Mages Going Extinct in PvP

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
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So all the mages are rerolling shamans.

Hi,

I have never felt more useless than I do as a Rank 10, MC geared mage in PvP right now.

I write this as someone who does not claim to be the best PvP player. I have been 2200 in arenas in the past, but my guild cleared MC Heat 3 as the 139th guild worldwide, so my raid gear is solid, plus rank 10 gear. Even IF it’s a “l2p issue” then I should be able to blast down people in blue gear. I can’t. The damage is too low.

But enough about me. Let’s consider that:

Ziqo (multi rank 1 glad) - has quit playing SoD mage pvp because it’s unplayable.

Xaryu (multi rank 1 glad) - has quit playing SoD mage pvp because it’s unplayable.
Xaru vid showing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gau2GFtnuoc

And if you’ve played PvP at all, you’ll know if your honest with yourself that mages lose to you, every time (if you don’t play mage). If you’re a rogue, warrior or hunter you target them even when attacked by other players because they are free kills to you. If you play mage, you’ll know the frustration of seeing 2 of your allies attacking a low health hunter, who sees you, fires 2 shots before he dies and you’re on 50%.

This is the case for both duels and BGs. Some duels are winnable with Arcane Power, and other than that, you’re at a massive disadvantage. Mage vs. Mage is even stupider, since you just AP+POM, Surge and the duel is over.

What has caused this?

  • Mage damage output is very low in pvp, because all the SoD focus has been on fireball replacements. You will never get one of these spells off against a competent player who knows you’re there. Even if you do, a 1500 damage frostfire crit is not impressive compared to every other class’s damage output - in fact its very low for a 3 sec cast.
  • Mage defences have not updated to compensate for runes. The only defensive capabilities mages gained come from Chronostatic Preservation, and arguably Brain Freeze. The main mage pvp playstyle in classic has mostly involved freezing targets for shatter. This doesn’t work anymore, there are too many escapes, immunities, and Fingers of Frost will not proc since you do not have time to gain procs. Targets are either immune, escape it, or your damage even on a big combo is negligible
  • Every class, due to runes, has more escapes against Freeze and many classes have immunity to slows. This means mages have almost no defence against melee classes, and no additional defence against casters.
  • The placement of mage rune slots, as it has been in previous phases, rules out some of the combos that might make mages decent, e.g. Deep/Hot Streak, Brain Freeze/Chrono etc.
  • Because mage pvp damage is so low, the only defence mages have against casters (Counterspell / Silence) is not sufficient since you cannot burst any geared target even after a Counterspell, and you are on the backfoot from their higher damage to begin with.

Warlocks - impossible to beat
Hunters - impossible to beat
Warriors - impossible to beat (yes, warriors. Too many gap closers, 3k executes from max health)
Shamans - impossible to beat
Paladins - beatable, if unskilled
Priests - beatable, if unskilled and ungeared
Rogues - impossible to beat (2 x backstab, 2 x ambush not even in stealth, death)
Druids - impossible to beat

This is crazy. Hunters, locks and shamans have always been a bane to mages and I’m ok with that. But honestly I don’t know what to do.

Having tried every spec possible, 17/43/1 is working best for me, using Arcane Barrage for a lot of the damage. It gives a fighting chance against some classes, and can be used for sniping in BGs. If a warlock or warrior looks at you, you die, but that’s the same for all specs (yes, a good warrior 2 shots you in frost too).

There has to be a Rune solution, since this will only get worse with gear. Scorches for 350 damage do not cut it when auto attacks are taking 1/4 of a mage’s health.

5 Likes
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I agree with you that there’s definitely something wrong with mages!

I quit maining my (fire)mage within the first month of P2. I couldn’t deal with the mana stress, my protest against endlessly running through trash not even get out of combat for drinking got waved away. In p3 i regained a little bit of my fun and did some raiding in ST. Now last week i leveled my mage to 60, nice but the mana stress was back again even with frostfire bolt as that’s not the only spell i use ofc. The obnoxious amount of mana cost for abilities is one thing, on the other side dungeon group members with ZERO patience with mages filling up their 5K+ manapool with lvl 45 waters (the lvl 55 waters quest can only be picked up at lvl 60!!!). The former puts me in a position of feeling so useless that the frustration is an ongoing happening. (i did ask a mage in the guild for the lvl 55 waters but they’re still slow to fill up my large manapool!)

Now it’s good that you wrote this because i was considering doing AV with the mage but i don’t think i’m gonna do that now anymore cause seeing it from your perspective, i’ll be either dead or drinking all the time.

Ps. my ff-bolts have crits of 2.2K since lvl 50 just saying

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I wouldn’t know anything about mages but I know a thing or two about streamers. They didn’t quit because mages are bad and whatnot. They quit because there’s a brand new expansion coming out and they simply want to get on the hype train to get their piece of views/subs/whatever. That’s what streamers do. They are kinda hostage to this. Gotta play what’s being popular at the moment and SoD is simply not it, not right now at least. Come P5 and we’ll see all of them suddenly come back. Until the next popular thing gets released. It’s a neverending cycle. Now they MAY give you whatever reasons for quitting, like mages being bad, or SoD being bad or some other similar BS, but we all understant the real reason. Simple as that.

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I got my rank 10 and now enjoying a quiet life until the next ranking phase.

It’s a weird system where you PvP hard to get your target rank then the game gives you no incentive to continue to PvP.

2 Likes
5

Exactly this! And tbh mages in tww is frickin AMAZING to play

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Watch this learn to play and stop crying you noob !
Mages , druids , warlocks and rogues are the s tier pvp clases right now !

https://www.youtube.com/live/65rEhu72fwc?si=d3k3vvKSKXOQi4Ad

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Imagine a mage complaining about pvp hahhahahahahahahahahahaahahah

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Yeah Mage is very good in 1v1, only thing they struggle with is BOOMI and a good shaman tbh. I remember when Wavé and Potatomilk claimed that lock counters mage in SOD and they refered to a duel contest from Classic HC as “proof” not even SOD - biggest laugh of my life tbh. This is why you can never take these trolls seriously.

To the OP go look at the mage in the tournament that came second place (got beaten by a BOOMI in the finals) and check what gear and how he is playing.

Note that this tournament is not the absolut truth about 1v1 - alot of the guys were not fully bis (a few of them were) and some fights was won by individual skill (outplaying the enemy - the rogue did play very good that recorded it).

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Yeah , as a hunter I kill mages way too easily.

The bursty meta is quite bad for classes that can only align 4000 HP max with full stamina gear and little to no damage mitigation.

I think SOD is not meant to be pvp. Pvp never made any sense in any of the phases to be honest.

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A PvP geared mage in a 1v1 duel rule will eat you up alive (20y distance at start vs a good mage is no bueno, only way you can win currently is if the mage is extremly bad or has no gear).

I´ve seen extremly good mages win duels vs very good hunters with 100% hp - if you think otherwise join one of the 1v1 tournaments and show us what you got (this was VS hunters with engi / reflector).

In open world vs mages with no gear indeed they get blown up easily by anything (as any class without gear).

I used to think early into this phase that mages needed more physical mitigation, now when we see what they are capable of in full BIS I stand incorrect.

I agree that SOD PvP is not good.

But you have to realize that the average joe you face is not the hardcore PvP player that grinded 3 factions to exalted and had to roll on some tanking items to get full PvP BIS (its not only the PvP gear you need).

If we compare the overal bad matchups a hunter has and a mage.

Mage loses to BOOMI. Ele shaman can be close.

Hunter gets hard countered by Rogue (even if you play dwarf and use helm from P2 you´ll still lose). We also lose to BOOMI and mage. Enhancement shaman should also win vs us.
Demo SL is also not an easy matchup.

Why most people rate hunter very low in 1v1 - sure we are good vs people who have no gear or in open world when we get the jump and can max range, we are very good in group PvP - but 1v1 is not our game.

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Only bane to mages is SL warlock in classic. Hunters and elemental shamans are no easy match, but mage still has pretty good chance of beating em.

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