Patch 3.2 has hit World of Warcraft’s Public Test Realms (PTR) with a shock. As always there are roughly a billion and one changes to each class. That is unless you’re a Mage this patch. There may not be a lot of changes coming, but it’s still important to keep track of what’s happening with your class. So let’s take a look into what patch 3.2 is doing for the arcane casters out there.

Paladins and Death Knights are getting enough changes to spin your head in circles and make you think that you’re a Murloc. Mages on the other hand are getting three specific changes. Two spell changes and one talent change. The only other class to get more love than us is the Warrior with one change. That’s not all bad news since the changes coming up are rather nice. Let’s take a look.

• Arcane Blast: Mana cost reduced by 12%
• Invisibility: Can no longer be interrupted by a hostile action or damage done during the 3-second fade time, however an invisible mage can still be stunned or silenced.
• Empowered Fire: In addition to its existing effects, this talent now also grants a 33/67/100% chance to regain 1% of base mana each time the Ignite talent deals damage.

Let’s take an in-depth look at each change.

Arcane Blast

Arcane Mages have a problem with mana efficiency, especially in raids that lack any sort of outside replenishment/mana regen. With this upcoming change to Arcane Blast you’ll see Arcane Mages not hurting nearly as much. You may think that 12% isn’t a lot, but remember that this is the main nuke for an Arcane mage. So that 12% will add up really fast. Let’s not forget that Arcane Blast makes the next cast of itself (or any Arcane spell) cost MORE.

So it’s not the best change in the world for Arcane Mages, but it’s a really good one and a major buff. The only question though is for high end raiding. The upcoming nerf to Replenishment may nullify this change. Replenishment is going to be 1% of your mana every 5 seconds instead of .25% of your mana every second. That’s a net loss of .25% every 5 seconds. Let’s figure out the path real quick.

I’m not a math wizard (just a wizard with the arcane), so these are just some rough numbers.  I have 18,873 mana. Here is a rundown of the before and after costs of Arcane Blast.

So in a three cast rotation you would save 265 mana. 1% of my mana is 188 mana. 1.25% is 235 mana.  .25% of my mana is 47.

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Most longer boss fights will generally benefit from these changes.

It takes about6-7 seconds to finish three casts then the last few seconds is taken with your last spell in the rotation. Some very, very, very simple math says that in 10 seconds we would gain 265 mana and lose 94 mana with the changes. So it’s a net gain of 171 mana with someone with my mana pool. Before you scuff off 171 mana, think about this. In a minute that would be 1,026 mana or two free casts of Arcane Power that you wouldn’t have before.

So this change isn’t going to alleviate every Arcane Mage’s mana problems. It will help a little bit though.

Invisibility

Invisibility has been one of the most useless skills. It is not a multitasker. It’s not a reliable threat drop. It’s a skill to use while questing to sneak past some enemies. That’s it. If you’re raiding and you pop invisibility then you’ll probably be hit by some form of periodic damage and find yourself flat on the ground or at least lacking the mana it takes to cast it. The new changes make it an effective threat drop and make it a lot more viable in PvP. Just don’t expect it to help if you’ve got everything on you.

Empowered Fire

For 18,000 mana I would regain 180 mana. What we saw above, I would be losing about 94 mana every 10 seconds. If one Ignite fired every 20 seconds for me, I would have about the same mana regen as before if I had this talent. If it doesn’t, then I would be at a net loss of mana from this patch. The numbers are very small, but do expect this to count towards one or two more casts (if you’re lucky) before you have to fire off a gem or Evocate.

These are some rather small changes to the Mage and we’re not getting anything at all that is going to redefine our class. We are, however, lucky that we haven’t gotten any real nerfs. Replenishment isn’t that big of a thing and may not even be available in some raids (especially ten mans). Any patch without a massive nerf is generally a good thing.