Quote from: Bashiok (Source)
In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we’ll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you’ll get an early look at what's in store for the mage class, including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents, and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.

New Mage Spells

Flame Orb (available at level 81): Inspired by Prince Taldaram’s abilities in Ahn'kahet and Icecrown Citadel, this spell allows the mage to cast a flaming orb that travels in front in a straight line, sending beams that cause fire damage to passing targets. Once it’s cast, the mage is free to begin casting other spells as the Flame Orb travels. While the spell will be useful to any spec, Fire mages will have talents that improve it, possibly causing the Flame Orb to explode when it reaches its destination.

Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It also temporarily increases the mage's own movement speed. Time Warp will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you can’t benefit from both if you’ve got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

Wall of Fog (level 85): Creates a line of frost in front of the mage, 30 yards from end to end. Enemies who cross the line are snared and take damage. The mana cost will be designed to make Wall of Fog efficient against groups, not individuals. This spell is intended to give mages a way to help control the battlefield, whether the mage is damaging incoming enemies (Blizzard can be channeled on top of Wall of Fog) or protecting a flag in a Battleground. 10-second duration. 30-second cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to introducing new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

* Arcane Missiles is being redesigned to become a proc-based spell. Whenever the mage does damage with any spell, there is a chance for Arcane Missiles to become available, similar to how the warrior’s Overpower works. The damage and mana cost of this spell will be reworked to make it very desirable to use when available. This change should make gameplay more dynamic for the mage, particularly at low levels.
* We are planning to remove spells that don't have a clear purpose. Amplify Magic, Dampen Magic, Fire Ward, and Frost Ward are being removed from the game, and we may remove more.
* The ability to conjure food and water will not become available until higher levels (likely around level 40), as we're making changes to ensure mages generally won’t run out of mana at lower levels. Once mages learn how to conjure food and water, the conjured item will restore both health and mana.
* Scorch will provide a damage bonus to the mage's fire spells. Our goal is for Scorch to be part of the mage's rotation and a useful damage-dealing ability, even if someone else is supplying the group with the spell Critical Strike debuff. Scorch will provide the mage with more specific benefits, which can also be improved through talents.



New Talents and Talent Changes

* Arcane Focus will now return mana for each spell that fails to hit your target, including Arcane Missiles that fail to launch. We want Arcane mages to have several talents that play off of how much mana the character has and give the player enough tools to manage mana.
* The talent Playing with Fire will reduce the cooldown of Blast Wave when hit by a melee attack, instead of its current effect.
* Pyromaniac will grant Haste when three or more targets are getting damaged by the effects of your damage-over-time (DoT) fire spells.
* The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast spells using health when they run out of mana.



Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Arcane

* Spell damage
* Spell Haste
* Mana Adept


Mana Adept: Arcane will deal damage based how much mana the mage has. For example, Arcane mages will do much more damage at 100% mana than at 50% mana. If they begin to get low on mana, they will likely want to use an ability or mechanic to bring their mana up to increase their damage.

Fire

* Spell damage
* Spell Crit
* Ignite


Ignite: All direct-damage fire spells will add a damage-over-time (DoT) component when cast. The flavor will be similar to how Fireball works; however, the DoT component will be much stronger.

Frost

* Spell damage
* Spell Crit damage
* Deathfrost


Deathfrost: Casting Frostbolt places a buff on the mage that increases the damage for all frost, fire, and arcane spells. The only damage spell that won't be affected by this buff is Frostbolt.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we’re looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

Ok so there is a lot going on here...here's what I think at a glance.

Flame Orb = Lame

Time Warp = Fucking AWESOME!

Wall of Fog = Meh so far for PVE we'll see. So far it sounds like more of a life saver in PVE

Arcane Missles Proc bassed? WTF?

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

Goodbye Wards and amp magic also wtf is dampen magic? =P

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

Mana Adept sounds super lame to me at this point therefore.......

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

Ignite Mastery = FUCKING AWESOME! therefore..........

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

YOU WILL BE FIRE IN CATACLYSM

Deathfrost? WTF? maybe another FFB spec idk

Just my inital two cents. What does everyone think?

This actually makes perfect sense to me. Since mages try they're best to not cast it unless at 4 stacks of blast with the speedy missiles proc. In most situations where blast can't just be spammed till the proc happens, it's generally better to just reset the stacks with a barrage than cast normal missiles. So making it a proc like a warriors overpower makes sense, as mages are using it as a proc spell anyway.



lame and renders Arcane Focus useless to a hit capped mage, but I guess it frees up points for elsewhere

It does look like fire will go back to being the strongest pve spec. Not sure how I feel about the arcane tree changes. The "mana percentage= how much damage you do" dealy sounds like it could be interesting (depending on what means they are reffering to for mana return) or it could render the spec useless for anything but farming and pvp.

Frost sounds like they are trying to make it more pve friendly without improving it otherwise (dps) for anyone that wants to play an armchair mage (i guess read as anti min/maxer:P)

I stay away from barrage unless I'm moving or the mob is a second away from death and another missile wont go off. I thought it was general consensus that barrage should never be cast in your normal rotation and that it was better to keep stacking and fish for a proc and even better to just cast missiles normally (which is what I do) because your losing dps while waiting for the gcd to reset after a barrage. The dmg from the barrage doesn't make up for the lost dps that you could be doing in that second with a normal arcane missiles cast. If that is the case the change does kind of suck because you do have to wait for the proc now no matter what which means either fishing which I just don't like to do because of the mana cost or cast an Arcane Barrage which to me is a waste of a gcd but with this change it may not be.

I generally do the same in a fight. I hardly ever cast barrage, but there are times when i'm fishing for a missiles proc and i've casted blast more than 10 times w/o a proc (mana started getting low, mana gem or evocate was off cd, etc.) I was just saying that i would cast barrage over a non proc'd missiles


as far as making a proc activating spell, I'm guessing it will be more guaranteed than it is now. Like a warriors overpower (with talents) is a guaranteed proc off your rend tick. You know exactly when it is going to happen and can still do a rotation with it. Unlike the way missiles is now where a mage can see it proc with one cast of blast or have to go 20 casts before it procs.

It's taking a spell that is only worth it when buffed by a proc, and making it a buffed proc type spell and removing the normal slower unbuffed version. I'm guessing if they don't make it a guaranteed proc off x amount of blast stacks, they would have a talent that you could spec into to make it a guaranteed thing (like "100% chance to proc missiles when you have casted arcane blast 4 times")

1. You have no idea how much damage any of the specs will do. At the risk of sounding like an asshole, speculating about what specs will be good 5 levels from now with completely different talents, changed spells, and a whole slew of new Archaeology-based buffs is stupid.

2. Every time - every single time - a mage casts Time Warp, I'm singing the song from Rocky Horror on vent.

It's true that it is purely speculation at this point. I did (though it's a fun idea) think it sort of silly that mages should get a bloodlust type ability. It seems kind of redundant, and I remember when several classes gained replenishment and it changed the role and play style of shadow priests (being unique to that class/spec). I don't see many mages using that ability in a raid much, unless it's a very long fight or there are no shamans in the raid. I could see it being a handy thing for maybe 10-man pug scenarios where planning raid makeup can be more luck of the draw for what classes you end up with.

Nonetheless, speculating over the posted changes isn't entirely moot, as we will most likely have to switch things up when the time comes and it's fun to take what info is available and wonder what the future brings.

I'm just trying to stave off the inevitable waves of QQ that will surround the beta and release of Cataclysm. There wasn't a single change in Wrath that didn't get whined about by SOMEBODY, regardless of how good it ended up being.

I'm guessing that most raids will use Bloodlust when they have the choice, just out of habit. Plus, since Time Warp actually gives a sprint effect for the mage, it makes more sense to save that as a personal cooldown when possible. Opening up more raid compositions for 10 mans is nice, though.