Caster question!

[decimo]

Currently playing a rogue(mostly sub) and wanting to play one of these three casters for my alt: Mage, Lock, Priest. Looking for some good Pros/Cons from people who play these classes. If it helps I will mostly be doing world quests/world pvp, random bgs, heroics/mythic/mythic+ dungeons and maybe some normal raids. Thanks for any insight!

[Noctiphobia]

I'm not sure why it's in the PvP forum, but alright. I started with Priest and rerolled to Mage, so I may be biased here.

Priest (Shadow)
Pros:
- rotation feels pretty nice
- great theme
- you can do top DPS in raids with surrender to madness
- you might be useful in random bgs
- you can switch to one of the healing specs
- once you get some gear, you can do most world quests by just dotting everything and watching things die
- dagger waifu
Cons:
- one of the worst classes for 5-mans, Holy still does more AoE DPS than Shadow, and on AoE packs a freshly dinged DH will do more DPS than you will ever be able to
- you die when a melee looks in your general direction, you can't even kite a Ret or a DK
- playing shadow in PvP acts like a global taunt
- about 90% chance of losing any duel in world PvP
- only one DPS spec, in case you feel bored
- being last in recount until the boss gets to 35% may be frustrating, especially when you wipe and people start blaming you for low DPS without knowledge of your class

Mage
Pros:
- sick AoE as fire, one of the best specs for M+
- time warp will sometimes get you a spot for M+ (if not just your AoE)
- frost in random battlegrounds is hilarious (you can just run away from anyone who tries to attack you, and when nobody does, you just shoot those 1M glacial spikes at people)
- you will kill anyone (besides tanks) in world PvP if you are the one initiating the fight (especially with a glacial spike), and even if you get caught by surprise, you have a decent chance of winning
- with ice floes and shimmer you almost never need to stop casting to move
- you actually have a choice in PvP, both fire and frost work (though frost is probably better)
Cons:
- fire is much stronger than the other two specs in PvE, especially for M+, so if you decide to play any other spec, you're gimping yourself
- arcane is very underpowered and the whole playstyle revolves around keeping a 6s debuff up, and for all the effort you still get less dps than you'd do as fire
- in future they'll nerf the passive crit fire mages get (since there will be enough crit on the gear), so if they overdo it, the spec will go from one of the best to shit

I haven't played a Warlock in Legion, but from what I've seen, they're, as usual, pretty good at random battlegrounds (just dot everything that moves). If you plan to play affliction, you'll face the same issues as shadow priests (being useless in mythics).

[Deleted]

Locks - are boring to play atm. Maybe demo if you like pets.

[Deleted]

For a warlocks perspective mostly you are fine for majority of world pvp and world quest content. However with warlocks each spec is really suited to fighting a different set of players in my perspective in pvp, affliction is really good against a good portion of players in world pvp as you simply out-survive them, however, against highly bursty classes, i'd rather be demo to stun whilst running off, allowing the pet to whack-a-mole them.

In m+ getting a group is a pain, but that goes for a lot of DPS right now, unless you are an exceptionally geared character, you'll not be picked due to the ilvl 870 geared characters signing up, especially those with insane usefulness in m+ over warlocks, such as hunters and mages.

In m+ your utility as a warlock comes in the form of an aoe stun, spamming fear against a certain target so they can't finish certain casts and banishing when it's possible. You can also control demon in some dungeons after bolstering it about 20 times from trash, makes some fights pretty sweet.

In raids, warlocks are good, destro is the fit-for-all spec for warlocks, it excels at some fights, and is still pretty decent in some others, although for some you may want to try out demonology.

In arenas, you may have fun, but this really depends on the comp you come against and your comp, if you come up against a super heavy cleave team, you better be ready to get trained super hard, because it's gonna happen.

[decimo]

-snip-

Wasn't quite sure where to post it but I figured since random bgs and world questing(which usually leads to pvp) were listed I'd post it here. Thanks for the info for priest and mage! Mages seem like a great choice and likely what I'll end up leveling.

Locks - are boring to play atm. Maybe demo if you like pets.

Had a friend who plays say similar, but wanted a few more opinions so thanks!

-snip-

Thanks for the info! Demo looks like there is a lot of setup to be able to deal good damage though, is that right? With the summoning/buffing and blowing up of the pets? Aff and Demo have always sounded fun though, but mage(frost mostly) sounds like it has a lot more control over a fight which somewhat reminds me of sub rogue which I really enjoy.

[Deleted]

snip

With demo in PvE your ramp up time is around 14 seconds, which you need to not be interrupted, otherwise you won't get your burst off and will lose a significant amount of damage on pull.

In PVP its the same, however people generally run the implosion build which is a bit more freedom.

Yeah, you have to deal with essentially day-care centring your demons, the reason why most people dislike demo is because of this, to some it feels good, to others it feels super clunky, I choose the latter.


Yeah frost mage in terms of PVP will have the much better outcome, being able to both get away, pressure and control. Demo only really has one of those, and that's pressure even though it does take a good bit of time to setup.

[Linri]

from a priests perspective, takes a while to get ur damage rolling, higher level honor is a must, little cc

mage, good cc, some high burst talents, good for those pesky melee

warlock, seen these guy pump out a ton of damage, and the drain life skill looks pretty awesome in world