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Category Archives: Mage

MoP’ing up the Twinks

25 Oct

Today we’re going to take a look at the talent trees that are proposed for being in the Mists of Pandaria expansion, and how those talent trees might impact twink brackets. As we continue on, keep in mind the fact that this stuff was just announced at BlizzCon 2011 and this expansion isn’t scheduled to come out for who knows how long yet so any and all information here could potentially change.

I’m not going to look at every bracket in this post because there are just too many talents to smash them all into a single post. Instead I’m going to break in into two parts; one for the 10-14 bracket, and one for the 15-19 and 20-24 brackets as the impact on the two should be roughly the same.

I did not attend or in any way participate in this year’s BlizzCon, so I’m only going off of what the MoP Talent Calculator from Wowhead has to tell me, and what I heard people say on Twitter or on other blogs. If any of this information is incorrect, incomplete, or false please notify me of such in the comments so that I can get it updated with the correct information.

Right now we don’t know much of anything about the Monk class, so they won’t be included in this particular post. It is safe to say you better be careful around those pandas with their racial sleep attack though.

Level 10-14
At first glance this bracket doesn’t seem like it would be effected much by talent trees that are switching to every 15 levels. However, this has a huge impact on some classes because spells they enjoy right now at level 10 aren’t going to be available until much later. We don’t know all of the details of which spells might be changing to different level ranges, but we do know some of them from changes to the talent trees.

Druids:
Druids don’t have any obvious change of this nature. None of the spells shown in the new talent trees are ones that are currently granted at level 10. If Feral Druids still have access to Mangle in this bracket, they should be fine. Balance Druids will likely remain unviable in this bracket without significant changes. Resto Druids will likely remain the weakest of the four healers in this bracket.

Hunters:
The only talent tree change we’ll see is Beastmastery, who lose the stun effect of Intimidation as it’s changed to a level 30 talent. We don’t know yet what they’re going to give BM in place of Intimidation, but a BM Hunter combining the Bat’s ranged stun with Intimidation’s stun can be a brutal combination in today’s low level brackets.

The biggest announcement of all – no more minimum range. This means that Hunters are going to lose their only weakness in low level PvP as they’ll be able to shot you from melee range. Unless Hunter damage is decreased or general player survivability is increased, Hunters are going to be even more powerful than they already are.

Mages:
Mages don’t see any talent-related hits, but there is one big difference to point out. In MoP, some of the Mage’s baseline spells get restricted to your spec. Fireball can only be cast by Fire Mages, Frostbolt by Frost, and Arcane Blast (I think) can only be cast by Arcane. Meaning that the primary slow effect of most Mages in this bracket is removed from two of the specs. Granted, Arcane Mages typically kill you rather than slowing you down, and Fire kind of sucks in this bracket, but that does remove the ability for non-Frosties to slow you down in this bracket.

Paladins:
Paladins didn’t lose any of their level 10 talents either, and I did not see any major functionality changes mentioned either. Unless Blizzard changes spell levels or adds/removes other spells then the Paladins should remain about the same in this bracket.

Priests:
Priests have no changes due to talents in this bracket either. The one thing that could be worth mentioning is that Wands are now base weapons for casters which could mean that we’ll see more mana-free ranged attacks from the casters. Then again, we might not. The one change we do know about is that Priests lose their AoE fear spell, Psychic Scream, as it becomes a level 15 talent instead of a level 12 spell.

Rogues:
Rogues may or may not see any impact from the removal of ranged weapons, it depends on which level they give us the ability to throw melee weapons instead and at what range. As far as talents go, non-Rogues give praise for Shadowstep has been moved to level 60, which means you shouldn’t find yourself on the receiving end of a one-shot Ambush any more. Well, not as often anyway. Maybe…

Shamans:
Shamans are going to see some changes in their totems as all buff totems will be removed. We don’t have enough information yet to know whether that’s a good thing or bad, but it does remove some of the low level functionality at the least. There are no talent changes that will directly impact Shamans, so only more information on the other aspects will tell us for sure how Shaman play will change.

Warlocks:
Warlocks are going to have a different resource pool for each spec now instead of everyone using Soul Shards. I haven’t seen the details on those yet, so I don’t know exactly how or what that’s going to impact for low level Warlocks. None of the talent changes will have an impact on this bracket.

Warriors:
No talent tree changes here either that I can see. I don’t recall hearing anything about specific Warrior changes either, beyond the removal of ranged weapons, so we’re probably looking at very little overall change here either.

Level 15-19 and 20-24
Much like the level 10 bracket, some classes are going to see larger changes in this bracket than others because of the shifting of some spells. Both of these brackets have access to only one talent point for level 15, so in general the impact should be the same in both brackets when looking strictly at the changes to talent points.

Druids: Feline Swiftness, Displacer Beast, Tireless Pursuit
The fastest, most mobile flag carriers in the game are about to get a whole lot more mobile. It’s hard to say right now which of these is going to be the most effective in the bracket as they’re all very good, and I look forward to trying all of them out.

Feline Swiftness becomes a baseline 10% buff to movement speed, with an additional 20% while in Cat form. While the benefits of this one aren’t as extreme as the other two, it’s always active and has no cooldown, so you’ll be able to enjoy its effects constantly.

Displacer Beast (3 min cooldown) teleports you 20 yards in a random direction, removes all periodic damage effects, and puts you Cat form and Stealth for 10 seconds (attacking or taking damage cancels stealth, assume breaking cat form does as well). This has huge potential for flag carriers, though they will need to be careful to pick the flag back up after teleporting as the stealth feature will force you to drop it. I’m assuming that this teleport will take you out of combat (since stealth can’t be used in combat normally), otherwise if you’re in combat then the flag shouldn’t be dropped automatically with the current rules.

Tireless Pursuit (3 min cooldown) activates your Cat Form, removes all roots/snares and increases your Cat Form speed by 70% for 15 seconds (does not break Prowl). It’s like a beefed up version of Dash which Druids don’t currently have access to in this bracket. The only way to stop Druids right now is to either kill them quickly or use CC to slow/stop them long enough to kill them slowly, and this talent works to counter both of those.

Hunters: Frozen Arrows, Arcane Arrows, Venom Tipped Arrows
Can you say, “OP just got more OP?”

Frozen Arrows gives your Auto Shot a 30% chance to reduce the target’s movement speed by 30% for 10 seconds. Just what Hunters needed, free CC on top of their already insane ranged damage. It’s hard to imagine any twinks not taking this talent, unless Venom Tipped Arrows just proves to be too good (see below).

Arcane Arrows gives your Auto Shot a 50% chance to restore 5 focus when it deals damage. This one doesn’t seem all that great to me with Haste being so potent in the lower levels already.

Venom Tipped Arrows gives your ammunition a stacking poison DoT effect that deals Nature damage. Stacks up to 5 times. We don’t have any numbers on this one, nor does it specify only Auto Shot, so it’s hard to say how good or bad this one might be at this point.

Mages: Ring of Frost, Cone of Cold, Frostjaw
Stop!..Freezy time! /dance

Ring of Frost (1 min cooldown) creates a 10 yard diameter ring that lasts for 12 seconds, which freezes enemies who enter for 10 seconds. While it’s not the most effective form of CC, it is AoE and does have some great uses. This spell is going to add a level of strategy and area awareness to the low level brackets that many players might not be used to.

Cone of Cold (10 sec cooldown) deals Frost damage to enemies in a cone in front of the caster, freezing them in place for 3 seconds and slowing them by 60% for 6 seconds. This is pretty much what the spell currently does, except that only Frost has the talents that add the CC aspect to it. I can already see Arcane Mages making great use of this spell as another instant cast, AoE, and adding CC to their mix. Arcane is already pushing hard on the boundaries of being OP, and this might push it over the edge.

Frostjaw (20 sec cooldown) silences and freezes the target in place for 8 seconds, lasts half as long versus player targets. The only thing keeping this from being truly fantastic is the 1.5 second cast time, but even with that it’s still a great spell. Silence is always good, but the ability to cast a targeted freeze effect at range is a big deal.

I really don’t know yet which of these will see the most use in low level PvP because I can see uses for all of them. If I had to guess, I’d say Frostjaw >= Ring of Frost > Cone of Cold…maybe.

Paladins: Spped of Light, Long Arm of the Law, Pursuit of Justice
Tanks Upgrades: Rocket Boosters Edition!

Speed of Light (1 min cooldown) increases your speed by 60% for 6 seconds, during which you radiate healing to nearby allies. How much healing we’re talking about is the unknown (along with the range), which makes judging this one kind of hard. This could either be really freaking cool, or just pretty cool.

Long Arm of the Law increases your speed by 45% for 4 seconds after using Judgment. This is meant to be the Paladin’s “gap closer” similar to the Charge abilities of other tanks. I think we could end up seeing a lot of Paladin’s use this skill in these brackets as all three specs make frequent use of the Judgment spell.

Pursuit of Justice increases your speed by 10% for each current charge of Holy Power. This one is probably going to be the overall favorite. Holy uses their HP off and on depending on the situation, and they can almost always keep a full stack of HP ready with Holy Shock casts on themselves. Protection is almost always full of HP with nothing to dump it into besides Word of Glory (I did see someone mention the cooldown was being removed, but I can’t verify). Retribution uses their HP pretty frequently, so they’ll most likely use Long Arm of the Law (above) instead.

Priests: Void Tendrils, Psyfiend, Psychic Scream
Top Heals + AoE CC = MWAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!

Void Tendrils (30 sec cooldown) summons shadowy tendrils out of the ground, rooting all targets within 10 yards for 20 seconds. Killing the tendril will cancel the effect. This is either really cool, or it’s going to sucks. It all depends on how easy or hard it is to kill the tendrils, and right now we don’t have any information on that.

Psyfiend (1 min cooldown) summons a Psyfiend that stands in place. The Psyfiend casts a Psychic Scream on a nearby enemy within 40 yards every 2 seconds lasting for 10 seconds, preferring anything attacking the Priest or her friends. This one is also missing some key information to know just how good or bad it will end up being. For protecting your flag carrier I see this being a pretty amazing spell, but if killing the Psyfiend takes one attack then it kind of sucks.

Psychic Scream (30 sec cooldown) works just like the version that exists right now, fearing up to 5 enemies around you. This is a solid fear spell, and one that I make very frequent use of right now. With so many unknowns in the other two talents, it’s hard to say where this one will end up in relation to them.

Rogues: Nightstalker, Subterfuge, Shadow Focus
What the..? Who? /dead Ah, $#&@!

Nightstalker increases your speed while stealthed by 20%. Right now this talent only increases speed by 10%, so doubling that means Rogues are going to be even more mobile and be able to outrun many of the other classes. Faster speed in stealth is one of my favorite traits of the Rogue right now, and I would definitely put this one to good use.

Subterfuge Your Stealth breaks 3 seconds after dealing or receiving damage, rather than doing so immediately. That extra three seconds gives you time to cast 1-2 additional attacks before your stealth is broken. If you happen to have your hands on a stash of Thistle Tea (restores 100 Energy) then you can double-Ambush people with this talent. Otherwise it’s a fair amount of protection from having your stealth broken by AoE damage and gives you a chance to use attacks like Ambush even after someone spots and attacks you if you can get behind them in time.

Shadow Focus abilities no longer cost Energy while you are stealthed. We’ll have to wait to see what abilities we have available to us before we know how good this one really is. It does mean you can Sap ALL THE THINGS for free, and you can Ambush for free instead of 60 Energy. If you have access to Ambush and Backstab then you can do Ambush/BS/BS combos with this for some very high damage, but we don’t know enough about other changes to know how good this will be just yet.

Shamans: Frozen Power, Earthgrab Totem, Repulsion Totem
Stop! Freezy ti- wait, didn’t we just do this?

Frozen Power Frost Shock now also roots the target in ice for 5 seconds. This is an existing talent deep in the Enhancement tree. I really like that this is going to be available at early levels as a ranged freeze is super cool, especially when it’s an instant cast like Frost Shock. When playing a DPS spec, I’m pretty sure I would want this one for that extra level of control knowing that I’m going to freeze the one I want to freeze (hello EFC) and I can do it at a range.

Earthgrab Totem summons a totem for 45 seconds that pulses every second to root all enemies within 8 yards for 5 seconds. Recently rooted enemies will instead have their movement speed reduced by 50%. This talent is currently deep in the Elemental tree, but it’s a pretty sweet spell. The only thing that I’m concerned about is what kind of survival this totem is going to have. If a hunter can one-shot it or a caster can wand it to death in a second, then it’s still good but not very. If it has a decent health pool, then it’s going to be fantastic.

Repulsion Totem summons a toem for 15 seconfds that repels enemies. In the world of PvP this thing is call “Totem of complete and total garbage”. If it repels Hunter and Warlock pets then it might be useful, otherwise it’s worthless.

Warlocks: Dark Regeneration, Soul Leech, Harvest of Life
There’s a reason my high school mascot was a Harvester…of Life.

Dark Regeneration (3 min cooldown) restores 50% of your Maximum health over 25 seconds. This one is a little…odd. On the one hand, that’s what heck of a healing spell, but on the other…that’s going to take forever. It feels like Gift of the Naaru to me, which is a bit too little too late to really matter in most cases. Still, that is a lot of healing and flag carriers could especially make good use of that.

Soul Leech Shadowbolt, Incinerate, and Malefic Grasp heal you for 25% of the damage dealt. I’d have to see some damage numbers and cast times to really be able to say how powerful this could be. My initial thoughts are something along the lines of, yes please thank you!

Havest of Life (channeled) drains life from the target and all targets within 20 yards, causing 94 Shadow damage and restoring 2% of the caster’s total health per target every 1 second. Lasts 3 seconds. Empowered Channel: recasting this spell before it finishes boosts the duration by 3 seconds. Stacks 5 times. Now THIS is what I’m talking about. I’d like to see the mana cost and damage potential for the appropriate level before saying too much about this one, but I love the look of it so far.

Warriors: Juggernaut, Double Time, Warbringer

Juggernaut you can charge every 12 seconds instead of every 20. This one isn’t bad, I guess. More charging is always good, but I don’t know that it’s good enough to really thrill me. If they removed the restriction of Charge to be used during combat then this could be a really useful talent, otherwise I admit I’m a bit disappointed in this talent.

Double Time you can use Charge twice before incurring its cooldown. Now this one is really interesting. As far as I’m aware, Charge can still only be used outside of combat, but using it puts you into combat, which leaves me confused. If you can use it during combat and twice in a row, then that’s pretty cool for chasing down flag carriers or even for returning the flag yourself.

Warbringer your Charge also roots the target for 5 seconds. Now this is something to write home to mama about. Right now Warriors aren’t in the best of places in low level PvP, but adding some more utility and CC to their toolbox just might do the trick. Assuming that charge hasn’t been changed to allow use during combat by default, I’d say this is the clear winner. If Charge actually is being changed, then it’s a bit of a toss up depending on the situation.

Foreseen Overall Changes
So to sum all of those changes up, this is what I see happening with low level PvP.

1. The return of CC
2. Hunters even more OP
3. Faster games

With so many classes getting CC talents in the first tier, I don’t know how we could not see more CC used in the low level brackets. The only thing I like better than killing my opponents is locking them down to the point that I can hear their furious screams over the internet, even over the sound of my own maniacal laughter. On the one hand, this is probably going to piss me off more than once (being on the receiving end of it), but on the other I look forward to adding some more tactical choices to the mix.

I don’t want #2 up there to seem too much like I’m crying here. I like playing classes that are super powerful. I love playing with Sub Rogues and Arcane Mages, and seeing how many kills I can get out of a lowbie game. But, there does come a point where things are so unbalanced that they just aren’t fun anymore. There’s an honest to goodness problem with the power of Hunters in low level PvP right now, and things only seem to be getting worse. I don’t want to see them nerfed into oblivion, but I would like to see them pulled back a bit for low levels. We’re almost at the point right now that matches are decided before the gates even fall, based purely on the number of Hunters on the opposing team.

I see faster games coming from a couple of reasons. First, because a lot of classes get more speed buffs which does have a direct impact on the speed of WSG and AB matches. Second because of the increased CC options. Teams who use CC well are going to make short work of teams that don’t know how to use it or how to fight against it. If neither team uses it, then matches stay the same. If both teams use it, then we could end up seeing longer games. With non-premades still being the norm though, I think we’ll end up with faster games overall. Personally, I’d love to see a match where both teams were making good use of CC and we had to honestly struggle for a win.

 
4 Comments

Posted by on October 25, 2011 in Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior

 

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New Heirlooms in 4.3

01 Sep

In Patch 4.3 the Darkmoon Faire is going to get a nice little revamp (details here). I’ve never been too big on the faire beyond abusing the vendors there to get high selling mats for cheap vendor prices that I could toss on the AH for a quick, easy profit. My lack of interest almost made me ignore the information regarding the faire, but I was bored anyway (and about to leave work for the day) so I figured I might as well take a look.

Most of what the notes mentioned weren’t bad, but nothing that would get me otherwise interested in the DMF, until I stumbled onto this:

“We have adorable companion pets inludin’ a fez-wearing monkey, a plethora of profession recipes, toys, balloons, souvenirs, delectable carnival snacks and beverages, heirlooms for the little ones, and even replicas of long-lost suits of armor that we’re offering for your Transmogrification needs.”

Unfortunately for us, there’s no more mention of heirlooms in the article, so we don’t know for sure what it refers to. It could be new heirlooms, it could be existing heirlooms, or it could be other items all together that they simply used the word to describe. Without the details, one can only hope and imagine.

But wait… we do have details!

Not details about the DMF, but of heirlooms that have been sitting in the PTR database for over 8 months now. Heirloom Legs and Heirloom Rings, to be exact. I’ll throw out the disclaimer here, just in case you didn’t read the rest of this post: The heirlooms I’m about to mention have not been confirmed for patch 4.3 as of the writing of this post.

Heirloom Rings
There are four new heirloom rings in the Wowhead database that do not currently exist in the game. Each of these four puts the existing Dread Pirate Ring (DPR) to shame. So much so, in fact, that if you have access to any of these they will be better than the DPR even if you only have Strength rings and you’re playing a Mage.

I would like to see the DPR get an upgrade when/if these four do become available because of how much weaker it is in comparison. Whether or not they’ll do so remains to be seen, though I kind of doubt that they’ll change anything about it at all given that it’s from a previous expansion and an upgrade isn’t necessarily…well, necessary.

The important thing to note about these rings is that all of them are Unique-Equip, so you can’t wear two of the same ring. That’s not much of a problem for Strength-based melee classes since there are two Strength rings, and Agility-based classes aren’t too bad off since they can get at least some benefit from the Strength (Hunters less than others, of course). Casters get the short end here with only one ring that grants caster stats (sorry Healers, no Spirit here at all), so a second heirloom ring only benefits you so far as the secondary stats and stamina bonus are concerned.

Antique Myrmidon’s Signet: Strength, Stamina, Hit, Crit, +5% Exp
Burnished Dark Iron Ring: Strength, Stamina, Dodge, Expertise, +5% Exp
Gleaming Seal of the Archmagus: Stamina, Intellect, Crit, Haste, +5% Exp
Ornate Band of Accuria: Agility, Stamina, Crit, Haste, +5% Exp

Strength-based melee classes will want both the Antique and Burnished rings. Agility-based melee will want the Ornate and Antique rings. Hunters will want either the Ornate and Antique (Hit/Crit) or the Ornate and Gleaming (Crit/Haste) rings, but I’m not familiar enough with the Hunter to tell you exactly which one is better. All casters will want to use the Gleaming ring and either the Ornate (Crit/Haste) or Antique (Hit/Crit) depending on which secondary stats are more beneficial for their given class and spec.

Ring Enchants
There are a total of seven enchants that you can put on these heirlooms, and all of them require the character wearing the ring(s) to have the Enchanting skill and a skill level high enough to cast the enchant themselves (even if they don’t have the pattern themselves). Three of the enchants can be used with a skill level of 400, and the other four require 475.

The numbers in parenthesis below represent the Enchanting skill level required to activate the enchant.

Enchant Ring – Assault: (400) +40 Attack Power
Enchant Ring – Greater Spellpower: (400) +23 Spell Power
Enchant Ring – Stamina: (400) +30 Stamina
Enchant Ring – Agility: (475) +40 Agility
Enchant Ring – Greater Stamina: (475) +60 Stamina
Enchant Ring – Intellect: (475) +40 Intellect
Enchant Ring – Strength: (475) +40 Strength

Of the options available, you’ll get more use out of the first three options simply because of how many levels you can make use of them compared to the other four. As far as stats are concerned, the last four are definitely the more beneficial option as they’re roughly twice as good as the others.

Personally, I’d go with Greater Spellpower for the caster ring, and +40 Attack Power for all of the others. I would consider +30 Stamina for the tanking ring, though I’d probably stick with the attack power as I don’t often find Stamina to be high on my priority list while leveling.

Heirloom Legs
There are seven heirloom legs in the database, and up to this point we’ve had none. Legs can sometimes be a pretty hard slot to find upgrades for, so I’m pretty happy to see this slot get heirlooms. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve been to Outlands while still wearing level 20-30 legs.

There are Leg options for every class and spec. The stats that they offer follow the same pattern we’ve seen in the other armor heirlooms up to this point, so you’ll find that some pieces might not have the perfect stats for you but you’ll at least be able to find something that works well enough.

Tattered Dreadmist Leggings: [Cloth] Stamina, Intellect, Crit, Haste, +10% Exp
Preened Wildfeather Leggings: [Leather] Stamina, Intellect, Spirit, Crit, +10% Exp
Stained Shadowcraft Pants: [Leather] Agility, Stamina, Crit, Haste, +10% Exp
Mystical Kilt of Elements: [Mail] Stamina, Intellect, Spirit, Crit, +10% Exp
Tarnished Leggings of Destruction: [Mail] Agility, Stamina, Crit, Haste, +10% Exp
Burnished Legplates of Might: [Plate] Strength, Stamina, Parry, Hit, +10% Exp
Polished Legplates of Valor: [Plate] Strength, Stamina, Crit, Expertise, +10% Exp

Leg Enchants
There are a lot of options for leg enchants. The main question you have to ask yourself when deciding which you want to use is at which level you want to benefit from an enchant. The higher the level requirement, the larger the stat benefit (as you would expect), but of course the fewer levels you get to benefit from it.

If you’d like to take a look at the enchants available as a search, you can follow this link: Link. Just make sure there’s something inside that Source column, as those without a source are ones which can no longer be obtained. If you happen to have made/obtained some of those enchants back in the day when they were available then you can still use them, but I don’t expect many people at all to still have them sitting around (unless you’re an old school twink player). Also note that there are a few leg enchants that require an item level instead of, or in addition to, a character level and none of those can be used at all since heirlooms are considered item level 1.

In the list below, the number in (parenthesis) is the player level required to use the enchant. Rather than putting a full list here, I’ve gone through and listed the ones I’d particularly consider for my own heirloom legs. I’ve also categorized them by the types of bonuses that they give.

—Generic Bonuses—
Medium Armor Kit: (5) +16 Armor
Heavy Borean Armor Kit: (70) +18 Stamina
Savage Armor Kit: (78) +36 Stamina
Earthen Leg Armor: (80) +28 Stamina, +40 Resilience
Heavy Savage Armor Kit: (81) +44 Stamina

These will likely be the easiest for you to obtain as well as the cheapest. They all provide a decent bonus for their level range even if they’re not that impressive overall. If you’re planning to use them on low level twinks then only the Medium Armor Kit is useful to you, but if you’re going to level characters with them then you’re better off going for the Heavy Borean or Heavy Savage armor kits. If you really like PvP, then the level 80 Earthen Leg Armor is for you.

Personally, if I were going to choose between just these, I’d go for the Heavy Borean Armor Kit so that I could benefit from the enchant for 15 levels. However, I’d still prefer to pick an option that’s more class-specific from the lists below than any of these. But that’s because I’m a crazy min/maxing fool, and overall none of these bonuses are high enough for me to care about using them.

—Melee Bonuses—
Clefthide Leg Armor: (50) +30 Stamina, +10 Agility
Cobrahide Leg Armor: (50) +40 Attack Power, +10 Crit
Nethercraft Leg Armor: (60) +40 Stamina, +12 Agility
Nethercobra Leg Armor: (60) +50 Attack Power, +12 Crit
Jormungar Leg Armor: (70) +45 Stamina, +15 Agility
Nerubian Leg Armor: (70) +55 Attack Power, +15 Crit
Frosthide Leg Armor: (80) +55 Stamina, +22 Agility
Icescale Leg Armor: (80) +75 Attack Power, +22 Crit
Scorched Leg Armor: (80) +110 Attack Power, +45 Crit
Twilight Leg Armor: (80) +85 Stamina, +45 Agility

For your melee classes, I would lean towards the Attack Power/Crit options over the Agility/Stamina. The main reason for that is that Stamina isn’t that big of a deal for leveling, and the amount of AP you get from the Agility doesn’t match the amount given from the other options of the same level. If you choose to go for one of the level 80 enchants, then I might change my mind and go for the Agility instead (for Hunters, Rogues, and Shaman) since the stat does offer more than just attack power, but otherwise I’d stick to AP.

My personal preference for these would be Cobrahide, Nethercobra, or Nerubian; in that order. The difference between those three isn’t all that big, and there’s a 10 level difference between each of them. I’d lean more towards an enchant that gave me 35 levels worth of benefit over one that gave me only 15 levels worth and only 15 more Attack Power.

—Tanking Bonuses—
Core Armor Kit: (50) +5 Dodge
Vindicator’s Armor Kit: (55) +8 Dodge

The tanking enchants are available if you really want them. Personally, I’d just go for a melee enchant instead since the amount of Dodge on these things is so small. If you want survivability then go for one that offers Agility, otherwise stick to the AP/Crit options as I suggested for other melee classes. The only thing the AP/Crit gives you as a tank is better threat generation and easier solo play which may or may not be appealing to you.

Personally, I won’t bother with either of these for my tanks. I’d suggest you go with the melee enchants I listed above.

—Caster Bonuses—
Mystic Spellthread: (50) +25 Spell Power, +15 Stamina
Silver Spellthread: (50) +25 Spell Power, +15 Stamina
Golden Spellthread: (60) +35 Spell Power, +20 Stamina
Runic Spellthread: (60) +35 Spell Power, +20 Stamina
Azure Spellthread: (70) +35 Spell Power, +20 Stamina
Shining Spellthred: (70) +35 Spell Power, +20 Stamina
Brilliant Spellthread: (70) +50 Spell Power, +20 Spirit
Sapphire Spellthread: (70) +50 Spell Power, +30 Stamina
Enchanted Spellthread: (80) +55 Intellect, +65 Stamina
Ghostly Spellthread: (80) +55 Intellect, +45 Spirit

There are quite a few caster leg enchants available to you, though some of them require various reputation grinds to get their patterns (if you don’t already have them). There are also some Tailor-specific spellthreads that I have listed down below in case you’d like to consider those. If you like your casters to be tailors, then I’d definitely consider at least looking at them. Otherwise you’ve got plenty of options here.

Much like the melee enchants above, I would lean towards the level 50 versions myself for the sake of getting 35 levels worth of benefit from the enchant. In order of preference, I’d go Mystic/Silver, Golden/Runic, and then Brilliant. The one benefit of Brilliant over the others is that it gives Spirit rather than Stamina which is more appealing in my opinion (even for casters that get no benefit from Spirit beyond passive mana regen).

—Tailor-Only Bonuses— Number in parenthesis is the Skill Level required to activate
Master’s Spellthread (Rank 1): (405) +50 Spell Power, +30 Stamina
Sanctified Spellthread (Rank 1): (405) +50 Spell Power, +20 Spirit
Master’s Spellthread (Rank 2): (475) +95 Intellect, +80 Stamina
Sanctified Spellthread (Rank 2): (475) +95 Intellect, +55 Spirit

The tailor’s special spellthreads are quite good. While the Rank 2 versions are significantly more powerful than the Rank 1′s, I would still lean towards the Rank 1′s myself because of how much Frostweave it takes you to level from the 405 mark for Rank 1 to the 475 mark for the Rank 2. That’s a lot of cloth to farm for an upgraded enchant that you can only use for 11 levels. Especially for someone like me who rolls a lot of alts, as I’d have to level tailoring on every one of them if I wanted to benefit from these. If you’re an altoholic, these enchants probably aren’t the best option for you.

So my preference, if I was going to use any of these, would be Sanctified 1, Master’s 1, Sanctified 2. Personally, I roll too many alts to seriously consider any of these when other options exist that don’t force me into a specific profession to use them. Rings don’t have any non-Enchanter options so it’s either those or bust, but there are way too many leg enchants available for me to really consider these worth it.

Heirlooms Guide
If these heirlooms do end up confirmed for patch 4.3, then I will update my Guide to Heirlooms to include which rings, legs, and respective enchants that I would suggest for each class and spec just as I’ve done with all of the other heirlooms to date.

I would also like to take a moment to thank all of those who have sent me emails or who have left comments regarding how useful they’ve found the various guides that I’ve written here. The Guide to Heirlooms post has consistently been my most frequently visited post since just a few days after I wrote it, and I’ve gotten more emails from readers about that post than any other. So thank you, one and all.

 
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Posted by on September 1, 2011 in Caster, Death Knight, Guide, Hunter, Leveling, Mage, Melee, Patch Notes, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior

 

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Mage Leveling: 1-29 Frost

19 Jan

Today we’re getting back to the leveling guides, this time with the low level Frost Mage. I originally had the Frost and Fire posts combined, but decided that since the style of play really is different now that Frost has a pet that they deserved their own posts.

Right now I plan on bouncing back and forth between the two specs until I get you all the way to the level cap and then whether or not I do an Arcane post will be decided by whether or not I roll an Arcane Mage… which isn’t very likely.

But, first thing’s first:



Playing a Frost Mage
As I mentioned in the 1-29 Fire post, each Mage spec has it’s own focus or specialty, and for Frost that is control. Frost is the king of control and survival, taking me back to the days where I dominated Magic: the Gathering tournaments with something we called a Stasis Deck…

…

…

.. oh, sorry. What were we talking about? Oh, Frost Mages. Yeah, sorry about that. It’s been a long time.

So yeah, Frost is all about controlling your opponents, whether they be mobs or other players. Cataclysm actually increased our control capabilities by giving us more ways to freeze our targets and also by making the Water Elemental a permanent pet. They also did us the favor of providing one of our most effective damaging spells, Ice Lance, at level 28 rather than waiting until after level 60, so we’re now able to turn the defensive freezing effects into deadly offensive damage.

But don’t fall into the trap of thinking that just because we have more control means that we deal less damage. Sure, our spells might be slightly lower in damage than the other specs’, but by combining control with the proper spells you can actually deal more damage in a single hit than either of the other two specs.



General Mage Tactics
Mages are known for two things: Being hard to kill, and being incredibly squishy. That’s right, we’re hard to kill because we’re so easy to kill. Why are we easy to kill? Because we wear t-shirts instead of plate armor. Why are we hard to kill? Because we’re often able to kill you before you can do anything to make our t-shirts matter.

As a spellcaster your primary source of defense is to stay away from things that want to hurt you. That doesn’t mean avoiding combat, it means avoiding damage. You’re a ranged class, so don’t get into melee combat when you don’t have to. That doesn’t mean you have to run away from everything, but it does mean you don’t want to run up and hit things with your staff or stab them with a dagger when you could instead cast several spells at them before they can cause you any harm.

Mages have more crowd control options than any other class, in general. Warlocks can beat us when it comes to using CC on certain types of mobs because they have spells that work on things that we don’t, but generally speaking we’re the kings of CC. We can freeze, stun, slow, and polymorph our targets and in some cases we can do those to multiple enemies at once.

Mages also have a number of defensive spells that can either prevent damage or remove harmful effects. If you’re stunned or “rooted” (you can’t move because of a spell/effect) you can cast Blink and it will remove those effects from you. If you are poisoned or diseased you can cast Ice Block to remove all of those effects as well. And if you’re about to die you can always just jump off of a cliff…just make sure you cast Slow Fall before you hit the ground.

While you won’t see it in this level range, Frost also has additional defensive tools that the other specs do not as well as offering talents that can lower the cooldown time of some of those abilities that allow them even more control and survival.

Frost-Specific Tips
Prior to 4.x being released the people who disliked Frost did so because they felt their spells hit for less damage, which was true. The trade off was that Frost spells also had shorter cast times and they did have to give up some damaging potential in exchange for their increased survivability. But the real problem was that so many people who played Mages were afraid of getting killed in melee that they overplayed their defenses to stay alive even if there wasn’t any real threat.

So here are some things to keep in mind when you’re playing a Frost Mage:

  1. Use your pet – constantly.
  2. Use the terrain to your advantage.
  3. Use the extra time to cast additional spells.
  4. Take advantage of Crowd Control.
  5. Chill, there’s no need to hurry.

Use Your Pet: The biggest mistake that Frost Mages are making right now is that they’re trying to treat their pet like a Warlock treats his, which is to say they just leave it alone and let it do its thing. The Water Elemental can do some decent damage with his attack, but his real value is actually in his special ability called Freeze. At level 10 when you get the pet this ability is mostly helpful in the form of defense by keeping mobs away from you, or in keeping fleeing mobs from bringing other mobs into the mix. Macro this ability. Use it. Love it. Embrace it.

Terrain: As a caster you have the huge advantage of being able to use terrain to your benefit where melee classes cannot. If you’re fighting mobs that fight back with melee rather than ranged attacks or spells of their own, then make use the terrain. You can cast your spells through trees, or from the top of a hill or a wall. The time that it takes your target to reach you is time that you have to freely cast your spells. Casting from the opposite side of a tree makes the mob run around the tree to get to you, effectively making the distance between you longer. Doing the same from the opposite side of a fallen log has the same effect, for example. And you’re playing Frost which means that the mobs chasing you down are moving at a slower speed than usual thanks to your Chill effects. A good Frost Mage who’s able to abuse the terrain is virtually unstoppable.

Time: I mentioned the travel time of your spells in the Fire guide, and Frost takes advantage of this as well, but in a different way. Rather than using the travel time strictly to queue up our second spell (which we do, but that’s not the only reason) we’re also doing it to use and abuse our Freeze effects. Our talents grant us extra benefits, such as an increased chance to Crit or additional damage, against targets who are frozen. When a spell is cast the game checks to see if there is a frozen debuff on the target and then if so it applies the buffs. One of Frost’s signature damage spells though is Ice Lance which is an instant-cast spell which does double damage (even more later on) against frozen targets and because it’s instant you’re able to take advantage of a Freeze with both a Frostbolt and an Ice Lance cast by taking advantage of Frostbolt’s travel time to cast an instant Ice Lance so that they both get to benefit from the target being frozen.

Crowd Control: There are three types of CC to bring up here: Slow, Freeze, and Polymorph. Slow refers to any Chill effects you have that slow the target down, primarily Frostbolt. By pulling mobs with a Frostbolt cast you can slow the target’s movement to allow additional time for casting additional spells before they reach you. Freeze is similar, though it prevents movement from the target all together. Frost has the advantage of being able to freeze with Frost Nova, Freeze (pet ability), and Cone of Cold (via talent). You’ll have access to even more freezing abilities later on as well. Polymorph is just that, and typically used when you’ve pulled multiple mobs. If you’ve taken the time to sheep a mob then the best way to break that CC to get back into combat is to move out to max range and then make use of your long-cast time spells such as Fireball in the case of a Frost Mage, or a Frostbolt if you want to immediately apply a slow once Polymorph is broken.

Chill: Yeah, I know, I’m so punny aren’t I? Like I said before, Frost might be the spec of control and survivability, but it’s still a very deadly spec as well. If a mob is hitting you, but you’re not in immediate threat of dying, then who cares? You can either Freeze them and then relocate for safety, you can Freeze and then lay on the extra damage, or you can just keep right on casting and kill them anyway. If you like to move a lot in combat (like me) then go ahead and do so. If you would rather stay in one place and cast until they die then do that. There are very few times outside of fighting elites or group quest mobs that you’ll actually be killed by a mob in a 1v1 fight in which you pull from range.

Important Spells & Abilities
Mages have such an amazingly useful spellbook that it’s really hard to narrow it down to which spells are important and which ones aren’t. Some of them aren’t useful in every fight, but under the right circumstances they’re your go-to spell of choice for the situation. But, I’m going to do my best to remove all of the “but what if…” questions and stick strictly to usefulness for leveling in general circumstances.

All numbers are taken from the level 29 version (where applicable) of the spell. The number following the spell name is the level at which it becomes available.

Damage Spells
Fireball (1): Hurls a fiery ball that causes 63 to 79 Fire damage.
Arcane Missiles (3): Launches a 3-5 waves of Arcane Missiles at the enemy over 2 sec, causing Arcane damage per wave. Each offensive spell you cast has a 40% chance to activate Arcane Missiles.
Fire Blast (4): Blasts the enemy for 67 to 79 Fire damage.
Frostbolt (7): Launches a bolt of frost at the enemy, causing 47 to 59 Frost damage and slowing movement speed by 40% for 9 sec.
Summon Water Elemental (10): Summon a Water Elemental to fight for the caster.
Cone of Cold (18): Targets in a cone in front of the caster take 53 to 57 Frost damage and are slowed by 60% for 8 sec.
Ice Lance (28): Deals 25 to 31 Frost damage to an enemy target, damage doubled against frozen targets.

I only mention Fireball because when you first roll your Mage you have no other option. You don’t actually get Frostbolt until level 7. Arcane Missiles I only list because up to level 29 it will be your main proc spell, allowing you to get mana-free damage; after level 29 you’ll never cast this again. Fire Blast is one of your most useful spells, dealing better damage on average than Fireball and as an instant cast as well; the only drawback being its cooldown. Fire Blast is one of the few spells that provides great utility no matter what spec you choose.

At level 7 we actually get the bread and butter spam spell, Frostbolt which deals decent damage and slows the target by 60% for 8 seconds. At level 8 we get our first freeze effect in the form of Frost Nova, freezing the mobs near the caster. Level 10 gives us access to our Summon Water Elemental which provides our second freeze effect, called Freeze (creative, I know), which works just like Frost Nova except that we get to pick where its effect is centered. The details of the elemental’s Freeze spell can be found in the Utility section just below.

Level 18 gives us Cone of Cold which is a decent spell in its own right being instant cast and dealing AoE damage in a frontal cone, but it also provides yet another freeze effect from the talent points we spend. Finally we have Ice Lance at level 29 which is the key to Frost’s burst damage. It’s an instant cast spell that’s fairly cheap and usually doesn’t deal a whole lot of damage. But, if you cast it on a target that is frozen it will deal double damage instead, putting it slightly ahead of Frostbolt in raw damage if the target is frozen.

Utility
Frost Nova (8): Blasts enemies near the caster for 26 to 30 Frost damage and freezes them in place for up to 8 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect.
Freeze (Pet 10): Blasts enemies in a 8 yard radius for 27 Frost damage and freezes them in place for up to 8 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect.
Evocation (12): Gain 15% of your mana instantly and another 45% of your total mana over 6 sec.
Polymorph (14): Transforms the enemy into a sheep, forcing it to wander around for up to 50 sec. While wandering, the sheep cannot attack or cast spells but will regenerate very quickly. Any damage will transform the target back into its normal form. Only one target can be polymorphed at a time. Only works on Beasts, Humanoids and Critters.
Blink (16): Teleports the caster 20 yards forward, unless something is in the way. Also frees the caster from stuns and bonds.

Frost Nova gets a special mention even though it’s not a Fire spell because it’s such an excellent tool for both offense and defense, often both at the same time. If a mob manages to get into melee range use Frost Nova to keep them in place, move away, and then use the time that they’re frozen to cast another Pyroblast. Evocation is your source of massive mana return, and once glyphed it also restores a good amount of your health as well.

Polymorph is your primary crowd control (CC) spell, effectively removing the target from combat. If you pull more than one mob, use this on one of them to even the odds and then smack them upside the head with a Pyroblast once the first target is killed. Blink is another one of our signature abilities, a spell that no one else can duplicate save Subtlety Rogues to a much lesser extent. It allows you to teleport 20 yards away in the direction you’re facing and breaks any stuns or roots that have been cast on you.

Leveling a Mage
Questing Rotation: Frostbolt, Freeze (Pet), Ice Lance x2, Frostbolt, Frost Nova, Ice Lance
Optional Rotation: Frostbolt, Ice Lance spam while kiting, Arcane Missile on proc
Dungeon Rotation: Frostbolt spam, Ice Lance on proc, Arcane Missile on proc

Frost is often seen as a somewhat boring spec to play, and the rotations up there are your reason why. There’s not a wide variety of damaging Frost spells, so you find yourself doing a whole lot of Frostbolt spam, especially in dungeons since we no longer get Blizzard until we get to the end of Vanilla content.

The Questing Rotation can also be used in dungeons, but a lot of tanks tend to get pissy when you start freezing things in place with your pet or with Frost Nova. If you’re going to use these in a dungeon be sure to use them in situations where you’re not going to mess things up with the group. For example, don’t use your freeze effects until the mobs are gathered closely around the tank, and if you find that one of them is outside of the range that the tank can currently build agro on then you either need to focus on that target to kill them off quickly or do nothing else to them at all so that the tank doesn’t have to put extra effort into pulling threat.

The Questing Rotation is going to maximize your Ice Lance damage by applying freeze effects as often as possible. It’s a great tactic for both PvE and PvP, and it allows you to stay fairly mobile with the Ice Lance casts.

The Optional Rotation is how you’ll see a lot of PvP players utilize a Frost spec, which is slowing the target down and then kiting them around while killing them with Ice Lance casts. If the target does catch up to you just use Freeze or Frost Nova to root them in place, get your distance, bust the freeze with a Frostbolt, and then go back to IL kiting. It’s a “cheap” way to fight, but as long as you’re left alive and they aren’t then who cares, right?

The Dungeon Rotation is what you’ll use when you have a tank. If you get a Fingers of Frost proc from your talents then switch over to Ice Lance to use the proc, but otherwise stick with Frostbolt spam unless you need to move.

Procs: Unlike Fire, Frost keeps the Arcane Missiles proc for quite a while, so when you get an AM proc go ahead and use it so long as the target’s not frozen and you don’t have a Fingers of Frost proc to use instead. AM is a decent damaging spell, but Ice Lance takes priority if the target is frozen or if you have a FoF proc. Once you get to 29 and spend your talent point on Fingers of Frost you get your second proc which makes your Ice Lance treat the target as frozen even when it’s not, allowing Ice Lance to do additional damage and benefit from the x3 crit chance.

Talent Points

Solo Spec



Shatter 2/2: Multiplies the critical strike chance of all your spells against frozen targets by 3, and increases the damage done by Frostbolt against frozen targets by 20%.
Piercing Ice 3/3: Increases the critical strike chance of your spells by 3%.
Improved Cone of Cold 2/2: Your Cone of Cold also freezes targets for 4 sec.
Ice Floes 3/3: Reduces the cooldown of your Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Block, Cold Snap, Ice Barrier, and Icy Veins spells by 20%.
Fingers of Frost 1/3: Gives your Chill effects a 7% chance to grant you the Fingers of Frost effect, which causes your next Ice Lance or Deep Freeze spell to act as if your target were frozen. Fingers of Frost can accumulate up to 2 charges and lasts 15 sec.

Shatter is one of your most important talent points. It’s one of the primary keys to your damage output as a Frost Mage. It triples your crit chance against frozen targets and also gives a 20% damage buff to Frostbolt against frozen targets as well. It’s the best DPS increase you can get at that level. Piercing Ice is one of those talents that basically every Mage will take at some point. Free crit chance is free crit chance.

Improved Cone of Cold gives you a third method of freezing targets, and while you probably won’t have points in this talent at level 85, it’s an excellent addition to your leveling tool belt. The more you can freeze targets in place, the more you can abuse the increased damage, crit chance, and instant cast speed of Ice Lance. Ice Floes is a great tool, providing a faster cooldown of all of your most important spells, allowing you to make use of them more often.

The final talent point goes into Fingers of Frost which gives your chill effects a chance to proc the Fingers of Frost buff which treats your next Ice Lance cast as though the target were frozen. So IL’s damage is doubled because that’s the way the spell itself works, plus you get triple your crit chance because your points in Shatter, so you’ve got a very high chance of dealing critical strikes every time you cast Ice Lance on a frozen target or when you have a FoF proc.

Glyphs for Leveling
You don’t get glyphs now until level 25, but at least you do get to use them a little bit in this level range.

Prime Glyphs
Glyph of Ice Lance: Increases the damage of your Ice Lance spell by 5%.
Glyph of Frostbolt: Increases the critical strike chance of your Frostbolt spell by 5%.

Ice Lance wins out for me because I primarily level solo so I use a lot more freeze effects which makes the extra damage to IL more appealing overall. If you’re not primarily a solo leveler then Frostbolt is also an excellent spell and you’ll see a better return overall if you use it instead. You’ll use both of these glyphs eventually, so you really can’t go wrong here, just pick the one that fits better for you.

Major Glyphs
Glyph of Evocation: Also grants you 40% of your total health over the channeled time of your Evocation spell.
Glyph of Frost Nova: Your Frost Nova targets can take an additional 20% damage before the Frost Nova effect automatically breaks.

Evocation is one of the most amazing glyphs that Mages have access to. If you can only afford a single glyph, make it Evocation because the ability to heal yourself on the fly like that for 40% of your total health is amazing.

Frost Nova isn’t a great replacement, but it can help give you additional Ice Lance casts if you manage to not score crits with your Ice Lances when the target is frozen. Unfortunately the freeze from FN breaks pretty easy regardless, so while it has some potential benefit now and then overall it’s not all that great. It is much better while leveling than it will be at end game though, so it’s not a bad choice even though it’s not optimal.

Minor Glyphs
Glyph of the Monkey: Your Polymorph: Sheep spell polymorphs the target into a monkey instead.
Glyph of the Penguin: Your Polymorph: Sheep spell polymorphs the target into a penguin instead.

These are your only two options within the level range, and sadly they both essentially do nothing at all. They change the physical appearance of what you change targets into when you polymorph them, and that’s it. Of the two, I definitely prefer Monkey, so that’s my suggestion….or just wait until level 32 and use the Glyph of Slow Fall instead.

Macro Suggestions
Frost makes a bit more use of macros thanks to the Water Elemental. The best way to make use of his Freeze spell is to use a macro and add it to your action bars (or you can keybind it directly). You can either have it there by itself like I do, or you can tie it into other spells to make it easier for you to remember.

#showtooltip
/cast Freeze

This macro simply calls up the Freeze spell to be cast and nothing else. This is the version that I use for any special abilities that my pets have, regardless of class. In fact it’s literally the exact same macro with a /cast for every spell that I have a pet that can cast, and I just use a default icon for it. But I’m lazy like that.

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast Frostbolt
/cast !Freeze

This is the version that I made for my wife to use on her Frost Mage. This is the first pet class where having the pet’s special ability activate on demand was especially important, so she’s not used to having to use them. This macro casts your own Frostbolt spell but also brings up the target icon for your pet’s Freeze spell. Many players tend to spam the button needed to cast their spells so the exclamation point in front of Freeze will prevent the target area for constantly going in and out while you spam it because activating it every other time cancels the cast without it.

Gearing Up for Spellcasting
Intellect > Crit > Haste > Hit > everything else

You’re a caster, so Int is your top priority. Crit is number two because your DPS thrives when you manage to crit due to Hot Streak procs and Ignite DoT’s. Haste is good for helping you with those cast times, and it will improve your DoT’s later on when you actually have some. Hit really doesn’t matter while you’re leveling; it’s not a bad stat, it just isn’t all that great either. If you stumble onto some great gear that just so happens to have Hit on it, then grats on your bonus stat, but don’t turn down upgrades to the other stats in favor of Hit at this level.

The Tailoring profession is a great source of gear throughout the various levels, especially if you plan on soloing your way to the top. You can generally find better gear in instances than you can from tailoring when you are starting out, but you can certainly weave that cloth to fill in any gaps you might have. Don’t discount quest rewards though, because Cataclysm brought a whole new set of quest rewards and some of them are fantastic for their level.

Whether you use a staff or you go with a one handed weapon and an off hand item is mostly up to you. Use whatever will give you better stats overall and go with it. Typically the low level staffs will be better than other options, but just use whatever you have on hand that provides the most benefit.

When it comes to Wands, it’s all about the stats. I haven’t used my wand for anything other than killing critters when I’m bored in a very long time. Look for Intellect and Crit above all others for your wand and ignore the damage it can do all together.

 
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Posted by on January 19, 2011 in Caster, Guide, Leveling, Mage

 
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