As some of you already know, WoW’s new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) is now in the Alpha testing phase, and keys were limited to “Friends and Family” of Blizzard Employees.

Even though these Alpha testers are under a Non-disclosure Agreement (NDA), if you do a little searching on the Internet, you will find some leaked information on the expansion all over the place. One of them being: http://wotlk.wikidot.com/

First of all, let me remind you that this is still in the Alpha Test phase, and everything you read now, will most likely be changed many times before it is finalized for actually release.

Now you can go to that site and find information on any of the classes (including Death Knight), but I will just focus on my class of choice, the Mage.

For now, I will focus on the Mage Talent Trees.

71 points into Frost? Looks like fun!

First let’s look at the Arcane Tree. Arcane is known for their Utility Spells and burst damage, and in the expansion, looks like the tree is getting an upgrade in the sustained DPS, and survivability field.

Changes:

• Arcane Focus: now increases chance to hit with Arcane Spells by 1/2/3%, and also reduce Arcane Spell cost by 1/2/3%.
• Magic Attunement: now also increases the range of your Arcane Spells by 3/6 yards.
• Prismatic Cloak: now also reduces the fade time of you Invisibility spell by 1/2 seconds.

New Additions:

• Potent Spirit: Increases your Spell Critical Strike Rating by 7/15% of your total Spirit.
• Student of the Mind: Increases your Spirit by 4/6/10%.
• Incanter’s Absorption: When you absorb any damage, your Spell Damage increases by 5/10/15% of the amount absorbed.
• Netherwind Presence: Gives your Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage, Arcane Blast, Fireball, Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt spells a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to cause the next Arcane Blast, Fireball, Frostbolt or Frostfire Bolt to be instant.
• Arcane Barrage: Launches several missiles at the enemy target, causing 936-1145 Arcane damage.

Thoughts:

The new changes to some of the talents makes the useless talents worth taking. The change to Arcane Focus is a big hit for raiding Arcane Mages, dropping the Spell Hit from 10% to 3%, but reduces the Spell cost of the already expensive Arcane Spells.

The new talents look very nice. They’re making Spirit to be a more useful stat for Arcane Mages, and bringing back the 8/8 Netherwind Proc! Arcane Barrage, I don’t know what to make of it yet since I don’t know the full details of that new Spell. It is the top tier talent for the Arcane Tree, so it should be good.

Next we take a look at the Fire Tree. Known for its high damage, high DPS, Fire Mages look like they will be receiving more of it in the next expansion, as well as some upgrades in the AoE department.

Changes:

• Looks like no changes were made to any of the existing talents.

New Additions:

• Fiery Payback: Increase the damage caused by Molten Armor by 10/20% and whenever you resist a spell, the caster will take 25/50% of any instant damage that would have been caused by the spell. Damage caused will not exceed 50% of the caster’s health.
• Hot Streak: Anytime you score 3 spell criticals in a row, you will have a 33/66/100% chance that the next spell will have a 100% chance to score a critical hit.
• World in Flames: If a Fire Spell you cast hits more than 3 targets, the spell causes 5/10/15% more damage.
• Burnout: Increases your spell critical damage bonus with all Fire spells by 5/10/15/20/25% but every time you critical with a Fire spell you lose an additional 1/2/3/4/5% of your total mana.
• Living Bomb: The caster becomes a living bomb, causing 75 Fire Damage to all enemies within 10 yards every 2 seconds. After 10 seconds, a fiery explosion explosion occurs, causing an additional 152 Fire Damage to all enemies within 10 yards.

Thoughts:

Fire Mages get a boost in the DPS department, at the cost of their Mana. They also get a boost in their AoEing, with two new talents dedicated to AoEing. Hot Streak looks like a cool talent (wtb Cold Streak for Frosties), but Burnout makes you pay whenever you do crit.

Looks like you have to make a few adjustments to your mana efficiency if you decide to go Fire Spec.

And we saved the best for last (:P), the Frost Tree. Frost Mages are known for survivability and control, and in WotLK, we will be getting more of that, plus some more DPS and burst damage, and even some raid utility!

Changes:

• No changes were made to the existing Frost Talents. Elemental Precision “Ghost Hit” may be fixed for the next expansion, time will tell…

New Additions:

• Winter’s Grasp: Gives your Frost Spells a 20% chance to apply the Winter’s Grasp effect, which increases the chance that all attacks will hit the target by 2/4% and the target will be considered Frozen for 2/4 seconds.
• Improved Water Elemental: Increases the duration of your Summoned Water Elemental spell by 10/20/30 seconds and increases the total mana and health of your Water Elemental by 10/20/30%.
• Brain Freeze: Your Frost Nova and Frostbite effects also reduces the target’s chance to hit with all attacks by 5/10/15%.
• Chilled to the Bone: Increases the damage caused by your Frostbolt and Ice Lance spells by 1/2/3/4/5% and reduces the movement speed of all chilled targets by an additional 2/4/6/8/10%.
• Deep Freeze: Stuns the target for 5 sec. Only usable on Frozen targets.

Thoughts:

I am liking these new talents. Improved Water Elemental and Chilled to the Bone will provide a big boost in DPS. Winter’s Grasp will be another boost in raid DPS, as well and giving the entire raid a buff that increases attacks against the target by 4%. It only has a 20% chance to be applied and only lasts 4 seconds, but since all you are doing is spamming Frostbolts, I can see it staying on for a good bit of the time.

Brain Freeze and Deep Freeze looks like very good PvP talents that will increase the Frost Mage’s survivability even more. Looks like Frost will still be the spec to be for PvP.

Someone has already gone ahead and made an interactive Talent Tree with the new Alpha talents. You can go to http://war-tools.darlinganime.com/index.php?i=mage to take a look at the Talent Tree yourself, and come up with some of your own builds in advance.

Again, WotLK is still in its Alpha phase, so everything you see here will most likely be tweaked and changed a bit by the time the final version is finished.

Whew… this post was longer than expected. Comments and feedback are welcomed! Enjoy!

Related Posts:

• WotLK: Alpha Mage Spells
• WotLK: Arcane Talents Changed
• A Look Back: TBC Alpha Talents
• WotLK: Build 8719 – More Mage Changes
• WotLK: Build 8770 – Instant Cast Deep Freeze