No Utility/Raid CD, Hurts 10man position?

[Hasufer]

Certain heroic strategies demand specific classes in specific roles, like paladin tanks solo tanking durumu

Sórry to correct you, but you are the one who simply isn't speaking the truth, or at least u speak of a subjective truth, which is kinda irrelevant. When did 1-tanking Durumu become mandatory to kill it, on progress?
Sure a paladin tank helps, same thing on Horridon, Iron Qon etc. However, we are on 13/13hm, and we never 1tanked anything (except for Ra-den, as it's quite standart), and I know that we are certainly not a special guild on that account. So it's defo helpfull, we can agree on that, but I can assure you that claiming it's nessesary to kill the boss, is not true. It's more than doable without a specific raidcomp. In addition to this, you state that:

If you think that's the case, then you are either way outgearing the people you play with, or the people playing those other classes are not getting anywhere near their full potential.

If that was a true statement, then using 2 tanks for basicly all our progress fights, would in your mind, not be possible, since then we would be laggin dps right? Ofc taking into account, that those 2 tanks does less dps, due to split vengeance, and furthemore shutting down a dps spot. We did manage all the fights without cheesing the encounters, and once again, I'm a 100% positive that we are not a special guild when it comes to killing bosses.
Again I have to mention: Player > class/raid utilities. U had to have your warrior switch to paladin ½way through the tier, we have had a monk/drood throughout, and never really caused any trouble, cause all the dps'ers play as supposed to, tanks likewise.

There is also a long history of class stacking due to certain raid utility, and paladins once again are in that class stacking mode. If you want to "lol" at competitive raiders bringing up legitimate concerns, then you aren't raiding competitively.

I'm very well aware of that fact, played the game for more than 6 years, always 100% focussing on pve and pve progression.
I dont see how it's a legitimate concern, it's simply not true. You might have to change class on a specific encounter, cause u race for world first, and e.g. a mage just wont do on a given encounter (Blatty mage-> lock like u mention). But if u are just a tad behind those guilds, you dont need to change class, or bring anything specific to kill a boss. We have never submitted to the "oh shit, we dont have a ....... we can't kill this, gotta call the raid, cba wiping" and really, it's just sad to blame something on 1 class/factor. I know there are a few exceptions to this, but they are very rare, not present several times in a tier. Raiding amongst the top 150-250ww is kinda competetive as well I should believe!

Sure, a mage with his frozen orb or combustion set up will be right there, but he won't be right there for every add phase.

Maybe not on the first 5 attempts on a new boss, but if u can't adabt, then that's your problem, not mages being unable to deliver burst on demand, in general. (go frost and ele freeze-fs/glyphed coc + nt cleaves and arc exp spam, orb + il's. Then tell me again, that u can't do burst and hard aoe, even combined, and in more than 90% of any case, also on the right demand. (sadly the shatter/mastery bonus will be removed ion 5.4 tho )

No one is saying a good mage deserves to be left off a raid team. What they are saying is that if player skill is equal, almost every other class brings something to the table much more than mages.

That's true, BUT, it's still more than doable without having a mage with a 20% dmg reduction raidwise," raidwide temporal shield", or the like. I just dont see why we would need more utility, in any given raid, u will at least have like 5cd's rd each 1-3min from other classes + healers/tanks, that should be more than enough to overcome the hard periods of raiddmg/burst dmg/other kinda survival periods. We can however, help healers a lot, due to our personal cd's TS/ib/invis/Barrier and pro movement, which some other classes can't get near. We even save gcd's for doing more dmg, by having the raid cd's on hybrid classes, leaving us to do what we do best, dps Guess it's after all the main mechanic of a pure dps class.

I will say, if I play my mage to the full potential, and there are 7 other dps playing their classes to their full potential, my personal dps won't help that much more versus their raid cooldowns.

Again it's party true. Their cooldowns help, but if u are 10-20k above those other classes (boomer/sp or such) then shaving off like 20sec of a fight, could be 1 less interupting jolts on animus, 1 less thunderstruck on lei shen (u name em), thus kinda adding a cooldown in another way than bringing it to the raid in the form of an ekstra cd-ability, shawing off an ability from even occuring, thus stopping a possible late-wipe from occuring. E.g. having 1 less interupting jolts happen on Animus is 350k less dmg on everyone. Even more powerful than a smokebomb or the like.

[Pua]

Good to see I ushered some sense into this thread. Thanks to the more recent posters who understand what makes for a "balanced" class, and that mages don't need anything in order to get there.

[justastrudel]

Good to see I ushered some sense into this thread. Thanks to the more recent posters who understand what makes for a "balanced" class, and that mages don't need anything in order to get there.

The problem is simply worse in 10 man where more spots have to be dedicated to raid buffs. The "utility" of the highest DPS is simply not meaningful this tier. Maybe in some of the HC fights that's different (my experience is limited to JR/JK at this point), but in terms of normal progression, I can't think of a fight this tier where there was a meaningful enrage or where min/maxing group DPS really mattered. I may be the top DPS in the guild, but that isn't valuable enough this tier to get me a spot on the main team as a mage compared to Tranq/B-Rez/Spell Haste/Innervate. I'd have had to switch to my boomkin and there's no way I'm rolling a moonkin main.

I really am a fan of the "Mana Gems" for all raid utility; simple and elegant. Similarly, a raid-wide "Alter Time" where resources (or maybe just mana) are free/cheap/restored for a short time period (10 seconds) would be pretty cool. Either of these could easily be tuned by adjusting knobs if mages became "mandatory", but I don't see either of those abilities causing that situation.

[Omgponies]

It seems that reading all the replies, that people think we have some strong short duration damage reduction (Ginvis, Iceblock, Ice barrier) but in constant damage (see megeara, + start of dark animus fight) we take more damage than others due to missing the inbuilt reduction other classes have. This is getting fixed somewhat in 5.4, as their bonuses are being removed and scaled down to mage level.

I disagree about mages being the 'top' dps, but as I've bought up my point on that, and Zell has basically just ignored it, and posted what he feels, there's no point going over that again, as he'll never agree to basic principles of RNG. We are near the top, but not clearly leading.

Others seem on the fence about an additional raid CD in general, I feel that there is also too many currently, but Blizzard has designed fights around a lot of them. H Horridon dire calls, Megeara Rampage, Animus Jolts, etc

The idea I had in mind, was that Mages could also bring a form of Lock stone, same health return, same CD, but an additional version of the healthstone that wasnt purely held by warlocks (who do comparable damage, and even more on multi-target fights).

[Choptimus]

hi, I'm going to post parses from a class that relies on RNG

Every class relies on RNG. Either through trinket procs/ability procs/pure crits. All of the top parses of any class are going to contain:

1) Good gear
2) Good RNG
3) Good execution

Of course with the desired "cheese" mechanic for your raid group.

Mages are the best DPS class in the game, tied with warlocks.

[Deleted]

Just a little story, I receive this morning a PM from my raid-lead tell me that it could be cool if I keep my ID clean because they will bring the Warlock and the Drood for because of the Gate and Roar on our try night on Qwon HM.

Desite me being the top DPS, the main argument is that I have a clean ID.
The other is our Shadow priest.

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just a precision, I don't say that with more utility I could have keep my place but it was say so much explicitly.

[mrgreenthump]

Its okay mages. Ghostcrawler has made his mind up top gut warlocks mid expansion because no class should be good for more then 2 patches, unless its of course mages which ahve been fine for what 3 expansions now? I mean honestly this thread............. Also I know locks were a bit OP that could have been fixed with a few minor changes. Instead of looking at UVLS which is the problem dps wise they destroyed portal, survivability and mobility and we have no lvl 90 talent now and will go back to be the least played class in game, so next time you open a mage QQ thread jsut remember you could be any other caster in the game.

So as you posted without reading the thread and what it is abt. I would like to ask when was the last time warlocks had it bad? Since 4.0, I really can't remember warlocks performing bad, sure they had to actively switch specs, but almost always warlocks were performing really well. I mean sure mages atm don't have it as bad as some people in this thread makes it sound, but still. Dps is not everything(and even dps in 5.2 was mediocre), if you die, you do 0 dps for the time dead, if raid dies your dps wont matter at all. If the healers have to overheal the mage just for him to stay alive for certain abilities, that goes off from raid healing, which again leads to mistakes, which leads to wipes.

Anyways it's kinda pointless to even post on this thread atm, almost all of the problems mages faced in 5.2 are gone in 5.4, unless they quickly buff defensives for all but mages, which I doubt would happen.

[Pandacally]

Anyways it's kinda pointless to even post on this thread atm, almost all of the problems mages faced in 5.2 are gone in 5.4, unless they quickly buff defensives for all but mages, which I doubt would happen.

Yes, I agree with that. And I think many people did so at the beginning of the thread, but it always deranges when people swap in, spitting nonsense about "mage always op", then you argue about real issues that where there at 5.0 or even 5.2, then they post logs of over-geared content-long-on-farm mages tearing the dps charts, then you explain again, but temperal/spacial differenciation is hard (maybe on both sides, some always feel mages are underpowered even with crazy gear and crazy logs), so yeah, basically talking in 2 different universes.

As with 5.4, mages wont need any more raid utility because of the following points:
a) warlock nerfs
b) passive dmg reduction nerfs

these make other classes less mandatory/attraktive and opens raid spots for mages (ofc only if the mage is indeed as good as a player, otherwise comparison of raid viability didn't make sense at all in the first place)
I also believe that mage as a class is very easy to play and be decent. (though I wish it would be more like- easy to start and hard to master)
That we don't need more raid utility does also not mean that we don't need change on some fundamental and many QoL issues, but these are not necessarily a topic of balancing (though there are also some major issues and broken abilities) as much as design philosophy.

[Paulosio]

Mages bring a shit ton of raid utility.

Mage food. nuff said

An interrupt, spell steal, multiple snaring and rooting abilities (cone of cold, blizzard, freeze, frost nova. ring of frost), a reliable single target cc which has no cooldown and is easily reapplied due to being a targetted cc, good survivability with cauterize, iceblock and icebarrer, 1 of the highest cleave damage classes, 1 of the highest single target burst dps classes, great aoe and good sustained dps. 1 of if not the highest dps class in the game in basically every situation right now.

Yep you mages sure have things bad at the moment.

The only class that is stronger right now are probably locks since they also have crazy damage (in every situation), stupid ammounts of self heals / absorbs and a lot of unique raid utility that other classes can't bring with things like portal and healthstones. Ele shamans are also pretty insane in a 10 man setting at the moment.

[Deleted]

An interrupt, spell steal, multiple snaring and rooting abilities (cone of cold, blizzard, freeze, frost nova. ring of frost), a reliable single target cc which has no cooldown and is easily reapplied due to being a targetted cc, good survivability with cauterize, iceblock and icebarrer, 1 of the highest cleave damage classes, 1 of the highest single target burst dps classes, great aoe and good sustained dps. 1 of if not the highest dps class in the game in basically every situation right now.

Yep you mages sure have things bad at the moment.

The only class that is stronger right now are probably locks since they also have crazy damage (in every situation), stupid ammounts of self heals / absorbs and a lot of unique raid utility that other classes can't bring with things like portal and healthstones. Ele shamans are also pretty insane in a 10 man setting at the moment.

I'm going to go ahead and assume you probably haven't really played a Mage, instead you just think of the abilities that they have and are just chucking them out based on your own assumptions.

Interrupt, spellsteal I'll give you. Freeze (I assume you mean from Pet as Frost) is a) reliant on you playing Frost, b) works in so few PvE situations after the nerf it's dumb. Far from reliable.

Cone of Cold and Nova are both positional requirements, neither of which is necessarily "easy" to get into, and Nova'ing at the wrong times can get melee or even yourself killed. Compare Nova/CoC to other AoE CC abilities (Shadowfury, Mass Entanglement, Earthbind, Chillblains, AoE Curse of Exhaustion) and there are better alternatives. Don't even get me started on Poly. It's a trash ability, I don't think I've ever used it in an encounter.
RoF is beyond situational in PvE, I think I've used it on 2 fights in the last 29? 2/29 = 6.8% usage, wow so useful right?

Good survivability, Cauterize is now < GInvis apart from in a select few situations, giving us 3 predictive/reactive abilities to rely on. Nothing passive at all while Mages have the smallest healthpool in the entire game. Sure, when we can predict incoming damage our survivability is great, but if you raid with people who are prone to small screwups (let's face it, the vast, vast majority of the playerbase - we're all human) THEIR mistakes can kill you, 100-0 before you can even react.

So, again; what do Mages *really* bring beyond their damage and good personal survivability? There are better alternatives in almost all raiding situations to what a Mage brings in terms of control and generic raid utility (Healthstones, portals etc). The second Mages bring the same damage as Warlocks do (which, at the moment Warlocks kinda do in certain situations) oh look, a Warlock is a far better alternative to a Mage due to their better overall survivability and what they can bring to a raid.

[Chilbot]

Well this became a QQ thread real quick. Mages bring DPS and good Personal survivability that is about it. Everything else is Situational. I think if we got something along locks or something that brings raid utility then we would be a lot better in 10 mans. I am in a 10 man progress guild an I tell you I take the most damage out of everyone in the group. It sucks that I have be the one getting the healed the most and my healers yelling at me. when I am out of shit most of the time anyway.

[mrgreenthump]

great aoe

Ok.. if you say so, just shows how much you truly know abt mages..

[Deleted]

AoE ? hahaha

[Not Againnn]

time warp and crit/sp buff are pretty huge

dont forget chart-topping dps. oh and food but whatever. add any more utility and mages will be even more overpowered in pvp. if your raid leader isnt bringing you because you provide no raid cooldowns, hes a dumbass and you should find another group.

we have so much personal utility that it makes the other 9/24 other people's lives easier. we can soak enormous amounts of damage and avoid boss mechanics unlike most classes... just having a good mage in the raid should be enough. you shouldnt need a raidwall or a buff. you are the buff.

[Deleted]

Time Warp is very common and will be even more in 5.4 with crafted Drum's.
SP+Crit buff are both very common. Just bring a warlock and a warrior. Or better, 2 hunter.

If you look at raid during Heroic progress (like my guilde actually), the fight, where mage are replaced, are the one that require a lot of movement. Drood and Warlock give raid boost here.

There's 2 conclusion here :
-- what ever raid utility you give to mage, they won't change the fact that they will be benched because of Demonic Gate.
-- Demonic gate can be used to be pass mechanics, this is why it's on the nerf list (for 5.4 or 6.0).

[Not Againnn]

Time Warp is very common and will be even more in 5.4 with crafted Drum's.
SP+Crit buff are both very common. Just bring a warlock and a warrior. Or better, 2 hunter.

If you look at raid during Heroic progress (like my guilde actually), the fight, where mage are replaced, are the one that require a lot of movement. Drood and Warlock give raid boost here.

There's 2 conclusion here :
-- what ever raid utility you give to mage, they won't change the fact that they will be benched because of Demonic Gate.
-- Demonic gate can be used to be pass mechanics, this is why it's on the nerf list (for 5.4 or 6.0).

warriors and hunters may have more raid cd's/utility (i guess??) but they do not have the dps any mage spec can pull. You can't just dismiss time warp either. its a huge buff a raid should NOT go without. and i disagree with your movement statement. any decent fire mage can dps while moving :/

mages are just as viable in a 10 man as any other class. lacking a raid wide cd (except like... time warp) shouldnt matter.

[Deleted]

But a fire mage can boost the movement of a whole raid or teleport 5 person out of a tempest ...
I'm not talking about viability. Please read me correctly

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I'm only talking about the few fight where mage are replaced and explain why.

[Hasufer]

any decent fire mage can dps while moving :/

And frost mages
Think it's only arc that suffer's a bit on movement due to being dependant on RoP where as fire/frost got evo Still possible to keep about a normal rotation going for some secs with IF/dot refresh/fb (without the 15% RoP dmg tho).

[Deleted]

And frost mages
Think it's only arc that suffer's a bit on movement due to being dependant on RoP where as fire/frost got evo Still possible to keep about a normal rotation going for some secs with IF/dot refresh/fb (without the 15% RoP dmg tho).

Even without using RoP, arc is rooted in place if it wants to be able to do any dps, the Ice Flows talent is pitiful.

[Not Againnn]

But a fire mage can boost the movement of a whole raid or teleport 5 person out of a tempest ...
I'm not talking about viability. Please read me correctly

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I'm only talking about the few fight where mage are replaced and explain why.

yeah and im saying replacing them is foolish because they are just as viable.

please read what im saying.