The All-Purpose Lich King AoE Grinding Guide

Sick of questing now? Still only level 70? Tired yourself out from camping baby murloc cages in Borean Tundra, or opening crab traps in Howling Fjord?

Need to make some money?

If you're a mage, all of this can be answered, and then some, with my frost-tastic Northrend AoE guide! In this post, I'll teach you the ins and outs of gathering up a bunch of mobs and absolutely murdering them! And by the end, you should have the know-how to blizzard your way to 80!

Part the First: The level 70 Build!

0/0/51 (+10) - The bare bones

This build picks up ALL of the necssary talents required to maximize your AoE grind. Let me break it down to you Talent by Talent.

Frostbite - Combined with shatter, allows for blizzard crits pretty much all the time.

Ice Floes - Gets your Frost Nova sooner, so you can use it just in case something goes wrong. If you're lucky, you won't even have to use it at all!

Ice Shards - Makes blizzard crits absolutely ridiculous.

Elemental Precision - guarantees that Frost Nova hits everybody. Just in case you have to grind on mobs 1 level above you, you don't have to invest as much in Hit rating to achieve 100% accuracy.

Permafrost - Makes them go as slow as possible, giving you more time to hit with blizzard.

Piercing Ice - Increases blizzard damage.

Improved Blizzard - Makes them go even slower, giving you more time to hit with blizzard.

Arctic Reach - Lets you freeze more mobs with frost nova/Shattered Barrier. Also lets you blizzard after a blink.

Frost Channeling - Ensures that you don't go OOM sooner than you need to. Also lets you do more pulls without having to eat/drink.

Cold Snap - Your panic button, in case something goes terribly wrong.

Cold As Ice - Gets your Ice Barrier back sooner, just in case you really need it.

Winter's Chill - Increases the crit chance of Blizzard. Each blizzard tick applies a stack of debuff, so by the time you cast your second blizzard, you essentially have 10% increased chance of critting each tick.

Arctic Winds - Increases your blizzard damage. Also increases your dodge slightly, making your Ice Barrier last a tiny bit longer.

Fingers of Frost - Proc increases crit chance of Blizzard ticks by 50%, thanks to Shatter. It procs ALL THE TIME.

Summon Water Elemental - Take him only for the free ranged frost nova. Keep him on passive, so that he doesn't aggro some random mob from one of your pulls.

Chilled to the Bone - Increases chill effect of your blizzard by another 10%, bringing the total to a disgusting 85%.

This minimal build is good enough to start grinding in outlands, but since we're talking about Northrend, you have another 10 talent points to spend. If you are looking to do other things besides AoE grinding, I suggest putting the remaining points into Improved Frostbolt, Improved Water Elemental, and either Brain Freeze or Empowered Frostbolt.

If you want to really go pure AoE from 70-80 (although I really advise against it), go down the Fire tree and pick up World in Flames, which increases your crit chance of Blizzard by another 10%!

Part the Second: The Gear!

The most important stats for AoE grinding are Stamina, Intellect, Spell Power, and Critical Strike Rating. Stam and Int are important for staying alive long enough to cast your blizzard spells, and to make sure that you don't run out of mana in the middle of a pull. Spell power increases (albeit slightly) the damage done by blizzard. Not as important as the other stats, but it's very good to have. Besides, most quest reward gear give adequate amounts of spellpower anyways. Critical Strike Rating is good too, now that blizzard can crit.

Now for Trinkets, there are two items in the game that I'm glad that I saved up and/or quested for. The Lightning Capacitor and Thunder Capacitor. The Lightning Capacitor drops from Illhoof in Karazhan. Alliance-side, the Thunder Capacitor is a quest reward from a quest chain in Dragonblight given by the NPC Zivlix, located at 54,23, just north of Galakron's rest. Anybody who knows details on how to get it horde-side feel free to drop off a comment.

Why I mention these two trinkets in particular is that they have stacking effects. Each tick tha crits will add a charge to BOTH items. Since Blizzard is going to crit A LOT, you're going to have charges proccing left and right, dealing a whole ton of damage in the meantime. Testing naked on 6 theramore combat dummies, The two capacitors alone increased my DPS by about 800, compared to using the badge trinket and its brewfest equivalent.

Part the Third: The NEW AoE sequence!

Thanks to new features in 3.0, such as Blizzard critting, as well as Shattered Barrier, it's easier than ever to take down multiple mobs. Just follow these easy steps!

1) Cast Ice Barrier. Wait for the cooldown to run down a bit.
2) Run around and gather some mobs. Make sure to just get into their aggro radius, rather than walking right into them, to minimize their damage done to you.
3) When Ice Barrier's cooldown is up, cast it again as you wait for the mobs to gather around you.
4) Let the mobs pound on you until Ice Barrier breaks. Shattered Barrier will freeze all the mobs in on space.
5) As soon as it breaks, BLINK AWAY, RIGHT AWAY. Make sure you blink to a spot that's not close to another mob.
6) Turn around and cast Blizzard, making sure that the farthest edge of the targetting circle is touching the frozen mobs.
7) Cast blizzard again when the channel is close to zero. Make sure to aim it so that they walk right into the blizzard as its being cast.
8) Repeat #7 as necessary. Thanks to the snaring talents, You can fit up to 3 blizzards before they reach you. With adequate gear, you should be able to kill them before they reach you as well. If not, then Frost Nova, Blink, repeat.

Alternatively, for #3-4, you can simply frost nova while your Ice Barrier is still up, but I prefer to save that for just in case you pull another mob to you while you're in the middle of a sequence.

Also, If you have Water Elemental out before you start the pull, you can have it cast freeze during the first cast of Blizzard, so they stay in one place. They're also good for protection, just in case a mob breaks free, or aggros you from elsewhere during the sequence.

Part the Foruth: Grinding on Yellows!

Some of the best mobs that can be AoE'd do not have an aggro radius at all, and will only attack if they are provoked by an attacker. These exist mainly in the form of animals scattered around the place. You can find some that noticeably travel together in formation, thus they can be AoE'd at once, without having to lure each to a particular spot.

However, there's usually a "bull" version of that mob that does have an aggro radius, so it's wise to grab that one and lure it to the rest of the pack. Once you meet up with the rest of the pack, use Arcane Explosion to aggro the entire group, and continue with the grind, either by Shattered Barrier or Frost Nova.

Part the Fifth: IDEAL GRINDING SPOTS!

Just remember, this method works ideally when you gather a group of mobs that are purely melee-class. You don't want to be pulling any ranged classes or casters. Sometimes there are mobs that charge after aggroing, which completely disrupts the pulling process. So skip these. Here are a few of my choice favs.

68-70

Wooly Rhinos, Borean Tundra

They travel in packs, and are often accompanied by bull rhinos. Just stay away from D.E.H.T.A while you're doing this, k?

70-71

Gorloc Waddlers and Gorloc Steam Belchers, Borean Tundra

These guys are scattered close to the coast, just south of the geyser fields. You can probably grab a good number of them and then lure them onto the main path, ensuring that you don't aggro anything else. Just start at one edge of the stretch and work your way down to the other edge. When you get back to the first part, there will be respawns. Excellent group.

Iron Dwarfs, Howling Fjord

There's a large line of them surrounding the excavation. You can pull a few of them, but don't do too many, since their attacks leave a stackable DoT that is sure to kill you. A caster patrols the area, but you can pull it separately from the pack without too much trouble. Respawn is fairly good.

72-73
Wastes Diggers, Dragonblight

These guys have stackable DoT's as well, so watch out and don't pull too many at once. You can rotate between excavation pits and they should respawn by the time you get back to the first one. The Taskmaster is ranged, so be sure to pull him seperately when he patrols to the edge of the area.

Scarlet Onslaught, Dragonblight

Northeast of Wintergarde, there's a large encampment of Onslaught mobs that are purely melee. there are so many groups here that you can have a field day with multiple pulls and respawns will occur when you go back to the beginning.

74-75
Highland Mustang, Grizzly Hills


OH MAN. There are a few herds that gallop in groups of 8-10. These are the ones you want to go for. OH BOY ARE THEY GREAT TO GRIND ON. Remember. Arcane explosion to have the circle collapse on you, then Frost Nova in place. Highly Recommended!

75-76
Venture Corp., Sholazar Basin

JACKPOT! The entire Venture Corp Encampment on the northwest side of the Suntouched Pillar is made of melee mobs. Plan out your pulls, and be sure to stay a safe distance from the "boss" mobs. They're not elite, but they have some nifty ablities that can throw off your pull by a lot. As you work your way through the encampment in a circuit, you'll hit respawns again. As a tailor, I get about 3 or 4 stacks of Frostweave in 10 minutes of AoE'ing here. Great experience as well.

77-80
Skeletal Runesmiths, Icecrown

MEGAJACKPOT! Once you hit 77, you can start "attempting" to grind on these guys. All the mobs in the area are level 80, so you will need quite a bit of hit rating to ensure that Frost Nova never misses on a single person if you're only 77. There are two elongated, slightly elevated platforms with mobs on each side of them. If you do a circle around one of them, you'll grab mobs from three of the four sides. If you're feeling adventurous, you can pull all four sides. With the large amount of mobs aggroed, your ice barrier will break early for sure, so remember to refresh it in the middle of the pull, and to give some time for your cooldown to go down somewhat before you start the pull. Ice Blocking before casting Nova is an asset, and highly advised for such a large number of mobs to pull.

The best part? The respawn timer here is ridiculously low. Once you finish the pull, loot, and run off to the side to drink, they will instantly respawn by the time you're ready to start another pull.

Level 74!

I've made about 200g selling ports to Dalaran (EDIT: 310 now, but newer figures are periodically updated on the blog banner) No lies. It helps to be one of the first mages to hit 74 on US Arygos. There are about 2 or 3 ahead of me, but I don't mind staying back to make some nice coin. The inner goblin tells me to go for the gold, not the glory!

Tomorrow or sometime this weekend, I'll be putting up some Northrend AoE guides as well as Frost boss strats for the first few dungeons that I've done so far.

C'MON!!!

/e taps his foot impatiently.

Future Shop is the Best Electronics Store Ever!

Made my way down to the midnight release in one of the future shops in Mississauga, Ontario. I forged some comraderies with a bunch of people who shared the same passion for the game. We shared war stories, glory days, and our secret love for Frost Mages. Seriously, the two people in front of me and the two people behind me, THREE of them have Frost mages. TWO of them are mained.

Oh. And Because Future Shop is the coolest place ever, we get an extra bonus to our Collector's Edition:



Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be reading my artbook while I wait for the installation process to finish. You can bet your sweet canadian dollar that I'll still be wearing this helm well into Naxx-10!

5 Ways to Occupy Yourself Before Wrath, Frost Style

Thursday, right? Is that when it comes out? It's practically sitting behind me in class, teasing me and making me cry, bringing back horrid childhood memories of preschool, kindergarten and the like. And I will be the first to admit that NaNo has minimized the pre-wrath jitters and anxiety. But they're still there, so what I have now is both NaNo and Wrath Anxiety. (On a side note, I'm still writing for the Scarlet Dawn, but it just so happens that these extras are out of sequence, and I don't want to post them in that manner. Not yet, at least.)

So to deal with the compounded nature of both "deadlines," I'm compiling a tiny list to remind myself of my wrath specific goals, while at the same time find time to chunk up a few thousand words a day to catch up with the pace. Oh, I'm unemployed right now, but that's a post waiting for another day. So here you go, Cryomaniacs, have some fun.

1. Solo Dungeons

Even if it means certain death. Start small, but work your way up to bigger things. I'm talking dungeons and elites. Go to deadmines and the stockades, pull the entire room, and kill them without casting a single spell other than Molten Armor. When you're done that, stealth your way to each boss in Scarlet Monastery with proper uses of blink through patrols.

And when you're done that, solo the stairs event in Zul'Farrak. Free the Prisoners, and Slow Fall all the way down to the bottom steps and proceed to Blizzard everything in your way.

Heck, Solo Stratholme if you think you're adequately geared. Some timely Blinks and stealthy sneaking through mobs can potentially earn you your very own mount. Spicytuna has a great guide for that sort of thing. If you get the mount, go visit his site and thank him! Or rub it in, whatever, just tell him I sent ya there!

There's probably some old-world dungeon achievements that you've yet to complete. Might as well do them yourself, rather than helplessly look for others.

2. Solo Elites

Same thing as dungeons, except with elite mobs that roam around Azeroth and perhaps Outland. Go to WoWhead. Look up every single elite mob that exists, and see if it can be chilled or snared. General rule of thumb. If they can do either or both, they are killable by a Frost Mage. Start with hogger, then work your way up to those Scourge Shadow of Doom guys. Trust me, I've brought one down to 25% before the other mobs started respawning and killed me.

Simple rules for fighting elites.
- If they can't be chilled, DON'T DO IT.
- Talent yourself to maximize chill effects. Get Frostbite.
- Pop Water Elemental AFTER your first Frost Nova. Get distance, pop the ranged Nova as soon as he breaks free.
- Shatter Combo at EVERY opportunity.
- Save Brain Freeze Procs for when you're on the move.
- Pop cooldowns as soon as you can. Get your Water Elemental Back ASAP.
- NEVER Blink after a Frost Nova. Simply run/strafe away. Use blink while they're chilled for essentially the same effect, and it spreads out your kiting cooldowns (Nova/Blink)
- Plan out a kiting route ahead of time. Don't pull any extra mobs. Be aware of the Elite's maximum kiting distance (before it resets and runs back home)

3. AoE Your Way into Northrend

If you're not yet 70, there's nothing wrong with taking your time before the big expansion comes. Take the road less travelled. Go to Hellfire Peninsula and learn to AoE grind on vultures in the Valley of Bones, or just south of the Temple of Thalmat. When you're a little bit higher in level, go to Netherstorm, and take out some guys at the Junk Heap, just south of Area 52. You get some nice rep turn-in items in the process.

If you're pretty well geared as a 70 as it is, look for some interesting ways to flex your AoE-peen. For starters, on your last Kara run before the expansion, ask your raid to let you solo the non-elite trash pulls. They're grouped up in a circle that perfectly fits the ranged nova perfectly for a reason.

Or do some scourge fighting! Go look for an invasion spot that's uninhabited by players, and AoE a few of them at a time. They're melee for the most part, but they do have a ranged slow attack that deals a lot of damage when they all do it at the same time. With sufficient spellpower and HP, you probably don't have to Nova the second time anyways.

The necrotic runes are so easy to farm with a frost mage, second only to perhaps T6 prot pallies. If you're an enchanter, you can buy epics from the vendor with those runes, and DE them into Void Crystals.

4. Read up on Frost Death Knights

If you're a die-hard cryophile like me, either these guys will become your best friends, or you'll simply roll one when the expansion comes. So do yourself a favor, and go look up information about Frost Knights, and have yourself drool at the promise of some good times playing (with) one.

5. Level a Druid

Apparently, mages have a thing for druid alts, or associating with druids. Heck, even some Druids have a thing for mage alts as well, or are former mage mains themselves. With good reason, too. As a DPS spec, it's only natural that one would try out the different roles. Resto healing is perhaps the most fun thing to do when you get to a certain level. Hell, pewpewing with the chickenform is very gratifying as an alternate style of DPS. I have no qualms against bear tanking either. I've done it a few times, and currently am doing so with leyola as she ferlols her way to 70 before the patch hits. She's 66 right now, and taking up pretty much all of my time.

Okay, fine, it doesn't have to be a druid. But level something, because that's what Frost Mages excell at, and feeling the rush all over again can tide you over before Yarrrthas sticks his nose into our business.

Final Thoughts

It's coming soon. I'm excited, yes, but with all the fun I've been having lately, I wouldn't mind if it didn't come as soon as it is.

OH, SNAP!

No, Larísa and Gnomer. I have did not cast invisibility and walk away from the battle over the current state of mage specs. As we all know, the pre-invisible phase is quite tricky to time if you truly want to get yourself out of a wipe situation. Even if I tried, the AoE damage from Larísa's Arcane Explosions would have certainly elminated that possibility.

Surely, at this point, however, Larisa's run out of mana due to Arcane Blast spam, and Gnomer is squeezing every last drop of his increased DPS for the past 19 or 20% of the duration of this event. What about me? Have I used all my cooldowns and arguments to warrant any consideration for Frost as the raiding spec of choice?

Simply put, yes. I have said what I needed to say to garner some semblance of support for my frosty friends.

All I have to do now is cast Cold Snap and do it all over again.

Ideally, to use Cold Snap at the very last leg of a dps race is surely an unwise tactic in making the most of your cooldowns and maximizing your DPS, but for the purposes of making a typed online argument about the merits of spec in a raiding environment, repeating arguments is not as effective as repeating damaging spell effects.

On Cold Snap Itself

Cold Snap is the 21-point talent on the Frost talent tree. It is a spell in itself, that costs ZERO mana. It finishes the cooldown on all of your Frost Spells.

Water Elemental expired (all you frosties out there made sure he used up all his mana and didn't die, right?) during a raid fight? Cold Snap, and summon him again.

The Shaman in your group cast Heroism? prolong your Icy Veins with Cold Snap, and proceed with your utterly stupid 1.6-second Frostbolts for up to 40 seconds.

Did Moroes/Maiden/Illhoof just Garrote/Holy Fire/Demon Chain you for the second time? Cold Snap your Ice Block, and block your way out of another duration of considerable damage, saving your healers some critical mana.

AoE grinding on a bunch of mobs, and your Frost Nova got randomly (Damn that 1%!) resisted by one of them? Cold Snap, and root everyone again, thus saving your AoE pull.

Taking a little too much DoT damage from the boss fight? Cold Snap your Ice Barrier, and put up another bubble immediately after the first one fades, and save your priests even more mana worth of healing!

Just to top everything off, Cold snap does NOT use a global cooldown. Simply beautiful. And to think that at one point, this was merely an 11-point talent. And when it got moved, its talent spot was replaced with the remarkable Icy Veins.

The downside? A pretty long cooldown, at 8 minutes untalented. With 2 points in Ice Floes, however, you will be seeing your Cold Snap ready in just 6 minutes and 24 seconds.

On Cooldown Management

With all these neat tools that Frost Mages are given, proper management of their cooldowns is the make-or-break factor that determines the amount of damage that particular mage can put out.

When it comes to Cold Snap, the dilemma comes where the mage has to decide WHEN to use it during a boss fight. Simply put, to maximize a Frost mage's DPS, one needs to cold snap as early and as opportune as possible, but at the same time, use the spell to remove as many cooldowns as possible, to maximize the effect.

On trash, use Cold Snap liberally. Snap back your Squirtle and your Icy Veins. On AoE pulls, Snap back your Frost Nova and Ice Barrier if you generate the most threat in the group. Use it at every opportunity, and your control over others, as well as the capability for dealing damage, will effectively double.

On Boss fights, the mage needs to really study the fight to determine when to use cooldowns and when to Snap back those cooldowns. Keeping in mind the duration of a particular fight, it is ideal to use up your Cold Snap as SOON as possible, since there may be an opportunity to use it again towards the end of the Fight. Consdering that the cooldown for other spells are shorter than Cold Snap itself, you can potentially summon your Water Elemental up to 4 times in a fight. Simply absurd.

Conclusions

While the Water Elemental is the penultimate damage dealing spell in a Frost Mage's arsenal, it's Cold Snap that serves as the heart of a cryomancer's reportoire. With the arrival of the upcoming patch, Frosties will be getting another cooldown in Deep Freeze, just another in a long line of potential cooldown spells that Frost Mages will be getting. With every new spell added to the school of icy wrath, proper judgment in the use of Cold Snap becomes increasingly paramount, meaning that this spell is certainly here to stay.

BONUS! Pimp My Frost Mage for 3.0

Frost is a wonderful tree with multiple tools and talents that can be picked-and-chosen by players based on their playstyle needs. But with only 61 points to spend on a tree designed for 70-point use, one cannot simply have it all, perhaps until 80. So rather than go the Euripides route and go through all the talents and evaluate them on a PvP/PvE/etc basis, I'll just list suggest talents for the different playstyles.

PvP: You want control and survivability. You want to maximize the use of stuns, roots, and snares, while at the same time have a security blanket with defensive cooldowns and passive abilities. Top it off with some freaky-ass burst damage via Shatter Combos. Just be aware that you cannot spec both Improved Counterspell and Deep Freeze due to the talent cap. Both have their benefits, so it all depends on preference.

Useful talents include Frostbite, Ice Shards, Permafrost, Shatter, Improved Cone of Cold, Ice Barrier, Shattered Barrier, Arctic Winds, Summon Water Elemental, Chilled to the Bone, and Deep Freeze.

Solo: You want control and survivability as well, but make better use of Frostbolts and your AoE spells. While the casting cost of your different spell ranks have been unified, it does not negate the effectiveness of your 1.5s rank 1 Frostbolts when kiting much higher level mobs. You also care about reducing downtime, since Frost is a very mana-efficient school compared to the other two specs.

Useful talents include Improved/Empowered Frostbolt, Ice Shards, Shatter, Permafrost, Arctic Winds, Summon Water Elemental, and Chilled to the Bone.

AoE Grinding: Your spell sequence consists of Ice Barrier, Frost Nova, then a repeated sequence of Blink, Blizzard, Blizzard, Cone of Cold and Frost Nova until the large group of mobs dies. Your talents prioritize on minimizing the resist on your Frost Nova (via Hit Capping), reduced cooldowns of your Frost Nova and Ice Barrier, and increased snare effects on your Blizzard and Cone of Cold Spells.

Useful talents include Ice Floes, Elemental Precision, Permafrost, Improved Blizzard, Arctic Reach, Frost Channeling, Cold Snap, Improved Cone of Cold, Shattered Barrier and Chilled to the Bone.

Group: You will take up the DPS role in your group. Depending on the nature of the instance, you may or may not be responsible for some encounters that require Solo skills (such as handling adds or AoE pulls). Assuming single target DPS, your main talent priority is placed on maximizing your DPS via cooldowns and procs, while minimizing your threat on the target.

Useful talents include Improved/Empowered Frostbolt, Ice Shards, Shatter, Elemental Precision, Icy Veins, Cold Snap, Frost Channeling, Arcitc Reach, Summon/Improved Water Elemental, Winter's Chill, Fingers of Frost, Chilled to the Bone and Brain Freeze.

Here's a spec that I will be using in the upcoming patch. It is essentially a 0/0/61 build with Shattered Barrier. This talent simply does not get enough credit. It makes you a god of AoE grinding, as well as AoE trash pulls in raids, such as the beginning of ZA, or the dining room pulls in Kara.

Well, that's it for my Monday post. It's supposed to be my day off work to prepare for 3.0, but I'm still at a relative's house, and relatively hungover. Whatever. I'll be getting into the nitty gritty of the new patch tomorrow night, so I look forward to posting my impressions, particularly with regards to AoE grinding. Because well, Shattered Barrier is THAT awesome.

I'm just waiting for the patch to come, so I can fire off a salvo to begin the second battle between mages.

Frost Mage Tears Make Delicous Popsicles

A wise Frost mage once told me, "When life hands you lemons, summon lemonade elementals."

Ok, well, I thought of that saying, and right now, I'm in the mood to change my blog description to that very saying. This is a Frost mage blog first and foremost, with stuff on Frost death knights soon to come when the expansion hits. So while we wait for those good ol' DK's to arrive at my doorstep, I only have things to say about the Frost mage class.

I love my class. I love everything about them. I love the spec even more. The sheer control over your enemies. The cold heartedness of your temperment when staring down against another enemy in player versus player combat. The companionship of your own summoned elemental. Just don't target the wrong monster in kara when sending him out to attack, like I did a few weeks ago.

I love the state of the frost mage as it is now, and how it look to be when the expansion hits.

But when I see another mage dislike things about his or her class, it kills me inside. My heart simply goes out to them, because as soon as their feelings are made public, the whole world screams "QQ MORE, WHINY ASS MAGE!"

I feel bad for Christian Belt. He's a fantastic writer, and the contributions that he has made to WI are surely important. His passion for the game and for mages is surreal, and I only hope to emulate it. But because of his status as a mainstream-equivalent mage blogger, he's prone to criticism, and this post is no different.

To summarize a recent post he made regarding the state of the 51-point talent, Deep Freeze, he states that the talent is simply useless and broken, and the dev team at Blizzard need to do something to bring it back to respectability. Well, it was something like that. Let me highlight a few points that he has made, and discuss from a cryophile's viewpoint and make opinions on the subject.

"Let me preface this by saying that if you are one of the many who label anything written by a Mage that isn't full of sunshine and candy canes as complaining, crying, or QQ, you may want to just stop reading right now. Thanks for coming, post your "UR TEARZ R DELICIOUS" nonsense in the comments section, and then go back to tea-bagging your kills on Halo or whatever. This column is not for you."

This is a valid preface and warning to those who like to make stereotypes of QQ'ing mages everywhere. The thing that irks me is that the way it was written only encourages said trolls to continue reading and further justify said stereotype. Remember that bully in elementary school that always made fun of your braces? He only did it because you were self-conscious of your braces. He knew you'd cry about it, so he'd keep doing it for kicks. Christian, never do this again, or else you're just asking for it.

"In PvE, though, Deep Freeze is no longer even worth spending points on. It affords no tangible DPS increase, isn't usable on bosses at all due to stun-immunities, and even if it was, wouldn't be worth the mana cost and global cooldown simply to apply an extra five seconds of frozen status."

Simply correct. As of the current beta build, Deep Freeze does not have any damage component, thus rendering it useless. But, Deep Freeze was never even worth using in spell rotations. The author was under the assumption that the Fingers of Frost proc applied to spells cast within a certain time limit, hence utilizing Deep Freeze's instant cast over the inferior Ice Lance. But now that FoF creates charges that are spent when casting the next two spells, fitting in frostbolts for the two charges means that Deep Freeze wouldn't be used anyways!

Does the absence of DF in rotations mean that Frost mages or no longer PvE viable? Not exactly. From day one, this looked to me like a PvP talent to the bone, and it only makes sense that the PvP class gets another PvP tool. I'm not an expert on PvP, but an instant cast spell that causes a stun seems pretty neat, even if it does have the requirement of having the target frozen first.

Talent-wise, this only means I get to spend this point on something more worthwhile, maybe in another tree. Investing all the way to Focus Magic becomes much easier to do, but the buzz in the mage beta community seem to suggest that FM isn't as great as it looks. Either way, it's miles better than DF, and the clearcasting talent that you get along the way is a reliable way to save mana in the new cost-heavy environment.

"At the heart of the issue is Blizzard's design philosophy for 51 point talents. Looking at the 51 point talents for other classes, they share a common theme. For healing specs, they increase healing by substantial amounts. For DPS and tanking specs, they almost universally increase damage output."

In simplicity, isn't that actually a no-brainer? Spells are meant to provide damage/helaing or have some sort of utility. But again, Christian is under the assumption that there is a precise correlation between talent tier and raid/pvp performance enhancement. But looking at talent trees as a whole across the different classes, a lot of specs have their most important 1-point talents in the 31 and 41 point tiers, the ones that really define their role in a PvE or PvP setting. (note: When I mention PvE, I also mean both 5-man as well as raid instances)

At 31 points, there's Moonkin Form, Trueshot Aura, Shadowform, Soul Link (PvP), Leader of the Pack and a few others. At 41 points, there's Circle of Healing, Avenger's Shield, Vampiric Touch, Shadowstep (PvP), Tree of Life, Mortal Strike (PvP), and most relevant of all, Water Elemental.

I am of the opinion that Water Elemental is the most important source of a Frost Mage's damage in PvE, and is a significant presence in PvP as well. Proper Squirtle management is what seperates the pros from the scrubs in both sides, and with the Improved Water Elemental talent, this line of thought is even more convincing.

With the existence of such talents, I am also convinced that Blizzard's design philosophy regarding talent trees have not changed since vanilla. For each release of the game (normal, BC, and LK), Blizzard's revision of the talent tree emphasizes a definitive talent for a particular school, and in subsequent installments of the game, that particular talent is fleshed out even more, further defining the class around that talent. Case in point, for BC, Blizzard added Improved Leader of the Pack for the Feral tree, while Improved Moonkin Form in Lich King adds a increased haste effect to its critical strike effect.

"The essential question when judging a 51 point talent should be: is it worth spending the 51 points necessary to get here? You tell me, Frost Mages. Is it? Though I am not a Frost Mage, I know what my answer would be."

As stated above, it's definitely not worth taking in a PvE spec. But I don't look at it as a "waste of a talent point," since I'll spend that point in another area anyways. It's not like Frost Mages were given 70 points compared to everyone else's 71, which is the impression that I got from reading the article.

Knowing that Mr. Belt is an arcane mage, the same could be said about Slow in Burning Crusade. It was a no-brainer that the talent wasn't worth taking in PvE, but Arcane Mages coped with using other spells in their rotation, and they competed with the other mages, thanks to their amazing 2-piece Tier 6 bonus.

"There is a comparable spell out there called Hammer of Justice. Like Deep Freeze, it is an instant-cast short-duration stun. Deep Freeze has a longer range, but Hammer of Justice can be used on any target, regardless of status. Deep Freeze's cooldown can be talented down to 24 seconds, Hammer of Justice can be talented to 30 seconds. Hammer of Justice stuns for 6 seconds, Deep Freeze stuns for 5. Deep Freeze applies frozen status to the target (assuming the target was already frozen), but Hammer of Justice does not. Deep Freeze is a 51 point Mage talent, available at level 60. Even at its highest rank, Hammer of Justice costs 3% of base mana, while Deep Freeze costs 9%.

Hammer of Justice is a Paladin spell, trainable at level 8.

To me, that says all that needs to be said about Deep Freeze's comparative value. Is it worth 51 points and 60 levels of experience to get? All things being equal, it appears to be worth 8 levels, no talent points, and about 90 copper."

Christian is not mentioning the design philosophy that Blizzard implements with each class. Regarding spells, gear, and talents, they try to quantitize balance between classes using a points system. There exists an value selected by blizzard to represent the strength of a talent or spell. Ultimately, each class should be balanced with regards to the total value of these supposed balance points.

And it holds true with the design of Hammer of Justice. A paladin spell that provides such awesome control is balanced to the many spells in a Frost Mage's arsenal simply by virtue of the fact that HoJ is only one spell, and Frost Mages have plenty of spells that contribute to control.

"Comparitive value" cannot be made based on a spell-by-spell comparison, since the context of the class in which those spells are used needs to be evaluated as well.

"First--and probably easiest--solution? Put the damage back. Fixed."

It's the easiest value to fix for sure, but only time will tell if Blizzard will implement it. After all, numbers are the easiest things to adjust for class balancing purposes. If this spell gets "fixed" at all, a damage component is the most likely means for that to happen.

"Make the spell allow the caster to turn into a cheetah, run behind a pillar, apply an instant cast HoT effect, then sit down to drink.

Ok, so I was kidding about the last one. Sort of."

It's lines like these that keep me coming back to Christian's column. You sir, despite my criticisms, are full of win.

But I don't know. Up until this point, his points have been all arguable, yet valid. Had this been any other class, you could even say it was an effective piece capable of starting debates regarding the state of this class in beta.

But afterwards, for a length that almost exceeds the content discussed above, he went on to plead to a hypothetical blizzard employee to fix the spell. Not any employee, mind you. An employee who was supposedly the exception, and was well aware of the supposed gripes of the mage community.

Certainly, if the trolls have not been lured out, they certainly have now. All of a sudden I was reminded of preschool, with the bullies playing keep away with the loner kid's lunchables. Damn, as much as I miss lunchables right now, I don't think that rant was warranted.

As much as he did warn that there was going to be some form of expressing complaints regarding this spell (necessary, valid), he perpetuated the stereotype of the QQ'ing mage (not necessary, unwarranted).

So as a result, we are left with a post that, with all of its potential of sparking debate about a valid issue, it spurned a debate of the nature of the post itself. Instead of discussing the merits of a 51 point talent that may or may not even be intended, or hell, even has already been fixed for the upcoming beta build, it has grown this unattractive aura that would turn away developers (who probably do turn to columns like these, as well as blogs on the web, just secretly).

We as mages can only learn from this. We must do what we can to not perpetuate the stereotype of the QQ'ing mage, but at the same time not be affected by this stereotyping, as Christian unfortunately shows in this post. It's a delicate balance that must be kept, but for what it's worth, we need to be grateful for what Blizzard has given us. Forget the 51 point talent. It's the 41-point talent that really counts, and I can't really thank Blizzard enough.

Raiding as a Frost Mage: What Lies Ahead

If I were to simplify the main goals of a Frost Mage in a raid boss situation, I would narrow it down to the three points below:

1. Spam Frostbolts
2. Use cooldown spells whenever they're up
3. Keep your pet alive

Compared to the slightly more complicated rotation of Fire's Scorch Debuff->Fireball->re-Scorch-debuff and Arcane's absurdly complicated Arcane Blast variants (Arcane Blastx3, Missiles, Fireball, or Frostbolt timed perfectly such that the next Arcane Blast casts faster, but for less mana, transitioning in and out of AB spam for mana-intense fights), it is safe to say that Frostbolt spam is indeed fairly straightforward.

But to generalize Frost raiding as simply spamming a single spell is ludicrous. Proper management of cooldowns, especially with Water Elemental, can easily determine the mage's spot on the raid DPS charts.

I'm not here to provide strategy, since Euripides has an excellent general outline for raiding Frost mages.

What I'm here to talk about, however, is the state of Frost heading into 3.0, and by extension, the release of the upcoming expansion. There are a lot of new tools being added to the cryomancer's arsenal in the form of baseline spells and talents. So let's take a look at each of the upcoming individually.

Mirror Image

As I stated before, it would be an absolute riot if the clones created by Mirror Image could summon their own Water Elementals. I'm not just talking about the DPS increase as a result, but the possibility of having each Water Elemental stacking mana regen for the raid if specced into Improved Water Elemental. That would be disgusting, but hey, I can dream, right?

Either way, this is a welcome addition to the collection of cooldowns in our reportoire. The difference between this spell and Summon Water Elemental is the control the mage has over his or her summons. The clones cannot be controlled, and as such, proper timing of cooldown usage will contribute to the spell's contribution to your DPS.

Initially, you will cast this at the same time as your Water Elemental, but due to cooldown-reducing talents, Squirtle will be coming out a lot more.

Fingers of Frost

Fingers of Frost is a passive talent that currently procs off of your spell rotation, and gives your current target a "frozen" property, regardless to immunity to traps and snares.

This talent will now require talent point investment into Shatter in order to maximize the damage gains from the proc.

Shattered Barrier

Mages who spec deeply in the Frost Tree are typically specialized for AoE pulls and "add duty" during boss fights due to their investment into talents that increase their ability to kite and control multiple enemies. This talent essentially gives them a free Frost Nova for AoE kiting multiple spawns during an encounter (i.e., Nightbane's skeletons).

As a result, Shattered Barrier will not increase DPS, but will increase the survivability of mages responsible for the roles mentioned above. As we all know, a dead mage does zero DPS.

Brain Freeze

Here's another proc-based talent that will certainly be incorporated into your rotation. Free, instant cast fireballs are nothing to sneeze at. This talent will increase damage per mana, and is good to use on the run.

While it is unwise to simply wait for the effect to proc before you move out of a boss's devastating AoE spell, the duration of the proc is long enough to decide whether or not you need to reposition yourself in anticipation of an oncoming attack, or if you need to move your Water Elemental closer to mana-hungry raid members.

With Fire Blast also available as an instant-cast, it is possible to use up 2 GCD on instant casts, giving you approximately 3 seconds in total to move without severely hampering your DPS. While not exactly an earth-shaking improvement in a mage's raid mobility, it's certainly better than nothing.

Improved Water Elemental

This talent alone, in my opinon, will singlehandedly change the way frost mages are viewed and used in the upcoming expansion.

With proper talents and cooldown management, it is possible to have your pet up for more than half of the duration of a boss fight. Combine that with the fact that the Water Elemental will be affected by the mage's Hit Rating, and we end up with a very significant source of DPS.

Although we won't be replacing Shadow Priests anytime soon, the beneficial mana regeneration effects provided by this talent cannot be ignored. With the changes to mana regeneration and potion mechanics tweaked in the upcoming patch/expansion, every single point of mana spent is crucial. The increased utility of the water Elemental spell, combined with its buffed duration essentially turns your pet into a caster's wet dream, literally.

Now, more than ever, it is of utmost importance to properly manage your Water Elemental with regards to survivability, timing and positioning. Frost mages need to really learn boss fights in order to determine the optimal times and locations to release their pets.

In a way, Squirtle has changed from a flash-in-the-pan increase in Frost DPS into the 11th/26th raid member. The only difference is that this raid member is multiboxed, and lags out periodically during boss fights.

BONUS: Spirit is the new Stamina

If you haven't noticed, I've been a tad concerned lately regarding issues with mana regenration and conservation. Terms such as DPM, Five Second Rule, and cooldown management (with regards to chain-potting and chain-gemming) have made one or more appearances in the last while.

And even though I don't have access to the beta, it has been reported and acknowledged by development that mages are indeed having mana problems in recent builds. Whether or not this is due to regeneration mechanics, spell costs, or simply untweaked numbers, the fact of the matter is that the patch is coming soon, and because of issues related to Hunter and Shaman talents, the Development team is not unaccostomed to simply releasing content and emergency patching if necessary.

With itemization emphasizing spirit, passive mana regeneration could become more lucrative to mages as a raiding class, especially if high DPS specs continue to have problems with running out of mana as the content progresses.

That being said, mages are left with Mage Armor as their baseline mana regeneration ability, which directly benefits from this trend in Spirit itemization. While at 70, 18/0/43 is a very viable spec simply due to its raw DPM, it is often eschewed in favor of 10/0/51 or even 0/0/61, depending on the mage's mana management abilities. But in the upcoming expansion, I predict that 18/0/53 may get some more attention once the dust settles and more data can be collected from first-hand raid experiences on the live realms.

Conclusion

It is a very exciting time to be a Frost mage with the shadow of an unexplored expansion blanketing our frozen hearts. In the past few weeks, we have been given previews of what is to come, and while the theorycrafters are furiously pounding away at the calculators, it is a thrill to see how Frost DPS is stacking up against the other trees and classes with each beta build.

For as long as anyone can remember, Frost was regarded as a single-spell spam spec, sometimes summoning Squirtle (alliteration for the massive win). But crymancers can rejoice in Wrath, for now they have to really push their pet, while predicting procs in the process (not as alliterative, but nonetheless still win).

While our DPS remains middle-of-the-road, it is something that we are accustomed to seeing. But with a potential emphasis placed on mana management on a raidwide level looming over the heads of frantic GMs everywhere, our utility may be an x-factor that could determine our success in high tiered content.

Because in the end, it is only appropriate that the ones most tolerable to the vast, icy cold of Northrend are those who can harness the icy cold itself.

AFK, Evocating

Hi everyone! If you're reading this right now, chances are I'm on the road heading towards the Canada/US border. I haven't forgotten about the readers, so this is one of a few scheduled posts to reflect upon until Tuesday comes. In this installment, I would like to talk about mana mechanics.

On thursday, during my lunch hour, I lurked around through the beta forums, browsing through a slew of topics regarding Mages and the upcoming raid content. As you may or may not know, the first 10-man raid instance, analogous to Karazhan for TBC, is Naxxramas. The design of the raid supposedly is meant to mimic the encounters from vanilla WoW.

One boss redesign in particular, Kel'Thuzad, has a particular mechanic that raised a few questions about the nature of mana regeneration for the mage (and to a certain extent, elemental shaman and balance druid) class. Periodically throughout the fight, KT does an ability that flat-out depletes mana from mana classes, currently to the point of going OOM.

At first, I thought that this mechanic sounded fairly straightforward, but in the grand scheme of game design and class balance, an issue was brought into question regarding mana regeneration across different classes. The post that I read argued there should be a tradeoff for caster classes between mana and DPS.

Consider Warlocks and Hunters. When both classes run out of mana in a fight, they can simply use Lifetap and Aspect of the Viper respectively to regenerate their mana mid-fight. The observation posed by the post (hopefully, when I return from my trip, the topic will still be up so I can link it) is that both locks and hunters, as long as they remain alive, can perpetually keep up mana at the cost of a slight dropoff in DPS, whereas a caster who goes OOM after blowing all of his cooldowns will cease to provide DPS at all.

Thus the OP argues that with the implementation of fight mechanics that strain mana such as the KT fight, min-maxing will cause mages, and caster shaman/druid classes to be benched, not because of their DPS, but because of their mana regen mechanics. Thus, he suggests that mages are given some sort of mana regeneration mechanic similar to Hunters and Warlocks, or to have current talents and abilities tweaked to reflect those mechanics. Later on in the thread, someone even suggests changing Evocation in such a way that it can be cast more often, but returns less mana each time, or leaves a mage more vulnerable to damage like the Curator's evocation: an idea that actually carries a noticeable amount of support from other posters.

Regardless, I feel that the OP raises an interesting and valid point regarding the existence of these tradeoffs for exclusive classes. With the changes to mana regeneration in the upcoming expansion, the argument is supported even further.

However, from a flavor perspective, this disparity actually makes sense. In a way, going OOM as a mage is all part of the live fast, die young, glass cannon way of life that the class is known to have. Whether or not the "glass" and "cannon" aspects are equally represented by mages is better left to debate by theorycraft and QQ, but I really don't see mages as an endurance class in that regard.

At the end of the day, it's actually quite funny for me to think of such a thing at all, considering that I have yet to use an evocate during a boss fight ever since my respec. Oh well. Something to chew on until I get back.

Proper Spelling is the Difference Between...

"Because of my new profession, I would probably need to get my hands on an experienced miner."

and

"Because of my new profession, I would probably need to get my hands on an experienced minor."

Thank goodness for spell-check.

...

Ok. That aside, I don't think I actually noticed that the shift to Spellpower would affect DPS classes as well as Healers. Where I once thought that +healing gear were the only ones affected, I now realized, thanks to PuggyPriest, that anything that isn't "spell damage and healing" will get re-adjusted to spellpower.

That means goodbye, Frozen Shadoweave!

When 3.0.x hits, My overall damage is going to drop significantly, simply because my +300-ish frost damage will be converted to +200-ish spellpower, not to mention the supposed nerf specifically to FSW regarding the Spell Hit bonuses. All of a sudden, I don't feel so bad about hording up a bunch of off-spec gear. I already have a super-glamorous shoe collection that I could pick from to replace the FSW Boots, but I'm still looking for replacements for my badge off-hand, and the other two FSW pieces.

It now makes me wonder if I should give up the crafting protection in lieu for a gathering one in preparation for Wrath. I know that money isn't supposed to be a factor in Wrath, but even now, it feels great to have a nest egg to cover my expenses ahead of time. I've been spending a lot lately for consumables and such, and it's only inevitable that I will probably run out of funds.

If my funds hold out, I'll probably drop either my tailoring or enchanting for jewelcrafting. At first, I can use some of my alts to funnel the lower-level ore to my main and power-level it out a bit. But at higher levels, because of my profession, I'll need to get my hands on an experienced miner.

So all in all, I'm not exactly sure what to do. I might even just cop out and Mine/Skin my way into wrath, just for the cash flow.

Nerf Bat? What Nerf Bat?

I was reading WoW Insider today, and happened upon a bunch of posts. Didn't read many of them, since the titles of those very posts spoke for themselves.

"8926 a test of faith for Holy priests"
"Shadow Priests beaten to death in the Wrath beta"
"Totem Talk: Curses, foiled again"
"Human racials revised again"
"Things don't look pretty for PvP Hunters in 8926"

To say that 8296 was known for its nerfs to many classes would be a sheer understatement. Which is why I loved to see this on MMO-champion regarding the new beta build.

Unofficial changes:



which is quite surprising, considering the introduction of Mirror Image. I could only guess that there simply wasn't enough time for the devs to observe the spell in action and make their adjustments. Expect more concrete evidence to be observed when more 80's show up via pre-mades or self-mades, and we'll see how it goes.

Regardless, it is frequently said that no news is good news. So if we're to walk away with anything, it's that with the inevitable tidal wave of QQ, it's refreshing to see that the mages aren't likely to be the ones not drowning in it.

But then again, I could be wrong.

Mirror Image? No Thanks, I Still Love My Water Elemental!

General rule of gaming. If it involves clones, it's going to be imbalanced.

Ah, Morphling, how I miss you so. By coming to Wrath of the Lich King as the Mage spell Mirror Image in Beta Testing, you have done quite well for yourself. I don't need to tell you that it is awesome. Chances are, you've already read Christian Belt's opinion on it, and Tuna's, and Aurdon's, and...what? Krizzly hasn't put his Frosty Perspective on this? OK fine. I want to put in my 2c on this.

Yes, this spell is quite awesome. As the 3 authors have pointed out, the possibilities with this spell is just disgustingly good. At first, some have speculated that this spell would merely be some sort of diversion-type spell used for PvP purposes, but it would seem that the effects of it have gone beyond the expectations of the mage community. Perhaps it's because they aren't used to seeing their class get buffed so dramatically, or because they've been QQ'ing since the class was spanked with the nerf bat in Burning Crusade, or simply because they've never specced 41 points for a Water Elemental, which essentially does the same thing. Although technically, while Mirror Image functions more like a Druid's Treants, they're simply there to deal more damage.

Let me touch on that last point. These mage clones are simply Treants that do ranged damage instead of melee. It's a wonderful balancing idea that Blizzard concocted, finally completing the duality of melee/ranged combat. The game needed a spell that complemented Force of Nature with respect to design, and the mage class was a perfect fit.

Regardless of how much balancing the Dev team will implement to this spell (according to Belt's analysis, the damage capabilities are simply too high), the general idea is quite amazing, and should remain in the mage's arsenal when the expansion arrives. If anything, they will simply tweak the numbers to match the 41-point Balance talent, and make Mirror Image more analogous to it. Sometime down the road (or even right now), some will probably say that this spell further homogenizes the classes by marking this similarity with Balance druids, but in my humble opinion, the analog that it provides helps define and distinguish those two classes with regards to flavor AND functionality.

But where does this spell put us Frost mages within the context of our own class? In my opinion, Summon Water Elemental as a spell defines the Cryomancer in more ways than what Dragon's Breath or Slow could ever do for their respective schools. When I first fell in love with this talent tree, the addition of Squirtle to my repertoire was something that made me feel much a litle bit more like a hunter or a warlock, but the impermanence was something that kept me longing for him.

Consider that clones can be summoned every 3 minutes, just like an elemental. As a Frost mage, that camaraderie between man and um, well...puddle of water, will be in jeopardy. There will be hardly any room in the cryomancer's life for his beloved blob. It just feels so cramped. Perhaps it's just me, but I'm not ready to shove aside my How will this dynamic fare in the future? Only time will tell.

So when Wrath comes along, I'll definitely give Mirror Image a shot, implementing it into my spell rotation in dungeon and raid situations; but for now, I shall continue to religiously summon my dear old Water Elemental every 3 minutes. And even though he will only be there for me for 45 seconds at a time, each and every one of them shall be well spent.

Unless, of course, my mirror images can summon water elementals of their own...

This Blog is About Death Knights, Too!

Well, frost-specced death knights anyways. As much as I love Bashertin, my 70 frost mage main, I am eagerly looking forward to frost knights when Rich King (it prints money!) comes out. In a way, I'm already set on levelling one to 80 alongside Bash. I still haven't decided on a name, unlike other people, but I'm sure that I am interested nonetheless.

The reason why I haven't posted anything about death knights and wrath is that I simply don't know enough about them to make any sort of opinion about them. By default, I love them, and regardless of how broken or OP the class (and spec) will turn out to be, I will keep him at least as a secondary main, or my highest priority alt, whichever one makes the most sense.

Another reason is simply due to the fact that the level of anticipation that I have for the class is just so much that I have spoiler-proofed myself from the class, other than initial information that was revealed at Blizzard's event in France earlier this summer. Other than that, I really have no idea of what's going on with them.

Oddly enough, I spend a lot of time looking up information regarding frost mages in the beta, but not death knights. While I don't want to be spoiled of information with dk's, I don't mind reading up on the progress of mages as each new beta build is put up. If it makes sense, I presume it's because of my invested interest in the mage class, and my high hopes of Blizzard making progress on tweaking the class so that it stands out on its own against other classes. With death knights, I haven't gotten a chance to play them or invest time into them, so I have this blank slate that I want to retain when the game comes out, so I can have a fresh experience with a potentially awesome class.

Don't worry, I still love frost knights, but I conveniently have enough patience to wait for the time to come so that I can play them. And once I get my hands on one, you can be rest assured that they'll have a good chunk of attention on this blog.

Car Analogies: Wrath Rush Hour Traffic and My Garage Full of Alts

Benameless made a pretty good point about the upcoming expansion, and the sheer level of carnage that will ensue based on the intense crowding of fresh seventies in the first areas of Northrend. While Blizzard has alleviated this issue somewhat by offering alternative starting locations as well as the option to level up a Death Knight, there will be a bit more breathing room.

This may not be the case, since the popularity of WoW has grown considerably since the release of TBC. Who knows whether or not the three "options" for starting off your new expansion will suffice in terms of lag, personal playing space, and schedule. I've played in less popular games when new servers open up, and the starting location for those games are crowded as it is. Trying to level up by grinding mobs alone is susceptible to killstealing, and KS'ers alone piss me off more than even gankers and corpse campers. I want to play WoW, not musical chairs.

So my plans for Wrath then, is to finish off all the 69-70 quests that I have yet to complete. I dinged 70 pretty slowly, simply due to the large number of instances that I did on the way there. As such, I ended up not having to do any quests from Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley. I'll probably start there, since those quests will be easier sources for experience than wrath. Not as much, but much more accessible. The overall strategy is to make sure that I can make progress on my main without being interfered by other players. It's like the damn rush hour traffic that I experience driving home from work. I'll simply take the road less travelled. It won't get me home faster, but at least it's some sort of progress.

Either that, or I'll simply level my alts for a bit. I have a garage full of parked gnomes with 150% rested XP. Allow me to introduce you to them.

Krizzlybear, level 1 Warrior - He's my bank alt, and pretty much my namesake. While Bashertin is my main, good old reliable Krizzy is where the action is at with regards to playing the AH for cash. I might actually level him up fury, since I have two Axe of the Legions waiting for him to dual-wield to 70 with.

Miyo, level 24 combat Rogue - She was my first ever attempt at an alt...until I realized that I was too lazy to enchant her gear. She was decked out in Defias armor, and even had a fiery Cruel Barb/Buzzer Blade combo going. Rogue twinks everywhere would cringe at the noobishness of this pathetic attempt to own up WSG, but I'll admit that Alliance-side BGs are not exactly successful over here at US Arygos. So I pretty much gave up, and let her loose into Duskwood, and she's been sitting pretty at the local in, playing around with her pink pigtails. DO note that I created her long before I started blogging, so bearing a resemblance to certain pink-pigtailed bloggers are merely coincidence. Besides, who would want their female gnome any other way?

Lopen, level 14 demonology Warlock - I've gotten her boosted through DM a few times, so she already has a nice pair of gloves and an awesome staff waiting for her in her inventory. I've been putting much of my focus into her in between raids and heroics with Bashertin. Same character design as Miyo, but with green hair instead of pink. Green is awesome, and my favorite colour, btw.

Name TBA, level 55 frost Death Knight - When they become available, I will make one immediately shelve it at the nearest Inn. Gnome for sure, but I probably won't actually start seriously levelling him or her until the dust has been settled, and I have enough breathing room to play around with.

I have other alts, such as a 42 Druid, a 23 Shaman, and a 26 Hunter, but I will never ever touch them again. I've reached my limits with them, and it's most likely because I simply prefer controlling a gnome as opposed to the other races. Weird logic, but I've found my niche, and I am more fulfilled playing what I like, so I will continue to pursue this path. A gnomish Death Knight will surely become a regular part of the alts when WLK is upon us. Heck, he'll probably be a secondary main if the settings are right.

Represent, y'all. Gnomes4Lyfe!

A tiny detail that I failed to miss...

Not a big deal, but patch notes from the beta regarding the Fire talent, World in Flames:

"World in Flames - Moved to Tier 2, Increases the critical strike chance of your Flamestrike, Blast Wave, Dragon’s Breath, Living Bomb, Blizzard and Arcane Explosion spells by 2/4/6%. "

Let's cut out a few irrelevant words:

"...Increases the critical strike chance of your Flamestrike, Blast Wave, Dragon’s Breath, Living Bomb, Blizzard and Arcane Explosion spells..."

One more cut:

"...Increases the critical strike chance of your...Blizzard...by 2/4/6% "

Wait, but I thought that Blizzard doesn't crit! Does this mean that Blizzard (the company) is looking to make changes to the mechanics of Blizzard (the spell)? They did say that they wanted to increase damage output by mages, particularly in the field of area-effect.

Let's suppose that Blizzard (spell) is programmed to have 0% critical chance, then WiF will increase the chance to 6%. That would mean your blizzard-based dps would increase by 6%, since each critical hit essentially doubles the existing damage assuming the mage has the talents for it, and adds 6 more hits worth of blizzard damage within a span of a hundred blizzard hit occurences.

Then again, it's more likely that critical chance does not apply to blizzard, since talents such as shatter and winter's chill do not affect it. But if that's so, why even bother mentioning the spell in the first place in the changes? Let's hope it's not scratched off due to a typo.

But still, a 6% damage increase? Not too shabby. But with WiF being a Tier 2 Fire talent, will it be worth it taking? Curse you, Blizzard! October is still miles away!

Finding My Place in the World...of Warcraft

The thing that makes WoW so great is that the game itself is so finely tuned such that a large variety of people are attracted to play. This is evident in the sheer statistics of the the game's player-base. At 10 million, the stranglehold that Blizzard's brainchild has on the masses around the world is just staggering. Multiply that by the number of alts that players have on average, and you have a virtual character population the size of Canada or even more.

And in the middle of all that, there's you, the individual. Sometimes it's difficult to put things in perspective, especially when one gets so invested into the game, economically, socially, emotionally, or otherwise. But in reality, you're not the only person who exists in the game. Likewise, your guild, PuG, raid group, battleground, or whatnot is not the only one in the realm of Azeroth. There exists groups and individuals that span different playstyles, skill-sets, schedules, and etiquette.

To add fuel to that fire, also consider that each individual is never in the same place over time. As they play the game, they grow, and their view of the game or attitude towards it is always in constant ebb and flow. This is simply due to the natural changes that take place in a person outside the game. The guild leader of the top-tier group grieves for the loss of his mother who passed away from lung cancer; the guy who always spams, trolls, and flames in Trade Chat meets the girl of his dreams and gets married; the guild mother who can always be relied on for advice becomes a mother in real life; the discipline Priest who never gets invited to Kara PUGs becomes one of the most thought-provoking minds in the blogosphere.

With such a fascinating demographic dynamic inherent within and outside of the game, it often becomes difficult to determine where you are in this world, and perhaps most importantly, where you will be going. In my opinion, this is trivial. You can strive all you want to aim for certain goals, but with how open the world is, inside and out of the game, you can never really know where you're going to end up.

As I type this, I'm preparing for what I perceive to be quite an important step in my "real-life progression." In a few hours, I'll be leaving the office early, and going out and handing out resumes for a job within the field of my university degree: forensic science. Now, I'm still one course away from actually completing the program, but career-wise, it's always a good idea to start looking early into what you want to do. That's what inspired me to write this little drabble of a post.

Whether or not I get hired as a low-level lab tech, this job is merely the beginning. But as I look back, I'll remember the first day I stepped onto campus and wondered how the hell I am ever going to survive this place, and laugh at myself for always thinking for the "here and now," and not about how I want to fit in the dynamic mold of society.

With that regard, I vow to do the same with the World of Warcraft. As the world around me changes, I will aim to find the my little niche in it. Likewise, as the World of Warcraft changes, particularly with the coming of Wrath, I will embrace the coming of something wonderful, and hopefully find my own role and voice in the online community to which I belong.

Deep Frost in Wrath of the Lich King - Initial Impressions

Well, apparently, I was a little too busy to post this weekend. But of course, that's what the post date and time options are for. Sigh, I'm still pretty new at this, I suppose.

Regardless of my horrid blogging skills, I still want to post my take on the new beta talents (or the now-NDA-lifted alpha talents, if you want to call them that) as well as the beta patch notes for mages, and in particular, how they affect frost mages. Yes, I'll do both at the same time, since I didn't even bother commenting on the alpha details, since there was that whole debacle about NDAs and such. Now that the NDA has been lifted, I feel obligated as a mage blogger to do so. So let's begin!

The Frost Tree, Beta Edition

- Winter’s Grasp: Gives your Frost Spells a 20% chance to apply the Winter’s Grasp effect, which increases the chance that all attacks will hit the target by 2/4% and the target will be considered Frozen for 2/4 seconds.

I love the feeling of contribution that you bring to a group by putting in your own debuffs on a focus-fired target, especially when they're beneficial to another player. Case in point, I pugged a kara with an arcane-frost specced mage, and he volunteered to do all the table/int buffs for the whole instance, even after wipes, simply because he appreciated my winter's chill debuffs.
Now this debuff benefits the whole raid. Improving general hit by 4% for everyone attacking that monster is just simply ridiculous. In high-end raid instances, all members are expected to be hit-capped, so this talent is not as important, but in entry-level raid instances such as Kara for TBC, there will be some members in Kara guilds and Kara PUGs especially. Whatever the Kara Equivalent for WotLK will be, an 80 mage will be a definite boost for the other hit-dependant classes, especially tanks, who need capped hit to ensure they don't lose aggro from misses on white damage.

- Improved Water Elemental: Increases the duration of your Summoned Water Elemental spell by 10/20/30 seconds and increases the total mana and health of your Water Elemental by 10/20/30%.

Skilled use and precise management of the Water Elemental is the hallmark of a good frost mage. Unfortunately, I'm not quite there yet, but as the 41-point talent, it is as much a part of being a frost mage as it is having Tree of Life on a restoration druid. And When you get a talent such as this, it only makes the identity of a frosty even more concrete. Now, it becomes more important than ever to ensure that your Elemental stays alive and uses up all of its frostbolt charges.

From a theorycrafting standpoint, it is important to figure out whether or not the 30 second increase corresponds nicely with the 30% mana increase, and whether or not the elemental will be able to use its entire mana pool before it dies. We'll just have to wait and see if that happens, because I'm not in the mood to do the calculations.

- Brain Freeze: Your Frost Nova and Frostbite effects also reduces the target’s chance to hit with all attacks by 5/10/15%.

This feels much more of a PvP talent than it actually is. As I recently mentioned in my "10 things you need to know about mages" post, I noted a tactic that I use to at least try and save a healer from getting beaten down by a mob by staying close to them and using Frost Nova before the aggro'ed guy gets too close. With Brain Freeze, your Novas will be somewhat safer to do if you happen to snag a dude in front of your healer. This doesn't really guarantee that the healer won't get hit, but it gives him or her a better chance to escape unscathed or at least alive, especially in heroics where many mobs will 1-2 hit a squishy for a massive kill.

On a related note, a few of you have pointed out that it is simply bad practice to stand close to the healer due to aoe aggro shifting to him if the mage pulls a mob with aggro and then using a threat wipe such as Ice Block. That is true, assuming that 1) you pull aggro in the first place, and 2) the healer is also above the tank on the threat list, or maybe 3) the tank is dead and the two of you are second and third on the list. Well, DPS classes should NOT be pulling aggro in the first place. If aggro is pulled, whether or not it's by the healer or a dps, then you'll increase your wipe chances either way (especially on high-end content), so this isn't an issue. Frost Nova will always give the person who pulled aggro to walk away from the mob that focuses on him, given that he walks away from him. As tanks always say, if you pull aggro, walk the mob back to the tank, to make it easier on him. With Frost Nova, the aggro'd member can walk back to the tank without risk of getting hit. That's all I have to say on the matter, and I'm going to continue nova'ing any mob that comes close to me. Case closed.

- Chilled to the Bone: Increases the damage caused by your Frostbolt and Ice Lance spells by 1/2/3/4/5% and reduces the movement speed of all chilled targets by an additional 2/4/6/8/10%.

Self-explanatory. More frostbolt damage AND Ice lance damage. Ice Lance doesn't really have much utility in a raid situations, but for questing and PvP, it is a good asset to have. What I particularly love about this talent is the additional 10% chill effect, which is added to your already high % chill effects from Improved Blizzard and Permafrost. Kiting is a very good skill to have as a frost mage, and this increases your effectiveness by a good margin.

- Deep Freeze: Stuns the target for 5 sec. Only usable on Frozen targets.

I'll admit it once again, I'm not a PvP person. But last weekend, I did an AV, and did my first ever shatter combo. I even timed the last-second WE freeze and everything, and I essentially one-shotted a rogue from full health to about 15%. Other stragglers from my team finished him off without a problem.

With this talent, depending on the spell mechanics, you might have to rework your shatter combo. Normally, you would cast Frostbolt, cast your Water Elemental's Freeze at the last second, And then Ice Lance immediately when your frostbolt fires off, for double critty goodness.
Consider the possible rotations you might use, depending on the mechanics of the spell.

1) Deep Freeze has cast time: replace your initial Frostbolt with Deep Freeze, and you'll get a stunned enemy with a critical Ice Lance. Depending on whether or not your target is still frozen after the Ice Lance, you have more than enough time to do a regular Frostbolt-based shatter combo.
2) Deep Freeze is instant-cast, uses the global cooldown: replace your Ice Lance with Deep Freeze, and you'll get a crit frostbolt and a stun effect. If target is still frozen, do another shatter combo.
3) Deep Freeze is instant-cast, does not use global cooldown: Cast your Deep Freeze in place of Ice Lance, but use Ice Lance immediately after your Deep freeze. Unlikely scenario, but you still get the damage of your normal shatter combo, but your target is stunned and potentially frozen.

Hrmm...maybe I'll actually start doing BG's in wrath...

Wrath Beta Patch Notes

- Counterspell now costs 9% of base mana.
- Polymorph now costs 12% of base mana.
- Portal spells now cost 18% of base mana.
- Slow Fall now costs 6% of base mana.
- Teleport spells now cost 9% of base mana.

I grouped all of the "base mana" cost adjustments together. For sure, there's going to be an outcry on the intardnet about Mages getting the shaft by making these spells much more expensive than it was in TBC. But I am willing to look at the positive aspects here. Teleport, Portal, and Slow Fall don't really count, because they're used outside of combat (except maybe Slow Fall in world PvP, or in a BG).

Counterspell and Polymorph are important spells, however. As a frost mage, I really don't give a damn. Our mana is so damn efficient due to the insanely cheap cost of our bread-and-butter Frostbolts. In kara, i'm usually in a group with another fire mage, and even though he has a larger mana pool, he's always using his mana-regenerating spells/items before I do. Sure it's a nerf, but it doesn't hit frosties as hard as it will to other specs.

One more thing to consider is how gear scaling will effect these costs. While the base mana cost will always remain a constant as you level up, your actual mana pool will be MUCH larger than it was when you hit level 70. Considering the non-base stat curve one undergoes as he gears up through the levels, and you might actually see that the cost is actually MUCH lower than it will end up being when you start doing level 80 content. So yeah, it's not really that big of a deal.

- Frost Armor, Ice Armor, Mage Armor and Molten Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.

I already commented on this with the 2.4.3 patch notes, but I just want to announce that you can still spellsteal Armor from NPC mobs. This change only seems to apply to PvP, and that makes me a happy little gnome.

- Invisibility now makes the caster invisible after 3 seconds, reduced from 5 seconds.

WOOT! Invisibility buff! I'll be really honest again, I've only had to rely on Ice block as a threat wipe, but I've never really gotten a chance to use Invisibility to remove myself from combat in case of a wipe. This is normally because I'm usually the second person to go as soon as the tank dies in a fight. 5 seconds to not get hit by anything is a really long time, and a 2 second decrease really makes it much more likely to get out of a wipe situation.

On the flip side, the utility that invisibility has as a threat reducing spell isn't too bad. Instead of the 5 seconds worth of threat decrease, you only get 3. Consider the following threat level after each tick of invisibility, according to how the spell works (10% of your current threat removed each second).

Starting with 1000, each tick will bring you to 900, 810, 729, 656, 591.

The old invisibility will reduce your threat by 40%, while the new version will reduce your threat by 27%. The reduction in duration actually benefits the spell user, simply because of the percentage effect of the threat reduction itself. Simply put, the longer the effect lasts, you lose less threat with each tick. 3 seconds seems to be a good balance between leaving combat sooner and reducing enough threat to be used as a viable threat dumping spell.

Overview of the proposed Wrath Changes

While the beta patch notes indicate that mana cost nerfs are coming to the mage, we must be aware that this change in philosophy is being applied across most classes. An example of this is the change to Shackle Undead to also cost a percentage of the Priest's base mana. Looking at the big picture (considering all classes and levels), it would seem that mages aren't the only one to be re-worked into Blizzard's ideal vision of their game in the new expansion.

While both the talents and changes listed above are from alpha and beta information, we must still be warned that these aren't the final figures. But according to what people say about beta changes in TBC, the general design concepts and goals that the WoW dev team has in mind for particular classes remain the same. That being said, I welcome these new assets to the frost arsenal when the time comes for us to hit up Northrend and kick some Lich King butt. Not only do deep Frost specs remain viable as a PvP class, but they have even more of a utility role in raids than ever. With each new expansion, the increase in your total talent points allows for even more fine-tuning with mix-and-match specs such as the elementalist specs (hello, Frostfire Bolt!), arcane-frost and arcane-fire specs. When the theorycrafters develop the cookie-cutter raid builds for each elemental school, it is quite likely that builds depending on having Frostbolt, or even Frostfire Bolt, will require a deep frost spec in the raid to maxmimize their individual DPS. With both Winter's Chill and Winter's Grasp effects available to deep frost, our utility will become a valuable asset to rosters that include such builds, with Winter's Grasp alone giving such a great single-target buff for your entire team, regardless of its size or composition.

What we're seeing is this concept of having multiple specs being raid-viable because of the buffs that they offer, instead of the cookie cutter spec. Think of Beastmaster Hunters, the raiding build of choice in TBC, according to BigRedKitty. With WotLK coming out, the Hunting Party talent makes Survival a very lucrative asset to bring in a raid, very much like the Winter's Grasp Mage. Frankly, I'm really excited to see how this pans out in the new expansion. For all you know, you just might end up killing Arthas in parties consisting of survivalist hunters, retro pallies and deep frost. That would be an experience more than worth the price of buying the expansion.

Kudos, Blizzard, on developing such an interesting idea for class dynamics in the new expansion. The mage class may still have a bit of a way to go with regards to being "fixed," according to the voices of the mage community. But compared to popular belief, this mage in particular is excited to see that his class is actually taking a few good steps in the right direction.

As always, Frost Mages are looking to be very cool in Wrath.

(that pun never gets old, lol)