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

[Drasca]

Can you elaborate a bit on that? :)
[right][snapback]75318[/snapback][/right]

Sure thing. As others have described, mages are the 'burn out' caster class who can do a lot of damage in short time with multiple snare and escape abilities. Priests can be very difficult to kill so long as they have mana, or aren't interrupted, but somewhat limited escape abilities and low damage overall.

Warlocks... warlocks are different from all of them. Many backloaded damage spells best over time, a pet-class, generally 'escape' skills. Very few 'on the run' instant cast spells that are direct damage, defense orientated, or recastable. High mana cost and long preperation times on skills. Pet takes 10 seconds and approx 1/3-1/2 current mana, armor spell takes 1/2 mana, one healthstone 1/4 mana pool. Soul shard farming takes long long minutes. There are also insanely long cooldowns. Its also very easy to lose anything we prepare instantly. All that 'prep' time, and no escape skills makes us victum to being very vulnerable when battles are decided in mere seconds.

In "PvP" servers where you're always flagged except in horde territory, you make a big target for all. You'll be killed over and over, until you get good. . . even then, you're a bigger target than priests. Yes priests. Why do warlocks take higher priority? Considered easier targets to kill, can frustrate the enemy better (fear/dots cause panic), considered more contribution points, and poorly protected by other party members. High priority and perceived ease to kill, low priority to protect.

However... that said, warlocks are extremely strong PvE, especially in longer battles. Warlocks never truly run out of fighting juice. Where other classes have generally limited opporunity to self bandage, to regain mana, warlocks create opporunity.

You can engage multiple targets without attracting aggro to yourself (until too late for them), do very steady damage at low mana cost, be mana postitive throughout battles while healing yourself and do damage to enemy, regularly defeat elites above your level, and generally solo the impossible with skill, talent and grace. At your best, you are a one-man demon god.

Pet attack, Curse, DoTs, life tap, life drain cycles to be mana positive during active combat. Its efficiency improves with affliction talents improved life tap, life drain, shadow mastery, dark pact and increased shadow/magical effects equipment. You can effectively fight forever, gaining both mana and health back through time (albiet at a slow steady pace).

Your choice of pets is dynamic, able to fulfill support, off-tank, crowd control, damage dealing, and debuffing roles on your command. Succubus can deal damage or crowd control humanoids. Voidwalker is an excellent tank especially when supported by health funnel. Felhunter removes enemy buffs and debuffs off friends, stops casters, and may reduce enemy attack power in PvE. In PvP felhunter really shines as enemies depend on buffs and stealth--both advantages the felhunter can reduce or remove entirely. It is truly a mage-killer, and a priest killer too, as removing the 'bubble of love' PW:Shield elimates priest ability to sustain damage. Felhunters work great against bosses too, especially ones with aoe debuffs, powerful casting abilities which can be locked down or reduced. Your tank frozen by a magic buff? Feared? Priest busy too? No problem! Target your warrior and Devour magic.

Need to remove a humanoid for periods out of battle? Charm him with your succubus. Enemies too numerous, too strong, battle too hectic? Bring out the voidwalker. He'll be your bodyguard, intercept aggro off your priests and fellow casters before they can touch you, and keep'em busy while your party can focus. Imp? That's for your go-to guy when you have no shards, and when you're feeling lazy. He has limited burst damage that can't be ignored, good party buffs, and doesn't cost the all precious soul shard.

Given the need for slow steady damage (rather than aggro stealing burst damage), pet/damage/aggro management, life + mana health cycle management, long preperation times... means for long long battles against difficult multiple targets with many restrictions and pieces of information to keep mindful of. That's frustrating for most. Played well however, your abilities as a warlock are nothing less than astounding. I've fought add after add of mobs solo, engaged multiple and higher level targets, taken down whole sections of instances of equivalent level solo, and commit no less than astonishing feats of battle.

As a warlock, you are born to engage, control, weaken and defeat multiple and numerically stronger targets with patience and skill. Mages and Priests are limited by overall mana, and very limited spirit/equipment and talent mana regeneration. Warriors by health. Rogues by their cooldowns and ability to lose aggro through stealth mid battle and pop back up refreshed before mobs auto-run and heal. Shamans by their damage done before their mana runs out through healing or attack spells, similarly with druids. Warlocks? No such limitations. We may become both mana and health positive through a long-lasting battle against single targets.

Who else can regularly apply first aid while actively engaging a mob? Who else takes 5 minutes to battle one target otherwise impossible for other classes solo?

Fear is the warlock's signature ability, but PvE soloing is where Warlock is king. Warlocks are also great at many other roles, and though not best at them, are among the few that can and the only which can do it all. One of two pet classes, one of two high damage AoE classes, one of the few true crowd controllers, a competitive ranged damage class (sometimes able to out burst damage mages, though not consistently), and has abilities unique to the class--particularly summoning players across continents and instances. Rezzers dead, path to entrance entrance repopped? So long as warlock and two others are alive, there is no true wipe. Summon reinforcements.

All these wonderful abilities however, are double or triply penalized. That is why a warlock is a masochist. Spells less powerful than mages? Fine. We have pets that contribute to damage, that makes sense. 10, 15 minute cooldowns too? Ehhh? Long cast time, lower damage, and costs a soul shard (which takes minutes to farm).. umm? Pets take long time (opening up for interrupts by attack, stun, silence), large mana cost, and are lost by path finding issues and mounting up. Ohhh... greeaaat. Life drain. Channeled, interruptable, low dps, requires remaining stationary while facing target, and is dispellable? Um. The first four, are ok... but dispellable? That's stinky cheese.

Powerful end-game pets? Suuure... when they do work. The cost? High mana, costly reagents, 1 hour (yes one hour) cooldowns, low chance to pop and keep, and extreme chance to turn on caster within seconds. So what? Can't use them because can't keep them after long time, shard farming, monetary and invenotry space preperation costs, and on top of that they're most dangerous to the caster himself. Can they be banished and feared easily? Yes. Too easy to counter, while all the costs and dangers are on the caster.

Have I used them to turn the tide of battle occasionally? Very rarely, but yes. I loved summoning an infernal on top of both priest and paladin alliance while my fellow horde charged for shock value. I was hoping I'd be lucky enough to summon near the priest, and possibly stun him. That utterly broke alliance ranks. . . that one time. I was lucky enough to have a doomguard spawn and a party who communicated in a recent 5 man LBRS run too. He was very useful through a boss battle against Halcyon the giant wolf. However, that's under very controlled conditions and with a very lucky spawn. He'd be feared, banished and tapped by my own allies so I couldn't enslave/reenslave otherwise. Or, when he'd turn on me I'd be obliterated by my own pet with allies too busy to support me (if I had any), and enemies all too ready to finish me. Any one of these penalties alone are balancing, summed together, they are devastating to the warlock class.