Scourge Was Not Our Greatest Enemy

Mages in Wrath Classic are in a curious place.

In a role reversal from the heady days of Vanilla Classic, I have frequently found myself getting whispers less for people wanting me to join a group and more for being an easy transportation device. 

Not that I mind much, because tips of around 5 gold per portal* do add up, but I do realize that life has changed for Mages from the Vanilla Classic days. My preferred spec, as a Frost Mage, is great for being out in the field and doing solo content, but they're now a far cry from the Molten Core and Blackwing Lair days of being the Mage spec to be.

Gee thanks, Wowhead. I guess I'm
the comic relief.

Given that I'd already committed to being a Fire Mage in the raid, and that everybody in the raid is fine with that, I wasn't too terribly concerned. I mean, here's the charts for the first week of DPS in Warcraft Logs:

Poor Linna; Ret Paladins are in a
world of hurt. But at least they're higher
than Frost Mages. And my preferred Rogue
Spec, Subtlety, is at the bottom too...

While Fire wasn't as high as Arcane, it was significantly higher than bottom feeding Frost. (Poor Warriors; I feel your pain.)

I think it prudent to mention that classes and specs that require a lot of proper timing, such as Enhancement Shamans, are very good in the hands of someone who is much better (and younger) in their reaction times. Otherwise, it's not quite so great. 

The raid team was fine with Card coming as a Fire Mage, so I wasn't overly concerned about being a middle-of-the-pack raider. After all, I was the 4th or 5th Mage out of 6 in DPS in our AQ40 and Vanilla Naxxramas raids, so I was used to being in the hazy 30% down from the top area. 

But having not had much Fire Mage experience in months, and with my impending first foray into Naxx myself a week away***, I decided Monday to use that dual spec capability in Wrath Classic and began practicing as a Fire Mage.

***

In short, it did not go well.

Ouch.

You'd think that I remembered that Fire does not have the damage mitigation and crowd control that Frost has, but no.... 

I spent a couple of hours trying to get the feel for the cadence, but after multiple deaths in a zone 5 levels below my own I just threw up my hands and set aside the game for a while. 

The rest of the evening was spent doing other things, outside of helping my questing buddy move some of the WoW Hallow's Eve candy to her toon before raid time.**** When raid time came, I had that urge to join in --and I was dejected that I couldn't-- but I was perversely grateful that I'd already marked myself absent. 

Why?

While I may do things my own way, I set high standards for myself, and my (lack of) progress getting back into a rotation for a Fire Mage was very disheartening. If you've ever come back to something you'd set aside for a long while, such as a musical instrument or sewing or programming, and you discover that you're having big trouble getting the basics down and you're wondering just what the fuck is going on, that was what it was like. There's that enduring moment of panic that you think you're never going to get your skills back, and that you start to believe all of those doubts you have hanging around in your head. 

I couldn't shake that funk all Monday night, and my inner critic doubled down on me when I woke up on Tuesday to find that the raid team had cleared all the bosses in Naxx, plus Vault of Archavon and The Obsidian Sanctum. It was like giving a double shot espresso to a hyperactive kid. 

By the time my wife and oldest had both split for work, I'd had enough of this death by a thousand cuts. 

"Shut up!" I bellowed to an empty house. "Stop driving me fucking crazy! I am NOT going to quit!! Stop with all the 'they don't need you' bullshit! If that were the case, they'd never have asked me in the first place! Now shut the fuck up and let me get back to work!"

Cardwyn: "I would like a word with you
about this 'comic' and the 'imaginary' part..."
By Grant Snider at
incidentalcomics.com

A bit later, during a multi-hour seminar at work, I logged in again and began going through the Fire Mage's capabilities. I moved a thing or two around on my bar --such as swapping out Scorch for Pyroblast*****-- and I recognized that I needed to focus on a few spells a little differently than in Vanilla Classic, so began grinding mobs. Casting went better, I moved a bit smoother, and while I took more damage from enemies than if I were a Frost Mage, I was able to handle those same mobs I died to the night before. 

Then I got into some instances that night, and all that progress fell apart.

"The rotation feels janky," I said in Discord during a run of Culling of Stratholme.

"Are you missing something, like on your bar?" a friend asked.

"I already moved some things around," I replied, "such as taking off Scorch and replacing it with Pyroblast so that when Pyroblast procs it's an instant cast, but Scorch isn't used as part of the rotation anymore. The days of using Scorch to get five stacks of Improved Scorch are past."

After the runs were over, I went back to questing solo and the rotation felt fine, so it had to be something about the rotation for groups that was off. 

From quickmeme.com.

I then discovered I was doing things in reverse.

For a Frost Mage, I use the term "Lock 'em and rock 'em" to describe dealing with a mob. You freeze them in place using Frost Nova, then you can cast Cone of Cold then Blizzard to down the mob. Fire Mages in Vanilla Classic didn't really have anything to lock people in place, so you just waited for the tank to grab aggro then cast Blizzard. 

Well, in Wrath Classic there's one thing that didn't exist in Vanilla Classic: Dragon's Breath. It's a Cone of Cold for Fire Mages, so I figured that I should use it after an initial cast of Flamestrike. However, after conducting some research (see meme above) I discovered that instead of Flamestrike then Dragon's Breath, it should be Dragon's Breath then Flamestrike because of the tendency to get an instant cast of Flamestrike out of it.

Oh.

There's also a tweak to Blast Wave, which is a Fire talent tree only spell. The Vanilla Classic version of Blast Wave dazed enemies for a few seconds, but in Wrath Classic it knocks them back, moving the "dazed" effect to Dragon's Breath. I thought that knockback was a Talent Tree effect, but no.... It's something that can be eliminated via a Glyph.

::grumbles something vaguely incoherent about juggling too many systems::

"Stop your laughing! I'm serious!"
Blizz did the original graphic,
I did the rest.

So tonight, I'm going to find out how these changes work in group content. It'll feel weird, but at least I no longer feel like I've totally lost my edge.

***

I'm a work in progress.

I realize that it's a daily thing, beating back the doubts, but being able to control what small things I can ought to help a lot. Falling back on my training, conducting research when I fail so I can learn how to fix things, will help too.

I just have to be willing to use them and not be so damned stubborn about it.

*The other day I received a tip of 30 gold for a portal to Dalaran. I wasn't going to turn it down --I may never insist on fees but will gladly accept any tips offered-- but given that they volunteered that amount a month after Wrath Classic dropped I was a bit surprised.

**The point was so that the Warlock in question understood that Warlocks were doing just fine; it was a pick-me-up sort of response meant to make the Warlock feel better. 

***Since we visited my son over the past weekend, I took one of the two initial bench slots for our team of 12 raiders. I could theoretically have made the raid on Sunday night if there were other call offs, but I talked with one of the two raid leads and he insisted that I just chill out and not worry about it.

****In WoW, that candy provides some buffs for players, so it's kind of a thing. But since it's a limited duration item --only around for the Hallow's Eve in-game holiday-- you can't mail the items at all. So, I became the mule for my questing buddy, trading the candy to her.

*****Scorch is better in a Battleground when you have to have a fast casting spell while you're on the move. Pyroblast, when Hot Streak pops, becomes an instant cast and then it becomes useful in a fight. But otherwise... I know some people who lead with Pyroblast, but when you've got a ton of people in a zone and you need to stake your claim on a mob fast, go with a faster cast to start with. Or just stick with Fireball.