Mages currently have low damage, poor defensives and no additional CC in a version where more classes than ever can negate your control, while essentail skills are locked deeper in the talents, is invariably going to cause a serious lack of capability. I think they are stuck with Warriors at the moment, terrible at 25. There’s really nothing you can do about it other than ride the storm until the next level cap.
Given there’s a number of people saying ‘skill issue’ I’m genuinely curious how you expect mages to operate while their go to pvp spec, frost, has the lowest damage output of any class, of any spec by a huge margin, while they don’t have ice block, ice barrier or cone of cold. Or, more to the point, how if you think they are balanced presently, how on earth you are going to cope with them when they actually have their full Kit?
Spoiler: If you are finding it remotely close to balanced now, you are in for a seriously bad time at level 40 and beyond.
Also gearing for spellcasters is hard, gear is dilluted with so many things like swim speed ring and warlock tank items. You contest loot with all healers and warlocks/moonkins, since there is no difference between healing and damage items mostly. Maybe with more spellpower we scale better I don’t know.
The way you play frost is speccing into frostbite and slow, so your target takes max damage from living flame, kinda boring style tho. I like arcane more, it does decentish damage, and you can cast it from 30 mana, also you can heal if needed. Fire is dog.
Against certain Specs/Rune Setups I feel like I can straight up stand still and just wait to be send to the graveyard.
Feral with Sunfire+Starsurge feels like the worst. Feels like I have literally 0 counterplay, as I can’t sheep, CC, snare or interrupt. Energy Sunfire + 4 Mana cost Instant Cast Starsurge just demolish me completely on max range while that Druid actually kites me.
idk. RN it feels like all this class does is the Living Flame+Regen Synergy and that’s about it where the power budget went for Phase 1. And Living Flame is such an unfun spell to use and also bad in PvP where everyone moves a lot.
Dunno why people mention Living Bomb so hard. That little bugger ticks for 35 every 3 seconds and 2/3 of it’s value are the final explosion if it hits something.
It’s nice for meter/statistic padding if you spam it in Dungeons or WSG, but it does actually nothing in a straight up fight. Random Void Plague ticks twice as hard.
If the druid gets cocky try popping Icy Veins and just cast arcane blast over and over without interruption, he will get destroyed, you can kill a few classes that disrespect you this way.
You can juggle Icy Veins and Arcane Surge while one or the other is on cd.
Get intellect items, as much mana as possible, get 2-3 stacks of arcane blast, pop mana potion, arcane surge, depending on the class you can outright kill it, I like it against hunters especially.
As a mage that has been r1 multiple times at 3100+ in tbc/wotlk/cata retail, I have not found any issues dumpstering anyone in SoD with the exception of perhaps a well geared disc priest who knows how to play. Even hunters and warlocks are beatable if you play correctly. This is entirely a L2P issue.
Both fire and the hybrid healer frost talents/arcane blast setup is viable. Fire in BG’s, frost/arcane for everything else. I’m not saying its OP - you do have to use your brain to make it work. But it’s certainly not trash tier.
EDIT: Feral Starsurge/Sunfire spammers are also a problem. But classic has always been like this. The game is not balanced around pvp and never has been. Sometimes you have to accept that there is direct counters, similar to how mage takes a dump on warriors.
As a mage that has been r1 multiple times at 3100+ in tbc/wotlk/cata retail, I have not found any issues dumpstering anyone in SoD with the exception of perhaps a well geared disc priest who knows how to play. Even hunters and warlocks are beatable if you play correctly. This is entirely a L2P issue. Both fire and the hybrid healer frost talents/arcane blast setup is viable. Fire in BG’s, frost/arcane for everything else. I’m not saying its OP - you do have to use your brain to make it work. But it’s certainly not trash tier. EDIT: Feral Starsurge/Sunfire spammers are also a problem. But classic has always been like this. The game is not balanced around pvp and never has been. Sometimes you have to accept that there is direct counters, similar to how mage takes a dump on warriors.
But who would you rather take along to rated battlegrounds, a mage or a warlock/hunter/druid? You could send a melee and dispeller to sit on a mage and their damage would be mostly shutdown given current runes relative to those other classes. Glass cannon I hear you say? All this will result in is less mage participation in rated BGs
Its not rBG though is it? It’s classic SoD. In P1. And who says there will be an rBG implemented in the first place? How do you seem to know what will be implemented in future phases, including what features will be added or what changes will be put in place from one class to another?
Really man I think you need to chill out. If you aren’t happy roll another class or play another game - I don’t think the mage community will miss you.
Even before nerfs, not knowing how to manage, CC, the hunter’s pet was just skill issue.
We need to stop with the argument about the pet being overpowered (I’m not disputing this point, a nerf was necessary) when there were 36 ways to manage it.
You just weren’t familiar with or used to the vanilla hunter before lvl60, too busy rushing to the maximum level and only starting to play once you reached 60.
The mage currently in PVP is actually not the best, but the same could be said of the warrior who is a real mop in PVP (except with massive priest support + overbuffed) but not useless, sheep and CC are extremely useful. It’s not all about numbers.