The game of Warcraft is changing. In the next few weeks the first of a series of patches will be pushed to the live severs. The first of these patches (4.0.1) will bring with it the core changes to all classes, as well as various UI and interface changes.
This guide to the key mage changes is intended to smooth your way into 4.0 and beyond, including making your first steps into Cataclysm. It should also help you with being able to raid during the two months before the expansion is released.
There are however a couple of key things that aren’t covered as part of this guide.
- This isn’t designed for minmaxers. There’s not been a huge amount of numerical analysis so far on optimal builds and glyphs. As these optimisations come out I’ll ensure the guide is updated.
- I haven’t included looking at the new racial abilities. I’m not convinced that they’ve been finalised, but I’m not expecting people to swap racials until 85 raiding kicks off.
- I’m also not covering rotation changes. For the most part things are still the same, although Frost has gone through more significant alterations. Arcane and Fire mages used to Missile Barrage/Hot Streak procs should find things largely unchanged
- Although there may be some usefulness for PvP mages here, I’m going to focus on PvE for most of this guide.
We’re all learning a lot as we work through the class changes, so don’t be afraid to experiment and try out radical ideas. Share any interesting findings you get with other mages by posting about it on the Mage forums.