Let's Do The Time Warp Again

As I was perusing the Cataclysm information, one of the items that really stood out to me was the new Mage spell, Time Warp.

Time Warp (level 83): Grants a passive Haste effect much like Bloodlust or Heroism to party or raid members. It also temporarily increases the mage's own movement speed. Time Warp will be exclusive with Bloodlust and Heroism, meaning you can't benefit from both if you've got the Exhaustion debuff, though the movement-speed increase will still work even when under the effects of Exhaustion.

Basically, the Devs plan on giving Mages Bloodlust/Heroism. I find this to be a very interesting choice. I blogged about the need to give Bloodlust/Heroism to another class before and suggested the Warrior to be the recipient, but the Devs decided to give it to Mages.

Bloodlust/Heroism is a raid defining buff especially in 10 mans where you can't count on having one of each class.
It is a change changer. The Devs have downplayed its role throughout Wrath, but as a 10 man raider, I know there are fights we probably wouldn't have cleared (at least on Progression) without it. 10s are currently balanced around the idea that your group may not have Heroism/Bloodlust while 25 mans are balanced around the idea that you do. That makes sense. In 10 mans you may not have a Shaman in your group, while it's fair to expect that out of 25 people, one of them will be a Shaman. The consequence is that it makes Shaman (and now Mages) very attractive to 10 man guilds and 10 man guilds that have Heroism/Bloodlust have an advantage at beating encounters. We love Heroism/Bloodlust in our group.

With another class having Heroism/Bloodlust, 10s could be tuned to basically require it. The Developers could assume Heroism/Bloodlust was available to all 10 man groups. This means you will basically need to reserve a spot for either a Mage or a Shaman in your group.

That makes giving it to Pure DPS class such an interesting choice. As I said back in November, I thought it would be better to give it to hybrid. The 'pure' dps classes are brought for their pure unhybrid taxed dps, so by that logic they shouldn't have heroism. That should have eliminated Rogues, Hunters, Warlocks, and Mages from the mix.

We have to assume the Devs will jig the numbers so all Pure DPS do about the same amount of DPS, or at least within a percentage or 2. Given that assumption, this change will give Mages a huge advantage at getting invites over other ranged DPS like Shadow Priests, Hunters, Boomkins, and their traditional nemesis, Warlocks. Mages already have some very power raid buffs like Refreshment Tables, Portals, and Arcane Intellect. Did they really need to be given the ultimate Buff trump card?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Im going to have to disagree with you on this one honor. I think mages out of all classes needed this the most.

Im pretty sure the 1st heroic LK they decided to set all the mages because they couldn't keep up with everyone else. and if i remember right at the end of BC in sunwell the high end guilds sat all the mages for locks and spriest.

This is just what mages need so this wont keep happening to them.
Lakini said…
If mages were sat because they didn't have the dps what difference would having bloodlust make? How many enhance and elemental shaman were there? That's what resto shaman are for right? This is clearly a pvp buff mages need help in arenas, no viable comps out there.

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