OMG PANDAS!! and such

[Fsob]

Blizzard wrote:

Do you hate enhancement shamans? DPS sucks, in PvP they suck, any plans to fix them? / Any plans for Illidan to come back? Lets answer the Illidan question. Do you want to see Illidan come back? We will think about that. This is a problem, just like frost mages dont do well in PvE but the difference is you can't tell an enhancement shaman "hey just go elemental". In PvP it will be much easier in 5.0 but for PvE we will try to adress some of the issues in 4.3

Right... There is so much wrong with this answer that I don't even want to try and point it all out.

[Vosskah]

Fsob, did you see arcane brilliance yesterday? Is the difference between arcane and frost that negligible?

[Fsob]

Vosskah wrote:

Fsob, did you see arcane brilliance yesterday? Is the difference between arcane and frost that negligible?

Haven't seen it. Looking now.

[Tassager]

Voss, my understanding from the reading I've done on various sources is that, yes, it is that negligible.

Now... I'm sure that there is some skew there based on the fact that the people that are raiding frost WANT to raid frost and love it and are therefore pretty damn good at it... whereas the people that raid arcane are everybody else (both good and bad). But yeah, I understand it's close.

I don't think any of us have ever thought to ourselves "Hmmm, I wish Fsob would go arcane so he could do more damage"...

[Fsob]

Yeah, it really is that close. Sims put frost close enough to non-Shard of Woe arcane to be considered equal. The fact that a trinket off of a heroic only end boss from last tier is BiS and actually ups arcane's dps by 2-3k was overlooked by the devs somehow.

96% of raiding mages are arcane. Given the huge discrepancy between the amount of data for the other mage specs it's kinda silly to proclaim them as useless.

Even with there being so many more arcane parses, thus giving them a better chance at getting a good rng parse that is 5-6k over the norm, frost is extremely close to being the top mage spec on some fights.

Some frosties are even getting numbers where they would be ranked in the top 10 across all 3 specs.
Beth - 10 man: 5th, 4 arcane mages did better.
Heroic Baleroc - 10 man: 2nd, 1 arcane mage did better.
Majordomo - 25 man: 7th, 6 arcane mage did better.

I would be interested to see what kind of numbers frost would have if 96% of raiding mages specced frost for 3-4 months.

Arcane Brilliance sums it up nicely in their post:

Mr Archmage Pants wrote:

If you are skilled at playing a frost mage -- and after the patch a fire mage -- and your abilities meet the needs of the fight and the needs of your raid, the numbers are close enough that no one should ever be able to tell you that you should be playing arcane instead. No one.

[Fsob]

Tassager wrote:

Now... I'm sure that there is some skew there based on the fact that the people that are raiding frost WANT to raid frost and love it and are therefore pretty damn good at it... whereas the people that raid arcane are everybody else (both good and bad). But yeah, I understand it's close.

I would argue that this is offset by the fact that all of the best geared mages are arcane. When you're in a serious raiding guild that requires you to spec for the most dps, you'll have the Shard of Woe trinket and arcane will actually be better then frost.

[Millya]

I thought the AB article was great. There's certainly never been any question in my mind that Frost is just as good. ;p I am playing Arcane not because I think it's lolsomuch better than frost but because Fire (my most beloved spec) is definitely not up to par with either of the other two, and Arcane brings buffs that Frost doesn't, and we already have an awesome Frost mage!

[Fsob]

Agreed. Very good article and great timing for it as well. Hopefully it helps negate the damage Blizz just did by saying that frost sucks at pve and the answer is "hey, just go arcane".

[Tassager]

Hey Ulla, where were the pictures of the "select spec" screen for each class?

I've seen the pictures of the 6 tiers of talents to choose from... but where's the picture of the screen where I choose Guardian and you choose Resto? I still can't seem to find that one, and you'd mentioned that you'd seen it...

[ullariend]

It was for Paladin, and looked pretty much like it does now.

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2011/october/pp74.jpg

I didn't see anything for druids

[Tassager]

Thanks Ulla! That's what I was looking for.

I also found this one helpful (down at the bottom): http://us.battle.net/blizzcon/en/blog/3773320/World_of_Warcraft_Class_Talent_System-10_21_2011#blog

[Shaen]

I know we talked about this last night, but I thought this blue quote was particularly funny:

"As many of you may or may not know, weapon enchants have been a feature of World of Warcraft since the beginning. Providing iconic and recognizable looks to various enchants is something that’s added an element of uniqueness to the game and to your character."

Yeah... "Recognizable" and maybe even "iconic" I get. But "unique"? Yes, having Power Torrent on your weapon certainly makes you look unique... just like every other caster in the game.