Responding to a forum post regarding Empowered Talents and their role in Patch 2.0.6 for World of Warcraft, Blizzard guy Tseric said that the said talents are, in essence, mandatory. This is partly in order to make up for the 10% damage nerf to Improved Fireball and Improved Frostbolt that hit Mages in 2.0.6.

"Devs were just shaving off a little damage from the end-game scenario, as they felt the dps was a little out of line with where they would like it," Tseric said. "It's fairly obvious that it's a removal of dps from primary nukes, so there isn't much more to elaborate on."

While the nerfage may be a bit harsh for some people (I'm thinking frost build Mages here), there are a few things that make up for them: Counterspell doesn't trigger the Global Cooldown anymore (Tseric says it was "a philosophy decision", whatever that means) and Mages now get a kind of caster defense for PvP situations in the form of Mana Shield.