WoW Mage T11 armor set bonuses revealed in Cataclysm beta build 12942

via MMO-Champion:

Cataclysm beta patch 12857 brings big buffs to Mage class

While other classes have been seeing some heavy nerfs and retweaks in the latest Cataclysm beta build, Mages got nothing but love. Here's a datamined list of changes via MMO-Champion:

Arcane

Fire

  • Flamestrike base damage increased by 33%.
  • Hot Streak now affects the next Pyroblast cast within 15 sec, up from 10 sec.
  • Blast Wave base damage reduced by 25%.

Frost

  • Blizzard base damage increased by 33%.
  • Brain Freeze additional effect – When Frostfire Bolt is instant, it can benefit from Fingers of Frost.

Mages may be interested in the new Player, Guild and Profession Achievements introduced with this beta patch as well as the items introduced for the Archaelogy and Inscription professions. Also, new mounts and companion pets:

Mounts

  • Dark Phoenix – Summons and dismisses a rideable Dark Phoenix. / 1.5 sec cast
  • Goblin Mini Hotrod – Rides and parks a Mini Goblin Hotrod. / 1.5 sec cast

Companion Pets

  • Dark Phoenix Hatchling – Right Click to summon and dismiss your baby dark phoenix. / Instant
  • Rustberg Seagull – Right Click to summon and dismiss a Rustberg Seagull. / Instant
  • Armadillo – Right Click to summon and dismiss your Baby Armadillo. / Instant

WoW Cataclysm closed beta mage spell, ability, mastery and talent list

The WoW Cataclysm closed beta has officially begun and the NDA has lifted. MMO-Champion is one of the first out of the gate to post a complete list of the current mage spells, abilities and talents, including masteries, new spells and recent dev comments about class changes.

[Frost 3.3.3] Guide to Frost Mage for beginners

Christian Belt, WoW.com's Mage columnist, has written a guide covering the basics of the Frost Mage spec. He covers the advantages and drawbacks of the spec as well as stats to look for, talent builds, dps rotation, gemming, glyphs, enchants and leveling guide. Great overview for those new to the spec or Mages new to level 80. Current as of WoW Patch 3.3.3.

[Mage 3.3.3] DPS rotation guide for Frost, Fire and Arcane Mages

The Plague Candles blog continues its Focusing Your Magic series of Mage 101 articles with a guide to spell rotations for Frost, Fire and Arcane Mages. They cover both single target and AE situations. It's a good guide for those new to the class. This is current as of WoW Patch 3.3.3.

[Mage 3.3.3] Tips on Mage survivability

Craig at the Plague Candles blog has started a series of posts to improve your Mage skills. The first one in his Focusing Your Magic series talks about how to live long enough to top the DPS meters. He covers threat and what you can do when you have too much.

Blizzard developer Twitter chat notes for Mages

On Friday, Blizzard held a Twitter dev chat about the upcoming Cataclysm expansion and the recently announced class changes. Here's the Mage parts:

Mage

Q: Why are you giving Mages more Crowd Control?

A: We like for classes and specs to have themes. Part of the mage kit is control. Part of the warrior kit is mobility. We like to reinforce those designs rather than give classes new abilities that remove their weaknesses. Weaknesses are supposed to be something you keep in mind while you're playing. I'm sure Ret paladins would love Heroic Leap and warriors would love Polymorph, but that plugs a hole really, really well where you risk being a one person army who doesn't need to be supported by other players in PvP or PvE. Obviously it risk homogenizing all the classes as well.

Q: How will haste affect channeled spells. Will it be similar to DoTs and HoTs?

A: They will channel faster but their duration will remain unchanged. You will get more ticks on the same cast.

Q: Will relics and wands be getting any new attention in Cataclysm?

A: With relics, the plan is to make them class agnostic. In other words, there might be a +strength relic that a death knight or paladin might want to equip. We think that will let us add more of them to the game without them being so specialized. They will feel more like wands.

How to make wands and relics a bigger part of gameplay is something we've had many, many discussions on. Ultimately though we'd rather see warlocks, mages and priests casting their spells, not zapping someone with a wand. In Cataclysm we don't expect to see much wanding, even at lower level.

Q: What will happen to our gems and enchants on gear that give us stats that are being removed in Cataclysm ?

A: We are going to change most gems and enchants that have obsolete stats like armor pen and defense.

Q: Can you make crowd control in raids and 5-mans an important aspect of the PvE game again?

A: An emphatic yes.

Q: How will "active spell is more powerful" be handled with no more dot clipping?

A: How about we get rid of "a more powerful spell is active" altogether? If you have some bonehead overwriting your more powerful buff or debuff, we'd rather you handle that issue socially.

Complete transcript organized by category can be found on WoW.com.

WoW Mage Cataclysm class changes announced

Today Blizzard laid out the plan for massive changes to the Mage class scheduled to take effect with the launch of the WoW Cataclysm expansion. Details below:

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we’ll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you’ll get an early look at what's in store for the mage class, including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents, and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.

New Mage Spells

Flame Orb (available at level 81): Inspired by Prince Taldaram’s abilities in Ahn'kahet and Icecrown Citadel, this spell allows the mage to cast a flaming orb that travels in front in a straight line, sending beams that cause fire damage to passing targets. Once it’s cast, the mage is free to begin casting other spells as the Flame Orb travels. While the spell will be useful to any spec, Fire mages will have talents that improve it, possibly causing the Flame Orb to explode when it reaches its destination.

Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It also temporarily increases the mage's own movement speed. Time Warp will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you can’t benefit from both if you’ve got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

Wall of Fog (level 85): Creates a line of frost in front of the mage, 30 yards from end to end. Enemies who cross the line are snared and take damage. The mana cost will be designed to make Wall of Fog efficient against groups, not individuals. This spell is intended to give mages a way to help control the battlefield, whether the mage is damaging incoming enemies (Blizzard can be channeled on top of Wall of Fog) or protecting a flag in a Battleground. 10-second duration. 30-second cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to introducing new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

  • Arcane Missiles is being redesigned to become a proc-based spell. Whenever the mage does damage with any spell, there is a chance for Arcane Missiles to become available, similar to how the warrior’s Overpower works. The damage and mana cost of this spell will be reworked to make it very desirable to use when available. This change should make gameplay more dynamic for the mage, particularly at low levels.
     
  • We are planning to remove spells that don't have a clear purpose. Amplify Magic, Dampen Magic, Fire Ward, and Frost Ward are being removed from the game, and we may remove more.
     
  • The ability to conjure food and water will not become available until higher levels (likely around level 40), as we're making changes to ensure mages generally won’t run out of mana at lower levels. Once mages learn how to conjure food and water, the conjured item will restore both health and mana.
     
  • Scorch will provide a damage bonus to the mage's fire spells. Our goal is for Scorch to be part of the mage's rotation and a useful damage-dealing ability, even if someone else is supplying the group with the spell Critical Strike debuff. Scorch will provide the mage with more specific benefits, which can also be improved through talents.

New Talents and Talent Changes

  • Arcane Focus will now return mana for each spell that fails to hit your target, including Arcane Missiles that fail to launch. We want Arcane mages to have several talents that play off of how much mana the character has and give the player enough tools to manage mana.
     
  • The talent Playing with Fire will reduce the cooldown of Blast Wave when hit by a melee attack, instead of its current effect.
     
  • Pyromaniac will grant Haste when three or more targets are getting damaged by the effects of your damage-over-time (DoT) fire spells.
     
  • The Burnout talent will allow mages to cast spells using health when they run out of mana.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Arcane
Spell damage
Spell Haste
Mana Adept

Fire
Spell damage
Spell Crit
Ignite

Frost
Spell damage
Spell Crit damage
Deathfrost

Mana Adept: Arcane will deal damage based how much mana the mage has. For example, Arcane mages will do much more damage at 100% mana than at 50% mana. If they begin to get low on mana, they will likely want to use an ability or mechanic to bring their mana up to increase their damage.

Ignite: All direct-damage fire spells will add a damage-over-time (DoT) component when cast. The flavor will be similar to how Fireball works; however, the DoT component will be much stronger.

Deathfrost: Casting Frostbolt places a buff on the mage that increases the damage for all frost, fire, and arcane spells. The only damage spell that won't be affected by this buff is Frostbolt.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we’re looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.