I suck at mage PvP - Please help!

[TheWall]

I don't know if its my talent spec or what. I've tried several and I can't seem to win a 1 on 1 contest with most classes. Some much worse than others of course hunters/warlocks. Any suggestions as to how to spec and how to fight these guys solo would be great. Thanks!

[Valmorian]

I don't know if its my talent spec or what. I've tried several and I can't seem to win a 1 on 1 contest with most classes. Some much worse than others of course hunters/warlocks. Any suggestions as to how to spec and how to fight these guys solo would be great. Thanks!

All the mages I've seen do PvP do it very differently than PvE.  You can't rely upon your non-instant spells unless you have significant distance, and getting that distance can be difficult. 

Sheeping for the initial setup is usual, and using something like Pyroblast to lead when the opponent is sheeped.  Blink is essential either to close range (in the case of hunters) or gain it. 

But then again, I've only got a 30 mage on a PvP server, so..

[Jayce]

Posting your armory profile would be helpful, and maybe what you know or have tried so far.

I too am terrible at it but getting better.  Maybe I'll have something to offer you, but maybe you already know what I know...

[pxib]

PvP with a mage is a lot like PvP by a rogue who sacrifices stealth for range. In a long fight, you lose.

Try to find people who are already mostly dead and finish them off before they see you. The longer the fight lasts, the more likely you are to lose. If they survive your burst damage, it's probably time to ice them up and run. In fact, if you see a losing fight anywhere nearby, run. Mages can run away almost as well as rogues. You probably won't win a fair 1v1 against a capable, prepared opponent.

Where mages really excel, however, is as a team player. If you've got a capable PvP group think of yourself like the main tank. You can't take hits, but you can escape if they start paying too much attention to you... and if they don't you can "taunt" by distracting and disabling anybody who's causing trouble. Freeze, polymorph, counterspell... whatever it takes to isolate and frustrate the enemy so that the DPS on your team can do some real damage..

[Merusk]

I have a low 30s horde mage, and I've found I'm far, FAR more effective if I stay in a group and sheep the biggest 'problem' at whatever fight I find myself in.   It's also great for defense, so long as your team actually y'know, pays attention.  I've protected nodes and flags for a good minute just sheeping, iceing and keeping folks otherwise occupied.

All my spells just take too damn long to cast.  If I can't arcane explosion or scorch you to death, you get sheeped.

But that's just me.. I suppose now some ubar mage will come in and explain in detail why the rest of us suck and they can pwn faces.

[Venkman]

I always had a problem 1v1 with my Fire Mage unless the fight was over quick (like a few crits). But in Battlegrounds, when traveling with a team, things were different.

I'd never beat down one target completely. I'd always distribute the death. Back when I was BG (pre-BC), most times if a class was down to 50% health, I could end them. After a while I took the philosophy of ending a fight with my biggest trinked/Talent-amp'd insta-casts rather than starting with them.

So as has been mentioned: instas are the only way to go and/or fast casting spells, and you don't want fights to last forever because we're so timer dependent.

[cmlancas]

I don't know if things have changed a bunch since I played two summers ago, but my priest that was disc/shadow, a mage, a rogue in stealth, and a hunter all used to band together and slay people as fast as we could. The hunter would hang out in the back, the mage would neutralize problems using CC, I would fear, and the rogue would pick them apart one by one.


Group pvp is much nicer than solo, especially as a mage. I know for a fact that I never lost a one on one against a mage as a priest simply because I could outlast him.

[Jayce]

The only principles I know are this (I'm deep frost, btw):

- Almost too elementary to mention - start with sheep if you can, so that you gain the initiative.

- One trick: if jumped, summon your water elemental and iceblock.  That gives them the choice of switching to the WE, distracting themselves from you, or just eating its damage.  Root them with the elemental's frost nova, de-ice, blink away and start nuking.  Optionally you can then use cold snap to allow yourself another iceblock (30 sec later) and elemental, should they kill the first one.

- Iceblock also breaks fear and other effects that cause you to lose control of your character.

- Another iceblock trick is to wait until they have cast 90% of a heavy spell, like pyroblast or soul fire, then iceblock.  If they aren't quick to notice and cancel it, they waste it.

- Did I mention iceblock is useful?

- ALWAYS use your elemental.

- ALWAYS use ice barrier as much as possible.  Also don't forget about frost/fire ward if the incoming damage is appropriate.  You can expect frost vs a shaman, so just do it.  Wait to see what mages use on you.  Use fire ward against a warlock.

- Don't bother with ice barrier against a good priest.  They'll just dispel it.  Try it once and if they dispel it, give up.

- Don't allow warriors or paladins to approach you.  Don't forget you can blink out of stuns.

- Don't forget about ice lance, particularly if you have shatter.  Even if you don't, 200 damage at a time adds up, and you can cast it while moving.

- Try to find a hunter's deadzone.  Caveat: I have fared very poorly at this.  Also they have a lot of tricks that cause us problems, like scatter shot and silencing shot, not to mention the spell pushback (interruption) from the pet.  Try to keep the pet sheeped or nova'd.

[Jayce]

Double post 

[Xanthippe]

In addition to the above, for hunters, frost nova or whatever it's called to trap the hunter, then stay inside dead zone but just outside melee reach and most importantly, keep moving around.  Hunters have to face their targets.

My marksman hunter has a little trouble with mages, because I don't have a super uber pet that can munch down and interrupt.  When I was beastmaster spec, I had little to no trouble with mages.  I felt like the hammer to their nail. 

I don't know much about mages in pvp, although I do keep a little high 20s mage for attacking horde in Hillsbrad when I want to be annoying to questers.

[Morat20]

Beastmaster Hunters are the bane of Mages. At least, I was -- pet specced for high ice, arcane, and shadow resistance, the ability to be immune to all CC for 18 seconds, and a nice stun there too. Plus frenzy and serpent's swiftness means you had instants and nothing else.

Best you could hope for was to ice-block and at least soak some of the damage, but I really could shred you in nothing flat, so it didn't matter. Your best hope is to sheep the hunter and kill the pet.

As for mage PvP -- I went pure ice-spec, and my goal was to slow down, harass, and irritate any groupings of more than two or three opponents. Blizzards, blink + FN, whatever I had to do. I kept them clustered and slow to aid AoE and to prevent them from focusing on a single target. I loved defending GY's and Flags.

[Fabricated]

Beastmaster Hunters are the bane of Mages. At least, I was -- pet specced for high ice, arcane, and shadow resistance, the ability to be immune to all CC for 18 seconds, and a nice stun there too. Plus frenzy and serpent's swiftness means you had instants and nothing else.

Best you could hope for was to ice-block and at least soak some of the damage, but I really could shred you in nothing flat, so it didn't matter. Your best hope is to sheep the hunter and kill the pet.

As for mage PvP -- I went pure ice-spec, and my goal was to slow down, harass, and irritate any groupings of more than two or three opponents. Blizzards, blink + FN, whatever I had to do. I kept them clustered and slow to aid AoE and to prevent them from focusing on a single target. I loved defending GY's and Flags.

My gnome mage was awesome in AB. Even in pre-BC blues I could rack up kills/assists without any danger to myself by casting from behind doodads that any other race would easily be spottable behind. :)

[Chimpy]

My gnome mage was awesome in AB. Even in pre-BC blues I could rack up kills/assists without any danger to myself by casting from behind doodads that any other race would easily be spottable behind. :)

You were the asshole who used the bug and sat in your base and AM'd everyone on the map by assisting the suicidal warrior weren't you?

 

[Morat20]

My gnome mage was awesome in AB. Even in pre-BC blues I could rack up kills/assists without any danger to myself by casting from behind doodads that any other race would easily be spottable behind. :)

On Argent Dawn, there was a notorious undead mage named "Millie" who had the amazing habit to hide from everyone (this was pre-TBC). She could -- and did -- solo cap SP graveyard, racked up tons of kills, and was the most annoying single player I have ever faced. She didn't exploit (that I saw, at least), but was just very good at positioning and using mage abilities.

I made it my job to track her down -- she couldn't hide from "Track Humanoid" -- and I spent several AV's playing single-man defense because of her ninja capping ability. Her plus a rogue was nasty.

[Jayce]

she couldn't hide from "Track Humanoid"

Isn't there an elixir that does this now?

[Morat20]

she couldn't hide from "Track Humanoid"

Isn't there an elixir that does this now?

Probably. It wouldn't surprise me. Last I checked -- which was a good while back, lvl 70 hunters still sucked in PvP. Sort of second-rate at everything.

[Merusk]

They don't suck, per se, they just don't bring enough to the group to place them in a 5-man over another, more specialized class.  Kind of like Shaman.  Though, at least shaman can heal, so they get picked-up more than hunters.

BM hunts still eat clothies alive for that 18s.  They can do a good job on pallies too (and I have) forcing them to blow bubbles or self-heal early on.  Too bad Viper sting sucks ass nowadays, or else we'd be really good at anti-pallydom.  Still can do a decent job between Ice Trap, etc, but it's usually too much effort.

[Morat20]

They don't suck, per se, they just don't bring enough to the group to place them in a 5-man over another, more specialized class.  Kind of like Shaman.  Though, at least shaman can heal, so they get picked-up more than hunters.

BM hunts still eat clothies alive for that 18s.  They can do a good job on pallies too (and I have) forcing them to blow bubbles or self-heal early on.  Too bad Viper sting sucks ass nowadays, or else we'd be really good at anti-pallydom.  Still can do a decent job between Ice Trap, etc, but it's usually too much effort.

How's Viper trap work out? I figure it'll just get obliterated by AoE, but I was hoping a well-placed one would annoy the crap out of people and get enough effects in before someone blew it away.

[Merusk]

If you time it right it does exactly that.  But yeah, one AOE and the snakes are all dead, even a pally concecrate.   They're quick and seem to poison with every hit though, so you can get a good number of effects on one or two folks at a time.

[Fordel]

Hunters are designed to work in clear spaces with good LoS and the ability to kite. Arena's remove all of that, so it's a small wonder Hunters are doing so poorly in them. Combine that with the trinket changes and PvP/Arena Gear, not much is going right for Hunters in the arena game. The difference between a PvP'd gear Mage and a PvE'd one is substantial.


Our 6k HP, 0 Resilience, Fire Mage is definitely dead meat to a Beast Hunter.

Our 9k HP, 150+ resilience, Frost Mage? He only notices the hunter when the pet stuns him.


As the gear goes up, the Hunter and his Pet go down in effectiveness.

[Morat20]

Hunters are designed to work in clear spaces with good LoS and the ability to kite. Arena's remove all of that, so it's a small wonder Hunters are doing so poorly in them. Combine that with the trinket changes and PvP/Arena Gear, not much is going right for Hunters in the arena game. The difference between a PvP'd gear Mage and a PvE'd one is substantial.


Our 6k HP, 0 Resilience, Fire Mage is definitely dead meat to a Beast Hunter.

Our 9k HP, 150+ resilience, Frost Mage? He only notices the hunter when the pet stuns him.


As the gear goes up, the Hunter and his Pet go down in effectiveness.

When I took a break, I noticed that Hunter itemization just went...sideways. I geared up a bit as I went along, but there didn't seem to be a whole lot of really nice gear unless I was cutting edge raiding. Never did see the Arena awards (arena was after I left), but even now I get the impression that Hunter power just didn't scale with everyone else's.

Which to one extent, made sense -- 60 Hunters after 2.0 were lethal. It was insane. It's just by the time 70 hit, it wasn't that gear and progression had placed us back into the realm of sanity -- it was that we ended up "meh" in about everything. About all Hunters can do is steady, steady, steady moderate DPS for a very long time. Which is nice for big boss fights -- in PvP, however, we don't seem to have much of a role. Can't do burst DPS, our crowd control is minimal, our Pet isn't all that annoying (Even BM specced), we have no healing except for the pet -- and the fights are too short for our only strengths to ever show up.

[Fordel]

Some classes just don't have a real role in the Arena's, their toolbox isn't equipped for it. Notably it is currently the classes that require mobility to function and lack effective means to survive focus fire while remaining effective. (Conversely the classes that can stand right in the muck of things while being being beat on are the ones doing the best).

A hunters survival is based around the idea of keeping things away from the hunter and being able to out maneuver bad guys. No where to move in the Arena's and the LoS games being played screw over a hunter readily. Druids have similar issues where they have no room to run and can't avoid being focused, so their only recourse is to go bear and turn into the teams Healing Sponge. Rogues to a lesser extent have the focus fire problems and the lack of sneak time once the initial stealth is busted out of. As classes obtain more survivability while remaining effective under focus, they become more prominent. Again, Small wonder Warriors and Paladins are required for any competitive 5v5 team 

Hunters fare so much better in the Battle Grounds for the most part. Their toolbox can be utilized then.

[Morat20]

Hunters fare so much better in the Battle Grounds for the most part. Their toolbox can be utilized then.

Yeah, I had a blast in WSG leaving my kitty on prowl by the flag and running to the roof (generally left an frost-trap behind). Pop Aspect of the Beast, wait for their idiot to grab the flag. They trigger the frost trap (big snare on everyone), kitty goes red and stuns them, and I blast the shit out of everything in the area. It's fun. Viper trap would be almost as nice (or paired with it). I used mithral frags to good effect (when they all cluster in the tunnel chasing a flag-carrier, a 3 second AoE stun is nice).

In AV, I just pew-pew-d away from the tops of towers and such. Multi-shots into people trying to flip the flag, generally used the pet to good effect. If it wasn't for that "pets rez dead/dying" bug, I'd have played BG's a lot more. (Did they fix that?)

I'm about to resub, so I'm hoping Blizzard will do something to buff hunters a bit. As it is, I'll probably go back to levelling my shaman.

[Fordel]

I want to say they have fixed the pet rezzing bugs, but I don't play a hunter or lock as a primary, so I don't really know 100%. It sure SEEMS like hunters and locks all have their pets in AV though 


Snake trap is a really good at disrupting the flags in AB and AV, since you can't capture the node with something hitting you and each individual snake has it's own attack. The various poisons they apply are also quite nasty, includes some snare poisons. Tracking is not to be underestimated either. Being able to find the FC in WSG, or being able to see inc from over the horizon in AB and AV.


The only issue with the BG's now, is that they are simply token dispensers and honour farms. Arena's have taken priority for "real" PvP, so the BG's are gotten stupider then usual as of late. The one good thing is you rarely have to deal with Set Groups steam rolling PuGs anymore, little incentive for the Set Groups once they get all their honour items within the week. AV has a huge AFK issue though, not uncommon to join games with half of the players just idling in the starting caves, hitting the jump button every so often to not AFK out.

The honour items just cost too much for their relative worth compared to the Arena Items or PvE equivalents, so you'll get people finding every way possible to maximize honour gains with minimal effort. It isn't too different from the old HWL honour farm, but now way more people do it since they'll actually be able to get items. Hurrah for a reward system balanced off of hardcore PvP teams farming it up during the first week of release, the same teams that haven't touched the system since that first week  .

I think I'm going too far off topic though, so enough of my ranting 

[cmlancas]

The only issue with the BG's now, is that they are simply token dispensers and honour farms. Arena's have taken priority for "real" PvP, so the BG's are gotten stupider then usual as of late.

Hehe. Are gotten stupider. You are a clever, clever man.

[Morat20]

I'll take stupider BG's. I was sick of getting steamrolled by Horde teams (I played PuGs -- if I was lucky, I'd be paired with two or three guildies).

[Merusk]

Yes pets rez in bgs now.  No I don't know how they do in BGs since I don't bother with them anymore, because of what Fordel outlined.  I get better gear with less headaches just losing my 10 arena matches a week.

[Morat20]

Yes pets rez in bgs now.  No I don't know how they do in BGs since I don't bother with them anymore, because of what Fordel outlined.  I get better gear with less headaches just losing my 10 arena matches a week.

How does the arena gear thing work? (My main is only 61 -- I quit not long after TBC). Hell, how does the arena work?

[Fordel]

The Arena is a modified Elo rating system. There are three brackets, 5v5, 3v3, 2v2. Team DeathMatch basically, no respawns. Your team can have twice as many members as the brackets size for subs, so 10, 6, 4 for each respective bracket. Arena Teams are like mini guilds, you have to buy a team charter, the team gets its own name and its own emblem (though you can't wear that emblem as a tabbard sadly) and you don't have to be in the same guild to join any team.

Teams require at least 10 games played a week in their bracket in order to qualify for Arena Points. Members on a team must have at least 20% activity in numbers of game played by the entire team (I'll double check that number, I am not 100% certain on it). You are rewarded Arena Points once a week (Tuesday downtime) based on how high (or low) your team is ranked. There are many http://www.wowwiki.com/Arena_point_calculator sites that can help you guesstimate your point value. You use Arena Points to purchase gladiator armor, weapons and items. Glad items are tier 4-5+ equivalents but directed towards PvP. The 3v3 and 2v2 brackets receive reduced points compared to the 5v5 bracket of equivalent rating. You can be on a team for each bracket, but you only receive Arena Points for the team with the highest point return for that week.

The Arena itself currently consists of three playing fields. One is a open circle with 4 LoS blocking pillars near the ends. The second is a square with a elevated platform along the middle and a pair of pillars to either side of it, all block LoS. The Third is a open graveyard with a large tomb in the middle that blocks LoS but can be climbed. All three are quite small so fighting is close quartered. As the match progresses, power up gems will appear in the arena at designated points that allow the user to see stealth-ed players, This is to avoid a stealth'er from delaying a game forever by hiding.

The Arena's have special restrictions on items and abilities. No class ability with a cooldown longer then 15 mins is usable. No consumables are usable either (no health potions, grenades etc.) Exceptions include mage conjured food and water, warlock health stones, special PvP water purchased from the PvP vendor in your capital city and band-aids. Upon entering the Arena's pre-match waiting area, all buffs are stripped, so only the buffs available to your teams class choices are available. Inside the pre-match waiting area, all mana/energy/rage costs are zero, to expedite buffing. I'm not certain, but I believe warlocks also don't require soulstones during this pre-match period. Other reagents apply as normal.

All three brackets are ruled by FOTM 'ideal' team setups and superior gear. It's only at the top most rankings of the Arena's does actual player skill (what little of there that is in WoW) begin to differentiate the good teams from the stubborn. The good thing about the system is even the worst teams can net 300+ points a week, and will be able to pick up some kind of Glad item in a month or so, which isn't ideal, but neither is it completely horrible. Pushing even marginally above the average ranking of 1500ish will net you considerable gains.


From my perspective, the largest downside to the Arena is a fair number of classes and specs are just worthless. Warrior isn't arms? Your team will suffer. Paladin isn't Holy?  Mage isn't Frost? Shaman IS enhance? etc...

To say nothing of the classes, regardless of spec, that become liabilities for their teams.

[Morat20]

Yeah, I can understand why hunters eat it there -- LOS alone would kill us.

[Zetor]

However, remember that most enemies will need LOS on you, too. My pally's 3v3 is shadowpriest+hunter+pally (sub in a feral druid for the spriest sometimes), and we do pretty well against a variety of teams. The idea is that I stick close to the hunter, so if they try to get out of his LOS, they won't be able to counterspell/pewpew me either. We aren't uberl33t, but an 1650-ish rating after one week with blue/green gear [at least on my end] isn't that bad. :p

Now in 2v2, I can see it being a pain, you can have people just running around a pillar endlessly while beating on you. In 3v3 and 5v5, unless the other team is REALLY defensive, LOS abuse is only a huge problem on the blade's edge map [the one with the elevated bridge-platform and two pillars]. IMO, anyway.


-- Z.

[Fordel]

However, remember that most enemies will need LOS on you, too.

Which is one of the big issues, 'most' not all. One of the many reasons why Heavy DoT teams are so dominant, especially in the smaller brackets. Lock is draining you, run behind a pillar, well that did absolutely nothing 

[Morat20]

However, remember that most enemies will need LOS on you, too. My pally's 3v3 is shadowpriest+hunter+pally (sub in a feral druid for the spriest sometimes), and we do pretty well against a variety of teams. The idea is that I stick close to the hunter, so if they try to get out of his LOS, they won't be able to counterspell/pewpew me either. We aren't uberl33t, but an 1650-ish rating after one week with blue/green gear [at least on my end] isn't that bad. :p

Now in 2v2, I can see it being a pain, you can have people just running around a pillar endlessly while beating on you. In 3v3 and 5v5, unless the other team is REALLY defensive, LOS abuse is only a huge problem on the blade's edge map [the one with the elevated bridge-platform and two pillars]. IMO, anyway.


-- Z.

I don't see others eating it like a hunter does. First, I'm getting "small map" here -- which means less room between the hunter and his target. Hunters only do damage between 8 and 41 yards (what we do in melee isn't really damage. It's shit).

Our only DoTs are weak and work best paired with others (Viper is a bitch if someone ELSE is mana-draining you). We need space to kite, because once we lose that minimum 8 yard range we are well and truly fucked. We have minimal crowd-control (3 second stun, basically) unless you're stupid enough to hit our traps (arming times now). Our flares blow (easy to avoid now), our Mark is dispellable by vanishing rogues (great thought there), our burst damage is non-existant. TBW is nice, but it doesn't do shit if I can't shoot you because you won't stay in LOS.

I can think of two possible ways a hunter can make himself useful in 5v5. Get a scorpion to spam poison DoTs, making it tougher to remove the "Bad" poisons, or play the role of "crappy mage" for ranged assist trains. Or use a fast-attack pet to irritate the clothies, so they can't cast as easily.

But why would you take a Hunter when you could have any other damage dealer? It seems even worse on 2v2 and 3v3 games, where burst damage is even more critical.

Mages, rogues, and warriors are all better DPS. Warlocks can ignore LOS entirely with their DoTs, and their pets are almost as good as a BM specced hunter -- if not better. Looking at the top teams for all brackets, I don't see many Hunters. It appears we're either dead last, or close to it, in terms of team makeup.

I just don't see any reason to bring a Hunter to an arena match. We don't offer anything.

[Merusk]

Yes, hunters eat it mightily against anyone with sense.  However, most teams DON'T have sense I'm able to run around with impunity until the healers are dead most times. I've picked-off some twits who chase me rather than stick close to their healers because they tried to LOS me but LOS'd their healer instead.  Oops.  It also helps that I'm beast, and people ignore the kitty who does nice damage even when he's not big & red.

If we had a pally we'd be a better team, as only teams with pallies or which massively outgear us seem to be spanking my current team hard.  However since most teams have pallies now, we're losing more often than not.  Key to success?  A healer in plate with 50% damage mitigation, 90% disrupt resist and low-cost heals that you have to kill twice.  Ignore 'em and they heal their team.. try and kill 'em and their team kills your healers then you.

Fuck i hate pallies.

[Fordel]

Yes, hunters eat it mightily against anyone with sense.  However, most teams DON'T have sense I'm able to run around with impunity until the healers are dead most times. I've picked-off some twits who chase me rather than stick close to their healers because they tried to LOS me but LOS'd their healer instead.  Oops.  It also helps that I'm beast, and people ignore the kitty who does nice damage even when he's not big & red.

That's just a reflection of the lower rankings and under geared people. The big red kitty isn't an issue once you start wearing 150-200+ resilience and have 10k HP unbuffed. Hunter's just don't have the tools for the Arena, not if you want to be competitive.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/07/12/this-week-in-the-arena/ and the original post http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=174763906&postId=1744694952&sid=1#0

Shows who is grouped with what in each bracket. Overall Druids, hunters and shamans seem to round out the bottom end. With most druids and shamans being resto.