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

[KiloVictor]

Quoting a bit out of context, just to make some random comments:

1)  Mages are not useful in the endgame. 
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One of the things that I find really cool about this game (and others here have stated as well) is that you can defy the conventional logic on what is "required" for an end-game party and still have a good run. I ran with three warriors and a rogue last night, it was very different from our regular group, but still good fun. And 100% wipe-free.

My point? Mages can find a party at 60 and still have fun, just like any other class. While people have differing opinions on the relative value of various classes, at least there's no one true loser class that absolutely can't play at the end game. Cheers to Blizzard for getting that right.

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My point boils down to this: while raiding instances, I hit four buttons only: AE, AM, Scorch, and Polymorph.  Surely we can do better.

Sure, can you conjure me a drink? :P (sorry, couldn't resist)

My life in instance raids is spamming Flash Heal and Renew, tossing out PW:Shield for those deemed in immediate peril, and recasting Prayer of Fortitude every 50-odd minutes. Surely I too can do better?

I think this hits on one of the issues I do see in the end game, which is that each class seems to get stuck in using one or two skills continuously for the duration of the raid. It would be more entertaining for all, I think, if the end-game encounters required more nimble work from the players. Perhaps that's why I prefer 5-manning: with variable team composition, you have to think a little bit about how your class is going to best work with the other 4 in the party.

Raids are guaranteed to have all classes present, and therefore reduce each class to the one (or maybe four) defining skills of the class. Not great for excitement.

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2) Warlocks can fill a mage's role adequately in groups of 5-15, to the point where empty slots are better off filled with warlocks than mages.

Personally, I like having at least one of each in a group if possible.

We seem to have a harder time finding warlocks than mages though. That's Horde PvE, I haven't played a significant amount on the Alliance side, or on a PvP server.

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My point, which quickly got lost in details, was that Warlock AE damage is quite easily made adequate for primary AoE duties.

Rain of Fire is OK, but it's useless when your targets have decent fire resistance. The mage ability to deal frost, fire, or arcane AoE is a big plus.

If the targets aren't fire-resistant, warlocks can provide fairly mediocre AoE with RoF. Sadly, my experience with Hellfire is that it's a good way to grab a bunch of aggro and spend a lot of mana before getting interrupted. Maybe I'm not doing it right.

In fact, I barely even use it anymore because I've found that so many times that I go to deploy it, it fails. If the warlock talents worked to make it run more than a single tick (i.e. no bugs in Pyroclasm, and perhaps Intensity + some other class skill/talent allowing Horde 'locks better than 70% chance of avoiding interruption), then I would trot it out a lot more often.

If there's one thing that would reduce me to consorting with paladins, it's the prospect of watching Hellfire run through full duration in a self-immolating bath of destruction. I get goosebumps at the mere prospect: seeing my enemies wilting around me, curling up in cinderous waves at my feet; stacking charnel about me whilst my party gaped in awe at the fearsome wave of self-sacrificing havoc that I wreaked upon our opponents -- oh, what a glorious thing that woud be!

As it is, I don't even have it mapped to my toolbar anymore. Perhaps my ambivalence towards warlock AoE comes down to not being able to use it. ;)

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Primary AoE doesn't *require* mobility, I think we can all agree.

Well...... ok. But I'm not sure that you can eliminate mobility from the argument so easily, I still think the mage's mobility is a key to mage effectiveness at AoE. I'd characterize the sub-debate as being this: is a mage (weaker, multi-elemental, instant-cast AoE + mobility) better at AoE work than a warlock (longer cast, higher damage, fire-based, channelled AoE).

I still think that only in ideal circumstances will the warlock approach the usefulness of a mage at AoE.

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I still believe Hellfire is exceptionally powerful and can easily be made more fearsome than IAE (which, by the way, takes talent points too).

Conventional wisdom in some warlock circles (again, this is Horde side) is that the Intensity talent isn't worth having unless you're filling space to go higher in the tree. For 70% chance to avoid interruption, it's just not good enough. Again, if Pyroclasm weren't bugged and the two talents combined to let you get most of the way through channelling Hellfire, it would be different. Five points in Improved AE looks like a good deal in comparison, as it's guaranteed uninterruptible damage. Warlocks would take that deal any day.

I'm sure this is done for balancing reasons (i.e. trading certainty of damage vs. magnitude of damage), but I think the warlock side is still a bit out of whack. In theory, the warlock can indeed provide fearsome AoE. But to quote Larry McVoy (Sun software engineer and version-control guru), "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they're different."

I think that's what warlock AoE comes down to: great in theory, not so good in practice.

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So if they can do that well enough, then we turn our eyes to what else each class brings.  Mage polymorph is humanoid CC which is excellent.  Seduce is humanoid CC that is less excellent.  But is it good enough?  Sure.  Spell Lock, likewise, is not counterspell...but it's good enough.  In other words, Warlocks can fill all three of a mage's main roles.  Definitely not as well as the mage can on at least two of the categories (and you may well believe on all three), but adequately well.

Past that point, however, mages have essentially nothing. 

My analogy for this is knives: the warlock is a Swiss Army knife, the mage is a sharp butcher's knife.

If I'm fussing with a cork in my lunch, obviously the butcher's knife is not so valuable to me as the utility of the Swiss Army knife. However, when I want to cut up much stuff fast, I'll reach for the big chopping knife. Ultimately, only a fool would always prefer one over the other -- right tool for the job, and all that.

Mages to me are about blasting your opponent down before he can harm you, whereas warlocks are about stubbornly outlasting them. Both are exceptionally useful in a party.

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However, in the current state, especially in 5-man parties, it's hard to see a particularly compelling reason to fill the slot with a mage if a Destruction spec warlock's around.
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Perhaps that's another crux of the discussion: I don't see a lot of Destruction 'locks out there. We see lots of Affliction 'locks (my spec) in the PvE world, and most PvP types seem to spec Demonology for survivability.

Destruction doesn't have the mana efficiency to maintain mage-level destructive output for long, and it lacks the self-sustaining nature of a mage who can conjure drinks. Warlocks can use life tap and bandaging, but it's too slow and expensive to be a regular habit for mana refills.

Really what we have here is an interesting game of World of Theorycraft, positing the rare AoE Kiting Party vs. the endagered species known as the Destruction Warlock. :)

Thanks for the discussion though. It's been spirited and entertaining!

Kv