[PvP] - What mages bring to PvP that Ele Shamans and Balance druids do not?

[Alvorea]

I am having a hard time trying to decide which one I should be focusing on, I actually love all 3 but I cannot split my time on 3 different characters. Mages ended up less bursty, less mobile and a lot harder to play than both other classes. What you love about us mages that they cannot do or at least not as good pvp wise?

[Deleted]

Mage can spam sheeps

[Alvorea]

Mage can spam sheeps

Cant druids actually spam cyclones? Think so.

[Noctiphobia]

Polymorph has a longer range and duration than Cyclone, and also doesn't share school with mage's damage spells.
Also, Polymorph is on a different DR than Cyclone, so this is something to consider. For example, when playing with a rogue, Blind and Cyclone don't really work that well together.
One more thing is shimmer, a mage can use it to get a Polymorph on someone behind a pillar.
Also, mages offer some of the best slows in game - with the new +15% talent frostbolts end up slowing people by 65%, which by itself is massive, and your cone of colds slow by 85%, which is just slightly faster than standing still (without any DR).
Don't forget about spell steal - shamans have purge, which is also good, but spell steal is an unique effect which allows you to piss people off even more.
From my experience, mages are more durable than shamans and boomkins, and while we can't have both ice floes and shimmer now, which makes mages more stationary than before, getting close to a mage through all those blinks, roots and slows is harder than getting to a shaman or a boomkin.
If you play 2v2, ray of frost is actually pretty sweet for all those situations where the enemy decides to kite you around a pillar, and I think the other classes don't have anything like that.
One thing that is different between all those classes is their interrupt - 3s every 12s for shamans, 6s every 24s for mages and that solar beam thing for druids, which is kinda different.


So, in short: mages get more control and durability (partially though their control), at the expense of damage and mobility.

[Deleted]

What you love about us mages that they cannot do or at least not as good pvp wise?

In this expa? Nothing that I loved about PvP Mages is still present in the game, they either removed it or gave other classes the same if not better abilities. I miss TBC Ice/Fire ward and reflecting spells, I love playing fire in TBC and using frostbolt to slow down enemies, I miss cone of cold, pvp mage right now is as bland as it can be, back in the day you actually had to know your skills, your spell range, know what enemy can do, your blink mattered cause not everyone could stun, now everyone has a stun except for a mage, knowing how far 8yards is so hunters couldn't attack you with their bow, now it doesn't matter, warriors had 1 charge now they have endless charges and leaps, your distance doesn't matter. Mage PvP is boring, it's dull, it's dumbed down because everyone can do everything including beating a mage. Now it's all about nuking one guy before his healer will spam heal him and never lose mana, remember using evocation in other specs than arcane? I remember, timing it right, polymorphing enemy, drinking behind column to regen mana, you had to think before you cast, now you spam skills hoping that you spam faster than your enemy. Was it harder? Yes it was but it was so much more rewarding, now it's a chore, it's a job to kill someone not a challenge. I still remember Vurtne videos and the crazy things he pulled of.

[Kiljaedon]

In this expa? Nothing that I loved about PvP Mages is still present in the game, they either removed it or gave other classes the same if not better abilities. I miss TBC Ice/Fire ward and reflecting spells, I love playing fire in TBC and using frostbolt to slow down enemies, I miss cone of cold, pvp mage right now is as bland as it can be, back in the day you actually had to know your skills, your spell range, know what enemy can do, your blink mattered cause not everyone could stun, now everyone has a stun except for a mage, knowing how far 8yards is so hunters couldn't attack you with their bow, now it doesn't matter, warriors had 1 charge now they have endless charges and leaps, your distance doesn't matter. Mage PvP is boring, it's dull, it's dumbed down because everyone can do everything including beating a mage. Now it's all about nuking one guy before his healer will spam heal him and never lose mana, remember using evocation in other specs than arcane? I remember, timing it right, polymorphing enemy, drinking behind column to regen mana, you had to think before you cast, now you spam skills hoping that you spam faster than your enemy. Was it harder? Yes it was but it was so much more rewarding, now it's a chore, it's a job to kill someone not a challenge. I still remember Vurtne videos and the crazy things he pulled of.

I think you mean you cant shatter people from full to 0 like the old days. Imo frost was braindead straight line to glad+ ranking if you had a partner worth a damn aka druid.

[Deleted]

I think you mean you cant shatter people from full to 0 like the old days. Imo frost was braindead straight line to glad+ ranking if you had a partner worth a damn aka druid.

I'm not talking WOTLK, calm down buddy.

[mrgreenthump]

Flavor, I guess.. We are still fairly mobile and can survive thing with that mobility, but it's not really fun currently. Can have some laughs with Arcane though, when people aren't expecting the damage.

I think you mean you cant shatter people from full to 0 like the old days. Imo frost was braindead straight line to glad+ ranking if you had a partner worth a damn aka druid.

No, you can still do that with Arcane. ;P

[Deleted]

This comes from an old time Warrior player and a DH reroller.

I found myself at a loss in Legion since the Warrior changes had me stranded as some other users I see posting here were for Mages.
Since the guild needed a ranged more than a melee, I tried a little of Hunter and Warlock (my go to ranged in the past), but loathed them and leveled my Mage instead.

So far I put more than 40 hours on him after hitting 110 thursday, whilst having a very busy irl schedule.

First off, Mage v Mage or Mage v another caster has a lot of leeways just due to how Shimmer, Prismatic Cloak and Spell Steal work. The Mage has great control over himself and his opponents, and although the loss of Deep Freeze can surely be felt, a good player can always stand above the rest.

What's more, the better Mage has room to outplay his own class when dueling. You can steal buffs and use them, forcing the enemy to react to your move instead of vice versa.
You can take Flurry, Barrier and Temp Shield and cast a Polymorph or a Frostbolt to force the enemy into choosing a risky Counterspell, a Poly or a Spell Steal. And this is as Frost, Fire can steal Hot Streak procs. Can't really say about Arcane as I didn't really play the spec.

And I saw the damage an Ele or Boomkin can output. But as far as hard casts go, it's burst that win games and Mage has plenty with a great variety of builds to boot.

Bottom line: Mage is fun and has great tools at its disposal.

[Dizzeeyooo]

Bottom line: Mage is fun and has great tools at its disposal.

if you think mage pvp is fun right now in their horrifically pruned state, then its a shame you missed out playing mage at any point between tbc-mop

[Egor2765]

if you think mage pvp is fun right now in their horrifically pruned state, then its a shame you missed out playing mage at any point between tbc-mop

Agreed. But, that is pretty much the case for any spell caster atm. Melee? I would guess the same applies, but I don't play those.

[Deleted]

if you think mage pvp is fun right now in their horrifically pruned state, then its a shame you missed out playing mage at any point between tbc-mop

Eh, I was busy playing my Warrior, that I find equally pruned and butchered. It was amazing up until the end of MoP when the slider went full retard.

I do acknowledge that Mages were more complex in the past, but at least it's not WoD. I find it a refreshing change of pace and again the fact that such a class despite the pruning has this many layers and builds available really makes me enjoy the class.

So I wanted to pitch in on why I chose Mage amongst the other presented options. I think it's still a nice class and maybe the point of view of someone who's just recently approached it can contribute to the discussion.

...although I feel your pain.
Seeing you post on AJ in these past two three years really made me emphatise with your feeling on your own class. It's a shame the design for our respective ones took such a direction to the point we don't really enjoy anymore what we would very much like to enjoy.
But I really digress here.

[Dizzeeyooo]

It's a shame the design for our respective ones took such a direction to the point we don't really enjoy anymore what we would very much like to enjoy

legion is just a "play a new class or quit the game in disgust at horrible class design" expansion, sadly

[Deleted]

I am having a hard time trying to decide which one I should be focusing on, I actually love all 3 but I cannot split my time on 3 different characters. Mages ended up less bursty, less mobile and a lot harder to play than both other classes. What you love about us mages that they cannot do or at least not as good pvp wise?

Problem with Mage is that there is not a really good spec to PvP with. Frost is unplayable, dmg is non existent, control is ok but you wont get a kill. It takes about 30 seconds to kill an AFK lock lol. Arcane dmg is higher, but survivability sucks and beeing lock out of Arcane school really hurts. Fire is the only option right now, but still not optimal, but at lest is super fun. You will get hard time polymorphing because of your DoT.
So if you like to spam Polymorph rather than doing dmg, if you like to play a support role instead of dps role, than play a Mage.

Moonkin is superior to Mage in ALL aspect of the game: much better mobility (you can simply run away from the fight in cat or travel form if neded, survivability is better, healing, dmg is awesome, even if you only DoT up everything you still do great dmg, you don't even need to hardast much, CC is not bad at all. Blizzard is just obsessed with Moonkins for last two expacs. They give them everything.

Elemental shaman is somewhere between moonkin and mage imao. But Ele is not a safe option: you can expect heavy nerfs to this non popular class soon, as shaman is not, and never was, never will be, on a Blizzard's priority list. Blizzard just don't want Shamans to shine in PvP. But at the moment they are performing quite well and we need to report that "bug".