Coming back to WoW after 4 month layoff- state of mages?

[Triforcer]

I'm coming back to my 58 arc/fire mage after taking a break this summer.  I care nothing for group PvP and just want to get back to my enjoyable strategy of cruising high populated zones to poly people off their horses and fight them 1v1.  How viable are mages 1 on 1 these days?  The only people I couldn't consistently beat in an even up (non-ambush by either side) situation last April were druids (damn poly immunity), reaper warriors (charge, blink, intercept, dead) and sometimes ambush rogues.  Who will I be wtfpwnt by currently?  I've heard disturbing rumors about invincible hunter pets (is EVERYTHING immune to poly nowadays?)

[Kail]

(is EVERYTHING immune to poly nowadays?)

Just about.  I hear mages are still pretty good at PvP (don't have a high level one, myself), but the high end loot is starting to tip things a bit towards warriors and other, more gear-dependant classes, from what I can gather.

[Evil Elvis]

More and more guilds are running MC/BWL, so you're going to run into more and more people with fire resist gear.  People breaking sheep is probably less of a problem right now than right when the PvP trinkets came out, since there are alot of really good, new trinkets out there competing for your two slots.

But mudflation is becoming more noticable, and if you're not in an MC/ZG capable guild, or don't pvp/bg enough to get decent gear, you're going to have a hard time killing any well geared people as a mage. Hunters did get a big buff.  If they put 31 points in Beast Mastery, their pet becomes immunc to CC for 15 seconds, and it does 2x damage.  Unless you're a frost mage and can iceblock through it, it's enough to tear you a new asshole all by itself.  Not to mention that cats can now stealth.  Have fun when that shadowmelded Night Elf sends his cat after you, but remains hidden.  Paladins also have a ranged version of execute which hits for 500+ damage, and does 2x crit damage.  Honestly, aside from rogues who don't gank you at low hp/mana, there really isn't a class in the game - played by a semi-competant player - that we have an advantage over.  If you thought that reaper-wielding warriors were a pita, wait until every lvl60 warrior you come across is clubbing you over the head with an Unstoppable Force, or something like this

Druids and Priests are both getting reviewed before mages, so it's going to be a while before there's any real improvements in our 1 on 1 ability.  We're supposed to get invisiblity back, but who knows if that's still happening at this point.  I wouldn't expect anything for us before next year.

Still, it can be a funn class to play.  As much as I hate Blizzard for making me have to worry about caster itemization, we're starting to see some decent gear springing up for us, so we're able to improve once we hit 60 somewhat.  But if you really want to have fun in small scale pvp, you should roll a rogue/shadow priest.  They're far more capable than mages in 1 on 1, and easy to gear to a competative level

[Sairon]

With a Fire/Arcane build and some +fire dmg you can kill pretty much everything 1on1 before they get a chance to survive, especialy if you use some cooldowns. http://zeb.rsn.bth.se/duels.wmv is a very old movie of a mage dueling, you can achive much higher dmg than this dude today, even though I doubt it's possible without access to MC loot.

[Zetor]

There is some mage love in ZG and MC, but it doesn't scale as well as melee weaponry. If you do MC, definitely grab a Talisman of Ephemeral Pwnage.. there's a similar one you can get from ZG as well, and they stack. Add Arcane Power to the mix and you'll become crazy powerful for 15 seconds or so.


Hunters are going to kill you dead now IF they aren't 31 marksmanship. If they're 31 survival, you'll get a wyvern sting in the face, if they're 31 beastmastery, their un-CCable pet with 120 frost and fire resists will solo you. 31 marksmanship hunters are beatable, unless they have an epic ranged weapon.

Rogues aren't really any more powerful.. there are a few new daggers, but the shanker is still a good baseline. Well ok, the grand marshal daggers are absolutely insane, but then again that's true of all epic pvp gear. You shouldn't have a problem unless they get an insane crit streak.

Warriors.. yeah. As a fire mage, they have a shot at beating you if they're smart and intercept AFTER you blink. You also can't use rank 1 frostbolt anymore since resists scale with ranks (you need to use the highest rank or you'll get resists). Stuff like the Unstoppable Force (which every warrior has now) CAN kill you before you get out of the stun, if they get a proc. And the new 2-handers from BWL / ZG are just obscene. If you spec ice however, they'll just get kited to death. Otherwise, you will be hard pressed to get through their MC gear-enhanced 250+ (!) fire resistance.

Warlocks are going to kill you a lot if they're demonology specced with a felhunter out. +60 resists to everything at level 60 = sad panda. Your only chance is to keep them CC'd somehow and kill the felhunter first. Of course they'll just resummon a 2nd one, nm. Non-demonology specced warlocks are pretty darn nasty too.

Priests... same as always. Depending on spec, you can burst-kill them or die.

Pallies.. the new ranged execute spell is tricky, but if you lose to a paladin, you need to reevaluate your existence.

Shaman.. yeah, they still pwn every cloth class.


1v1 mages aren't THAT good imo. Where you really shine is group pvp.. Alterac Valley and Arathi Basin are mage playgrounds. WSG too, to some extent. Oh yeah, being ice-spec helps. :p


-- Z.

[Triforcer]

There is some mage love in ZG and MC, but it doesn't scale as well as melee weaponry. If you do MC, definitely grab a Talisman of Ephemeral Pwnage.. there's a similar one you can get from ZG as well, and they stack. Add Arcane Power to the mix and you'll become crazy powerful for 15 seconds or so.


Hunters are going to kill you dead now IF they aren't 31 marksmanship. If they're 31 survival, you'll get a wyvern sting in the face, if they're 31 beastmastery, their un-CCable pet with 120 frost and fire resists will solo you. 31 marksmanship hunters are beatable, unless they have an epic ranged weapon.

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Public service announcement- Hunter pets in zerk mode are NOT un-CCable.  One item continually slips through the cracks of every patch- unmissable, undispellable by spell or trinket, and GUARANTEED to last 30 seconds assuming no damage is done.  The ONLY thing it doesn't work against in PvP is the Paladin's Immunity shield.

The Goblin Rocket Helmet.  Learn it, live it, love it.

On my first day, in every fight where I started at full health (even when I got ambushed) I beat the 58-60 hunters who attacked me (about 5 unique hunters, 8 total attacks)  They all went exactly like this:

1.  Pet attacks and hunter attacks simultaneously.  I Helmet the zerked pet, blink toward hunter and sheep him.

2.  I'll admit that even at this point I am usually pretty beat up.  Bandage/potion if necessary.  Pet is in dazed stupor while hunter mashes command buttons for his invincible kitten.

3.  Mana Shield (to eat the Ray), Arcane Power, Gnomish Death Ray, PoM, Pyro, Fireblast, CC, AE until dead (I stand VERY close to the hunter during all this, obviously).  If they get a potion off, usually AEing until Fireblast is back up is enough to kill them.  This combo, before the AE, gets off an average of 3k, and the 350 damage AEs finish them off.

4.  There is no way in hell this fight lasts 30 seconds, so the pet never even enters the equation. 




I'm frankly surprised this hasn't been patched, but the Goblin Rocket Helmet remains the BEST pvp item in the entire game for 1v1 or small group pvp.  I owned the one lock I faced because I just helmeted the felhunter.  And when it was cooled down today my Net-o-matic and Invisibility Cloak filled in quite nicely (rogues get confused when YOU disappear mid-combat, invis pots don't let you do that but the Cloak does).  My 1v1 pvp style is completely the opposite of almost every mages (because I stay right on top of them the entire fight) and judging from today it still serves me well.   

[Zetor]

Yeah, I have a rocket helmet on all 3 of my characters.

It also has a 30 minute cooldown... I don't like to rely on it. The only engineering item I use religiously is the net gun, and that backfires wayy too often.



-- Z.

[Zetor]

Oh btw, I suggest being on the lookout for a fire aura thing around players (or use detect magic)... if the hunter had his fire reflector trinket equipped (I know I always equip one on my rogue when about to gank a fire mage...) and just mashed the button while sheeped, YOU would've been the one who was dead after the pom pyro.


-- Z.

[Strazos]

I still don't see why hunter pets were buffed so much. Making them practically invincible killing machines is silly. The pet is there to help the hunter, not do all the work for him.

[Ironwood]

Welcome to the EndGame.  Where pets were being regularly thrown through walls on the first hit.

[MrHat]

I still don't see why hunter pets were buffed so much. Making them practically invincible killing machines is silly. The pet is there to help the hunter, not do all the work for him.

They needed a buff.  Seriously, before this patch, hunter's in 1v1 combat were the whipping boy.  Now, they're a little overpowered.

Personally, I think that the 31 points Beastmaster skill needs to be taken to a 3min or even 5min cooldown, to put it on par with other classes 31 point awesome skills (rogue's come to mind).

Three minutes sounds about right, same cooldown as coldblood.  Thanks for the tip on the rocket helm, my shaman has 160 engineering and is slowly working his way up.

Sidenote:  Purge and Earthbind are getting resisted WAAAY to much, something about the way the new resist rates work (level of spell not level of casting character).  It treats Purge and EB as L1 spells, so it gets resisted 5-10 times in a row.

[Evil Elvis]

Some fairly accurate stuff

 I heard that rogues vanish now removes fire dots, so that's another mage nerf to the only class we're still strong against when on equal terms.

Good warriors are about 50/50 to my frost mage if they get their charge off on me.  Charge->Hamstring->Intercept is crazy nasty when you're getting hit for 700+ damage every swing on an arms/fury warrior.  If all my cooldowns are up, I'll likely win, but that's a big 'if' when in a battleground.  If I attack at range before they can charge, the fight's heavily in my favor.

And smart pallies w/ good gear (TUF) who heal early and often can kill you, they just need to wear down your mana pool.

[Zetor]

Nah, vanish doesn't break fire dots. What it does however, if the rogue vanishes while the fireball is in mid-air, the fire dot / ignite won't affect the rogue. [before 1.7, the fireball wouldn't hit the rogue, but the dot portion would, thus exposing him]


-- Z.

[Merusk]

Yeah, what zetor just explained is probably the biggest whine I've seen from people who have the least understanding of things.  Then when you try to explain that the actual mechanics are different, they have 100 stories of how you're wrong and they got 'wtfpwned' by an "uberrogue" and they know what they're talking about because they've been to MC and you're still wearing green gear, stfu noob.

Really.. is it any wonder I was wanting a chance to play on a PVP server?

[Evil Elvis]

Nah, vanish doesn't break fire dots. What it does however, if the rogue vanishes while the fireball is in mid-air, the fire dot / ignite won't affect the rogue. [before 1.7, the fireball wouldn't hit the rogue, but the dot portion would, thus exposing him]


-- Z.

That makes sense.  I didn't understand why they would let it break the dot, but I'm beyond trying to comprehend some of their changes.

Thanks for the info.

[naum]

It's been four or five months since I've been active in WoW.

Periodically, I will get the urge to play and then proceed to DL the newest patch version and apply. While waiting, I'll engage in some other online or offline activity and by the time I return to the character entry screen, I've totally lost the desire to play.

Same sequence repeats itself about every three weeks.

Guess I should cancel my account there.