Frost using IF and RoP. Fire using RoP and arcane using RoP.
You can even check logs on warcraftlogs to see what people were using.
Mages are a burst class. Especially on Halondrus where you want to do the most damage in phase 1.
I think this really boils down to you not understanding fires damage profile or why RoP is taken over IF especially in mythic raiding.
Good on that single mage if they managed to keep up with or outperform the other mages using EC over RoP.
I don’t think that will be the average experience of players though.
I even saw people saying for a while that venthyr frost was the only valuable option on Holandrus with IF, but then I started seeing necrolord forst mages with RoP showing that IF was not needed and necrolord was very much capable.
It wasn’t just one mage. Go to warcraft logs and look for yourself. All of the data for the lifetime of the raid for mythic Holandrus and even heroic is there.
I see both the top fire and frost mages use RoP.
The highest ranking players don’t mean much for the average play experience but, I think it’s clear RoP on average outperforms EF.
In its current form, RoP is the better choice because it will let you have the 40 percent buff all of the time it is up, and you have to time EF correctly to get the most out of it.
Do you really think the mage class would be less fun if both of these skills were removed and base power was just boosted 40 percent all the time? Do you think that would be broken for mage?
I don’t think there would be much of a functional power difference, aside from I don’t have to stand in a spot with a self buff I cast. 50 percent more power all of the time could be a problem, but I’m sure abilities could be adjusted?
Throw my vote on the pile of “Get rid of it”. I haven’t liked it since it was introduced, but fortunately never play at the level where it really matters.
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I’m tapping this sign again! 
I have been option 1 this whole time. 
I just think you may be underestimating how annoying it is to people.
You have not. You were arguing in this entire thread to remove it entirely, purely because it forces you to plan your cds around mechanics and when to use them.
Well my something else is “blanket buff the class 40 percent” not just delete the skill and do no adjustments. I said a mobile RoP will make me dislike it slightly less, but I’d still dislike it.
I’m not convinced a self-cast buff will ever be fun but maybe there could be something.
Also important is that those players are better than average. If we get a 40% baseline increase then anyone who plays rop well will still be ahead of the people upset at its existence. There will be a relative shift in mage damage. It’s like everyone who rerolled destro last season because “lol press rain of fire and win” except none of them could end up doing sjele or clickz damage (top warlocks).
If you’re not playing at a certain level you really can run IF right now and will not notice a difference in your performance. And nobody will care.
To whoever mentioned the space rop gives to move…if my math isn’t awful you can move 8 yds away from it and I think the circle itself is 5 yds so…(13/2)^2*pi is like 132 sq yards of running room. That more than a football field for any Americans here 
And to whoever said most mages don’t want it…most mages trying to understand the class are hanging out in the AT discord and the worst response there is “it’s kinda annoying but eh”. Nothing about it being bad design or unfun. Last I checked anyway.
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I think functionally that would reduce our burst ability. I think its important to have the choice between burst and sustain damage especially now that we have the options to make buildouts.
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Our choice for burst would be our major cooldowns though. Of which RoP isn’t one of.
I said this because I know of five people in my discord who play mage and dislike the ability. I also see a lot of people here who do not like it. Whether or not that is reflective of people who play mage or may play mage I don’t actually know. I just don’t feel most people like it so much that they’d be upset with its removal.
Yeah there’s definitely a lot of mobility within the parameter of the circle itself. But dungeon crawls where you’re constantly moving forward and have to recast it at every new location I think wears down on the rotation over time.
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Regarding ROP and “turret-style” DPS being a relatively new addition, there’s another way to look at that. Not long before ROP was introduced, Mages got the bulk of our damage from nukes with pretty long cast times (2.5-3 seconds). That period of higher mobility was really a pretty small window from 2010 to 2013.
Regardless, the right solution here probably isn’t to remove it, it’s to make sure it’s not the only feasible option. Choices are good.
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As an Arcane mage, I sometimes like to use ROP with Arcane explosion on big pulls, Does that mean I would get a major buff to AE or just lose this option ? I feel this would hurt build diversity and combos, I understand you to mean that instead of having one big burst window and one small burst window (2 rops), your suggesting we just get one big window with our major cooldown? is that not the problem we want to get away from?
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Damn, I click the Mage forums and see this back and forth going on for almost 100 posts. That’s dedication right there.
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With a baseline 40 percent buff you’d have a stronger AE all of the time. Which I don’t think would be stronger than most basic aoe abilities of classes but somebody correct me if that’s wrong.
Well, that sounds good, almost too good… but ill take it!
You have to be delusional if you think we would lose rop and get a static 40% buff all the time to our abilities.
The overall change by removing rop would hurt not just good mages and help bad mages but it would hurt mages ability to earn raid spots as well