Cataclysm Class Previews

I'm more interested in the paladin, simply because that footnote said they were rehauling/changing the paladin stuff the most so they didn't want to put an ETA in yet. And they won't make it more difficult, that would drive away all the scrubs and they'd lose money. If anything they'll make the normal raids stupid-easy and save the "difficult and interesting" for heroic.

That and focus for hunters, simply because I have one and DPS is fuck-all easy. People who stand in shit are just lazy.
 
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DPS doesn't get any easier than an arcane mage:

5 mans = hit 1 repeatedly
Raids = hit 1 four times then hit 2.
 
Fool said:
DPS doesn't get any easier than an arcane mage:

5 mans = hit 1 repeatedly
Raids = hit 1 four times then hit 2.
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Do they even have to worry about mana management? Most arcane mages I see either do less damage but are sustainable or they blow their whole mana pool in the first 15 - 20 seconds for huge numbers and then do what they can to cast anything.

Or you have the rare fire mage who beefs his numbers by throwing Living Bomb on everything in sight...
 
Mages still have to worry about mana management but it's totally based on how long a fight is. In 5 mans you kill a boss before mirror images die, so you can easily spam arcane blast endlessly without risk of running out of mana. In a raid setting you can't really do that without using gems/potions/evocation but it makes for great burst damage during images/AP/IV/trinket combos. Can also do it if it's towards the end of a fight and I have a decent amount of mana.
 
Fool said:
Mages still have to worry about mana management but it's totally based on how long a fight is. In 5 mans you kill a boss before mirror images die, so you can easily spam arcane blast endlessly without risk of running out of mana. In a raid setting you can't really do that without using gems/potions/evocation but it makes for great burst damage during images/AP/IV/trinket combos. Can also do it if it's towards the end of a fight and I have a decent amount of mana.
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Well if you can tell me what is up with this mage. I know next to nothing about them, I have an old 60 I haven't picked up yet probably since Classic. The mage in question apparently is some kind of self-professed savant which could be at Pessi' caliber, but since I know nothing about mages I cannot gauge out well this mage is via gemming/enchanting. This mage would be the third brother of the trio I mentioned in zeph's derailed thread and as I am told he is the geekiest and most math-oriented of the three. I constantly hear brags about 14K, 20K DPS and such and I continue with "Where?" because I know some encounters have mechanics that bloat your damage output, casting speed, whatever that is simply part of the fight.

So I know huge numbers can be largely situational based on where they are taking place, but I have yet to get a straight answer out of them as to where these professed numbers are coming from.
 
Feannag said:
Well if you can tell me what is up with this mage. I know next to nothing about them, I have an old 60 I haven't picked up yet probably since Classic. The mage in question apparently is some kind of self-professed savant which could be at Pessi' caliber, but since I know nothing about mages I cannot gauge out well this mage is via gemming/enchanting. This mage would be the third brother of the trio I mentioned in zeph's derailed thread and as I am told he is the geekiest and most math-oriented of the three. I constantly hear brags about 14K, 20K DPS and such and I continue with "Where?" because I know some encounters have mechanics that bloat your damage output, casting speed, whatever that is simply part of the fight.

So I know huge numbers can be largely situational based on where they are taking place, but I have yet to get a straight answer out of them as to where these professed numbers are coming from.
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He's sacrificing spellpower for haste and too concerned with gemming for socket bonuses even when they're a dps loss. If he's saying he hits 15000 dps he's talking about burst damage and not sustained.
 
Feannag said:
So I know huge numbers can be largely situational based on where they are taking place, but I have yet to get a straight answer out of them as to where these professed numbers are coming from.
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Nowhere that matters. His progression is shit. His gemming is also questionable, since he's probably not at the point where Haste trumps SP, and certainly not enough to be using pure haste (which gets 1 less point than Reckless).
 
Lawls, thanks for the honest responses. I thought that pure haste was a little off, but he kept bragging about all that burst but blowing his mana load in the first 10 seconds and scrapped for mana the rest of the fight. Fucker seemed PROUD of it. I also have a friend who thoroughly enjoys her mage so I look for info on how to gem/enchant so I don't get complaints when I try to make some pugs for ToC/ICC. She doesn't do much on her own, she'll follow advice but she won't look up EJ herself or try to better her mage, but when told what to do she's fairly reliable.

Barring you guys the only other mage I took advice from was one I ran with on Archimonde who actually did put out good numbers I witnessed. The linked mage is one of those three brothers, one of whom I work with, who claim to be the "best" on their realms. Problem is their attitudes are absolutely horrible and have zero tolerance for anyone who doesn't breath the game. Glad I have some confirmation they aren't as good as they keep telling people they are.
 
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Lock changes are great overall. The best bit is no clipping dots (in addition to no soulshards as reagents). Soulshards only looks marginally useful for PVE so far but amazing for PVP (but I don't pvp). Demon Bolt looks good since Demo needed something to make it's rotation more interesting.

The Curse changes are something that is long overdue and should have been done at the beginning of Wrath.

Only other changes they missed are making Incinerate available at low level so it's viable to level as Destruction and fixing the range talents (especially the Aff one so it includes Shadowbolt).

I'm wondering if the Voidwalker might actually be useful for 5 mans or raids in some capacity now, especially now that Torment will do damage.

It's also nice to see that they decided to give the Succubus a niche as a PVP pet. I would still like to see Seduce last longer (30-60 seconds) in PVE so it's not so horrible for CC in PVE.
 
Wait for the complaints about the Bane/Curse change when the PvP'ers see it and QQ because it's more dispelability for more classes?

Did I just make that word up? I think I did, and it's mine so fucking DIBS.
 
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