Mage and Molten Armor changes in 3.1; itemization and how to fix it.

The new changes to Spirit in the PTR prompted this post. I’ll try and cover everything that needs to be covered – feel free to leave comments/questions, I’ll be happy to answer.

Check after the break for my musings on our class in 3.1! Keep in mind that all I say is based on the CURRENT PTR build, and not any speculation on what’s going to happen in teh future.

First off, for those who haven’t heard, Spirit-based mana regen is getting a straight 40% nerf globally. However, both Mage Armor and Pyromaniac/Arcane Meditation have been buffed by 20%, so by using Mage Armor, mages will have 100% of their mana regen available in combat – which equates to about as much as you would have pre-patch.

Molten Armor, on the other hand, is getting changed in that it now is affected by Spirit, not giving a straight crit bonus. Currently it looks like the break-even point (where it’s neither a buff nor a nerf) is the equivalent of full 25-Naxx gear, WITH full 25-man buffs. Not sure I like what they’ve done here – if they wanted to play with Spirit there are many other things they could have done, many of which would end up being much more fun. That said, the change to Molten Armor, coupled with the itemization for mages (especially arcane mages) is going to play havoc with how things work in 3.1, and here’s why:

A) Spirit nerf implies we should use Mage Armor so we can have enough mana to get through the intense-looking encounters in Ulduar.

B) Gear itemization right now ends up giving a lot of spirit to arcane mages (because it’s often coupled with spell haste, and usually not found on spell hit items – fire mages need more spell hit items than arcane), therefore arcane is being somewhat pushed towards Molten Armor due to itemization. That said, Molten Armor is still not that great, and ends up being a SLIGHT buff to arcane, and a SLIGHT nerf to fireball/TtW (supposedly the highest dps, but I can’t duplicate).

C) In 10-mans especially at the moment (assuming a typical raid group = limited buffs, and with the Molten Armor SPI -> Crit conversion), Molten Armor received, IMO, a big enough nerf to go straight to Mage Armor. (This is compounded if you lack a Replenishment buff in your raid.)

To clear up point B, it’s best stated as “Arcane mages have spirit due to itemization, not due to them wanting it.” Arcane mages basically are trying for the same gear as, say, holy priests: the global caster stats of int and stamina, followed by spirit, haste, and spellpower – as opposed to fire mages, who are much mroe focused on spell hit and spell crit.

With the changes in 3.1, fire mages more than any other spec are gonna feel a hit to DPS – since they’re not stacking spirit (nor should they have been), they lose a bunch of crit to Molten Armor (the glyph changed to a Spirit based thing, too, so it won’t help either), plus they lose 5% crit (along with all other casters) due to the Improved Scorch changes. That said, arcane mages will hit the break-even point a LOT faster, so their scaling will eventually balance out to be a crit buff (not great, but not that bad either). The only problem here is the fearsome mana burn rate in Arcane – without Mage Armor on in Ulduar’s more intense boss fights, we could run into a LOT of problems.

Raiding aside, the Molten Armor change is gonna hurt mages all the way up – at level 62, Molten Armor will fail, and fail hard. Congratulations on being forced into Mage Armor for leveling – and while I’m on the subject, that goes for 5-mans too, for the aforementioned scaling reasons (buffs!).

A lot of these “fixes”, and, in fact, the problems themselves, stem from broken itemization, in my opinion. Remember back in BC, where we had clearly defined gear? You saw a piece with spirit on, 75% of the time it had “Equip: Increases your healing done by x, and your damage done by x/3.” I don’t advocate going BACK to that, but I would say that a more defined role for Spirit (e.g. USE IT FOR MP5!) would come in very handy in distinguishing what gear is supposed to go to what class – then you can eliminate spirit from mage gear, revert the most recent Molten Armor changes, stick all sorts of fun stats on the now-spiritless gear intended for mages, and suddenly you’re good to go!

Trying not to complain about all of this – rather, just offering suggestions on how to fix the problems that I think Blizz is seeing, and making observations on what has happened so far in PTR. Despite any negativity (and I do realize there is some) in this post, I still hold out hope for mages – whether it be in 3.1, 3.1.1, or even in a long-distant patch out on the horizon somewhere…and if things don’t work out, I can always play my resto druid for a while.