Huntard no more!
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Frost and fire mages are both mediocre. If fire specs in to scorch and spams it for consecutive crits, instant pyros are nice, but it is tough to get enough crit to make it consistent (scorch spam on its own is weak). Arcane mages put out huge burst if they stack arcane blast charges, but that requires being able to stand there and spam arcane blast for 6 casts. It also drains your mana very quickly.
Ret paladin is one of the few specs that I haven't seen in action, but I have heard that it is pretty weak. It lacks the 1k crits that it has on live. The heals should be pretty good, tho, like on live.
Shadow is decent right now because all healing specs are OP, but its damage is bad compared to disc, as well as its healing. It literally only has mind flay and swp, as far as damage dealing spells go.
On PTR right now, since heals are so OP, the damage portions of holy shock and penance are also OP. Holy shock is critting for over 700, and penance ticks are critting for mid 300's. Disc priests hit like trucks with penance, and also have holy fire and fast cast smites.
Spirit is also very broken on PTR. Everyone at 19 has mana pools of 550, and spells cost very little mana. Unfortunately, mana regen from spirit has not been rebalanced. Healers are still getting their cata-level mp5 in combat, so stacking spirit makes it virtually impossible to go oom because spells cost so little. And since heals hit for ridiculous amounts, their effectiveness is not badly compromised by not stacking int.
Don't go crazy spending gold on spirit items or anything, though, as I wouldn't be shocked to see it rebalanced relatively soon after launch.
youakim
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On the ptr, no they don't.
For arcane mages, no you would not have to spam arcane blast 6 times. You can only get up to 4 charges and arcane explosion has a 30%chance at generating a charge. arcane blast only costs 1% base mana and increases by only 125% for each cast after that so it doesnt drain your mana that quickly
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Is it 4? Either way, yes, I have seen it in action. Arcane mages go oom pretty fast.
on battle.net talent calculator it didnt say how many but on mmo-champion it said 4. i havent seen the new arcane mage in action yet so i guess i will take your word. that sucks cause we lose evocation too.
For the movement issue, if you spec into Ice floes you can cast 2 spells while moving, i would use them for either frostfire bolt to slow or an arcane blast for arcane charge and the cooldown is only 1 minute. it looks like we will be swapping to spirit enchanted weapons when we get low on mana for sure.
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Yea, that is probably correct, tho I see fire probably being similar in actual WSG gameplay since it is so much more mobile with the scorch spam.
Stealthcnt, that is a good point about the talents. I had not thought to look at the other mage talents, really. I also see PoM having potential as arcane, to spam an arcane blast in to an instant cast arcane blast.
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Unfortunately, wands will not be useful anymore. Blizzard, in their ultimate wisdom, made it so that you can equip either a weapon or a wand. I assume it means that wands will have competitive stats at max level, but they only got slightly buffed at 19 while traditional weapons are still MUCH better.
Any speculations how gearing in the 3 different mage specs will be?
You are putting too much thought in to it. Consider the change as just losing your wand slot. Similarly, other classes lost their ranged slots, or in the case of hunters, melee weapon slots.