Mak
2006-06-08, 05:52 PM
So I made a pre-made mage on the PTR to try out the new talents and tried several builds in the BGs. I'll admit I'm biased towards PvP utility but some things are applicable both ways. I have several more builds to tinker with but I thought I'd share what I've seen so far. The stock PvE gear set is a mix of nice BWL/AQ40 stuff that gives around 500 damage, 6500 mp but only 3500 hp. Anywho:
Good
2/3 Permafrost. 2 extra seconds of chill effects means CoC lasts it's entire duration. This helps with kiting since opponents will be snared to 43% run speed.
3/5 Winter's Chill. 60% chance to proc seems adequate. 10% more crit on all ice is scary. This can proc off frost nova and ice armour too. Does not proc on waves of blizzard.
Ice Barrier - 30s cooldown which stacks correctly with mana shield and priest shield = :fing02:
5/5 Shatter for 50% crit to frozen targets. I was able to get 3 or so scorch crits on a target before nova broke. Changes a frost mage 1-2 punch from frost bolt/CoC to frostbolt/fireblast.
3/3 Improved Scorch. Could lower that to 2/3 more than likely. 15% bonus damage to all fire spells. The premade toons have crappy crit gear but insane damage gear(500 or so). After several scorches the spell was critting for 800-900 with rolling ignites. Ouch!So-So
3/3 frost bite. Procs off ice armour pretty common on rogues since they duel wield. Might not be so useful for AoE farming. Does nothing against the warlock who started chasing you down from across the map...
Elemental Precision. Didn't raid so I don't know how effective it is. Wording has been changed to be a percent reduction to resists instead of a percent to hit.
Pyroblast. Now spammable if you care to sit still for 6 seconds. Still shackled to POM for any real effective uses. Limited utility since the dots will not stack.
Master of Elements. Hard to tell how effective this is and whether its as useful as clearcasting. Mana return is per spell cast so AoE spells get the shaft though I could see cases where an AoE spell could return more mana than it cost. :)
Magic Absorbtion. Didn't notice this take affect much though I guess more passive resists aren't a bad thing. 5% of my mana will equal 1 extra spell cast on average I guess.
Magic Attunement. Dampen and Amplify magic have been doubled in effectiveness so a 50% improvement is a %100 improvment over live. In practice though this will take ~150 damage off a spell which if you're getting hit for over 1k doesn't really extend your life that much.Bad
Arcane resilience. 50% of my int = 150 armour = around 1.5% damage mitigation. Oh and you have to take it if you want to boost your mana pool. :loco:
Frost warding. Increase to armour is actually more craptastic than the arcane resilience talent. Not sure a 20% reflection rate is worth 2 points.
Combustion. This should be renamed 'Vegas' or maybe 'Roulette'. Sounds cool on paper but it doesn't really deliver. I'm having a hard time coming up with scenarios in PvE where I want chain crits to happen. In PvP, it's pretty hard to get 3 consecutive fireballs off except maybe in AV zerg. Highest I got it to stack was 7 which meant a 70% chance to crit on next fire spell. I'm just not sure it's worth giving up Iceblock or Presence of Mind for. 3 crits are worth less than immunity or a guareenteed insta-pyro every 3 minutes to me.
Good
2/3 Permafrost. 2 extra seconds of chill effects means CoC lasts it's entire duration. This helps with kiting since opponents will be snared to 43% run speed.
3/5 Winter's Chill. 60% chance to proc seems adequate. 10% more crit on all ice is scary. This can proc off frost nova and ice armour too. Does not proc on waves of blizzard.
Ice Barrier - 30s cooldown which stacks correctly with mana shield and priest shield = :fing02:
5/5 Shatter for 50% crit to frozen targets. I was able to get 3 or so scorch crits on a target before nova broke. Changes a frost mage 1-2 punch from frost bolt/CoC to frostbolt/fireblast.
3/3 Improved Scorch. Could lower that to 2/3 more than likely. 15% bonus damage to all fire spells. The premade toons have crappy crit gear but insane damage gear(500 or so). After several scorches the spell was critting for 800-900 with rolling ignites. Ouch!So-So
3/3 frost bite. Procs off ice armour pretty common on rogues since they duel wield. Might not be so useful for AoE farming. Does nothing against the warlock who started chasing you down from across the map...
Elemental Precision. Didn't raid so I don't know how effective it is. Wording has been changed to be a percent reduction to resists instead of a percent to hit.
Pyroblast. Now spammable if you care to sit still for 6 seconds. Still shackled to POM for any real effective uses. Limited utility since the dots will not stack.
Master of Elements. Hard to tell how effective this is and whether its as useful as clearcasting. Mana return is per spell cast so AoE spells get the shaft though I could see cases where an AoE spell could return more mana than it cost. :)
Magic Absorbtion. Didn't notice this take affect much though I guess more passive resists aren't a bad thing. 5% of my mana will equal 1 extra spell cast on average I guess.
Magic Attunement. Dampen and Amplify magic have been doubled in effectiveness so a 50% improvement is a %100 improvment over live. In practice though this will take ~150 damage off a spell which if you're getting hit for over 1k doesn't really extend your life that much.Bad
Arcane resilience. 50% of my int = 150 armour = around 1.5% damage mitigation. Oh and you have to take it if you want to boost your mana pool. :loco:
Frost warding. Increase to armour is actually more craptastic than the arcane resilience talent. Not sure a 20% reflection rate is worth 2 points.
Combustion. This should be renamed 'Vegas' or maybe 'Roulette'. Sounds cool on paper but it doesn't really deliver. I'm having a hard time coming up with scenarios in PvE where I want chain crits to happen. In PvP, it's pretty hard to get 3 consecutive fireballs off except maybe in AV zerg. Highest I got it to stack was 7 which meant a 70% chance to crit on next fire spell. I'm just not sure it's worth giving up Iceblock or Presence of Mind for. 3 crits are worth less than immunity or a guareenteed insta-pyro every 3 minutes to me.