Another 10 Second Cata Clip

I have no idea if anyone cares about this crap, doubtful, but here's a small clip showing that you can perform actions between poly ending and the Improved Poly stun kicking in. (This should have been obvious to anyone who's had impact/blackout)

You can do whatever you like during this window, counterspell, intercept, deathcoil, cloak whatever! Imp Poly is nonetheless quite powerful. (Though the stunlocklol is potentially pretty avoidable)

Can Anyone Get This?

Anyone with a rogue on Beta able to get combat Gouge into CS guaranteed? I haven't been able to, but it seems possible with good timing + low latency. (I have 300ish)

I feel like I have 1/4 second to spare on the restealth but the typical 1/2 sec delay between stealth -> CS fucks me. I've tried with safe spam macro but I'm not sure it's better than just timing it, actually I think it's worse as you lose something like 100ms per failed action or some BS.

Here's a clip showing how close it is, lf nonbad rogue to viral this shit.

I Really Need a New Comp

Forgive the 15FPS video, but the new Ogrimmar and my comp hate each other.

So This Patch

IS FUCKING AMAZING FOR LOCKS AND MAGES?

Current Mage Thoughts:

PvP builds are starting to look much more promising with the latest build, particularly because Blazing Speed is now Tier 2 and Imp CS is Tier 1. Arcane builds of the 31+/7/2 and Frost builds of either 2/7/31+ or 7+/0/31 look like they have pretty awesome potential. The Fire Tree itself looks pretty terrible still for PvP (actually in general) but with some improvement, it has great subtreeing with 7+/31/2 type builds.

Arcane feels like the most complete spec thus far. There's the ability to invest 31/32 points and there are actually some choices to be made going down the tree deciding exactly what you want. I feel that shaving one point from Tier 3, 9->8, would help a lot as would shaving Torment or Mana Gem from 3->2. I like that you can't subtree and get both Improved Blink and Invocation. Despite the significant mage forum whining concerning the fact that you have to take PvP talents occasionally in PvE builds, I don't really see this as very true, as talents like NP/Torment/Nether Vortex are all PvE options that probably won't be in PvP builds.

My two largest concerns with Arcane, and the first of these pertains to Fire as well, are Mana Shield and Improved Poly. The new Incanter's, with the knockback when Mana Shield is destroyed, certainly helps but this seems unlikely to remain as it's likely pretty overpowered even with the 10s cooldown on Mana Shield now. Mana Shield only absorbing 1270 damage and not getting any benefit from spellpower IS A PROBLEM. Part of me feels this needs to scale and be more to the tune of 4 times this amount, at a minimum, but do we want Fire and Arcane survivability tied to Mana Shield, or do we want it to be completely useless except for Arcane mages who refresh it every opportunity for the knockback?

Improved Poly is problematic even once given it's own DR that actually DRs. If a priest deaths my poly, should he get really eat a 3s stun? (And then a half DR poly since he's probably stunned inside LOS) Do I really always want to poly-poly-poly-lance to maximize CC time? Breaking poly to "extend" the CC chain feels weird. I do feel that Arcane needs a distinctive deep tree PvP mechanic. Slow is unfortunately extremely mediocre without a dispel punish. My suggestions are one of the following:

• Distortion - When you enter or exit Invisibility, you stun all targets within 6 yards for 1.5/3 seconds. (Opener stun DR -- i.e. doesn't DR with other stuns)
• Attunement - When dealing damage with your non-Arcane spells, you syphon mana from the target equal to 3/6% of the the damage done. 

The Fire tree is still a total mess and I can't really begin to speak about it without significant nerdrage. There's still no way of actually doing any damage in PvP or surviving even moderate pressure. Impact is awful at 7%. DB and Poly being shared DR is ridiculously stupid. Hot Streak is generally just not a very functional burst mechanic as you don't have demand burst when you need it. All of the DoT talents are problematic in PvP due to dispels and the need to cast sloooowww nukes to put up the DoTs. 

Frost still feels very much the same as WotLK, which is maybe fine. Shatter is back to reasonable as is FoF with this latest build. The removal of Frostbite in favor of Imp CoC is excellent, but Imp CoC freeze should be DR with Shattered Barrier and not Nova. It's still impossible to come up with a PvP spec that doesn't leave out a lot of desired talents in tree. I think at least 2 out of Permafrost, Brain Freeze, or Fingers of Frost should be come 2/2 instead of 3/3s. Swapping Permafrost with Piercing Chill would also solve the problem, but I'm not sure if the first 5 of Frost are too strong in PvP if you do this. Improved Freeze doesn't seem to work for me on Beta with any consistency, but I like the idea -- the problem is, now that WE is permanent, he's nearly always use OOM and you can't generate this proc that much. (You can simply resummon the fatty I guess) I don't really understand the whole Frostfire Orb idea and I'm not really a huge fan of turreting frostbolts in PvP, but to each their own?

INFINITE COMMBOOOOOOOO

Don't alpha counter me bro



Basically, current Imp Poly doesn't DR. You'll notice that the mob is still moving towards me despite the fact that it should be PERMALOLSTUNNED. This, I believe, and plz, some nerd correct me, is because the netcode is the same as with impact -- the server has to tell you the spell connected, in this case, poly has broken, and then you tell it that you've got Imp Poly and some nerd needs to get stunned, so during that roundtrip, there's a window pre-stun. (OR SOMETHING)

Curtain of Dicks

Updated with wegame better quality

I'll be brief because I need to shower people with attention tonight instead of level my video game wizard, well I'm done leveling for now, so make that -- instead of PLAYING with my video game wizard, not my real video game wizard mind you, as it's beta, my practice wizard, yes, um, I've derailed, anyways, here's a short clip of messing around with curtain.

Learn more at the WoW Wiki

It does terribad damage and is a bit clunky and looks stupid. But you know what? I kinda like it. It's kind of like this:

I'm not really sure in what manner they're similar except that they are and if you don't understand I hate you and you're stupid.

What I do like is that it doesn't just drop at your feet and there's no targeting indication. (NOSCOPELOL)

The resnaring mechanic is a bit clunky as it seems the target has to leave the area and come back to be re-afflicted. There's a lot of stuff I want to test still:

• Interactions with stealth/invisibility
• Interaction with latency mechanics (Grenade-like or fear-like?)
• How do you get more ticks?!
• Is there any interaction with Frost mechanics? (Cold snap? Permafrost? I assume...yes?)
• Z-axis?

It's hard to comment on this recent beta build with respect to the mage class because so much feels broken. Damage feels quite low, particularly AoE abilities -- I feel like the damage should be tripled on many of them. The elephant in the room still is the lack of critical strike damage bonus talents, are we going forward with 1.5x crits? Lack of pushback protection aside from Burning Soul and lack of range talents also are quite irritating. I'm not sure there's a point in dueling/PvPing until we get another build. 

Thx Liter

COOL INVASION

New Beta Patch

WTF THESE TALENT TREES ARE BAD

It's pretty obvious that something needs to be done about Imp CS -- either move it down to T1 or T2, which would make subtreeing into Arcane necessary for every PvP spec, or make it baseline. Regardless of that, Arcane dominates the other trees currently across all aspects of the game.

I haven't yet tested if Imp Poly shares DR with other stuns -- I'm betting yes, but I'll confirm once I can get back on Beta, which might be a while since I'm unable to log in. COOL BRO.

Fortunately, there are less talents, and thus it's easier to rant about what's wrong with all of them.

Fire:

• Imp Fire Blast is still mediocre because Fireblast DPS is awful. Incineration is boring.
• Burning Soul should be killed as should pushback in general. Impact needs to be scrapped probably as well. DR issues and RNG issues.
• Blazing Speed should be activated or tied to Blastwave. Fire Power -- I don't know about mage nerd DoT nonsense but whatever it's fire nobody is going to play this dumb tree anyways.
• Combustion is finally decent. Hot Streak has potential. 
• Imp Flamestrike LOL KY. BW/DB would still work better if they worked like those nerd meteors from AQ20 and they did correspondingly more damage against fewer targets.
• PM/CM -- WHO CARES ITS THE FIRE TREE

Frost:

• Frostbite is lame. Imp CoC >>> Frostbite. (But separate DR from FN or don't bother)
• Shatter Tier 1 sup but 1.5x crits oh damn.
• IV Tier 3 = only frosties which would be alright except this tree is terrible
• FFB Orb - HAHAHA

Arcane:

• TTW - STOP WITH THIS PLEASE JUST STOP
• NP - I don't know why nerds love this, it's boring 3% haste axe-ity axe axe
• Potency/Clearcasting synergy I kinda like nohomo
• Arcane Repulsion doesn't seem effective due to -- multiple melee, stupid pets, and long CD + it's hard to justify 3 points here for a mediocre anti melee CD when Frost Armor is nearly as good, and better if Frostbite stays
• IAM/MB - These combine to make AM useless without the talents which is okay since AM was pretty much always useless without OP talents
• Imp Blink - YAY THIS RULES I LOVE WHATEVER GENIUS SUGGESTED IT I HEARD HES REALLY CUTE TOO
• Imp CS needs to be base or move up didn't I say that already I think I did but in case I didn't it should be baseline or at least be baseline maybe if it was baseline or baseline instead of talented like if it was baseline or something baseline it would be baseline
• Imp Poly has a sweet animation PEWPEW. Realistically it's just one extra cast on sheeps so depending on DR this might be awful.

I have no idea if a lot of mechanics are currently working in the Beta. Does Mastery work? Did some of the old talents become baseline? (Like Magic Absorb or SoTM?) 

Ice Lance damage was nerfed a bit so mindless spam isn't quite what it used to be.