- Spoiler: show
- Roywyn wrote:3.1 News / Issues
* Patch tomorrow, includes the following:
* Dual Spec. Ulduar. Talent/Item changes. Some other stuff.
* Tailoring is THE profession for DPS now, JC second.
HELP BEST DPS SPEC?
FFB+Focus* >= FB/TTW >= Arcane > FFB >> Frost/TTW
FFB/Focus means you use some 11+ Arcane as second spec, cast Focus Magic on a buddy (Frostfire/Fire Mage or Moonkin/Shadow Priest as 2nd choice), and then spec back to FFB (0/53/18 or similar). It's not clear whether that is creative use of game mechanics or too creative
The top 3 specs listed are also pretty close, so positions may change with the gear you do or do not have.
Glyphs: Living Bomb > FB/FFB > Molten for FB/FFB. Scorch Glyph is usually worth using for 1 mage if you have no Shadowbolt Warlock.
ABlast, AMissiles and Molten are likely the choice for Arcane. Check Rawr to verify.
RUN SPEED ENCHANT?
[item=44491]Formula: Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality[/item] beats the other enchants if you spend at least 4 seconds running per minute.
Actual quality depends of fight, gear, behaviour and much more, 4s/min is a generalised figure and threshold estimate.
[item=42747]Glyph of Improved Scorch[/item] changed to 5 stacks per cast. If you're on Scorch Duty, accidentally dropping the debuff is not such a big thing any more since it doesn't result in any further necessary Scorch casts.
Frostbolt hits now grant Replenishment. Frostbolt with a 1.90s cast time grants Replenishment ticks every 1.90s instead of 1.00s.
Until this is fixed, speccing for Replenishment is likely detrimental to the raid if there is another Replenisher around.
News 03/26/09
Molten Armour changed to 35% + 20% (Glyph) Spirit-to-Crit conversion.
Imp. Scorch grants 3% crit to Sc/FB/FFB, Winter's Chill grants 3% crit to FrB as selfish effect.
LB DoT crits no benefit from Ignite, Burnout and Combustion (and waste charges). Ignite munching/rolling occurs, with gains and losses being pretty much equal.
Water Elemental and Mirror Images likely to get AoE Evasion.
Ignite getting partial resists means a ~1.2% total DPS loss.
Mirror Image now cause a regular GCD. Still worth casting if they survive at least 15 seconds average.
PTR News 03/13/09
Winter's Scorch is getting chopped to 5%, finally an official statement on that.
Mana Spring Totem and Blessing of Wisdom combined into one category, reducing the total amount of mana available.
There may or may not be changes for mages coming up. No info at all yet.
Frostfire needed by Death Knights?
[item]Glyph of Blood Strike[/item] (affects Heart Strike as well) is triggered by the FFB DoT on bosses.
Attack speed slows won't proc it, only movement slowing debuffs proc it, even if the mob cannot be slowed.
Currently, only FFB DoT and Hungering Cold trigger it, as far as I know.
REQUEST: Confirm the above, that the FFB DoT is a significant DPS boost for Death Knights.
(Their debuff does not behave like TtW at all, so don't mindlessly argue and bash each other.)
Tailoring
Lightweave Embroidery - Spell - World of Warcraft changed to 250 spell power for 15 second. Which makes Tailoring one of the top chioces for Mages, and casters in general.
[item=40432]Illustration of the Dragon Soul[/item]
Blizzards does not stack it. Flamestrike causes 1 stack upon cast, even if you don't hit anything.
All other AoE spells cause 1 stack on cast and 1 stack per target hit. One AE every 9 seconds keeps it stacked through phase changes.
All nukes cause 1 stack on hit. DoT ticks do not cause any stacks. Notify me if I'm wrong or it's different on PTR 3.1.
[item=40685]The Egg of Mortal Essence[/item]
Tested to still proc off AM hits on the PTR.
FIXED. Not proccing off AM on the PTR.
Fingers of Frost
No longer fades immediately if the Frostbolt cast with the second charge of a previous FoF procs a new FoF.
Bug fixed from some testing, might want to keep an eye on it.
You still can Ice Lance for a third ghost charge. This won't even eat a charge of your new FoF proc according to tests.
http://elitistjerks.com/1135010-post508.html
Ignite Change
"Ignite: The damage done by this talent no longer receives modifications from effects that increase or decrease damage done by a percentage." We have no idea what the change was.
TEST REQUEST: Any reports that show/suggest what the change was. What was ever broken?
Boss spell crit reduction for mages
Your crit chance versus bosses is reduced by X%. We're looking for that X.
It's something between 0% and 3% for mages. It's 2.1% for Death Knights, but proven to be less for mages.
Burnout
Patch notes claim "fire only", in game and testing shows "all spells". Kind of silly for a 45+ fire talent.
First testing shows that only fire spells cause mana loss, all spells have their crit multiplier increased..
TEST REQUEST: Does the mana drain affect all spells as well? How about channeled spells' mana cost (see MoE)?
Spirit Regen
Got chopped by 40%, all "30% regen" got buffed to "50% regen". That means "Mage Armour + Pyromaniac or Meditation = 100% spirit regen".
Testing shows that the 100% regen cap still is in effect.
// TEST REQUEST: Is the 100% spirit regen cap still in place? Would make sense, but renders MA Glyph useless.
DoT Crits
Glyphed Living Bomb can now crit on the DoT ticks.
Crits for 150%. Affected by by CSD Meta, 4T7, Critical Mass. NOT affected by Burnout, Ignite, Wold in Flames. No interaction at all with Master of Elements, Combustion, Hot Streak.
Thanks for the tests, let's see what is a bug and what is not. No Ignite means no munching, why might be good after all.
// TEST REQUEST: Does it interact with MoE, Combustion, Ignite, Burnout (damage as well as mana) and most importantly Hot Streak?
(If it does interact with Hot Streak, how about unglyphed LB? Would it practically make Hot Streak useless?)
Replenishment
Frostbolt hits now grant Replenishment. Frostbolt with a 1.90s cast time grants Replenishment ticks every 1.90s instead of 1.00s.
TEST REQUEST: Keep checking that bug and report it to either fix the tick timer or change the proc mechanic.
Winter's Scorch
Got chopped to 5%, mentioned indirectly in half a dozen sources.
Request: Keep looking/asking for a change to include the two Scorch/Chill talents into DPS talents, like all other raid buff talents were changed.
Rune of Razorice
Got chopped for mages. Said to only work for the applying Death Knight now.
Might be worth checking, just to confirm that it's really changed.
Ice Lance
The glyph now changes the frozen multiplier to 4 times the damage against targets above your level.
Read - "We found no other way to balance it without breaking PvP".
REQUEST: Some TCers should math/sim the benefit for Ice Lance on charge 2 or 3 in PvE.
First comments of Lhivera make it a 3.5% DPS boost on charge 2.
[item=40432]Illustration of the Dragon Soul[/item]
Still doesn't proc on Blizzard. Keep testing, it's said to be known and fixed Soon(tm).
More stuff to comment on later:
Raid buffs and stacking.
Mana cost mechanics.
Copy/Paste the "Speed vs. Damage Boot Enchant".
<Updated for Patch 3.0.9>
Last updated:
02/17/09 3.0.9 information update
01/24/09 3.0.8 update and massive overhaul
01/09/09 More 3.0.8 PTR info
3.0.9 Changes
Arcane Barrage scaling changed from 3/3.5 (86%) to 2.5/3.5 (71%).
[item]Glyph of Arcane Blast[/item] changed to +3% damage, stacking 3 times.
[item]Glyph of Arcane Missiles[/item] changed to +25% spell crit bonus, works like 4T7/Burnout.
[item]Glyph of Mana Gem[/item] improved to +40%, stacking additively with Braid and 2T7.
Prensence of Mind and Arcane Power cooldowns shortened to 2 minutes, 1:24 with Arcane Flows.
Arcane Power lowered to 20% damage and mana cost increase.
Casting PoM locks out AP until PoM is consumed and for another 1.5s afterwards.
Casting AP locks out PoM for 10s. Having the AP locks out PoM while the you have the buff.
You cannot AP-PoM anything any more, even with glyphs, tricks and cheese.
General 3.0.8 Changes
[item]Potion of Wild Magic[/item] changed to +200 Spell Power and +200 crit rating for 15s. Competitive now, but still a bit below Speed Potions in most cases.
[item]Serpent-Coil Braid[/item] now properly stacks with 2T7. The Mana Gain and the Spell Power buff both stack now.
[item]Crazy Alchemist's Potion[/item] is essentially a "Runic Mana + Speed Potion" now, making Alchemy the best choice for Arcane specs.
[item]Flow of Knowledge[/item] does not share the 45s CD with [item]Sundial of the Exiled[/item], but the buffs do not stack either.
[item]illustration of the dragon soul[/item] and many other spell trinkets now also proc on DoT/HoT ticks, but not on Slowfall/Essence spam or other non-damage/non-healing spells any more. (Awaiting final confirmation.)
Mirror Images now inherit 100% of your threat, but they won't pull aggro of something until they attack it.
Judgement of Wisdom proc rate is 50% again, giving 2% base mana per proc.
Pyromaniac provides 3% crit to fire spell, not to all spells. The tooltip is misleading.
Many many trinkets and procs and are not triggered by Blizzard.
There are also reports of FoF not proccing with Imp. Blizzard, no Frostbite, cast on a target that cannot be slowed.
Odd reports about mage armour making DoTs tick twice as fast.
Molten Fury and Torment the now properly stack.
The Arcane Blast Glyph stacks to +9% on 3 stacks.
Living Bomb procs Hot Streak if you have 2 crits in a row in your log. (Hit-Crit-Crit procs it, Crit-Hit-Crit does not.)
Imp. Blizzard can now proc FoF without having Frostbite. (BUG: Blizzard doesn't seem to proc FoF on non-snarable targets.)
BUG: Burnout crit modifier affects all spells except Blizzard. (Should only be for Fire spells.)
BUG: FFB doubledips on the spell power from "Mind Mastery" (and Amplify/Dampen Magic).
Possibly on other items/buffs that provide "+offensive spell power".
Spirit mana regeneration is capped at 100%.
Pyromaniac, Meditation and Glyphed Mage Armour will not give you 110% regen, it will be capped at 100%.
Master of Elements returns a percentage of the base mana cost. It's a weak talent if you cast a lot of stacked Arcane Blasts.
Table of Content
* List of bugs and class issues
* DPS comparison for mages and other casters
* Profession comparison
* Description of new talents and abilities
* Lots of Links
* Scaling coefficients of abilities and pets
* Glyph options and choices
Bugs/Inconsistencies/Issues that affect gameplay decisions
Additive/Multiplicative Scaling
Fire Power, Spell Impact and 4T6 are additive for Fireball.
Not sure whether/how Piercing Ice fits into that picture for Frostblt and Frostfire Bolt combinations.
Judgement of Wisdom
This ability has done a real rollercoaster ride on its proc chance, cooldown and mana returns.
It is currently at 50% proc, no cooldown, 2% base mana restored. The proc rate is disputed, possibly a PPM for spells even.
Whenever this ability changes in a patch, it will affect longvity and DPS of mage specs, favouring efficient specs when nerfed.
Potion Sickness
All potions have a 1 minute cooldown. When using a potion in combat, the cooldown timer will only start ticking down once you properly exit combat.
Invisibility and similar abilities cannot circumvent this in boss fights, the timer will start once the fight ends properly.
You can however use a Speed Potion the second before the pull to start the timer out of combat.
You can then use another Speed or Mana Potion a minute later in combat.
4T6 Set Bonus and others
The 4T6 set bonus, and also the 2T5 set bonus are worth roughly 150 spell power if all you did was casting the affected spells.
That means 2T5 is dead for good, and 4T6 with Sunwell pieces is still competitive into early Naxxramas for Frost and Fire specs.
Arcane Blast
The damage and mana cost modifier is a Magic Debuff. That means it cannot be clicked off, cannot be purged, but can be cleansed and will be spam cleansed by people who don't know about this beneficial debuff.
It is likely intended to be a Magic Buff.
Arcane Potency
Non-damage spells like Slow or Counterspell can also consume the crit buff.
The buff is also consumed at the beginning of Arcane Missile casts, but all 5 volley get the crit buff.
Also, it is possible to double-dip from Arcane Potency by chaining an instant spell right to a cast time spell.
This requires the same timing and experience as Fingers of Frost.
Flamestrike
Its cast time has been reduced to 2 seconds for lower ranks. High ranks have not been changed and are still at 3 seconds.
The DoTs of different ranks of Flamestrike also stack. Staggering the 2 highest ranks is viable to maximise AoE DPS, usually followed by a Blizzard.
Ignite
Is working and bugging as usual. You're most likely to lose damage from Fireball-Pyroblast crits.
Casting Scorch before your Pyroblast has the highest chance to gain damage from Ignite bugs, but it doesn't outweigh the damage loss from casting Scorch more often.
The new ranks of Molten Armour proc Ignite again, likely not intended.
Master of Elements
Arcane Missiles rank 11 and Blizzard rank 6 currently do not proc this talent. All other ranks seem to work fine.
Pyromaniac
The tooltip wording was changed badly in 3.0.8. It is still only 3% fire crit and 30% Regeneration.
Living Bomb
The DoT portion doesn't get +10% damage from Firepower.
Also, the explosion after 12 seconds does not occur if the caster is unable to cast spells.
I.e. when stunned, silenced, dead, Ice Blocked, or when the target is beyond the 100 yard range.
It is uncertain if moving out of line of sight prevents the explosion.
Frostfire Bolt
This ability double-dips from Amplify and Dampen Magic. On targets with a talented +/- 360 spell power taken buff, it gains +/-720 spell power.
It also double-dips from the spell power from Mind Mastery. All other cases of double-dipping have been fixed.
Blizzard
Many trinkets ans spell cast proc effects are not triggered by Blizzard.
This includes Ashtongue Talisman, Sundial of the Exiled, Embrace of the Spider, Illustratin Dragon Soul and many other trinkets.
There are reports of Improved Blizzard without Frostbite not proccing Fingers of Frost on targets that cannot be slowed.
Fingers of Frost
Fingers of Frost and Frostbite will always proc simultaneously if specced for both. This is intentional by design.
The idea of the talent to make Frostbite useful in raids and some other situation where mobs/players do not stay frozen.
You can cast an instant spell right after your 2nd spell under FoF to get a 3rd spell with the FoF buff.
It is not known whether this is intended behaviour as shatter combo or not.
Molten Armour procs also consume a charge on Fingers of Frost.
(Water Elemental)
(Does not have an aviodance talent to reduce damage taken from AoE.)
Raid Buff Categories
144/260/10% spell power buff from Shaman, Warlock (10% of the Warlock's SP).
13% spell damage debuff from Death Knight, Druid, Warlock.
10% soon 5% spell crit debuff from Mage, Warlock.
5% spell haste buff from Shaman (Wrath of Air Totem).
5% spell crit buff from Druid, Shaman.
3% generic damage buff from Hunter, Paladin.
3% generic crit debuff from Paladin, Rogue, Shaman.
3% generic haste buff from Druid, Paladin.
Power Infusion does not stack with Arcane Power or Heroism, however Arcane Power and Heroism stack.
Arcane Power, Avenging Wrath and Tricks of the Trade do not stack with each other.
All other buff outside these catagories stack.
Mage and Caster DPS at Level 80
The latest Simcraft results can be found here SampleOutput - simulationcraft - Google Code
Specs with at least 18 points in Arcane assume Torment the Weak.
The top setups currently are Arcane (57/3/11) and Fire (20/51/0), depending on fight length, mechanics and the overall mana sitution.
Frostfire (0/53/18) is slightly behind Fire but vastly more mana efficient with better AoE and burst, Frost (18/0/53) is not competitive DPS.
Mage Gearing and Hit Cap at Level 80
Your first prority is getting spell damage. Your second second priority is also spell damage.
Even in crit heavy Fire and Frostfire specs, spell damage will be your best stat to stack via gems for a long while.
You also want to cap spell hit, but not at the cost of using inferior gear just because it has more hit.
When you get decked out in wisely chosen Naxxramas gear, you should easily reach the hit cap. Gem for it if you're close.
You need 17% spell hit t remove all misses. You can gain 1% from a Draenei in your group, 3% from a raid debuff, 0%-6% from talents.
The rest has to be obtained by gear, you need 26.232 hit rating for 1% spell hit at level 80.
That means if you have no spell buffs or talents, you need 446 hit rating for 17% spell hit chance.
Your Water Elemental and Mirror Image pets get the spell hit from your gear, but not from your talents.
Crit and Haste then are your secondary DPS stats. They are worse than spell power until you get around 4k spell power or more.
1 haste rating: Is worth about 0.7-0.8 spell power in full Naxxramas gear for most specs.
1 crit rating: Is worth 0.8 spell power for Frostfire, 0.7 for Fire, 0.5 for Frost, 0.4 for Arcane.
Intellect is on par with crit for Arcane and is has 1/3 of the strength of crit for the other specs. Spirit is mostly useless.
Mana is also very important, make sure you never run out of it.
If you use everything at your disposal and still run out of mana, check your spec and buffs.
If that still doesn't help then drop some haste, get some intellect, use Mage Armour. But don't stack spirit ever.
The percentage conversion for all ratings and stats at level 80 can be found in http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t29453-comb ... evel_80_a/
As for meta gems, the only acceptable choice is one of the +3% crit damage meta gems due to how it actually works.
It is worth about 150-200 DPS, which makes any headpieces without a meta socket a very bad choice.
Mage Profession gains
The whole list of Profession benefits can be found at http://elitistjerks.com/904932-post854.html
It is possible that the options get upgraded
* Tailoring: +60 spell power equivalent. It's roughly +80 spell power and -23 haste, with stackability benefits.
* Jewelcrafting: +59 spell power and -24 stamina (or -16 spirit) with rare gems. +49 spell power and -30 stamina (or -20 spirit) when/if epic gems appear.
You can use Prismatic gems to unlock your meta gem requirement, allowing you to skip the two blue/purple coloured gems.
* Blacksmithing: +38 spell power with rare gems socketed, +46 spell power once/if epic gems get implemented.
* Epic gems are in the database, but with placeholder icons. They may or may not get implemented at all.
Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing also have the advantage that you can chose which stat you want to improve by chosing gems.
If we ever reach the point where gemming hit, crit or haste beats spell power, we can switch to these gems.
* Alchemy: +37 spell power, and +70 mp5 in a 5 minute fight with a Crazy Alchemy Potion that gives an additional Potion of Speed buff reliably
* Inscription: +37 spell power, +43 spell when you're not Exalted with Sons of Hodir yet.
* Enchanting: +38 spell power, Leatherworking: +37 spell power.
* Engineering: +21 spell power equivalent from gloves, a bit more with stacking. Has a lot of extra situational gadget benefits.
* Herbalism, Mining, Skinning are currently not competitive options for Mage DPS.
WotLK Mage Mechanics Changes
This post first covers general changes in spellcasting mechanics.
It will then explain ambiguous talents and changes in mechanics of existing spells.
I am not going to mention every talent that has been changed, because nearly everything has changed.
35 talents are unchanged - actually some of those have been moved around a bit - while 51 talents are new or have been changed.
Raid Synergies and Changes - Patch 3.0.2 - On Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking
Raid buffs and debuff have been unified and categorised into non-stacking types.
This list is an augmented list of an official post on what stacks and what not.
Rawr - http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t21713-rawr ... d_10_26_a/
Probably the best tool out there for fine-tuning mage gear, stats and decisions.
It's strongest point is that it uses a solver that takes mana into account to maximise your performance.
This includes partial use of mana dumps (Living Bomb, Arcane Blast) and the choice of using or skipping Mage Armour, Evocation, Mana Gems, Mana Potions for better DPS choices.
It does require some proper setup. And if it tells you to spam intellect gems, you likely lack buffs or set the fight length too long.
Theory Craft-o-Matic - Theory Craft-o-Matic
Lhivera's popular tool to quickly find gear weighing stats. It's great for quick checks.
It does show your mana consumption, but it has no way of knowing how much mana you have available.
Vontre's Magegraf - http://www.magegraf.com/
A mage/warlock casting simulator updated for the current level 80 talents and abilities.
Simulationcraft - http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t33457-simu ... velopment/
A simulator that simulates a whole raid. Has the great advantage of being able to compare across classes.
Also shows mana gains and expenditure from different sources, and allows interaction of talents like Focus Magic.
Mage Level 80 Stats and Base Damage - http://elitistjerks.com/865401-post398.html
This post and the following list base stats and base damage for level 80 mage spells.
Mana Cost as percentage of base mana - http://elitistjerks.com/874465-post793.html
Any level 80 mage has 3268 Base Mana, mana cost is given as percentage and absolute.
Mana regeneration from Spirit and outside sources - http://elitistjerks.com/886625-post1268.html
Lists pure regeneration to estimate sustainability of specs, does not include Base Mana Pool and Evocation.
Generic Mechanics
Level 80 Statistics
A level 80 undead mage has the following statistics:
35 Strength, 41 Agility, 60 Stamina, 179 Intellect, 179 Spirit
7883 HP, 5673 Mana, 1.98% spell crit
This means the Base Mana of any level 80 mage regardless of race is 3268, Base Health is 7463.
Base Health of any pet including Water Elemental pets has been significantly boosted.
With 737 stamina and 703 intellect, a mage has 14653 HP / 13533 Mana while his pet has 9218 HP / 3948 Mana.
The water elemental scales with 30% of its master's Stamina and Intellect, 35% of it's master's Armour and 33% of its master's Spell Damage.
It gains slightly less than 7.5 HP per Stamina and 5.0 Mana per Intellect.
Waterbolt costs 163 Mana, deals 601-673 base damage, Freeze costs 817 Mana.
Raid Buff Normalisation
Many raid buffs and debuff have been changed and share categories in which they don't stack.
For example rogues, paladins and shaman can all provide a 3% crit debuff on mobs, only one of those is needed however.
For mages, that means that Improved Scorch and Winter's Chill are in the same category, and no other debuff is in it.
That means the 10% crit debuff of both abilities doesn't stack, and every raid needs 1 mage who is specced for one of them.
Breaking Frost Nova
Frost Nova, Frostbite, Entangling Roots, Fear and other effects that had a chance on breaking on damage now break after a certain amount of health lost during the effect.
The amount of damage depends on the target's health pool. The amount of damage is different in PvP and PvE.
It might also be different for elite mobs, since it could make effects hardly ever break on them.
Currently, this cap seems to be 40% of the mob's health for all of the mentioned effects.
Effect/Issue: This gives Frost Mages a spell damage threshold when fighting mobs of a narrow level range.
Below that threshold, Frostbolt crits will never break Frost Nova/Frostbite, so you can shatter 3 spells on them (2 Frostbolts and 1 Ice Lance).
If you get above the threshold, you'll sometimes/often/always break Frost Nova/Frostbite after one crit.
This of course depends on your level, your spell rank and the mob levels (for the mob's health).
More info on http://elitistjerks.com/862617-post196.html and http://elitistjerks.com/862708-post200.html.
Area of Effect Damage Caps
The Area of Effect Damage Caps have been loosened.
All of them are now capped at 25.000 damage for every second base cast time at level 80, instants count as 1.5s as always.
That means instant spells are capped at 37.500 damage, Blizzard is capped at 25.000 damage per wave.
The base mechanics are still the same however.
Crits and damage debuffs allow you to exceed the cap, more spell power of self-buffs do not.
Spell Pushback
Any spell you cast can get pushed back only twice now.
The first two hits cause 0.5s pushback, further hits cause no effect. Channeled spells lose 25% channeling time per pushback.
Pushback resistance talents and abilities now reduce the pushback time instead of chance.
So, with Burning Soul, you lose 0.15s casting time for the first two hits, for a total 0.3s instead of 1.0s.
Concentration Aura and similar talents work the same way and stack up to 100%.
With channeled spells, remember that even with 95% pushback reduction, you will always lose your last tick.
Mana Reduction Talents
All talents and effects that reduce mana costs are multiplicative unless listed as special case.
The only exception is Arcane Blast, which has the Arcane Power +30% cost, the Tirisfal Regalia +5% cost and the Arcane Blast debuff +200% cost (up to 3 times) are added together to form one multiplier which is then multiplied with the remaining talent multipliers.
So, everything behaves like on live.
Mana Cost
All spell mana costs are being changed to a percentage of base mana.
Downranking now costs the same mana for the last three rank and even more for any rank before that.
Downranking Penalties
Around 5-7 levels after learning a spell, it will start taking a 5% penalty from your spell power for every level after that certain level. After 20 more levels, it only gets its base damage.
This is mostly irrelevant since downranking doesn't reduce a spell's mana cost any more.
Full Resists
It is now possible to fully cap spell hit. The 99% hit cap has been removed.
Full resists appear as misses in the combat log.
The miss rates for spells have not been changed, this has been verified with several thousand casts.
They are still 4%/5%/6%/17% for mobs 0/1/2/3 levels above you.
Partial Resists
Every spell with a damage component can now be partially resisted.
Level-based partial resists are still in the game, but do not follow the strict 25%/50%/75% pattern any more.
It seems to be 10%/20%/30% for mobs slightly above you, and scales up to 60%/70%/75% for mobs far above you.
Spell penetration was tested to still have no impact.
Amplify/Dampen Magic
The healing part is now considered direct spell power and has been reduced since the spell power scaling of heals has increased with the removal of +healing.
The overall effect is like before now.
Shields and Wards
Fire Ward, Frost Ward, Mana Shield and Ice Barrier now scale with 80.7% of your spell power.
That's 1.5/3.5 for being an instant multiplied with 0.855/0.455 for being a healing effect.
None of these shield seem to be affected by Amplify/Dampen Magic.
Wanding
Wanding now causes only 1 global cooldown when you start wanding. The GCD is a 1.5s physical GCD which is not affected by haste/heroism/etc.
After that, you continue wanding but you are not put on another GCD.
So, while wanding, you can cast a new spell at any time now and react immediately.
4/5 Frostfire Garb Set Bonus
This set bonus works like a 5% version of Spell Power/Burnout/Ice Shards and works additive with it.
That means it's roughly 2.5% increase of the absolute crit modifier, 3.5% with Ignite.
For all practical purposes at around 50% crit rate, it's a 0.9%-1.1% DPS increase and not worth giving up good upgrades for.
Arcane Abilities
Mirror Image
This is the new level 80 Mage Spell. It summons 3 mirror images of the mage who cast Frostbolts and Fire Blasts at hostile targets for 30 seconds.
They may also polymorph a secondary target, this Polymoph has a a range of 8 yards and no Dimnishing Returns.
The Mirror Images inherit the mage's threat lists. The mage also gains a 400k temporary threat reduction buff like fade.
The images deal about 15.000 damage over 30 seconds and do scale with gear.
The exact scaling is listed on the bottom of the post.
Mirror Images are not on the global cooldown, but the do trigger a 1.5s GCD on all other abilities that are not on the GCD.
It can be circumvented by macroing Icy Veins/Arcane Power/etc., Trinket, DPS consumable, Mirror Image and Fireball/Frostbolt/Whatever in that order. This macro cannot be spammed, if Mirror Image is on cooldown it will block out your nuke spells.
It's not clear whether that is a bug or intended.
The mage and their images do not swap position upon casting Mirror Image any more.
Newly cast spells will not be aimed at you if cast after the Mirror Images appear.
Bug/Issues: Copies may currently break crowd control effects, or polymorph and heal a primary target.
Arcane Blast
The Arcane Blast debuff was changed to +200% mana cost to Arcane Blast and +15% damage to Arcane spells, stacking additively 3 times.
It fades when any Arcane spell other than Arcane Blast is cast. When casting Arcane Missiles are cast, the debuff fades when the last Missile is cast.
The debuff duration was changed to 10 seconds, but it is now a cleansable Magic debuff.
That means it will be cleansed by Decursive happy priests and paladins and cannot be purged.
(It was most likely intended to be a purgable Magic buff, not Debuff. Most likely a bug.)
The Mana Cost increases from the Arcane Blast debuff, Arcane Power and 2/5 Tirisfal Regalia are additive, not multiplicative.
They form a single coefficient for the spell's mana cost which is then multiplied with all other mana cost talents.
2/5 Tirisfal regalia has been changed to a 5% damage and mana cost increase and while still being a valuable set bonus, it is no longer manadatory to maximise DPS and outdated in level 80 gear.
Bug/Creative Mechanics - Arcane Shatter
The commonly accepted best Arcane cast sequence is AB-AB-AB-AM-ABar, regardless whether MBAM procced or not.
It requires you to cast ABar just when the last Missile of AM is launched, even clipping and losing the 5th Missile if necessary.
This causes the Arcane Barrage spell to be cast with the 45% (60% Glyhped) damage buff.
It is not known whether this is intented and whether it can be fixed at all.
Mana Shield
The Damage-Mana ratio has been reduced to 1:1.5 and can be reduced to 1:1 with talents now.
Mage Armour
Mage Armour only reduces the duration of magic-type dispellable debuffs.
If a magic DoT ticks 5 times over 15 seconds, it will now tick 2 times over 7.5 seconds. The fractional tick is lost.
Channeled DoTs like Mind Flay or Drain Life are unaffected.
Torment the Weak
On snarable targets, every snare or attack speed slow triggers Torment on that mob. Hamstring, Frostbolt, everything.
On unsnarable targets like raid bosses, only the attack speed slows Frost Fever, Thunder Clap, Judgements of the Just, Infected Wounds and the mage ability Slow triggers it.
In raids, Torment should be triggered by default unless you face immunities, untanked mobs or an extremely unusual and disadvantageous raid composition.
Prismatic Cloak
Taking all three points of this talent makes Invisibility instant. It works properly now.
Incanter's Absorption
The buff memorises its absorption timers.
If you absorb two hits for 1k each at 0s and at 5s, you will get +150 damage from 0-5s, 10s-15s and +300 dmg from 5s-10s.
There doesn't seem to be a way to make it a rolling effect like the old Ignite or prolong the effects in any other way.
Missile Barrage
The 2.5s channeling time is then affected normally by all other haste effects.
The buff procs on spell cast, not spell hit, and can be reacted on when proccing off Arcane Barrage.
Netherwind Presence
This haste effect is multiplicative with all other haste effects.
Arcane Barrage
It is an instant spell that scales like a 3s cast time spell, it gains 85.7% scaling with your spell power.
It had 3/4 of that value during one push which is 64.3%, but that was reverted back to the old value in the subsequent push.
Fire Abilities
Ignite
Ignite ticks can still get lost when landing simultaneous critical strikes.
This problem is mainly during Hot Streak, if an instant Pyroblast crit follows a Fireball crit.
Flamestrike
Its cast time has been reduced to 2 seconds for lower ranks. High ranks have not been changed yet, so we don't know if the scaling will be changed or not.
The scaling of the DoT has been changed to 12.2% of your spell power per tick and is very powerful.
The DoTs of different ranks of Flamestrike stack, it is not known whether this is intended.
A rotation of the two highest ranks of Flamestrike and Blizzard to fill the time produces very high DPS if you can hit all targets due to the stacked DoTs.
Pyroblast
Even though the cast time has been reduced to 5 second, the coefficients are unchanged.
It's is still 115% on the direct hit and 5% on each of the 4 DoT ticks.
The spell is only worth casting when made instant.
Master of Elements
Arcane Missiles and Blizzard now proc Master of Elements properly.
If one volley crits, you get refunded 30% of 1/5 of the mana cost for Arcane Missiles, or of 1/8th of the mana cost of Blizzard.
Living Bomb also refunds mana if the final detonation crits. And costs mana if specced for Burnout.
Dragon's Breath
Does not share a cooldown with Cone of Cold any more.
Hot Streak
This talent works like a counter that counts how many critical strikes with the listed spells you have just had in a row.
When it reaches 2, the counter resets and you gain the Hot Streak buff for one instant Pyroblast.
With Living Bomb, it triggers if you have two criticals in a row in the order of your combat log.
The counter continues to count anew even if you haven't cast your Pyroblast yet.
You're not going to lose charges to double crits just because you cannot react on your most recent spell.
Living Bomb
The DoT ticks every 3 seconds, 4 times total, and gains 20% of your spell power on each tick. The final explosion gains 40% of your spell power.
The DoT only ticks on the single target, while the final explosion is an AoE effect.
It procs Hot Streak if you get two crits in a row in the order of your combat log including your previous cast.
This spell is very valuable for single target DPS in its current state.
Frostfire Bolt
It is affected by almost every ability that affects fire spells or frost spells.
The only exceptions are range talents which do not apply. Its range is fixed at 40 yards.
The Fireball/Frostbolt cast time talents do not affect it either, which is expected.
The direct damage part scales as expected with 85.7%. The DoT ticks 3 times every 3s for 9s total.
Permafrost affects the length of the Frostfire Bolt debuff. If you spec at least 2/3 Permafrost, you will get a 4th tick of the DoT.
The DoT does not scale with spell power any more.
The whole spell always deals Frostfire damage all the time.
If Frostfire Bolt gets counterspelled, it locks out both, Fire and Frost spells.
Also, locking out either school will also lock out Frostfire Bolt.
When dealing with mobs that are resistant/vulnerable/immune to either Frost of Fire, damage calculation is based on the weakest type to inflict the highest damage.
Note that Ignite itself still does only Fire damage, so Fire immune mobs won't take any Ignite damage.
Frostfire Bolt threat is affected by Burning Soul and Frost Channeling, but they don't stack.
So you get 10% threat reduction if you have one of them or both. DoT and direct damage threat is affected.
Ignite threat however is only affected by Burning Soul.
Note that threat over time is mostly irrelevant in most raids right now. Burst threat on the pull can be dealt with Mirror Image.
This spell does not have very strong basic scaling, but it can compensate through its extremely powerful scaling by combining critical strike damage talents and Ignite.
It used to benefit twice from many talents because it dealt frost and fire damage. Most of the issues have been fixed though.
Bug: It benefits twice from the spell power from Mind Mastery, and twice from Amplify/Dampen Magic on the target.
Frost Abilities
Blizzard
The individual hits in the individual waves are now capable of critical strikes.
Blizzard triggers Winter's Chill on every wave. It also triggers Fingers of Frost if Frostbite is specced for Imprved Blizzard to get a slow effect.
Fingers of Frost and Frostbite only proc simultaneously, but they provide a large amount of Shatter uptime for AoE spells.
Bug: The majority of trinkets and procs based on spells are not triggered by Blizzard.
There are also reports of FoF not proccing with Imp. Blizzard, no Frostbite, cast on a target that cannot be slowed.
Shattered Barrier
The Freeze effect does not cause damage or break crowd control.
It counts as proper freeze effect for Ice Lance and Shatter.
Fingers of Frost
Fingers of Frost procs will always conincide with Frostbite procs. This intentional by design.
It allows your spells cast to be affected by Shatter, causes your Ice Lances to do triple damage and allows you to lauch Deep Freeze stun at targets that are not frozen.
You can currently cast 3 spells under 1 proc of Fingers of Frost, if the 3rd spell is an instant spell that is cast right after the 2nd spell.
It might require some practise and may or may not be intended.
Deep Freeze
The spell requires your target to be frozen at the beginning and the end of Deep Freeze's cast time.
Deep Freeze scales like a 1.5s cast time spell with 42.9% of your spell power.
The first point is moot now as it's instant, the second is now moot since it does no damage any more.
For the 5 second duration of the Deep Freeze debuff debuff, your target is considered frozen and stunned.
It shares Diminishing returns with all other controlled stuns, except Kidney Shot which is in its own separate category.
Bug: Impact stuns currently overwrite and remove Deep Freeze, even if Impact procs from the same cast.
Coefficient Scaling
Mage Spells
Mana Shield, Fire/Frost Ward, Ice Barrier: 80.53% (1.5/2.5 as instant * 0.855/0.455 healing conversion); unaffected by Amplify/Dampen Magic
Pyroblast: 115% direct damage, 5% per DoT tick
Frostbolt: 81.43% direct damage, with and without Glyph
Frostfire Bolt: 85.71% direct damage, the DoT does not scale at all
Flamestrike: direct damage 23.57% unchanged, new ranks still have 3s cast time; 12.2% per DoT tick
Frost Nova: (19.3% I think, 1.5/3.5 instant * 0.5 AoE * 0.9 freeze penalty)
Water Elemental
The Water Elemental gains all raid buffs like auras, totems and procs.
It gains 1/3 (33.33%) of its master's spell power, and all their spell hit from gear.
That means double-dipping from the spell power buffs like Totem of Wrath for example.
Waterbolt then scales with 5/6 (83.33%) of the pet's spell power.
Waterbolt base damage is 256-328 + 11.5*(level-50).
Its Stamina is 118 + 30% master's stamina, Intellect is 369 + 30% master's intellect, Armour is 7822 + 35% master's armour.
Its Health then is 6676 + 7.5 * Stamina and Mana is 1082 + 4.95 * Intellect.
Mirror Image
Casting Mirror Images is not on the GCD. Casting it however invokes a GCD on all abilities that are not on the GCD.
In particular Arcane Power, Icy Veins, Counterspell and all activated Trinkets.
It is unknown whether this is intended or not, or what the purpose is.
This can be circumvented by macroing Icy Veins/Arcane Power/etc., Trinket, DPS consumable, Mirror Image and Fireball/Frostbolt/NukeOfChoice in that order.
You cannot spam this macro however, since your Nuke spell will not be cast if Mirror Image is on it's cooldown.
They do not get raid buffs themselves unlike the Water Elemental. So, they only scale indirectly with buffs on the player.
They last 30s when cast and can usually get 12 Fire Blasts and 24 Frostbolts off in total, in a 1:2 rotation.
They have a cast delay like all other pets, but their Fire Blast has no GCD.
They can also cast a Polymorph with a 8 yard range which does not have or share Diminishing Returns.
They inherit 1/3 (33.33%) of their master's spell power each.
Their Frostbolts do 163-169 + 30% of their spell power as frost damage. They crit for 150%.
They also slow their target by 40% for 4 seconds.
Their Fire Blasts do 88-98 + 15% of their spell power as fire damage. They crit for 150%.
Links: http://elitistjerks.com/935194-post3222.html
Latest tests: http://elitistjerks.com/963849-post3973.html
Glyphs
[item]Glyph of Arcane Blast[/item] - The 35% damage stacks, making the Arcane Blast buff 18% per stack.
[item]Glyph of Frostbolt[/item] - The glyph is a flat 5% multiplier on top of everything. The coefficient does not change. Frostbolt continues to proc Frostbite and Fingers of Frost.
[item]Glyph of Mana Gem[/item] - The Glyph stacks with Serpent-Coil Braid and with 2/5 T7.
[item]Glyph of Polymorph[/item] - This Glyph makes Priests unable to break their own Polymorph with Shadow Word: Death.
[item]Glyph of Water Elemental[/item] - The -30 seconds are applied before talents. The cooldown is 2:00 when glyphed and talented.
Leveling Glyphs
Evocation and Frost Nova are nice Glyphs for leveling. At least I prefer an emergency heal and less freeze breaking over some straight damage modifiers
Deep Frost builds are the best leveling specs for that matter. You don't get your 3rd Major Glyph Slot until level 80.
Raiding Glyphs
Arcane should glyph Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles and Molten Armour or Arcane Power.
Fire/Frostfire should glyph Fireball/Frostfire Bolt, Molten Armour and Improved Scorch or Living Bomb.
Frost should glyph Frostbolt, Water Elemental and Molten Armour.
* In 3.1 Mirror Image might become the best Glyph for all spec in some fights, depending on final implementation.
http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t30655-wotl ... 1_updated/
)
)
няма време да се опитат всички благини 
