I recently rerolled from Mage, after underperforming for a while due to the class being neglected for months, ever since the release. And now I hear some good news about the class in general. Saying that the Rune of Power (which was the worst thing to have possible for a DPS, with all the mandatory movement, it was a great DPS loss for casual players and chillers in general.) is now being removed and there is going to be more changes to the class. Will this class change—change anything at all? In terms of the gameplay (for either of the specs), do you think returning to Mage is worth it, or would you stay a chill class such as Hunter instead—for someone who just wants to lay back and chill and achieve some decent numbers—even push the top meters with decent gear. I do not know how big of a change this will be, and I know that no one really knows. Just asking for people’s opinions on this. I really like the class, but it is not really worth playing it for someone like me if I can’t get in to Mythic+ groups and even raids by some guilds (those who are not looking for a/another Mage for the class is pretty much underplayed and is not performing well except in the hands lf a skilled player, which is out of the topic here.) just because I’m playing a Mage, a non-meta class.
Would also appreciate some advice from Mage mains if your answer or/and your opinion on this matter is positive. I play Frost in general, because it’s the only spec I can play without breaking too much sweat, it gets boring after awhile—but sure is worth it if you’re doing good DPS. So, my issue is indeed survivability, then AoE damage (really falling behind Hunters at this—for BM, it is, for instance; Multi-Shot + Kill Command (prio) + ST abilities—and you do insane DPS. But when it comes to Mage, it really falls behind most classes and I seem to be really underperforming with it (ilvl 417, by the way, my DPS on AoE still sucks.) and ST in raids mostly, with me usually ending up on the 8th/10th place in the meters. There just seems to be no way to outDPS most classes, and with all the movement, as I said, it gets nearly overwhelming. I played a few other classes—none of them felt this weird. I did okay on those, but Mage really seems to be in an odd spot for the time being. I look forward to hearing your opinions and advice on this.
I rerolled a mage about 1 week ago, and I’m a ilevel 416 right now but I can’t seem to do damage properly… My main is a Sub rogue, it’s a little bit more complexe rotation they have than the frost mage I’m playing right now, but still, my damage are nowhere to be found… I don’t know if I’m messing too many things up in my rotation, but I know the more important with that /frostboltflurry/ice lances/icy veine thing. And seeing that RoP is nearly gone is a realief but I don’t really know if it’s going to push the mage’s damage that high up =/
I have watched some guides from top Frost Mage players regarding this. But it seems to me the rotation revolves around 4-5 buttons at max. When it should be the same as it is for Hunters—on the very contrary. 0 DPS. And the soon-to-be-removed Rune of Power made it all worse, chaining you unto a stupid 9 yard circle that you have to stay in to deal proper damage.
I played mage for 15 years, and apparently blizzard hate mages, because they only got worse and worse during the years. And for arena it doenst make it better that you have melees like warriror with 40 yards jump and charge, and mages still has 1 20 yard blink. All melees has become melee-casters Rettri with 30 yards range, dk with 2 death grip etc. And you still wear cloth as mage lol while every melee just flying around…
Been playing mage pretty much since release of wow.
The changes are positive in that we will no longer be chained to rune of power. We will have some more talent points to play around with as some of the pointless 2 point sinks in fire are being adjusted and cauterize should be baseline.
A big part of our dps sucking in this expac is they gave us talent choices for either single target or aoe, when in the past we could do both.
I am not sure they are actually fixing our dps though, as they also did recently nerf ignite dmg by 6% with some stupid comment along the lines that we were doing too much damage with the recent buffs, which I find bloody hilarious as since the start of the DF we have been the worst dps class.
Sick of listening to muppets chime in with dps is not the issue, dps is the whole issue if all you can do is dps and your consistently middle or bottom of raid dps whilst doing every rotation perfectly.
Dps is the issue if you want to push higher mythic+ keys and no one will take you because every other dps class easily rolls face across keyboard and out dps’s you.
That’s exactly my issue right now. I loved my mage reroll, but unfortunatly, even when I’m doing a good rotation, I can’t have more damage than a paladin blasting one Divin Tempest.
I play with 4 friends so I could do high keys but I’m constantly last dps and really far behind. It’s depressing, I know my mage is going to slow them up so I can’t find myself another solution but to reroll my reroll even if I’m having fun with them.
Your frustration is gonna end in 2 months.
Rune of Power was the root of all evil and It’s gone!
Mages were great always until the Devs shifted the power to this damn talent.
It will be much better whiteout ROP for sure, but there are still big problems i guess. With fire i think this only Ignite spred aoe is boaring+dosent scaling well on low keys. Sure its god on MDI for top players, but 99% of the playerbase cant realy enjoy it. Other thing is the SKB+Pyroclasm proc management, i love the idea of hardcast pyros, but its feels week even with both procs, back in Legion it was fun but now… idk. With frost i think this high mastery/Icicle dominance is not fun at all. Blizzard feels week, frozen orb feels week to, only works well with big pulls when u can spam it every 8-10 secs. But when the tank pulling out the packs and you cds is gone u ****. Back in SHlands with Glacial Fragmants it was more fun for me. He have some god spells like Coment storm but no chance to use it because this talent tree is bad.
Well, even without Rune of Power being removed just yet, the thing I do not comprehend is that every DPS Tier list is, like, giving all Mage specs S Tier almost, with Frost being an A+ Tier DPS slightly falling behind S Tier ones. But man, in Vault of the Incarnates and Season 1 Mythic+ dungeons—it was the most miserable class you could play, and nothing has changed since. Why are they so high in tier and possibly in demand? Though, the thing is, even without some crucial upgrades, my BM Hunter (ilvl 421) is always on somewhere between 2nd-6th DPS on ST and usually 1st-4th on AoE fights and trash. Should I listen to these tier lists and go back to Mage or stick to Hunter? I’m outDPSing insanely geared Rets, Warriors, DHs and Shamans also on both ST and AoE as BM. I really don’t understand what class to play this season. I do want to play my Mage, but as someone above said, Mythic+ should be accounted for, if I’m not getting an invite to higher keys, regardless of my ilvl—why play the class? And even though I’m not in a Hardcore Mythic raiding guild, I don’t think my guild would want to see a bottom DPS, even if it is a Mage. On top of that, I am probably going Arcane if I’m coming back as Mage for it’s challenging and doing some MASSIVELY STUPID damage on all difficulties on all bosses. Ridiculous. And it’s getting even better with Incanter’s Flow +15% more damage to our abilities, with Rune of Power being removed.
I’ve found playing my mage fun the whole expansion so far. Looking forward to ROP being removed and damage improved to compensate
Maybe Mage isn’t really meant to be your main class if you reroll when its not fotm? You should be able to enjoy it even when it isn’t technically the best, otherwise you like it for superficial reasons…
Nah, I didn’t really like Mage back when I was in TBCC for superficial reasons, such as it having a massive potential. I liked portals, free food, and solo content was really fun. I mained a Hunter in TBCC for superficial reasons, though, I did like how every guild favored at least a few of their BM Hunters, but Mages were chilling and still doing massive DPS, but the class itself was really fun and no one would complain at all. On Retail, however, all the crying and griefing is about Mages. Almost all the other classes are quite happy even when they are getting nerfed to the ground.
We don’t know what the frost and fire changes are yet. Arcane changes are class tree changes are up but very likely to chnage given how early in the ptr cycle we are.
Because in S1 fire could pump hard and was a high tier specc.
Mages issue is that the perform exceptionally in premades where burst can be coordinated and the mage is pulled around.
But goes south fast in a pug enviroment because a tank can simply destroy ur ability to do dps.
Thats the issue mainly
The requirements required to see mages numbers simply cannot be met by the vast majority of tje playerbase.
Same in SL when mage was meta then, its performance in pugs and more were nothing alike what they were achieving at the top
This is the design flaw of mage. Blizzard have left mage to sit on a design thats terrible in 90% of circumstances, just because its super strong in a certain critea.
It feels like the class is just a Esports choice rather then for the players
People only generally complain when Mage ends up meta. Just like they do witg every class when they become meta.
Because we are a over saturated role. Meaning we are all replacable, so ofcourse other plauers hate it when a class they dont play becomes meta.