I’m leveling a mage and having a lot of fun so far but I’m worried I might have problems finding raid spots in TBC, I have heard Mage is a lot weaker than other DPS in TBC and we all know how sweaty the Classic community is.
How are they in BC? Worth maining?
yes. RMP is a top comp in 3v3 arena and they still are top 3 in DPS the whole xpac.
Mage should be quite solid w/ Patch 2.4.3
In terms of raid compositions, most raids will want to bring 1-2 mages. The only other DPS spec that is brought more frequently would be BM hunter and Destro lock.
After Mages get 2 pieces of T5 for the arcane blast bonus – Mages become very competitive and can compete with other classes for the top of the damage meter and in really short fights most specs will be hard-pressed to beat Mages spamming Arcane Blast.
(I actually think the fact that most raids are gonna be a bit sweaty will benefit mages in the long run because boss fights will be shorter which only makes Arcane Blast spam much stronger)
Before Tier 5 – You can go Fire and get Spellfire and Spellstrike pieces and be very competitive as well. Frost is actually pretty decent too if you decide to go that route.
Good, but not good enough to bring more than one.
you will be fine.
Play with a non-speed clearing team, just showing up on time with your consumes and knowing the fights and not making a mess is 400% better than stacking bad warlocks who only know to zugzug the shadow bolt button.
Guess we should disband my guild cuz we are bringing 2. Darn, I guess being among the top DPS specs just isn’t that great these days.
Deep T6 is where they start falling off. Fireball had a stealth 10% nerf to its fireball coefficient. They revert that, and you’re good to go. Otherwise, noticeably behind and that’s in a stacked caster group. Mage DPS is completely abysmal without a shadow priest mana battery.
Calling mage DPS abysmal is flat out wrong. It is weaker in T6 than T5 but still puts out some great damage even with the fireball nerf you mention (all pservers ran on 2.4.3 so the nerfs were there as well).
OK, how about it’s dead last among the “pure” dps classes late T6. And below most of the hybrids if the shadow priest dies. Better?
What are you smoking my dude? They are by far the strongest in T5 and perform behind Locks and Hunters in SUNWELL. If thats abysmal then yeah sure I guess you might as well delete the game if you don’t play lock/hunter or rogue with warglaives.
Correct, it was to the cast time talent on both fireball and frost bolt… /sigh blizzard.
I’m smoking nothing. In T5, yes, mages are strong. What I said was they trail off in T6. They are only barely passable in Sunwell if they are being baby sat in an ideal group comp, and one is all a serious raid would want to bring.
Watch they gonna be competitive for top dps because they will still be arcane in t6 wearing the t5 2 piece.
They’re only among the top DPS specs on a handful of fights in T5 and early T6, and otherwise fall short of BM and Warlock.
Their trash DPS is weak. Their cleave is weak. Their AoE is weak. Their single target DPS is the only decent part of the class, and it requires relatively short fights without any spell knockback or movement.
Absolutely, but that set bonus provides a massive DPS increase relative to their DPS without it.
Everyone else continues to scale up relatively normally, with Arcane having a MASSIVE spike with the 2PT5 and then not much growth after that. The T5 set bonus basically just brings them up to par.
Unlike classic, there really won’t be a massive difference between sweaty and non-sweaty performance (depending on the drums outcome). The changes to buffs slots and the removal of world buffs shifts the emphasis away from external factors. The composition of the raid makes a huge difference in TBC. As people have said, mage and a few other classes require more raid support to perform well.
An arcane mage with full mana buffs (including a resto shaman, spriest, and ret maintaining wisdom which is close to 130 MP5 for arcane) can come close but will still lose. Shoulder/Glove T5 + T6 bracer/boot/belt/x will be ok if everything goes exactly right in exactly the right group comp. Problem is that the second any link in the chain breaks for that spec/gear, it completely falls apart and if progression, you’d have been better off without a 2nd mage.
Stop being a meta chasing neckbeard.
Prepare to be surprised.
T6 4P doesn’t affect Arcane Blast. It doesn’t benefit Arcane.
I’m playing it regardless, because it’s what I like.
I resemble that remark. ;(