Originally Posted by
TeraAkkron
I played mage at a very high PvE level throughout vanilla & TBC (racked up /350 days played, server firsts on all bosses up to Sunwell Plateau).
TBC was a very bad expansion for the mage class, unfortunately. I believe it marks the PvE low-point for the class throughout WoW's 16 year history to date:
- Spell rotation in raids/dungeons, for all specializations, consists of literally spamming 1 button. Nothing else, except for fire, where at least 1 mage in the raid had to cast 1 scorch every 30 seconds to keep up a fire-damage debuff on the target.
- Frost mage was not viable in PvE content although it was the only viable spec in PvP.
- PvE mages were almost exclusively Fire.
- For most of the TBC, right until a patch in the last few months of the expansion, Fireball and Frostbolt had a 10% damage co-efficient tax. This was absurd, and Blizzard admitted as much when they lifted this tax. During the tax period, mage damage was underwhelming compared to many other classes. Unfortunately, even after the damage tax was lifted, by that time other classes either had scaled to do more damage or they offered higher utility. The best evidence of this was the number of mages in raids in Sunwell. It was minimal - none at all or maximum of 1-2. Go check the videos from that era.
- Rogues with legendary swords from Illidan were unbeatable at damage dealing, followed by Warlocks and Hunters. Mages were in Tier B or C in the hierarchy.
- Utility was very important in TBC, particularly as buffs were group-wide not raid-wide (which was changed in Wotlk). Shamans brought totems and Blood Lust, which could be stacked on the same group by different Shamans as the Sated debuff did not exist. Shadow priests brought insane mana-regen back during a time where mages and other classes WOULD run out of mana if they went "all out" or had to use mana potions instead of damage potions. Druids brought a critical strike buff. Paladins brought Blessings.
- Mages brought nothing, except for an Intellect buff which could be cast outside of the raid group. They only brought damage, which was well below Hunters, Rogues and Warlocks and with a smaller HP pool to boot.
- The concept of "Arcane Mage" does really not exist, although it was improved over vanilla with the introduction of Arcane Blast. The spec (i.e. deep Arcane) was nowhere close to being viable except for a limited period during which a particular meta-gem (Mystical Skyfire Diamond) made it viable due to the absence of an internal cool down on the gem's proc. This was hotfixed during Black Temple and I doubt it will would be released without this hotfix in "TBC Classic".
Therefore, if you HAVE the option to roll a different class, I would avoid Mages for TBC content like a plague. No wonder they buffed them so much in WOTLK, including giving them Time Warp.