Am I just an idiot for quitting my mage for these reasons?

[chazus]

Maybe I worded it wrong. I meant...

High Skill Ceiling = Very good player does very well
High Skill Floor = Mediocre player performs awful.

As opposed to my shaman where

High Skill Ceiling = Very good player does very well
Low Skill Floor = Mediocre player performs pretty well.

I'm basing High Skill (Paying attention, focused, watching cooldowns) and low skill (not paying attention, watching Legend of Korra, and dealing with my cat wanting cuddles)

[Zka]

I'm not playing a mage because top 2 tier (living bomb & manaregen talents) are completely stupid for me.
I'm not playing holy priest because Chakra is stupid for me.
See, everyone has their reasons

[Deleted]

If something makes it unplayable for you then it's not stupid.
I think the little things that annoy you like Invocation is worth living with as long as the overall feel is fun though.
Nothing is perfect.

[RickJamesLich]

To answer your question, yes on some level you are lol. Alter time isn't an exploit, it's just used to increase your dps, the same way other dps classes time their CD usage abilities. Ditto with combustion, just about all of the other classes will carefully plan out using CD's when they are up, along with things like trinket procs, to get extra damage.

[Deleted]

I prefer being back as a level 70 mage, but as I had a proper break through Wrath & Cata from mage I dont mind too much, just hate how I cant play fire from a low gear set to a high gear set consistently, which means you end up playing FOTPatch specs, so far its been switching between arcane & frost due to lower raiding levels, and tbh, the playstyle are fairly similar in spam 2-3 skills for what I need to do.

Though I do only output about 80% of my theoretical maximum dps, however some fights I will be top dps, but probably still 15% lower than what I could do.

Play what is fun and what you enjoy, not cookie cutter or FOTM as there is always a bag of buffs or a bucket of nerfs just around the corner.

[sbergstrom1]

I kind of know what you mean. It seems like mages are really easy and repetitive and you can just keep your enemy at a distance a lot of the time. It seems kind of similar to Skyrim where if you learned a bunch of destruction magic you could simply just keep knocking the enemy back, so even dragons could do almost nothing. It kind of takes some of the fun away if there is no challenge.

[Invictus9001]

Mage, as a class, I have never lost my love for in the least. Arcane spec, however, is all but dead to me with the absolutely farktastic mana-management gimmick that is more annoying than worth dealing with. I tried Frost as an off-spec (for PVP) with my main, and grew to LOVE it. On an alt mage, I decided to try Fire as a PVP spec, and enjoyed the change of pace. As a combination of these things, I only play Frost and/or Fire spec now on a Mage. I have abandoned Arcane, despite the fact I used to love it dearly.

[Deleted]

I raided LK as Spriest, Cata as a Hunter and now MoP as a mage and concluded that dedicated DD's are not for me. The main reason is having 3 specs that all try to do the same thing but 1 is always "better" for a certain patch/boss so you are constantly switching back and forth (or your team is moaning "I thought blabla spec is better"). Although I realy liked playing Hunter and Mage, next expack I'll be the ElleShammie that has only 1 spec And can fill in as offheals too if needed, so yea.

Not the reason why you quit playing a mage, but certainly worth a consideration. And there will always be this gimmicky thing somewhere with any class/spec that some-one found out. It's not exclusive to mages.

[lve2raft]

Mage > all

[jimmy valmer]

It was kinda stupid how much fire mages relied on alter time before SoO for damage but this tier there is enough crit not to focus on gimmicky things.

Are you an idiot? Maybe.

Mages are indeed THE class of an online fantasy magic game. However just because you quit doesn't mean it's over. Go try again. Or better yet go try it out when wod releases.

[Zhaine]

I stopped playing my mage in the first patch of cataclysm after briefly switching to frost from fire which was incredibly fun to play in PvE until Blizzard nerfed it, that kind of pissed me off and I refused to play Arcane so when our MT quit I offered to reroll a tank and then that was the end of my mage, I recently used my free boost on my mage but I'm abit meh about Alter time, seems like an interesting mechanic but also annoying at the same time, I hate how gear reliant fire is because its the spec I enjoy playing the most, I'm glad the Draenor perks are doing something to correct it and I am really excited for Warlords of Dreanor now and I am defiantly leveling my mage, I think you should level your mage and see what you think in Warlords

[Mihalik]

If it's not fun for you it's not fun for you, for whatever reason and there is no point in playing it then. Fun>Everything else.

This is the same reason why I can't play ranged or healer. Playing any ranged is just so stupidly easy compared to my Warrior that it puts me to sleep. Being able to stand at such distance from the boss trivializes everything. Almost any encounter becomes 5 times easier. You can see anything from a mile away, back paddle out of almost anything even before it hits you, there is no threat, there is no sense of urgency. And when playing a healer...raid frames are almost useless. All you do is set in a rotation just like any DPS, but without even having to pay attention and just top off everyone every second by using your most OP heal. I mean the quality of healers went to the bottom thanks to smart heals. Just watch any encounter that requires the use of raid frames and dispells, bosses like Thok in PuGs, healers just fumble around, spamming AoE heals, trying to top everyone off, totally unaware they can prevent most of that damage with a simple dispell.

[Kyriani]

I decided not to raid throughout the bulk of MoP because I just wasn't happy with what they did to Arcane. There was a brief period during 5.2 that I found it tolerable (until they nerfed rune of power which I despised then and despise even moreso now) but ultimately arcane sucked throughout the entirety of MoP. I don't mean it couldn't put out decent numbers, I mean I did not enjoy the way it played. I am hoping that WoD changes that. I'm not holding my breath but I'll wait and see how it plays. That said I don't think anyone is an idiot for giving up playing when the experience is no longer enjoyable.

[Seezer]

I haven't raided since the first tier of this expac, but I played a mage since the end of BC. I always loved my mage, but I started really getting tired of mages being amazing because of some kind of gimmick with their spells, whether it was exploiting combustion, or alter time, or both, I just really got tired of it, and was somewhat of the reason I lost interest in raiding. Having to learn the new op thing other mages secretly found, and now I've got to use it before it gets patched next Tuesday, or hotfixed. I haven't played my mage in some time, and I don't really know how they are doing now, but I hear alter time is being changed to not be so gimmicky. Maybe that will bring back some interest for me.

I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to go hardcore back into my mage, or learn shaman. Mage is like riding a bike for me, but I don't like when my bike changes itself from week to week, at the drop of a hat, or in this case the drop of a patch.

I would stick with your mage. But if you absolutely must, reroll to a warlock instead.

- - - Updated - - -

It was kinda stupid how much fire mages relied on alter time before SoO for damage but this tier there is enough crit not to focus on gimmicky things.

Are you an idiot? Maybe.

Mages are indeed THE class of an online fantasy magic game. However just because you quit doesn't mean it's over. Go try again. Or better yet go try it out when wod releases.

This. Don't jump on the warlock/shaman bandwagon.

[Lobstarrr]

I can't let this beautiful opportunity go to waste.

Me neither. Attacking bosses when told not to.

What does that make you?

An idiot.