Are mages "Locked" into a spec throughout TBC as well?

[Draknalor186]

or you just join a Guild that isn't full of Pseudo-Elitist dipshits.

Or i can just reroll to warlock like every one else :/

Don't really wanna drop my 4 ony bags & stuff tho.

I'm gonna at least level the mage to 70, Then we'll see what happens.

Maby i'll drop every thing horde related and just make a Draenei shaman.

[Super Kami Dende]

Or i can just reroll to warlock like every one else :/

Because its such a fun game to just follow the crowd instead of playing what is fun.

[Draknalor186]

Because its such a fun game to just follow the crowd instead of playing what is fun.

Well, to me it feels a bit like ”Play warlock/hunter” or don’t play at all when people act like this.


Tho the most fun would be to just make a draenei shaman.. but since i’m horde that would be abandoning every thing i’ve done throughout classic.

I dono at this point tbh

[Thundering]

what do you mean locked?

In mages can use all their speccs depending on what they are doing

Arcane/fire pvp
Frost pvp

Pve
MC Arcane or Frost
BWL Arcane or Frost
Aq Fire
Naxx Fire

Mages are pretty open specc wise it seems to me.

[czarek]

Arc great dps burst but quite mana consuming in pve. As i remember i played all specs in TBC in PVE. Im not sure but at the end tbc near WOTLK there were good hybrid frost/fire but that prob because of WOTLK talents and ofc frostfire bolt. As i remember pompyro on arenas was great not only frost.

[Tradu]

Highly competitive =/= META..META literally stands for MOST EFFICIENT tactic available, there has NEVER been case where two different specs of the same class was META at the same time. The closest you can argue was, some specs performed better at SOME BOSSES, but when you look at the raid as a whole, never.

It doesn't. That's just a backronym, which is kinda funny because meta isn't an acronym in the first place.

[Akka]

It doesn't. That's just a backronym, which is kinda funny because meta isn't an acronym in the first place.

Precisely. "meta" is just a shortened version of "metagame", but somehow we got people going all pompous about strict definitions while they don't even know what they are talking about

[kukkamies]

Precisely. "meta" is just a shortened version of "metagame", but somehow we got people going all pompous about strict definitions while they don't even know what they are talking about

I was sure meta meant knowledge from outside the game yeah, which it does after a fast google search. Wonder where that new one came from

[Dhrizzle]

If I remember the incessant whining properly all Mages will be expected to delete their characters and reroll Warlocks for raiding.

[Segus1992]

There was a guy previous in the thread that said mages are benchwarmers in sunwell.

Also plenty that say warlock & hunter vastly outperform mages.


It’s always confusing when people say such different opinions about the same thing.

I vividly remember Destruction Warlocks being upper middle of the pack in TBC (occasionally top, but never dominating), and Mages slightly outperforming them, with Hunters pretty much always at the top.

I don't think Hunters will be quite as dominant now though because in TBC you were able to automate your (relatively difficult for the time) DPS rotation entirely - that macro doesn't work anymore, which means the average Hunter will be worse.

The issue with Mage as I see it is that while their DPS is good-not-best, they also have nonexistent utility on bosses. Arcane Intellect isn't bad, but you really only need one Mage for that, and Hunter's 3% damage buff stacks with other instances of itself, Warlocks give soulstones and more uptime on the 20% shadow damage taken debuff, curses, while being easier to heal (~20% more hp and +26% healing taken).

[keelr]

Everything is locked into certain builds. This is TBC, talents prior to MoP/WoD weren'r really a matter of choice.

[Machismo]

So basically some are superior than other, and you will be "expected" to be that one.. just like in classic.

I thought TBC would give you more options now that ignite is Individual and you don't have to ignite stack every mage..

Bleh

No, you are whining, and making this a "Just here to bitch and complain thread," instead of genuine questions being asked.

Your question has been answered, rather thoroughly, and you are ignoring those answers in order to keep on with your pity party.

[loras]

Hey.

Just wondering if mages are locked into a spec throughout TBC, like they are with fire in classic or if you can do decent with all 3 speccs.

Because i personally just want to play frost with my new water element, since getting "Dragon's breath" as level 50 talent feels dull..

Talking Questing, raids & dungeons, not PvP

There will always be a best.

In pvp it was either frost or pompyro, in pve early it was fire and later arcane, i think.

That said this is not vanilla/classic, all speccs can work in any setting, but just like live there is no perfect balance, though with the added disadvantage of everything havong been abalysed to hell and back already.

My advice would be to play what you like and just play that as best you can, that way you'll outperform most of the mediocre FotM types quite easily. In that sense it's very different from classic-vanilla.

[Machismo]

I vividly remember Destruction Warlocks being upper middle of the pack in TBC (occasionally top, but never dominating), and Mages slightly outperforming them, with Hunters pretty much always at the top.

I don't think Hunters will be quite as dominant now though because in TBC you were able to automate your (relatively difficult for the time) DPS rotation entirely - that macro doesn't work anymore, which means the average Hunter will be worse.

The issue with Mage as I see it is that while their DPS is good-not-best, they also have nonexistent utility on bosses. Arcane Intellect isn't bad, but you really only need one Mage for that, and Hunter's 3% damage buff stacks with other instances of itself, Warlocks give soulstones and more uptime on the 20% shadow damage taken debuff, curses, while being easier to heal (~20% more hp and +26% healing taken).

Mages have utility, like aoe, CC, spell steal, and others. Locks may be "easier" to heal, but they also take considerably damage, due to life tap. Mages are not nearly as useless as people think they are.

[Segus1992]

Spell steal (some bossfights require you to spell steal), dampen magic, decurse, polymorph, their burst AoE is also close to unmatched (also used on several bossfights) - even if they just spam arcane explosion as fire spec. Don't forget the importance of ice block and blink either to be able to skip / cheese mechanics.

The only boss I'm aware of that "requires" spellsteal is the first boss in Gruul's Lair, which can be done without it. Mages are fine for Decurse, but even Spellsteal, Dampen, and Poly only require one Mage, just like AI.

Their AoE is also dwarfed by Destruction Warlocks. Seed of Corruption is too strong.

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Mages have utility, like aoe, CC, spell steal, and others. Locks may be "easier" to heal, but they also take considerably damage, due to life tap. Mages are not nearly as useless as people think they are.

Mages aren't useless at all, but they're less useful than other classes pretty much objectively. Sure you can have 1-2 Mages and be happy about it, but their AoE is weaker than Warlocks', CC is almost never useful in raids (and isn't something you want many Mages for anyway), and while Life Tap does do self damage, a Warlock will easily heal that back up themselves (over time) with their leech talent.

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My advice would be to play what you like and just play that as best you can, that way you'll outperform most of the mediocre FotM types quite easily. In that sense it's very different from classic-vanilla.

In live this might be the case, but TBC is literally single spell era for Mages. Unless you have better gear or better RNG, you aren't going to outperform the guy with the better spec.

[Machismo]

The only boss I'm aware of that "requires" spellsteal is the first boss in Gruul's Lair, which can be done without it. Mages are fine for Decurse, but even Spellsteal, Dampen, and Poly only require one Mage, just like AI.

Their AoE is also dwarfed by Destruction Warlocks. Seed of Corruption is too strong.

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Mages aren't useless at all, but they're less useful than other classes pretty much objectively. Sure you can have 1-2 Mages and be happy about it, but their AoE is weaker than Warlocks', CC is almost never useful in raids (and isn't something you want many Mages for anyway), and while Life Tap does do self damage, a Warlock will easily heal that back up themselves with their leech talent.

And honestly, that's probably all the mages any raid group will have.

As for the healing, what talent is that?

[Segus1992]

And honestly, that's probably all the mages any raid group will have.

As for the healing, what talent is that?

https://tbc.wowhead.com/spell=30296/soul-leech

[kranur]

Locked? Mages get to play all specs in pve.
Frost is great early on. Fire is good too but needs a tiny bit of gear.
Arcane is awesome in 2pc t5 and will even out perform locks in t5.
Fire takes over again in t6 gear.

People who claim mages are bad in tbc are just really bad players who only ever play fotm. Mages may not be #1 but are by no means bad.

[Machismo]

https://tbc.wowhead.com/spell=30296/soul-leech

Gotcha, thanks.

The only problem with that, is that it is inconsistent, and ends up equaling out to 6% of the damage they deal. Now, that's pretty decent, but at 2k DPS, that's going to equal up to 120 HPS. Now, a lot of that will be wasted, because the lock will be at full HP.

The other issue is that healers are usually looking at their raid frames, and just spam on any thing that isn't 100%... especially with the rejuv/renew culture of padding meters.

[polskija]

I raided as frost arcane for most of tier4 and tier5 content and I did just fine in the environment I was in. Sure some people frowned upon it but let it be when they saw it didn't really impact the dps much or at all.

People nowadays get so fuzzed about perfect comps, bis professions and all that. We had two groups of melee dps and all in all very sub optimal group back in the day, still we cleared most of the content in a good pace along with most other semi-serious guilds.

People could play what they wanted and have what ever professions they wanted as long as they had best enchants and gems on their gear and flasks and food buffs for the raids. We never sat out people who seemed to have functional brain cells, only on couple occasions people who were actually very, very bad players.