WoW Forever Mage: Ice Lance Gets an 8-Second Cooldown

An 8-second cooldown on Ice Lance: that is the change getting the most reaction around the WoW Forever mage this week. It comes from a build dated October 28, found in the game files, with no note from Blizzard.

Venruki, a mage player and PvP streamer (player-versus-player combat), spent nearly twenty minutes reading these notes on screen and circling the affected talents in Paint on a screenshot of the tree. He believes they are real but cannot prove it. They come from foreverchanges.pro, a fan site that reads every beta build in the game files. Nothing is confirmed, and launch is six days away, on November 4.

All 11 WoW Forever mage changes, one by one

Build 1.60.1.70685 touches eleven elements of the WoW Forever mage: three buffs, four nerfs and four moves in the trees.

Accelerant was the talent called Improved Fireball before this build. Frost Blast is the spell pulled from the spellbook.

The October 28 entry carries its own warning: « None of this is confirmed: the build arrived while the realms are closed ahead of launch, Blizzard has published no notes for it, and nothing can be verified in game yet. » The removal of Frost Blast is also marked « to be taken with a grain of salt ».

Ice Lance at 8 seconds: Venruki’s take

This is the longest part of the video. Venruki has never liked Ice Lance, because the spell makes many other spells pointless. He says he is happy with the change. In his eyes, a cooldown will let the spell hit harder and feel nicer to use than chaining it endlessly. He mimes the current rotation: Frost Nova, Ice Lance, Ice Lance, Ice Lance, Cone of Cold, Frostbite, Ice Lance again.

His first worry is Fingers of Frost: with Ice Lance locked for eight seconds, charges could pile up at the cap. Then he corrects himself live. In this version, Fingers of Frost makes any spell react as if the target were frozen, not only Ice Lance. So you spend the charge on Frostbolt or on Cone of Cold. He admits it: « that was my retail brain ».

He goes further: if the spell gets a cooldown, Blizzard should buff it and give back its 300% bonus damage against frozen targets, the value it had in September. No note from October 28 touches that number.

Not everyone in the chat follows this reasoning. One viewer writes: « 8 second Ice Lance, if it’s true, I’m not going to play mage ». Another feels the mage is on Blizzard’s blacklist. Venruki answers that he is, on the contrary, very optimistic about the WoW Forever mage and that every spec looks more appealing to him.

Hit and crit shuffled between the trees

The Precision talent extends what the quiet fix of October 22 started: Elemental Precision, which became three ranks of 2% back then, is now simply Precision and applies to all spells. Venruki calls it an excellent quality-of-life change. You no longer have to pick up hit points in the Arcane tree, and Arcane Focus disappears. The first Arcane row could cost up to 14 talent points, which struck him as « a bit crazy ».

Incineration goes to five ranks and adds up to 10% crit, against 6% before, to Fire Blast, Ice Lance, Arcane Blast and Scorch. Critical Mass loses two ranks and now gives only 6% crit to Fire spells. For Venruki, that is not the end of the world. Accelerant, on the other hand, finally helps Arcane mages: the talent also shortens the cast of Arcane Wrath, as it already did for Fireball and Frostfire Bolt.

Venruki gives the likely reason for these tweaks. Players complained that the mage offers no tempting talents in the first rows of the trees it does not occupy, unlike the Warlock. The goal would be to offer talents that other specs want to take. Our tour of the modified spells and talents from September 26 gives the starting point of these trees.

On his screenshot of the tree, blue squares mark the modified talents and white ones those that change place. His conclusion on Arcane fits in one sentence: « Arcane might be the most compelling reason for me to want to play mage right now ». The Frost, Fire and Arcane builds in our section stay written for the current trees, as long as nothing is confirmed. For the same reason, our talent calculator still shows the trees from before this build.

Frost Blast and Missile Barrage: the two sore points

Removing Frost Blast is the only WoW Forever mage change Venruki dislikes. The spell was very powerful: he cast it in a loop to trigger Fingers of Frost and Missile Barrage. One viewer calls it « way too strong in the tournament », meaning the PvP beta one. For him, chaining a low-rank spell at lower cost, like rank 1 Frostbolt, is among the best things about the mage. He concludes that Blizzard no longer wants that much efficiency and control at once.

Missile Barrage moves from row 1 to row 2. For Fire and Frost mages, that is a direct nerf to leveling, and Venruki accepts it: he describes the talent as one of the best in the game, too good to hand to everyone in the first row. Each spec put its two points there, whatever its tree. The blow adds to the one already dealt to the mage’s AoE farming. One viewer objects that the mage already drinks more than any other class while leveling. Venruki answers that this is normal: « It’s a drinking simulator when you’re low ».

On the Arcane side, the WoW Forever mage inherits another problem. Arcane Resilience drops to row 1, and the chat finds it useless there. Venruki changes his mind live: without Missile Barrage, having to put a lone point in the row gives something that « looks very ugly » and is clunky to play. His fix: make Improved Channeling a three-rank talent, with a viewer suggesting 2/3/2. On the other hand, he likes Improved Fire Blast in row 3: he finds it excellent and thinks a talent of that level belongs lower in the Fire tree.

PvP: Frostbite and the 12-point Fire package

A patch from the same day, spotted in the cache sent by the launch realms, groups five immobilizations into a single diminishing-returns group (each new immobilization in the group lasts shorter, then the target becomes immune for a while). It includes Frostbite, Entrapment, Counterattack, Improved Wing Clip and Improved Hamstring. Venruki notes that Frost Nova is not part of it. The stakes play out mostly in battlegrounds, and he can live with it: chaining a Warrior’s root, Frostbite then Improved Wing Clip on the same target, feels strange to him.

He also sees an upside for the Fire mage in PvP. You can now skip row 1 without the Fireball cast-time reduction. Incineration, the range increase for Fire spells, Impact and Improved Fire Blast then form a 12-point block that he finds convincing for PvP.

The rest of the build: Adventurer’s Tent, glider, elixir and gem

The foreverchanges.pro readout lists four modified items. The Adventurer’s Tent used to summon a small tent for 15 minutes. It now builds one that raises the rested experience of you and the group members sitting nearby to 20% of a level, with a 10-second cast and a one-hour cooldown, next to a campfire. The Ultralight Goblin Glider goes from a 3 to a 5 minute cooldown. The Elixir of Wisdom gives 3 Intellect for 30 minutes, against 6 for 1 hour before. The Corrupted Gemstone requires level 60.

The patch holds other lines unrelated to the mage. Aspect of the Hawk and Trueshot Aura give roughly half as much ranged attack power. The 2-minute cooldown of Blood Fury, announced for launch in the racial abilities patch of October 26, appears in the server data, and Paladins still learn Righteous Fury at level 10. The spells of the 2008 zombie plague event (infection, zombie abilities, cure) are also in the data, with no event announced. The realms stay closed until November 4: until then, none of this can be verified in game.