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Through out the gearing process and leveling up my necklace, I’ve constantly had an spec identity crisis that only ever seems to go away for at most two weeks, or around a month after settling in with one- the issue is always back and forth about enjoyment in PvP and PvE content, or being constantly frustrated with more or less being hard locked into some talent setups.
Arcane is way too simple and most of the rotation’s stress comes from trying to properly preserve your mana with Equipoise, and then spam Blast as hard as you can when Arcane Power is up; pair that with having generally lower haste since Critical Strike and Mastery are your priority stats, and the gameplay doesn’t feel fun in higher keys, and punishes you relentlessly for slipping up with slow global cooldowns, especially with Arcane Power still being on GCD.
Fire’s output is just straight up worse than Arcane’s in most situations, and usually ends up taking more effort on my part to come close to keeping up. Solid boss killer, but you have to spec and sacrifice single target DPS to have proper AoE outside of just Ignite spreading that would still end up being lower. Rotation’s fun, but stat priorities are completely out of whack and until today at 413 iLevel with some gear, the preferred talent setup I’d like to run for fun’s sake was dramatically less viable than optimal choices to the point of going down 700+ dps.
To further my issue, Frost is currently extremely strong in almost all regards, and I’ve never had any interest in playing Frost over the years- pair that with all of the Fire trait nerfs, and it really does feel like I’m getting pushed into it sometimes.
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On the other side of the issue, PvP for mages right now is… a mess it feels like. Fire is so heavily reliant on Greater Pyroblast in any scenario that it almost warrants you not playing Fire or being there unless you show up with it- problem with that is you’re infinite interrupt bait and end up having to work 2x or 3x as hard to get the same kind of output as other classes.
Arcane PvP feels a ton better, except for if you get kicked once you’ve basically removed yourself from the game since everything is one school, and any team that is paying even remote attention to you will take advantage of it, and keep you from casting your hard hitting spells all game.
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For a time I’d swap specs depending on the content I was doing, Arcane for PvE, and Fire for PvP, but I just don’t really think there’s any winning. They’ve both become so one dimensional that even when things go your way, it doesn’t feel that fun.
Fire is throwing Greater Pyroblasts when Combustion is on cooldown, and if you can’t cast those, just cycle CC until you can try to one shot somebody again.
Arcane consists of trying to avoid getting interrupted and doing your best impression of a ranged death knight with Slow, it’s only really a pub stomper spec when nobody notices you, or maybe on Kotmogu because of it’s higher mobility.
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The whole point of this giant, seemingly endless rant is that for the first time in my entire experience of playing this game, on the class I’ve been obsessed with for so long- the game is making me not want to play the class I like anymore.
Warcraft logs show how terrible mages are doing in content- Fire only usually being picked up for mobile execute, and Frost being permanently king in M+ past a certain point because it has everything the other specs do and more with perma-slows. Other classes out perform me with less effort, less gear, and less time invested.
My talent tiers don’t feel good, the 15, 90, and 100 tiers for Fire feel horrible. Most of the time I’ve played this expansion, Searing Touch has been a complete non-option because it outclasses the others so intensely.
Your “choices” at 90 are recycled content from previous expansions when the class was more filled out so you can enable yourself to have proper AoE, as the class and spec that was once known for it’s insane ability to blow up everything around them.
The 100 options are painful- even though Pyroclasm is useable and can sometimes pull good numbers, Meteor outdoes Pyroclasm by being so much more insanely accessible to use and play around that any upsides Pyroclasm does have are immediately nullified by Meteor having no downsides. I can’t ever make myself take Kindling without feeling guilty for whatever content that’s happening because it drops my output so dramatically.
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Gameplay has only temporarily felt truly rewarding. Gearing up and statistically becoming stronger has only dampened the issues I’ve had and felt, it never solved them.
It took the growth of 45+ item levels for Pyroclasm to be the highest DPS option for me, and it’s still only ahead of Meteor by exactly 97 points currently- and that’s only when I run traits for it, and use Rune of Power as well. If you’re in a scenario where Rune isn’t usable and need to swap for Incanter’s Flow, I’ll need to reforge my traits and swap to Meteor again because it once again, out classes what I’d prefer.
Take everything I’ve said with a grain of salt of course, I’m not an extremely high tier player, but I like to think my experience has some merit and that I know at least partially what I’m talking about. The only reason I finally came and made this post was because those issues and frustrating feelings of playing my Mage never went away at any point. I’m just somebody who wants to get better, and still have fun playing the game.
After climbing to 1350 Raider IO, 413 iLevel, and Lvl. 50 HoA, and getting Commander in S1 for PvP, I’m quickly losing motivation to keep playing my class.
I don’t want to stop spending time on my main, but it’s starting to take too much energy and effort. Any content isn’t fun now because it’s all become an uphill slog.
This doesn’t mean I think Mage’s are completely unviable at all, just seems like I’m better off playing something else.
If you managed to get this far and read everything, thank you for spending the time. Give me your thoughts and input, don’t be hesitate to criticize or comment.
Does anyone else feel this way? Any advice? Do I only belong in 3v3’s?