So the NDA Is Lifted

More to follow ^^


New talent trees on war tools. 


Wowhead now updated.


Blue follow up on Shatter:


Shatter has been a lot of things. At the moment it is double crit chance vs. frozen targets for 1 point and triple crit chance vs. frozen for 2 points. 

I'll try to update some of the other concerns and make corrections when I get some time. - GC


So, I meant to type up some thoughts on how things are progressing for mage (and rogue) so far, but after fucking up my hand playing bball, it'll have to wait. Sorry!


Okay, firstovh:


It's still super premature to really comment on much. Every recent build has a ton of random undocumented changes for mages, sadly none for rouges >.<, and it's pretty arrogant/stupid to really critique the "direction" their taking for the class in cata -- not that that will stop me. (An example being that Fireball and Frostbolt cast times were sekretly reduced by .5 seconds this build)


For those of you on alpha, it looks like we were right concerning AM, at least at this point in the design process -- the spell has been relegated to leveling and deep Arcane. I had thought it would be nearly impossible to balance across specs and that Frostfire Bolt made more sense as the flavor nuke for deep Fire and Frost PvE. This seems to be case for both. For fire, there is need to maintain DoTs, for Frost, there is need for a nuke when your procs are down that capitalizes on Frostburn. (Or is it called Deathfrost...whatever)


The recent build has attempted to bring about, some might say force, the inclusion of Ice Lance in Frost raiding through the FoF change. (Beyond ghost charges) I think that this will prove a very difficult balancing act because of the "need" for FoF burst in PvP. Double Frostbolt into Frostfire Bolt is HUGE damage, generally 50-65% of a WotLK target's total health. It's how Mage wizards global kids. It's pretty hated as there's not a lot you can do about it, whereas at least DF procs stun damage reduction talents, can be trinketed, dispelled, etc. It's hard to imagine the current Cata FoF being terribly potent or exciting in PvP, which is perhaps a good thing -- I could be very wrong and perhaps the hard hitting Ice Lances are more dangerous than I currently envision. Additionally, this iteration of FoF removes the Ghost charge, and while a lot of the PvE community loves this, I can't agree. Rewarding good timing at the expense of marginally penalizing the DPS of those with high latency is a trade I'm willing to make. (I really don't want to see the game "balanced" for 300 ping)


Some questions concerns with the existing talents, in no particular order:

• Arcane Instability -- a 60% multiplier is crazy high and I don't understand the goal of this talent. Why should opponents be penalized for interrupting the mage? It would almost make more sense if you did more damage when they MISSED an interrupt, or perhaps it grants you additional Arcane damage when they interrupt a non-Arcane spell. This talent also has anti synergy with the Tier 1 Arcane Stability which grants you pushback immunity. (Yes I can imagine starting a scorch cast, letting the pet hit you, and swapping back to your stacked AB and melting someone's face)
• Arcane Focus -- this talent is completely useless and should be avoided like syhpollis
• Arcane Repulsion -- this has gotten a fair amount of discussion on the Alpha boards, but ultimately it comes back to, is this really necessary?
• Improved Fire Blast -- cooldown ain't the problem hoss
• Burning Determination -- another mana regen talent in Fire? zzz
• Blazing Speed -- I think the best "idea" I've seen concerning BSpeed is to simply grant the buff after using Blastwave, thereby removing the RNG, and eliminates the need for the new Playing with Fire, which to be honest, I don't feel makes much sense. In general, I feel the Fire PvP talents have really gone a pretty stupid direction where attackers are simply RNG penalized for playing the game. (Sup Fiery Payback, and well the same is true of Frostbite)
• Burnout -- what?
• Piercing Chill, aka Chillcleave -- currently this does not requite the Frostbolts to be criticals, I assume that noncrits should proc this.
• Arctic Winds -- pointless RNG defensive talent where neither you nor your adversary has much control over the outcome. The no cooldown CoC and FNs are amusing but not terribly useful.