Mage Portals – Simplified
Had a random request for a portal the other night, first time during beta testing which is a nice change! Spotted a very nice adition to the Mage portal and teleport spells...
Portals.. simplified Portals any one?
The Portal/Teleport spell can be placed on you bar and a tab can be clicked, much like the Shaman totem bar, to select the appropriate portal/teleport spell. Small touch but this saves a "mod:shift" bar, silly macros and even reduces the time I spend flicking though my spell book to find the unused portal spells! Lazy Mage I here you say.. the Goblin in me says "Time is Money".
You can also see from the tabs at the bottom of the spell book that it now includes the Professions, Mounts and Companions. I will post screens of these tomorrow.
[EDIT: 29/09/2010] For those looking for a list of portal spells, here is link to Wowhead that you may find handy. LINK
Troll Backdrop and Gear Update
The Trolls have finaly been given their own backdrop on the character select screen, I'm assuming at the moment that the Gnomes would also have the pleasure!
Oh thats new!
As you can see I have been able to upload some more classes to the Beta, issues that stopped me doing this previously have been resolved with the new client.
The image below shows the difference between the holding gear model above to what look to be finished gear models below. I actually liked the simplicity of the holding models but the new designs look great across all the classes that I see running around Deepholm!
New Gear!
With the latest changes to the damage output of mobs, it has become a far more challenging game to play. I'm having to learn how to play my class solo again, which is great! I suspect in the long term (and its been mentioned by Blues) that some of the damage will be down tuned, hopefully not to the point where there is no challenge to levelling at all. One of the biggest disappointments after coming back to WoW was that levelling could be achieved with far less skill than I remembered from Vanilla and BC.
At the moment pulls can feel like a genuine challenge, where reactions matter and rusty skills need to be polished. Its been along time since I have had to kite, CC and counter effectively in a PVE environment. It maybe that I just really suck at magecraft (very probable), but its refreshing and very enjoyable to be forced to play the class!
Patch update + Mage Pics
Nihilum have pulled a detailed list of confirmed patch changes from the Beta. There are a lot of changes to when classes learn key spells, which looks to effect the new "core" spells in the talent trees. The level one spells defined under each tree will be learned after a specialization is chosen. For the Original page follow the LINKY, it's well worth a look.
The pics below were taken from the last build after the 31 point trees were introduced.
Talent choice?
I have played around with the Frost tree and I must say its been very enjoyable! So I flicked over to Arcane, it feels unfinished and its still incredibly powerful. I'm not sure if you would call if overpowered though as what you gain in power you certainly lose in control. It seems as though Sheep is no longer working as intended, I can offload as much damage as I like to a Sheeped target with out breaking it! So much for testing the Improved Sheep talent.
Arcane Tree
With the rapid spawn rate win some areas of Hyjal, Frost is far more comfortable to play in a tight squeeze. It's possibly because I love Frost Magecraft but this has always been true and although I'm levelling as Arcane at the moment to get a better feel for Arcane Missile procs I may change back to Frost soon.
Frost Tree
Blizzard have asked for some of the refurbished starter zones to be tested so a new Fire Mage might just tick the boxes for testing this out, that or a Dwarf Shaman 
Oh and before I go, this is what a Lv81 Mage in quest greens looks like in Cataclysm.
Lv81 Mage in Cataclysm Greens
Mount Hyjal – Part One
Here we have the roots of the world tree Nordrassil under which is the zones starting quest hub. The initial quests are a god introduction to the zone and all though a level 80 in T9/iLv232 has an easy time the beginning of the zone feels like it would be great for a fresh 78, as intended.
The Hyjal Barrow Deeps is where the druids of the claw used to sleep to visit the Emerald Dream and was the prison of Illidan Stormrage, Malfurion's slightly love sick brother before he became the twisted demon that we all know and love.
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