage are you? You're generally a Fireball Fire Mage or a Frostfire Fire Mage. If you're a Fireball Fire Mage, you probably have some points in Arcane to take advantage of Focus Magic. You'll also want the Glyph of Fireball which means more crit, which means more damage, and also means more mana by means of Empowered Fire. Once the crit debuff is up (by means of Scorch or a Warlock), Living Bomb is going, and there's no Hot Streak, this is your main nuke. Spam this until Living Bomb blows up, Scorch needs to be renewed, or Hot Streak procs.

Check Fireball specs with Elitist Jerks or simply google it to find one. If you believe the masses, this is currently one of the highest DPS specs. You do need a good deal of hit to go along with it since you lose some in talents, but that's not really the point of this post, so I'll leave it at that.

Frostfire Bolt - If, on the other hand, you're more of an elemental mage using both Fire and Frost schools, you'll probably be using this as your nuke. Frostfire Bolt takes advantage of talents from both of those schools to increase it's damage. And the Glyph of Frostfire is required for this build. There's absolutely no down side for this glyph. It's your main nuke, it increases damage and crit. Use it.

As for spell rotation for Frostfire Bolt, if you're a Frostfire Mage, then simply use this spell instead of Fireball. As a Frostfire mage, there's really no reason to cast Fireball. Likewise, as a Fireball mage, there's no reason to cast Frostfire.

Fire Blast - With the way this spell scales, it's really not in the normal rotation much at all. You can use it as a filler here and there, but overall, it's generally better to cast another spell. That said, there is still some uses for this spell. Take the example I gave before. If you're on the move but waiting for Living Bomb to explode before you reapply, throw in a Fire Blast and then use that Living Bomb. Otherwise, you'll generally do more damage simply going back to your nuke.

Of note:
Molten Armor - While this isn't one of the spells in the "rotation", you'll want to be raiding with this armor on. And most likely, you'll want the accompanying Glyph as well. More crit... yep... we love it.

So, to sum it up. Scorch Debuff > Hot Streaked Pyroblast > Living Bomb > Fireball / Frostfire Bolt.

Now go out and do some damage.

GC added to Mirror Image

I haven't seen this written anywhere. It's possible that with all my skimming, I simply missed it. But before 3.1, the global cooldown was not triggered when Mirror Image was cast. From Wowwiki we get the following (retrieved on 4/20/09):

This spell is not affected by the global cooldown nor triggers it, making it a universal DPS increase to cast.

This was obviously written before 3.1, because now... well... it does trigger the global cooldown.

I simply wanted the mage community to be aware of the change if they weren't already.

Improved Scorch Nerf

So, here's a little guilty secret of mine. Ever since I respec'ed to Frostfire for raids, I haven't taken the Improved Scorch talent. We usually ran with 2-4 other mages, most of them spec'ed Frostfire as well. So, why waste perfectly good talent points on Improved Scorch when I didn't need to cast that "inferior" spell anyway?

Instead, I got to use my extra talent points on other stuff. Dragon's Breath, Blastwave, and Fire Starter were the three that made things particularly fun for me. They increased my Aoe Damage and since I never cast Scorch, even my single target DPS was higher. I simply did not think about Scorch; and frankly, I was glad to be rid of that spell.

Now with 3.1 going live today, Improved Scorch has been changed a bit. Instead of 2% increased spell crit stacking up to 5 times (total of 10%), it's now 1% increased spell crit stacking up to 5 times (total of 5%) PLUS 3% crit for Scorch, Fireball, and Frostfire Bolt. So, while it was in part kind of a selfless talent, it now has both a selfish and selfless component. Which means, that I pretty much have to spec into it now. *sigh*

So, as a raiding mage, I get 8% crit on Frostfire Bolt and 5% on everything else. Meanwhile, our arch nemesis, the Warlock, gets Improved Shadow Bolt (a staple for Destro Locks), and they only have to cast it once. And yet, we still have to cast an inferior spell 5 times in order to get the same buff as a main nuke from a Warlock. I don't get it. I guess it simply boils down to "Life isn't fair." lol

I guess the only question left is, do those two effects stack? It's almost as if Warlocks and Mages will be forced to work together. *shudder*

T-7 Mage Shoulders

Ok, ok... so I didn't post yesterday (car problems kind of forced me to stay home), or the day before (New Employee and Diversity training sessions), but I'm here today, right?

Today's topic has to do with a necessary nerf. There's a certain mage shoulder piece that has a very specific (but not totally unique) characteristic of produce little clouds of "smoke" as you're moving about. It is most obviously seen as you're, say... flying your epic carpet around. Yes, that's right. I'm looking at you Heroes' Frostfire Shoulderpads. This clearly puts the Valorous Frostfire Shoulderpads at a graphical disadvantage. And while the Heroe's set is only item level 200, the Valorous set is item level 213.

So I ask you: How can this be fair? Since I imagine it is much easier to petition a nerf than a buff, I'm starting the chant now: "Nerf Heroe's Frostfire Shoulderpads! Nerf Heroe's Frostfire Shoulderpads! Nerf Heroe's Frostfire Shoulderpads!" I may need to come up with a better slogan.

I'm gonna need banners, commerial funds, full internet coverage, the works! If we all unite together, we can get this change by 3.1, when nobody will care anymore!

-wait... I think I just defeated myself with that last sentance. Maybe we need to move even quicker. lol.

DoT'ing for Fun (Living Bomb)

This may sound kind of funny, but I actually enjoy Living Bomb. And as you can probably guess, I enjoy it because it's a DoT. What does that mean exactly? Well... the basic basic is that it is a Damage Over Time spell. It's also an insta-cast spell; that means I can cast it while running. It's also a non-directional spell: I don't have to be facing my target to cast it. It provides a fair amount of DPS with even an AoE component if the target survives for 12 seconds. Heck! You can read the description. If you're following this blog, you probably know all this stuff already.

But, what makes it fun (or DoT's in general) is that I can help somebody out as I'm running by their target to hit my own.

Story time: Last night, I was questing in Sholozar Basin. (Getting the house back together after getting the kids down took a bit longer than normal; therfore, I was late to the raid and they filled my spot. Understandable.) Well, we're doing the quests where you have to kill basically everything in sight. So, my "independent" wife is killing one thing while I'm focusing on another. There wasn't really anyone around fighting for kills, but I still took it upon myself to tag as much as possible as fast as possible so that nobody would steal anything. Living Bomb her target while persuing the next one... and I don't even have to be facing my target! See? It's really the simple things in life that make me happy.

Yes, yes... I'm very well aware there's a whole class that's practically built around this concept of DoTs. And one of the staples of the shadow priest is also a DoT. But having a DoT on a mage after all this time of non-DoTs... well... it's just fun. :)

Frost: The Solo Elite Killer

First off, due to some RL stuff going on, I had to take a few days off of playing. Kind of really bad timing since we're all pushing to 80, but RL is WAY more important that my virtual life, so I did what I needed to.

I didn't play for about 5 days. Finally logged in last night, and lucky I did to get the 4th anniversary achievement and pet. Not like I really care (since I really don't like the majority of pets), but still... I didn't miss it. The funny thing was that, I really had to remember how to play. I'm sure it's a combination of me changing spec and then the days off, but I felt so... lost. Oh, don't worry... I picked things up fast enough; it was just a strange feeling at first.

Now back to our regularly scheduled post.

I've heard a lot of people comment on the amazing amount of control that you have as a frost mage, and it's very true. You've just got a lot of options. Practically every frost spell involves chilling targets so they're slower, rooting them with ice so they have to stay still, or a shield so that you don't take damage. Not only that, you've also got a summoned pet that can deal damage as you're on the run (and it can root as well), and if you've used up all your cooldowns, you've got a spell that will reset everything.

Last night, I was doing some of the quests up in the Northeastern part of Howling Ford where there's these meandering elites. Now, the quest to kill them is only considered a 2-man quest, but I still had no problem taking care of the elites with minimal cooldowns needing to be used. Then there's the 3-man quest to kill the bigger giant. And while I had help from a shaman that I had grouped with so we wouldn't kill steal, I really didn't need it. Heck, as long as I could root them with Frost Nova, there's really not much I can't down.

I'm not saying that I have the highest DPS or that I'm super uber or anything like that. It just seems easier to kill stuff that's supposedly more difficult. And now I understand why it is so nice to level with Frost.

Hmm... I do have an extra talent point or 2 now. Maybe I'll actually try out Deep Freeze. (Am still kinda bitter that they took away the damage component, but it would be another 5 seconds of control.)

Start of Aoe Farming

I'm guessing that mainly because of the short notice of last night's raid, we didn't have enough to go in and take on Kael. We were short a few healers, and I didn't really feel like pugging them, so we had a group head off to ZA while I went and did more achievement exploring. I ended up in EPL hanging out with Kurt (who's a minor celebrity on our realm forums, but I'm sure he doesn't know me). Then since I was there decided that I should go do some Necrotic Rune collecting.

Now, in case you hadn't heard or I neglected to mention it, Leiandra is now full frost. That's right, all 61 points dumped into the frost tree. I'm enjoying the spec. I'll probably use it to level, but just not 100% sure after that. (It's kind of important to the point of my story.)

After putzing around and capturing the towers in EPL, the attack there was over, so I headed down to the Burning Steppes. I started Frostbolting the undead and 1-by-1 killing them off. Then I remembered what spec I now am. I'm the king of Aoe farming spec. There is none that can kill more faster than a frost mage. I'm sure the other people around hated me for doing it, but here's some of the things that I did to get 22 Necrotic Runes in a very short amount of time. (I'm not saying this is the best way to do it, it's just what seemed to work for me.)

• I start off by casting Ice Barrier and then wait almost the full 24 seconds of the cooldown (Cold as Ice) before running in to collect the mobs.
• With 2/2 in Shattered Barrier, I can sit in the middle of the mobs to help gather them up nice and tight and then intentionally let them destroy my Ice Barrier and freeze them into place.
• Cast Ice Barrier again as I'm running away from them to get in position to start Blizzard.
• Of note: I have 3/3 in Improved Blizzard, 5/5 Chilled to the Bone, and 2/2 Arctic Reach, so I can hit them from much further and then the 75% reduction (or is it 65% x 10% = 71.5%?) in speed means it takes them forever to get to me.
• Not to mention that if they do get to me, I have another Shattered Barrier, a Frost Nova, and the Freeze from my Water Elemental. And if things really go bad, I have a Cold Snap to reset all my cooldowns anyway.
• Blizzard in itself has become an extremely damaging spell in that it can now crit, and coupled with Ice Shards, Shatter, and Winter's Chill, it's going to do some major damage.

Damage. Control. Survivability. Yeah... why wouldn't you Aoe kill melee mobs?

A Storm's Coming

I need to give credit to Spicy Tuna for pointing this out, but the "new" Blizzard in Beta is amazing. I have all of Leiandra's 61 points invested into Frost. She rides around Northrend on her little horsey to round them all up.

Frost Nova and Jump...

Then Blizzard.

Most of the mobs don't even make it out of the first Blizzard. Those that do are still pretty far off, and I haven't had any melee make it through my second cast of Blizzard. In short: AoE farming will be a lot of fun with Frost.

My Diatribe Against Healthstones

That's right. I hate Healthstones. Being a mage, it's pretty much the only class that understands this. See... the thing is. Healthstones have a cooldown. Mana Gems have a cooldown. They both have the same cooldown. I suppose it's the same battle that other mana users have (do I use a health pot or a mana pot?). But this is different. Why? Because it only effects one class.

I suppose a similiar diatribe could be made from druids since they can't use potions without changing forms. (Dang lack of apposable thumb!) But, what's that you say? Druids will be able to use potions in the next patch? Oh... then I guess it really isn't an issue for them, is it?

We've had the warlock class leaders organize who would take how many points in Improved Healthstones. We generally have 3 Master Healthstones for most raids. Last night, I found myself staring at my Healthstones and thinking: Why? Why did I pick up 3? Heck, for that matter, why did I pick up any at all? I rarely use it. As an arcane mage with my associated mana addiction, I'd much rather use the 2-minute cooldown on a Mana Gem. Sure, there's some fights that I'll get hit and have to use the Healthstones on every cooldown, (Najentus comes to mind), but I generally grab them to let them sit in my bag until I log out.

Now, to get into other facets of it. Why do we have to have 3 bag slots to carry 3 charges of a Healthstone? They re-did Mana Gems to have 3 charges. Why not Healthstones? Mages used to have to conjure 3 different Mana Gems (and lesser ones at that). Still makes it "seem" that you need to bring 3 warlocks to your raid for the maximum "buff" that no other class can bring. Hey... I thought they were trying to get away from that.

And on a semi-related topic, why are my Mana Gems BoP? Is it because the "masters of arcane" are the only ones that know how to wield mana and will it out of this curious gem of raw energy? Give me a Mana Gem table or something while you're at it. (See? I'm not totally mage-centric.)

Rawr The Program

So, I really can't believe that I haven't blogged about this before. I feel like I've let down the druid, mage, and many other communities. The information is certainly out there, but why haven't I told you guys about it? Selfish? No. Forgetful? Maybe. But the truth is that I thought I had already blogged about this.

What am I going on about? Today I'm talking about Rawr. Rawr is a program that was originally developed to help Druids figure out gear upgrades for Bear and Cat forms. I know it's been around for at least two years, but know exactly how long. There's been many changes (it's now in Beta 15), and it's come a long way from just supporting Druids. It now supports the following classes/roles:

• Bear
• Cat
• DPSWarrior
• Healadin
• HolyPriest
• Mage
• Moonkin
• ProtWarrior
• RestoSham
• Retribution
• Tankadin
• Tree
• Warlock

Phew! That's a lot of gear lists. I tend to lean more on Rawr than say MaxDPS.com since the Rawr suggestions seem to make more sense. The MaxDPS will give you the items that will give you the highest DPS, but it doesn't take into consideration survivability. What good is a dead mage? You got it... good for nothing. Also, it doesn't take into consideration your mana pool. So, what good is a mage without mana? So, Rawr takes into consideration dps and total damage possible. Overall, seems like an excellent guide for those classes to figure out gear.

Likewise, for tanking, you can see how each item stacks up in different areas. For tanks, it's not just how much stamina you have. So, Rawr breaks it down into Mitigation, Survival, and Threat. All of which are important to tanks.

You can also enter all the gear you currently have, and it will optimize it for you. Results may vary. Most of the time it seems to give good suggestions. There's some gear choices that are debatable, but aren't they all?

Now this program is essentially for level 70 toons. You can change your specs and the gear will adjust accordingly as well. If you're looking for gear lists of any of the above classes, go check it out. It's a great program.

Filtered Reading Ahead

I've always enjoyed playing the mage class. Sure, from time to time I get frustrated with certain aspects of it, but mostly... I'm a mage. I just like the idea of being a mage.

I understand there are a lot of great players out there that are mages in pvp. I'm not one of them. If it's me vs. pretty much anyone else, I usually just jump off a cliff. (I heard they don't get credit for the kill if I do that.) If it's more like PVE where I have a healer, and a "tank" to help mitigate some damage, I do well. But pure pvp, I'm just not that practiced.

Before TBC came out, I was reading a lot on the official forums. "Mage is broken!" they'd yell. Post after post, that was all I read. And had been enjoying my mage until I had read so many "you suck" posts. So I did what any self-respecting mage would do. No, I didn't re-roll a warlock. I stopped reading. I stopped letting the mob mentality seep into my thoughts. I stopped caring what this mass of trolls on the Internet was saying.

With the next expansion coming up, I've noticed some of the same trends coming up. "Buff this class!" "Nerf this class!" "Make mages king of DPS!" What's wrong with providing constructive feedback, you ask? Nothing, but "you suck" isn't constructive. And while there are a fair number of people that can dps higher than me in my raid, I still enjoy playing my class.

I'll admit that I'm not all that excited about becoming a Living Bomb, but WoTLK is only in alpha. Who knows what will be of the talents when they're actually released. Furthermore, it seems that almost all talents are useful some of the time. Maybe it's one of those that are cooler once you try it. I wasn't super excited about Dragon's Breath either, but when I was fire and I finally tried it, it was a very useful spell.

Getting into Arcane... again

As I mentioned, I now have the two pieces of my Tier-5 armor which gives me the bonus of 20% increased damage and mana for my Arcane Blasts. I spent a little bit of time in Battlegrounds last night, and I saw that 20% increase in mana in action. I was spamming AB to protect one of our flags, and all of a sudden, I was out of mana. Since I was mostly just messing around with it anyway, it wasn't a big deal. Heck, I haven't even respec'ed back to Arcane yet, but I do recognize that there's going to be some big play style changes.

Most of my ideas for my future respec come from Dreamweaver of Kel'Thuzad on the official Mage forums. Read the article for full details, but it's basicly a 40/0/21 spec. His "explosion" damage comes when he hits Icy Veins and Arcane Power, and then spams Arcane Blast with 3 debuffs on it. He hits a mana gem/potion at 50% (not sure if he mant one or the other or both), and then hits evocation when there's about a second left on the IV. (The theory behind the last second evocation is that you get a fast cast for evocation.)

WOW! That's a lot of mana. And especially for an arcane mage that gets an increase in Intellect through talents... But according to Man Out of Time, in theory, it's something like 2,000 DPS. Fully raid buffed, it's closer to 2,600 DPS!

After that, you go through your normal rotation of AB x 3, Frost Bolt x 3. The Frost Bolts are used as the filler to get rid of the AB debuff because they're more mana efficient than Arcane Missiles, and with Ice Shards and a decent crit rate, they'll actually do more damage as well.

So, that's the theory. As for Leiandra, she still needs to get a replacement for her Spellfire Robe. (It's the only one I have left of the set; and, as you can see, it does Arcane and Fire damage only.) I was thinking of farming the Scalet Sin'dorei Robes instead of the 100 Badges (of which I now have 4) for the Tormented Demonsoul Robes. I'll still have enough + spell hit from my Belt of Blasting, Boots of Blasting and other gear to be able to hit bosses with the Frostbolts. Still... I'm still pretty high on Frost damage that I'll probably be okay without it... for now.

Remember: Tomorrow starts the 3-day holiday of Guild Leadership Appreciation Day. Spread the word. Get your kind words of appreciation ready.

Nerf Drops (and Spell Haste)

Interesting thing about our guild, Primogeniture, raiding post patch 2.4. We again had no problems downing High King Maulgar, Gruul, and Magtheridon all in one attempt. (We did have two tanks die in Gruul, but our druid tank picked it up nicely.) The issue that I found was that there was just too much loot. It took too long. In fact, it took longer to distribute loot than it did to actually kill the boss. (Okay, that's not true, it just seemed that way.) So, I say: NERF THE LOOT!!!

Yes... I'm kidding.

I did pick up one of the three epic gems we got off of Mag. It was a Pyrestone that I had turned into a Reckless Pyrestone. I'm still not 100% sure of the calculations on benefit of spell haste. It would basically be a percent increase in your total damage as opposed to the incremental increase a straight spell damage would have; so it's a little tricky. Haste is going to be much more beneficial if you have high spell damage. It's also different for each spell.

So, for example: It appears that the cut off for Frostbolt (untalented) is somewhere around 1066 spell damage. If you have more than that number, than spell haste is going to be more beneficial to you (as far as DPS is concerned). If you have less, then you should lean towards spell damage. With my spec, with 2 debuffs, Arcane Blast's cut off is around 820. So, see how it can get confusing?

Here's a more solid math example. Leiandra is currently sitting at about 1284 spell damage for arcane and fire (1112 for frost). An increase of 1 Spell Haste on Arcane Blast (no debuffs) should increase DPS by 0.441 where 1 Spell Damage would only be 0.361. Said another way, 1 Spell Haste would be equivolent to 1.22 Spell Damage. So, for me, Spell Haste is better.

Wow... didn't actually start this post thinking I would go in this direction, but I started researching it more and thought it was noteworthy. So, since I got my Vindicator's Pendant of Subjugation last night, that provides an additional 21 Spell Haste. Now I just need another Pyrestone to put there. Where's that Badge vendor? heh.

No... I'm not Dead

Wow... I almost completely neglected my blog. How horrible of me. The majority of the issue was a presentation that I had at work last Friday and the preparation that had to go into it. A small part was that I simply didn't have anything super useful to blog about. Okay, that's kinda a cop-out, 'cause I almost always have something to say. But, on to today's post.

Yes... I'm not dead. I didn't burn up in flames. But I did respec Leiandra. So, after years of being a mostly fire mage, I'm now mostly arcane, with just enough points in fire to get Pyroblast. I still may play around with my spec a little, but I'm enjoying it so far.

I always figured that the arcane spec would be so mana inefficient, especially since in the old days, you had to spam Arcane Missiles. Now, with Arcane Blast, there's a chance to mix things up a bit more. One of the keys seems to be start casting your 4th Arcane Blast while you have the debuff (so fast casting), but then have it finish the cast once the debuff has worn off (so for way less mana). This means that you have to "wait" between your 3rd and 4th Arcane Blast. You do that by filling in the space with Arcane Missiles and possibly a Scorch in there as well.

Wow... that's a lot more than just watching for the end of the casting bar for Fireballs. And it means that I don't really have to pay much attention to the Scorch debuff on the target. And it also gives me the fun toys of Instant Cast (Presence of Mind) and increased damage of Arcane Power. I get a lot more spell damage via Mind Mastery (+ Spell Damage of 25% of Intellect), and more damage done by crits with Spell Power.

Another offset to the high mana costs are Clearcasting (Arcane Concentration), mana regen when casting (Arcane Meditation), and more Intellect = more mana (Arcane Mind). And I also use Mage Armor (more regen while casting) instead of the Molten Armor, so helps a bit as well.

I can still hit pretty hard with my fireballs as well, so I can conserve mana if need be. I'll have to spend some more play time with this to see if I really enjoy it, but so far... it's a fun change. Heck... I can even easily farm fire elementals now. heh.

I didn't get Slow with this go around. I may have to spec into that later. So... message of the day: Try new specs... you might just like them.

Leiandra Going Arcane???

I haven't done it yet. It's just entered into my mind. I'm pretty sure I am going to do it. I'm talking about a re-spec. Leiandra has been fire, or mostly fire since she first started gaining talent points back at level 10, years ago.

This is our second week of attempts on Al'ar (only the 2nd or 3rd night of attempts with our raiding schedule), and I know I'm completely useless as a pure fire mage. There's some great articles over at WowWiki that I've been checking out.

I guess the big thing with the arcane tree is the spell rotation. You want to use Arcane Blast as your main nuke, with Arcane Missiles threaded in there as well. Arcane Blast with the full 3 stacks of debuff is quite expensive (mana-wise), but then again, so is Arcane Missiles. You get a number of mana increasing and mana conserving talents, so hopefully that's the offset. I'll have to actually do the re-spec to fully understand the build, I'm sure. It's not the end of the world. And if I hate it, I can always re-spec again. It's only gold, right?

2.3... a Great Patch

So, there's been a tidal wave of information about patch 2.3 come from the official forums. Before all this was released, I would have been happy with just Zul'Aman and guild banks, but it sounds like there's going to be a ton more.

Since I play a mage, I'm most excited about the new stuff in the works for 2.3 for them.

• Mages will soon be on the same playing grounds as warlocks in that they will be able to do a Ritual of Refreshment in which all members will be able to get food and drinks from this buffet table. No more having to create 120 water before a raid.
• Drysc also wrote in the same post that the nerf tax on improved Fireball and Frostbolt will be gone. Hurrah! Hey, maybe I'll be able to outdamage that hunter in our guild now.
• And Evocation will no longer be Spirit-based, but will return 15% mana every 2 seconds. Huzaah!

There's loads of other updates for 2.3 for other classes as well. Probably the easiest thing to do it check out WoW Insider for all their posts. (Sorry... I guess I'm just mage-centric.)

Weapon Master of None

A little while ago, Galoheart over at Ardent Defender wrote that he had gained mastery (350 skill) of all weapons skills. Being a paladin, he naturally wants to have all weapons at max skill. My response as a mage, of course, was congragulatory, but mentioned the unnecessity of the feat for a pure caster class. I've skilled up my staves to 320 (stopped using those a long time ago), my swords to 343 (was using the [Blade of the Archmage] for awhile until I got my [Nathrezim Mindblade], which I'm currently using), and skilled up my daggers to 321. I even got my unarmed skill up to 232 one night when I was "helping" friends in Mauradon. Of course, I do have maxed out wands at 350.

This question comes up because I spent some time with my Shaman this weekend. I got a new 2-handed mace in which I had 1 skill when I equipped the item. I think any of the healing classes have a pretty easy time grinding through the misses and parries to skill up. For my Shaman, I simply put found a single mob at my level, placed a stoneskin totem and healing totem, and every once and awhile had to pop out a heal. I did the same with my priest a long time ago. Miss, miss, miss, bubble, heal, miss, miss, miss... It was slow enough that I could go get a drink, but not long enough where I could go take a nap.

But the question that comes up... is there any real reason for a pure casting class to have maxed skill at weapons besides a wand? Sure, there's some situations where you have to melee, but you aren't really doing damage. You're just throwing up 1's and 2's in a feable attempt to help out your true melee friends. Even out of mana, you'll still most likely wand way before you even think about busting out that sword/dagger/whatever. So, just wondering if there's something I'm missing by not having things maxed.

Cryolysis: Revived and Killing Blows

I can't believe that I haven't written about one of my favorite mods. And since it's kind of important to my story, I guess I'll have to highlight it now. So, today you'll get the 2 for the price of 1 deal. I'll try not to be too lengthy.

Many months ago, I finally got tired of opening my spellbook every time I wanted to teleport or open a portal. Open spellbook... click on next page until I get to the back... and then finally find the right city to open the portal. Yet those spells weren't important enough to warrant their own hotbar button either. So, the next logical step was to find a mod that would ease my pain. What I found was a full-service mage buffet.

I believe there was an original mod called Cryolysis. It probably worked about the same as Cryolysis: Revived, but Revived was updated for WoW 2.0. There's a whole bunch of things it can do, but I'll just hit some of my favorites. Head over to Curse for a full description. It's basically this sphere with spell circles around it (as seen in the picture) that is able to cast all mage spells.

-Portals- Yes, all of your portals and teleports are packed in tightly to one button. click the button, and the sub menu will open up with all your choices.

-Reagent Restocking- Set how many Rune of Portals, Rune of Teleports, and Arcane Powder you want, and every time you visit a Reagent Vendor, it will restock those items for you. I'm rarely out of reagents in normal situations.

-Eat/Drink Button- Sure you can create a macro for this, but you get this nice big sphere that you can click on that will cause you to eat and drink at the same time.

-Sheep Watch- I used to use a sheepwatch mod, but that didn't get updated in 2.0. I believe my other mods like Quartz handle the sheep timer bar, but Cryolysis provides me with an audible notification that the sheep was broken. (Warning: not 100 effective, but still pretty, darn good.)

-Mana Gems- You can use the Mana Gem button and sub menu to cast and use your mana gems. Was a huge bonus when I starting doing Kara and found that I needed to have multiple gems for the long fights.

And if that doesn't give you mages a reason to check out this mod, I'm not sure what will.

Well, along with other fights, we went to battle against Prince last night. Our raid DPS wasn't the highest, so I knew that it was going to be a long fight. I used potions, I used evocate, I used gems. Wait... I thought I used gems. Well, those little buttons on Cryolysis are so small. I usually don't have any problem with them at all. Just for whatever reason, I missed that I hadn't used my second gem.

Well, Prince seemed to stay at 1% health for a very, very long time, which I'm sure he did since many of our raid members were dead by this point. (Prince fights aren't usually this close, but our high DPS rogue got boxed in by Infernals, so we lost her early.) I was doing all I could, but didn't have much left. Wand, wand, scorch, pray that he dies, etc. There was a moment of panic when he killed the tank, and ran straight for me. The scorch was all I had left in me until I was out of mana again. It was already casting. Other than myself, just the healers were alive. Scorch goes off, I died, and then he immediately fell over as well. I checked the combat log to verify that my Scorch killed him, which it did. It would have been a lot less scary if I had used my gem (which I didn't know I had at that point) and just Fire Blasted him. But the bigger question in my mind: My Scorch went off first. I killed him. How did he kill me? It's not like it's a Fireball that has a delay between the time you cast it and it hits. It's an instant-hit spell as soon as you finish casting. Odd... just odd. Bottom line, I guess, is that he's dead, so what did it really matter?

So Close on the Dragonkiller

We ventured into Gruul's Lair to take on the Dragonkiller himself, last night. Because of various conflicts in schedule, we took 6 (or 7, I forget) mages with us. We were a little short on healers having only 6 for about an hour, and then 1 had to leave. So, we got Gruul down to about 17%. There were improvements on each subsequent attempt, but we just couldn't down him last night.

Our main problem, obviously, was that we just didn't have the heal power we normally do. Two of our most equipped healers weren't online; and overall, we just couldn't pump out the same HPS. So, all in all it was a valiant attempt. If we had tried a couple more times, we probably could have had it. But we'll try it again tonight, and we should be successful.

One of the things I was kind of baffled about was Scorch. As I've mentioned before, when you have 5 Scorch Debuffs up on the target, everyone does an additional 15% fire damage. One of our mages is Frost, so he doesn't count, but the rest of us are Fire. The odd thing was though that there were only 3 of us that were renewing the Scorches. Ideally, we only have to cast 1 scorch each, and with 5 of us, we've got the full 15%. I really noticed this when two of the other Scorchers had died, and the rest of us were alive. I first noticed that I was the one that kept renewing the Scorch. So, I did a little experiment and let the debuff run out, then I started Scorching it up again. I had to cast all 5 of the Scorches.

In theory, the highest DPS should be casting Scorch the least. Let him hit with the Fireballs to cause maximum raid damage. The lowest DPS should probably be the one to hit with the improved Scorch every 25 seconds or so. Everyone can pitch in at the beginning to get the full 15% and also to maintain a lower aggro at the beginning. I just don't understand how as a fire mage, you would completely ignore this spell. /boogle