If beta is any indication, mages will be way overrepresented

if even i can play arcane reasonably well, someone at blizz messed up.

I consider mage to be heavily nerfed in terms of mechanics.

Ice block heals for half as much now
Ice Nova (long distance root like DK) is just gone now.
Arcane barrage can no longer speed themselves up or slow enemies down, this negatively impacts CTF pvp and also dungeon/raid farming
and im sure some other things

Now on the other hand, any time health pools go up, mage does better, since squishiness can make some battles just an endless uphill battle. Basically anything that nerfs heals favors the class that isn’t designed around heals.

Mage hasn’t been enjoyable to play since Cata.

I don’t. Arcane felt awful at first but now that I’m used to it it’s tremendous fun. I still need to dabble with the others. Just haven’t had time. Lots of specs feel amazing right now.

the new arcane mage is also so much fun, nerf it is coming and i will be sad, but i still will play it

Imo they need to balance it out by making warlocks OP and have cast while moving kil’jadens cunning again.

It is justified.

but I specifically mentioned the things that are missing now
the heal
the root
the speed up

you’re talking about some raid stuff, thats a differetn subject, which I know matters to some people
important mage stuff is nerfed however

Oh I don’t raid. Not really. I’m just talking about the most important mechanic in the game: fun! They have it in spades.

losing in pvp is not fun
oh yeah, I forgot frost nova which was inexplicably reduced by 2 seconds last expansion, as if somehow melee classes need more help in pvp
anyway I think the class still retains what makes it work, but heavily nerfed and no more or less ā€˜fun’ than before
clicking buttons in the order the game requires to make numbers go up is not interesting

This, right here. Mages are good for questing because of our portals, and that will always make them popular.