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

[savaughn]

Can you elaborate a bit on that? :)
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So, I've played two mages, two priests, and two warlocks at this point. I can't say I'm the definitive expert, but I have been able to compare them directly.

The warlock is the hardest of the three to play, in my experience. The end game feels very crippled right now (infernals and doomguard - the end game for warlocks - are flat out broken). This is, hands down, the class that needs more love than any other. Warlocks should be a lot of fun to play - they have a lot of really interesting abilities, the pet is cool, the concept is well fleshed out, and dots, soulstones, conjured horses, etc. are nifty. It's just a hard class to play for me, though. It could very well be that I just don't mesh well with the class, but I'd say Warlocks could use an overall DPS increase to bring them in line with some of the other classes and FIX THE STUPID INFERNALS AND DOOMGUARD. *sigh* Sorry - had to get it out of my system.

In terms of mages vs. priests, they play radically differently. Mages are easier to solo with. There will be folks who disagree, but I find it pretty conclusive. Prior to level 20, priests level like molasses. Smite is a pathetic damage dealer and you end up hitting things with your staff for the most part. You're probably not going to die, but you're not going to kill things very quickly either. From levels 20-30 things are a bit better, but you are still well behind mages for soloing. If you want to have any chance to solo, you will be putting every point you get into Shadow until level 40 or you will continue to beat down things at the speed of staff+inner fire+SW:P - which is to say pathetically. A rogue or hunter will have finished 3 mobs before you're done with one and they will be off to the fourth with no down time. Even as a shadow priest, you're pretty much flaying. This will take the mob down but it will still take a while. You can speed the process by mind blasting but if you do expect to have to stop and recover your mana every mob or two. Things take a massive upturn at 40 when you get Shadow Form. 10% more damage dealt, 10% less damage taken - things look up.

By comparison, a mage will kill as fast or faster than a priest, creates their own water making recovery trivial, and has some really substantial escape mechanisms. The long and the short of it is that a fire/arcane mage will cover more kills per hour including downtime than a priest (at least until level 40) and will die far less often soloing because they have some of the best kiting abilities in the game. A mage will survive solo where a priest will not and that brings up their kills per hour as well.

So, am I saying mages are better than priests? Absolutely not. The priest is a tiny god in the right environment. And that environment is standing in a group of damage dealers. One of the priests I play is paired up with my wife's hunter. We always play those two characters together. We routinely wade into amazing masses of mobs the three of us (me, her, and "Kitty") outnumbered by twice our number and come out on top. Our overall kill speed is staggering. I never thought I'd consider playing a priest who never picked up shadow form, but I went into the shadow tree long enough to grab flay and have swapped over to disc/holy. Mages certainly bring some nice DPS and CC to a group, but also bring long lag times and other down sides (I could write a book about the number of suicidal mages I've played with who I swear thought they were tanks).

If you like to group, be a priest. If you find yourself questing solo, however, you may find a mage your style. Both are welcome in the end game, but I have had times playing my other characters when I've not been able to find a good group for instancing. My priests have never had this problem.

<edit: spelling>