TLDR: I’m not looking for a discussion of DPS/raiding/class complaints… I just want to ask if mages are generally powerful doing world end game content at 60 (and soon 70).
I came back to WoW after quitting during BFA. I have only fully-completed Bastion in SL, so I haven’t done any level 60 content. Currently, I’ve been mostly sticking around the BFA and WoD expansions while I wait for DF.
How are/were level 60 mages doing in solo end-game content in SL? Any issues with struggling to kill mobs while doing dailies? I leveled as frost through BFA, and slowly gained power. At 50 I felt frost was generally ok in BFA, and relatively powerful at 60 (to be expected). Since I tend to solo, I’m wondering how they do at max level content for soloers. I don’t want to have to be fully geared up in mythics and raids to be able to cruise through dailies.
Worse case scenario I get to level 70, see that I struggle with mobs, and then reroll hunter. I want to stay a mage, but due to time constraints, I want to make my solo end game grind as easy as possible. If, as a mostly achievement/mount/transmog hunter, I have to drop a mage and its convenient teleports for the ease of completing max level content as a hunter, I will.
Hopefully you guys will come back and say there is no need to reroll.
Once you’re at a decent gear level all 3 specs are fine at end-game open world content. I mained a Mage in Vanilla through WOTLK and then again in BFA and SL.
A few weeks into open world content in both BFA and SL, you’re able to easily solo elites and, if youre frost, 12+ normal mobs at once without too much issue. This is in high contrast to earlier in the game’s life where mages were so squishy you could barely kill 2 mobs at once half the time unless you prepared at max range and used CC, even in tier gear.
I love mages, they are my favorite pure DPS class, and mine may not be my main in Dragonflight (leaning evoker or death knight, want a hybrid out of the gate this time), but it will make it out of the stable and to max level at some point.
That at least gives me the drive to not even bother starting a hunter yet.
The only reason I bring this up is the weird leveling experience. My rogue destroyed stuff while leveling, but then at 50 in BFA, seems to take 1/4-1/3 my life to kill a single mob. 2 will destroy me.
My frost mage can handle that no problem, but he also started off slow while leveling, so it was like the opposite. He didn’t shine until flurry and fingers of frost.
It just got me thinking if they are fragile at end game world content.
i played frost necrolord, while the other viable covenant was venthyr, and it wasnt even a contest. necrolord was a massive increase to DPS over venthyr with double legendary. there was very little in the open zones i couldnt handle at 278 ilvl, aside from the oddball rare spawn in korthia/the maw, a couple of rares in ZM, and world bosses. other than that, smoooooth sailin.
I’ll definitely try out all the specs. I just hope to not lose like half health in every fight against a single mob. I’m pretty sure leveling as frost I would kill everything before it touched me once I got brain freeze and fingers of frost. Until that time, mobs would still get to me. I don’t want to eat between every other mob.
you wont. just keep ice barrier active, arcane intellect active, and for the love of the gods, please, PLEASE get your crit rating to AT LEAST 33.34% so you crit every shatter. it DOES make a big big difference.
Are you talking about my crit or just in general? I think I’m 213 ilvl and I replace everything with crit when I get equivalent gear and/or an upgrade, but I’m still around 24% I think.
I’ll probably start off leveling as frost, and if it is similar for gear, I’ll stack crit equipment again until I get to that number. I’ll be active in DF for max level so hopefully I’ll get some high level gear this expansion.
Arcane is where its at for low level, until you hit current content (I have a main mage, and a few low level alts when I get drunk and want to do elwynn and duskwood again). Arcane Missile spam is hilariously effective and fun.
You’re right frost doesnt have the tools early on that make it the best leveling spec later on. That balance may change with the talent trees, we’ll have to see!
shatter operates based on a target being frozen. frozen only really occurs after a proc’d brain freeze, if youre using flurry when youre supposed to (we dont hardcast flurry, for any reason, ever).
so, it takes your current crit rating, multiplies it by 1.5 or 150%, adds that to the current value, then adds a flat 50% on top of that.
so if you have 24% crit, than after shatter adds another 50% to it bringing it to 36%, it adds that flat 50% to bring it to an end value of 86%
at 33.34% crit, you have a 100% chance to shatter the target, critting every time shatter is active.
this is because you sit pretty far under the shatter cap requirements. which is also why frost sucks hard in timewalking dungeons and raids unless you’ve built a set of gear specifically for it.
i didnt see anything in the trees when they were working them out that leads me to believe it’ll change. the arbitrary crit cap still remains in play, and any frost mage outside of pvp does not have that crit cap, theyre effectively gimping their throughput.
Thanks for the info! I’ll continue to stack crit as I level in DF. I’m going to stick to frost for now and see how it goes. I don’t anticipate feeling gimped, since it’s not like we are starting level 1 mages. But I’ll be open to trying the other specs if the first few mobs I encounter in DF do not have their health lowering as quick as I am used to.