Warlock Vs Mage

[Kaibhan]

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

Soul shards and travel are an issue to be sure, however, locks have zero down time while leveling. Between drain life and life tap you just keep on pulling. Mages on the other hand go oom pretty quickly until higher levels.

[Kithelle]

Hmmm...no.

Hmmm...yes.

Vanilla is by FAR the slowest leveling experience WoW ever had....you had to eat after a few pulls...aoe leveling was impossible...your spells didn't automatically level and you needed to pay for each spell upgrade...you didn't get your basic mount till level 40 and it was a lot more expensive too.

[sam86]

pve mage, pvp warlock
mages were a nightmare to warrior in pvp, but that's it, rogues f8ck them (also rogue f8cked everyone in vanilla in general), hunters outrange and will interrupt u to the end of days with fast attack pets (will that get randomized in 1.12?) and warlock will fear u to death, specially afflicition since fear has 100% break on crit, and affliction dots don't crit
warlocks on other hand in pvp can deal with far more classes than mage, specially if u go horde to avoid wotf that screw ur fear

warlock is also 2nd best class to solo lvl in pve after hunter, mage is still better than warrior/priest but he is nowhere near the godhood hunter or the demigod warlock

however in dungeons, mages beat any other dps with no question, hunters needed to get out of combat to trap (and trap very unreliable), rogues sap get them out of stealth in first place, warlock can't cc as good as mage in pve ever (seduction work on far less type of minions than poly, and fear is wipe invite), and so on

so what will u focus ? solo with pvp, or want to focus on as many dungeons as possible ?

[Gavll]

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

Except for the all things I mentioned where you were demonstrably wrong, yea sure.

Tome of Shadow Force
https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?item=19309
https://classicdb.ch/?item=19309

Ironbark Staff
https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?item=20220
vs Staff of the Shadowflame
https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?item=19356

No contest. So yes I do say so, because I'm correct


AB exalted dagger
https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?item=20214
vs
BWL dagger
https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?item=19347
vs
MC sword
https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?item=17103

So the AB dagger isn't even as good as the MC sword let alone "BiS until Naxx"

BiS trinkets for casters are Tear and ToEP / ZG hero charm until Naxx.

Ahh yes, the ridiculously long winded, group content only rep farm rewards from Silithus. Yes, that gear is good. No it's not casual friendly simply because of the time investment and grouping required. Not to mention the travel.

I'd love to hear the stories of people getting Exalted with AB in 2 weeks of 1 hour a day, same as I'd love to see a video of a warlock taking 10-15 mobs at a time, solo.

Don't come on here trying to lecture people when you're so clearly wrong on so many levels.

[Chaelexi]

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

This is full of lies. Level yes takes longer but in the end is only a small portion of game play but can be done in a short portion of time. While portals are nice you will find mages everywhere that are willing to make a portal for you for the cost of the rune. Warlocks do not have to farm shards to be effective at all, and a full bag of shards once geared takes maybe 5 minutes of game play if you know how to dot kite properly. Ritual of Doom does not shine for anything other than world PVP or farm content where you know the fight will only last a couple minutes, as an end game world top 10 raider it was the most useless spell we could cast in raids. Lastly warlocks were not good DPS in 1.12. The only time warlocks were close to top dps was in early vanilla when there was negative resists and you could force in it MC with COS after that disappeared locks were at the bottom........ In the end though play mage as Pieterman said the are top DPS, reliable CC and strong in group PVP. The only true advantage Warlock has is in 1v1 PVP as demo you were almost unbeatable.

[AeneasBK]

-More than three specs work

I'm not disputing what you are saying; but I am curious what you define by a spec, if *more* than 3 work.

OT: I'd cast my vote with Warlock; but that's because I like playing warrior and there are gonna be too many goddamn frost mages anyway :P

- - - Updated - - -

I'd love to hear the stories of people getting Exalted with AB in 2 weeks of 1 hour a day, same as I'd love to see a video of a warlock taking 10-15 mobs at a time, solo.

Don't come on here trying to lecture people when you're so clearly wrong on so many levels.

Also not trying to dispute what you're saying but on this last one - the example he gave was (unless I followed it badly) farming felcloth at 60 in 1.12 . . . IT was pretty do-able to kill 10+ satyrs 'at the same time' if not for the fact that the first ones would be dying before you would have killed the last; half the mobs were casters at 10+ levels below you, they did barely anything.

I'm not touching the rest of that discussion though; I don't have enough experience.

[Marema]

Played a warlock for most of vanilla and well into wrath. Didnt play a mage but in vanilla pvping as a warlock was amazing. Affliction spec with shadowburn was great. Instant shadowbolts with nightfall.

I've been leveling a lock, mage and dwarf priest on a <redacted> realm. I'm having fun with all 3 actually. Due to my limited playtime now and whenever classic releases I will definitely have to make a choice of which one to spend my time playing. Won't have time to dick around with multiple toons.

I will probably end up with a lock though or maybe go healing this time around with dwarf priest.

[Healasouhait]

Hmmm...yes.

Vanilla is by FAR the slowest leveling experience WoW ever had....you had to eat after a few pulls...aoe leveling was impossible...your spells didn't automatically level and you needed to pay for each spell upgrade...you didn't get your basic mount till level 40 and it was a lot more expensive too.

Slowest leveling experience WoW ever had =/= good chunk of Vanilla (as you said).

You hardly spent more than 15 /played days to reach lvl 60, unless you were super casual. Most of the time spent was at maximum level.

[Dhrizzle]

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.

I didn't argue with your earlier points because I realised that I was mostly going on my limited experience and the "common knowledge" (i.e. whine) in the forums when it came to warlock DPS, plus most of that whine was based on raids where most 'locks wouldn't be able to use their DoTs or Siphon Life.

However it is literally impossible for you to have those DoTs up on more than 4 mobs at a time due to it taking 6 seconds to apply them all and the longest lasting for 24 seconds. That's if the mobs were all lined up in range and not scattered in groups of 2 or 3.[/QUOTE]

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.

Are you including the time it takes to get T0 in that? Multiple runs of all the lvl 60 dungeons and the need to persuade people to run optional bosses for some shoulders (Jandice for warlocks, Father Flame for priests etc.) and the actual 0.5 chain require a good team for things like Strat 45 and the extra bosses including Lord Valthalak in UBRS (so 10 people needed.) Most people I know who completed that chain did so with help from raid-geared mates or waited until they were wearing T1 and T2.

[Pieterman]

I'm not disputing what you are saying; but I am curious what you define by a spec, if *more* than 3 work.

Arcane frost, Arcane fire, Deep frost, Elemental and I believe there was another one.

[AeneasBK]

However it is literally impossible for you to have those DoTs up on more than 4 mobs at a time due to it taking 6 seconds to apply them all and the longest lasting for 24 seconds. That's if the mobs were all lined up in range and not scattered in groups of 2 or 3.

Naa the guy is on point you could easily be killing a crowd of 10+ mobs in one pull. You're right that the DoTs wouldn't be up on more than 4 mobs but that is mostly because they would be dead mobs.

- - - Updated - - -

Arcane frost, Arcane fire, Deep frost, Elemental and I believe there was another one.

Fair enough; I didn't think Arcane Fire was very viable for 1:59 out of every 2 minutes (or was PoM a 3 min CD?) but "okay" it counts :P

[Gavll]

Fair enough; I didn't think Arcane Fire was very viable for 1:59 out of every 2 minutes (or was PoM a 3 min CD?) but "okay" it counts :P

Depends how you define Arcane/Fire. Both Fire raiding specs were Arcane/Fire, just one was 17/31/3 and the other was 31/17/3

Personally I liked this
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#of0E00MZxg0zfcut0h

but you can swap out Pyro/Blast Wave for 4% extra crit if you're the Scorch bot. I took Pyro because 8/8 T2 and it was more fun. You can also swap out some magic absorbtion in Arcane for Damped Magic

The other spec would be something like this
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#of0E0ofquxtzzbMZ0h

Probably only the best geared would use this and you'd try to make sure that player got the Ignite rolling with a Trinketed, Arcane Powered, Pyroblast.

The PvP PoM/Pyro would be slightly different again.

[Tehterokkar]

My experience from playing Mage on a recent high pop vanilla priv. server launch; bleh.

You go oom in 2-3 mobs, there is a lot of downtime because of that. AoE grinding does not exist during server launch, forget about it, every spot is known and camped.

Warlock is infinitely faster leveler, no downtime and better 2-3 target capability. Plus can solo some elites(eg. I soloed the Dwarf/Gnome starting zone yeti elite).

Mage pays off if you can withstand the 20 second breaks after every few mobs and being the #1 target of ganking because you are so squishy(at least pre-40). Really desired for dungeons/raids(for dmg and CC) and you got a few options for AoE gold farming in instances.

[skannerz22]

warlocks are limited in terms of raids due to the limited amount of dots on each boss

[FelPlague]

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.

If you want damage, to be always accepted to raid?
mage

if you want to be brought to some raids, and forced to farm for hours for soulshards for a few minor things like free mount?
warlock.

- - - Updated - - -

warlocks are limited in terms of raids due to the limited amount of dots on each boss

Warlocks literally didnt dot bosses, they went DS/Ruin
or DS/SE
Until later when the debuff slots were increased

[zoddzero]

I'll likely be rolling Warlock because they are less played (especially on Alliance), they have a specc that is good for both PvP and PvE (SM/Ruin), they level fast with little downtime, they get a free mount at 40, they scale great with gear and it's an overall powerful class. Negatives would be SoulShard farming and summoning pets.

[Charge me Doctor]

If you want a longstanding single-player-ish and engaging experience - go for a warlock, you won't get bored during leveling thanks to pet quests (in a sense that obtaining new pet, buying new abilities for him is better than getting... say, a CoC rank 2). In dungeons people won't give a fuck about you dotting mobs, so you'll be able to use more abilities than shadobolt + curse and you'll get your very own epic quest at level 60. So if you don't plan at doing raids - worst things that warlocks have to experience (soulshard farming for SS, HS and summons) are gone, only good stuff like leveling and PvP has left. Pick up engineering for disorientation bombs for PvP and you are in a great spot

[Dhrizzle]

If you want a longstanding single-player-ish and engaging experience - go for a warlock, you won't get bored during leveling thanks to pet quests (in a sense that obtaining new pet, buying new abilities for him is better than getting... say, a CoC rank 2). In dungeons people won't give a fuck about you dotting mobs, so you'll be able to use more abilities than shadobolt + curse and you'll get your very own epic quest at level 60. So if you don't plan at doing raids - worst things that warlocks have to experience (soulshard farming for SS, HS and summons) are gone, only good stuff like leveling and PvP has left. Pick up engineering for disorientation bombs for PvP and you are in a great spot

You just reminded me what a ball-ache it was leveling pet skills. Somewhere near the warlock trainer is the pet trainer who sells tomes, so you have to scan through the tomes for every pets (4 pets with 2 or 3 abilities each) until you find the ones that are for your current level. I'm not totally sure but I think they're quite costly too, someone told me they pretty much cancel out the savings you make getting a free level 40 mount.

[kendro1200]

Soul shards and travel are an issue to be sure, however, locks have zero down time while leveling. Between drain life and life tap you just keep on pulling. Mages on the other hand go oom pretty quickly until higher levels.

Which was the whole point of the frost aoe power level gimmicks. You expend the same amount of mana as normal questing, but you got a lot more experience, and could power level tailoring and enchanting while doing it (since you were mostly farming humanoids).

Warlocks were good for a lot of things in Vanilla. A good player was unparalleled CC in most cases (juggle 3 mobs with fear and curse of recklessness) and could put out nearly as much dps as a mage or rogue. That is the thing though, equally geared and in a patchwerk like fight, a mage could put out more dps. Warlocks also often were an awkward strain on healers. If the raid healers were smart, then they'd know when not to heal warlocks, or when to just let the druid rejuv to take care of things. Healing meters are a thing though, even back in vanilla, and sniping a life tapping warlock was a good way to push ahead of other healers while keeping your overheal numbers low. That also meant it was more or less mana wasted. Polymorph is also a lot less work to get the same degree of effective CC as fear juggling on just one target. Free water, food and portals at the end of a run are also incredible quality of life enhancements in group content back in Vanilla.

Don't get me wrong, I leveled and played a warlock back in Vanilla and loved it. It was my alt, I took it on our guild alt raid runs through ZG, AQ20, MC and occasionally into BWL. I leveled my warlock to 60 because I saw a great player in my guild play one and it was amazing to watch, and I wanted to have the opportunity to play in moments like I watched. Coming from my druid main though, healing the raid and doing group content and seeing the meters getting posted and my own personal preference what I preferred for party composition, I cannot deny that mages were in a better spot. As a mage you also didn't have to fight with shadow priests for T0, because they could and would take your Dreadmist Regalia, and often since they in the group as a healer they'd get priority in gear over you because healers and tanks were few and far in between.

[Deleted]

Mages were a trololo class and should have been given away for free whenever someone levels their first level 60.

As a mage you also didn't have to fight with shadow priests for T0, because they could and would take your Dreadmist Regalia, and often since they in the group as a healer they'd get priority in gear over you because healers and tanks were few and far in between.

Mages went after Dreadmist too.