Quote taken from the Blizz AV Tips page

[Alrin]

Mage - AoE, standoff, and snaring runners are your basic roles, but the best use of your abilities is to run into enemy players fully buffed on a suicide run, spamming Arcane Explosion. This can cause lots of damage and chaos to the enemy while also netting you tons of CP. It works especially well when multiple mages do it. You also make excellent bait.

Uh.. So mages = pure and simple kamikaze attackers? Geez.
If I were to blink in and spam aoe, even with AP up I would get wtfpwned in less than the time it took to cast 3 explosions. Jesus.
And yeah good luck having coordination enough to bring 6-7 mages to do this at the exact same time.

Seriously, the person that wrote the tips page needs to clearly PLAY AV more.
Love how he suggests that "If you are bored, its great to organize your bags to put all AV quest items in one bag! It's Fun!!".

>.<

[Arnulf]

Mage - AoE, standoff, and snaring runners are your basic roles, but the best use of your abilities is to run into enemy players fully buffed on a suicide run, spamming Arcane Explosion. This can cause lots of damage and chaos to the enemy while also netting you tons of CP. It works especially well when multiple mages do it. You also make excellent bait.

[right][snapback]88124[/snapback][/right]

Is this really a post by a Blizzard employee? Very interesting! Can you give a source, please?

Uh.. So mages = pure and simple kamikaze attackers? Geez.[right][snapback]88124[/snapback][/right]

Yup. That's how Alterac Valley is played nowadays.

If I were to blink in and spam aoe, even with AP up I would get wtfpwned in less than the time it took to cast 3 explosions. Jesus.[right][snapback]88124[/snapback][/right]

Yes, that is entirely enough. There is absolutely no resistance against Arcane to be had, that is above "poor". Three Arcane Explosions are enough to soften up the opposing line to mop it up with some final warlock spells. Never mind that the mages are dead by now, they simply resurrect on the next graveyard with full mana!

And yeah good luck having coordination enough to bring 6-7 mages to do this at the exact same time.[right][snapback]88124[/snapback][/right]

Easy enough. With voice tools this is not hard to accomplish. For even better effect let one mage go forth and spam Frost Nova. So that the hapless victims can't even move while they get wasted with AEs... actually three mages doing this are enough.

Seriously, the person that wrote the tips page needs to clearly PLAY AV more.
Love how he suggests that "If you are bored, its great to organize your bags to put all AV quest items in one bag! It's Fun!!".[right][snapback]88124[/snapback][/right]

Well, I don't know how mages handle the looting. Best to have some people go after them and collect all the stuff that you can take with you from the Battleground..

>.<[right][snapback]88124[/snapback][/right]

Exactly my feelings when I noticed how Alterac valley has degenerated into a spam-fest of AE...

-Arnulf

[Alrin]

[right][snapback]88124[/snapback][/right]
Is this really a post by a Blizzard employee? Very interesting! Can you give a source, please?

Yup. That's how Alterac Valley is played nowadays.

Yes, that is entirely enough. There is absolutely no resistance against Arcane to be had, that is above "poor". Three Arcane Explosions are enough to soften up the opposing line to mop it up with some final warlock spells. Never mind that the mages are dead by now, they simply resurrect on the next graveyard with full mana!
Easy enough. With voice tools this is not hard to accomplish. For even better effect let one mage go forth and spam Frost Nova. So that the hapless victims can't even move while they get wasted with AEs... actually three mages doing this are enough.

Well, I don't know how mages handle the looting. Best to have some people go after them and collect all the stuff that you can take with you from the Battleground..

Exactly my feelings when I noticed how Alterac valley has degenerated into a spam-fest of AE...

-Arnulf
[right][snapback]88126[/snapback][/right]

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/battleg...ps-alterac.html

Yes I am familiar with playing AV with my mage, I just felt the whole tips page felt extremely ... unprofessional.

[Tharn]

If it's done well and coordinated (especially with warrior's challenging shout), it can really help push the zerg. I usually die when I do this, but then when I come back and see our people being on the place where I previously died and alliance pushed back, I see the seeming foolish suicide rush did it's job.

Single suicide rush is really useless, though.

[Bob the Beholder]

I never really got the Arcane Explosion suicide run thing. Sure, I could do a bit of damage. But unless I've got a couple of friends AoEing right beside me then it just doesn't seem to accomplish much.

I always found it more effective to get close enough that I could target a ranged AoE on a pretty good collection of the enemy zerg-mass, but still far enough away that I can only be targetted by fire mages or hunters. Then drop flamestrikes on the enemy until either I run out of mana or get low enough to make a quick turn and blink back. With PoM and Burning Soul I could usually get three or four flamestrikes off before either dropping or retreating. And when hitting for as much as six, seven, eight hundred damage upfront (with crits--pretty common with Improved Flamestrike), more for ignite, and more the added DoT, it really tends to scatter the enemy.

It becomes less effective if I use it a lot, though. People tend to shrug off a bit of AoE, but when you're persistent about it, and far enough away that shutting you down is a problem, then dropping 2,000+ damage on the enemy front lines tends to make 'em take notice. It was the funniest moment of my last week-long AV stint, when, after maybe two hours of pounding on the enemies, every time I stepped out of the zerg and started casting I'd take two aimed shots, a fireball, a shadow bolt, an ambush, and an intercept/mortal strike combo. It was awesome.

(Note that this is the experience of pickup AV against pickup AV. With coordinated support the AE-kamikaze can be EXTREMELY effective. And my ranged bombardment would either get silenced whether I was far away or not, or just outmaneuvered, leaving me bombarding an empty spot while the enemy raid charged in my face.)