I made a comment to Larisa’s comment on my post that made me think about when I use certain abilities and cooldowns.
I thought I would share some and I am interested in yours. I know that circumstances and environment (raid, grinding, PvP) influence when and how you might use these skills, so I am interested in different uses and perspectives.
Speak up!
Invisibility
Enemy territory
You can use your Invisibility at 1 or 2 moments.
- In the initial rush to get past the front guards, or
- Once you are past the guards to elude “capture” (Why don’t they take prisoners?)
The advantage of 1 is that if you have enough Invisibility juice you can get in unnoticed, and maybe find a place to wait out your cooldown.
However I would recommend the 2nd one.
Shield up, Mount up, ride like the wind past the guards.
Those that you don’t outrun can be Frost Nova’d to give you another 100 yards, with maybe the occasional Blink to avoid the hits.
When you reach a safe “hiding” place, whether that’s your end destination or a good point to stop and regroup, hit Invisibility.
Assuming it was only NPCs following you, they will reset and you can have a breather before the next steps.
This is particularly useful if you do reach your destination…
- The mobs will reset allowing you to grab the quest in peace.
- If any PC’s happen to wander by at about that moment, then they might not see you reach the destination, giving you an extra 10 seconds to complete your covert operations.
Groups
30%, 50%, 70%, wipe avoidance?
Fun
An oldy but a goody.
While preparing for next trash pull, pop invisibility, and run in and dance with the (hopefully not stealth detecting) mobs. You don’t appear invisible to your party members, so there is a good chance they will rush in to help.
Slow Fall
Knock up a macro that dismounts you and casts Slow Fall. Replace your current Slow Fall button with the macro. Now you can ride and jump, knowing when you hit the Slow Fall button it will cast with out issues.
For greater distance, cast Slow Fall, mount up, run and jump off the cliff. This will get you from the Lumbermill to the Blacksmith, or the Black smith to the Mine in Arathi Basin.
Of course now new and improved with more fun for the whole family. Why try to solo the assault on the blacksmith when you can Slow Fall your whole party and do some synchronized skydiving.
Iceblock
- To shed Aggro (poor healers)?
- To remove dots/curses etc?
- To round up the mobs for your AoE assault?
Do you block and stay the full duration in the hope the enemy will forget about you, or do you instantly unblock and let rip?
Mana pots
- Mana pot or health pot?
- At the beginning of the fight or as a last resort?
- Do you chew through them like lollies when grinding to reduce downtime?
Healing pot/Healthstone
Do you trust your pocket healers, or are you the first to drop your pot or health stone?
Mana Gem
- Pop them every cooldown?
- Recreate them during battle so you can last that little bit longer?
- Wish you could hand them around?
Evocation
It used to be pot, gem, evocate, pot, gem etc…
Now with the one pot per fight policy, and shorter cooldown, do you evocate 1st?
Do you do it every cooldown rather than stopping for a drink?
Do you have a Glyph of Evocation for the health regen as well?
Dragon’s Breath
Is this in your grinding rotation, cast till the mob is close, dragon’s breath, scorch, then finish it off with a little puff of wind from your cheeks?
Do you heedlessly charge the AoE pack and Dragon’s breath just to prod an instant Flame Strike (and regret it when the pack turns it’s attention to you)?
Blast Wave
Are you a purist that loves the chaos of the knockback (like me, I love the chaos that fire brings), or are you following the line and Glyphing the knockback away?
Trinket – Damage
- Do you save your trinket for rainy days?
- Do you pop your trinket before the tank has aggro just so you can use it 2 or 3 times in a fight?
Trinket – Medallion of the Alliance/Horde
You do have one don’t you?
They give them away like party favours these days. You used to have to fight for them, not anymore.
- Do you remember to use it?
- Is it in the bank for a rainy day/ just gathering dust?
Escape Artist
- Do you remember to use this?
- Did you even drag it out of your spellbook?
Combustion
Keep it till the end to maximize those last 20 seconds, or pop it up front for the promise of an instant Pyro?
Glyph of the Penguin
- Did you bother?
- What was wrong with the sheep?
- Don’t you wish you could have sheep & penguin?
New polymorphs
- Cash burning a hole in your pocket?
- Just can’t imagine being the wicked witch of the North without a black cat?
- Got a phobia of Snakes that you just need to get off your chest?
Don’t can’t we grab some vellum, drape it around the critter of your choice and add the Glyph of the “Cow” instead?
What did I miss?
What other tricks do you have up your sleeve (no not that one, that’s got Aces and Kings, try the other sleeve)?
Gnomer and Out!
PS: Thanks to rpgoutfitter.com for making all the WoW icons available for download!
PPS: Those of you that Scoff at Blizzard for occasionally giving us new icons without any other apparent buffs), just consider that of the 5 icons for Mage abilities above, 4 are considered to be the icon for something else. Even the Gnome Racial Escape Artist icon belongs to someone else…
Phew, a lot of questions, so I’ll answer what seems to be relevant to me. I only raid at the moment so answers from that perspective.
Invisi and iceblock for me are just like in BC, aggro reducing tools. Also mirror image is another tool for this which I use, not for the damage (the images tend to die immediately) but to instantly dissappear from Omen.
It’s weird but nowadays I hardly ever have to use mana pots or evocation. I guess the mana levels in raiding gear and the several replenishment talents around take this problem away. Also, the 2 piece T7 bonus makes mana gems return 4-5k mana and give a temporary damage buff, so I try to use them as often as possible for the trinket effect at least.
Trinkets themselves seem to have gone from usable to proc based, so no need to worry about them anymore. Combustion and icy veins gets either popped early to have another shot at it late in the fight, or saved to a particular moment if the boss needs nuking. Aggro does not seem to be a major problem nowadays.
Finally, I still don’t have medallion of the horde.. and yes, I got the penguin glyph. Still, I hardly ever get to see it with everything being aoe’d down nowadays. Even at Kel’Thusad where you get to use sheep they are in some kind of shadow form making it difficult to see what the animal is!
Wait… I want a black cat tome! I must have it, the penguin is getting boring…
I use Dragon’s Breath as the mob approaches me at close range. I usually throw in a three second cast (Fireball Frostfire Bolt) while the mob is still dazed before I pop my instant Flamestrike.
And yeah, I’m a purist. The knockback was my favorite enhancement to Blast Wave. Blizzard wants me to glyph that away? Crazy!
@ Marko. 1st up thanks for taking the time for your long response.
Ohhh Mirror Image also drops aggro? Nice to have an additional aggro dump up the sleeve.
re: Pots, I have found it to be a bit of an issue when grinding, just when I get 1 or 2 too many on my Gnomish butt. Then it’s decision time… drop the pot, or just rez…
As for Tier gear… I guess I can dream (Do Gnomes dream, or is the waking world enough?)
I must get around to IV… I just haven’t seen the need… I know, there is a need, but to date my progression level hasn’t required it.
No Medallion? I only got mine so I could forget about it when it was important… something else to smack myself over the back of the head over. And I got it the hard way… Gnomes are soo silly some times.
I am avoiding the penguin… while a penguin is nice, I like my sheep (on the rare occasion I cast it over a turtle). So if I could have penguin and sheep, then I might go there.
@moomajick: Yes you can have a cat, or a snake, for a price. Though for me the ability to change your opponent into the form that should be our familiar, only to then blast it down is kind of a joke…
Kinda like:
“You Mages QQ’ing for a black cat familiar… here it is… Now kill it!”
@ Devv
I normally go with the Scorch rather than fireball, but I have been good lately and remembering to drop the flame strike… especially after my Blastwave-knock-backed mobs return to die.
G&O!