Priest vs mage

[Nabuza]

ok i ma in no way calling mages the most OP class. I am not saying priest need to get buffed to hell and back and im hoping for an educational course to heppen here but for that to happen you will have to listen to a bit of QQ and for that i am sorry.

Mages have summons, stuns, silences, polymorphs, blinks, ice block, mirror image, shields, armors, invis.

Priest have shields, dispersion, armor, AOE fear, disarm, silence.

I hope I covered everything there and i would like to mention i play shadow. Im a shitty healer in all aspects. Now all I want to say is that I would like either more CC abilities or at least reduced CD on what we have. Shad we have a 1.5 minute CD on Dispersian (glyphed), 2 minute CD on Psychic Horror (shad spec'd only), 45 sec CD on silence (shad spec only), and 23 sec CD on fear (spec'd and pvp hands) Can we get some of this (except the fear, its pretty good and dispersion isnt bad) reduced in CD or even last longer. 3 sec silence. Yes i know a lot can happen in 3 secs, but still 3 secs of YAY then a 45 sec of Psychic Horror is nice, but 2 minutes...really.

If someone has some ideas to help me in my pvp fail then heres a place to do it. Like i said I firmly believe that priest have too little and mages have too much, but I could be wrong and its just my opinion. Please dont turn this into a flam fest. I want to learn and be better and for that to happen i either need my beliefs to be accurate or proven wrong with good explanations why. Thank you.

[Talaith]

Ok, I'll bite...

I think comparing one class with another isn't the best way to judge a classes current performance. I fully admit that Mage's do indeed have more snares/CC's than Priests, however we also have more utility than they do.

We can HEAL. I can't tell you the amount of epic fights I've had where a well placed POM or a Line-of-sighted Flash Heal has saved my butt. I think a lot of hybrids spec damage and then conveniently forget they can heal. Mage's may be able to CC more but they can't heal anywhere near we well as we can (personally I don't think a glyphed Evocate really counts, either).

My best advice to you is - be a coward, your opponents probably will be too. 1v1? Dot your target up and run away! Use Line of Sight to your advantage - let your dots do your work for you. Hide, heal if you need it, run away, fear, mind flay to keep them at range.

For the record, I'm no PVP super star... I do my fair share of BGs and Arena has never really interested me. But thats my 2 cents worth.

[Danner]

Really, I think Talaith nailed it.

In a mexican standoff against a mage, you stand a very good chance of losing. They usually do slightly more dps, notably more burst, have more "outs", and mages are by far more skilled than priests when it comes to getting out of bad stuff, simply because that's what mages do every single day; it's their only way to avoid dying all the time. If it comes down to who can pull out the biggest guns, the shadowpriest is in for a challenge. Not an impossible one, but one that will be hard. Conclusion: Don't play mexican standoff with a mage.

In a war of attrition, the mage is simply screwed. His only reliable heal will be to spellsteal your shield, and he's not likely to do so unless he's at very low HP. In that situation, don't shield, drop shadowform, use a flash heal and watch him die horribly from your DP at the other side of the pillar. It's all about playing guerilla tactics. It's in the mage's best interest to not let you.

[gingerlemon]

A good mage would counterspell that heal

[Bockiee]

Tell me if im wrong:

What i will do as priest is mana burn the mage and keep in mind to fear him asap when he do evocation, after that when hes *OOM* he cant do much, and dont forget his mana stone so throw 1 or 2 more manaburns, now its time to kill the mage slowly till he used all his cooldowns to survive.

Only thing is from the Mages PoV, is the priest able to cast mana burn few times?

[Abandon]

A good mage would counterspell that heal

use a flash heal and watch him die horribly from your DP at the other side of the pillar.

I wish my mages counterspell went through pillars...

[Zeuq]

Mages shouldn't be that difficult. Snares really don't matter too much because you can dispel them and, well, you're generally trying to LoS them, not catch up to them. Ideally, you want to DoT them up to get them to pop Iceblock early, and you also want to make them trinket with an early fear so you can use it when it gets off cooldown for either some burst damage or healing. Counterspell shouldn't be much of an issue with regard to healing because you either use your fear to heal or you pillar hump and pop a quick FH and Renew so they can't interupt your Holy school. The most dangerous aspect of mages is burst damage and that there's no cooldown on polymorph, so they'll likely use a similar strategy to your fear to try to get you to pop your trinket early so they can polymorph you again, pop some CDs, and lay in the burst damage.

So, you're probably in trouble if you're 1v1 in the open where you will have difficulty LoSing and letting your DoTs work their magic. However, if you can pillar hump, you probably have the advantage. Either way, if you can survive to the second fear, they ought to be low enough from ticking DoTs and other random damage that, if you can't finish them off, you'll at least have the advantage.

[Nabuza]

yea i made this post after getting raped over and over again by a mage in WG where there was no LOS, but I do thank you guys for keeping the flame out of the thread. I might try to work on my pvp skills more. (did a 3v3 last night and won most of my games due to some well timed silences and psychic horrors so hopefully im not a loss cause.)

[Zeuq]

yea i made this post after getting raped over and over again by a mage in WG where there was no LOS, but I do thank you guys for keeping the flame out of the thread. I might try to work on my pvp skills more. (did a 3v3 last night and won most of my games due to some well timed silences and psychic horrors so hopefully im not a loss cause.)

By WG, do you mean Wintergrasp or Warsong Gulch? If it's the former, tenacity very well may be the culprit. On my server, the Horde usually has a massive Tenacity stack, which means I can easily be stomped one on one, even by someone with much less gear and skill. There's just nothing one can do against someone with 80-100k health that hits for 20k. If it's the latter, with everyone just rushing to the middle and farming HKs these days, much to my discontent, how'd you manage to get a mage one on one? If you're in the base, you don't really get a pillar, but there's still enough corners to LoS someone long enough to get a heal off.

[Dasvidanya]

Well.... i used to pvp on SP back in yonder day (5 years ago or so) back when we could piss over 3 classes in a bg and still have time to sip our coffee (no joke...SP was that OP)... so you could get a time machine.

As for mages? well i did a bit of PVP few weeks back on old SP man... and the general tatic hasnt changed... just keep them locked down and get in thier face (mages hate being up close... much like you as a SP, you dont really like warriors or rogues being up close).... first make sure you got a sexy trinket to counter the poly... then just run up to them, SWP, DP... wait till they cast something and hit silence... keep running in till your in 5yds (should be by now) then cast fear.... while they dry humping walls reapply DP and mind flay (make sure you stay close) then when they go to cast again use that other fear (the terror one)... dispell mana shield and ice barrier if you see it up... and thats it really... this tatic is IMO cookie cutter SP pvp tatic, works on any range class (hunter, warlock, priests, mages, oomkins) and it worked 5 years ago (minus the terror thing) and so far as i seen works well today

Make sure both dots are up all the time, make sure your always self bubbled when able... um and thats about it really, use mind flay and mind blast when you can (helps if they get healed).

Some times they use ice block and tbh then is the time to quickly hit renew etc your self, but soon as they come out run in again and repeat above....

The other good tatic against mages or even disc priests/druid healers(if you have more than one of you attacking as a good disc or druid healer can take more damage than a good tank) is to just spam dispell on them and let the other dps deal with them.

Other than that, good luck, i never really had a problem with mages (unless they were sat 30 yds away charging up a pyro before i noticed them)... like with any class you get some good players who will just figure you out in seconds and be able to milk you and then you need to think on your feet... but most people are easy to deal with

[Deleted]

You are aware that SW:P counters sheep?
Other than that, I seriously hate mages too, especially in a area without los possibilities, and their mage armor is annoying as fuck.

[Spagett]

Wintergrasp is pretty much the only pvp I do anymore. As a mage, I have found priests to be easy targets, warriors usually kick my ass, hunters put up a great fight. DK's are usually a problem. On my Druid, I pretty much avoid frost mages, but gank the hell out of DK's. The list goes on with my other alts, they all have great niches, just gotta find yours, and what's fun for you.

If you wanna have some real fun, stay on defense, run out to gun platforms, do what damage you can, run back when you get dotted up, drink, run back out, use rpgs with your shield so you can't be interrupted, priests actually do this role better than mages. '

The same strategy is also very fun if you heal, you can stay on the platforms longer. With healbot (*gasp*) this is retarded simple, and still really fun.

(Haven't done pvp with my priest yet, looking forward to it now, you got me thinking about it, lol..)

[Nabuza]

You are aware that SW:P counters sheep?
Other than that, I seriously hate mages too, especially in a area without los possibilities, and their mage armor is annoying as fuck.

yes i try and im still trying to get the timing just right