I am definitely salty and perhaps even bitter, but am I wrong?
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Not wrong at all, you are our mightiest spokesman, Kerathras.
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I would like to know as well. Especially since tanks will be getting buffed. Mage is a pure dps class and we are barely on the dps chart above the tank and now we very well may be on par with a tank.
They have to buff the tanks so they can make up the difference in DPS and carry us. 
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No doubt (because it’s GD) you got a plethora of replies telling you that Mages are fine, or how Mages do really good damage, or how “this Mage in my guild pumps” etc etc. GD is a cesspit on good days, but even on these forums you get those responses, often followed by very tailored logs showing the 2 bosses at a specific percentile to back them up.
Meanwhile, they don’t realise that we don’t have a place. We’re not ST pumpers, we’re not AoE pumpers, and the one thing Frost is mean to be good at - 2 target stacked cleave - is done better by other specs including hybrids. At best, outside of some specific bosses that seem to favour us for some odd reason, we are mid-pack with one spec and well below that with the other 2.
No different from previous expansions, there’s a 10-15% gap between the top and bottom dps which could easily be resolved with a small aura buff. Frost got 5% at one stage, and while we started out strong we’ve dropped progressively this raid. Tier set bonus isn’t going to make that difference, so why not offer another 5% aura buff to all 3 specs and see where that puts us?
That at least addresses the issue with damage, then we just have to beg for changes to gameplay.
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And there’s always the one comment with “Y’all are fine, fire is great, didn’t you watch the MDI?” #skillissue
Even in PvE? LMAO, mage is trash can ready in PvP too, a pure DPS without any CC to actually kill something.
You know, funnily enough no one has said that to me yet. I think the Mage issue in particular has stuck out to almost everyone. Players are not dumb, they read the patch notes, they see Mages not being mentioned at all time and again, and most importantly they notice there aren’t any Mages in their groups. I don’t think this is one Blizzard will be able to sweep under the rug by just pretending we don’t exist.
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I am not happy with the current state either but to say all 3 specs are unplayable is closer to wrong then correct.
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I never said Mages were unplayable, however, they no longer have a niche. Whatever it was that each of the specs was good at has now been significantly diminished and can be performed much better and with less effort by any number of other classes. Group utility value has also plummeted to the point where Arcane Intellect is about it. Well that and saving healers a couple gold on food…
So yeah if you want to be the nerdy waterboy on the team you can find a raid spot. Just one though because having more than one Mage in the raid it’s pretty much a guaranteed DPS loss.
As an aside, the notion of “unplayable” is incredibly subjective and impossible to define (which is why I avoid saying it) because it varies based on the content that you’re engaging in. If you’re only tackling LFR and Normal the fact that your preferred spec does 15% less damage than the current meta is an annoyance. However, if you’re trying to push AotC or higher it’s probably going to be unplayable, yeah.
And anyway, we don’t have to wait for a class to be so completely broken that no one plays it to voice concerns. And we’re already pretty much there with Arcane at least, just look at the numbers.
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I am not trying to put words in your mouth, but i guess, I don’t know what your talking about, everything you said is subjective and a jaded option, then you asked if people agreed with you? That was my take on what you are saying.
I agree mages need some work, but to claim AOTC is out of reach ? BOLD claim.
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Not as bold as you’d think. AotC completion has plummeted from an average of almost 70% in Legion to the mid 30s in SL and is currently in the 40s. It’s sadly impossible to know the exact numbers because this is an account wide achievement but it is by no means a stretch to assume that players are not getting AotC on their mages when it’s one of the most underperforming classes.
Again, “unplayable” doesn’t mean anything. A more correct term would be viable though even that is ambiguous. Bottom line, mages aren’t seeing play these days and the reasons for that are obvious: the class isn’t fun to play and doesn’t do competitive DPS. Part of that may be the so called “player perception” but those perceptions come from somewhere and in this particular case are quite well founded and backed by the numbers.
To back you up a bit here, while I did manage to get AOTC while on my mage, I felt like I was being carried on the Raz fight.
In subsequent nights, to help those in the guild who do not yet have it, I have switched to equally geared warlock because she does at least 25-30% more damage on the Raz fight.
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I appreciate it. And just to reiterate there is absolutely nothing wrong with that scenario from a player perspective. There is no shame is being carried and over the years we’ve all been on both sides of that as classes have constantly shifted in and out of prominence. Mages have done our fair share of carrying other classes too.
The problem is that we shouldn’t be forced into this situation in the first place. I fully understand that it’s impossible to perfectly balance all specs but when Blizzard drop the ball so bad that an underperforming class (all 3 specs) has been virtually untouched for an entire season/raid tier then that’s on them and they need to face up to it and own it. Instead they are only compounding the issue by refusing to communicate or even acknowledge the problem hoping to sweep it under the rug or when all else fails throw us a bone in the form of a largely meaningless flat % buff when the real issue runs much deeper.
I think the more important question here is… why the hell haven’t they nerfed Warlocks and rogues? At least warlocks, who are by far big outliers in terms of DPS. They buffed hunters and then nerfed them again, so kind of feel your pain.
I’ve been toying with my mage again and noticed his damage in frost isn’t the greatest when compared to my warlock. The gear level isn’t even that far off. My mage is around 390 Ilv and the damage is much better on my Ilv 402 warlock.
I don’t play to top meters, but the gap is wide enough for me to notice even when questing in open world. I’ve played a mage since WotLK and this is the first time I’ve felt mages weren’t at least in the top 5 as a pure DPS class.
To be fair I don’t like playing arcane much at all and I hear it does well. pretty much just fire and frost, but I might give arcane a shot this go around.