Lets face it. The skill cap of Mages has consistently gone down since Wrath. And, I’m sorry BFA Mages, the skill cap is the lowest it has ever been.
As for the burst rotation, I don’t see that ever changing. We’ll always see Mages have great instant damage. The Devs don’t like Mages having to cast to do their highest DPS for some reason. It is more of the same in Shadowlands, minus Arcane.
That being said, the one area Mages actually have a skill cap is casting CC. BUT, in BFA and on Beta, not only is landing CC on a healer the easiest it has ever been, getting kicked has almost no punishment, and the need to CC is much lower. You know Mages are easy when landing a Trap takes more skill than landing a Poly.
In a 5 second window of a healer being stunned, a Mage can get kicked on Poly, kicked on Ring, and still be able to DB into a Poly as the stun ends. That isn’t even counting Shimmer which hard counters half of the kicks and CC in the game. Even if you get shut down on your window, there is always the possibility of Poly > Shimmer behind a pillar. This type of gameplay isn’t acceptable when your burst rotation is already the easiest there is. Where is the skill?
Defensively speaking in prior expansions Mages were glass cannons. In MOP for example, a Mage sitting and casting a 3 second Gpy would be unheard of. Two Melee in MOP could delete your entire health pool in two globals. Being executed by an Enhance Shaman from 60% was a common occurrence. KFC landing a Scatter Trap meant you had to Ice Block.
To be able to live through that, you had to be able to juke in clutch situations. You had to have someone in a Poly, Nova, or some sort of CC close to the entire game. Something Mages in BFA and Beta no longer have to do.
In my mind, and in the mind of Mages, that I know, that got respectable rating prior to BFA, Mages should be forced to juke to land CC. The only thing I can think of that would force Mages to juke, get rewarded for doing it, and more importantly, get punished if they can’t, is not allowing Mages to cast Shimmer while casting Poly. This won’t interfere with PVE and will force Mages to juke to get CC in those crucial moments.
Mages will still be just as tanky in Shadowlands, if not more so with Alter, still have easy burst rotations, they will still have Ring, but they won’t have Shimmer carrying their inability to juke interrupts.
tl;dr Mages need to juke to win games, not being kicked into Ring or Shimmer doing all the work for you.