Cataclysm Talent Tree (revised - 31pt)Follow

Is it me or did I see a useful blast wave?? I wish they did that for Flamestrike though. Too bad...

I'm not even bothering to test Mage until next week when they totally revamp fire (and, I'm assuming, fix a lot of the problems with Frost/Arcane).

But, just for some at-a-glance data:

Mages start with Fireball and nothing else, which does 20 damage with another 8 over 4 seconds with a 1.5 cast time. My Worgen, upon creation, has 9 SP. But the SPC is so low that I'm still only averaging 20 damage (well, like 20.1) I have 119 mana and FB costs 10, with 9 Mp5 out of combat (so I guess they nerfed the early level buff). If you are taking mobs out one right after the other, you WILL feel mana starved. And you don't start with water. So I'm hoping the mana reverts back. Your crit rate starts around 4%.

The next spell you get is Arcane Missiles at level 3. It does 17x3 damage, but is free since it is now a proc spell with a 30% rate off of other damaging ones. It's technically better DpS and more efficient than Fireball, but significantly less fun to use. The first missile doesn't fire until you are 1 second in, and it has a channeling time of 3 seconds. Plus, you will lose a missile if something hits you (and you have no snare, so you probably will get hit). And you don't get the proc until the spell launches, naturally, which means you are already casting another Fireball. And it might not be attractive to wait 2 seconds for AM to finish the target when you could just hit FB again and kill it faster.

I find myself not wanting to use it when it was supposed to be attractive and fun to hit for all specs early on. So all you do for the first 5 levels, unless really worried about mana, is hit FB.

Then you get Fire Blast at level 5, which is actually good. It's similar damage-to-mana as Fireball and is instant. At 5, FB is 42 damage for 27 mana. Fireball is 27 damage (plus the 8 DoT) for 14 mana. So, yeah, less efficient. But it breaks he monotony of spamming Fireball.

After that, you get Frostbolt at 7, FN at 8 and Counterspell at 9. Then your specialization.

Other important spells:

AB at 36
Blizzard at 52
Cone of Cold 18
Flamestrike at 44
Scorch at 26
FFB at 56
Ice Lance 28
AE at 12
Poly at 14
Blink at 16

I REALLY hope they give Mage leveling a really close look, because it is awful right now. It's more fun to alternate between FBolt and FBall on live than the current low-level play styles.

Oh, and the Water Elemental is glitched so it does 300 damage a hit at level 10. XD

You really don't need aoe anymore (at all, let alone just at lower levels). In Wailing Caverns a fire mage can pretty much 2 shot the elites.

That stuff was amazing fun... I really enjoyed it when I grinded those levels there.