Mage is in a BAD spot in PvP for SoD

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
43

Agreed, it’s a sad state of affairs. I’ve been a mage/caster player since day 1 vanilla launch. I’m a die-hard caster player (Lina in dota 2, sorc in all the diablos, Gale in BG3, etc), and always leaned towards pvp: making videos pre-youtube, doing comp WSG before ranked was a thing, etc.

I can overlook a lot since I think shifting your perspective about what the purpose of the class is can dramatically change your effectiveness. Not even a few days ago I thought a mages job in the current meta was to cause chaos on the opposing side: sheep enemies, peel melees of your healers with slows, counterspell enemy healers, drop heals on your teammates, etc. Everything to enable your teammates to tear the enemy up to the fullest to win the game, not get some personal glory moment of getting a bunch of kills.

But at this point it feels like all you can do with the above is avoid being useless. Yes you can have a small impact on the game, but damn near everything I mentioned can be done better by other classes. I’m honestly thinking about rolling a boomkin or ele shaman to be somewhat relevant in pvp, but honestly those sound boring.

Vanilla mage felt like a high skill cap class to me, where you needed to pay very close attention to what your opponent was doing and constantly adjust on the fly. The above classes feel like the strategy is “press x, y, and z spells in this order regardless of what enemy you’re facing, and watch them die”. There’s little satisfaction in winning when it’s that easy.

I was excited when I saw the ZG set bonus and what that could potentially mean for a frost/arcane pseudo-healing mage in pvp, but after playing today I don’t think even that will save the class. Sitting still for 2.5 seconds to cast a spell is an absolute eternity in the current pvp meta, especially with the limited range of frost spells compared to other ranged damage dealers.

I don’t even know where I’m going with this, it’s just frustrating. I might just roll a feral druid since that class has a high skill cap from what I can tell, and can actually get things done in this meta. It’ll be a huge bummer to leave my favorite class of all time behind, but I’m not sure what else to do here. Maybe I’ll come back to it if they balance things out in the future, but right now the class doesn’t feel worth playing.

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44

I think the Dev team does not have the resources or knowledge to correct the PvP issues. Sadly, we must just log off our mages and move on. Better yet, just leave SoD and enjoy playing mage on Era, Cata, or Retail where they are all fun and retain the high skill ceiling gameplay.

1 Like
45

Truly a sad state of affairs.

Mage PvP buffs literally wouldn’t even require much dev time.

They just need to buff the mage’s damage abilities by x% and that can be ramped up slowly to make sure it isn’t over-buffed.

They can absolutely make it a PvP only buff because the engine is built off of the 2016 Legion engine, not the OG classic engine. That prevents mages from getting too strong in PvE content, but also gives us a buff to our dps abilities in PvP.

When Mage only has 2-3 instant cast buttons compared to most other classes do little to no damage it is a problem. Our casted buttons like Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Fireball, and Spellfrost Bolt do less damage than many other classes auto-attacks. Right now with the stamina buffs and full PvP gear most classes have between 7000-15000 HP with some being even higher when they use full consumes. If my 3 second cast does less than 20% of someone’s health bar then it pretty much makes the ability pointless. If I can get a 2.5 to 3 second cast off on someone in a fight it should be rewarding. It should do a lot of damage.

The main abilities that NEED a buff are as follows:

- Ice Barrier
(This capstone talent for frost is a joke atm and only shields for like 800 dmg. When auto attacks are doing over the amount that the barrier shields for it is obvious that it’s too weak - especially with a 30 second CD.)

- Ice Lance
(Only spell in the entire game that doesn’t scale with spell power, and it’s the main dmg ability for mages when we use Frozen Orb to eat our Fingers of Frost procs. This ability at minimum needs to be taken off of the GCD. It currently hits for about 600-700 damage, and only hits that hard IF you have a Fingers of Frost proc. When you don’t have a proc it hits for like 120 damage lol.)

- Frostbolt
(Scaled super low, and the blanket spell damage nerf they put in hurts it even worse. Shatters don’t feel good or satisfying to use this button on. Hits for negligible damage. It’s a 2.5 second cast that when talented currently hits for 650-900 damage on average, even with a shatter.)

- Frostfire Bolt
(Just as bad as Frostbolt when it comes to scaling in PvP. We are lucky when we get a 1500 as a crit from Shatter. Most of the time it hits for between 700-900. For a 3 second cast this is unacceptable – If I get a full 3 second cast off in a fight it should be rewarding for me and do a lot of damage.)

- Scorch
(Again, same problem as the others. Short cast time, so it shouldn’t do as much damage as a Frostbolt or FFB, but it certainly shouldn’t only hit for 150-200 dmg. Dot ticks do more damage than this cast does.)

- Cone of Cold
(And another with the same issue. Scaling too low. This doesn’t need AS BIG of a buff, but it should still hit harder than it does. Sometimes you can get a shatter crit for 800-900 if you get really lucky.)

I think starting with a blanket 10-15% buff on ALL mage DPS abilities would be a good start. Then they could adjust from there to see where the chips fall, whether they need to up it a bit more or lower it if it scales too hard with crit (even though I doubt it would).

I keep hoping that as people comment on this post it will get some sort of attention. Everyone on the forums is in agreement that Mages need help when it comes to PvP and that we are at the absolute bottom of the totem pole compared to everyone. Our damage is negligible, and our healing spec that they designed specifically for SoD has so many problems with being clunky on top of the main buff for said healing being dispellable.

I would appreciate it if everyone would keep talking about this, and responding to this post. If we keep it near the top and get enough engagement it could possibly force their hand to at least look at the class at minimum.

1 Like
46

I support this thread. 3 sec cast 700 dmg is very bad.

2 Likes
47

Yea man, its insane.

Mage was the premier caster for pvp in vanilla – specifically frost mage.

Now we do literally zero damage. It’s become such a meme among other PvP’rs that we joke how mage is literally only a healer now in SoD (which is funny because even the healing spec is struggling compared to real healer classes/specs).

ty for jumping on and backing me up! <3

2 Likes
48

How will the see anything meaningful with this boonk ahh 20 yard nameplates in the year 2024 our lord.

Mage is is just trash. Why would anyone cast a 3 second spell on a squishy class when you can do it on a boomie and have more armor than plate warrriors with a shield. And 2 insanely powerful defensive CDs.

Not to mention solid dots….

Idk Boomie literally is in pvp just better than mage in every possible way.

1 Like
49

I wish we got a combo of vanilla and tbc frost mage. Could you imagine the fun we would have with shatters actually being meaningful and being able to heal ourselves.

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50

I feel like we’re almost forced to go Arcane Barrage with some kind of beacon to stand a chance out there. The other options are ever worse.

51

I made these suggestions with PvE in mind but I think they’re necessary for PvP and really just mage in general. However, you also make a really compelling point that Ice Barrier doing vanilla shielding with SoD numbers isn’t quite right. As WoW evolved mages got so many tricks from blazing speed to cauterize, greater invis to shrug off dots or get away. In SoD we have none of those tricks yet our enemies have all their offensive abilities:

  • Blizzard ticks need to be able to crit (and/or brain freeze needs to be castable while channeling)
  • Arcane Blast rune moved from gloves to waist
  • Ice Lance rune moved from gloves to cloak
  • Missile barrage rune moved from waist to wrist, should have a 20% chance to proc off Spellfrost bolt
  • Frozen orb rune moved from cloak to gloves
  • Nether Tempest rune created for gloves
  • Rework Arcane Surge, faster mana regen after use.
  • Rework Enlightenment, when between 30 and 70% mana, give 15% spell haste and enjoy the mini-game that creates.
  • Add Greater Invisibility, Flameglow, and/or Cauterize
  • Add Incanter’s Ward (MoP version) to Advanced Warding Rune

Gloves becomes the AoE choice. Cloak becomes your instant cast choice. What’s funny is that this is all gradually just turning into MoP talent trees but all roads lead to Rome, right?

1 Like
52

I don’t necessarily agree with all of the changes you seek, but seeing more people on this post agreeing that mage needs help because we are in a bad way is validating for me.

It feels like mage players are being gaslit by proxy just because we’re being ignored while drowning. I would gladly have them nerf us in PvE to where we are down at the bottom of the middle of the pack or something if they buffed us in PvP. We’ll always be needed in PvE regardless of the amount of damage we do because of Arcane Intellect/Brilliance, and the AoE ability for trash.

1 Like
53

Bro, ive been typing away before p4 when they promised theyll “redo classes” on the PTR forum.

They did nothing, not one of the posts of feedback was taken into consideration by the team despite them “reading our feedback” lmao

Youre naive to think they will fix mages now, just reroll bro. Its a lost battle. Save yourself the pain.

I know it sucks, but once you reroll to a class thats not absolute dogsh1t you might enjoy the game again

54

unfortunately, outside of mage, there are no other classes i want to play…

If mage gets any worse or sucks in classic+ i will be unsubbing which feels awful to say… been playing this game since high school and its the only video game i play. So many memories in Azeroth.

55

Yea ive got a couple ideas off the top kf my head that literally took minutes to think of.

Advanced warding now benefits ice barrier

Displacement off the GCD, mana cost reduced to 0

Skill book reducing evocation CD by half. Heck, even 25%!

These changes are literally so easy and takes like 15 IQ points minimum to conjure them up. PvP balance is not rocket science

1 Like
56

excellent point on the Evocate.

In PvP it should also give you the effect like Tier 1 2-piece does where you are immune to damage while casting evocate – OR they could make Evocate like the one in WoD was where it also healed you.

58

I’d like to point out that for some reason warriors had Shield Wall, Retaliation, and RECKLESSNESS of all things reduced to a shared 5 minute cooldown. But for some reason Cold Snap is still a 10 MINUTE cooldown. Reduce Cold Snap cooldown to 3 or 4 minutes, please.

1 Like
59

Agree entirely…

I back this.

60

Ice lance damage increased by 50%, spellfrost bolt added to imp frostbolt talent. Frozen orb guarantees one brain freeze procc when hitting an enemy. and slightly bigger aoe effect on orb so it is more consistent in PvP to actually get more than 0 to 1 brain freeze procc on a single target. Increase Brain freeze procc from 20 to 25%. Increase Ice barrier absorb from 850 to 1200. Increase Arcane Barrage damage by 20%. Advanced warding mana shield 60% less mana drain instead of 50%. Arcane resilience talent from 50 to 100% armor increase equal to your intellect. Add Arcane barrage to procc brain freeze so we can get mages to quit using heal in PvP (as a dps) which no one likes. There, Frost and Arcane Mage fixed

2 Likes
61

I’m still waiting to get my 5 piece ZG but it seems that the set bonus is what mages actually need to do decent damage in PvP.

So plz blizz, make sure to buff spellfrost and frostbolt by 65% next phase so we don’t need to get stuck with an old set to remain competitive.

Also reduce mana cost of : - displacement (or remove it entirely)
- Ice Barrier
- Cone of Cold

Reduce casting time of : - Fireball
- Frostball
- Spellfire Bolt
- Arcane Blast
- Frostfire Bolt

We simply can’t be stuck with 2.5 or 3sec. cast. 2 second is the max in this current meta.

Help us overall either with survivability or mobility while making sure we can ditch decent damage. Atm we can only play around Frozen Orb and it’s not enjoyable to come alive for a few seconds every minute. I’d like more consistency in damage.

62

Be nice if mage didn’t feel like the drunk girl at the party in bgs. Literally tossed around and stunned to death. Mages are way better in classic era…

63

What kind of parties you going to bro…

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