Afraid to main Mage in Legion

[trm90]

On average, Kilt provides 3% more DPS over GS, Cord, and Sephuz. Compare this to fire mages where Bracers/Belt provide ~7% increase over the next best legendaries.

Kilt is good, and makes conserve phase a breeze, but it's not objectively that much better than GS. It is definitely better than Armwraps IMO, which need their nerf reverted -- on top of the RNG of the clearcasting proc, it will often go wasted during AP phases, or expires when you have to move too much.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Legion is like 8 months under way. I'd make a decision.

[fiestatastic]

On average, Kilt provides 3% more DPS over GS, Cord, and Sephuz. Compare this to fire mages where Bracers/Belt provide ~7% increase over the next best legendaries.

Kilt is good, and makes conserve phase a breeze, but it's not objectively that much better than GS. It is definitely better than Armwraps IMO, which need their nerf reverted -- on top of the RNG of the clearcasting proc, it will often go wasted during AP phases, or expires when you have to move too much.

You can't take averages over all bosses for specific legendaries and have them be valid. Bracers for example are terrible for skorp, yet you've lumped in those stats. Different legendaries work incredibly well for different bosses, to the point of being absolutely necessary to be remotely competitive (i.e. not get sat) considering the overall state that mages are in.

[Ham on Rye]

i personally dont think all 3 specs should be equal, as that would homogenize them too much.

I don't think you know what homogenize means. Allowing all three specs to be competitive doesn't homogenize them. It gives players the choice to play whichever one they like. Being competitive is just a matter of numbers tuning. Not mechanics.

they should all have distinct roles (if this were a perfect world without ap requirements that is...) that do their role well. I dont think fire should compete in single target with frost, but i do think fire should compete in aoe with other classes' specs that are suited for aoe. i also think arcane should not beat fire for pure aoe fights and should not beat frost for pure st fights, but should be the best choice for fights or raids that have both. now this does all go to shit when you realize that blizzard plays favorites and doesnt know how to balance boss encounters for different specs and they just shove cleave and st fights into every raid while ignoring aoe fight mechanics.

I could not disagree with you any more. I believe every single dps spec in the game should be able to perform acceptably and competitively on single target, multitarget, AoE, burst, sustained... everything. In a world where that is possible, all players are happy because they can *finally* just play the class and spec they find the most fun and enjoy the most rather than the one they don't want to play but feel like they have to.

And no, that doesn't homogenize them either. Homogenization comes from specs being mechanically the same so they feel the same when you play them. Not by them being mechanically different but able to get the same results.

As an example, sometime ago all three mage specs felt the same. You spam nuke A while waiting for Proc B, occasionally casting Spell C. They all were mechanically, practically identical. THAT'S homogenization. As it is now, all three specs have different mechanics and do different things. EVen if they all had their numbers tuned to be similar, they're not homogenized.

[Missionery]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...ge&spec=Arcane Where are u Mr.

Legs are the strongest Arcane legendary and they make huge difference. They will be even stronger with T20. Source? Most of top arcane mages have them.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...171109/latest/

quick edit: haven't been raiding for a few weeks now, but you get the point

[twistedmynd]

You can't take averages over all bosses for specific legendaries and have them be valid. Bracers for example are terrible for skorp, yet you've lumped in those stats. Different legendaries work incredibly well for different bosses, to the point of being absolutely necessary to be remotely competitive (i.e. not get sat) considering the overall state that mages are in.

It's interesting to me because I didn't know that the data was able to be presented that way (and I troll through logs daily). But yes, averaging them is a little skewed, and so is doing 75'th percentile. I usually do 90th percentile. That at least accounts for fight length variance while still looking at the top players.

The pants comment was about theoretical gain. It's using the simcraft rotation while also accounting for the correct evocation usage (because the Arcane apl doesn't correctly use evocate). Basically the sustain gained during arcane conserve is one of the biggest swings in damage for any spec in wow. You can kind of compare it to the fire bracers, but I believe the kilt is bigger still.

Either way, what I was trying to get out was that this:
"Arcane doesn't need legendaries to perform"
is wrong. The end.

[Missionery]

It's interesting to me because I didn't know that the data was able to be presented that way (and I troll through logs daily). But yes, averaging them is a little skewed, and so is doing 75'th percentile. I usually do 90th percentile. That at least accounts for fight length variance while still looking at the top players.

The pants comment was about theoretical gain. It's using the simcraft rotation while also accounting for the correct evocation usage (because the Arcane apl doesn't correctly use evocate). Basically the sustain gained during arcane conserve is one of the biggest swings in damage for any spec in wow. You can kind of compare it to the fire bracers, but I believe the kilt is bigger still.

Either way, what I was trying to get out was that this:
"Arcane doesn't need legendaries to perform"
is wrong. The end.

arcane requires atleast 1 legendary to help with mana management or you're forced to stack mastery. Worst of the legs being helmet, but bracers/pants are your ideal choice. Bracers have the highest potential dps increase while pants are more consistent, however they steal a valued tier slot, which while isn't an issue right now, will become an issue during ToS.

[Deleted]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...171109/latest/

quick edit: haven't been raiding for a few weeks now, but you get the point

I was using bracers as well for a long time as i didn't have Kilt. After getting it my dps raised by more than 60k on every boss, and the rotation becomes much more fluid as i could continue to burn the mana to 20%~.

[trm90]

You can't take averages over all bosses for specific legendaries and have them be valid. Bracers for example are terrible for skorp, yet you've lumped in those stats. Different legendaries work incredibly well for different bosses, to the point of being absolutely necessary to be remotely competitive (i.e. not get sat) considering the overall state that mages are in.

I looked at all the individual bosses in my post, and what I said still holds true -- the difference between Kilt and Hat/Bracers is even smaller for some things like Mythic Augur. There's even some weird anomalies like Bracers ranking highest for mythic Elisande. The main point is that on average the spread between the top 5-6 legendaries (for Arcane) is small enough that we can still remain competitive, unlike Fire which has much larger spreads in comparison.

arcane requires atleast 1 legendary to help with mana management or you're forced to stack mastery. Worst of the legs being helmet, but bracers/pants are your ideal choice. Bracers have the highest potential dps increase while pants are more consistent, however they steal a valued tier slot, which while isn't an issue right now, will become an issue during ToS.

I don't agree that GS is the worst mana legendary, in fact I think it's nearly equal to Kilt if you use it properly and it works well with the 4 piece. Logs will also show that GS is competitive or better than bracers on most fights. Lastly, the RNG tied to the bracers is a pain in the ass IMO, especially since the proc is totally wasted during AP.

[Deleted]

So many people actually believing this crap. My alt has always been in guilds that "do not push relevant ranks", i.e. around world 1000.

And guess what?

All those guilds are benching players that underperform on a constant basis.

If you are Fire or Arcane, you need to work twice as hard as Frost to actually make it on the main team, PLUS no guild will want you playing the worse ST spec out of 3, yes, not even at world 1000, they will just pick a better frost mage instead.

People keep claiming this realm of all flowery all rosy "all specs do enough DPS to kill bosses" as existing, yet it doesn't in Mythic raiding. The higher you go, the more you need to play the "correct" spec. Stop inventing shit up.

Except before anyone even killed Mythic Gul'dan as Frost, Gul'dan was killed with Fire (Exorsus, Serenity, Method) and Arcane (From Scratch). So it "doesn't exist in Mythic raiding"? The one inventing shit here is you bud. I'm not saying Fire or Arcane is better than Frost, because it obviously isn't, but at those ranks player skill matters more than the spec you play or the gear that you have. That tryharding shitty guilds will decline you regardless is a different matter.

[Deleted]

So many people actually believing this crap. My alt has always been in guilds that "do not push relevant ranks", i.e. around world 1000.

And guess what?

All those guilds are benching players that underperform on a constant basis.

If you are Fire or Arcane, you need to work twice as hard as Frost to actually make it on the main team, PLUS no guild will want you playing the worse ST spec out of 3, yes, not even at world 1000, they will just pick a better frost mage instead.

People keep claiming this realm of all flowery all rosy "all specs do enough DPS to kill bosses" as existing, yet it doesn't in Mythic raiding. The higher you go, the more you need to play the "correct" spec. Stop inventing shit up.

No, the higher u go the more u have to focus on tactics and the less dps means People are so much about 'do more dps' because it allows them to skip mechanics which they normally would not be able to handle.

[Deleted]

It was killed with Fire cause they didn't have Frost legendaries and AP. Derp. Of course you'll do with what you have, plus you had to spellsteal shit, so guaranteed spot, yes? Yes. Hardly earned a spot because of performance - but because of necessity and lack of options.



That's incredibly ignorant. At all levels guilds try to SKIP mechanics, and at all levels they try to push the DPS. There is no such thing as "let's focus mechanics, DPS doesn't matter" in actually good guilds. Performance is paramount and is earning you a spot. This is why good raiders always reroll and this is why so many quit since they couldn't keep with the stupid Legion requirements.

'Good' raiders you say. People rerolls when their spec is underperforming, and there is another spec that is much much better, not because there is a class that makes few % dps more. In NH difference between Frost and Fire is huge, that is why top guilds mages rerolled, and they rerolled not because they could not clear NH but because they are preparing themselves for Rank1 World race in ToS where even 1% can make a difference between kill and failure. This problem does not affect 99,9% of this forum, as most poeple will get to the main boss overgeared anyway . I would reroll myself if my dps would be lower than other people in my raid group, but I am near the top with 'underperforming, useless, and not viable Arcane', so why should I? To get 100k dps more? Please stop be funny

Stop acting like mythic raids in WoW are hard. They are hard for first 2 months when avarage ilvl is on pair/lower with the gear that drops from there. Currently, even NH Mythic is laughable when most people overgear it by 10-15ilvls.

[Deleted]

It was killed with Fire cause they didn't have Frost legendaries and AP. Derp. Of course you'll do with what you have, plus you had to spellsteal shit, so guaranteed spot, yes? Yes. Hardly earned a spot because of performance - but because of necessity and lack of options.



That's incredibly ignorant. At all levels guilds try to SKIP mechanics, and at all levels they try to push the DPS. There is no such thing as "let's focus mechanics, DPS doesn't matter" in actually good guilds. Performance is paramount and is earning you a spot. This is why good raiders always reroll and this is why so many quit since they couldn't keep with the stupid Legion requirements.

well, blizz said not to long ago, that they wanted to make fights more mechanically heavy and not just about dps which they certainly have done, and made skipping mechanics a lot more difficult, it definately feels that mechanics>dps in the last few xpacs and in general skipping mechanics is less about actually skipping mechanics and more about having a smooth transition from 1 phase to another.

[fiestatastic]

Except before anyone even killed Mythic Gul'dan as Frost, Gul'dan was killed with Fire (Exorsus, Serenity, Method) and Arcane (From Scratch). So it "doesn't exist in Mythic raiding"? The one inventing shit here is you bud. I'm not saying Fire or Arcane is better than Frost, because it obviously isn't, but at those ranks player skill matters more than the spec you play or the gear that you have. That tryharding shitty guilds will decline you regardless is a different matter.

Sorry, but this is delusional.

First of all, players from those guilds do not simply play what they want and just play it well, or even close to that. Many of them have very easy to find videos from the beginning of Legion where they comment about legendaries, imbalance, and having to dump their main characters they played for years and loved, and ALL of them played and kept up with many characters and dumped characters depending solely on what legendaries they got. Second, those guilds theorycraft and swap around comps to an insane degree, so if a class like a fire mage was in there, it was to fill a specific role / need (which would have been aoe, which no one disagrees fire mage is excellent at).

- - - Updated - - -

I looked at all the individual bosses in my post, and what I said still holds true -- the difference between Kilt and Hat/Bracers is even smaller for some things like Mythic Augur. There's even some weird anomalies like Bracers ranking highest for mythic Elisande. The main point is that on average the spread between the top 5-6 legendaries (for Arcane) is small enough that we can still remain competitive, unlike Fire which has much larger spreads in comparison.



I don't agree that GS is the worst mana legendary, in fact I think it's nearly equal to Kilt if you use it properly and it works well with the 4 piece. Logs will also show that GS is competitive or better than bracers on most fights. Lastly, the RNG tied to the bracers is a pain in the ass IMO, especially since the proc is totally wasted during AP.

Admittedly I don't have much experience with arcane this xpac and didn't look up the disparity there. I was just giving you a reply on fire bracers, which are huge and absolutely necessary to even consider being able to play fire unless it's a super casual heroic only guild that doesn't care.

[Bloodmagix]

aye, just take the fire, most mages played fire for raiding and m+ but then come nighthold and fire got nerfed to the ground AND we all know its crap but it still hasnt gotten any worthwhile buffs, its alright if you have the legendary belt and bracers, but if you dont, then you're better off putting your AP into frost coz it will do equal dps without legendaries as fire with legendaries.

Bracers/Belt is good but I can still reach higher dps with Shard ring and Frost Belt in Frost spec ofc. 2 BiS legendaries can barely even carry Fire in current state, I'd hate to be a Fire Mage without them.

Mage | Demon Hunter | Druid

[Deleted]

Sorry, but this is delusional.

First of all, players from those guilds do not simply play what they want and just play it well, or even close to that. Many of them have very easy to find videos from the beginning of Legion where they comment about legendaries, imbalance, and having to dump their main characters they played for years and loved, and ALL of them played and kept up with many characters and dumped characters depending solely on what legendaries they got. Second, those guilds theorycraft and swap around comps to an insane degree, so if a class like a fire mage was in there, it was to fill a specific role / need (which would have been aoe, which no one disagrees fire mage is excellent at)

If you cared enough to follow the discussion you would know when I wrote "those ranks", I were referring to the ranks which is not in contention for world first or evern server first ranks. More casual guilds raiding Mythic. You're right about the top-end guilds, but we were not talking about those.

[pies1]

Honestly? Fire is... Fine. I'm not sure why all the raiders cry and whine over a 2-5% dps difference at alarmingly unrealistic, simulated levels.

Fire at 50%~ crit (doable at 860+ ilvl) is not as clunky as one would think, has great mobility, amazing AoE.

The difference between the specs matters so little to a casual non-raider it is far more about play style. And even then? It's a matter of a few percent.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...867&class=Mage

[OrXter]

Mage is a fun class overall, just go with the flow and dont stress gearing and legendaries. Those will come with you just playing your class and enjoying it.