mage changes

[Images]

woooot....

There are a few nice improvements we're making to the mage class in patch 2.3.2 (a small patch that will be on the public test realms soon) and we wanted to share them with you. First, we'll start out with two changes affecting all mages. Ice block will become a core ability, trainable by all mages at level 30. Additionally, conjure mana (rank 6) will restore 1800-3000 mana and will now have three charges, meaning you can use it three times before having to create a new one.

To be sure we're clear here, yes, the same cooldown will still apply between usages. :P

Cold snap will be moved to Ice block's position in the talent tree and its cooldown will be reduced. As a side note, it will no longer reset the cooldown on fire ward. Moving in to Cold snap's spot will be a brand new ability called Icy Veins. This new ability will decrease casting time for all spells by 20% and increases the chance that chilling effects freeze the target by 25%. It's an active ability, lasting 20 seconds and has a 3 minute cooldown.

Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2968115908

[Tyveris]

Wow, I like, a lot.

[Kaizhi]

If icy veins is additive with bloodlust, then that means we could get up to 40s of half-cast for all spells.

Insane.

[Ducklord]

5 minute or less cooldown on coldsnap would be awesome

[Clonzo]

This will probably come with free respecs,

[Ducklord]

nobody who is serious about pvp will respec after this, cold snap is a must imo

[buena]

increases the chance that chilling effects freeze the target by 25%

I find this odd since it assumes you will have frostbite. Maybe frostbite will be a prerequsite to get Icy Veins? And frostbite is on a DR now, so after the first or second proc this effect is wasted.

This also looks as a buff for deeper frost impact specs vs 17/0/44 because it means you will always want to wear molten armor over ice armor as any frost spec. Can't have ice armor proccing frostbite and wasting your DR before you are ready to do your Icy Veins frostbolt chain.

[ssmurphy]

20% cast time reduction for ALL SPELLS? outside of making deep arcane frost the 3 min mage spec of the year, this could be huge for fire. 20% reduction on fireball cast time means 5 stacked imp scorch to fire ball burn downs could be very, very interesting. have to see if its actually viable, perhaps in 2 man...

or elemental specs with frostbolt as the primary nuke.

[Briisk]

Nice, just saw it on worldofming.

[Epicfailguy]

Wont really change our mana problems though. It's still a horribly long cooldown in pvp. We'll see how much the gem changes help us in pvp, though i doubt its as awesome as most mages make it out to be.

[nara]

well impressed. do u think this will open more 2v2 setups with a mage?