State of Mages [5.2]

[Ryoushi]

Ah, you're one of those "it's not intended, so it's cheating" people. It's not cheating, it's playing your class to the max, albeit unintended. I won't have to show up to raids suboptimally. They expect me to play to the best possible, not the best intended by blizzard.

Aside from that, we're more than fine. We're nowhere near the middle of the pack. Frost can do reasonably well in skilled hands, and fire needs a bit of love single target. There's many more worse classes/specs. Guild needs caused me to reroll mage from shadowpriest in MoP. Shadowpriests are always middle or below, barely get changed in any way, yet don't QQ 24/7. As said before, even if we're second to locks and come 5.2 possible one or twoother classes, our output is fine.

Regarding mana for frost/fire.. You'd still be hard pressed to go oom, as mana gem isn't arcane-exclusive. They probably wouldn't allow mana needs to cause us to run oom as frost or fire following your regular rotation.

Stop acting like you're well near bottom when mages are still king, and will be above middle come 5.2 in one of three specs surely.

[Deleted]

i wish GC wasnt in charge of mages honestely...

his notes and comments are sad

[Relapses]

Ah, you're one of those "it's not intended, so it's cheating" people. It's not cheating, it's playing your class to the max, albeit unintended. I won't have to show up to raids suboptimally. They expect me to play to the best possible, not the best intended by blizzard.

Aside from that, we're more than fine. We're nowhere near the middle of the pack. Frost can do reasonably well in skilled hands, and fire needs a bit of love single target. There's many more worse classes/specs. Guild needs caused me to reroll mage from shadowpriest in MoP. Shadowpriests are always middle or below, barely get changed in any way, yet don't QQ 24/7.

You haven't visited the Priest forums lately, have you?

That said, there's a lot of QQ about early iterations of the PTR everywhere on the forums. Players tend to believe the first build of the PTR is exactly how the game is going to launch, which, given the overall lack of polish on the PTR right now, would seem to be a rather obscene oversight on Blizzard's part.

[jcdommo]

Why do people keep bringing dps into this discussion? It's been said numerous times that the discussion is not about dps. Our dps being fine is not analogous to the class as a whole being fine. These are 2 separate things. If there was a class that had 1 button called "shoot" and could be in the top 5 of any raid it was in just by pressing that, but had absolutely no other abilities, buffs, etc, would it be a good class? Obviously mage isn't in a situation as bad as that, but it's more along the lines of the conversation we are, and have been, trying to have. To try to invalidate everything that's been said by throwing out some "I got outdps by a mage/my mage tops dps in my raid, mage is fine" argument is absurd. My personal dps in my guild raids is fine too, but guess what? I am really unsatisfied with the class anyway, for reasons that have been stated by other people better and more eloquently than I could hope to, not only in this thread but in many others.

[Polarthief]

Ah, you're one of those "it's not intended, so it's cheating" people. It's not cheating, it's playing your class to the max, albeit unintended. I won't have to show up to raids suboptimally. They expect me to play to the best possible, not the best intended by blizzard.

TBH I'm on the fence with it. It wasn't intended, so it's 'cheating', but they're not fixing it right away, so it's not against the TOS, similar to the whole "Use Arcane Barrage right after Missiles" bug at the end of Tier 7 during LK. All I'm saying is "It's not intended, so the damage Arcane will do in 5.2 will be ridiculously lower, resulting in all 3 Mage speccs being mediocre.

Aside from that, we're more than fine. We're nowhere near the middle of the pack. Frost can do reasonably well in skilled hands, and fire needs a bit of love single target. There's many more worse classes/specs. Guild needs caused me to reroll mage from shadowpriest in MoP. Shadowpriests are always middle or below, barely get changed in any way, yet don't QQ 24/7. As said before, even if we're second to locks and come 5.2 possible one or twoother classes, our output is fine.

We won't be though. Frost's FB is being buffed while our on-demand Pet Freeze is being removed, so we lose 1-2 FoFs every 25 seconds, while gaining random ones through RNG (OH BOY, OUR _FAVORITE_ MECHANIC!). Frost right now is still doing meh, Fire is piss poor, and after 5.2, Arcane will be crap again, especially with that 4PT15, which is more of a nerf than a buff.

Regarding mana for frost/fire.. You'd still be hard pressed to go oom, as mana gem isn't arcane-exclusive. They probably wouldn't allow mana needs to cause us to run oom as frost or fire following your regular rotation.

Stop acting like you're well near bottom when mages are still king, and will be above middle come 5.2 in one of three specs surely.

I'm already running oom with 40s. With 60s, I'll be dead on mana, especially if more fights come with magic dispel mechanics, as I'm pretty much the only one who can do that (because our healing priest/shaman will probably be too busy healing to get it instantly). Even with a mana gem, that doesn't give me all that much, plus I can only do it every other Invocation phase.

Still king? Okay. We're an okay DPS with NOTHING ELSE. We have 0 raid cooldowns/utility, awful QoL, those god-forsaken level 90 talents, and a bunch of other issues. Stop sweeping it under the rug like Ghostcrawler.

i wish GC wasnt in charge of mages honestely...

his notes and comments are sad

He's not. There currently isn't a Mage dev. If ANYONE on their team actually played Mage, they'd see how terrible our QoL is.

Why do people keep bringing dps into this discussion? It's been said numerous times that the discussion is not about dps. Our dps being fine is not analogous to the class as a whole being fine. These are 2 separate things. If there was a class that had 1 button called "shoot" and could be in the top 5 of any raid it was in just by pressing that, but had absolutely no other abilities, buffs, etc, would it be a good class? Obviously mage isn't in a situation as bad as that, but it's more along the lines of the conversation we are, and have been, trying to have. To try to invalidate everything that's been said by throwing out some "I got outdps by a mage/my mage tops dps in my raid, mage is fine" argument is absurd. My personal dps in my guild raids is fine too, but guess what? I am really unsatisfied with the class anyway, for reasons that have been stated by other people better and more eloquently than I could hope to, not only in this thread but in many others.

Because DPS is everything to everyone, which is silly.

Also, after Arcane loses Scorch, all 3 speccs will be in the middle or lower. No specc will be in the top 5 or maybe even the top 10, so now, damage WILL become an issue, while still having a fucking plethora of other issues.

[shaft4783]

Omg! The sky is falling! Alt qq for fucks sake.

All of you crying will still be logging in to raid


Infracted.

[Sw1tch]

Instead of fighting amongst each other let's find ways to fix things, so in the low chance one of the dev's checks out our forum, they'll see it.

[Polarthief]

Instead of fighting amongst each other let's find ways to fix things, so in the low chance one of the dev's checks out our forum, they'll see it.

By "Our" forum, do you mean MMO-Champ forums, a place they don't go to, or the Official Mage forums, another place they don't go to?

[Soulstrike]

@dragon bit confused about your statement about avoiding t15 4piece like a plague. its still a damage increase regardless when you use AM. yes mana cost from AB sucks but the damage increase will compensate the mana you lose

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Quality of Life. Dragon please name out the Quality of Life issues Mages have right now. I really have to wonder what you are referring to. I haven't had much issues with my mage. And you can look if you want. He's in my Sig.

[Animaneth]

Quality of Life. Dragon please name out the Quality of Life issues Mages have right now. I really have to wonder what you are referring to. I haven't had much issues with my mage. And you can look if you want. He's in my Sig.

My big QoL issues are the L90 talents. While many classes got interesting talents for that tier, we got 3 talents that force us to do things not because we want to blow things up with a maniac laugh, we have to do those things to keep up. I would have no trouble with having to remain still every X seconds if it wasnt because there are no longer fights like patchwerk.

Invocation: forces me to do no dps every 50 seconds for the duration of the evocation (take seconds from that if you want to keep the buff 100% of time)
RoP: forces you to remain in one (or two) spots the whole time wich was the last raid fight that allowed you to remain in the same spot all the time? And if you recall how often do we see those fights?

Now admitedly Fire/Frost have no mana issues unless your brain farts and your tunnel vision makes you forget to cast evocation when you have the invocation talent, but if a nerf to evocation arrives and it is related to the other spec why should Fire/Frost be punished?

Of course this is all based on the current build on ptr, but I barely have hopes of change for the class. And here is my other QoL issue, noone likes to be nerfed all the time, but I would add (and this might sound like heresy to some) that I also dont like to get buff all the time. The constant rollercoaster of buffs and nerfs (lately have been mainly nerfs) gives the impression that there's no clear direction for the class. Are we that great that they need to nerf us all the time? Are we that bad that they need to buffs us? If we are that great that we should get nerf then I expect them to show every patch exactly the same treatment to every class/spec that ends up being on top of the others. But that's not the case is it?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

He's not. There currently isn't a Mage dev. If ANYONE on their team actually played Mage, they'd see how terrible our QoL is.

There is no dev for each class. Ghostcrawler has specifically said all the devs work together instead of having X class Dev Y Class Dev. I don't know if you were implying that but if you were that's a very silly presumption to have.

My big QoL issues are the L90 talents. While many classes got interesting talents for that tier, we got 3 talents that force us to do things not because we want to blow things up with a maniac laugh, we have to do those things to keep up. I would have no trouble with having to remain still every X seconds if it wasnt because there are no longer fights like patchwerk.

To be honest I don't like the talents either, I use Incanter's Ward mostly for the passive buff. The Talents seem really silly and well Invocation seems from what I've heard very Inquisition ish. Rune of Power in it's original presentation was horrible despite how powerful it is. It's somewhat tolerable now but I still don't pick it because again I just don't like the mechanic of staying still and losing power over it. So for your talent gripes, I deduct they are very valid so I understand.

Invocation: forces me to do no dps every 50 seconds for the duration of the evocation (take seconds from that if you want to keep the buff 100% of time)
RoP: forces you to remain in one (or two) spots the whole time wich was the last raid fight that allowed you to remain in the same spot all the time? And if you recall how often do we see those fights?

Both are pretty bad talents and IMO the last tier needs to be redisgned or revamped. It's really a sad sight to see but not anger inciting like some people have shown here.

Now admitedly Fire/Frost have no mana issues unless your brain farts and your tunnel vision makes you forget to cast evocation when you have the invocation talent, but if a nerf to evocation arrives and it is related to the other spec why should Fire/Frost be punished?

Where is this nerf to Evocation coming through? I don't use it but I don't think it is even necessary to be honest. I just cannot perceive such a thing.

Of course this is all based on the current build on ptr, but I barely have hopes of change for the class. And here is my other QoL issue, noone likes to be nerfed all the time, but I would add (and this might sound like heresy to some) that I also dont like to get buff all the time. The constant rollercoaster of buffs and nerfs (lately have been mainly nerfs) gives the impression that there's no clear direction for the class. Are we that great that they need to nerf us all the time? Are we that bad that they need to buffs us? If we are that great that we should get nerf then I expect them to show every patch exactly the same treatment to every class/spec that ends up being on top of the others. But that's not the case is it?

Ahh so the answer arrives. Well that clears things up a bit. As for nerfs and buffs, I don't consider it a quality of life thing but I definitely understand. My best friend is a mage and plays Fire so I know all too well what it means to be nerfed. And seeing how you say they don't know where the class is going well I'm not sure what that means exactly. I'm being sincere right now so I apologize if you think I'm trolling.

Honestly I think Mages might be in a similar situation to Rogues but to a lesser degree. Don't get me wrong, I still have loads of fun on my mage. I think I have a new main for life now.

[Deleted]

Quality of Life. Dragon please name out the Quality of Life issues Mages have right now. I really have to wonder what you are referring to. I haven't had much issues with my mage. And you can look if you want. He's in my Sig.

It's not really about the nerfs. If you read the rest of the thread, you'll find most of the general issues. But here, I'll make a bullet-point list for clarity:

· Lack of spec identity.
· Poor mobility.
· Mediocre sustained AoE.
· Terrible utility in PvE.
· Level 90 talents.
· Shatter-reliant playstyle in PvP (related to the first point)

The biggest issue is probably the first one. I could deal with crappy dps for a few patches (been there, done that), but my mage doesn't feel like a mage anymore, it feels more like 'Generic caster #3'. And this has been mostly a result of the constant pruning of the talent trees and our spell books over the last two expansions, and the consolidation of the 'everyone must be good at everything' mentality (i.e. homogenization). Who doesn't miss Fiery Payback? Old Blastwave? Improved Blink?

The devs, in their infinite wisdom, have approached the class with the perspective of a mathematician. They come up with a rotation, make the numbers work (sort of, anyway), and leave it at that. But when it comes to the creative aspect of the game (the fun factor), they fail miserably. They failed to translate the BC arcane playstyle with Mana Adept, by making people conserve mana instead of burning as much as possible while trying not to go oom. They failed to replicate the whole Shatter mechanic in PvE for Frost, by turning it into a simple Ice lance proc. And they certainly failed to make Fire feel like a reckless but dangerous foe, you just sit there in the back hurling golf ball-sized pixels at the boss waiting for that Hot Streak proc to come. It's just sad, really.

[Tehstool]

Also, after Arcane loses Scorch, all 3 speccs will be in the middle or lower. No specc will be in the top 5 or maybe even the top 10, so now, damage WILL become an issue, while still having a fucking plethora of other issues.

Don't think so. Imo frost will become the top mage spec and will most likely be up in the top out of everyone. With the buffs/QoL changes they are getting.

[cockaroo]

Don't think so. Imo frost will become the top mage spec and will most likely be up in the top out of everyone. With the buffs/QoL changes they are getting.

I really, really hope not because this would be the day I leave mage. I enjoy playing frost for challenge modes, but I would never raid as frost, wayy too boring/easy.

That being said, just from a corporate point of view, how much time do these guys WASTE going over class changes nerfs and buffs in relation to PVP vs PVE OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER.................

Is it really too much to ask to have a completely separate set of RULES for PVE and PVP??? They waste so much time on this, I feel like the leadership is severely lacking if they have not at least started to work on a solution instead of constant bandaids for 8 FRIGGIN YEARS. Or whatever it has been.

Wake up guys. Stop wasting our time and yours.

[jtmzac]

It's not really about the nerfs. If you read the rest of the thread, you'll find most of the general issues. But here, I'll make a bullet-point list for clarity:

· Lack of spec identity.
· Shatter-reliant playstyle in PvP (related to the first point)

These are the real problems. Honestly I think mages lost their identity when mop was released but it's taken the fire nerf and people changing to other specs to make people really think about it.

· Poor mobility.
· Mediocre sustained AoE.
· Terrible utility in PvE.
· Level 90 talents.

Poor mobility is actually something that is good that should be the defining factor of the caster class. If casters had good mobility it would just cause a lot of problems.

AoE is dependant on the spec and I think it's balanced quite well because of that.

Why does utility matter? People bring mages to raids for their dps and thats how it should be. I enjoy being a glass cannon and nothing else.

People keep complaining about the level 90 talents but there's actually nothing wrong with invocation. IW could use some small changes and RoP needs some big changes because it's just too restrictive.

I really, really hope not because this would be the day I leave mage. I enjoy playing frost for challenge modes, but I would never raid as frost, wayy too boring/easy.

Raiding as frost is actually more like 4.3 arcane then the current arcane is. Use stuff on cd, spam a few buttons and time invocation with boss mechanics. It's not for everyone in the same way 4.3 arcane wasn't for everyone.

Even if frost becomes the top spec you don't have to immediately swap to it just because it's the best spec. There's plenty of people around here who already play frost and do fine despite it being behind arcane.

That being said, just from a corporate point of view, how much time do these guys WASTE going over class changes nerfs and buffs in relation to PVP vs PVE OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER.................

Is it really too much to ask to have a completely separate set of RULES for PVE and PVP??? They waste so much time on this, I feel like the leadership is severely lacking if they have not at least started to work on a solution instead of constant bandaids for 8 FRIGGIN YEARS. Or whatever it has been.

Wake up guys. Stop wasting our time and yours.

Lot's of us agree there needs to be a seperation of pve and pvp. The problem is Blizz will just say it's not worth the effort no matter how much of a compelling case we make.

I'm just as frustrated as you because to me it seems like such a simple fix. Just make a pvp and pve version of each spec, leave the core mechanics the same and changes durations, cd's, damage, etc. to balance it all.

Of course completely independant pvp and pve specs would be nice but that would just be too much work for blizz so that will never happen.

[cockaroo]

Of course completely independant pvp and pve specs would be nice but that would just be too much work for blizz so that will never happen.

I honestly don't think they are tracking their time spent well enough. It's kind of like the raider who refuses to keybind. Yea, it's really tough for someone who has never done it, but once it's done, it saves so much time and pain in the long run. I feel like this is the issue more than anything. I think it's very much so worth it, but since the leadership is lacking, this has not come to fruition. It's sad really.

[Polarthief]

Quality of Life. Dragon please name out the Quality of Life issues Mages have right now. I really have to wonder what you are referring to. I haven't had much issues with my mage. And you can look if you want. He's in my Sig.

Not trying to be an elitist prick here, but you have 0 MoP raiding experience as your Mage (LFR doesn't count).

Our QoLs are a bit different when you're not pushed to be good to get through content.

Again, not trying to be an asshole, just saying you've only done LFR.

If you really need to know my list (and this is purely from a non-LFR PvE perspective):

- L90 talents are just annoying as hell. IW is okay, but taking it = doing non-competitive DPS.
- Mana tied to L90 talents and Arcane, causing not only issues with Arcane's Mastery, but forcing Fire and Frost to have to deal with mana when choosing Invocation (not as bad this patch, but in 5.2, it will be MUCH worse if things don't change). In addition, the L90 talents are balanced purely around Arcane (the mana bullshit is proof of this)
- No raid utility besides Time Warp (Whee... something every raid has anyways)
- Worst self-healing in the game and no passive/active damage reduction spells/talents. All casters take less damage from sources. The best Mages get is using Molten Armor to negate 6% Physical damage (16% if you waste a Major glyph)
- Piss poor mobility (in terms of straight up moving as well as damaging on the go)
- Boring gameplay/rotation; all speccs are the same (Keep bomb up, spam primary nuke, press AM/Pyro/IL&FFB when they light up)
- Boring + Shit talents; there are little to no choices, something MoP was supposed to fix. (Scorch, Ice Barrier, Cauterize, and Invo for Fire/Frost or RoP for Arcane. We have a cookie cutter build. Our only choice is our useless PvP talent [useless for raiding] and our Bomb choice)
- Awful large-scale AoE, especially as Fire and Arcane (Frost is okay, but relies on Orb, a spell already used in our rotation for ST as well)
- Fire does awful DPS. Frost does mediocre dps. Arcane would also be mediocre if it wasn't for Scorch-weaving (which is being nerfed in 5.2)
- No unique-ness besides portals and food conjuring (way too much homogenization for other classes that make Mages just feel bland and non-unique. We have completely lost our flavor)
- (Not really a QoL problem, but it's causing issues) No dev has a clue on how to fix Mages, so they continue with this awful road they've paved for us. All the devs being completely oblivious via Twitter and blue posts is proof of this.

Just to name a few. If you want, I can get into everything else.

Also, I wasn't necessarily saying there is a dev for each class; I DO know there are ones that are closer tied to other classes, such as that Warlock dev that got fired for leaking a tiny bit of info in Cataclysm. I just meant that no dev really focuses on Mages/none of them play a Mage. If they did, they'd see all the issues we have right now because I've yet to find an actual serious raiding Mage that finds their gameplay fun. I have found plenty of happy other casters though, specifically, all of them, though some could use with a DPS increase (and Boomkins could use some love with their issues, too).

[Tehstool]

Not trying to be an elitist prick here, but you have 0 MoP raiding experience as your Mage (LFR doesn't count).

Our QoLs are a bit different when you're not pushed to be good to get through content.

Again, not trying to be an asshole, just saying you've only done LFR.

If you really need to know my list (and this is purely from a non-LFR PvE perspective):

- L90 talents are just annoying as hell. IW is okay, but taking it = doing non-competitive DPS.
- Mana tied to L90 talents and Arcane, causing not only issues with Arcane's Mastery, but forcing Fire and Frost to have to deal with mana when choosing Invocation (not as bad this patch, but in 5.2, it will be MUCH worse if things don't change). In addition, the L90 talents are balanced purely around Arcane (the mana bullshit is proof of this)
- No raid utility besides Time Warp (Whee... something every raid has anyways)
- Worst self-healing in the game and no passive/active damage reduction spells/talents. All casters take less damage from sources. The best Mages get is using Molten Armor to negate 6% Physical damage (16% if you waste a Major glyph)
- Piss poor mobility (in terms of straight up moving as well as damaging on the go)
- Boring gameplay/rotation; all speccs are the same (Keep bomb up, spam primary nuke, press AM/Pyro/IL&FFB when they light up)
- Boring + Shit talents; there are little to no choices, something MoP was supposed to fix. (Scorch, Ice Barrier, Cauterize, and Invo for Fire/Frost or RoP for Arcane. We have a cookie cutter build. Our only choice is our useless PvP talent [useless for raiding] and our Bomb choice)
- Awful large-scale AoE, especially as Fire and Arcane (Frost is okay, but relies on Orb, a spell already used in our rotation for ST as well)
- Fire does awful DPS. Frost does mediocre dps. Arcane would also be mediocre if it wasn't for Scorch-weaving (which is being nerfed in 5.2)
- No unique-ness besides portals and food conjuring (way too much homogenization for other classes that make Mages just feel bland and non-unique. We have completely lost our flavor)
- (Not really a QoL problem, but it's causing issues) No dev has a clue on how to fix Mages, so they continue with this awful road they've paved for us. All the devs being completely oblivious via Twitter and blue posts is proof of this.

Just to name a few. If you want, I can get into everything else.

Also, I wasn't necessarily saying there is a dev for each class; I DO know there are ones that are closer tied to other classes, such as that Warlock dev that got fired for leaking a tiny bit of info in Cataclysm. I just meant that no dev really focuses on Mages/none of them play a Mage. If they did, they'd see all the issues we have right now because I've yet to find an actual serious raiding Mage that finds their gameplay fun. I have found plenty of happy other casters though, specifically, all of them, though some could use with a DPS increase (and Boomkins could use some love with their issues, too).

I have to disagree with you on that one. Right now, fire is in the middle. I wouldn't call it awful. Frost isn't mediocre, it is more like top of the middle and arcane is OP right now and will probably be middle come 5.2.



You are using the wrong words to try to make them sound like they are screwing you. They aren't.

[Washuwa]

mages on single target are fine, they are top on the list tied with warlocks.... even after that nerf.. dont know why people keeps complaining and saying mages the worst single target class try a shadowpriest or a ele shaman.......