More of me to love

Today at work was busy, so busy in fact that I wished that I could clone myself.  Not so easy in “real life”, but if you are a Mage in World of Warcraft, it’s easy, peasy, and just a hint of Japanesy.  When I found out that WOTLK and level 80 would bring about a new spell for mages called Mirror Image (MI for short), stock prices for  Depends Undergarments went through the roof.  Despite MI rating off the charts  on the Cool-o-meter, many mages either don’t know how to use MI correctly or don’t bother at all.  Granted, my pack of boys that I affectionately refer to as Multiking can’t exactly deal a one round knockout to Kel Thuzad, but when used correctly they just may be enough to get an encounter over the proverbial hump or take that annoying Ret Pally out for the count in Wintergrasp once and for all.

Raiding:
For me, using MI in a raid is a no brainer when done at the right place and time.  Your pack of not so mini-me’s are always ready to kick some booty, but that doesn’t mean that it’s always appropriate to whip em out.  Some fights have environmental challenges that aren’t safe for your boys to walk around in, like Heigan the Unclean in Naxxramas for example during the floor phase.  Unleash your magical soldiers down there and they will be dead before the first frostbolt leaves their hands.  If you are still on the platform, however, punch the go key and let em have at  it.  They will fight the good fight for you until they die (which unfortunately for them is a mere 30 seconds later).

One way to squeeze slightly more DPS out of your friendly neighborhood multimages is to use them in conjunction with heroism from one of the raid Shamans.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but MI works the same as the Druid spell Force of Nature.  Force of Nature unleashes a hit squad of Treants a-la Lord of the Rings to turn their enemies into kindling.  If your Treants, or in our case, multimages are out and fighting when Heroism is cast, they receive a DPS buff from it just like the rest of the raid.  Again, we aren’t talking about jaw dropping DPS here, but if you are fighting to beat your mage class lead in the raid on the damage meters for bragging rights like I am, then every little giblet on the ground counts.  One last tip for raiding and MI.  Cast your Mirror Image as early during each encounter as possible.  If its a long fight like Patchwork or Kel Thuzad, you may be able to last through the cooldown and call them out twice.  Not bad true believers, not bad at all.

PVP:
Let me start off by saying I am not the world’s best PVP’er, nor am I the 2nd, 3rd, well…  you get the picture.  I would also like to say from the very begininng that I hate Ret Pallies in PVP. HATE THEM.  I hate them so much that I try to turn my hate into a nuclear, acidic cone of bile and venom that is literally melting the monitor right now.  But I digress…
I have learned to enjoy PVP, and have been working on a nice PVP set from the Archivon raids that we’ve done and all the useless Tokens of Valor I have lying around at this point.  I know, Mr. Arena king, I see you back there screaming and laughing at me that resilliance isn’t worth anything in WOTLK and that I should focus on burst, blah blah blah.  That is a discussion for another blog, but let’s get back to the topic of MI, shall we?  I have learned that calling out the MI boys during PVP can cause just enough confusion or damage to help you finish off that curse-slinging warlock or escape to the hills to fight another day.  At the moment, MI mages will either cast damage spells or try to get off a polymorph spell on those in your general vicinity.  I have found that there are two good times to use this spell during PVP, when you are close to the kill but having a hard time bringing it home, or when you are about to take a nice long dirt nap and need to get away.  MI can cause just enough confusion to let you get that instant-cast invisibility spell off so you can run away while cursing Ret Pallies under your breath.   One trick that I really love comes when the person that I’m fighting is about to die and so am I.  I will try to blink ahead of them, cast Mirror Image then Ice Block and sit back drinking a frosty one while Multiking finishes them off.  It doesn’t always work, but when it does it sends my chuckler into spasms for quite a while.

I hope that this has shed some light or at least provoked some thought on one of my favorite spells in the game.  The next time Mr. Pally comes knocking at your door, flip him the mage finger, pop MI and let the magic happen.

~ by arcaneasylum on March 27, 2009.