Thinking like an Arcane Mage

So I've decided that I've been out of the arcane biz too long. With the recent patch, arcane got much love much of it in the form of a really uber new glyph and some of it in the form of a nice exploitable bug. (the bug vs feature issue is a whole other post) Seeing as I really haven't enjoied the "You must be Frostfire" way that mages have been so far in WotLK, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to try out the ole Arcane spec again.

The spec is what I remember Arcane being in the past. Dynamic and flexible. Insane DPS at completely unsustainable DPM. However, I kind of noticed today that I (and many others) had really approached this spec like it's another fire spec. Find the right rotation and work it to death. (In this case it was AB->AB->AB->AM->ABar) I tried it and was surprised that I wasn't having mana issues. I mean not even close to having mana issues. So I dropped my glyph of Mage armor and switched to Glyph of Molten Armor. No mana issues so why not get 5% more Crit? Makes Sense? Right?

Well maybe to a Fire mage, but to an Arcane mage, that is just the wrong way of thinking. If you have more mana, cast a more mana intensive cycle. Mage armor (Glyphed)_gives me between 400-500 additional MP5. Molten armor (Glyphed) is 5% crit or 230 crit rating. Form a gear standpoint, 450 MP5 is worth TONS more than 230 crit rating. And with Arcane, you can take advantage of that extra mana and convert it into damage.

To be honest I'm kind of embarrassed at myself. I should have been thinking like this all along. I'm really looking forward to exploring Arcane in more depth in the next few weeks. It's nice to come home again, even if it does mean I have to actually think.

I'm trying to show off here...

And sometimes they just don't make it easy.

Of course, part of it is my own fault. I didn't hit the screen capture button as it happened. And now, with the servers down installing the arena fix, I can't log on to take a new screen shot boasting of my accomplishment.

So you guys get a screen shot of the Armory.



My second 80. Woohoo!!

Nord is next to level.

Then after that, I suspect I'll be focusing on my shaman. As much as I joined in with the rest of you all making fun of the "sex-changes" a few posts back, odds are good Mhera will not remain female for much longer. I want Farimaer (my Horde troll on Malfurion) back and if I can't change his race, faction, and server then Mhera will just have to take his place.

Patch day

3.0.8 went live today.

I know a lot of folks looking forward to the changes (and even some of the nerfs).

Log on and get it.

EDIT: It's patch day alright. Servers came back up on schedule but Wintergrasp is causing Northrend server crashes like crazy. (Seeing as that's where I am with Avouz at the moment, I know this is the cause.)

First battle, Horde won and immediately after the server crashed. Came back on and the battle had reset. This time, Alliance won and once again, the server crashed on victory. Sure enough, came back up with the battle reset again.

Fun, although nice way to get honor via exploit.

EDIT: Oh, this is rich. I ported out of Wintergrasp after two battles, but while I'm smelting ore in Dalaran, I'm still getting honor from tower destruction and such. LOL.

Trivia

Being an old school geek, I've been playing fantasy games both on the computer and on the tabletop for well over two-thirds of my 36 years. So I get a kick out of folks in WoW who name their toons for obscure things in old fantasy games or novels or whatever.

So here's a bit of trivia for you old schoolers like me. Here's a screenshot of a toon on Garona that Nord stumbled onto last night in Dalaran.

1) Do you know what his name references?

2) If you do, do you remember what you had to do to create this effect?



EDIT: You folks disappoint me. :-(

I spoke to my friend John on the phone the other day and he knew the answers immediately.

1) The Wizardry series. Tiltowait was the uber damage spell from that game.

2) Each spell in Wizardry had a four letter code that you had to type in to cast it. Tiltowait's code was NUKE

Heroic virgin no more

Ok, maybe the title is a little TMI, but anyhow. Stofnar hit his first Wrath heroic instance on Sunday evening. Five of us were on and ready to go for the first time since the end of the Christmas holiday (Actually, I think we had all seven of us available, but that's beside the point.) We hit Halls of Lightning, which was the daily, on heroic.

One of us made an observation part way through the run that I think sums up nicely what Wrath is about. He said that Blizzard doesn't really care much about levelers anymore: It's all about endgame. For those of us running mains and alts through Wrath's zones wondering when it was going to get difficult, I now have your answer.

Granted, HoL was not super-difficult, not in the ways heroic Arc or Shadow Lab were in TBC. We had a bit of trouble on the dual-wielding whirlwinding runcasters (Stofnar died on every pull or close to it.) Our kill of the second boss, Volkhan, was a bit sloppy, but we got it done. Then there's Lokan...

To put it mildly, Lokan kicked our ass.

We pulled him probably a dozen times, each time working on getting our coordination down on the movements of that fight. We debated strategies after each failed pull, weighed options. Felt despair that this boss was unbeatable. For me, it felt like Classic WoW way back in Molten Core trying to beat Luci or Magmadar for the first time. It was HARD and yet very satisfying even through we never managed to beat him.

I want another piece of Lokan and I'm pleased that heroics are finally producing a challenge for us. Looking forward to the next one.

ROFLMAO

Yeah, WoW has made me so much more productive.

LOL

There has got to be a better solution than this...

GARONA is full.
Position in queue: 338
Estimated wait time: Sometime next year.

Blizz really needs to get their crap together in regards to fixing the raid lag problem. Reducing the max population down so that there's queues every night is NOT the answer.