Mage changes in Cataclysm

Here they are.

Revelatory!

Obviously, as a dedicated Fire mage, I'm really excited by everything that Bashiok announced.

Raiding

The first thing I want to do is look at the impact of these changes on the talents and spells I currently use. There are undoubtedly a lot of unannounced adjustments and changes which will render everything I'm about to say imprecise, but from the standpoint of a raiding Fire mage in the current game I do have a few comments.

Scorch - "Our goal is for Scorch to be part of the mage's rotation and a useful damage-dealing ability"

I think this is a very necessary idea. Currently, I don't use Scorch when someone who can provide the same debuff is in the party or raid; their application of that falls into their normal rotation, whereas Scorch is something I don't cast in groups except for the sake of the debuff.

If there is a good reason to throw Scorch into my normal raiding rotation, then obviously my rotation becomes that little bit more complex, which contrary to expectations is actually probably going to be more fun.

Pyromaniac - "Pyromaniac will grant Haste when three or more targets are getting damaged by the effects of your damage-over-time (DoT) fire spells."

Also good. The passive spell critical strike chance and mana regeneration of the current Pyromaniac talent shouldn't be an issue in Cataclysm; the first is rolled into our second passive Fire spec bonus, and the whole shape of mana pools is going to be changed as a consequence of the stat changes. I do feel like dealing with trash packs and adds leaves me few options besides throwing Living Bomb, so casting faster spells will help without necessarily ratcheting up my performance on bosses.

Burnout - "The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast spells using health when they run out of mana."

Definitely unexpected, but in a way it makes sense. I'll be interested to see how this is intended. Currently, Burnout is the single talent in the second-to-last tier in the Fire tree, increasing spell critical strike damage at the cost of extra mana when spells crit; if it stays there with no alternative, that possibly implies running out of mana and having to use health will become a part of PvE encounter design. If it's moved elsewhere, it could become a PvP talent with no real PvE design intention.

Ignite - "All direct-damage fire spells will add a damage-over-time (DoT) component when cast."

If you'd asked me before I saw Bashiok's post, I would have predicted this would be Fire mages' Mastery passive spec bonus in Cataclysm. I even said so to Lexa last night, as we were getting ready for bed and I was gleefully speculating about what today would bring.

It makes a lot of sense to me. Ignite is a talent no Fire mage skips, and it's iconic to the class. I'm delighted that I will literally set my enemies on fire with every fire spell I use.


New Spells

The new spells Bashiok announced are pretty exciting.

Flame Orb sounds like fun, and useful for trash packs as well as some add-heavy encounters; I'm sure it will have plenty of PvP utility I don't care about, too. One thought about PvP, however: can you send a Flame Orb into a rogue's Smoke Cloud, and will it hit a Camouflaged hunter?

Time Warp is a real surprise. I suppose I had imagined that eventually Blizzard would make a Bloodlust/Heroism-like effect available to another class, but I hadn't guessed that it would be mages. The funny thing is that Ascanius already has his Engineering rocket boots, so giving him yet another way to zoom around even when Exhaustion is up is just icing on the cake.

Wall of Fog seems pretty useful in PvP, but again it obviously has uses in PvE encounters with lots of adds and trash. I want to note here, though, that it's interesting how Cataclysm is (intentionally or not) taking some cues from Dungeons & Dragons in its mage design; wall-type spells like this have been in D&D forever, and the potential for Fire mages to get a big kaboom when Flame Orb stops moving is exactly like one of the variants of the tabletop Fireball spell I mentioned in my first post.


Everything Else

I'm surprised and pleased by the changes to Arcane Missiles. I used to enjoy throwing this spell in while levelling Ascanius back in the old days. The fact that it will now be based on a proc like a Hot Streak-enabled Pyroblast is pretty cool, and might even mean that I use it - at least while questing, if not while levelling.

I can't say too much about the changes to either Arcane or Frost specs, but I do think it's interesting that Arcane mages will have more potency at the start of a fight and less as it continues; likewise, that Frost mages will have incentives to use spells other than Frostbolt in a way that doesn't simply replicate the proc-based incentives of Arcane and Fire.

Well, hopefully we'll either learn something more about mages in the next few days, or Blizzard will throw in some information about other aspects of Cataclysm to tide us over while we wait for the final class preview, for paladins. Either way, I'll have more to say in the near future - about my current plans to level a worgen rogue, if nothing else.