SwagVault MMO Blog

My suggestion in Upcoming Mage changes

These are interesting changes which make a lot of sense.  Not too much here that’s surprising actually, considering they dropped a lot of hints.

I think the biggest surprise here is there is no corresponding nerf to Arcane Barrage.  I suppose this is because they expect Arcane’s burst to be greatly diminished when PvP gear starts to scale survivability much higher, but still, the ability to cast AB one to three times on a Slowed target then rock them with a +15-45% damage Arcane Barrage and follow it up with a PoM pyro…could be a bit OP *grin*.  The side effect is of course opening up the mage to being locked out on his key Arcane defenses (mana shield, CS, blink, invis).    This is an important point because a (large) part of the OPness of Arcane spec in PvP was the high mobility this spec allowed while not opening itself up to lockout minus a 2.5s missile barrage of doom.

This really makes me want to try out Arcane again for PvE (I stayed Arcane from 3.0.2 in TBC until level 75).  Its a really fun spec and requires a lot more skill (now) to maximize the potential PvE damage than FFB or Frost does.  

This also fixes the Arcane haste scaling problems (arcane was haste soft-capped at 33%), though not the crit ones.  Not sure how much spirit is going to boost the damage of this spec though.  Its going to depend a lot on how desirable stacking an extra AB buff is going to be vs. releasing the lower damage ABar early to save mana.

Another important point: Precision change to nerf FFB (presuming the bugged extra 3% hit is gone with this change) + the change to Torment of the Weak brings Fire and Frost spec back into the mix of things for max PvE damage specs.  Looks like its going to be: Fire: More consistent damage, higher mana consumption; Frostfire, slightly lower or higher damage (depending on your crit%) and spikier damage, lower mana consumption.  Let the player decide the route.

In terms of overall damage, this is definitely a buff to the lesser used specs (Deep Arcane, Fire/Arc, and Frost/Arc).  It slightly nerfs Frostfire until mages regear accordingly.  (need 367 rather than 289 hit rating to cap out FFB)

Mage damage is a tad high at the higher gear levels according to parses I’ve seen but is largely dependent on the RNG.  I don’t know if this justifies it as high, or if Warlocks and Rogues (non-bugged) are just low.  And please don’t quote that 6500 dps mage parse…its rife with inconsistencies.