The truth about mages

[Zenny]

Mages have 2 advantages that only 2 other classes (and with legion only 1 other class) have, that is 3 DPS specs and being ranged. This virtually guarantees that at least one spec would be in the top 3.

Warlocks have generally also always had at least 1 spec that was great as well. Warlocks dominated most of MoP for example, and were really good in WoD as well.

[HumbleDuck]

They have always been a safe bet to some extent. The problem is its very possible that you like a mage spec while hating the other, and the chances are you will have to play that hated spec in the course of an expansion to stay competitive.

[Deleted]

2nd: SoO Thok Progress, as mages haven't had any heal/raid cd. (I was benched for a warlock who did less dmg but provided healstones)

If you were benched for Thok HC on mage just because you didnt had raid cd then something was really wrong with either your RL or You. Mages were top dps that tier and one particular talent made them quite easy to heal - Temporal Shield. If cast in the right time you wouldn't need heaing for around 10 seconds depending how high stacks you were doing. I cant find the logs from WoWProgress but my guild killed Thok HC with my and 2 other mages in the group.

So as far as I remember, mages always (experience since WotLK) had one very well performing spec, one that was medicore or perfect for some special encounters and one specc which was meh (except ToT and SoO where all 3 speccs were performing very well with full gear for different bosses)

This is true statement tho. Except little correction - mages are Blizzards "favorites". So even if they underperfom in the first or so week, they are buffed immediately for the next reset.

[Deleted]

Blizzard knows that having mages be bad would upset all the people who, over the years, gravitated towards mages because they were the best dps. Players who chose to play other classes likely made the choice when they were not the top dps which makes them more tolerant towards being balanced.

[Shakou]

I also raided as fire in MC. The pvp gear had so much -resistance (or spell pen orr something that lowered resistance) that it dps was fine except for one or two fights.

Oh you mean you did it in gear that wasn't even available for quite some time after the game launched? You raided as Fire in MC well after it was long since progression content. No one who wasn't complete dead weight raided MC as a Fire mage when it mattered at all.

[Cronovey]

Well you were probably the elemental build which I frankly forget exactly what it was. When somebody says they were raiding as fire in Mc and were 2nd I am assuming the guy meant he was specced mostly into fire and using fire spells. Not elemental specced and spamming frostbolt. I caught the guy in a lie plain and simple

Except that's entirely untrue. I was 31 points down fire and raiding MC just fine, because your Frostbolt still did reasonable damage on bosses even if you weren't specced into it. The rest of the points went down the arcane tree to make your Arcane Explosion instant cast and a couple in the frost tree for the 6% chance to hit with fire and frost spells because hit gear was rare at the time.

If you were in a progression guild at the very beginning of WoW this was much less frequent, but still happened occasionally. It didn't really pick up as much until BWL was already released. Call people liars all you want, but I and many other mages played nothing but fire for Vanilla. In fact, I've never played any spec besides fire for any long period of time because I simply don't enjoy the other two specs, even when fire wasn't always the best of the three specs.

[Deleted]

Mages have always been in the top of dmg meters

[Deleted]

Rubbish. Not only does Fire actually have a heal, but i'm talking running around the world. Pretty sure Mages don't struggle while questing, and pulling reasonable amounts of mobs. Also every spec can talent for heals with Iceblock with 2 charges, Arcane and Frost have bigger shields as well. All this is moot, though, because mages are about mobility and escape, which they are the masters of.

questing is just 'easy', your being misleading. Since TBC they've become one of the weakest ones.

In WoD shadowpriest while lvling was maybe slightly weaker, my mage was better geared but the nova talent was ahuge short cd burst ability that helped their questing ability a lot. Shadowpriest had an certain advantage but it probably needs gear and it's self healing sucked. Feral druid was insanely strong for example on of the reason was it had a strong selfheal mechanic.

In legion i can't say, fire's blink heal has been nerfed hard and mages their kiting ability is weaker as well.
Blizzard did a big selfsustain nerf to all classes so i have no idea how the soloing capability are, I wonder if we will still see DK's soloing raids just one tier below the latest. Despite that mages will probably be one of the weaker classes here.

[Deleted]

Soloing the previous explansion's raids and levelling are two different things. I think some of you are talking about levelling and others about old raids. Frost mage should be traditionally very strong at levelling but not as much at raid soloing.

[Deleted]

As for raiding, only tbc was horrible experience from being mediocre to viable. There were some moments of competitive dmg still. Their were other moments but they were short……..certain specs did have long periods of not being competitive. Frost might have had the worst track record of all specs of all classes but that was partly a philosophy and mechanics that are no longer their so irrelevant.

One problem mages do have is how similar each spesc arsenal is, the spell school theme is different and one concept in rotation. Legion might be the expansion where the specs are more different than ever before, part in this is because they removed some utility from one spec and another from another. Where is my Cone of Cold, Greater invisibility. Rotation is also a bit more different. Mages are class that change very slowly and incrementally.
If you want more diversity and a class that had bigger changes in its lifespan but still being top competitive you might want to look into Warlock.

PVP I can’t comment on, I hate the melee /ranged dynamic since cataclysm and that is still in place. Casters are more susceptible to cc as many cc has been removed but interrupts /spelllock are still there.

[Deleted]

Well you were probably the elemental build which I frankly forget exactly what it was. When somebody says they were raiding as fire in Mc and were 2nd I am assuming the guy meant he was specced mostly into fire and using fire spells. Not elemental specced and spamming frostbolt. I caught the guy in a lie plain and simple

it was the pvp items, it gave huge amount of spell penetration negating the fire resistance mobs had. Especially when you got the grand marshal staff, it was 70 spell penetration. I only seen a grand marshal fire mage doing that well though....might be becuase of lack of trying from others :P

[Wenoxar]

Also got question about Fire in Legion.

Put numbers aside, please.

Raid fights in legion will be boss + adds style, from what I got there's only 1 single target fight in Emerald Nightmare and 0 st in Nighthold.

Does fire suit such fight types? We got Flamestrike and some ignite spreading around, is it good enough for such fights?

[Deleted]

Also got question about Fire in Legion.

Put numbers aside, please.

Raid fights in legion will be boss + adds style, from what I got there's only 1 single target fight in Emerald Nightmare and 0 st in Nighthold.

Does fire suit such fight types? We got Flamestrike and some ignite spreading around, is it good enough for such fights?

Most fights are like that for many years. Single target still has value though. This is because in various fights you don't need total dps only, but also dps during short windows of time on certain targets only.

[The Archmage]

Also got question about Fire in Legion.

Put numbers aside, please.

Raid fights in legion will be boss + adds style, from what I got there's only 1 single target fight in Emerald Nightmare and 0 st in Nighthold.

Does fire suit such fight types? We got Flamestrike and some ignite spreading around, is it good enough for such fights?

What Tobindax says it's true. That said, the answer to your question is YES. Very much so. Fire has always been the best spec when AoE or cleave is involved, and in Legion this peculiarity has been left unchanged.

Very effective between 2 and 5 targets, borderline crazy when they grow beyond that (up to a flat OP-brokeness on heavy masses).

[KoolKidKaos]

I started playing mage at the end of BC, and while I was currently playing resto druid, we had one mage that was almost always topping the meters, with the warglaive rogue, and our destro warlock. I heard stories that mages were used for food and buffs haha, and then benched in sunwell, so they might not have been competitive in Sunwell too much, but our Arcane mage did amazing.

In wotlk, I mained a mage, and I have mained it ever since. I can honestly say every single tier since the release of ToC, Arcane or Fire has been the top spec for dps in raids. It doesn't matter how or what they nerf mages start off mediocre, but as soon as they get one good trinket, or a good weapon, they always always top meters. There was a joke in wotlk, Mages were Ghostcrawler's retarded love child lol. Because he played a mage, that he showed favoritism to mages. Could have been true, but they're continued to dominate even after his departure from blizzard.

Frost only became viable in pve for the first time, on a competitive level in MoP, all of sudden you had these abilities that hit hard, and the release of icicles helped tons.
Frost for as long as I can remember has been the go to pvp spec. Very few players can pull off arcane in pvp and destroy people, but it's also amazing. Fire is usually the second picked spec for pvp, but it also has amazing burst, and sick control. All viable with the right player, and capable.

Soloing content has been more difficult in WoD, since probably TBC, wotlk he had really strong ice barriers, mana shield, all kinds of goodies. Cata still had those, and we had a heal via cold snap. MoP we had those still AND alter time, which just changed everything but our ice barriers were nerfed, and mana shield was gone. WoD we had nothing but alter time, and a weak ice barrier. Legion is a lot better, we have several ways to get heals, and temporal shield in pvp will help, also increased Ice Barrier/legendary possible items. Will make soloing much better, easier and enjoyable.

Not saying that mages topped every single fight ever since the release of ToC, but they definitely topped 70-95% of all fights since then. Some Tiers it was every single boss. They've also been the best class if you wanted to pvp serious in every season, because they always have synergized well with rogues, priests, and other mages.

[Aquamonkey]

Did not mages have Amplify Magic in Pandaria?

It was removed in patch 4.0.1, Cataclysm, so no.

A different Amplify Magic was added as a raid healing boost cd in the WoD pre-patch. It was removed in 6.2.

[Serix1]

Rubbish. Not only does Fire actually have a heal, but i'm talking running around the world. Pretty sure Mages don't struggle while questing, and pulling reasonable amounts of mobs. Also every spec can talent for heals with Iceblock with 2 charges, Arcane and Frost have bigger shields as well. All this is moot, though, because mages are about mobility and escape, which they are the masters of.

What spell does fire have that is a self heal?

[Wenoxar]

What spell does fire have that is a self heal?

Ice Block (10char)

[Pewpewwindeeps]

What spell does fire have that is a self heal?

Fire mages have an artifact trait that I believe is called "Cauterizing Blink" that heals you for 5/10/15% (depending on amount of points in the trait) of your maximum health over 6 seconds. Combine that with the talent "Shimmer" and you have a 30% heal at max ranks over 12 seconds every time both Blinks are up. On top of that, Ice Barrier absorbs a TON of damage.

[Relapses]

Fire is looking strong in Legion.

And honestly, it's about time Mages had a good expansion. :^)