WoW forums depress me

[Bolty]

The mage has 3 different single target fire spells and I have no idea what the difference is besides damage, mana and spell timer.

Hiya Laz, Pete,

I like your posts a lot - good input. I also don't mean to single out one part of these posts and dwell on it, but I'm not ready yet to give my own general thoughts of the game. I am waiting until much, much farther into the beta (perhaps near final) before I make my "will I buy this game" call.

However, I think some of the sweeping generalizations being made here are a *tad* bit unfair. Since I'm only really familiar with the Mage, I'll jump in on Laz's comment above with some details:

Mages have three general attacks. The other spells are utility-based, and some are very useless indeed in their current implementation. I don't really care that much about it, considering that just three weeks ago Blizzard really moved around the Mage's spells (trashed Phantasms, added Sleep, changed rank level availability). I think it's clear that, for all classes, they're still really moving things around.

The Mage's four primary attacks are:

1) Fire Ball
2) Fire Blast
3) Frost Bolt
4) Arcane Missiles

These three elements are the backbone of the Mage, and there's more to them than simple differences in damage, mana, and spell timer.

1) Fire Ball is the major nuker. It requires an extra-long time to cast, and features the longest attack range of ANY attack in the game, period. It does massive damage.
2) Fire Blast is the instant-cast nuker. It performs massive damage as well, but fires instantly - this allows you to use it once the mob reaches melee range. Once cast, you have to wait 10 seconds before you can use it again. It also uses up gobs of mana.
3) Frost Bolt is the slowdown spell. It requires less time to cast than Fire Ball, does less damage, but reduces the movement speed of enemies by 50%. Frost Bolt is more mana efficient than Fire Ball, but lacks the "uber" punch that Fire Ball does. Usually I lead off a fight with Frost Bolt, giving me time to send off some Fire Balls before the monster closes.
4) Arcane Missiles is the "oh crap" spell, using up a ton of mana but featuring the killer trait of all arcane spells - they can't be stuttered. This allows the Mage to wail on a monster even as he/she is being attacked. Trying to get off a Fire Ball while attacked is an exercise in futility due to the stuttering, but Arcane Missiles works fine.

The differences between the spells are subtle, but they're there. Expert players will know exactly what spell to use in any situation and adjust their tactics accordingly. I like Mages because battles are not simply "click on a monster, press a button, and sit back." A Mage will never survive a prolonged melee encounter with a mob of their level.
If they can't kill the mob quickly, they die.

Also, I've found the generalization that Priests are just healers to be patently unfair. Just watch MongoJerry in action. As far as I can see, every class can solo pretty well.

The game needs work. But Pete, before a final comment on difficulty, have you done much gaming in the instanced dungeons yet (Van Cleef in Phase 1, Wailing Caverns in Phase 2, for example)? The instanced dungeons are where the challenges are, the best quests are, and the best rewards are. The "open" areas where you run around and kill things are considered to be the "easy" areas. I have found that the most fun in WoW is in the instanced dungeons, even though my current belief is that from a questing and leveling point of view, elite quests in instanced dungeons aren't worth doing. In other words, powerlevelers should skip instanced dungeons if they want to level up the fastest. But adventurers such as us should definitely give them a shot.

-Bolty