Is the (Shadow)Priest the better Mage in WOW?

[Skandranon]

That said, I'd have to say that nothing does mass damage like a mage -- they're pure AoE kings. Mage DPS is only marginal when it's single-target DPS; stacked against multiple targets it becomes incredible.

We've heard it directly from the Blizzard CMs. Mages are supposed to specialize in AoE damage. And yet, strangely, they don't have the highest DPS AoE.

Simply changing IAE to inflict 300-330 damage per cast would do a lot to make mages at least slightly closer on the usefulness scale to the warlock.

Um, respectfully disagree on that one. Blastwave, anyone?

Blast wave doesn't count. You can't select what you want to snare with it, the snare is 5 seconds against a 45 second cooldown, and the fact that it's AoE and does serious damage means that it's going to cause aggro problems left and right. Technically, I was wrong, but not practically.

I party regularly with a fire/arcane mage, and his combination of quick-cast snares, immobilizers, and burst damage is incredible. A quick chain of flamestrike, IAE spam, blast wave, frost nova, blink, and blizzard leaves a whole lot of mobs standing there ready to be knocked over with a feather. Which he does with cone of cold, if need be.

Against masses of non-elites...yes, except that the Blizzard at the end doesn't do a whole lot. You can chew up hordes of non-elites with that, except that Warlocks can do it with more damage and higher efficiency.

It's like marvelling at warrior damage with MS + Arcanite Reaper. Is it good? Certainly. Is the damage output the best? Not in any way. I'm not denying that second place can look good and be good, but first place is still better.

That kind of mobility and instant-cast ability makes him *way* more powerful when it comes to AoE attacks than any warlock could ever dream of being. The warlock just doesn't have those tools, it's a key in the class design. The mage is all about low HP and big damage, moving and staying out of reach is the key tactic, and so the class gets a ton of instant-cast abilities.

Except that having low HP gets you chewed up no matter how much you move. Mobility, by itself, isn't an attribute unless it has concrete effects. Your implication here is that the mobility and instant casts result in the mage getting hit less, which is simply not the case.

What better way to bring things back to the tank than by snaring and kiting them back? No better class for that than the mage, with the ability to grab aggro using moving AoE, combined with the snare/root effects of frost spells and/or blastwave.

AoEing in any situation which isn't an AoE situation is begging for massive aggro issues as every mob but one suddenly comes loose from the tank and goes after you. Yes, you can grab aggro from the tank that way, kite them around a bit and bring them back to the tank. But there's no virtue to doing that; why not leave the mobs on the tank and bring back the breakout? Your solution works, but it's for a problem you create. If you don't AoE inappropriately in the first place, it turns out that you don't need to kite.

Again, I have to disagree. The ability to keep doing magework while moving is what makes mages unique. It's late, and my thinking abilities are impaired, but other than shammy totems, I can't think of a class that has the ability to run and gun anywhere close to a mage. It's a fundamental feature of the class.

That's both true and irrelevant. Being able to run and gun is a PvP advantage - not a PvE advantage. Run and gun in Molten Core and see how far that gets you.

Even a two-mage party in a regular instance is pretty crazy when the mages work well together -- stacked IAE and blizzard is just fearsome.

Fearsome? If you say so. But fearsome or not, two mages stacking IAE and blizzard are doing 25% less damage than two warlocks stacking Hellfires. I'm not saying mage AoE isn't good. But how about, say, having the class that's supposed to be best at AoE actually, you know, be best at AoE? Is this such a novel concept?

On top of that, polymorph is the gold standard in CC. For some reason, my warlock's mez will break two or three times before the average sheep pops up. Dunno if that's a bug or by design, but it's annoying.

No disagreement, but why is it that everyone must bring this up? It's like the free mount argument for Paladins. "It's okay that everything else you have is second rate, because you have one thing you can do well."? Never mind that every other class has at least four things that they're the best at.

All things considred, I'd say that mages have it better than warlocks on most things. They're certainly less bugged and more complete as a class, which eliminates a bunch of frustration in playing them.
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The frustration only comes after months at level 60. It's not something that's apparent immediately.