ZOMG PTR!!

So, every blog I follow has made a post about something with the PTR. It's the hot topic on our guild forums, WoW Insider is posting every 5 minutes, it seems. Suppose I should put in my two cents.

However, I haven't touched the PTR yet. I have the client, but when I try to update it errors. So I haven't logged on. I've also not had any motivation to do so. A group of fellow guildies and I all copied over with the intent of testing Ulduar, but so far we're still waiting on copies and haven't been able to get in to test it. So, that's out.

And honestly, what would I comment on? Let's outline the upcoming mage changes:

Frost: Improve Water Elemental changed to Enduring Winter
Enduring Winter is a new talent, which will grant Frostbolt a 33%/66%/100% to provide a Replenishment buff to up to 10 of a mage's party or raid members. It works like every other Replenishment buff (don't we have enough already?) in that you get 0.25% of your total mana back per second while active.
Here's my issue with this talent - it's all an attempt to make Frost mages a valuable contribution to a raid make up. Except that Frost mages can't deal the damage needed to keep up with Arcane or Frostfire mages.
Bear in mind, I've never played a Frost mage. I leveled Arcane, I raided at 70 as Arcane (even when it still sucked), and have played Frostfire since I hit 80. My roommate always played Frost. She hates that she can't play Frost as a raiding mage. She tried once, and did 900 dps. Respecced Arcane and nearly tripled that in the same gear.

So... hurrah, mages get a buff that is already brought to the table by nearly every other class? I know that Ascended will never raid without a Ret pally or two, and we always have at least one Spriest in 25-mans, etc. etc. So, this is useless. Thanks, Blizz.

Well, that was thrilling. Not. I personally take this as a sign that Blizzard likes mages where they are. I don't agree that mages are where they need to be - they've nerfed a 51-point talent because people QQed and even now, they've come out with Glyph of Arcane Barrage. All this means is that Arcane mages need to glyph to make up for Blizzard's attempt at nerfing them.

Armor, Pyromaniac and Arcane Meditation are being buffed to allow 50% of your And yes, as casters we also will experience the mana regen change, and accordingly MageOOC manaregen to continue while casting (up from 30% when fully talented). However, my roommate noted that this makes Glyph of Mage Armor useless, since it would add 20% mana regen, and mana regen is capped at 100%. So that glyph may go by the wayside. As Frostfire, I doubt I'll see much of a difference. I usually finish a long fight with about 80-90% of my mana, and I've got way more than enough (20k raid buffed).

There's tons of glyph changes coming up as well. The only ones I'm even a bit interested in are Glyph of Living Bomb (lets the ticks crit, which might proc Hot Streak) and Glyph of Mirror Image (gives the images' Frostbolts apply Winter's Chill and give an extra 5% crit chance). Most of the other glyphs are geared towards Frost mages and pvp. Not interesting.

But really, here I've gone on for way too long about this, when it's all been done to death by so many other blogs (better written as well). TO SUMMARIZE: I am thoroughly underwhelmed by the upcoming mage changes (but I am excited for Ulduar) except Glyph of Living Bomb. Yay....

/afk (and damn, this post was terrible, sorry guys)