Warlock Vs Mage

[Deleted]

Can't decide on which one to play when classic comes out. I wont have time to raid and will be focusing on Dungeons and PVP.

I have played a lock on a private sever and really enjoyed it got up to 60. The free mount at 40 is great too! Never had a mage past level 10.

After watching a few youtube videos Mages seem fun for PVP.

Any help/suggestions would be great.

[Pieterman]

You can't really go wrong with Mage.

-More than three specs work
-Damage is high
-Very strong in PvP.
-Portals and water is superhandy
-Polymorph is great CC

There's probably a bunch more I can't think of, I'd never play it though. If you can't go wrong with a class, what's the point in doing it right. I'd go for Warlock. Seems way more fun.

[Selastan]

A good chunk of vanilla is leveling. Since mages have infinite food in a game where you need to eat every other fight, its really convenient and saves a ton of time. Speaking of time, having access to every major city is great as well, since there aren't portals littered everywhere. Warlocks, by comparison, are the exact opposite. They have to farm soul shards for hours just to be effective. Since you aren't planning on raiding, I would say mage. Warlocks really shine in the big group, where their summoning and ritual of doom shine, and if you get in good with a healer you can easily pull the best dps in the raid with them watching your back. But for casual play, go mage. They SAVE time while warlocks TAKE time

[Morbownz]

Both classes are really strong. I've played a Mage at level 60 on several private servers, they are a completely solid class. They are great in every situation, they have good AoE for 5 mans, they have the best CC for 5 man they bring great buffs, can decurse, create food and water and teleport/portal. Playing deep frost means you can do everything from AoE farm to dungeons and PvP just because of how good their talent tree's are. The only downside is they are very popular which might make finder groups tougher.

[Dhrizzle]

Sheep is the most sought after CC for dungeons, mages also have better (read: some) threat management than warlocks and by 1.12 better talent trees (warlocks got a very early revamp then nothing until TBC.)

'Locks have Soulstones which come in very handy in dungeons where respawns become an issue, when leveling in Vanilla I found my 'lock being quite sought after from around lvl 40 onwards. Mages have better scaling and talents for damage but 'locks have the double-edged sword of life-tap. Sure you can keep going as long as your healer can keep you up, but you go OOM quicker than a mage and put potentially unwanted strain on the healer.

If you get in a group with a Shadow Priest and Boomkin you can do some very nice damage (whilst giving those two a neat boost as well,) but that is a big if.

There used to be an issue where lifetap didn't scale but I think that should have been sorted by the end of Vanilla rather than the start of TBC. When they first added spell damage scaling to DoTs we were stupidly OP but I think that got nerfed very quickly so I doubt it will be in Classic. Machine-gun Imp was lots of fun but also a bit buggy so it might not make it in either :-/

A dedicated PvP 'lock was absolutely deadly and unkillable. A casual PvP 'lock can also do a lot of damage with DoTs though I seem to remember by the end of Vanilla ...Fear wasn't as effective. Rogues would murder 'locks more easily than Mages but a 'lock should own a Mage (hence the Vanilla 'lock forums being filled with Mage tears most of the time.) Popular wisdom said you should take 'locks for PvP and Mages for PvE but both can work in either side of things.

[Healasouhait]

A good chunk of vanilla is leveling.

Hmmm...no.

OT you cannot go wrong with either of them.

As said before me, mages have tremendous crowd controls and capacity of burst in pvp. In dungeons dps wise they are more than solid (plus the CCs, the water, the food, the portal at the end of the dungeon...). You won't have any trouble finding a group.
Furthermore, they don't need to be very stuffed to do well in pvp. Especially if you're an engineer. And you have the teleports that are very handy, leveling or not. And the capacity to jump from a cliff and survive with blink or a feather.

Warlocks may need a little more stuff in pvp, but SL makes them very solid. In fact, when you start being geared, you're becoming a solid wrecking ball. The pets requires some interesting management too. You may not be have a "large" spec choice for that like mages, but you will do just as well (enven more in some cases, like against mages).
Dungeons based, you'll always have a place in groups for you with your resurrect stone, your health stones, your CCs and dps. (Plus the free mount, the summoning...). Requires a soul shards farm though.

Mages have a more dynamic gameplay when warlocks may have some (tiny) downtimes (especially when SL).

In the end, since you won't do raids but just dungeons and pvp, you may have an easier time as a mage to do well in both (especially pvp).

[Dhrizzle]

Both classes are really strong. I've played a Mage at level 60 on several private servers, they are a completely solid class. They are great in every situation, they have good AoE for 5 mans, they have the best CC for 5 man they bring great buffs, can decurse, create food and water and teleport/portal. Playing deep frost means you can do everything from AoE farm to dungeons and PvP just because of how good their talent tree's are. The only downside is they are very popular which might make finder groups tougher.

A typical group for a 5-man would be Warrior, Priest, Mage and 2 "randoms" (Rogues, Hunters and Warlocks competing for the last 2 spots.) Plus no-one minded extra Mages, more sheep meant it was easier on the Warrior and Priest and Mages were no slouches when it comes to DPS. Rogues may have been somewhat better single-target but they also pulled aggro easier and got hit by AoE and cleaves more.

- - - Updated - - -

Dungeons based, you'll always have a place in groups for you with your resurrect stone, your health stones, your CCs and dps. (Plus the free mount, the summoning...). Requires a soul shards farm though.

'Lock CC was not really that popular in Vanilla. Fear and Seduction could be really tricksy to use and not that trusted (plus Seduction came with a DPS penalty as you gave up pet attacks.) Banish was solid but there wasn't all that many mobs it could be used on (elementals and demons only.)

On shards: It isn't all that hard keeping a full bag at all times. Unless your group sucks and is constantly wiping it isn't a beg deal to blast out a Drain Soul the moment before an enemy dies, and I seem to remember with the right talents it can also help keep your mana topped up (though I may be getting muddled with the TBC talents there.)

[chronia]

A good chunk of vanilla is leveling. Since mages have infinite food in a game where you need to eat every other fight, its really convenient and saves a ton of time. Speaking of time, having access to every major city is great as well, since there aren't portals littered everywhere. Warlocks, by comparison, are the exact opposite. They have to farm soul shards for hours just to be effective. Since you aren't planning on raiding, I would say mage. Warlocks really shine in the big group, where their summoning and ritual of doom shine, and if you get in good with a healer you can easily pull the best dps in the raid with them watching your back. But for casual play, go mage. They SAVE time while warlocks TAKE time

Don't really agree with this post, i reckon both are fine for casual play and i'd say just play what you like. You're right that mages have water / food, however warlocks with their abilities to convert life into mana and to heal themselves and their pets and the general benefits of a tanking pet should have no downtime at all during leveling (i think actually warlocks are rated the 2nd fastest leveling class only behind hunters, while mages are quite middle of the pack i think) and max level outdoor content. Also for casual content you don't need to farm shards for hours as generally you don't have to summon 37 lazy ppl that don't run to the raid, and also want healthstones on top. During casual world content / dungeons you can generate enough shards by just playing the game to sustain yourself and never have to go out farming for shards.

I reckon you can't go wrong with either, especially since both are, atleast in my opinion, very fun classes. Altough i personally have a slight bias for warlock having mained one since BWL release and having played the mage only as a alt.

[Morbownz]

You should check out some Mage AoE farming videos on YT. It's not uncommon to see a level 30+ mage kiting 5-10 mobs at one time with improved Blizzard and Frost nova, though you do have to find the right spot with melee mobs that will chase you to pull it off. There are plenty of video's of level 50+ mages AoE farming instance trash, I haven't tried instance farming myself but it looks pretty OP if you can manage it, and profitable too.

[Gavll]

If you won't have time to raid, you won't have very good gear.

Also, you'll have to factor respec costs in - you'll want one spec that will be good for dungeons and PvP.

You can't really farm with a warlock like you can a mage but the mage farming spec relies on not having frostbite, which is essential for PvP. You can easily PvE and PvP with the same spec as a lock. My favourite was NF/Conflag for that sweet burst.

Someone else mentioned the free food/water you get as a mage - remember this food/water is garbage and is always useless. The only time it actually syncs with your HP/Mana is when you get a new rank. When you get a new rank, you only conjure 2x of the item. You'll still be buying water.

As an affliction warlock, you have almost no downtime taking single mobs.

In conclusion: something xD

[Nyel]

Do we know in which state classes will release in Classic? On basis of the last Classic patch or is Blizzard adjusting them properly?

[Projectmars]

Do we know in which state classes will release in Classic? On basis of the last Classic patch or is Blizzard adjusting them properly?

They would be wasting their time if they were to attempt to "fix" classes, so it's safe to assume they'll be released in their 1.12 state.

[Nyel]

They would be wasting their time if they were to attempt to "fix" classes, so it's safe to assume they'll be released in their 1.12 state.

That's an interesting question though because many specs were simply not working. That's why I ask.

[Projectmars]

That's an interesting question though because many specs were simply not working. That's why I ask.

Vanilla had a much different design philosophy where not all specs were supposed to be viable for all forms of content, though. So most of them did work for what they were intended to work with, even if it wasn't in a raid environment.

[Nyel]

Vanilla had a much different design philosophy where not all specs were supposed to be viable for all forms of content, though. So most of them did work for what they were intended to work with, even if it wasn't in a raid environment.

I played Vanilla for more than a year before TBC was launched, I'm well aware of that. But there were still many specs that just did not work or... hadn't any skills to make them work. I am not against Classic launching with 1.12, I am just curious how Blizzard will do all this.

[Kagthul]

You can't really go wrong with Mage.

-More than three specs work
-Damage is high
-Very strong in PvP.
-Portals and water is superhandy
-Polymorph is great CC

There's probably a bunch more I can't think of, I'd never play it though. If you can't go wrong with a class, what's the point in doing it right. I'd go for Warlock. Seems way more fun.

I'm going to copy this to kind of make fun of it (a little) and elucidate on Warlocks in Vanilla.

-More than three specs work (SM/Ruin, DS/Ruin, full Destro, full Aff)
-Damage is extremely high
-Moderately strong in PvP
-Summoning, Healthstones, and Soulstones extremely handy
-Seduce is a great CC, and Fear aint too bad (if you can get a group to pull pulls back to a cleared area, a warlock can CC 4+ mobs at once via Seduce, Howl, and Fear Juggling).
-Curses are amazeballs.

A good chunk of vanilla is leveling. Since mages have infinite food in a game where you need to eat every other fight, its really convenient and saves a ton of time. Speaking of time, having access to every major city is great as well, since there aren't portals littered everywhere. Warlocks, by comparison, are the exact opposite. They have to farm soul shards for hours just to be effective.

About 20 minutes is fine. And if you aren't raiding, 20-30 minutes a week is plenty.

Since you aren't planning on raiding, I would say mage. Warlocks really shine in the big group, where their summoning and ritual of doom shine, and if you get in good with a healer you can easily pull the best dps in the raid with them watching your back.

If you are SM/Ruin you dont need a healer (and that was the "go-to" spec) at all. Siphon Life will keep you toped off.

But for casual play, go mage. They SAVE time while warlocks TAKE time

Not really. Never need to eat. Ever. Can chain pull 4-6 mobs indefinitely. Trust me, not sure what Vanilla you played, but if you want to farm, Warlock or Hunter is where its at.

but 'locks have the double-edged sword of life-tap. Sure you can keep going as long as your healer can keep you up, but you go OOM quicker than a mage and put potentially unwanted strain on the healer.

The "best" DPS spec (SM/Ruin) gets Siphon Life, which can keep you topped off without a healer.

If you get in a group with a Shadow Priest and Boomkin you can do some very nice damage (whilst giving those two a neat boost as well,) but that is a big if.

SM/Ruin was one of the top 3 DPS specs in the entire game for the whole run of Vanilla. You dont need a Shadow Priest or Boomkin.

A dedicated PvP 'lock was absolutely deadly and unkillable.

Uhh.. no. While a lot better than people like to remember (particularly post patch 1.8), 'locks are free kills to Warriors with a brain, any rogue who can press three buttons, and struggle against healers (just cant interrupt enough of their heals to kill them). However, Mages, Hunters, and Paladins are basically free kills.

'Lock CC was not really that popular in Vanilla. Fear and Seduction could be really tricksy to use and not that trusted (plus Seduction came with a DPS penalty as you gave up pet attacks.)

All you had to do to make fear 100% viable was pull mobs back a single room, and Seduction was 100% reliable (with a focus macro, it was fire-and-forget), the lost DPS was miniscule (pets did not do meaningful DPS unless you were full Demo and even then, were kinda crappy). All the best specs made zero real use of pets, and one of them even focused on straight up sacrificing your pet (DS/Ruin).

Banish was solid but there wasn't all that many mobs it could be used on (elementals and demons only.)

Mauradon, Diremaul East and West, Blackrock Depths, and UBRS all had plenty of stuff to Banish, and all but Mara were the best places to get pre-raid gear (and even some gear that was better than raid gear). A good warlock (solo) turn a 6 pull in those instances into a 2 pull.

On shards: It isn't all that hard keeping a full bag at all times. Unless your group sucks and is constantly wiping it isn't a beg deal to blast out a Drain Soul the moment before an enemy dies, and I seem to remember with the right talents it can also help keep your mana topped up (though I may be getting muddled with the TBC talents there.)

Yeah it didn't do anything for mana until TBC, but the rest of this is correct. Keeping shards topped off during non-raiding scenarios is easy as pie.

You can't really go wrong with Mage.

-More than three specs work
-Damage is high
-Very strong in PvP.
-Portals and water is superhandy
-Polymorph is great CC

There's probably a bunch more I can't think of, I'd never play it though. If you can't go wrong with a class, what's the point in doing it right. I'd go for Warlock. Seems way more fun.

I'm going to copy this to kind of make fun of it (a little) and elucidate on Warlocks in Vanilla.

-More than three specs work (SM/Ruin, DS/Ruin, full Destro, full Aff)
-Damage is extremely high
-Moderately strong in PvP
-Summoning, Healthstones, and Soulstones extremely handy
-Seduce is a great CC, and Fear aint too bad (if you can get a group to pull pulls back to a cleared area, a warlock can CC 4+ mobs at once via Seduce, Howl, and Fear Juggling).
-Curses are amazeballs.

A good chunk of vanilla is leveling. Since mages have infinite food in a game where you need to eat every other fight, its really convenient and saves a ton of time. Speaking of time, having access to every major city is great as well, since there aren't portals littered everywhere. Warlocks, by comparison, are the exact opposite. They have to farm soul shards for hours just to be effective.

About 20 minutes is fine. And if you aren't raiding, 20-30 minutes a week is plenty.

Since you aren't planning on raiding, I would say mage. Warlocks really shine in the big group, where their summoning and ritual of doom shine, and if you get in good with a healer you can easily pull the best dps in the raid with them watching your back.

If you are SM/Ruin you dont need a healer (and that was the "go-to" spec) at all. Siphon Life will keep you toped off.

But for casual play, go mage. They SAVE time while warlocks TAKE time

Not really. Never need to eat. Ever. Can chain pull 4-6 mobs indefinitely. Trust me, not sure what Vanilla you played, but if you want to farm, Warlock or Hunter is where its at.

but 'locks have the double-edged sword of life-tap. Sure you can keep going as long as your healer can keep you up, but you go OOM quicker than a mage and put potentially unwanted strain on the healer.

The "best" DPS spec (SM/Ruin) gets Siphon Life, which can keep you topped off without a healer.

If you get in a group with a Shadow Priest and Boomkin you can do some very nice damage (whilst giving those two a neat boost as well,) but that is a big if.

SM/Ruin was one of the top 3 DPS specs in the entire game for the whole run of Vanilla. You dont need a Shadow Priest or Boomkin.

A dedicated PvP 'lock was absolutely deadly and unkillable.

Uhh.. no. While a lot better than people like to remember (particularly post patch 1.8), 'locks are free kills to Warriors with a brain, any rogue who can press three buttons, and struggle against healers (just cant interrupt enough of their heals to kill them). However, Mages, Hunters, and Paladins are basically free kills.

'Lock CC was not really that popular in Vanilla. Fear and Seduction could be really tricksy to use and not that trusted (plus Seduction came with a DPS penalty as you gave up pet attacks.)

All you had to do to make fear 100% viable was pull mobs back a single room, and Seduction was 100% reliable (with a focus macro, it was fire-and-forget), the lost DPS was miniscule (pets did not do meaningful DPS unless you were full Demo and even then, were kinda crappy). All the best specs made zero real use of pets, and one of them even focused on straight up sacrificing your pet (DS/Ruin).

Banish was solid but there wasn't all that many mobs it could be used on (elementals and demons only.)

Mauradon, Diremaul East and West, Blackrock Depths, and UBRS all had plenty of stuff to Banish, and all but Mara were the best places to get pre-raid gear (and even some gear that was better than raid gear). A good warlock (solo) turn a 6 pull in those instances into a 2 pull.

On shards: It isn't all that hard keeping a full bag at all times. Unless your group sucks and is constantly wiping it isn't a beg deal to blast out a Drain Soul the moment before an enemy dies, and I seem to remember with the right talents it can also help keep your mana topped up (though I may be getting muddled with the TBC talents there.)

Yeah it didn't do anything for mana until TBC, but the rest of this is correct. Keeping shards topped off during non-raiding scenarios is easy as pie.

If you won't have time to raid, you won't have very good gear.

Ehh.. that's not necessarily true at all. There are ways in Vanilla to get decent gear without raiding - a mix of T1, T2 and T2.5 iLevel gear is easily obtainable without ever raiding. PvP can get you a good caster weapon/weapon set (T2-equivalent staff and mainhand caster dagger from Defilers Rep, T2-equivalent boots here too IIRC; +60 Shadow damage off-hand available from Frostwolves rep, The T1 bracers and belt are BoE, The T 0.5 head, shoulders are actually better than T1 and are available to casuals, Argent Dawn rep can get you one of the best caster trinkets in vanilla (activate for huge spellpower boost that fades over time), the other best caster trinket is a drop from a mob in uBRS (Jed Runewalker, +33 spellpower trinket), Warsong rep gives two epics items that are T1-ish. Tailoring can get you the Shadow damage robe (pattern drops in Scholo) which is straight BiS for the whole of vanilla, and Thorium Brotherhood rep can get you three epic patterns; also, some of the Diremaul blues are as good or better than T1 drops (and even some T2-level items), and the quests/rep in Silithus from the event there (which were still available after the event) have 2 or 3 T2.5 ilevel pieces for each armor type.

You dont need to raid to get good gear. I never did, and did quite well.

Also, you'll have to factor respec costs in - you'll want one spec that will be good for dungeons and PvP.

Thankfully thats pretty easy. SM/Ruin and DS/Ruin are actually decent at both, and full-aff is good at both (but falls behind in raiding).

You can't really farm with a warlock like you can a mage

You can farm better. I had to farm all 90 or 100 Felcloth for that damn robe ... and i could chain pull all of the mobs at any of the three Satyr-places in Felwood as full Aff (Dark Pact). Like, 10+ mobs at a time. Siphon Life was pretty amazing in Vanilla because it was a straight up life conversion, not %, or % of damage - just all damage it did. If i got out the Voidwalker, i could solo 15+ mobs at once. Usually i just drain-tanked 8-10 at a time. It was faster.

Someone else mentioned the free food/water you get as a mage - remember this food/water is garbage and is always useless. The only time it actually syncs with your HP/Mana is when you get a new rank. When you get a new rank, you only conjure 2x of the item. You'll still be buying water.

As an affliction warlock, you have almost no downtime taking single mobs.

You have no downtime taking 5-10 mobs, usually.

Do we know in which state classes will release in Classic? On basis of the last Classic patch or is Blizzard adjusting them properly?

Patch 1.12, unaltered. There will be no "fixing" of classes or changes. The whole point of Classic is to be as close to the real deal as possible, warts and all.

[Nyel]

Patch 1.12, unaltered. There will be no "fixing" of classes or changes. The whole point of Classic is to be as close to the real deal as possible, warts and all.

Is this a fact stated by Blizzard or just what players assume? Haven't followed or watched any Classic interviews, that's why I ask.

[Kagthul]

Is this a fact stated by Blizzard or just what players assume? Haven't followed or watched any Classic interviews, that's why I ask.

outright stated. Its patch 1.12, there will be no changes.

There was an interview with the lead developer on Classic, it got posted on the front page here. Its a month or more back by now but you should be able to find it.

[Gavll]

Ehh.. that's not necessarily true at all. There are ways in Vanilla to get decent gear without raiding - a mix of T1, T2 and T2.5 iLevel gear is easily obtainable without ever raiding. PvP can get you a good caster weapon/weapon set (T2-equivalent staff and mainhand caster dagger from Defilers Rep, T2-equivalent boots here too IIRC; +60 Shadow damage off-hand available from Frostwolves rep, The T1 bracers and belt are BoE, The T 0.5 head, shoulders are actually better than T1 and are available to casuals, Argent Dawn rep can get you one of the best caster trinkets in vanilla (activate for huge spellpower boost that fades over time), the other best caster trinket is a drop from a mob in uBRS (Jed Runewalker, +33 spellpower trinket), Warsong rep gives two epics items that are T1-ish. Tailoring can get you the Shadow damage robe (pattern drops in Scholo) which is straight BiS for the whole of vanilla, and Thorium Brotherhood rep can get you three epic patterns; also, some of the Diremaul blues are as good or better than T1 drops (and even some T2-level items), and the quests/rep in Silithus from the event there (which were still available after the event) have 2 or 3 T2.5 ilevel pieces for each armor type.

You dont need to raid to get good gear. I never did, and did quite well.



Thankfully thats pretty easy. SM/Ruin and DS/Ruin are actually decent at both, and full-aff is good at both (but falls behind in raiding).

You can farm better. I had to farm all 90 or 100 Felcloth for that damn robe ... and i could chain pull all of the mobs at any of the three Satyr-places in Felwood as full Aff (Dark Pact). Like, 10+ mobs at a time. Siphon Life was pretty amazing in Vanilla because it was a straight up life conversion, not %, or % of damage - just all damage it did. If i got out the Voidwalker, i could solo 15+ mobs at once. Usually i just drain-tanked 8-10 at a time. It was faster.

You have no downtime taking 5-10 mobs, usually.

You can't take 5 mobs at a time, let alone 15. lol. Especially not while levelling.

Look how much time investment is required to get all that sub-par gear you mentioned. Exalted with all 3 PvP factions? Doing the whole T0.5 questline? This is hundreds of hours of play and a lot of gold investment. If you don't raid and especially as the OP said he didn't have time to raid, it's going to take him about a year to get any of that except the AV stuff which you can get in a bonus weekend or 2.

I'n not gonna pick everything apart but the Shadow OH is like +34 dmg not 60. You can only get a T2 equiv staff by being R14, the AB rep staff pales in comparison to Shadow Flame or the Ossi staff. Not sure what T2.5 equivalent gear you think you're getting from quests in Silithus either...

[Kagthul]

You can't take 5 mobs at a time, let alone 15. lol. Especially not while levelling.

Yeah, you can. Especially in 1.12, because they added stat scaling to the pets in 1.09. The voidwalker was about ~70% tougher just from that. And post-60.. yeah, you can farm 10+ mobs as a full Aff build no problem. I did it for a lot of hours in Felwood farming Felcloth at Jaedanar and the other Satyr holds (depending on which one was being farmed by others). Immolate > Siphon > CoAgony > Corruption, tab to next mob. The 4 DoTs alone will kill any of them, and once you've pulled everything that wont tether, you drain tank.

Look how much time investment is required to get all that sub-par gear you mentioned.

At least four of those items are BiS until Tier 3 (Jed Runewalker Trink, AD Trink (though the one from Zul'Gurub is just as good), AB Dagger + AV offhand), so im not sure what "Sub-par" gear you're talking about. And time investment isn't relevant. Raiding (particularly in Vanilla) requires large blocks of contiguous time. 4+ hours at a go, usualy 2-3 times a week for one raid. 99% of the time when people say they "dont have time for raiding" that is what they are referring to.

The gear i mentioned can be done (with a few exceptions that require running a tougher instance like Scholo) in whatever time you have available at your own pace.

Total time to acquire isn't relevant, particularly when there's no pacing to worry about and no expac on the horizon to invalidate your work.

Exalted with all 3 PvP factions?

Takes about two weeks of doing each BG for an hour or two a day, depending on how your win rate is (mostly for WSG; as they changed the way rep was gained in AB in 1.10 or 1.09, to rep ticks at certain resource numbers, so you can lose and still get a decent amount of rep as long as you didn't get blown out). Remember the rep gains were changed (increased) for all the BGs later in Vanilla.

Doing the whole T0.5 questline? This is hundreds of hours of play and a lot of gold investment.

The T0.5 questline was about ~20 hours including the instance runs and about 200g, which, yes, is a decent amount in Vanilla but hardly out of reach.

If you don't raid and especially as the OP said he didn't have time to raid, it's going to take him about a year to get any of that except the AV stuff which you can get in a bonus weekend or 2.

Your point? He'd still have good gear (an iLevel spread

I'n not gonna pick everything apart

Since there was nothing to pick apart, its better you didnt try and make a fool out of yourself.

but the Shadow OH is like +34 dmg

I was rounding up, but it was +54. It was changed to +34 spellpower in the Wrath pre-patch when +specific schools was removed. THere was a +54 fire, and a +54 frost, as well. (edit: my B here, i was thinking of an item you could get from Argent Dawn rep, but it required you to choose that over the trinket, which was silly).

not 60. You can only get a T2 equiv staff by being R14, the AB rep staff pales in comparison to Shadow Flame or the Ossi staff.

If you say so (on the staff) but the dagger had the same +spellpower on it as a T2/BWL caster weapon, and coupled with the +shadow offhand (or +fire if full destro, which no one did really) was BiS well into T3. You had to get one of the +spellpower swords from Naxx to do better (or the post-Naxx-release upgraded R14 weapons).

Not sure what T2.5 equivalent gear you think you're getting from quests in Silithus either...

The ones you can quest for via rep. That were (somewhat) poorly itemized at the time, but the raw spellpower on them is plenty, particularly if you aren't raiding. This list isn't complete but was literally the first hit on Google:

http://thedruidsgrove.org/archive/wow/t-9991.html

Even the Rare rewards are better than some T1 and T2 epics - 27 spellpower is nothing to sneeze at (on gloves), and 3 mana/5 on a ring is pretty baller for a healer.