Did I pick the wrong expansion to play mage?

[SNES-1990]

I feel like dead weight in heroics so far. My damage is half of what rogues, monks, DH, and ENH Shaman are dishing out. Feels like the age of melee.

[ZazuuPriest]

frost is A tier so i guess its just you

[Biomega]

Don't expect to dethrone melee in dungeons. But that's nothing new, really.

You'll still do fine in raids. Not everyone can be S-tier damage in every scenario. In fact, most of the time the top dungeon classes and the top raid classes are different (and if they're not, something hinky is going on).

All that is only for the very top of performance, of course. Most specs are entirely fine in the average-performance brackets. You may not be topping meters every pull, but you'll still do completely fine damage as a Mage in dungeons. As will the other ranged specs.

...except MM hunters, who are just 100% poop soup right now.

[VladimirM]

How serious are you in your game? What's your goal for progress?

[SNES-1990]

How serious are you in your game? What's your goal for progress?

I'd like to do heroic raiding and some solo queue rated pvp. Mythic+ is a great way to gear though, and while I do fine on bosses, I find that rogues and DH are just destroying me when it comes to AoEing trash, which is what most of mythic+ is anyways.

[agentsi]

Play the class/spec you enjoy. Mage has been, and always will be a good class. At least one of their specs is always top 5/10 for M+ and raids.

[OokOok]

It's silly the last 6 years to expect a mage to out play a melee in dungeons, and it's even more silly to base the future outcome of a class based off the first 3 days of an expansion in normal dungeons where things die quick....and thus...melee will be better?

Melee have always dominated dungeons/M+, usually casters get their numbers from boss fights and not the trash pulls.

Regardless, if you play a caster in WoW it's for raiding not M+. The only time a mage will dominate M+ is if the group specifically does pulls with the mage in mind. Outside of that mage is going to shine in raids. I guarantee Frost will be one of the top 5 specs this raid. Most likely as per usual it'll be Ass rogue,Arms war,frost mage,Warlock,bm hunter Then the nerfs will come that make Hunter and frost shit, next raid MM and fire will be top.

[Fitsu]

I feel like dead weight in heroics so far. My damage is half of what rogues, monks, DH, and ENH Shaman are dishing out. Feels like the age of melee.

Yes and sadly you are a full two days in now so ya know. To late to change.

[Koollan]

Yes and sadly you are a full two days in now so ya know. To late to change.

It's never 'too late to change'. Especially in Dragonflight.

[mrgreenthump]

My damage for the first mythics was really low compared to a DH and Moonkin who I did them with, but with getting more and more gear am catching them and passed the Moonkin already in the last dungeon. I think the important take away from that is that Frost especially is fairly weak at start. Although I didn't play for a year or more, so may have been rusty as well.

- - - Updated - - -

I guarantee Frost will be one of the top 5 specs this raid.

The spec has no burst, so dunno how it will be among the best if it isn't doing very high constant damage, which it didn't in beta gearing situations at least.

[D3athsting]

Is fire crap as usual at the start of expansion with low ilvl?

[MjH]

Yes its in a shit spot at moment. Its getting some buffs on reset. We'll see if it helps it at all really. Frost is strong though if you enjoy it. We don't talk about.. Arcane.

[Drutt]

My damage for the first mythics was really low compared to a DH and Moonkin who I did them with, but with getting more and more gear am catching them and passed the Moonkin already in the last dungeon. I think the important take away from that is that Frost especially is fairly weak at start. Although I didn't play for a year or more, so may have been rusty as well.

Yeah damage was shocking initially, but it seems like it scales at least acceptably well with gear. I'm starting to catch up with some of the classes I was well behind initially.

[Flower Milk]

frost is A tier so i guess its just you

Is Frost better for dungeons than Arcane?

[Thirtyrock]

I'd like to do heroic raiding and some solo queue rated pvp. Mythic+ is a great way to gear though, and while I do fine on bosses, I find that rogues and DH are just destroying me when it comes to AoEing trash, which is what most of mythic+ is anyways.

Demon Hunters are trash killers, man, we've got so much aoe burst that is timed for every or every other pull. Cast The Hunt, Eye Beam, Essence Break, Blade Dance and in 4 globals we've put out a TON of damage and most stuff is 80% dead by the time we're into an actual rotation. Obviously we're not the only ones doing damage, so the other dps and tank are helping get that down...point is, we can use those powerful aoe abilities at the very beginning of many pulls. The Hunt is 1.5 minute CD, Eye Beam is like 40 or something (can't remember off the top of my head), Essence Break is 40 something and it buffs Blade Dance which is 8 seconds.

If it's a large trash pack our damage will start to drop after the first 10 seconds or so and then spike again every time the CDs come back up.

Shouldn't be comparing yourself to us in that situation, because our classes are designed differently.

[ZazuuPriest]

Is Frost better for dungeons than Arcane?

generally speaking Frost has way better control than the other specs. Historically Fire becomes very good with high gear (crit) and Frost is always competitive. Arcane can be good in dungeons although of the 3 its usually the worst in M+. I think they're all viable though but people meta slave too much

[D3athsting]

What i find quite odd is spamming arcane explosion > instant flamestrike spamming on 5+ targets, i'm using a hyperthermia aoe build, when you have combustion aoe is ok, when hyperthermia procs aoe is ok, when hyperthermia procs inside combustion aoe is godmode, when you don't have comb and hyperthermia doesn't proc...better spamming arcane explosion

[Boddhi]

Demon Hunters are trash killers, man, we've got so much aoe burst that is timed for every or every other pull. Cast The Hunt, Eye Beam, Essence Break, Blade Dance and in 4 globals we've put out a TON of damage and most stuff is 80% dead by the time we're into an actual rotation. Obviously we're not the only ones doing damage, so the other dps and tank are helping get that down...point is, we can use those powerful aoe abilities at the very beginning of many pulls. The Hunt is 1.5 minute CD, Eye Beam is like 40 or something (can't remember off the top of my head), Essence Break is 40 something and it buffs Blade Dance which is 8 seconds.

If it's a large trash pack our damage will start to drop after the first 10 seconds or so and then spike again every time the CDs come back up.

Shouldn't be comparing yourself to us in that situation, because our classes are designed differently.

Were DH ever not OP?

[D3athsting]

Were DH ever not OP?

Never, just like spriests boomkins and affli

[Trumpcat]

I feel like dead weight in heroics so far. My damage is half of what rogues, monks, DH, and ENH Shaman are dishing out. Feels like the age of melee.

As a Mage main since vanilla, it's quite upsetting that the current class tuning is pushing people away from the class.

Your best bet for fast aoe damage in these dungeons is Arcane. The aoe has close to no buildup and consists of mostly instant spells. You will still not be at melee level, but you won't be baggage either.
Fire AOE atm is unviable as you need to spec for it, mobs need to be kept in flame patch and need to last for a while, whereas you lose on ST for little gains. Ignite was nerfed, albeit it too needs time to do anything, it is unusable on low content where stuff dies in seconds anyway.
Frost needs mobs to be kept inside your Blizzard/orb as well as time for you to deliver any damage and shatters. In either spec you can't compete with melee atm.

Number wise Arcane is the highest ST Mage spec at the moment, but it requires a significant setup that could easily be broken by a mechanic if the player does it at a wrong time (ie. You should wait out an expected mechanic that will stop you from doing damage). It can also do the highest and fastest aoe burst of all mage specs in low content but still only when CDs are available.

For high keys the expectation is that Frost will dominate with its consistent aoe and cleave. Arcane could be a strong contender or even come out on top depending on how the meta shapes up.

For high end raiding, while Arcane sims the highest of Mage specs, it's very fiddly with mechanics. It's likely that we will see the plays be between Frost and Fire due to their ease and versatility in complex encounters. We won't see any Mage stacking in the world first race, simply the class is currently neither too powerful nor does it bring any benefit by having more than one in a raid.

For serious Mage info, guides and theorycraft I recommend you head to https://www.mage-hub.com/ as well as the Altered Time Mage discord. The Wowhead guides are a good staple too.

generally speaking Frost has way better control than the other specs. Historically Fire becomes very good with high gear (crit) and Frost is always competitive. Arcane can be good in dungeons although of the 3 its usually the worst in M+. I think they're all viable though but people meta slave too much

If you're passing judgement and advice on Mage, you should know that for the past 3 expansions Crit has been the lowest stat priority for Fire and that a near bis gear for both m+ and raid, has had 0 or close to 0 crit on their gear, (sometimes unavoidable if it's on a tier set ie).

And also that Fire's dominance in certain meta comps had nothing to do with gear scaling early/late into the expansion, that's a myth from 10 years ago.

Wherever you're sourcing the information you declare around, it is neither high rated Mage players, nor the Mage discord or guides. You're just misleading an inexperienced player.