f13.net

 :cry2:

I play a mage.  I've been on sabbatical since 3.0.2 for different reasons.  With 3.0.3 I'm now out for the changes to blastwave (our best close, defensive melee attack) and the lack of extra armor.  I'll check out WotLK maybe after Jan.  I don't want to reroll because I can't invest the time for new gear and it basically would keep me from any of the new (or even TBC) raid content.

Also, with Arena Points required for all PvP new gear there's no way mages can compete.   QQ'ing for mages seems legit. Agree?

Mages are where Pallys were before the first Talent respec.  As a class they have totally lost their way from Loks and a general inability to compete in PvP (they can but not in melee -- they are supposed to be the "glass canon" by design). 

As final evidence, I see people giving up on mages from the very small amount of class blogging that happens on commercial sites like WoWInsider -- their mage guy has all but stopped posting.  And I see this across a few others.  No point in playing something that people don't want in a group ("dps" and mage are no longer synonymous).

Oh wells.

It's only interesting because it shows Blizz is having some trouble finding a niche for mages.  And I never thought they would have such difficulty in managing a class.   Comments?

No?  Have you been paying zero attention to anything anyone says that isn't MAGES SUCK QQ BUFF US QQ?  After retadins, Arcane spec mages are the #1 source of PVP complaints thanks to their strong mobile burst and resistance to magic damage.  Frost mages feature more control than ever with a 5 second stun on a 30 sec cooldown and fire mages can chuck instant pyroblasts for burst, although they're still pretty squishy.

Mages do have a niche in PVE in WOTLK.  It's called being at the top of the meters.  Yes, TBC endgame sucked for mages, etc.  It's over, it's done, move on.

From what I heard from all my friends who actually leveled in beta, was that at 80 mages where insane and there was no way they wouldnt take a nerf.

you're new right?   :oh_i_see:


edit: was @ Gobbeldygook


edit edit: den the thread

Thread necromancy for fun and profit.

I haven't been to the forums since I quitted a year ago but since I intend to resubscribe for a bit of casual playing I went to the mage forums to see what had changed in the year I was gone.

Apparently nothing at all. Still much whinging and handwringing about "Oh my god we don't pwn everybody' that drowns out the few reasonable posts about what actually is wrong with mages.

I don't know exactly what changed in the last year so my comments are surely dated but I'd like to tell you what drove me to stop playing my mage in raids nayway.

The original concept for the mage were two things:
The glass cannon. Huge dps but very squishy. Usually a build with fire and arcane. Focus on spell damage and crit while sacrificing mana, hp and armour.
Snares and CC. Much less dps but longer range, snares and slowes due to frost, better PVP viability. Usually a frost build.

Add to that one of the best CC abilities (sheep) and support with casting of food/water and you're done.

Being top DPS in raids kept getting harder and harder however as the game progressed. Burst DPS got nerfed because it collided with PVP and the amount of HP PCs had (insta-killing enemy players wasn't that well received by the player base apparently) and in raid encounters more players received more damage due to the developers no longer relying on tank and spank type fights. AoE or random attacks are bad for squishy cloth wearers.

I never ventured farther into raids than Kara and Zul Aman in BC but compared to the 40-mans in classic WOW were I did everything including Naxxramas, I had to invest an huge effort to put out viable DPS. Exactly the right gear (with standard craftables and Kara entry gear you'd either have not enough +spell damage and +crit or not enough HP to survive) all out on enchants, potions and gems. Exactly the right spell rotation and even then it was hard to actually be in front of the warlocks DPS-wise because you were OOM faster than you could say mana potion.

One of my best friends played a Warlock in the same raid group and levelled his toon with me from 1 to 70 and he never had to invest that much effort to stay on top. I expected it to be an effort to be good, but putting out your absolute best game each and every time to just barely beat the Warlocks seemed to be a bit excessive to me at some point, especially considering the fact that he rarely had to drink a potion (life tap/mana drain FTW) and had a whopping 6000 HP more than me. Also fear > sheep in some encounters.

Blizzard never had and - if the mage forum is any indication - right now don't have a real idea on how to change that. They reworked the mage class an uncountable number of times. Talent changes, itemization changes, changes to spell power, spell damage, crit, changes to how the spells worked, more talent changes etc. pp. and still they haven't gotten anywhere with it.

State of the mage seems to be like it was a year ago when I quit and that was that warlocks were better and more viable in raids unless a mage speciality (sheep, water food, dispell) was required and PVP survivability is doubtful with the lowest amount of HP no armor and a huge 'Kill me' sign on the back.

Kinda sad because for all its shortcomings I really enjoyed playing a mage but right now if I start over I'll probably reroll Warlock. It's the better solo toon and can more than hold its own in PVE and raids and you won't be hassled every five minutes for portals/food/water.

In the last few years there were quite a few ideas on how to change the mage class, unfortunately they usually get drowned in all the wining going on in the mage forum.

Edit: Spelling and exchanged PVP for PVE

Not entirely convinced about this (not that I'm QQing - it's quite possible that I'm just a totally terrible PvPer).  With little to no instant burst damage and with every class seemingly having some anti-fear ability, locks are not as god-like as they used to be in PvP.  Druids don't but they have so much healing that they tend to outlast the DoTs.  Don't think Hunters do either but they've got pet, mana drain, high DPS and stuns that basically mean you never get a fear off. The only spec that is potentially viable in PvP is any Demonology based build because the Felguard is still pretty hardcore (and has a stun charge) and Soul Link is still good for mitigating damage. Survivability is higher.  If you're affli or destro then you can do high dps (I seconded the DPS table in a pug Kara raid behind a destro lock and we were way above the next best) but pvp survivability is near zero.

But, like I said, I'm probably doing it wrong.

PvE 'locks can be amazingly good - I never use mana potions and rarely drink and only use health potions because I seem to have so many in my bags.  My survivability at the moment is high and I tend to AOE constantly with the only downtime being finding more mobs to kill.  (I am using a hybrid SL/Felguard build atm).

That should have been PVE not PVP, I have no PVP experience whatsoever

I don't PVP much but I did for fun a few times when my old guild was bored. The most meroable encounter was an ally Warsong group with a druid as only healer. That guy was impossible to take down even when under focus fire by three or four of our guys. Impressive really.

I had my first 'WTF am I playing a mage for anyway?' moment when my Warlock friend soloed his first 5-man elite quest on his own when it was still yellow.

Heh. I am definitely not that friend but yeah, being a lock is sometimes very awesome. I'm not entirely sure that it's easy for any lock to solo a 5-man elite quest but that may well depend on gear as much as anything else.  Struggled with a couple of the elite mobs in Dragonblight last night which I largely duoed with another pure demon lock.  Well, struggled with two hard hitting ones and breezed the other two which hardly caused a bump in the road. (He was 73, I'm 75, mobs were 74). However, both wipes were down to my astoundingly poor aggro management.

Speed enchant on boots + affliction lock =  :awesome_for_real:
If they forgot to make the mob immune to CoX, /faceroll.

Mages are fine.

If this is just about Mages in PvP, I've got nothing. But if it's about PvE, Mages are fine.

I think the big problem with Mage players come WotLK is that we didn't get the buff we got in BC. I swear we were just DPS gods from 60 to 70, with awesome itemization and crazy stuff like replacing low-end epics the moment you stepped into HFP. The first clue of course was the primetime billing we got in the CGI  :awesome_for_real:

With Wrath, they didn't nerf Mages. They just didn't buff us as much.

And I say we/us because I've pretty much only been a mage since launch. I suck at alts  :grin:

Arcane Mages can have some pretty scary burst in PvP, and at the moment burst is really all that matters.

because the battle is over in 3 ticks of GCD? 

check out some of the uber guilds and EJ for similar hand-wringing, or lack of it. 

 I have no idea why people play mages now.  And without QQ, what really is the difference between a mage and a warlock now?

One is one of the top pvp classes in the game, one is a mushroom.  Mages bring food and a raid buff or two, dependent on spec.  Warlocks bring health stones, summons, typically a boss debuff, and a soulstone.  They are both highly competitive on the meters, depending on the fight.

1) Play the class
2) Stop going to the official forums
3) Mages are fine. I play one
4) If Frostfire Bolt crits for 12k don't make you hard you need to reroll something else. Preferably a warlock which actually does sort of suck now.

Times have changed. Mage > Warlock.

If you really want to see gimped, play a shaman for 10 minutes, Reso = "ok", Enhance = "bearable" until snared or 2 shot (still no aggro dump), elemental = bring in da gimp.

Not in PvE.

No, but the more than one button rotation of destro warlocks shows who are the bads.


Like my guild's warlock class officer.  :ye_gods:

I like affliction myself. Currently specced SL/SL with Felguard but I was aff in BC and had fun giving the dest Shadowbolters a run for their money.

I'm not sure I actually understand that sentence. More to the point "who are the bads" is not vernacular I'm familiar with.

"People who suck at the game"

Basically, when they made you have to do more than mash one button, it separated the people who were capable of doing other things from those who weren't :)

Yes, in PvE. Suck is maybe too strong a word but mages and locks have basically switched places on the dps meters. Mages up in the top tier, locks nice and in the middle. Assuming good mages that aren't insisting on Arcane raiding, of course.

In the middle != suck

I'm seeing reports that warlocks are having good showings in raids on the PTR now that some of the crazy outliers (hunters) are being toned down.

Thanks. I thought it might have meant that but also figured it was possible that bads == good.


Having a quick look through some random WWS pages from recently, there are a lot of warlocks who are pulling 5.5 - 6k DPS in Naxx and ranking at the top of the meters.  There are quite a few reports that have locks in the middle of the rankings but only doing <3k DPS. My guess is that they need to work on either their gear, talents or rotation but basically need to do it right.  Locks aren't going to be top against well played hunters or rogues who are getting up to 7k/8k DPS but they're definitely holding their own. Mages? Comparable.

When your warlock class leader who's been fed epics in 10 mans because they're super awesome and expected to carry the raid in 25 mans can barely manage 1700 DPS on any given boss the only thing which comes to mind usually involves the word "Bad".

 :ye_gods:

1700 DPS?

I'd love to see his armory link and see what his talent spec is. Perhaps he forgot to respec after the patch?

I wish most of our DPS averaged 1700.

What?

I mean, what?

It's just not a hard game, even at the upper levels of content. It's working at McDonald's hard. I am forever shocked at how bad people can be at this exceedingly easy game.

MMO PvE is easy.  This is why I scratch my head anytime someone gets an attitude about their PvE accomplishments.  The only challenge occurs during the first run through a new encounter.  After that it's all about having the right gear and knowing the proper procedure.  It's like following a recipe easy. 

You're right, it is, and yet not everyone can cook.

That's because most people are incapabale of a) analytical thought and b) following instructions.  These are the people that we love to bitch about here at f13.net.

It's not hard to fathom this if the person is in a mix of blue and green quest rewards, a few crafted pieces and maybe a couple instance drops.  Your dps is also dependent on raid make up, type of fight and a number of other considerations including well.. how much you tend to raid. 

For example, I did my first WOLK raid last night. Luckily it was Archavon, which even with a cursory explanation is incredibly easy (dude has a small hitbox though, heh).  I haven't raided since well before the big patch toward the end of TBC (can't remember off hand) and my DK is in a mix of quest greens/blues and a two crafted epics.  Few gems, no enchants.  I wasn't planning on raiding but got yanked in and was told it was easy and fast.   Finished third on the DPS, with apparently ~1300 dps (don't know how much that covers, there was a wipe where some people did dumb things).  Heh, this is only the 4th time I've set foot in an instance in Northrend and the first with this spec.  Still, 3 people finished below me and it wasn't shocking to see half the raid get the Archavon achievement.

Now, I consider myself good at WoW.  Or at least I was back when I raided. Of course, I was usually healing so this DPS shit is somewhat new.  I don't think my DPS was an indication that all of the sudden I'm one of the bads, but more that I lack gear and experience.  Raiding, hell, grouping is a somewhat of an out of the norm activity for me.  I had to catch myself a few times from hitting Death Strike (OHHH, I have healers!).

tl;dr version:  I found your reaction somewhat elitist, but not out of character for what you tend to say in here.  :oh_i_see:  But I do agree with the overall sentiment that WoW is not a hard game.  I now fully expect raiding 201 to include jumping puzzles.

Being an elitist or snob just means you have standards, sir.

A part of how good you are is how good the people around you are.

The better players will get through an instance despite the fact they are carrying a lousy player or two on their backs. 

When you get into a hard 5 man instance those albatrosses can get really heavy, though.

Or even a 10 man.  Not to mention bad players usually get themselves or someone else killed, which changes everything. 

"Ok Glaaki, two dps down, time to triple your output!"

In 40 man raids, I could basically mentally take the night off and we'd still be fine. There were people that would place so far down the DPS or healing meters that they were obviously doing something else while randomly pressing a single key during an entire encounter.

 :ye_gods: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.  :ye_gods:

I have no idea what I do DPS-wise. I really need to get a meter. I do know that I at least beat the tanks, which is my current measuring stick.  :grin:  Unless it's some stupid AE-fest while I'm fucking around with blood spec and we have some cheater paladin tank.

DPS meter - Recount (http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/recount.aspx).

It's hard to judge your DPS outside of an actual raid, the best you can do is go hit a heroic dummy for a while.  If you're hitting around 1600 DPS, you should be fine.

There's also this resource (http://elitistjerks.com/f31/).  Warning - forum full of insane glass chewers.

There are many different reasons for the DPS fail.


Some folks are still fresh 80's, otherwise competent folks who are in desperate need of upgrades. People still wearing TBC gear are going to have shitty DPS in WotLK. (and I mean like, Kara gear, not Sunwell stuff) Once they finally GET upgrades, they'll be fine. It's just a slow process due to limited play time and random loot is random.

Some folks have pretty dang good gear, spent a lot of effort and time ensuring it was the best they could get, enchants and gems and the whole deal. Yet the new DPS 'interactivity' for all specs is just completely confusing and throwing them off. It'll take them a lot longer to figure it out then most. But they'll get up there... eventually.

Then you have the folks, who can't figure out which piece of tier armor is for their spec or who don't see the problem with using a main hand dagger and off hand mace, while being sword specced.  We try to help and guide these folks... but...  :awesome_for_real:

People still wearing kara gear just need to be slapped. There were quest upgrades to Kara gear within the first zone.

I couldn't find a damn upgrade for my phoenix bow for my hunter the entire way up, so ... it's not like EVERYTHING was replaceable right off. Now I'm 80 so I can get faction guns (waaaah, guns) at least.

Don't go getting all elitist now.

You have the night off or something?  :awesome_for_real:

They're currently:

1601 Spell Power
18.67% Spell Crit
14.94% Spell Hit
8.72% Haste

Armory link? I'm intrigued.

You missed a few quests then. You can get upgrades for the Phoenix bow as early as Zul Drak from a trivially easy quest.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39829

If  you didn't do the Nessingwary chain in Scholazar, your loss I'm afraid.
http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=12614

Training dummies are ok, but don't expect to equal the DPS you see on those in any fight where there is movement, which is almost any fight in Naxx. Getting recount is a really good idea, as it is an incredibly good tool and invaluable for letting you know how you and your groupmates are doing.


As Rasix says, it gets harder the smaller the instance, and if you have some bad players not keeping up key buffs/debuffs, then the good players will never be able to reach their full potential.

Poor, poor put-on MA.  :grin:

Nah, elitist would have been saying, "L2P asshats. That means learning where the gear upgrades are, too."



Exactly.

Look, I know a lot of people have the attitude that meters are some eletist e-peen tool.  They can be, that's for certain, but the raid leader at the LEAST should be running one.  Recount in particular is fantastic for finding out why a fight went sideways.  There's a "Deaths" tracker that will give you a log of what killed each member, which is soooo fucking helpful when your tank gets instagibbed.  Open up his death meter for the last fight and you can see the last 20+ incoming (and outgoing) damage and healing sources, when they happened  and what % the tank was at.

It also helps to see if the healers are all mistakenly healing different folks or healing over top of each other. (Overhealing) Or if one of your DPS has decided to take a snooze and just tap a few keys, winding up behind the tanks at all times.  Even though the tanks are great at doing damage these days, NO DPS should be behind the tank on a raid. If they are you know that you, as a guild, need to get that guy better equipped.  Drag him in to a few heroics or something.  Ta-da it's also a tool for helping out your guildies.

I'm using recount and training dummies now to basically gage my improvement before I get into raids for each of my characters.  I know it is the "perfect" dps for my character, gear, talents, etc., but it helps me understand where I'm at compared to others.  It at least gives me the vocabulary I need to converse with others trying to their best to improve.

Also, if I see a huge drop from the training dummies to actual DPS I can start to ask the right questions about what spell/talent/technique I'm missing to avoid such a loss of DPS when it counts the most.  Positioning, power rotations, knowing when to use cooldowns, flasks to use, etc. all go a very long way to being the best at what you do in this game.  In fact, by using all of those other things, you should technically do BETTER DPS against true opponents.  Of course that exlcludes those encounters that make you run around not hitting anything for large periods of time, but it is all relative.

The Zul'drak bow was a sidegrade at best, and I bought an AH blue bow by the time I did Nessingwary that was slightly better.

My point was that Kara epics could certainly last all the way to 80, although there is zero excuse to keep using them once 80 is achieved.

Recount has a ~3 second delay and then it stops incrementing your "time" variable in the DPS equation.  Thus if you're a class with few, low-damaging, long-lasting DoT's you're liable to get raped on movement intensive fights.

This is why you should ignore DPS for the most part and watch your "Damage Done" relative to the rest of the group.

@Rasix (http://armorylite.com/us/Burning+Legion/Callalilly)

Output might be different now, but I generally don't see her put out a lot of damage on any given fight.

Of course, in AE heavy fights, Damage Done can be IMMENSELY inflated too.  :grin:

In AE heavy fights DPS is also inflated.

But not at the same rate damage is done. Which leads to amusing meters where the tank is #1 because you lack any real AE classes.