Yea, the Diminishing returns on nova/coc are a massive blow to frost mages.
However, the Mana Shield change is minor, will just mean we lose a little less mana while using it, but it wont absorb as much as it used to (talent used to increase the amount absorbed (570) by 75%, letting us take alot more damage before it faded). If anything, the MS change is a nerf.
Improved Scorch used to add a small dot after the scorch lands..which was useless seeing as how scorch has a 1.5sec castime so the dot would get off 0-1 tick before it just got reapplied, the new talent is a welcomed change to fire mages and will make the fire/arc spec a more viable build.
Group AI? Thats cool, will save a little bit of downtime maybe, but its nothing major.
If the hit to Frost Nova and Cone of Cold are as bad as they seem, it will be the death of the already rare-Frost Mage. Why they weaken the least-played and overall weakest of the talent-builds is beyond me, but apparently Blizzard thinks mages are just there to spam scorch or IAE.
New Patch Notes?
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Joonibal
Interesting, Firby. What do you think of the suggestion that the "nerf" to Frost Mages was intended to balance out the fact that Fire Mages were indirectly nerfed by the recent proliferation of fire resist gear out there? I ask because one mage wrote on the WoW forum that he/she expects FIre mages to become extinct, because it is no longer difficult to gear oneself to 200-plus in FR. I disagreed with that mage, given that one would have to really gimp oneself in other vital stats to achieve 200-plus FR, but others may differ...
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Firby
Nerfing frost mages because people CAN put on FR gear to make Fire mages useless has to be one of the most retarded things I've ever heard.
As is, its basically as easy to get Frost resist as it is to get Fire Resist..but with the current raid encounters, nobody stocks up on Frost Resist. I doubt that most people equip themselves in full Fire Resist gear when they go pvp'ing anyhow.
As you pointed out, people would have to gimp their all around stats just to have high fire resist...making them weaker vs every other class out there. I don't think most people would do this, but who knows, maybe people just hate dying to mages more than other classes?
Resist gear will never make any of the mage talent-builds obsolete purely because most people either lack the resist gear, or wont have enough (or willing to wear enough) to have enough resist to make all that drastic of a change.
Sadly, nerfing the most crucial spells to certain talent-builds WILL make them extinct.
As is, its basically as easy to get Frost resist as it is to get Fire Resist..but with the current raid encounters, nobody stocks up on Frost Resist. I doubt that most people equip themselves in full Fire Resist gear when they go pvp'ing anyhow.
As you pointed out, people would have to gimp their all around stats just to have high fire resist...making them weaker vs every other class out there. I don't think most people would do this, but who knows, maybe people just hate dying to mages more than other classes?
Resist gear will never make any of the mage talent-builds obsolete purely because most people either lack the resist gear, or wont have enough (or willing to wear enough) to have enough resist to make all that drastic of a change.
Sadly, nerfing the most crucial spells to certain talent-builds WILL make them extinct.
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Aurica
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Firby
