How are mages now?

The last time I played a mage was in vanilla WoW and loved it 1-59. Once I hit 60 it kinda sucked in pvp. So I haven’t touched the class since then. I was thinking of giving it another shot but have no clue how much it been changed over the years. How is the mage now for leveling, end game pve, and pvp?

I love my mage. I’ve played mage as my main since vanilla. It’s been a rollercoaster at times but I love the class.

Right now mages are in sort of a weird spot. In raiding take mythic for example, our 3 specs make up 3 of the bottom 6 on logs, so raid damage is suffering in this tier. Mages are viable and groups will bring you, but if you’re topping charts it’s because you wildly outgear everyone or your group is filled with players who aren’t that good.

Mages are solid in 3s. Mages will always be solid in 3s. Because of poly. The turn off is you basically sit around spamming poly waiting for burst and cc windows and your comps are limited.

Battlegrounds mages do okay. Sit in the back and free cast.

Open world/leveling. Mages are one of the worst solo classes in the game. We are designed to just avoid damage, which means no sustain. It’s not horrible, but if you’ve played great solo classes in the past, mage is going to be a turn off at first.

Overall mages aren’t terrible and they are absolutely viable, however we aren’t the godly damage dealing glass cannons of old.

Try a mage out and see how you like it. I still love my mage.

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I agree with the post above, Frost seems to be the only viable “end game” as in mythic +/raiding spec, but the others shine in pvp still.

I’ve played a mage since Vanilla, and I find the current state of the class to be incredibly disappointing. Right now, mages only seem to exist to buff warlocks. I’ve given up raiding this expansion, and absent a dramatic improvement, will likely give up the game entirely.

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Don’t listen to the guy who says Mages are terrible at solo content. That it not true, at all. It gets more difficult around max level, but it’s not terrible, in the slightest. Healing traits on azerite gear make questing a breeze, because you can burn groups down, sustaining yourself with the instant cast triggered heals. Even without gear with those traits, as long as you play smart, you’ll do just fine.

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I never said they were terrible, I said we were one of the worst solo classes. Anyone who’s played multiple different classes would agree. I can assure you leveling a mage for someone who hasn’t played the class in awhile will be infinitely more frustrating than most of the other classes. I do just fine on my mage, I always main my mage, however I play multiple other classes and to say the mage isn’t the most frustrating of the classes I’ve played would be a lie.

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Mage is an acquired taste. I don’t PVE anymore but on the PVP and arena side we play different then other classes. You can’t just go around trying to do sustained damage or having gun fights with other clothies. Hit and run, bait and outplay is the mage way. Anything less then that is gonna be a rough time.

Mage 101- Don’t pop all your cds and expect to win unless they are really terrible at the game.

Get them to waste all their cds
Kill them
Soak in the mage OP QQ

What do you level as a mage? I’m assuming frost because of pet, but what about the other two specs?

Arcane is the best leveling spec up until current content tbh. You can burst down lots of enemies quickly with arcane blasts.

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Great. Mages I want to rp have been leaning arcane so far.

I like playing mine, I like all 3 specs, but if you’re looking to be on the top of the charts you’ll probably be disappointed.

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Arcane mages in the 1-59 bracket are insanely OP if you level through battle grounds. End game mages still out perform over the middle of the pack with little effort. Arena, same as always ease-of-use allowed to make mistakes. I have not RBG as a mage so I can not add to this part.

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Arcane is rocking it. I’m always in the top 2 dps.

I won’t claim the rotation is hard or interesting but we can really bring the pain!

Not to dog on you, I am glad you are doing well in dps! But judging on your progression in Mythics/raid… You are doing well in LFR/normal where there are not nearly as much movement/mechanics that interrupt Arcane Rotations. Your highest mythic is a +3. At 391 Ilvl a +3 is a cake-walk, and you out-gear the normal raid which you have yet to beat blockade/jaina. Once again I love that you are happy with your character, but Arcane is not in top 2 dps when put on an even playing field with other specs. In fact it is 3rd to last according to real life data from the raid logs. Beating only Fire mage, and BM hunter.

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If you’re destroying meters as any mage spec. You overgear everyone or everyone else is playing very poorly. Yes it is that simple.

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Well, the op is likely not going to be a high end raider so my perspective gives balance to the high level of commentary around mythic raiding and +15 keys in these forums . Nearly nobody does that stuff.

Class balance and content issues for the content you do are not present in the content I do.

It would be a shame for someone to shy away from the spec based is one small sliver of the game they are not likely to participate in. A new person needs to the a range of opinions.

Mages are fun in my opinion. Regular raiding and low level (even up to +10 I’m guessing) keys are not an issue.

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Probably more of the latter. My point to the op was, playing a mage can be fun. At the levels I play at you can really light things up.

By the nature of his question I doubt he/she intends to become a mythic raider. You people already know the ins and outs of everything and would not need to ask the question.

The issue with mages soloing has never been killing trash. It’s been taking down harder targets. Hunters and warlocks can just straight tank them with pets. Sometimes on my frost dk I can get away just healing using dark succor. Quite Frankly other classes can just fight something tougher in general. And half of all classes have a tanking spec they can switch to to just outlive it. And lots of other specs have more armor and heals to boot (ret pally, elemental shaman) .

This doesn’t mean playing mages isn’t rewarding. It’s just important to understand it can be harder.

The above post is correct. Almost every other class in the game has some form of self-heal built into their baseline spells. None of the Mage specs do. With Mages at early levels you cannot pull more than 1-2 mobs, while on a priest, even healing spec priests not even shadow, you can pull 5-6 as your self-heals can let you dot them down while keeping you alive.

Can confirm. I am low level and I can’t even pull more mobs than my priest of the same level. Feels bad man.