So, since a lot of people had the time to experience it during classic wow, I’ll ask purely for PVP, as I know that alliance is straight up better for pve for mage, it’s not even a contest:
I’m going to roll a mage as an alt (although I’ll play it a lot), and I have to ask: does it feel worse to pvp as a gnome mage than it does when you’re an undead mage? My thought process is that ele shamans are way more of a problem than paladins with their monstrous burst, their purge, their totems and their interrupts, plus you can’t wotf warlocks or shadow priests. On the other hand horde mages have to deal with cleanse, blessing of freedom, and escape artist, which are all annoying.
So it’s basically getting dispelled and bursted down from a distance way easier if you play alliance, or seeing all your cc resisted way more if you play horde.
Which one felt better overall?
NB: again, this is about pvp.
NB 2: I’d really like to be alliance, but if I have to deal with an additional counter, I might change my mind and go horde.
Depends what kind of mage you want to play in BGs. If you plan on doing any flag running then Gnome is much better and also freedom is OP for flag runners.
Mages are very good flag runners definitely on par with druids if played correctly.
1v1 & world PvP both have their merits. I still like gnome escape artist better though. You can potentially get 2 escape artist off in one fight with the 1 min CD. You can also ice block fear twice (or to remove slowing effects) & trinket fear and slowing effects. Ideally you won’t get feared very often, but you’ll constantly be dealing with slows & roots in PvP.
You don’t think taking ele shamans into account is a good idea? Or at least going horde to avoid dealing with them as a mage? I’d rather go alliance (I really would) in classic fresh, but if mage is quite a bit worse for pvp due to ele shamans Idk…
I would also consider that more people will roll Horde and thus your undead mage will likely have to wait longer to even join a BG.
My gnome mage hated shamans in Classic, but didn’t they fix some of the spell batching that caused them to be able to counter two attacks with one totem? I’m not sure, though.
I would go gnome, if you prefer it. If you like playing Alliance, don’t force yourself to look at the wrong character and capitals all the time. It’s not worth it.
Really depends on you objectives. If you want to be the guy who makes montages of PvP encounters in the world then maybe you roll undead to avoid Elemental Shamens. If you are focused on premades / BGs gnome is superior. You might struggle with gnome mages in 1v1 as horde due to having your shatter combos broken with escape artist and will also find it more difficult v Rogues & Hunters not having escape artist.
Also as the guy mentioned above spell batching played a big part in making Shammy broken with certain abilities. I believe the talent that made next attack a crit was broken due to it batching two spells together as a crit. They probably won’t fix it so most likely be the same again.
Your may want to take fighting warlocks into consideration as well. Killing half decent warlocks is significantly harder as a gnome than it is as an undead mage.
Neither the double crit nor double grounding has anything to do with spellbatching.
I’m pretty sure spell batching is the reason for the double crit. It’s been documented and tested to work everytime in classic. It wasn’t like that in the original game and some forums posts have videos proving it didn’t work that way. I’m sure they replicated the ms for spellbatching as it was in vanilla & due to better internet, gaming rigs etc in 2020 was the reason they could consistently cast lighting bolt and shock to get double crit opposed to just the next spell critting.
Quite the opposite. It was tested and confirmed working after the “removal” of batching.
Yes, it was. That is why it was changed to no longer be possible to get double guaranteed crits in patch 2.3 back in 2007.
I don’t think anyone can say for sure without actual access to the code, but people were able to rule out batching by testing it without (aka 10 ms) batching. The game could simply be waiting for some kind of feedback from the server before removing the buff effect which would make it very much possible with just normal 2021 latency, not to mention 2005 latency.
Horde mages have to deal with escape artist in pvp and paladins. Your shatter combos are not going to be nearly as effective as a horde player. I played alliance in classic to r14 on my gnome and it was so much easier than trying to pvp horde side. Get decent gear and you mow people down like a lawnmower with shatter crits. Can’t do that on horde.
Wotf? Yeah wotf is powerful against warlocks but you can live without it. How many warlocks are there, anyway? I have probably fought 5 warriors, 3 rogues and 3 mages for every warlock I came across in a BG. Few warlocks played classic as they’re a weaker PVE class and they don’t have good reason to rank either, their r13 set sucks. On the other hand escape artist and blessing of freedom are big counters to mage nova/shatter. Of course, having escape artist yourself is very valuable too. Not just against mages, but warriors and rogues too, should you be in need to remove a hamstring or a crippling poison to make distance.
