MAGE in Cataclysm Classic: Was It Any Good Though?

the Mage has been a Mainstay DPS class throughout classic so far excelling at just about everything in vanilla remaining a top pick in TBC and in Wrath wouldn't you know it Mage turned out to once again be pretty great in fact Mage has probably been one of the most consistent picks across every version of classic we've played so far and it looks as though someone at blizz back in the day really liked their Mage because in C Mage takes things to another level once again you also have more choice for your Mage enjoying in cataclysm both new races and Morgan and Goblin can roll this class as can dwarves n elves and Orcs whether it's for PVP or PVE though you'll find plenty of opportunity to be a top tier pick so let's check out what's new with the Mage and how they changed in cataclysm but first we have what's new to this class Baseline as in the non-talent related things Arcane missiles turns into a proc that can happen when you cast any other offens iive spell evocation now grants 15% Mana instantly followed by 45% over 6 seconds sometimes you really just do need that one tick of evocation so this is a small change but when it matters you'll notice it Arcane blast changes once again because it just wouldn't be a WoW expansion without this spell changing it still stacks and it increases its Mana cost with each stack however now it reduces the cast time of Arcane Blast by .1 seconds per stack as well as increasing the damage of of Arcane blast and Arcane explosion by 10% per stack lasting 6 seconds casting Arcane barrage will instantly end this effect though so the difference compared to Raph is the cast time reduction on Arcane blast with stacks and the fact that you can use Arcane explosion as an AOE and not lose the buff Mana shield now has a 12se second coold down but costs one point of Mana per damage absorbed down from 1.5 and Arcane intellect is gone as our similar single Target Buffs and they' just been replaced by their raid wide variant also they don't need reagents to cast anymore for mage they'll have Arcane Brilliance which increases Max mana and gives 6% bonus spell power remember now in C Mana directly gives spell power Mage Armor now regenerates 3% Mana per 5 seconds and its magic debuff reduction has changed from 50% to 35% new to the Arcane tree is Mage Ward this is your Frost and fire Ward combined into one ability and it will now also absorb Arcane damage as well finally probably the biggest spell Mages are getting this expansion Time Warp pretty simple in terms of what it does though it's the same buff as blood lust or heroism giving 30% raid wide haste for 40 seconds but now you don't always need to bring a Sharman to get this buff not too much has changed in the fire tree molten armor no longer scales with Spirit to grunt extra crit anymore and new to the tree is flame orb which projects a fiery orb forwards that deals damage to nearby enemies over 15 seconds and can be modified more through talent trees Frost also remains pretty similar to its ref of the Lich King State ice armor is gone and now you just have Frost armor which has similar slowing effects that it always has done however now it reduces physical damage taken by 15% on top of that new to the frost tree is the pretty iconic Mage utility spell ring of frost it's instant casting cataclysm but it takes 3 seconds to activate kind of like a trap any enemy that tries to cross the ring will be frozen in place for 10 seconds more applications in PvP for this ability is a cc chain or just to deny an area but it's another tool for Mages to control a battlefield next up let's check out some talent trees and see what we have we'll do Arcane first when picking the Arcane talent tree you get access to Arcane barrage which is unchanged from RAF of the Lich King in that it launches an instant missile that deals Arcane damage except it does a bit more damage in C you gain 25% bonus Arcane damage and your Mastery is Mana Adept which increases your damage output based on how much Mana you have unspent improved arcade missiles now increases the number of missiles of this spell fires by two and missile barrage makes arcan missiles fire every. 5 Seconds by default encants flow is buff to increase spell damage by 20% of damage received up from 15% and it also knocks a nearby enemies back when Mana Shield is broken when Arcane was popular in the past I remember Mages going to stand in bad stuff so they could Stack Up encounter's Shield so this may well be good improved polymorph makes it so when a poly Target is damaged they are stunned for 1 and 1/2 seconds this makes Target swapping a bit more dangerous in PvP but this Talent is of course just available for Arcane rages nether Vortex is an allaround amazing utility tool that automatically applies slow to targets hit by your Arcane blast talents like this are what make Arcane into a pretty good leveling spec for CER which it really hasn't been known for in the past improved Mana gem now gives you some bonus spell power when using your Mana Gem and finally is arcan power it still gives 20% bonus spell damage and increases the Mana cost of spells by 10% Arcane would consider Prime glyph such as Arcane blast Mage Armor and Arcane missiles when you pick the fire tree you get the iconic pyro blast which is a longcast Time ability that deals heavy damage and in C it does a decent damage overtime effect too you get 25% bonus fire damage as this spec and your Mastery is flashburn which increases the damage of periodic fire effects in the talent Tre Firepower increases the damage of all fire effects and causes your flame orb to explode for extra damage at the end of its duration impact changes from a PVP talent to one of the most important bits of your toolkit to understand it gives your damaging spells a 10% chance to reset the cool down on fire blast make it stun for 2 seconds but way more importantly it also causes any fire damage over time effects to spread to nearby Targets this is what can cause Mage to do unreal numbers on AOE when you have a big combustion ready to fire off speaking of combustion it's important to talk about this ability too since it's been reworked now combustion combines all your active periodic fire effects on the target into a new damage overtime effect but it does not consume them so imagine the scenario you've got a big ignite running you've got your pyrro blast dot you've got a living bomb use combustion which copies them all into a new DOT that combines the damage and then you have an impact proc which spreads every single damage overtime effect to all nearby Targets so yeah this version of fire Mage we have in cata is pretty good cauterizes new makes it so taking damage which would otherwise kill you will set your health to 40% after which you'll take lethal damage over 6 seconds which needs to be healed or shielded it's basically cheat death just what one of the strongest PVE specs in the game needed thanks for that blizz blast wave is now a ground targeted ability rather than something that fires out from where the Mage is and you now have both hot streak and improved hot streak so hot streak is a chance after your Fireball crits to make your next pyro instant and free or is the improved version is what you have in raap of the Lich King now where when you score two spell crits in a row with direct spells you always get a free pyro Scorch is now free and castable on the Move thanks to improved Scorch and Fire Starter improved flame strike is another huge talent for the Mages AOE tool kit making flame strike instant cast and causing blast wave to also fire off a flame strike for free if it hits two or more targets pyromaniac is changed too and it gives 10% spell haste if three or more targets are on fire at the same time finally we have living bomb living bomb is pretty much the same as it is in Wrath but now it's a limited to three targets fire mes pick up glyphs such as pyroblast molon armor and Fireball so those are our Baseline changes and some talents rounded up but how are we expecting to see the Mage perform in PVE this expansion well for a start you'll have noticed I just didn't cover Frost for PVE and similar to how Frost has been since well vanilla now really this spec is once again centered around PVP and I'll be getting on to it in a moment as for our two remaining specs between Arcane and fire you should see some variety here typically Arcane has been the go-to spec towards the start of a new expansion because fire just needs a whole bunch of crit to get going but I feel as though this time around arcane's reain may be a bit more shortlived because the version of Fire agage which exists in Kata is just that good arcane's Niche is on demand extremely high burst in Stars world first spine of Deathwing for example Arcane Mages were stacked super hard for this reason and maybe we'll see this meta make a return when we finally get to dragon soul but honestly most of the time I think you're going to be seeing fire Mages and this is a great expansion for that to be the case because fire is a complete monster in cater not only does it do great damage on single targeting encounters but when you can cleave or do Mass AOE a good combustion into impact setup with some RNG on your side can simply do unreal amounts of damage cataclysm really Builds on RAF of the Lich King Mage gameplay you keep the hot streak and big crits gameplay but now you also gain Mobility through scorching on the move you have better AOE with blast wave and Flame strike and the super satisfying moment of setting up a huge combustion and you have death as well for some reason because why not do note however and this is something which does go for all casters by the way but worth considering cataclysm has some legendaries and one of them is something every single Caster will want called Dragon wrath tarag Go's rest and the short version of what this weapon does is that it has a chance to duplicate spells which kind of goes without saying but that is very powerful you'll be wanting this on fire Mage for sure but expect heavy competition and you can start working towards that when we get into the fire lands all in all low Mage particularly fire is expected to do very well this expansion and should be a popular pick pvps up next and here we'll be talking about Frost and fire Frost first when you pick this Talent Tre you get Summon water Elemental this is now a permanent summon for frost Mages it still just cast Water Bolt and has a ranged Frost NOA called Freeze similar to what it's always had you'll get 25% % bonus Frost damage for picking this tree and 15% bonus extra damage to frost bolt to and your Mastery increases all damage against Frozen Targets in the tree we have early Frost which reduces the cast time of frost bolt by 6 seconds every 15 seconds allowing for some good initiation on fights shatter now multiplies the crit chance of all spells against Frozen targets by three and adds even more damage to frost bow improved cone of cold has been reworked and is now way more powerful and it adds a 4C freeze effect to this spell permafrost adds a 10% healing debuff to frost damage and causes your damage dealt to heal your water Elemental as well fingers of Frost has a new effect to increase the damage of isolant whilst active and improved freeze makes it so your water Elementals freeze now always generates two charges of fingers of frost Frost fire orb changes flame orb to now have a slowing effect on it and your final Talent is deep freeze which is the same as wrath and it instantly freezes and stuns a target for 5 seconds Frost will look for glyphs such as frostfire iance and con or cold there's quite a few new talents here or old talents combined together but the play style of frost Mage in PvP remains pretty similar to how it's always been you control fights with the likes of polymorph counter spell your roots and snares and stuns and then set up huge burst Windows through chain freezing targets with cooldowns running oh and one more thing you should know heroism type effects are disabled in Arena as of CER so sorry you can't run an rmp with Time Warp fire is also playable in cataclysm across a wide variety of PVP content whilst Frost is about control and burst fire is more about mobility and pressure some important talents to highlight here are blazing speed which when hit by a melee or ranged attack has a 10% chance to proc when it does proc you gain 50% move speed and dispel all effects which prevent move movement molten Shields also causes blazing speed to proc from the use of Mage War I just giving the fire Mage even more Mobility fire should be a highly mobile spec able to CC on the move from Impact stun counter spell dragon's breath and improved cone of cold it brings great damage because I mean it's a fire Mage and once again you have cheat death in quter eyes which is just super useful it's definitely more squishy than Frost but can Excel when played well well in catter overall though Mages are going to find themselves with more than one spec to play in PvP and plenty of viable options for pushing Arena rating or rbgs next up we have our tier sets so first tier 11 the fire Lords vestment from Throne of the Four Winds Bastion of Twilight and Blackwing descent and yes the set called fire Lords is not from the Firelands I don't know go figure anyways the two set 5% more crit chance on basically all your big proc spell effects 5% more crit on power blast though yes please that sounds very good the for set reduces the cast time on Arcane blast Fireball Frost Firebolt and frostbolt by 10% again seems very good for fire as it does for Arcane really and more Fireballs mean more chance to get hot streak running not the most exciting set bonuses here but they're functional also the set looks pretty cool I think tier 12 from the Firelands is the fire hawk Robes of conflagration the two set has a chance to summon a mirror image for 15 seconds that cast Fireballs at your target with a 45C internal cool down so just a minor DPS increase here for the foret your spells have an increased chance to trigger brain freeze or pyrro blast according to wad user Canaria who it seems to themselves was doing a bit of cataclysm research they estimate this could be as much as a 30% flat increase to the proc chance of hot streak and this foret could kind of be incredibly broken going into Firelands with the 4.34 f High Mage balancing this will be a space to watch Once Mages start hitting their foret the foret will also make it so Arcane power War reduce the cost of spells by 10% instead of increasing them finally we have the time Lords regalia from tier 13 dragon soul brings out the chronomancer type Vibes with this one I'm a big fan of this set also as per usual with dragon soul tier set bonuses this one is kind of insane the two set makes it so when you cast your filler spells you gain 50 haste which Stacks up to 10 times and when your Arcane power combustion or IC veins Fades you lose these Stacks the losing of the stacks only really makes sense once you've got the four set though this makes it so each stack L reduces the base coold down of each of your specs big cooldowns such as combustion by 5% per stack so in other words you want to be at 10 Stacks by the time your big cooldown is finishing and then a significant portion of its cooldown will be removed this should only be problematic at the start of a fight where it may be difficult to get to 10 Stacks but as you go on and progress into Encounters this is just straight up giving you a bunch of haste and allowing you to pretty much use combustion every minute or so so this sounds kind of incredible and that's the Mage in cataclysm a true successor to RAF of the Lich Kings Mage I would say expect this class to be top tier in both PVE and PVP throughout the expansion okay maybe it's going to need a bit of time to scale towards the start of tier 11 but it'll be worth the wait if you enjoyed your fire Mage a lot in Wrath just give this a go it's a no-brainer fire Mage is probably one of the most fun Caster specs in the game and can pull off some incredibly satisfying gameplay through combustion in PvP choices are a bit more varied than wrath 2 with fire now becoming way more mobile and being able to get a lot done whilst on the move I expect Mage to be a very popular picking cater and if you're considering a pure DPS Caster class you should absolutely have Mage as a strong consideration but that's it let me know what you think of the maging cataclysm and if there's anything else you would add in the comments down below and finally thank you all so much for watching and listening in and I'll see you on the next one very [Music] soon [Music] [Music]

Channel: WillE

Views: 56,909

Keywords: cataclysm classic, cataclysm, cata classic, wille, tier 11, tier 11 guide, tier 11 heroic, cata dps, cata heal, wotlk best dps, cata pve, cata leveling guide, cata leveling, cata pvp, dk, death knight, paladin, warrior, warlock, mage, priest, rogue, druid, hunter, shaman, dragonflight, wow, warcraft, mmorpg, mmo, best mmo, free mmo 2024, best mmorpg, best free mmorpg, best mmo 2024, mmo 2024, osrs, ashes of creation, riot mmo, role playing game, rpg, dungeons and dragons, tabletop, gaming, pc

Id: 7BBeVf1r2HU

Length: 17min 47sec (1067 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2024