So ive played a melee for a long time and i want to play a ranged this expac. So far i did evoker and hated it and currently playing a MM hunter. While i am enjoying it there are several aspecs about the kit that are annoying me along with having defenseve skills on such long cds that they eventually run out of skills and die in long fights with a lot of unavoidable damge. With nothing being said or done for the recent patch or season 2 i am looking at other classes.
I dont like boomy at all. I do like affliction but i dont like their lack of movement skills, or at least the way they are designed.
So i was looking at mage. With ice mage changes and what looks like what will be a change to a frostbolt spam with icey veins which to me sounds very similar to MM but with more control.
Any advice on what people are thinking about ranged casters and rerolling to one. Specfically ice mage. Both in pvp and pve.
I probably will i just dont rwally have a lot of time is all. So looking for a little insight.
Based on your post mage will be a good fit
Don’t. I’m very casual this xpac and only still subbed because I forgot to turn off auto renew. I don’t want to level an alt, but mages are being ignored. It’s like they just want us all to roll evokers.
I feel that. My main for years was shaman and playing hunter now and it feels like, with some exceptions, certain classes are ignored. This is part of why I am looking around at all my alts to see what I “might” enjoy.
At this point only play mage if you want mage utility (portals, blinks, iceblocks, food etc) or if you hate build-spend dps specs, we don’t have that.
Yea that is why i was thinking mage over other casters. Their utility is similar to hunter but looks more streamlined and one of the things i hate the most about MM is being forced to put points in steady shot to build focus but stead shot barely does more damage than an auto while having a cast time. With the new talent swaps you are more or less required to put 3 talent points into this skill that hits like a wet noodle and ita driving me crazy.
if you want to try range class try warlock or ele shaman. They are much more satisfying to play and rewarding. Current mages are maximum effort with minimal gains just stay away.
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I dontlike ele shaman. Never have but ivr played shaman since classic as well so im burnt.
I have also been dabbling in lock cycling through the specs. Destro feels vagly similar to mm as well. I dont like their lack of mobility but the trade off is at least double the eHP. Afliction also seems fun.
the core gameplay of frost is great. It’s that we just have too many completely dead talents, ring of power is garbage and there are no changes or any words from devs and you will never feel like you are the better than others
Ret pal after rework now just have 5-target cleave passively to every skill and frost can barely attack 2 targets.
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Hunters have simialr complaints about talents and thr best build is boring as hell while the other two builds have all their damage funneled into one/two abilities which everyone claims is op in the pvp forums non stop.
NO! Trust me, you will regret it.
I haven’t been pvping much so can’t comment on that. From a pve perspective, I think the main question is are you ok with being forced into rune of power for every spec? (unless you don’t care about being nerfed by not taking it)
Is the other choice not good? I feel like the amount of movement you are required to do would make rune of power obnoxious to use.
I would say it really depends on what content you’re trying to do. Firstly, the leveling process / solo content as a mage is among the worst, as you have nothing to tank for you and have to be creative and well-timed with your burst and defensives to solo things. Secondly, mage really doesn’t hit its stride until higher ilvls (e.g. low haste as Fire feels awful, as does Frost at low crit), so lower tier content will feel clunky until you gear up.
Thirdly, and most importantly, is that all three specs have a very high skill ceiling and a fairly high skill floor (I’d say Arcane being the hardest to do the bare minimum, then Fire, then Frost) - meaning you really need to work hard and not screw up to just be middle-of-the-pack. Screwing up one part of your rotation can be the difference between decent damage and virtually no damage at all. (Take a glance at the Arcane rotation guide to get a sense of what you’re up against, with the understanding that scuffing one tiny thing up means you’re going to drop below the tank in damage). It may look on paper like we’re a mobile caster with our blinks and teleports but in reality there’s a lot of required things keeping us pretty stationary (e.g. RoP, hard casting) if you want to be competitive.
That’s all to say: right now, I’d recommend against going mage, unless you’re somewhat masochistic or dedicated to the class like a lot of us are, and unwaveringly hopeful that something will change despite all indications to the contrary.
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I think this is pretty helpful. One of the things i didnt liek about evoker was that despite supposedly being highly mobile, if you messed up your rotation or had to cancel a channel to move out of soemthing, your dps would plummet. There were times where i was bottom of the meters because of how much movement there was and times i was top becauae i didnt have to move at all.
Main reason i never got past lvl 20 on mage was it was very difficult to level. Now adays i dont think that will be as much of an issue.
On top of this, one of the mage mains in my guild also told me just go lock lol.
Yeah…I mean, the payoff-to-complexity just isn’t there. You’ll work incredibly hard, hit every note nearly perfectly, and still be outclassed by some of the easiest specs in the game. It can get very depressing.
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Not a great option this xpac. They seem like they’d be great, but the dmg just isnt there. Really fun to level and do open world stuff as frost, but from a competitive standpoint, you’ll have to try 10X as hard as everyone else to get a 1/3 of the results. Not great for end game content right now. Hunters are always a great ranged option. Good aoe, good single, have great mobility. Survivability is actually pretty decent if you asked me, which is one of your complaints. No question that mages can stay alive better than most, but it doesnt do much good when your damage is garbage. For PVP frost is really strong, actually all 3 specs are pretty good, but you’re pretty much forced to run with a rogue in 2’s and RMP in 3’s. Really really good cc and control with those comps. Solo shuffles are kind of meh. If you get into an all melee lobby its going to be rough going. The zugzugs are just as bad for mages as they are hunters, especially if theres a dk in the mix. DK’s are absolute mage kryptonite. With a lot of us either quitting or going casual right now, I’d say only level one for funzies or to pvp with, would go against using mage as your end game content main.
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Ok thank you for your input.
I, like many if us, will probably just keep trucking on current main and hope they fix/rework the class/spec.
I have been advocating for marks to be either a sylvanas or tyrande style game play. Although a mid ranged (30 instead of 40 and passive is is increased shadow damage the closer you are to the target or something like that), highly mobile sylvanas style sounds more like survival.
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