04-29-2005, 09:47 AM
Ok, it's pretty clear from the previous post that you have strongly-held opinions on this, so please remember that this is not a reflection on you as a person, or your chosen style of play. Just a few observations, no offense intended or offered. :)
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.
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.
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.
The warlock is totally different, due to the life tap ability that converts HP into mana as needed. High stam/int is the way to go, so the warlock will usually have the second-highest or even sometimes highest HP in a party, and be able to take a hit or two as a result. So the class designers give them suicidal AoE attacks like hellfire, or the gimpy rain of fire which doesn't damage you, but really doesn't hit the mobs that hard either. In no case can you move, you stand there and take your hits. Sure, you can crank out big single-target hits, but you can't match the mage in HP/sec removed from a group.
We take as many mages as we can get for instance farming. Stacked AoE makes so many things trivial en route to the blue-dropping bosses that it's the only way to go. Pre-patch Scholo, it was pretty much the only way it was feasible in a reasonable amount of time. 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.
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.
And finally there's counterspell, which is incredibly valuable. Other than priests, mages are the only class that can instantly compell casters to melee range. And the cooldown on counterspell is much shorter than a preist's silence ability.
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.
Kv
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.
Skandranon,Apr 29 2005, 01:36 AM Wrote:Non-frost mages don't get snares without driving their DPS into the dirt.Um, respectfully disagree on that one. Blastwave, anyone?
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.
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.
The warlock is totally different, due to the life tap ability that converts HP into mana as needed. High stam/int is the way to go, so the warlock will usually have the second-highest or even sometimes highest HP in a party, and be able to take a hit or two as a result. So the class designers give them suicidal AoE attacks like hellfire, or the gimpy rain of fire which doesn't damage you, but really doesn't hit the mobs that hard either. In no case can you move, you stand there and take your hits. Sure, you can crank out big single-target hits, but you can't match the mage in HP/sec removed from a group.
Skandranon,Apr 29 2005, 01:36 AM Wrote:In my experience, the worst thing to do in the case of a breakout is to start kiting. You bring it back to the tank, who takes the aggro back and ends the breakout. If you're getting mass breakouts, you need to find a better tank. Going kiting when things go wrong is a surefire recipe to making sure other things go wrong.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.
Skandranon,Apr 29 2005, 01:36 AM Wrote:I don't doubt that you've seen mages dancing around, but I do argue that it was in no way an advantage or better than just standing still. You cannot avoid getting hit by movement - mobs are just as fast as you are.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.
Skandranon,Apr 29 2005, 01:36 AM Wrote:I personally can't see a reason to include more than one mage in a raid.
[right][snapback]75617[/snapback][/right]
We take as many mages as we can get for instance farming. Stacked AoE makes so many things trivial en route to the blue-dropping bosses that it's the only way to go. Pre-patch Scholo, it was pretty much the only way it was feasible in a reasonable amount of time. 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.
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.
And finally there's counterspell, which is incredibly valuable. Other than priests, mages are the only class that can instantly compell casters to melee range. And the cooldown on counterspell is much shorter than a preist's silence ability.
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.
Kv