Arcane Brilliance: Frost mage Cataclysm talent analysis

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we’re discussing the ins and outs of the frost tree, the mage tree wherein you learn to conjure delightful snow cones from the air around you, and then how to hurl those icy treats into your opponent’s face at 1,000 feet per second. It’s like a winter miracle that kills you.

Whenever I do these kinds of things, where we explore each of the three mage trees on consecutive weeks, it seems like the frost tree always goes last kind of by default. In the English-speaking world, we read left to right, we tend to organize things on a page in left-to-right fashion, and until Simon’s Quest came along and screwed everything up as awesomely as possible, we played our video games from left to right. Frost’s the tree on the right, so it always ends up last, while arcane somehow always gets to go first.

It isn’t fair, so what we’re doing here is giving the usual way of things a big middle finger. Last week, we hit the fire tree, and this week we’re going frost. Arcane will have to wait until next week. Take that, conformity! I feel like we’ve really done something here. Society will be better because of this column. I really believe that.

After the jump, we’ll look at each and every talent in the frost tree in turn, picking them apart for nutrients, then squeezing the rest into a fine paste to use as a crude adhesive. Yes, once we’re done with the frost tree, we should have the raw materials to feed our family and also to build a small hut.

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Arcane Brilliance: Frost mage Cataclysm talent analysis originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 13 Nov 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Arcane Brilliance: Fire mage Cataclysm talent analysis


Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we take a hard look at the new fire tree in Cataclysm and beyond. Well, not really beyond; I’m not sure how we’d even do that.

The next three weeks will find Arcane Brilliance looking in depth at each of the mage talent trees, with all of the associated bits and bobs. Because it’s very likely the most popular of the three specs right now, we’ll begin with the fire tree. Or will we? Yes … yes, we will. I’m sorry, I just got done watching Inception for the first time (I know, I’m slow), and I’m pretty sure none of this is real and all of it is a dream. A dream where I get to write a weekly column about mages and set fire to warlocks over and over without repercussion. And you guys are all in my dream with me! Frankly, I never want to wake up.

The fire tree, in my opinion, is a model of good design. From top to bottom, the talents play off of each other, working together in creative ways that just make the tree fun both in theory and in practice. It’s not without its problems, but the issues are comparatively minor. We’ll mention some of them, but only in the interest of full disclosure. For the most part, the fire tree seems to be an example of Blizzard’s getting it right.

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Arcane Brilliance: Fire mage Cataclysm talent analysis originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 06 Nov 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Know Your Lore: Story analysis and the misconception of “lolore”

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You’re playing the game, you’re fighting the bosses, you know the how — but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Today’s post was supposed to be an introduction to the Wildhammer, a dwarven faction that will be responsible for bringing the shaman class to the forefront of dwarven society; however, plans have changed. As I was writing the article, I kept going back to the comments on last week’s post and addressing issues and concerns brought up by readers, as well as thinking about the people out there who believe that the storytelling is “shoddy” or “unbelievable.” So I’m putting the dwarves aside this week — don’t worry, they’ll be back next week, I promise!

Some of Blizzard’s decisions regarding new class and race combinations make more sense than others — as stated last week, hunters aren’t a big stretch for the imaginations of most players. Some take advantage of expanding upon existing lore, like the development regarding the forgotten eye of the Earthmother, An’she. There was a lot of commentary and discussion on the tauren paladin article regarding whether or not these decisions make sense, but what people seem to be overlooking is it’s not a matter of whether or not these changes make sense.

What it is about is storytelling — the construction of a believable story that progresses in a fashion that isn’t too out of bounds. While the draenei race was a stretch in many player’s minds, the basic fundamentals behind their introduction and integration into the Alliance during The Burning Crusade wasn’t as far-fetched as people first thought. Yes, the original story of the draenei involved one of the biggest “whoops” moments in Warcraft’s history — but even the misstep with lore could be explained in a logical fashion when looked at in the correct light.

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Know Your Lore: Story analysis and the misconception of “lolore” originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 22 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cataclysm Beta: Priest talent analysis

Well, just when we thought we knew what Blizzard was doing with priests, this week the devs have thrown us a curve ball in the form of a new talent build on the Cataclysm beta. I have but one, ultimate question:

How many talent previews must a priest walk down?

Do you know the answer? Perhaps Fox Van Allen and Dawn Moore of Spiritual Guidance infamy can assist you in the calculations. Remember: don’t panic.

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Cataclysm Beta: Priest talent analysis originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cataclysm Beta: Shaman talent analysis

If you weren’t aware that a new Cataclysm beta build went live this week with updated talent trees for all classes … well … surprise! Though we can certainly expect more changes as the beta progresses (read: don’t panic), this is our first look at Blizzard’s new talent philosophy, coming to a server near you with Cataclysm. Now enough of my rambling on and let’s get to the talents: Matt Sampson, Rich Maloy and Joe Perez provide analysis for the changes of each shaman tree.

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Cataclysm Beta: Shaman talent analysis originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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