skurm

There’s been a lot of talk about how World of Warcraft has been dumbed down in Wrath of the Lich King. And much of that’s true, at least from a PVE standpoint. PVP otoh has become more challenging than ever before, especially now that the game looks to be increasingly balanced around it, and not dying in a single ‘global’ is much more difficult in today’s world of massive spike damage. I’m looking at you, Elemental Shamans. Grr.

Nonetheless, some common perceptions re: PVE EZMode need refuting.

The predominant belief is that that most classes only need to press 2 or 3 buttons to do any DPS and Win The Game. From an Arcane Mage’s viewpoint, many people are of the belief that it we only cast two spells in our DPS rotation. Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles, and that this is all that’s needed in order to play the class. I’d like to dispel that notion somewhat. The reality is that to play an Arcane Mage effectively, sure, we only have to cast 2 direct damage spells to do the actual damage, but to maintain DPS over a length of time, support the raid, and strain our healers less – which is the duty of any DPS – it takes far, far more. In between pressing 1 and pressing 2 when Missile Barrage procs, we also have to…

• Maintain mana optimally so that we don’t go oom too soon, while appreciating that ending a fight with a full mana bar and unused mana gems and evocates means we haven’t pushed out anywhere nearly as much mana as we’re capable of. Playing an Arcane Mage is a case of balancing two mana regen and dps plates. We have to judge when’s a good time to evocate, time it to get one off the tail end of an Icy Veins, and all the while ensure that our rate of Gem use is matching the length of the encounter and adjusting our rotation to fit. We also have to know when to burst (XT heart exposed) and when to take it slow and steady.
• In between the dps rotation and mana management minigame we also have to:
• Spellsteal dangerous buffs where possible, at every possible turn. Missing Spellsteals means missing free buffs and possibly hots to oneself and missing a Purge effect on a boss. It is nearly *always* better to Spellsteal an enemy than to have a shammy or priest waste a purge/dispel GCD, particularly since having healers waste time on dispels is far more debilitating to the raid than having DPS do it. Jaraxxus is the obvious example.
• Anticipate fire/frost based raid damage and put up the relevant Ice/Fire Ward beforehand. This has two effects, of reducing damage taken by the mage and thus straining healers less, and also buffing our DPS thanks to Incanters Absorption. There are a lot of noob mages out there who don’t know this trick, or can’t time it right.
• Use Ice Block effectively. Mages are one of two classes that can basically negate virtually any instant-kill ability that an enemy might posses- paladin’s being the other. Being able to Iceblock if, for some reason, you can’t dodge Icehowl’s charge saves a brez for someone who needs it. I’ve seen mages in 5man ToC, for example, get hit by Eadric’s hammer and die when they could have seen him casting the Hammer of the Righteous, seen that he’s targeting them, and simply pressed the Iceblock button to save the healer a bit of stress and mana and focus on keeping the tank up instead.
• Use Blink effectively. Blinking out of a freeze effect for example. Keristraza in Nexus is a simple example, Hodir is another, and I’ve never had to worry about getting the chill debuff and dying. Too often I’ve run with other mages getting frozen and simply standing their waiting for it to wear off or for a dispel or something.
• Decurse. Mages are the sole pure DPS class capable of removing curses. Rogues, hunters and warlocks can’t do it. Helping out with this task frees up healers to concentrate on keeping people alive. More often than not a second or two cleansing a curse or two or three from the raid will be of far more value than getting the #1 spot on the DPS meters.
• Counterspell. Sure it’s on a long cooldown, but we can do so from range and it’s reliable – unlike healers, we’re stacking enough spell hit to ensure it never misses. Mages have increasingly left the interruption duty to the likes of rogues and shamans, but the fact remains that in a pinch we CAN do it. If that Faction Champ looks like he’s going to land that long cast, cancel your damaging spell and counter it. Where counterspell beats many other classes’ interrupts is that it locks the school of spell it interrupted out for a time. Against healing mobs such as the druid on Faction Champs, countering a Regrowth can lock out the rest of his instant hots long enough for your raid to squeak out that last 1 percent .
• Polymorph, Frost Nova, Slow, etc. Mages remain the king of CC. Now, sure, for the most part there might not be much of a need for it, but we’ve also become too complacent. A timely polymorph on a mob that the tank missed can be a lifesaver. More importantly, I see a number of Arcane Mages not speccing for Slow at all. And yet, it is such an incredibly versatile and useful spell for PVE. No, it’s not just a PVP spell. Keeping slow up on the Warrior, Rogue or DK in Faction champs, for example, makes kiting him incredibly easy. And keeping your eyes open on Anub’Arak can mean saving someone from one of those little beetle adds. Rooting 5 mobs and slowing a dangerous one…again, potentially the different between a one-shot and a wipe.

So sure, while standing in one spot, oblivious to everyone else and punching your two DPS buttons while staring at Recount might be ridiculously easy, it’s doing alll that other stuff while not standing in fires that’s the real challenge. How many other DPS classes, particularly pure DPS, can boast about hitting the top spots on damage done while simultaneously interrupting, cc’ing, ‘purging’, kiting, decursing  and not dying?

Don’t be a bad player. Use your entire repertoire. It’s not just about punching your big-numbers buttons.