How do you feel about Mages in Mythic+ ?

[Deleted]

I considered playing Fire Mage in Legion, and been playing it for some weeks now in beta/prepatch.

1 thing im wondering though, is if theyre that good in the higher mythic+ dungeons ?

For me, it seems like low/mediocre dps on dungeon trash packs. If i could use Combustion on each trash pack, sure that would rock. But the dmg outside of combustion just seems abit "bleh".

I got quite some time to do mythic+ outside of raiding days, so thats why i really seeking a class that both excel in raid and mythic+.

What do you think ?

[Torian kel]

I've seen some people play frost like the beginning of WoD, with frost bomb and frozen orb on every big pack, and it does some pretty good burst aoe, but then the single target dps is juste "meh", literally like the beginning of WoD. I haven't seen any arcane mages so I don't know how they do in M+, and fire obviously is everywhere, with decent damage. As of now, in my opinion, other classes do a better job than mage, and you can't even use the excuse of "bring a mage for time warp" because from what i've seen ele shaman do a better job aoe and single target and they bring bloodlust as well.

Maybe people with actual experience (and not just second hand talk like myself) have better insight?

[Seneca]

Just speculation here.

In dungeons, differently from raids, much more emphasis is put on CC, survivability, utility and mobility (and, damage wise, on AoE and burst).

Mage (types of) CCs are quite bad for dungeons. All we have are soft CCs (CCs which at best stop movement and/or easily break on damage) and 0 hard CCs (stuns, fears, silences). I mean, there are specs with ranged AoE stuns (for example, Shadow Fury), silences (for example, Solar Beam) and fears (for example, Vodoo Totem) out there, what can a melee Frost Nova do? I mean, we have a casted time Polymorph too, but at the same time shamans have a instant cast AoE Polymorphs (Hexes to be right, which is even better).

Our survivability seems quite below average. We have Ice Barrier and Ice Block for emergencies. Being cloth and with a low healthpool don't help too. Warlocks feel like immortals, if compared to us.

Our "stackable" utility is 0 I guess. With stackable I mean that it is not nullified by some other things (for example Time Warp doesn't stack with Hero/BL, Food can simply be bought, Portals have no combat usage). Offhealing is a sort of stackable utility for example. The more, the better. Even offtanking, if we want. I was told that no-guardian druids speccing guardian affinity are capable to tank, for example. Almost all hybrids offer free offhealing (for example ysera's gift, vampiric embrace, etc.), some pure/semi pure classes offer in combat ress ('locks, dks), etc. Druids and Shamans (and maybe some other class/spec) may offer AoE speed buffs. I don't think we offer anything, if I am not wrong.

Mobility is probably a sort of strong point for mages. We can increase our mobility with shimmer and maximize our damage while moving with ice floes. Subjectively speaking, even mobility doesn't seem stellar, if compared to all the other specs/classes. I mean, a balance druid have a 30% passive speed buff with Cat Form, a 30sec Blink+4sec dash with Displacer Beast, a 15 sec sprint with dash, can dot whole packs while jumping right and left and can cast while moving inside Starfall with a talent. I play a druid too and when I play a mage I feel enchained to be honest. Mage mobility is not bad, but I would not say it is the best either, (probably just above average?).

AoE and Burst (and burst AoE) are hard to comment on, if we consider we have 3 different specs, with different talent trees and artifacts, which should be compared with 30 more specs with 30 different talent trees and artifact (basically, as of now, I miss the necessary knowledge to give any insight).

All in all, what we can do (and what we can't do), a shaman (just to make an example) can do it way better (and cover Time Warp too).


Edit:

I must add that, arcane in particular, supposedly have to drink between fights (because mana = damage), slowing inevitably the whole party, further reducing arcane value in mythic+ (if someone knows that mana is a non-issue for arcane mages in m+ dungeons, feel free to enlight me).

[stevenho]

Fire is doing perfectly fine in high M+.

[Deleted]

I did a few with LB and it was OK, nothing spectacular. But it was way back a month ago so the tuning might be different. A key here might be that in 5mans, boss damage is often less important than trash damage.

Arcane had the traditional issue that if you don't have the burn cycle timings down perfectly you can't do much. Though it might be better if one stops caring about boss damage. It has high burst damage if required on AOE, though it drops mana fast. Drinking for mana might not be that bad if the rest of the group slacks at that point (e.g. you blinked twice and wait for them) but it might be "bad marketing" to the rest of the group.

I haven't seen frost at all but it might be good for trash at least.

[Neoxx]

As of now, in my opinion, other classes do a better job than mage, and you can't even use the excuse of "bring a mage for time warp" because from what i've seen ele shaman do a better job aoe and single target and they bring bloodlust as well.

All in all, what we can do (and what we can't do), a shaman (just to make an example) can do it way better (and cover Time Warp too).

I don't know where both of you got that from, but this is just wrong. Yes, Enhance Shaman is kinda decent for mythic+ but still behind a fire mage on AOE and single target. Elemental Shaman is just terrible, their aoe dmg is too low and they need to save every CD to be on par with a fire Mage on single target.

I did a decent amount of mythic+ on beta up to mythic+11 with my 870 gear. All I can say is that fire mage is probably one of the top 3 DPS specs you want for mythic+. Especially with gear our dmg output is just insane, both on single target and AOE. Yes other specs may have better utility, but TW, DB and Nova are good enough since it's "not really our job" to support ... mages are supposed to destroy things

From my experience damage is the most important thing you need in mythic+. You can say it's the same as in raids: more damage makes everything easier.
In order to beat the mythic+ timer you pull large trash packs of 3-8 mobs the whole instance and all it comes down to is if you can kill things before your tank/healer runs out of CDs. So AOE dmg is really important and fire mage is the king of AOE dmg at the moment. With CDs I can burst up to 3 mill dmg on large packs, way more than any other spec in the game, and even without CDs our sustain AOE dmg is good too. Single target dmg on boss fights is really good too.

What makes fire mage strong in dungeons is that they have really short CDs. You have Rune of power ready every pull, Combustion every second pull, Flame On every 40, Phoenix's Flames CD is really short too, Living Bomb only has a 8 second CD and scales extremely good in larger packs.

Our survivability is good enough, I even use Shimmer instead of Cauterize for lower mythic+ dungeons and it's fine. If you don't fuck up everything is healable if you kill it fast enough, it's really that simple.


So to answer you question OP: fire mage is one of the best specs for mythic+.

[Deleted]

I don't know where both of you got that from, but this is just wrong. Yes, Enhance Shaman is kinda decent for mythic+ but still behind a fire mage on AOE and single target. Elemental Shaman is just terrible, their aoe dmg is too low and they need to save every CD to be on par with a fire Mage on single target.

Quit spreading misinformation. The knockdown tied to Earthquake is a godsend on higher difficulties. As you yourself pointed out elsewhere in your post, tank survival is paramount. Current tuning aside (which favors Fire slightly, yes), Elemental is the better spec of the two for Mythic+. In addition to the incredibly powerful EQ knockdown, an Elemental Shaman brings a proper AoE stun, the only ranged spec to do so, an interrupt on a far shorter CD than Counterspell and a decently potent AoE healing CD when used during AoE.

[Deleted]

I'm not entirely sure if beta testing is very accurate because there's a lot of people that play it half-arsed while others play it very optimally. e.g. A mage with almost all artifact traits filled up vs a mage that has only one major trait done vs a shaman. On live the majority of players on a certain type of content will be very close in progression.

[Deleted]

Dam, both Neoxx and Sanguine make good points.
Havn't done mythic dungeons in beta so I cant really say, but both your arguments make sense,

[HTowN]

Funny, because in shaman forum, they are saying that ele is terrible for mythic+ at high lvl.

Generally, I trust people who actually played the class on beta, not theorycrafter.

[Sencha]

Mage (types of) CCs are quite bad for dungeons. All we have are soft CCs (CCs which at best stop movement and/or easily break on damage) and 0 hard CCs (stuns, fears, silences). I mean, there are specs with ranged AoE stuns (for example, Shadow Fury), silences (for example, Solar Beam) and fears (for example, Vodoo Totem) out there, what can a melee Frost Nova do? I mean, we have a casted time Polymorph too, but at the same time shamans have a instant cast AoE Polymorphs (Hexes to be right, which is even better).

I fully disagree with this entire paragraph.

How is polymorph a bad CC? Because it breaks on damage? Don't damage it then. Stuns/silences are better because they are "hard" CCs? Yes but they last for 6sec max. Also polymorph has no CD.

Mage is probably one of the best class for mythic+

[Neoxx]

Quit spreading misinformation. The knockdown tied to Earthquake is a godsend on higher difficulties. As you yourself pointed out elsewhere in your post, tank survival is paramount. Current tuning aside (which favors Fire slightly, yes), Elemental is the better spec of the two for Mythic+. In addition to the incredibly powerful EQ knockdown, an Elemental Shaman brings a proper AoE stun, the only ranged spec to do so, an interrupt on a far shorter CD than Counterspell and a decently potent AoE healing CD when used during AoE.

I haven't seen an elemental shaman in mythic+ dungeons for months, so pardon if my information was incorrect.
But doesn't the Earthquake knockdown share a DR with most stuns in the game? If so it should be pretty bad right? The AoE Stun from Lightning Surge Totem is available to all shaman specs as well as the short interrupt. And I'm pretty sure Enhancement Shaman does more damage in mythic dungeons. So I don't see why Elemental should be better than Enhancement, but like I said I haven't played with an Elemental Shaman in months.

Funny, because in shaman forum, they are saying that ele is terrible for mythic+ at high lvl.

Also this.
But that being said, the shaman forum on mmo-c is pretty bad ... especially when it comes to elemental specific discussions.

How is polymorph a bad CC? Because it breaks on damage? Don't damage it then. Stuns/silences are better because they are "hard" CCs? Yes but they last for 6sec max. Also polymorph has no CD.

You don't really CC in mythic+, because you need to beat the timer. Stuns and interrupts are pretty much the only things you do.

[Deleted]

We found fire to be the absolute best option for pushing the higher ranks. We generally prefer running double melee and did so in CMs as well, and in that context fire mage makes up for the weaknesses better than any other ranged class. They supply both heavy single target and AoE along with light cc, and their mobility in a PvE perspective is insane. Warlocks just didn't seem to cut it as they can't dps on the run as well as fire mages can, hunters only supply one thing either heavy single target or heavy AoE or being mediocre at both depending on your talents.

We didn't test out elemental as historically it's not a very mobile class, and none of us play boomkin or shadow priest so it's possible those can compete with you. But all in all, fire is the safe choice, it's the one you can be certain that it will be brought along.

[Sencha]

You don't really CC in mythic+, because you need to beat the timer. Stuns and interrupts are pretty much the only things you do.

So mythic+ is faceroll rush with some stuns and fears?

I was expecting BC heroics difficulty level where you had to CC a lot and focus on 1-2 mobs max.

I am very disappointed...

[Deleted]

They are much harder than BC heroic on the higher ranks.

[Lioo]

So mythic+ is faceroll rush with some stuns and fears?

I was expecting BC heroics difficulty level where you had to CC a lot and focus on 1-2 mobs max.

I am very disappointed...

Excuse me. What exactly hard you find in CCing and focusing 1-2 mobs?

[Neoxx]

So mythic+ is faceroll rush with some stuns and fears?

I was expecting BC heroics difficulty level where you had to CC a lot and focus on 1-2 mobs max.

I am very disappointed...

No it's not faceroll, it's actually really challenging on higher mythic+ levels.

Let me explain what I meant with "beating the timer":
I'm pretty sure you can CC and slow pulll till let's say mythic+5 and still beat the timer. But due to the mythic+ system it's possible to beat the timer "really hard" if you are fast enough and jump 2 or 3 mythic+ levels instead of 1. You also get the loot from those levels you skip that way. That's why people tend to go fast and AoE down everything, cause it's just doable.

At mythic+6 and more it's pretty much required to do big pulls and AoE everything to beat the timer.

[Seneca]

I don't know where both of you got that from, but this is just wrong. Yes, Enhance Shaman is kinda decent for mythic+ but still behind a fire mage on AOE and single target. Elemental Shaman is just terrible, their aoe dmg is too low and they need to save every CD to be on par with a fire Mage on single target.

So we are only talking about fire mages, I got it right? What about the other 2 specs? (Genuinely curious).

I did a decent amount of mythic+ on beta up to mythic+11 with my 870 gear. All I can say is that fire mage is probably one of the top 3 DPS specs you want for mythic+. Especially with gear our dmg output is just insane, both on single target and AOE. Yes other specs may have better utility, but TW, DB and Nova are good enough since it's "not really our job" to support ... mages are supposed to destroy things

Are we talking about balanced fire mages or overtuned fire mages? (I am not sure if they are where they should be, right now, in beta, as far as damage is concerned).

I mean in a world where fire is overtuned, surely it gets more interesting to have one in a team.

Our survivability is good enough, I even use Shimmer instead of Cauterize for lower mythic+ dungeons and it's fine. If you don't fuck up everything is healable if you kill it fast enough, it's really that simple.

Imho, there's never something "which is good enough". Mistakes, bad luck, and whatever, may happen, so what is "more than enough" is always better than something which is "good enough". All other variables excluded, if A has low survivability and B has high survivability, B should be considered the favorite here.

In addition to the incredibly powerful EQ knockdown, an Elemental Shaman brings a proper AoE stun, the only ranged spec to do so, an interrupt on a far shorter CD than Counterspell and a decently potent AoE healing CD when used during AoE.

I agree with that.

I want to clarify that Warlocks (Summon Infernal, Shadow Fury) and Spriests (Mind Bomb) have ranged AoE stuns too. So who are left are mages and Moonkins (whose bring ranged AoE silences/interrupts, ranged AoE Knockbacks and/or ranged AoE roots).

Mages does not bring any ranged AoE hard CCs, at best arcane mages may let mobs jump half a second with Supernova.

Funny, because in shaman forum, they are saying that ele is terrible for mythic+ at high lvl.

Generally, I trust people who actually played the class on beta, not theorycrafter.

I swear every subforum say their specs suck in Mythic+.

I fully disagree with this entire paragraph.

How is polymorph a bad CC? Because it breaks on damage? Don't damage it then. Stuns/silences are better because they are "hard" CCs? Yes but they last for 6sec max. Also polymorph has no CD.

Mage is probably one of the best class for mythic+

It's not bad in a vacuum, it sounds weaker than the rest for 2 reasons.

1 Context. In dungeons you are supposed to burst everything. If there are 4 mobs, you are not going to CC 3 of them and kill the fourth one. You are going to do as much dmg as possible to everything and hopefully keep stunning, interrupting, silencing, fearing and knocking back/up.

The last thing you want to use is a CC whch is 1)single target 2)with a cast time 3)which breaks on 1 damage 4) and fully heals the target.

2 Powerlevel. Polymorph is a ranged, single target, with 1.7sec cast, which breaks on damage and heals the target, which only works on humanoids, beasts and critters, CC effect.

Now compare that to, let's say, Vodoo Totem, which is a ranged, instant, AoE, Hex (doesn't instantly break on damage and doesn't heal) CC. Like, it's 2 different leagues we are talking about.

Do not forget that there are timers to beat to, and Polymorph slows everything down.

As an additional note, Frost Novas are probably your worst enemies in dungeons. If you Frost Nova an enemy, that same enemy is going to switch aggro and focus whoever is next to him. So, if, let's say, your tank is 3 yard away from 5 mobs (even though he aggroed them) and a rogue is 1 yard away from them all and all the mobs get instantly rooted, your rogue, by being the nearest, is going to draw their attention and get hit by them all. It's quite suicidal.

I haven't seen an elemental shaman in mythic+ dungeons for months, so pardon if my information was incorrect.
But doesn't the Earthquake knockdown share a DR with most stuns in the game? If so it should be pretty bad right? The AoE Stun from Lightning Surge Totem is available to all shaman specs as well as the short interrupt. And I'm pretty sure Enhancement Shaman does more damage in mythic dungeons. So I don't see why Elemental should be better than Enhancement, but like I said I haven't played with an Elemental Shaman in months.

I was told that Enhas are quite beastly in mythic+, yeah. Said that, there's something eles offer that enhas can't, ranged damage, so, even if we ignore any other possible benefit of having a ele over a enha, this simple fact, imho, gave them a niche role at worst, a good reason to pick them at best (I think that having a 4 melee setup might be a massacre in some cases).

[HTowN]

You are still just theorycrafting.

If the lack of CC is a trouble, mage would never be a pick in Challenge Mode. In fact, mage was one of the better class to do it.

When you bring a mage, you have reliable dps with reliable burst. People don't bring Mage for CC...

Btw, fire mage dps is totally fine on beta. It's the best mage spec, but it's not overpowered compared to other classes.

[Neoxx]

So we are only talking about fire mages, I got it right? What about the other 2 specs? (Genuinely curious).

Oh I just talked about fire mage because the OP only asked how this spec is doing. But Arcane and Frost are not good in mythic+ sadly. Not terrible, but just not good compared to fire.

Are we talking about balanced fire mages or overtuned fire mages? (I am not sure if they are where they should be, right now, in beta, as far as damage is concerned).
I mean in a world where fire is overtuned, surely it gets more interesting to have one in a team.

At this point tuning is almost done IMO. There will be a band-aid balance patch before legion where specs get tuned number-wise, but mechanically with rotations and cooldowns they will not change anything anymore. And just the playstyle, short cooldowns and really good burst will save fire a good spot in dungeon groups. That's my opinion at least.

Imho, there's never something "which is good enough". Mistakes, bad luck, and whatever, may happen, so what is "more than enough" is always better than something which is "good enough". All other variables excluded, if A has low survivability and B has high survivability, B should be considered the favorite here.

Not if A brings something that B doesn't have. Let's compare Mages and Warlocks in mythic+ dungeons: Mage has really good dmg and "low" survivability, Warlock has low dmg and really good survivability. Yet nobody likes Warlocks in mythic+ dungeons

I was told that Enhas are quite beastly in mythic+, yeah. Said that, there's something eles offer that enhas can't, ranged damage, so, even if we ignore any other possible benefit of having a ele over a enha, this simple fact, imho, gave them a niche role at worst, a good reason to pick them at best (I think that having a 4 melee setup might be a massacre in some cases).

Yeah I know what you mean and you are generally right with that. But being a range DPS is a blessing and curse at the same time in mythic+ dungeons. Why? You actually have to move a lot in higher mythic+ and most range DPS don't have movement spells or enough instant casts anymore. Let's take elemental shamans as an example, they don't have Spiritwalker's Grace anymore. Fire mage on the other hand has a lot of instant casts and Ice Floes. So a fire mage is a really mobile range DPS, that's what makes this spec look good too.