Jaina in terms of averages. Sheās a standard mage, her toolkit isnāt too defined or compromised by the situation at hand so sheās a strong mage in a general sense.
If we focus on specifics, where he can grab blight somewhat early kel gets ahead of her due to his CC being followed up with absolutely absurd damage. In this situation he brings what Jaina does, with more damage, albeit less safely and with more difficulty to execute. Where this is supported by his team (allowing him easy chains etc) heās a beast.
Also mephi. Where mephi can reliably combo in chains due to pulling off great hits on their team repeatedly due to his teammates locking down enemies and keeping him healthy, mephis raw damage becomes untouchable and he very much becomes a constant threat that needs to be managed. This is very much dependent on landing the damage reliably though, and in team fights of larger numbers else it isnāt nearly as deveststing.
So where you have great support from teammates in TF whom can pin enemies, kel and mephi are best. Kel because it allows him to stack blight early and mephi because it allows his insane damage to roll constantly.
If this is not a sure thingthen Jaina is the otherwise default stronger pick imo.
A good KTZ can easily remove from a team fight 1 or 2 people with a well landed combo (with ulti), making it an almost istant win. Also, he has a decent wave clear.
In an ideal scenario I would choose as best mage a good KTZ over anyone else.
If they have a Medivh or someone that can easily block/interrupt his combo then KTZ ise useless.
If there is strong sustained healing then GulĀ“dan/Mephisto are not as good.
Orphea and Chromie suffer from delayed abilities but are also rather strong unless someone can easily jump on them; with Chromie being a bit stringer due to the many stasis effects she has.
Jaina is best āsustained ccā mage. Keeps opponents slowed for whole fights and has a good burst damage as well.
Kelāthuzad is best āburst ccā mage. Good on heavy team fight maps when against low mobility heroes and both teams have a lot of front line.
Orphea is a unique hypermobile mage. She moves like tracer and damages like jaina. Iām still a little inexperienced with her, so I canāt say where she fits best. I suppose against opponents with a lot of skill shots.
Mephisto is best for sustained high damage in team fights. Perhaps the biggest problem with mephisto is that there are very few cases in which a long team fight is better than poke and soak.
Li ming is best for high burst damage in team fights.
Chromie is also up there with Orphea in the inexperienced department. I mean, Iām level 80 with her, but I havenāt played her since her first rework.
It almost seems like you could create a āgridā for these mages, and use some of them as extrema. Like āon a scale from Mephisto to Li Ming, how bursty is your damage?ā
I think what people overlook with mephi is that aspect of the fight needs to be long. This is why heās not a poke mage, despite his kit maybe seeming like he is a poker. He wants the fight to continue, he wants the enemy to stay engaged so we can do a second rotation, and then a third etc.
This is why his team is important, keeping enemies within the fray and preventing them backing off easily. Where this is allowed, mephi becomes a complete animal in terms of damage, and due to shade, heās ādoing it from the back lineā or at least under somewhat safe conditions (armor boost or slowing aura depending on shade pick at 7).
This, and actually hitting his abilities correcly are his only limitations. I donāt buy the āsupport outheal mephiā angle. Yes, if heās played like any other poke mage, sure they do. If he actually plays the way only he can, by chaining spells constantly every 2.5 secs due to trait resets, no healer can outheal that damage constantly.
It requires skill of mephi part and his team to allow this situation but I can only forsee supports and healers with high dmg mitigation being able to stave it off. Gulādan is far more susceptible to being beaten by consistent healing than a mephi, assuming both are playing in their optimal environment (that is landing your spells on maximum targets each time, whenever you can).
Itās wiser for a team to back off and splinter to stop mephis resets than to try and heal through his dmg if he keeps pulling it off. Uther probably does the best job trying (and White mane) due to armor buff on aoe, and white man can pull out consistent aoe healing. It still wonāt cancel out mephis damage however because unlike him, healers in this situation have cds and he wonāt assuming perfect hits.
The best mage in the game is undoubtedly KTZ. His chain, root, ulti bomb, along with anyone else who wants to throw some nukes down equals a guaranteed takedown after 10. He is extremely high risk, high reward. Runner up has to be Gulādan. If you can time a corruption just right it does insane amounts of DPS and his flame ability is just insane off CD. Ive seen people do 45k+ within the first 10 minutes of the game with guldan. 3rd place has to go to KT on shear amount of headaches he brings. Those bombs are disgustingly annoying, unlike anything else in the game. 4th goes to chromie, far range and her sands of time is an incredible zoning tool that can be easily used to body block other heroes into doom. 5th to jaina whos rings are top 5 most deadly ulties in the game.
Ok i forgot about hanzo, yes he is the best mage in the game.
Jaina provides the most reliable value on just about any map and any team composition, and even a bad player can contribute some value with Jaina. Kaelāthas also usually bring reliable value even when played by bad players. Other mages are more contextual and/or require more skill.
Just by judging from the replies, it seems there is no single consensus on who is the best. Nobody dominating, so gj by blizzard I assume? Truly seems to be a āpick what you likeā scenario most of the time.
Iād say J.naā¦ sheās really well rounded and quite consistent. While the rest of the mages can bring incredible results in some of the games, and close to no value in other games (based on map and team compositions, as well as teamsā performance). But KTZ is one of those mages that is insane when heās working right.