When I signed up for the yearly pass, part of the reason was to get the free D3.  Not so much for me, but for my kid, who is the world’s biggest Diablo fan.  Unfortunately, it turns out, you can’t transfer licenses¹. So I was left with a working copy of D3 and no real desire to check it out.

But when opening night came, I decided to see if it was worth all the hype, so I installed it and started it up.

I started out with a wizard (my D2 character had been more vanilla).  The male wizard looks like a cross between Tom Hiddleston and Skrillex – so of course, I called him Grillex. I’m hoping eventually to make his arcane blasts go wubWubWubWub as they glide across the room, but first things first.

What I will say of this game thus far: the best way I can describe my experience is that of a long walk on the beach with an old friend. There is practically nothing that I don’t like. It’s a time machine taking us back to when we were playing D1 and D2 in almost an identical way.

Sure, there are gameplay elements that have changed, but the fundamentals have not.  And that makes all the difference. Blizzard have hit the ball out of the park on this one.  The "X" factor that made D1 and D2 such runaway hits is still all there.

The only downside to this game is the mandatory online aspect. You can’t just fire up a session on your laptop to kill an hour or whatnot. There are procedures. You Must log in, you Must authenticate, ergo you Must have a working network connection at all times.

The other downside to this is that any time you lose the network, whatever instance you were in is completely reset. If it’s a special one with special bosses with special loot, it might disappear altogether!  This is a harsh price to pay for server instability from a company that has not once managed to launch a game without server instability.  Now that they are pals with Valve, maybe they can switch to Steam deployment, and have that "work offline" option.  I mean, Valve CAN make it work, after all.

Within the game, the only thing that isn’t my cup of tea so far is the witch doctor.  I don’t get this class. It doesn’t belong. Unless you consider the "jungle" area with the pygmies² in D1/2 to be the source of such – hello, negative stereotypes! Thanks for reaffirming Blizzard’s tone-deafness in matters of diversity. And ooga-booga to you, too.

Over all, though, it’s a glorious incarnation of an already legendary game, and I suspect this one will surpass the previous two in popularity.

Of course, some of the biggest Diablo fans in the world are playing WoW. Or, were, rather.  All around the ‘sphere we’re hearing of dead cities, silent chat channels, even the ANAL guys have bailed to go play D3. Nothing has had such an impact before.  Aion? Nothing. Rift? A pip. STWOR? Shaken, but not stirred. But D3 … it’s done what none of the "WoW killers" could do.  Granted, it’s in the pre-expansion doldrums, but still.

Which confirms what I’ve said all along. Blizzard’s worst enemy is Blizzard themselves.

See you in a few days.

1. You couldn’t even prepay from Blizz then transfer. For shame!
2. Which also make an appearance in Uldum in WoW.

This post originally appeared on Grimmtooth's Troops on May 17, 2012.

Update 5/15/2012 - Well, I certainly hope we pulled last night’s attempt before anyone downloaded it and installed, it. If not, I do appologize for your empty addon directory. As has been said many times, backups are our friends. With any luck, the only install that was damaged was my own.

This build does not appear to have that problem. But still, be mindful and proceed with caution until you’re sure it won’t hurt anything.

If you have, like me, used The Undermine Journal for price research, you may have installed the addon that the author also makes available. There are two varieties; the generic one you will find on Curse and other similar sites¹ and a custom one that you can download from TUJ itself.

The custom one can have up to four realms’ specific pricing data. The generic one uses an average of all realms.  I think you can see the advantage of the former – near real-time data specific to the realm you’re logged in to at the time.

The downside is that it is a little tedious to go and get the realm-specific build and install it every day or whatever schedule you follow.

Before the Crib was wiped out, we had this automated. Thanks to no good backups, this automation tool was lost forever.

Well, we’ve reengineered it, and we’ll share it with you.

What you will need:

1. Python 2.7 or later installed. Do not install version 3 of any sort.  You can download Python here: http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.7.3/
2. A text editor that won’t make a mess of things. While NotePad will work, Notepad++ is better. You can find it here: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.1.2.html
3. An account on The Undermine Journal. If you don’t have one, go here and do so. https://theunderminejournal.com/user.php It’s really nifty. You can use your Google or Facebook or Twitter account to authenticate. And who doesn’t have one of those?
4. The technical acumen to create files, edit them, and move them around.
5. The technical acumen to use a command line shell (‘cmd’ in Windows.)

Setting up TUJ

The first thing you should do is set up your account on The Undermine Journal.  Once you have done so, you need to set up which realm(s) you wish to obtain realm-specific pricing data for. Go to this page (https://theunderminejournal.com/user.php) and scroll down to see something like this.

Control-click each realm of interest, up to four.

Now, the link to the right will have a custom URL that you can use to get your realm data.

Keep that web page open somewhere so you can go back and get that URL when you need it.

Setting up a workspace

This program is a slob and needs its own home. All of our work is done in d:\grimmlabs\project_name, but you will have your preferences as to where you put this.  It should be a path that you can remember.  For example, C:\TUJ.  Do that by opening a shell and doing the following.

Once you have the workspace, CD to that directory in your shell.

Creating the program

You can either download this file to your PC (It’s a zip file, you’ll have to unpack it.), or, if you’re the suspicious type², copy the following and paste it into a file called, for example, C:\TUJ\UpdateTUJ.py.  (Clicky on the little magnifying glass to show the code. Hover over it to see a toolbar with a few interesting features.)

## UpdateTUJ.py
## (c) 2011-2012 by Jeff Grimmett
## Freely redistributable for all non-commericial uses
## including modification and improvement.
##
## Shine on you crazy diamond.
##

# See http://wowblog.grimmlabs.com/article-number for the full
# set of instructions involved to use this script.

# Note: this can only be used ten times a day. After that, it
# goes boom, but it won't do any damage when it does.

# Here are some variables you will need to change.

import  os
import  os.path
import  shutil
import  urllib2
import  zipfile

# The URL to retrieve; will be unique for your account
TUJURL      = 'https://theunderminejournal.com/TheUndermineJournal.zip'
# The location of your addon directory
TargetPath  = 'c:/program files/world of warcraft/interface/addons'

# These are some variables that you don't need to mess with
#
# ... and if you do, you better do it right or things will go "crunch".

# The name of the zip file, locally
LocalFile                      = 'TheUndermineJournal.ZIP'
# The final path of the addon
FinalDestination    = os.path.join(TargetPath, 'TheUndermineJournal')

print "Starting ..."
print "Opening %s" %TUJURL

# Open the URL and local file
u = urllib2.urlopen(TUJURL)
f = open(LocalFile, 'wb')
meta = u.info()
file_size = int(meta.getheaders("Content-Length")[0])
print "Downloading: %s Bytes: %s" % (LocalFile, file_size)

file_size_dl = 0
block_sz = 8192

# Proceed to download and update the display as it progresses.
while True:
    buffer = u.read(block_sz)
    if not buffer:
        # All done
        break

    file_size_dl += len(buffer)
    f.write(buffer)
    status = r"%10d  [%3.2f%%]" % (file_size_dl, file_size_dl * 100. / file_size)
    status = status + chr(8)*(len(status)+1)
    print status,

# Close local file
f.close()

# Make sure we have a place to unpack
if not os.path.exists('unpack'):
    print "Creating unpacking space"
    os.mkdir('unpack')
else:
    print "Cleaning up last session"
    shutil.rmtree('unpack', True)
    os.mkdir('unpack')

# Now that the file is downloaded, we unpack it.
print "Unpacking ...",
z = zipfile.ZipFile(LocalFile)
z.extractall('unpack')
z.close()
print "Done!"

# Now that the directory is unpacked, we delete the old TUJ addon
if os.path.exists(FinalDestination):
    print "Deleting old addon"
    print FinalDestination
    shutil.rmtree(FinalDestination, True)

# Now that the old TUJ is gone, this one is put in its place.
print "Installing updated version ...",
shutil.copytree('unpack/TheUndermineJournal', FinalDestination)

# All done!
print "All done!"

Everything between the quotes is the custom URL for your custom addon.  You will need to delete what is there³ between the quotes.

Go back to the Undermine Journal user page where your user account info is, and copy the URL for the link:

Paste that link in between the quotes, and save the document.

(2) Set up your addon folder’s location

By default, addons are assumed to live in c:\program files\world of warcraft\interface\addons.  If your system follows that convention, then there is nothing else to do. If, on the other hand, you have WoW’s addons living elsewhere, you will need to edit the following line.

# The location of your addon directory
TargetPath = 'c:/program files/world of warcraft/interface/addons'

Note that this is the top level of the addons directory, not for TUJ itself.  The script will take care of that for you.

(3) Set up your environment

On Windows7, installation of the Python interpreter automatically registers the .py and .pyw extensions to the interpreter, so just running one from a shell will make it go.  On older systems, such as XP, you will need to add those extensions to the EXTPATH environmental variable.

You can also just include Python’s interpreter in your command path via the PATH variable and run it directly:

image showing python UpdateTUJ.py

… or use the full path.

If you have the extension registered, then you can just drag an icon to the desktop once you know things are running smoothly. Up to you.

(4) … and that’s it!

If we’ve done our homework properly, you’re ready to give this thing a try.

Open a shell and give it a whirl!

If you can’t figure out what’s going wrong from the error code, just drop me a line via the email link above or a comment below and we’ll sort it out.

Some Final Thoughts

• This is in no way a bulletproof solution. The error handling is virtually nonexistent. I’m pretty sure it can’t do any real damage to your WoW install or OS, but if you have doubts, best to just move along.
• TUJ only allows access to this custom addon ten times a day per account. You may hit that wall during installation and testing. My suggestion is to get a copy by hand first, so you can use it while you tweak the script. Or just be patient, the next day will be here tomorrow.
• I intend to keep updating as I go along.  First priority is error handling. Next is a nice installer to make life easier. Next is a windows-only version that will run natively, no need for nasty interpreters.
• This code should work on any platform that supports Python, including MacOS or whatever they call it today.
• I’m sure I’ve overlooked a zillion things. Software projects generally involve a bit of beta testing which exposes these things. This app has received none.

1. I dunno, did they kill all the other addon sites off?
2. To which I say, bully for you!
3. That’s just a total fake in the example.

This post originally appeared on Grimmtooth's Troops on May 15, 2012.

If you have downloaded the program that was just recently posted, please don’t run it!  It has a flaw that can potentially delete all your installed addons!  We’re looking in to it.

This post originally appeared on Grimmtooth's Troops on May 14, 2012.

As a public service, I share this advice.

If anyone in your raid suddenly types or says the equivalent of "BRB, roach emergency!", it is probably not because he dropped his doobie down his pants.

I defy anyone to raid effectively with a three-inch Florida Palmetto Bug at large in the living room.

Or with a spouse that is in that situation.

That is all.

This post originally appeared on Grimmtooth's Troops on May 13, 2012.

The making of glyphs is still not active in-beta yet. Accordingly, we’ll keep looking at what we can data-mine.

Starting at the top of the alphabet now, this pass is for Death Knights.

It is apparent when looking that DKs have not yet received a lot of love.  A lot of tooltips conflict the glyph name, some still show as Primes, and so forth.  Ergo, I’ll have to keep these up to date as we go along.  As always, the master spreadsheet is up on Google Docs.

New Additions

Removals

Notes:

• Most of them were former Prime glyphs, but not all.
• A lot of minor and major glyphs – new or old – show Prime glyph tool tips.  In many cases the effects don’t even make sense for the glyph it is attached to. I’m guessing they have a lot of work to do still.

Carried Over

Notes:

• Some of these were former Prime glyphs that were deemed valuable enough to retain, even if the type of glyph was changed.
• Many of these have different effects than before – in some cases, far different.
• While some changed ink type (no doubt to reflect the level changes for some of these), there was no significant drift towards more of one tier over another, and no new inks at all.

Overall

It’s obvious from the tooltips and the profession UI that serious work on integrating the new glyphs into the game has not really taken off yet.

This post originally appeared on Grimmtooth's Troops on May 10, 2012.

I was cycling my mailbox, minding my own business.  I had just reposted all of the Inferno Inks I had made for the day (there’s virtually no money in making cards now, but leveling scriveners in a hurry still buy ink) and was pleased to see that they sold almost immediately.

I use TSM to automate posting of auctions based on a few simple rules. For ink, one of the rules is that if nobody else is selling, post at 75g per ink.  Someone will surely undercut, but there will be some decent profits on the race for the bottom.  Apparently, that’s what happened this day.

WIM popped a private tell up, some guy I never heard of before.

Noisy: 75 g per ink? Are you serious???

Hm. Rarely does somebody complain about pricing.

Me: I sell at market rates. Did you just buy all my Inferno Inks?

Noisy: Yeah, that was me.

Me: Were you wanting a refund?

Noisy: No …. I used them already.

Me: We’re done here.

Seriously, if you’re stupid enough to pay that much, don’t expect sympathy.  That’s why my buying is all done by hand. I recommend that for anyone that buys and sells mass quantities.

In this case, the guy just ate 5000g worth of Inferno Ink to make, I dunno, origami eggplants or something. That’s gotta hurt.  But I bet he’s more careful in the future.

This post originally appeared on Grimmtooth's Troops on May 9, 2012.

The first thing I want to look at¹ is look at what glyphs we’re picking up, what ones we’re losing, and which ones we’re picking up.

Since WoWHead is especially confused on a lot of these, I’m not going to include links in this post, because otherwise you might find yourself looking at the Glyph of Arcane Power with a tooltip of Glyph of Cone of Cold.  Blizz appears to be re-tasking all of the Prime glyph slots for new uses, which makes me wonder what sort of bugs we might encounter down the road.  Something to follow up on.

In this discussion, as in those to follow, the master worksheet for all this is on Google Docs. If you have to ask what something means, don’t look at it – this isn’t a tutorial on my spreadsheet peccadillos.

New Additions

Some notes:

• Glyph of Fingers of Frost probably goes a ways to compensate us for the loss of the damage component of Deep Freeze.
• Glyph of the Penguin and Glyph of the Monkey were removed to remove the “the”, no doubt to help with sorting, but then they added “of the Bear Cub”.  I suspect that’ll get renamed for consistency.
• Speaking of which, the Bear Cub ink is not yet official – best guess is Midnight.

Removals

Notes:

• Most of there were former Prime glyphs, but not all.
• A lot of minor and major glyphs – new or old – show Prime glyph tool tips still.  In many cases the effects don’t even make sense. I’m guessing they have a lot of work to do still.

Carried Over

Notes:

• Some of these were former Prime glyphs that were deemed valuable enough to retain, even if the type of glyph was changed.
• Many of these have different effects than before – in some cases, far different.
• While some changed ink type (no doubt to reflect the level changes for some of these), there was no significant drift towards more of one tier over another, and no new inks at all.

Overall

It’s obvious from the tooltips and the profession UI that serious work on integrating the new glyphs into the game has not really taken off yet.

1. Because that’s about all I can right now, given that crafting isn’t up and running yet.

This post originally appeared on Grimmtooth's Troops on May 2, 2012.

Name?

Shadow.

Surname?

Fiend.

Profession?

Minion, type 4.

Aye, times are tough for you types, ain’t they?

Well, the paycheck’s still coming in, but the writing’s on the wall.

New guy, isn’t it?

Yeah. A real go-getter.

All show, no go?

Oh, he’s got the right stuff, for sure. Quite frankly, we’re outclassed.  Gotta be honest.

How’s he doing that?

Well, first of all, he flies!  I can barely slither, and here he comes flying?  Can’t hold a candle to that!

How’s that happen?

I’m guessing the Twilight types left a few bits of research lying about, and the Temple had a look.

That’s a right shame, it is.

Well, at least I have time to find a new gig.

Well, right. What’s your qualifications?

Well, I studied in the twisted nether. Majored in Hit-and-run Tactics and Ignoring Masters’ commands. Picked up a nice Disco spec in Karazhan and romped around Northrend for a while. Spent most of my time recently in Shadow spec questing about. Seen Alien about 1,344 times and it keeps getting funnier EVERY SINGLE TIME I see it.

Hm. Yes. Very good.  The computer’s coming up with some nice candidates.

Great!  What you got?

Well, we got this walk-in part in Westeros that pays pretty well.

Cold there, isn’t it.

That it is. Hm. Do you have a hairnet?

I don’t  have hair.

Right, that would be a no.  How are you with numbers?

Um, not bad.

Right. Okay, luv, I’ve got a few options here.

Yes?

First, we have several entry level openings in the food service industry.

That’s not really my gig, though.

Exactly right, I thought the same. So, we have several middle-management openings in the Banking industry to do with Derivatives.

I have principles.

Oh, that is unfortunate.  Well, there’s one other possibility other than Oblivion, but I doubt you’d like it.

I’ve an open mind, lay it on me.

It’s in your field of expertise, but it’s a huge change of pace.

Come on, out with it.

Sorry, sir, of course.  Was just trying to prepare you.

I am prepared.

Warlock minion.

Warlock minion?

Warlock minion.  Type 2. A promotion, actually.

…

I was not prepared.

Sorry, luv, I tried to soften the blow.

I do appreciate that.

… Think they’d waive the hairnet?

I’m sure they would.

Well, let’s get the ball rolling then!

Right, sir. I’ll need you to sign here …

This post originally appeared on Grimmtooth's Troops on April 30, 2012.

Since ElvUI has decided to go off the grid, as it were, I’m putting together a replacement UI that will follow the same general layout – which I liked – but consist of components I can replace more easily should someone else take his toys and go home.

The first step is to identify the work to be done. Here’s a summary.

So after a couple of weeks’ work, here’s what I’ve got so far:

• Chatter – This is the same chat pane replacement that ElvUI used, and in fact if you didn’t kill the ElvUI chat settings, or if you copy them off, you can use them as-is with stand-alone Chatter.
• Pitbull – Unit frame replacement. Pitbull gives me raid party target frames, which is incredibly useful. But it is a royal pain to configure, hasn’t been updated for over a year, and will probably die in MoP. I’m going with it for now, but with the understanding that if something better comes along, I’m history. I even looked at oUF, which is what the ElvUI unit frames are based on. I didn’t take it for the same reason I didn’t keep ElvUI: you have to hunt for updates. The biggest downside to PitBull is that it doesn’t support the boss frames.  I’m looking for something that will at least let me move them.
• Dominos – Dominos is an action bar replacement that also replaces the cast bar, roll window, and even the objectives pane. It also supports skinning using Masque, formerly ButtonFacade.
• Squeenix – This ancient yet simple and reliable mini-map replacement offers free placement, but I elected to leave the mini-map where it normally goes, just a little larger¹.
• Bison – This adds a few more types of things to track (such as weapon effects like poisons and raid-induced effects) and allows you to reposition all of them as you wish. It also accepts Masque skinning.
• I haven’t installed any timer tools yet as I’m not sure I’ll need them. If I do, DoTimers will probably be the ones used.
• Mapster along with TomTom² lets you manipulate your map and add waypoints.
• No nameplates, but if I did I’d use TidyPlates.
• TipTac replaces the default nameplates. It brings two things to the party. 1) I can reposition the tooltip window now. 2) It shows the unit’s spec if it is a player.
• The pretty panels that frame the action bars and unit frames is kgPanels. The nifty thing about the foreground panels is that they change color based on the class of the toon (the addon supports scripts to do things like this).  This is using a script attached to the OnLoad event. (I added the DK part myself. Delusions of adequacy, here I come!)

local _, class = UnitClass("player"); 

    if class == "WARRIOR" then 

        self.bg:SetVertexColor(0.95, 0.23, 0.23, self.bg:GetAlpha()) 

    elseif class == "DEATHKNIGHT" then 

        self.bg:SetVertexColor(1, 0, 0, self.bg:GetAlpha()) 

    elseif class == "PRIEST" then 

        self.bg:SetVertexColor(1, 0.96, 0.98, self.bg:GetAlpha()) 

    elseif class == "MAGE" then 

        self.bg:SetVertexColor(0.00, 1, 1, self.bg:GetAlpha()) 

    elseif class == "DRUID" then 

        self.bg:SetVertexColor(1, 0.49, 0.04, self.bg:GetAlpha()) 

    elseif class == "PALADIN" then 

        self.bg:SetVertexColor(0.92, 0.22, 0.46, self.bg:GetAlpha()) 

    elseif class == "HUNTER" then 

        self.bg:SetVertexColor(0.33, 0.86, 0.00, self.bg:GetAlpha()) 

    elseif class == "ROGUE" then 

        self.bg:SetVertexColor(1, 0.94, 0.16, self.bg:GetAlpha()) 

    elseif class == "SHAMAN" then 

        self.bg:SetVertexColor(0.13, 0.42, 1, self.bg:GetAlpha()) 

    elseif class == "WARLOCK" then 

        self.bg:SetVertexColor(0.36, 0.18, 1, self.bg:GetAlpha()) 

    end 

• While not shown, a warning about BigWigs. If you use this boss mod, ElvUI "skins" it, and that doesn’t get removed when you uninstall ElvUI.  As a result, BigWigs throws errors all over the place.  If you like where all the stuff is with the ElvUI skins, note them down on paper, then uninstall both ElvUI AND BigWigs. Reinstall, then configure BigWigs so that it mimics the ElvUI settings.
• Another tool I find very useful is eAlign. This sets up a grid that you can reference as you move things around. It goes away when you reload, or you can turn it off yourself.

Not needed:

• ElvUI special sauce

1. I looked at SexyMap, but great bouncing Bronzebeards, folks – that thing’s busier than Metzen’s inbox!
2. I tried TomTomLite but as it didn’t let me reposition the arrow, I determined it was TOO lite.

This post originally appeared on Grimmtooth's Troops on April 29, 2012.

As writ previously, talents are differently applied this time than they have in the first four iterations of WoW. Rather than choosing from 60ish or 40ish talents, you get to choose from six tiers of talents, each containing three choices, of which you can choose one each.  The intended design of this is to make all choices matter, when it comes to talents.

Note: As I proof this one more time, the beta rolls on relentlessly.  I have given a good look at the most recent changes but cannot guarantee that when this goes live, it’ll already have several grievous errors.  The Management Regrets, et cetera. Only one thing is certain: if I don’t post this soon, it’ll be about the NEXT expansion’s beta! So off we go!

So let’s see what Frost gets to play with.

Tier 1

At level 15, you get to choose one of these.  The theme here is cast time mitigation.

• Presence of Mind

When activated, your next Mage spell with a casting time less than 10 sec becomes an instant cast spell.

• Scorch

Scorch the enemy for 930 to 1102 Fire damage.  Can be cast while moving.

• Ice Flows¹.))

Allows you to move while casting and channeling the next 2 Mage spells that have a base cast or channel time less than 4 sec. This spell may be cast while a cast time spell is in progress.

Presence and Flows both add a cooldown to your rotation for you to get any benefit. This complicates an already complicated rotation in raiding, but might provide a nice little IWIN button for PvP.  Currently I’m going with Flows but could change my mind at any time.

Of the spells taking less than four seconds², Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt both qualify. This is still highly situational, though. Getting off an instant Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, or Ice Bomb might be worth it, though.

In the end, Presence will probably be my ultimate choice.  As Grimm, I can’t ever remember to switch to Aspect of the Fox for those brief move-and-fire fights, and this looks to be even more complex to shoehorn into an already loaded rotation.

Tier 2

Achieved at level 30.  The theme here is personal protection / damage mitigation.

• Temporal Shield

Envelops you in a temporal shield for 4 sec. Damage taken while shielded will be healed back over 6 sec. This spell is usable while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep.

• Blazing Speed

Suppresses movement slowing effects and increases your movement speed by 150% for 1 sec.  May only be activated after taking a melee or spell hit greater than 2% of your total health, or after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor. This spell may be cast while a cast time spell is in progress.

• Ice Barrier

Instantly shields you, absorbing (4580 + $SPFR * 4.401) damage.  Lasts 1 min.  While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be delayed by damage.

Again, it seems, we’re presented with two great choices and one non-starter.  Ice Barrier is a trademark skill for frost mages, offering mitigation and an extremely handy cooldown. The new choice is very interesting, though. Temporal Shield appears to offer a great panic button for those situations in which your healer needs all the help he can get. It doesn’t say, but if it also breaks stun effects, that would be marvy.

Blazing Speed is just a little too complicated in its requirements to be easily accessible in PvE, but looks like it would always be ready to roll in PvP, so I’m guessing that’s the intended audience. This with Blink (please don’t share a cooldown) offers a couple of ways of disengaging with opponents.

Tier 3

Achieved at level 45.  The theme here is crowd control.

• Ring of Frost

Summons a Ring of Frost at the target location.  Enemies entering the ring will become frozen for 10 sec.  Lasts 10 sec.  10 yd radius.

• Frost Ward

Places an Ice Ward on a friendly target. When an enemy strikes the target, all enemies within 10 yds will become frozen in place for 5 sec. 1 charge.  Lasts 30 sec.

• Frostjaw

Silences and freezes the target in place for 8 sec.  Lasts half as long versus Player targets.

This, at least, looks like a good Frost tier, with three Frost-themed choices. Again, one seems very clearly aimed at PvP (Frost Ward), though it would be useful in some PvE encounters if cast on the add tank to help control adds where she’s at.

The other two are more PvE ish though I do point out that both may have usefulness in PvP settings.

Of the three, Ring seems to be the most versatile in a raid environment, for CC.

Tier 4

Achieved at level 60.  The theme here is "cooldowns".

• Greater Invisibility

Instantly makes the caster invisible, reducing all threat, and removing two damage over time effects. While invisible, you are untargettable by enemies.  Lasts 20 sec.  Invisibility is cancelled if you perform any actions.

Damage taken is reduced by 90% while invisible and for 3 sec after coming out of invisibility.

• Cauterize

An attack which would otherwise kill you will instead bring you to 50% of your maximum health, and you will burn for 40% of your maximum health over the next 6 sec.

Cauterize cannot occur more than once every 2 minutes.

• Cold Snap

When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown of your Ice Block, Frost Nova, and Cone of Cold spell.  Instantly restores 30% of your health. This spell is usable while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep.

Cold Snap of course is a trusty cooldown from days of yore.  Greater Invis is an intriguing alternative due to its damage reduction and dispelling hooks.  Cauterize is an old friend to fire mages, and I must say that I find it quite attractive – enough so that I will probably take that over Cold Snap. Passive mitigation > active mitigation if you have a brain like a sieve.

Tier 5

Achieved at level 75.  The theme here is scary, unpredictable AoE.

• Nether Tempest

Places a Nether Tempest on the target which deals 2784 Arcane damage over 12 sec. Each time Nether Tempest deals damage, an additional 50% of that damage is also dealt to a random target within 10 yards.

• Living Bomb

The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking 1388Fire damage over 12 sec. When this effect ends, or the target dies, it explodes to deal an additional 1395 Fire damage to up to 3 enemies within 10 yards.  Limit 3 targets.

• Frost Bomb

Places a Frost Bomb on the target.  After 5 sec sec, the bomb explodes, dealing 2791 Frost damage to the primary target, and 1396 Frost damage to all other targets within 10 yds.  All affected targets are slowed by 70% for 2 sec sec. Frost Bomb’s countdown and cooldown are reduced by haste.

I love AoE, but I’ve always found unpredictable AoE to be a loaded weapon on both ends of the barrel. Just ask a Warlock how many times Seed of Corruption has gotten him in trouble. Flora could go on all day³.  You just can’t use these things in crowded areas, around CC’d adds, and the like.

Of the three, Frost Bomb is the most intriguing to me, as well as the most apt for a Frostie.

Tier 6

Achieved at level 90.  The theme here is replenishment.

• Invocation

Your Evocation spell no longer has a cooldown, but you passively regenerate 50% less mana.

Completing an Evocation causes you to deal 30% increased spell damage for 40 sec.

• Rune of Power

Places a Rune of Power on the ground, which lasts for 1 min. While standing in your Rune of Power, your mana regeneration is increased by 100% and your spell damage is increased by 15%. Only 2 Runes of Power can be placed at one time.

• Incanter’s Ward

Places a magical ward on you, absorbing up to (1374 + $SPA * 1.320) damage for 8 sec. Absorbed damage will restore up to 15% of your maximum mana.

When this effect ends, you gain up to 30% increased spell power for 15 sec, based on the absorption used.

Hoo boy, this is a tough one. All of these look great! Invocation is perfect for a glass cannon spec. Rune of Power gives a frostie more group utility by having a little something for the healers to munch on. And Incanter’s Ward just looks like the perfect OHCRAP button.  These really give you something to consider!

Wrapping Up

There’s a fine line to be trod here between "interesting but not class-defining talents" and "doesn’t matter, vote the party line". In the end I’m worried that talents are becoming no more significant than glyphs in design, or, should I say, the new Prime Glyph of the game, now that those aren’t a part of the game any more.

I appreciate the concept – that rather than give you the illusion of choice knowing you’re always going to pick what is recommended, they take away the choices that aren’t choices and leave only the stuff that you have latitude to choose.

The balancing act, however, comes in when you try to balance each tier’s talents against each other so that the choices that you can make are for your own good, yet none becomes a non-choice due to clear superiority over the others.

Meanwhile, the obvious PvP choices have already been made for you, if you’re a PvP-er, so even before we get out of the gate, the point has been proven. Within each tier, then, the remaining choices are mostly based on play style.

It will be interesting to see how that balances out in a live environment.

Next up: the spellbook.

1. Yes, that is misspelled. Yes, a bug report has been submitted. No, I wasn’t the one that caught it first ((And it’s going to go live in the next build. Woohoo!
2. I thought they were going to try to simplify things!
3. No, really, she could. Please don’t get her started.

This post originally appeared on Grimmtooth's Troops on April 25, 2012.