Comments on The Suicidal Zebra: Yeah, Good Luck With That GC...

My guess is that TTW was Blizzard's attempt at ove...

2009-03-05T21:56:00.000Z

My guess is that TTW was Blizzard's attempt at overcompensating for the TBC era frost builds that had very relatively limited reason to spend points outside of the frost tree. I agree that it's a very blunt instrument, especially since there is no strong reason why a serious frost mage would benefit from points in the fire tree.

(If you're having fun soloing TBC instances, then a Water Elemental/Impact build like the one I use is entertaining, but I'm literally paying a third of my potential DPS to get to screw around with that build -i.e. my DPS would literally go up 50% if I respecced cookie cutter Arcane.)

My guess is that fireball got added to the mix when they realized that there was no good reason for a fire spec to actually cast fireballs instead of (more mana efficient) frostfire bolts anymore. Fireballs are really only about 10-12% ahead damage-wise, so the build is competely dependent on TTW.

It's probably useful to draw a distinction between...

2009-03-05T21:09:00.000Z

It's probably useful to draw a distinction between DPS-Increasing talents and utility talents. The former are pretty much mandatory in a DPS class/role, the latter much less so. The risk of casting a certain build in iron as 'The PvE Build' will always be there, but in general a revamping of Tier 1-4 Prot and Holy will, if not increase Ret's DPS, at least improve their functionality.

Problem is, it'll take a lot of Dev hours to do it, and I'm just not sure there are many to spare.

(as an aside, I'm tempted to say that Torment of The Weak is too strong. Mages need that 12% in raid, but it's very cheap for 3 pts so low in a spec. Sharing that boost around a few other talents in other trees would be a good idea IMO)

Great catch on the Noble Garden deadline, you're t...

2009-03-05T20:26:00.000Z

Great catch on the Noble Garden deadline, you're the first person I've seen to notice that. :)

As to the talents, I've heard (possibly here, too many class changes to keep track of) that using Art of War procs aren't going to cost Pallies DPS anymore? If so, then maybe there'll be an incentive to spend 8 in Holy for Healing Light?

Then again, perhaps Retadins should be glad there isn't an absolute must-have in the 11-20 point range. All Frost mages, and Fireball-spec Fire mages, basically have to spend 18 in Arcane to obtain Torment The Weak, which is a 12% damage boost against raid bosses that are being tanked by a tank. Frostfire-spec Fire specs basically have to take 18 in Frost, and Arcane specs would universally prefer to follow them for Frost Channeling (though some are forced to go fire to provide Improved Scorch for their raids). There's a fine line between having a reason to go down other trees and having all 71 points of your spec dictated by the need for a specific 53/18 combo.