Why the inferiority complex about Mage?

[Re1ax]

Here's something I'm sure everyone has seen:
"Should just all re-roll mage gg"
"Mage is soooo OP cuz everyone at Blizz mains them"
Etc etc etc, you get it. And it seems much more frequent lately. My question is why?

These are the current ranks for Fire Mage from Mythic EN 95 percentile:
Nythendra: 12th
Elerethe: 3rd
Ursoc: 9th
Dragons: 3rd
Il'Gynoth: 15th
Cenarius: 20th
Xavius: 3rd
Average: 9th

I think its fair to say Xavius is Mage's best fight, and they still get dumpstered by Spriest.
To be clear, I am not saying Mage sucks. They've been in a good place. I am simply trying to figure out where everyone else's inferiority complex is coming from. Mage IS NOT the best based on any actual numbers. Is this just a mindset that has carried over from the Beta? Is it just because Mage is reliably solid? People act like Mage is tuned as a God amongst men and the numbers just don't support the narrative..

Edit: Are people seriously complaining I looked at 95th percentile? So you are suggesting I judge spec performance by what exactly? Whatever the average shmuck can pull off? GTFO. Also as I've suggested, this isn't meant to be a scientific report. I am only pointing out that mage is not some crazy OP outlier as many of you have tried to suggest.
p.s. The average at 75th percentile is still 9th.

[mogwi]

They were rockstars at the beginning of the expansion right off the bat, and it's hard for people to get off the complain-y gravy train even when the trend changes. That's how it always is.

Also, fire mage isn't a one trick pony like some other specs. They're pretty good at everything.

[Deleted]

Because Blizzard devs really do play mages and mages always do well or excel at just about everything. They're Blizzard's golden child and the favoritism is painfully obvious.

[SoulForge]

Because its the first expansion where mages, in sims, haven't had at least 2 specs in the top 5. Some expansions saw all 3 specs in the top 5. Even for a short time.

Expansion isn't over yet. We still may see this.

[Lobstarrr]

Fire mage has no real downsides. Shadow priests may rule in raids but in dungeons they are shit. Mage on the other hand can somewhat keep up with melee on trash and do great on dungeon bosses.

[Bloodmagix]

Fire mage has no real downsides. Shadow priests may rule in raids but in dungeons they are shit. Mage on the other hand can somewhat keep up with melee on trash and do great on dungeon bosses.

Completely agree. Spriests in Raids are a worthy competitor in dps but in dungeons, lol, try and keep up with us Mages.

[Krazzorx]

Tbh, idc one bit about how good specs are in dungeons. Having said that, mages are relatively good right now.

[Jyggalag]

They've never had a bad tier

[TeeZed]

Mage might not be the best right now, but I'm sure they'll be top 5 with one spec, probably with tier gear.

Every expansions, or tier of raiding mage is a safe bet to be a top dps spec, no matter what. Meanwhile you get other classes who can be shit an entire tier or be forced into playing a single spec, demo lock for example. And it's not like you can just swap specs now. You need your 3 relics and artifact power.

The issue isn't just that some specs aren't as good as mage, it's that mage has NEVER had a bad time, they are ALWAYS viable, hell even if you ran frost, you just got some giant ass buffs while other under performing specs sit in the dirt.

[Deleted]

It's not an inferiority complex at all.
Saying that mages have ranged from "good" to "the best", both in pve and pvp, in every patch for the last 12 years is just stating facts.
They may not be the absolute best right now, but they're still in a really good spot overall, with no downside at all.
If you compare records for the ranged specs since 1.0, the domination of mages is obvious. Sure, you can find a patch or two where warlocks or hunters were better for a few months, in pve or pvp. Or shadow priests in pve now. But it always feels like an accident. And it never lasts.
Now let's not even start talking about specs that nobody plays at Blizzard like Balance or Elemental that have ranged from "laughable" to "almost ok" for all those years and still need fixing.

[Trumpcat]

Because Blizzard devs really do play mages and mages always do well or excel at just about everything. They're Blizzard's golden child and the favoritism is painfully obvious.

Seeing that the best Mages in the world are not top on anything, what do Mages excel at?

[GT4]

I love how OP cherrypicks the percentiles and then takes the manual average instead of the aggregate value on warcraftlogs just to skew the numbers towards their argument.

If you realistically look at mythic fights and compare fire mages to other range DPS:
Nythendra second after SP if you exclude mind control damage, otherwise arguably first.
Il'gynoth depends on your strategy and setup but best reliable heart DPS and probably 2nd best for outside after MM (high AoE burst for 8 stack bloods, decent burst for tentacles).
Elerethe second after SP.
Ursoc second after SP.
Dragons is hard to say because some specs excel at boss DPS (SP / destruction), some excel at lethon shade DPS (affliction / elemental / MM) whereas fire is decent at former and pretty good at latter. Definitely top 4 though.
Cenarius is hard to tell because of different strategies and most DoT classes padding on drakes.
Xavius once again has a lot of padding in P3 (for mages as well this time) but given the nature of the fight, fire mage should be #2 after SP for boss + add damage.

In the end, once Blizzard fixes S2M abuse cases (which they suggested they'd do in 7.1.5), fire is going to be the strongest range DPS spec overall again. Comparing to melee DPS makes no sense because you cannot raid mythic with only melees so you won't be competing with them for spots in most cases.

[Deleted]

It's not an inferiority complex at all.
Saying that mages have ranged from "good" to "the best", both in pve and pvp, in every patch for the last 12 years is just stating facts.
They may not be the absolute best right now, but they're still in a really good spot overall, with no downside at all.
If you compare records for the ranged specs since 1.0, the domination of mages is obvious. Sure, you can find a patch or two where warlocks or hunters were better for a few months, in pve or pvp. Or shadow priests in pve now. But it always feels like an accident. And it never lasts.
Now let's not even start talking about specs that nobody plays at Blizzard like Balance or Elemental that have ranged from "laughable" to "almost ok" for all those years and still need fixing.

Can agree with most of it although Elemental had it's goledn age in MoP where they where just overpowered and so did Boomies in the last 2 patches of Cata.

[Midoree]

Seeing that the best Mages in the world are not top on anything, what do Mages excel at?

perhaps you should look at the 75 percentile. That is the category the more average raider would compare to. The 95th, is not for everyone.

[GT4]

Seeing that the best Mages in the world are not top on anything, what do Mages excel at?

They're #1 for AoE. They're top tier range DPS for single target. They're top tier range DPS for cleave. They have the best mobility of all range DPS. They can cheese mechanics with ice block.

If SPs didn't have S2M in its current state (which is likely to be changed in 7.1.5), fire mages would be the uncontested winner when it comes to range DPS even after just having been nerfed.

- - - Updated - - -

Can agree with most of it although Elemental had it's goledn age in MoP where they where just overpowered and so did Boomies in the last 2 patches of Cata.

Balance was strong throughout all of Cataclysm. Ironically, having said that, they were horrible for arguably the hardest fight in Cata (spine of deathwing) so ultimately you were still better off with a mage overall.

[mistahwilshire]

Fire is good at everything and has no downsides. Who gives a fuck about rankings. #1's are all ludicrously cheesed at this point.

[Deleted]

Because its the first expansion where mages, in sims, haven't had at least 2 specs in the top 5. Some expansions saw all 3 specs in the top 5. Even for a short time.

Expansion isn't over yet. We still may see this.

Although some i could write of as axaggeration this is just wrong. Most of the time it's just one spec and it had a tendancy to switching from fire to arcane per raidtier.
Warlock had much better history of specs being close to eachother on dmg at a really high level. But mages had a slight advantage of one spec been a bit more often better.

Now going on a few factors:
History:
- Mages were the best dpser in vanilla (than rogues which were replaced by warriors halfway)
- MAges were insane pre epic gear in pvp during TBC and Wrath.
- Aside from TBC Mages have a strong history of always having one spec that is competitive (but less likely 2)

Mage community:
- It's one fo the most extreme theorycrafting community
- Higher amount of best skilled players are prob mages and rogues
- DPS is all mages do so thats pure focus
- WE have a huge outcry if all specs are underperforming part of class effects and we make good arguments. But less so about a 2e spec compared to hybrids.

Class effects:
- We are pure class and everyone plays the best perceived spec making it look much stronger than it really is, which also makes the other 2 look weaker.
- Low default raid utility. We have some niche stuff we can volunteer but hunter do kiting better and shadowpriest did soaking better when we had 90% dmg reduction effect (lost that).
- (firemage might be considered easy to play)

Legion:
- Dungeons first month: Hunters and Firemages were the only perceived strong ranged classes and the rest was dominated by melee. Considering mage tendancy and history people probably prefered mages over hunters and their single ranged dps in their group.

Community:
- Players seem to spread more across different class forums it seems almost troll like on the class you don't play.

[carlos9949]

Trye another class and you will understand why other people QQ about mages!!

[Vudu]

Having played multiple expansions as a ranged dps main, I can say honestly that there's no better ranged dps over a long period of time. Every other ranged dps is either hit or miss, especially Ele and Shadow (Edit: and Boomies, forgot about them). Hunter and Lock are usually good, but they've both had the occasional tier where they suck. Mage, however, is almost always good if not one of the best. And they're usually well-rounded and fun to play. You simply don't have to worry about re-rolling.

Personally, I don't think it's because more devs play mage. I think it's because the mage theorycrafting community is very, very strong, quite possibly the strongest of any class/spec, and they often accurately judge when something will be OP or too weak. The community theorycrafting is so strong that it wouldn't surprise me if the devs trust that community's results, which I doubt they do for other classes/specs. I was really shocked when I switched to mage and found out how good their community was compared to other classes.

[arandan]

This class is overcrowded more than ever in this xpack?
Culprit? Beta.
Fire was seriously overpowered until the very late phases of beta, people watched tons of streams with mages running in BiS legendaries, pre-nerf ciritcal mass, 24/7 flasks and pre-pot + pot in every dungeon - so they jumped on the bandwagon.

To every other class crying about mages I suggest you try seek those players out and ask them how they feel about fire now (if they are still playing ).

What is seriously overpowered at this moment in the content that matters is a shadow priest - that's where the nerfs should go.