Best caster on 1v1 against melee?

[axlkix]

I’ve trying to play a caster in bg’s and duels but is so difficult as a shadow priest, for example, to survive against a warrior or monk. I’m not a gladiator but come on, it’s horrible. Which casters are te most viable right now?

[SealMemeSix]

Frost mages have always been good against melee. Aff locks can stand a chance, too.

Really the sad reality of WoW is that if you want to play a caster, you're gonna have to work your ass off against any melee while he outplays you into the ground with incredible skill. If there's two melee on you, then you are in for a brutal gangbang. They'll take you a half dozen ways then leave your quivering ruin in the dirt.

But I probably don't need to tell a spriest what its like to be gangbanged by melees lol.

[JustaWarlock]

Aff locks can stand a chance, too.

lol no, not this expansion.

Even FROST MAGES are having trouble surviving the skill-less melee choo-choo train.

[Thelxi]

Spriest is not as bad as it used to be. You can slow single targets with psyfiend and tentacles, speed boost yourself and you don't have to hard-cast anything other than a VT occasionally. Void bolt + dots is reasonable damage while under pressure. At the very least you can survive long enough to move to a more safe position.

Affliction though is much better at 1v1ing a melee. It might be counter-intuitive but you want to hardcast as much as possible and bait interrupts and stuns as quickly as possible. If you can get 5 stacks of essence drain on a them plus agony/corruption, you can't die anymore. Just put one or two UAs on them and keep channeling drain life. They will die and you will be at full health, unless they stroll away from of course.

The only danger window is their opening burst. If your wall isn't up and your healthstone is on CD, you can still die to burst and an initial CC chain. It's rare though to see people go all out on you like this in casual pvp, and by far you will be able to punish most melees that jumps on you behind your front lines.

The fun thing about afflock is that you can often kill people even in outnumbered situations. Your wall gives you interrupt immunity, so you can quickly set up an agony/corruption + 1-2 UAs on a healer, start draining them for 25% damage and watch them die as you get pummeled to death by 3 melees. Healthstone for a second life and you will most likely at least be able to take someone down with you, even healers. Nothing funnier than watching an arrogant disc priest smite you while his team is 1v3ing you, just to find himself dead in the middle of his team.

I'll mention ele shamans too. They are pretty similar to spriest as in they do shitloads of damage in casual pvp, easily top the meters every single match. Like spriests they also enjoy an increase in survivability compared to the past. They have a bit of slow suppression and 40% movement speed boost plus some passive healing in ghost wolf form. Couple that with a free ranged perma slow (which you sorely lack on an afflock), totems and a forward disengage on a small CD, they similarly to spriests have quite a bit of room to at least survive and reposition. Spriest has more self-healing though and dispersion is more reliable. And neither will actually kill an equally skilled DH or warrior, or even DK. You will easily outskill noobs though, and ele shaman can kite those people for days.

Moonkin is not worth mentioning, it's terrible. Mage is ok if you must but I wouldn't recommend. Out of the hunters MM is god-tier, but very dependent on smart positioning. No room for mistakes.

Lastly if you are serious about this, get engineering. You get a ton of value out of nitro boosts and glider.

[axlkix]

Spriest is not as bad as it used to be. You can slow single targets with psyfiend and tentacles, speed boost yourself and you don't have to hard-cast anything other than a VT occasionally. Void bolt + dots is reasonable damage while under pressure. At the very least you can survive long enough to move to a more safe position.

Affliction though is much better at 1v1ing a melee. It might be counter-intuitive but you want to hardcast as much as possible and bait interrupts and stuns as quickly as possible. If you can get 5 stacks of essence drain on a them plus agony/corruption, you can't die anymore. Just put one or two UAs on them and keep channeling drain life. They will die and you will be at full health, unless they stroll away from of course.

The only danger window is their opening burst. If your wall isn't up and your healthstone is on CD, you can still die to burst and an initial CC chain. It's rare though to see people go all out on you like this in casual pvp, and by far you will be able to punish most melees that jumps on you behind your front lines.

The fun thing about afflock is that you can often kill people even in outnumbered situations. Your wall gives you interrupt immunity, so you can quickly set up an agony/corruption + 1-2 UAs on a healer, start draining them for 25% damage and watch them die as you get pummeled to death by 3 melees. Healthstone for a second life and you will most likely at least be able to take someone down with you, even healers. Nothing funnier than watching an arrogant disc priest smite you while his team is 1v3ing you, just to find himself dead in the middle of his team.

I'll mention ele shamans too. They are pretty similar to spriest as in they do shitloads of damage in casual pvp, easily top the meters every single match. Like spriests they also enjoy an increase in survivability compared to the past. They have a bit of slow suppression and 40% movement speed boost plus some passive healing in ghost wolf form. Couple that with a free ranged perma slow (which you sorely lack on an afflock), totems and a forward disengage on a small CD, they similarly to spriests have quite a bit of room to at least survive and reposition. Spriest has more self-healing though and dispersion is more reliable. And neither will actually kill an equally skilled DH or warrior, or even DK. You will easily outskill noobs though, and ele shaman can kite those people for days.

Moonkin is not worth mentioning, it's terrible. Mage is ok if you must but I wouldn't recommend. Out of the hunters MM is god-tier, but very dependent on smart positioning. No room for mistakes.

Lastly if you are serious about this, get engineering. You get a ton of value out of nitro boosts and glider.

Wow, i should try affli lock. When you say “your wall” you mean Unending resove, right?

[Thelxi]

Wow, i should try affli lock. When you say “your wall” you mean Unending resove, right?

Yeah. If you are going to go affliction also keep in mind mortal coil is yet another heal/CC that helps a lot. Coil into a fear can stop a lot of burst. Also talents are quite rigid for affliction; if you pick multi-dotting and padding talents you will not be very effective in 1v1s. Go grasp-contagion for the damage multipliers, demon skin for the raw self-healing and DE for one of the best executes. Don't get endless affliction.

[Speaknoevil]

Fire Mage, no question.

You said 1v1, that means not arena right?

[axlkix]

Fire Mage, no question.

You said 1v1, that means not arena right?

Right, not arena.

I wasn´t expecting fire mage in this thread, only arcane or maybe frost.

[ilik2345]

Unsupported alone 1vs1 against a melee no other caster has more control then a Mage

[MechaCThun]

Elemental shaman with the right regular talents + PvP talents chosen have a fair chance. Involves a lot of kiting but I watched that video DalaranGaming had (5v5 1v1 duels) and that shaman became my idol.

[Speaknoevil]

Right, not arena.

I wasn´t expecting fire mage in this thread, only arcane or maybe frost.

Fire is definitely the one you want.

Between:

Frost Nova x2
Scorch(high dmg with cds and procs on the move)
Blink x2
Cauterize
Ice Block
Flame Barrier
Dragon's Breath
Increased Run Speed and Sprints from casting scorch
Self Healing from casting blink

Use Prydaz and Belovir's Final Stand for legendaries and you will be unkillable by melee.

[Deleted]

Most melee classes will tear up a caster 1v1, even if they aren't that good of a player. They just got too much in their toolset to counter your casts and to close gaps.

In random BG's it's still fun to play caster, just be sure to stand in the back, behind your teammates and run towards them when a Rogue pops up behind you.

[Snegovik]

Snip

Id go fire mage, or maybe maybe arcane mage, if u got room to kite, but even then some classes like DHs were meant to kill any caster 1v1. If my DH has all cds, I can kill any and every caster in a pvp instance

[Requimortem]

None. Any melee of equal skill/gear will roll over you with minimal effort.

[Sin Cara]

In the open world, whoever gets the jump. Rogues stand the best chance vs. any caster imo.
Fire mages played well can destroy anyone. Affliction and Spriest are pretty nasty with PvE gear.

[Deleted]

Afflock.

The melee that can 1v1 you does not exist. With Dark Pact you gain a 5 million shield if you dismiss your pet before using it and you're close to full health, 2 million if it's alive and it only has 1 min cd. Mortal Coil heals you for 20%. Healthstone if used with Reap Souls(artifact ability) heals you for 75% of your health. On top of that you have a 40% dmg reduction on a 3 min cd. But the real killer is spamming Drain Soul with 2 or more Unstable Afflictions on the target. You just won't die at all, while you rot them away. You can expect to win 1v2s easily against the average random bg melee players, just by using Dark Pact at full health, followed by your other defensive stuff and dotting/draining them.

[Kralljin]

Elemental shaman with the right regular talents + PvP talents chosen have a fair chance. Involves a lot of kiting but I watched that video DalaranGaming had (5v5 1v1 duels) and that shaman became my idol.

Yeah, Elemental is pretty decent against most Melees, except for Frost dk's and Dh's.

Warriors without double Charge are just kite victim, similiar to Ret, Rogues can be tanked due the Insane amount of Versatility the Ele Template has.

Frost Dk and Dh's however are a massive pain in the ass when they have CD's, they just use it, are immune to all your shit and blow you to pieces.

Frost DK's without CD's are however damn easy to kill.

[Socialhealer]

Elemental shaman with the right regular talents + PvP talents chosen have a fair chance. Involves a lot of kiting but I watched that video DalaranGaming had (5v5 1v1 duels) and that shaman became my idol.

lol i watched it all, some of the worst WW monks ever, constantly blowing all mobility to kite an ele? LOL WHAT plz l2p, just sit on him don't run you moron, 2nd of all they couldn't avoid cap totem for shit, probably lack eyeballs same kind of players they have to pay for AotC because they get kicked from pugs.

ele shaman was amazing but he was farming idiots who lacked any aggression and skill, all they did was line up CD's blow them didn't work? try reset fight 1 trick ponies.

[wholol]

I’ve trying to play a caster in bg’s and duels but is so difficult as a shadow priest, for example, to survive against a warrior or monk. I’m not a gladiator but come on, it’s horrible. Which casters are te most viable right now?

Most comments above are garbage, best casters in 1v1 vs melee spec are as follows.

Open world.

Tier 1:

-Arcane mage.
-Demo lock fel lord spec with coil.

Tier 2:
-Fire mage with the right legendaries.
-Frost mage.

Tier 3:

-Destro lock with root pvp talent + port/gateway setup
-Balance druid.
-Elemental shaman.

Tier 4:

-Affliction warlock.
-Shadow priest.

Basically affli/shadow flop in 2 secs in open world, by the time you apply dots you'll have to use ur healthstone / disperse , your hp will drop significantly faster than ur opponent, in fact if u get interrupted 1 time you're 100% dead, but i guess as affli if u have port setup on a higher platform and gateway ready , with proper timing and outplaying you could beat some melee in open world, but it would require you to severely outplay your opponent and i don't think you'll have the time to set all that up beforehand in a random open world scenario.

As for the Tier 3 specs, it's basically a kite and nuke strategy with the hybrids CC/ topping themselves and basically attempting to stay ahead and out of harms way to win, while destro would rely on roots / infernal stun and port /gate to get some chaos bolts off and win if the opponent is bad enough.

And Tier 1-2 are basically the few specs that can actually win without setup , although proper execution of abilities is key, either way it is significantly easier to win a melee vs caster in open world as melee just has to faceroll while the caster has to play properly to avoid the melee faceroll, aka outplay.

In an arena scenario ( not very likely to have 1v1s though ) any of the caster specs can win depending on several factors like, which cds u and enemy have left, what type of map it is ( can you port on a z axis map ? etc ) in such cases it boils down to how many cds one side has more of.

Hope this helps you.

Edit: Oh, all of the above is assuming you have almost similar (or close) ilvl/artifact traits in open world.

[Requimortem]

Most comments above are garbage, best casters in 1v1 vs melee spec are as follows.

Open world.

Tier 1:

-Arcane mage.

You're trying to pretend our comments are garbage but you actually believe Arcane stands a chance in open world (against melee no less). That's hilarious.