With the rollout of the 1.4.0 patch, many mages are excited by the many new changes. We'll take some time to go over a few of them! Changes mentioned in the last news update won't be mentioned again.
Arcane Brilliance (Level 56) is a new mage spell that can now be learnt from an item drop. The spell costs 3400 mana, uses a reagent Arcane Powder (9s, stacks in 20), and gives 31 Int for 1 hour to the target's group. So far, this item has been reported to drop from Stratholme and Dire Maul. However, it is a WHITE item, meaning anyone can ninja it...
Be advised on a PvP server that you might encounter difficulties leveling or questing the next few days.... Honor System... *cough cough*
Before you consider the changes to Improved Mana Shield a nerf (now increases mana absorption efficiency, 1.6 mana per damage at Rank 2), there is a new PvP reward glove that allows you to absorb +285 more damage. Still, it kinda sucks how a skill is "moved onto an item".
Improved Scorch debuff lasts for 15 seconds, and requires at least 7.5s to build it up to 10% (2% per cast). Buff or nerf?
Curse of Tongues (Warlock curse) now affects spells cast time AFTER any talents that reduce casting time (instead of before). What this means is that Arcane Explosion will now still be instant-cast should a Warlock or some other mob throw this curse on you, whereas it previously wasn't.
You may now Ice Block out of Blind (Rogue skill).
Improved Frostbolt talent may not be working for some of you mages out there on Frostbolt Rank 10... Many of you will still find your frostbolts casting at the full 3.0 seconds for that particular rank (OMG!).
Blizzard has reviewed the changes to PvP chilling/freezing diminishing returns and decided to only implement the diminishing returns on Frost Nova (and not Cone of Cold or Frostbolt). This means that there should be no significant changes, if any at all to most PvP encounters as the Frost Nova cooldown far exceeds 15 seconds, and would only apply should there be more than one mage (or Cold Snap is used).
There is a huge bug affecting frozen mobs that teleport right next to the mage after it unfreezes (it can affect all mages, but generally Frost mages see it more due to Frostbite). However, this is just a visual bug, but it is still annoying as players might lose the ability to target it or cast spells at it until the mob resyncs with the server location. Read about it here.