Less and less mages in MoP

[Akraen]

I get Shang's point and I agree with the gist of it.

It's Dark Shaman that seems out of the blue and nonsensical to me as any type of wheat from chaff separation.

For most* guilds Sha of Pride is the first stumbling block because it's mechanically dense but has a low DPS check, so while not hard, it's going to take a few more tries, I think Sha of Pride is a good indicator of a guild that's a bit more dedicated at this point.

Once you get Sha of Pride there's nothing more numerically or mechanically challenging until Malkorok. That's not to say guilds don't have more trouble on Nazgrim or any other fight as they might have a weak/bad comp, or a bad strat, or whatever. But usually Sha of Pride is Hurdle #1, Malkorok is Hurdle #2, Thok is Hurdle #3 and each boss after that is really its own Hurdle.

Okay so what's the point of looking at this anyway? To see how many mages are in MoP? Well, one set of data isn't going to be useful here. I think it's far more prudent and helpful for analysis to look at a few categories and interpret reasonably from then on:
1) How many mages are level 90?
2) How many mages have killed Garrosh on LFR?
3) How many mages have killed Garrosh on Flex?
4) How many mages have killed Immerseus on Normal?
5) How many mages have killed Malkorok on Normal? (this data point should be a significant drop)
6) How many mages have killed Garrosh on Normal?
7) How many mages have killed Immerseus on Heroic?
8) How many mages have killed Sha of Pride on Heroic? (this data point should be a significant drop)
9) How many mages have killed Malkorok on Heroic? (again, significant)
10) How many mages have killed Thok on Heroic? (again, significant)
11) How many mages have killed Garrosh on Heroic? (probably a terrifyingly low number)

Then plot all those on a chart vs. other classes and you'll get a much better picture of where mages stand in raid representation, how long they survive in progression, and if there's really any trend at all vs. other classes.

No one data point will tell the story here.

*- most does not imply all, it implies most-- don't need a snowflake guild to chime in here thinking they break the statistical curve

[Deleted]

@ point 11 - why would it probably be a terrifyingly low number? Why would mages suffer significantly over any other ranged (other than shadow priests)?

[Agzarah]

i dont think they means terrifngly low compared ot oher classes, but terrifngly low compared to the total representation - purely because of the tiny % of people that have actulaly killed hc garrosh

[Akraen]

@ point 11 - why would it probably be a terrifyingly low number? Why would mages suffer significantly over any other ranged (other than shadow priests)?

Sorry for being unclear, I mean compared to all prior #'s it's very low, regardless of class. Not mage specifically, it's just so few guilds have done Heroic Garrosh compared to all prior checkpoints.

[Quantz]

The recently published MMO-C class statistics show many interesting things. I believe that one of them is that Mage class design in MoP was probably a small failure. The amount of mages has decreased and if we look at the characters with item level 510 or more mages are now at the bottom, only monk and rogue classes have less characters.

Characters with ilvl 510+

Hunter ... 12.0%
Paladin .. 10.36%
Warrior ... 9.81%
DK ........ 9.71%
Priest .... 9.54%
Druid ..... 9.5%
Shaman .... 9.4%
Warlock ... 8.81%
Mage ...... 8.43%
Monk ...... 6.39%
Rogue ..... 6.04%

Maybe the comments about "not fun lvl 90 talents" are correct after all because dps-wise mages are still good. Of course an other reason for less mages can be the triumph of warlocks.

I dont know about HEROIC PROGRESSION, since I'm just a normal Player in PVE (just doing LFR), but I'm 4x Gladiator Mage. I'm not a professional arena player, but I have some credits.

I think the problem with mages is not about Buff/Nerf but the playstyle, all specs are boring and no fun to play. We dont need new MAGE Abilities to have more keybinds to press in our action bar, we dont need more 'complex' rotation (We all know that mage is the 1~2~3 button class and We all had fun back in tbc/wotlk).

But Mage had his unique playstyle of glass cannon and a lot of abilities to by pass some encounter mechanics, like inv, ice block, etc. I remember when mages was the class that could burst something really hardcore (but had some downtimes ofc), but right now everyone has this kind of skills and are fun to play (like shadow priest with orbs).

[Deleted]

Well I for one, has never had as much fun with my Mage as I do with the exact stage of Frost Mage PvE.
I like it.
I cannot even begin to understand all the whiners who say they "unsubbed because of 90 talents". Quit crying.
Sure, they are not as fun as 2 x demon soul, but to quit the game because you have to spam evocation 1 time a minute. Keeping a buff up is perfectly normal, and done by many others.

[Txiv]

I don't agree with the notion of no pve utility either. Greater invis and Ice block are really powerful for unavoidable mechanics and blink for avoidable. X2 ice block with snap on protectors lets you hold anguish both go arounds with no damage taken. Greater invis with blazing speed lets you demolish orbs during malk rampage. Greater invis let's you negate any mechanic on blackfuse ( even blades won't spawn on you). Nothing beats glyphed blink for thok baiting and kiting

[mrgreenthump]

I don't agree with the notion of no pve utility either. Greater invis and Ice block are really powerful for unavoidable mechanics and blink for avoidable. X2 ice block with snap on protectors lets you hold anguish both go arounds with no damage taken. Greater invis with blazing speed lets you demolish orbs during malk rampage. Greater invis let's you negate any mechanic on blackfuse ( even blades won't spawn on you). Nothing beats glyphed blink for thok baiting and kiting

With all that being true, most fights are designed to be done without them. And those that are designed to use those kind of spells.. tend to be doable with other classes as well and only a few have to do them. Sure you can abuse boss mechanics, but so can other classes and they still got their beneficial raidwide cooldowns.

Now am not saying they are useless, just people tend to give them too much credit. Mage is already pretty nifty at dodging death without them. We certainly don't need them unless we abuse something. And the guy next to you will still die. That gets us to the real problem of PvE utility nowdays, it tends to benefit the whole group a lot more when used by anybody else than a Mage.

[Firebert]

Firebert, you don't happen to have subscription numbers handy at the time those polls were ran? I know they have skewed downward since Cata 4.3.3, would be interesting to look at a rough number of mage subscriptions lost.

10.2m was reported during Q1 2012. We were at 7.8m at the end of Q4 2013. This is a 2.4m subscription loss.

Assuming that each account has exactly one character (clearly not true), this would mean that we have, since Patch 4.3.3:

Gained 496,860 Monks
Lost 53,940 Warlocks
Lost 151,980 Hunters
Lost 216,960 Warriors
Lost 231,480 Rogues
Lost 276,240 Shamen
Lost 309,180 Death Knights
Lost 315,000 Priests
Lost 424,680 Mages
Lost 446,340 Druids
Lost 482,040 Paladins

[Deleted]

Okay so what's the point of looking at this anyway? To see how many mages are in MoP? Well, one set of data isn't going to be useful here. I think it's far more prudent and helpful for analysis to look at a few categories and interpret reasonably from then on:
1) How many mages are level 90?
2) How many mages have killed Garrosh on LFR?
3) How many mages have killed Garrosh on Flex?
4) How many mages have killed Immerseus on Normal?
5) How many mages have killed Malkorok on Normal? (this data point should be a significant drop)
6) How many mages have killed Garrosh on Normal?
7) How many mages have killed Immerseus on Heroic?
8) How many mages have killed Sha of Pride on Heroic? (this data point should be a significant drop)
9) How many mages have killed Malkorok on Heroic? (again, significant)
10) How many mages have killed Thok on Heroic? (again, significant)
11) How many mages have killed Garrosh on Heroic? (probably a terrifyingly low number)

Then plot all those on a chart vs. other classes and you'll get a much better picture of where mages stand in raid representation, how long they survive in progression, and if there's really any trend at all vs. other classes.

Was thinking the same (although slightly less elaborate.But wouldn't it be more readable if you did:
How many mages have killed x-boss on y-mode or higher?
There could be mages that killed things on normal but not flex or lfr which could give confusing results.
In the end though what you want is to see is the number of active mages during a certain time period an expansion of that is to see where they are active in.

But we all know about the negativity about the talents, what i'm suprised about is the high amount of hunters. It seems that ever since the removal of the deadzone, and perhaps some pet changes they're popularity has gone back up tot he vanilla days.

[Shangalar]

I don't think I've ever encountered a lack of hunters since I started raiding in 3.2. (or Paladins).

@Akraen - heh, Blizzard chose Dark Shaman HC to give us data so I'm just using what we have available.

I didn't think that I'd have to explain my first response in this thread, but there's really no point in looking at representation from the point of view of 510+ item level. Of all the possible criteria that makes the least sense, that's why I said that we should either look at ALL to see the bigger picture or at the Dark Shaman HC data to see heroic raid representation. Our discussions here are 95% raiding related so it might have been interesting for that part. I did not mean to discredit anyone who plays pvp as a mage, I want to do it too, but I don't really have the time I would like for it.

[Mastamage]

what i'm suprised about is the high amount of hunters

The numbers will only go up after that 10% buff (which turned out to be a little excessive IMO).

[Deleted]

The numbers will only go up after that 10% buff (which turned out to be a little excessive IMO).

They have been overpowered since ancient times already, it's ridiculous.

[whywhatwhowhenhow]

I'm not surprised, the level 90 mage talents are utter shite.

Mage was my first toon, and although I've mained others, I've always played my mage. Until level 90. Now he sits in Shattrath making flasks.

[Frost1129]

I get Shang's point and I agree with the gist of it.

It's Dark Shaman that seems out of the blue and nonsensical to me as any type of wheat from chaff separation.

For most* guilds Sha of Pride is the first stumbling block because it's mechanically dense but has a low DPS check, so while not hard, it's going to take a few more tries, I think Sha of Pride is a good indicator of a guild that's a bit more dedicated at this point.

Once you get Sha of Pride there's nothing more numerically or mechanically challenging until Malkorok. That's not to say guilds don't have more trouble on Nazgrim or any other fight as they might have a weak/bad comp, or a bad strat, or whatever. But usually Sha of Pride is Hurdle #1, Malkorok is Hurdle #2, Thok is Hurdle #3 and each boss after that is really its own Hurdle.

I agree with these breakpoints, so to speak, with progression. But DS is possibly included (on heroic) because it's the first fight that FORCES personal awareness. At least on 10 man (lets be real. 10man is way more difficult than 25man herpderp million raid CDs to victory). There is nothing to save you from Iron Prison. You either watch for it, understand it, and deal with it, or you die. Which probably means you wipe during progression. All the fights before this can have poor personal mechanics overcome by priests (mass dispel on immerseus), lots of raid CDs to survive crap on TFP, and good healers/CD rotations on Norushen/Sha/Gala/IJ.

[voltaa]

Ok so my first point here; maybe I'm just oblivious to the general community here but Malkorok is a "hurdle"? I just don't see it. But to my actual point about what and how we measure, what data points, what bosses: why does progression matter? At this point people who haven't cleared the content aren't the ones who cherry pick what classes for what kills, those who have cleared the content aren't cherry picking because it's farm, take whoever wants the kill on whatever alt they want. We're trying too hard to pull data that just has no relevance, it's been skewed by too many unknowns. Can we make very broad general statements about the number of mages from this data? Sure we can, we're middle of the pack population wise in all four of the presented areas, not too high, not too low...which in a sense makes us the success, what things should be. Ideally every class would have similar numbers to what we have.

I love this community and appreciate the dedication and fight that you guys have to better our class and look deeper into the issues that we have, but sometimes it just isn't there, I understand that we've had our gripes and that we want to be heard but this just isn't the right data to support any sort of claim advocating change for mages. Some things are just interesting to know but in the end have little meaning.

[Frost1129]

Ok so my first point here; maybe I'm just oblivious to the general community here but Malkorok is a "hurdle"?

Soaking is serious business bro. If people are not at Malkorok by now, how do you think they are going to deal with that type of a mechanic? It's brutal compared to anything that comes before it.

I agree though; for some of the people here (a sizable amount of which are 14/14 H, which is awesome for us as a community), it's a joke of a mechanic. But for less . . . struggling for a P.C. word . . . aware???? players, it is hard.

[Pyromelter]

I don't agree with the notion of no pve utility either. Greater invis and Ice block are really powerful for unavoidable mechanics and blink for avoidable. X2 ice block with snap on protectors lets you hold anguish both go arounds with no damage taken. Greater invis with blazing speed lets you demolish orbs during malk rampage. Greater invis let's you negate any mechanic on blackfuse ( even blades won't spawn on you). Nothing beats glyphed blink for thok baiting and kiting

This has been discussed over and over. Mages have very good personal utility. However, when you compare it to other classes, that utility isn't anything special. On top of that, mages are significantly worse than the other 3 pure dps'es in terms of raid utility - lock cookies, lock and hunters can both bring certain buffs mages can't, and rogues have an aoe damage reduction CD. All 3 have personal CD's that match up with the mages, although I would agree that Ginvis allows you to cheese certain mechanics better, those are situational and not totally necessary for completing the encounters for which you use them.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but the objective fact is that mages bring no unique, useful whole-raid utility, and their individual utility is not OP enough to make up for that lack of raid utility.

- - - Updated - - -

Ok so my first point here; maybe I'm just oblivious to the general community here but Malkorok is a "hurdle"? I just don't see it.

Have to agree with this as well. Thok is the real first big-time issue for heroic raiders. If you can beat thok, you are for real, and can probably beat Garrosh heroic if you put in the time. Reminds me of how ICC 9/12 heroic was the standard for the "casually hardcore" where Professor Putricide was the first sticking point leading into Sindragosa then LK himself.

That said, I agree with Akraen, not sure we should be using "did you beat this boss" as a litmus test for mages.

[Erolian]

Soaking is serious business bro. If people are not at Malkorok by now, how do you think they are going to deal with that type of a mechanic? It's brutal compared to anything that comes before it.

I agree though; for some of the people here (a sizable amount of which are 14/14 H, which is awesome for us as a community), it's a joke of a mechanic. But for less . . . struggling for a P.C. word . . . aware???? players, it is hard.

Pretty much I'm pretty active on my alts even though I stopped raiding in serious guilds on my mage back in November and basically what malkorok does to players like this is 1. A lot of them aren't very good at watching their feet along with smashes/pools so things are missed that kill the entire raid 2. The dps check is actually brutal for a lot of casual heroic raiders. I know that casual heroic raiders sounds like a crazy term but its the only accurate one I can think of. Dark Shaman is just bad because it checks to see if your guild had 3 tanks more than anything because its an entirely different beast if you only have 2. Also after having done Thok in november and coming around and doing it now sometimes I'm going to go out on a limb and say it is actually about the same as Malkorok difficulty wise now if you're healers are alive behind their keyboards on 10 man at least or perhaps that's just how big a disparity in skill the guys I raid with sometimes now have because of the nerfs of course

[Alroxas]

You're saying hunters are more OP than warlocks?

Can you think of another ranged class that can do their entire DPS rotation while moving?

- - - Updated - - -

This has been discussed over and over. Mages have very good personal utility. However, when you compare it to other classes, that utility isn't anything special. On top of that, mages are significantly worse than the other 3 pure dps'es in terms of raid utility - lock cookies, lock and hunters can both bring certain buffs mages can't, and rogues have an aoe damage reduction CD. All 3 have personal CD's that match up with the mages, although I would agree that Ginvis allows you to cheese certain mechanics better, those are situational and not totally necessary for completing the encounters for which you use them.

Time Warp... granted BM Hunters have Hysteria but as an offensive raid CD that one is pretty good.