State of the Mage is down bad

Alright, so after 4 weeks of bad tier luck and double lego release today I’m sure A LOT of Mages are as frustrated as I am with the state of Mage atm. None of our 5 builds with the exception of Necro Frost synergize with ANY of the covenant legos. And with Frost being weak in a progression raid setting due to uptime and dmg profile that leaves us with little to no options.

Even with full tier set our dmg is subpar in comparison to other classes, then on top of that we have legendaries in tier slots on 2 of 3 specs. In a raid scenario you really NEED 3-4 builds/specs on a fight to fight basis to even remain competitive amongst other classes. This means you need to craft at least two 291 Unity items, for different slots with different stats, along with 4 other 291 items to cover all the different builds that we play. So right away that’s around 500-600k gold. Little bit excessive imo.

Literally makes it so that a new player or even some seasoned players have to make a set choice on which spec/build they want to be locked into, and with none being noticeably stronger there’s no clear choice. The main strength of Mage prior to tier/double legendary was the ability to change our spec/build to fit the damage profile that would help our raid the most. Most players have had this choice taken away from them in the past 3-4 weeks and even moreso today, because of either bad luck or bad class design/tuning.

So I guess Blizzard’s idea of balanced is 2-3 classes being MILES ahead and the other classes just fight for a raid spot. Some getting a HUGE dps increase from double legendary and others gaining almost nothing. Usually not the type to whine about things but this is really getting to be ridiculous, don’t expect a response but would love to hear what Blizzard’s thought are on Mage and if any changes are in our future?

22 Likes

100% You hit the nail RIGHT on the head.

This is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve spent like 400k on Leggos and still haven’t finished.

5 Likes

The good news is demo only needs one legendary and has virtually same build and rotation for all content… it’s basically as boring as frost but doesn’t suffer from any of the OCD rage inducing proc munching.
You’re also practically immortal and can solo most content and as NF you get a pretty amazing mobility that’s basically better than shimmer.

Depressed yet?

5 Likes

Got Unity today and it is pretty disappointing. The lego bonus looks downright useless and the stock stats are only good for arcane.

I’ve been thinking of this week as “1.5 lego week” due to how lackluster unity is for some specs. Partial credit is given due to the high item level.

Kyrian Arcane is actually pretty good, but I’m not against buffing us, specially our covenant legendaries. Heart of the Fae and Sinful Delight are just plain bad.

100%. Mage has been struggling for the last 2 expansions. Not just in terms of numbers, but also in playstyle. I’m sure there are plenty out there who enjoy the new way that the specs play, but for me it’s been pretty gross and not overly fun.

The focus on borrowed power that may or may not synergise well with a spec, and the standard “oh but you’re good in this fraction of content that maybe 1% of players will see so the class is fine” makes it feel pretty bad to play. Add to that that there are classes that do our job, only better in all of said content and there’s just so little motivation to play.

6 Likes

Demo is super broken right now. Also it’s population shot up by 10x higher than it’s ever been for these reasons.

2 Likes

I spent last night crafting 9 291 legos across the 3 specs. Not a good day for my bank.

I’m frustrated about the numbers of mage too, but i think everything will fit in place when we get all powers.

For example, hunters are pumping right now 'cause most of their damage comes from 2p, while their kyrian legendary is a buff for the party. Mage’s power comes from everything paired together (10% from 4p, comets from 2p, 15%+ from skeletal mage).

But Heart of the Fae i can’t find anything to defend, it’s terrible.

Blizzard hates mages, I dont know what else to say. Love seeing demo lock and enhancement shaman at the top of all the raid fights ive done though. Makes it really interesting

5 Likes

The Fire buff was really nice. Now I don’t think it’s so much mage tuning as it is bad tuning for survival/destro. They nerfed Frost mage during PTR because they said our AoE in M+ was out of control, then let those classes go without tuning, knowing they were extremely broken.

Think the frustration comes from so much of our power being borrowed, with things like PI and Faes. Playing with those things makes Fire extremely fun and also extremely solid single target dps, but not every Mage has the opportunity to get those power gains, and this is where the problem lies.

1 Like

I blame them for listening to Imfiredup. This guy goes in a mythic plus with just 1 tank and pulls 100k aoe. Post the video and thinks it’s overpowered. His take on it was stupid. You take a druid tank,warlock,death knight,hunter or warrior with just a tank and they would have pulled 200k…

They should have never touched frost aoe. These other classes own AoE and frost doesnt.I put the blame on them rushing the gun from a stupid YouTube video

3 Likes

Mages have been the best class since classic. Enough nonsense

i was feeling really bad on the venthyr build but it feels decent on the necrolord build.

i was about to reroll until i tried necrolord.

Not even close to being true. Even in TBC Mages weren’t godly until 4pc t5, and Sunwell pushes them back down the list. Most of the time they have had one spec in the top 5, but there have definitely been times where no spec has been even close to being above mid-pack.

More recently, BfA saw Mages pretty far down the list until Corruptions broke things (not intended by Blizzard). In SL, any time a Mage gets near the top they get nerfed. Just look at Fire - great for 1 or 2 fights in the first raid, and M+ if you had a coordinated group doing massive pulls. Nerfed to the ground. Frost had pre-patch nerfs which made it weak, then got further nerfs throughout the expansion when it looked like it might have a place.
Now? Well…

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#dataset=90&aggregate=amount

Which I think is a shame. Pure dps classes should constantly have at least 1 spec in top 5 dd - this is their trade-off for being able to fulfill only one role. It is not only about Mages, but also about Rogues, Hunters and Warlocks (and the two latter do follow this rule lately).

1 Like

100%
I mean in an ideal world, we should be seeing all specs within an acceptable range of each other (anyone else remember when they promsied 5%?), so regardless of where it sits on the rankings it’s more than capable of keeping up and good players will produce good numbers. That’s definitely not the case where even 90th percentile players are seeing an almost 20% gap between the top and bottom specs. That’s not acceptable.

I think the days of ‘pure’ dps always being top is long gone (I mean it definitely should be the case, but it isn’t), as hybrid classes are having more and more utility removed from their dps specs and they need to be competitive despite being masters at all niches. I would honestly prefer a return to having the ‘hybrid tax’ be a thing - where hybrids bring extra utility and buffs to raid but as a result their dps is a little lower. Sadly with 5-man content becoming the main focus, this would put too many people out and will never happen.

1 Like

I have tried for 3 weeks to get an inv por Tazavesh Gambit- has been imposible considering the 2 lock spots for surv and destro.

Mage is bad, roll a lock