Just a little bit smarter

It’s time for another round in The Battle of the Mages. And I’m starting to see signs of desperation from some of the opponents.

After looking into the crystal orb (a little bit of a cheat in my opinion) Krizzlybear quickly tried to make an alliance between fire and frost to compete with Arcane.

Since the master minds of EJ now have taken position for deep arcane as an interesting alternative for raiding in WotLK, he must be pretty desperate. (I haven’t read this conclusion myself, the thread is in the moment I write this 153 pages and still growing, so I just trust on Krizzlybear about this).

Peanut butter with jelly – yak!

I didn’t quite follow Krizzlybear’s analogy that fire was to ice what peanut butter was to jelly. Actually I find that mixture rather appalling, but whenever I’ve been in Netherlands I’ve been fascinated to find ready-mixed spreads in the grocery store, mixing peanut butter and jelly into one can.. Yak. Can you really eat that stuff?

I always thought it was an odd thing about Dutch people, who obviously have a sweet tooth, but I understand now that this habit has spread all over the world, at least as far as to Canada? If that is the case I can predict we’ll see quite a bunch of firefrostmages running about in the expansion.

All of you peanut-butter-jelly eaters out there - I can assure you one thing: The Pink Pigtail Inn will NEVER have a sandwich with that spread on the menu. The interior of our restaurant may look simple but the chef just won’t serve it. He’s cares about his reputation.

Anyway, there’s no doubt that Krizzlybear has invested heavily in resistance gear in order not to be seduced to go the way of the arcanist. When it comes to me, I must admit I’d find it rather confusing making spell rotations including scorch as well as icy veins and frost bolts. Where’s the logic? Shouldn’t the water let out the fire leaving just a little harmless smoke cloud and some ashes? Shouldn’t the fire melt the ice into a useless swimming pool? Or possibly some kind of slush? I can’t approve of this. Peanut butter with jelly IS disgusting. (Though I must admit that Critical QQ did make some quite impressive calculations about those upcoming slush nukes the other day. But we haven't seen them for real yet. Perhaps some nerfs are to be expected?)

Street lamp lightener
After talking about the some of the easy-to-love talents in the fire tree, Gnomeaggedon finally had to deal with the more crappy talents. In a very eloquent post he tries to convince the audience the grandness of Fireblast. But even he admits that the best use of it is to light the Street lamps of the city, while taking a romantic stroll. Yep. You’re dead right, Gnome. Fire blast is best used out of battle, because of it’s lack of mana efficency. But to actually put talent points into it? Are you serious about this?

I can only explain it by the fact that the whole post suggests that he’s feverish. Poor guy. It happens often to fire mages. They get overheated, can't keep their minds cool like the rest of us.

The lonely control freak
Zupa seems to be a lonely guy. He just can’t trust anyone else in the raid but his dear water element. He finds the dependency arcane mages experience in the raid situation to have a decent mana regeneration frightening. What should you say about this?

Zupa - perhaps you’ve had some really traumatic experiences that have put you in this state of mind? But I assure you – for many of us raiding is actually about team work. About trusting and helping each other. Just as I expect to get some healing now and then I’m sure some wise raid leader will give me an extra mana battery if needed. There are good people out there who want to help you perform if you just give them the chance. Trust me. Stop isolating yourself.

He also has revealed his obsession of keeping things under control (which he’s wise enough to realize in this post where he admits he’s a freak.) This fixed idea makes him think it’s more fun to run around with the enemy just like a little child with his kite, seemingly trying to keep him alive as long as possibly, rather than simply taking him out with a few simple blasts.

Where does this idea about control come from? I consulted Wowwiki and got the picture.

“Magic corrupts the soul; if the humblest person in Azeroth became a practitioner of the arcane, by the time the practitioner reach the higher levels in their art, all traces of her humble roots would be lost. Magic breeds pride and arrogance. Magic corrupts the body; it ages the caster before their time and hastens the blight that the world inflicts on things fair and beautiful”.

So the whole explanation to the odd behaviour of Zupa is probably that he’s been looking a bit

too deep into the crystal orb, just as his frost fellow Krizzlybear did.

A little bit smarter
Now that we’re onto the subject about arrogance and superiority I think it’s time to bring up one of the special features of Arcane mages – the superiority of our intellect capacity. When I switched to arcane, this was one of the things that struck me most of all: where did all that intelligence – and the effect of it – the huge mana pool come from? Suddenly I had 12k mana, just using a self buff. And with the increased mana I also increased my bonus damage. A lot. Going over 1k isn’t any issue at all and you can pretty easily go way above that.

Let’s have a look into the arcane tree and you’ll get the explanation.

Do you see the portrait with the mystic looking guy with some pink eyes that seem to look right through you? That’s the Arcane Mind, which increases your total intellect by 15% at rank 5.

Then there’s another guy with a huge brain that seem to be about to burst, I guess that’s why he’s holding his head so tight. That’s Mind Mastery, which will increase your spell damage by up to 25 percent of your total intellect.

If you’ve been smart enough to pick a gnome for race (of course you have, at least if you’re arcane), you’ll get the increased intelligence by 5 % as an extra bonus.

And if you’re really taking it to an extreme you could gem up your gear with even more intelligence. I’ve done a coward version myself, gemming both with spell damage and intelligence (when spell hit capped of course, which is easy done if you’re arcane). There is an ongoing discussion among arcane mages if intelligence is the way to go. (If you’re interested, read the EJ thread Raiding as Arcane Mage post 2.4, which is very useful for any arcane mage. ) I guess a truly dedicated arcane mage who is ready to pull it to an extreme would ditch some of the damage stones and go for even more intelligence.

Finally
Arcane mages. There’s no doubt that we’re a bit smarter than the other mages. And what do we do with all that wisdom? We melt our enemies. They disassemble in front of our eyes, torn into pieces. Not by some sloppy piece of frozen water or little torches we throw. We use the very essence of magic, the arcane power just as it was from the beginning. Pure and straight from the power sources.

Make it simple. Make it smart. Make it the arcane way and rule the world. With the help of your superior intellect.

What now? Did I hear someone calling me arrogant?

/ignore