Not gonna call myself super geared or even a good mage but I can safely say in half gnomergon raid gear according to my clmax hit addon.
My max fire blast 1100 crit
Max arcane blast 1300 crit
Max arcane surge without setup 1600(2300 crit)
With setup 2400 (3300 crit)
PoM arcane blast into arcane surge 3600.
Keep in mind I am an arcane mage so I don’t really run living bomb and I have a 30% damage buff fire mages wouldn’t have and all of these hits had world buffs / party buffs involved.
Our hits are strong when they crit but they either require insane cooldown / not very practical cast times or a gimmick that nobody actually enjoys and wouldn’t mind seeing it reworked (arcane surge), and mages just fall over when attacked directly.
It’s also better that his wife is only level 33 and probably a casual player. So he’s silently fuming while she’s minding her own business killing panthers in STV or something.
Arcane surge really isn’t a problem. It takes a very long time to set up and puts the mage nearly oom. I actiually think it’s pretty flavorful how all in you have to go for it. Living flame and bomb are much bigger issues in combination with ice block, frost nova, blink, and frost bolt. They actually need to be nerfed into the ground or somehow made unusable with ice block. Giving strong damage over time to mages when they already have the best burst, aoe, cc, and mobility is awful game design
I think mages are fine. I play warrior and as the very worst pvp class mage is one of the few classes that I might get lucky with a crit and kill them. Glass cannons just like they should be.
