Has anyone seen the bliz mage class forums, and all the frost mages whining how much fire specs have been improved by this while its just a nerf to us? What are your opinions on the whole subject? Me, I'm a die hard frost spec, and still love this new spell. I never proc frostbite off my ice armor anyway, because I'm almost never meleed, and if I am, the mobs about dead anyway.

I looked on the mage forum and there are about 10000 threads complaining or cheering, but all assume knowledge of what is happening. I gathered that Blizzard is getting some kind of change to the way it snares, but I found no good explanation. Something about magister something that I've never heard of before.

A blue post did mention fixes to Blink and Arcane Missles, which makes me smile. Reduction in casting cost for Frost Armor is nice, but Arcane Intellect needs it badly too. Every time I buff my group of friends, I have to stop all the action for 2-3 minutes just to recover from a silly buff.

The 30% mana regen while casting buff sounds completely amazing, though I'm not sure what I think of it.

I'm scared of this "Conjure Water" thing "attained by a quest". Hopefully, this is a fun solo-oriented quest that, in some measure, is a test of my abilities as a mage, rather than some EQ-esque borefest that requires a army and is only a test of how much time you get to play and how much your guild raids.

Did I miss anything? Could a lazy mage bum a cliff notes version from someone?

Ok, let me explain the big fuss:
The new mage armor spell doesn't stack with the old frost armor spell. So when mobs hit you, they won't be hit with chill effects and snared, plus there won't be a 15% chance to freeze them if you have the frostbite talent.
Thats it. Thats what the big fuss is about. That they have to CHOOSE either their old armor spell or the new one. Not that anything was changed with the old one, just that they don't stack.

As for Magisters, its the rare quality (blue) set out of Stratholme, Scholomance, and Blackrock Spire. Supposedly the spirit stats on the armor were changed to stamina because most mages cant control agro and keep dying and want more stamina.

They're working on a group version of Arcane Intellect, it should be in the next patch.

I'm not too worried about this conjure water thing. I doubt it'll be that hard. The important question is, does it summon 2, 10, or 20 water at a time? Because 2 water at a time will suck. But its still better than not having the spell at all.

A special note for those that like to zerg instances: Blackrock spire is limited to 15 people at once, Dire Maul is 5 people at once, and All other dungeons in the game will be capped at 10 members. Raid instances are, of course, 40.

Patrolling scouts that can see through stealth and invisibility have been added to both Orgrimmar and Ironforge.

Added /raidinfo command showing remaining time on saved raid instances.

If you enter an instance in a group, and then leave that group, you will not be able to complete quest objectives until you rejoin the group.

Extended the decay time of boss corpses in dungeons.

Lengthened the respawn time of many of the creatures in Ragefire Chasm, Gnomeregan, Uldaman, Razorfen Downs, Scholomance, and Stratholme.

Quests that take you into dungeons are now denoted "Dungeon" in the quest log, and are sorted under the dungeon to which they take you.

Pets in defensive mode that respond to attacks will no longer flag their masters for PvP. If the master issues an explicit attack command, the master will be flagged.

Items like the Eye of the Beast will correctly increase your spell critical hit chances.

The auction interface now displays the gold, silver, and copper values for all items, even if those values are zero. This should make it more difficult to "hide" an item that costs several gold among items that only cost several silver, for example.

Plus some UI stuff:
You can now have multiple action bars onscreen at the same time.
You can activate the additional action bars through the Interfaceoptions menu.
Added /golfclap.
An option has been added to display the time remaining on your buffs all the time. The option is found in the "Interface" options windowunder "Buff Durations."
Targeting with the tab key has been fixed so hitting tab will acquire creatures in a cone up to 30 yards in front of you or a circle 10 yards around you. It no longer only hits targets off to your left.

well, its still to see how the mage armor works out, but I guess it will be more valuable than ice/frost armor. Especially combined with arcane meditation and set items, which could give something like a total of 60% of mana regen.

I'm definately looking forward to it. A lot of pvp mages are pissed, since they dont think it does anything good for them, especially frost mages, but its great for pve.

Thanks tons for the recap!

I heard about the magister set since I posted, and I can kinda see how people might be unhappy with it's original state. When AEing it's common to take a good beating, and currently spirit isn't a terribly helpful stat compared to what I can get out of INT or STA (though I AE alot, and don't participate in endurance-fests often).

I like the scouts that can see invis, it was kinda silly that the biggest cities in a world constantly torn with war wouldn't have defenses against a invisible/stealthed attacker.

Can't wait to see some of this, mostly sounds good to me.

I really don't know what I think about the new mage armor.  It seems better than nothing, but it's kind of hard to tell really.  I guess like most things in this game it adds up when combined with other items/buffs. 

It's very nice when in groups, when you dont have to take dmg yourself.
I always use it in instances to decrease downtime.

Mage Armor is awesome for instances also for the +15 to resistances. But does anyone know is Mage Armor stacks with Arcane Meditation? I've heard it doesnt.

No, mage armor does not stack with arcane meditation.

Nerf cloth!!

affirmative

Vale, isn't cloth ALREADY nerfed? Incase I remember, toilet paper doesn't do well against plate. And also why do us spell-casters stay AWAY from others? Cloth tears easy so it gives **** for armor. No nerf needed...

I am looking forward to it...I am sure that some new builds will come out because of it.

Looking forward to it? WTF? What... looking forward to a f'ing time machine so you can go back to 2005 to look forward to this thread's relevance?