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

[Drasca]

You cannot avoid getting hit by movement - mobs are just as fast as you are.[right][snapback]75617[/snapback][/right]

Not true. Firstly minor speed increase to boots enchant (increased run speed) is a godsend, secondly your party has many snare abilities. Earthbind, crippling poison, curse of exhaustion, ice/freeze traps, etc. Frost nova is to put range between you while your party focuses on one, not anything else. It buys time. That's important. With the various snares, aoe and otherwise, its very useful to kite.

The 'bring enemy to tank' cannot always apply. That depends specifically on number of enemies and if an AoE taunt is viable. If they're too far spread out and distant, it is advisable to kite overrun past your tank, but you may still run. Simply standing still = death, or at very least does not take advantage of snares, immobilizers, and range.

Tanks cannot hold aggro on every target at all times. There will be run aways, ones out of range, ones not tab-targetabble, mobs too numerous and too spread out. In those cases, harassing the enemy through kiting is extremely important--and those cases do show up. Run in one direction? No. Circle around the party, and pass the tank every so often, yes.

As for your second point about burst damage - yes, it's perfectly useful when the enemy's already been worn down to 5% health and

Not 5%. Seeing that the rate of health going down will result in 5-10 seconds signals everyone to go all out, thus bringing the mob down whether its at 50% health or 5%. Just getting to the 'last lap' psychological point is extremely important.

There's a spot...

Yes and it takes time to setup the spot. Time is the most precious resource of all, and I don't like having to waste it. Mages are a lot more flexible in this regard. It matters more in PvP, that'd be digressing.

Are you still talking about the Rivendare encounter?  After four shots of IAE (that's three seconds of Hellfire) all the skeletons are dead. 

No, not for warlocks. They're too spread out with the aggro going nuts everywhere. 4 seconds of hellfire = 2000 mana cost mininum. 1300 for the spell itself, 4 * 212 health costs.

You don't need to frost nova, blink, run in circles.

That's for saving healers and other encounters.

The comparison, by the way isn't poly vs. fear, but poly vs. fear/seduce/banish/enslave.  You can't use them all the time, but mages have literally nothing else.

Almost all instances have sheepable targets. Do you see banish/enslave being any use in Strat? UBRS?

The only difference between poly, sap and MC is that poly hits beasts as well as humanoids. 

Hardly. Poly is far more reliable, with its longer duration, less chance to resist, and ability to pre-buff poly. I cannot pre-buff fear (new nerf), charm cannot be prebuffed, sap cannot be re-buffed, and MC? Ha! Do you want a dead primary healer? Sure its great when it works, but its too darn risky sometimes. Freeze trap? Um. Cannot directly choose target with that. Ranged CC that can keep the enemy out of the entire battle? Only the mage can do that. Saps break and cannot be refreshed. Succubus charm breaks intermittently, and succubus may die if not careful.

Poly is the only fire and (mostly) forget CC. All other forms split the attention of the caster. You only need to remember refreshing after every kill or two.

Drasca, because you play the single most powerful PvE class in the game.

I concede this. Warlocks can work wonders PvE no other class can match... just that the game isn't all PvE. Blizzard's end-game perpetual time suck depends on PvP, and given that model, its unavoidable.

Even your suggested Poly/doom combo is only interesting because of CoD: sap and freeze trap work just as well.

I've done it with sap before. Doesn't work quite as well. Takes more attention, and I need to charm the target when it becomes unsapped. I don't think it works with freeze traps, as I couldn't curse enemies frozen by a hunter's trap last time.

Sap + CoDoom works well enough, but works better with poly'ed targets. It is also a matter of which targets get sapped. I prefer melee targets sapped so we may kill casters first, while I generally like the most dangerous casters poly'ed until the end of battle.

Additonally, Parties tend to kill the sapped/unsapped targets while ignoring the CoD. They don't pop sheeps so readily.

Sidenote:
I can only be effective if my debuffs aren't pushed off, or if the mobs aren't killed too fast. The rest? Just goes to waste. Direct damage is king in raids.

I have seen firsthand how *not* having a mage makes very little difference.  It boiled down to one less humanoid CCed.

I've played in 5-man non-standard parties too, and in high level instances. In DM, every bit of AoE, and ranged control mattered--excluding DM east, which is an introductory instance.

I wish more mages used their detect magic ability. It was extremely useful against rattlegore to know when to dispel/purge/devour magic. I'd imagine against other bosses and casters as well. I have to guesstimate when to devour magic on other mobs otherwise.

Oh btw: Hunters minimum range makes them innately less useful for consistent damage. Can't shoot on the run? Must run off just to shoot? Ugh! Frustrating.

IIRC, Druids and Mages are the only ones able to remove curses. Detect magic, and Curse removal do add to unique utility of mages.

As for counterspell... so much more useful to safely pull casters with counterspell. A few items can silence, but not many. Equipment can't be relied on. I like my felhunter's spell lock, which shuts down a school of magic from range for 8 seconds if they're casting, but that's no counterspell. If our priset has points into shadow for silence that's fantastic, but most high end instance priests are holy specced. Again, not reliable.

The traits important to me are reliability, mobility, time and attention effiency. Mages have all of that.

Maybe you're used to playing tanks, or alongside tanks a lot. Sure they're nice, but I've played 5 man instances without warriors or obvious tanks too. Mobility matters. Moreso in PvP, but here too. I have to stand around being interrupted by attacks directed toward my direction. Mages have no such limitation. They can consistently burst on the run, or fight without being interrupted. I have to wait for a 10 minute cooldown, nightfall proc, or spend a soul shard that takes minutes to farm. Ugh ugh ugh. Instants are an absolute must for mobiilty. Mages have got them. Ignore your mobility strengths and you're ignoring the value of magi.

The level of anxiety changes greatly without a good mage around. Are warlocks replaceable too? Can their abilities by outstripped by other classes individually? Let's see... Uh. YEAH. Rogues get frontloaded damage, Hunters/Mages ranged damage, Priests get a better dps DoT, Warriors tank better than voidwalkers, Mages better ranged CC than Charm. What's unique to warlocks? Chain fear, Soulstones? (applies to alliance only, shamans an reincarnate and rez all, druids can combat rez priest before they die, waits for party to wipe and priest combat rezzes after aggro is lost), Banish! . . but where are the elementals. BRD? DM. Yay... right? Many 'elementals' are immune to banish.

Enslave? Oh boy. So easy for it to turn on you at the worst possible moment. Takes a minimum of 7 seconds to enslave. One second to cast curse of shadows, another lag time and to be sure curse of shadows stuck, 4 more seconds plus a minimum of one second's worth of interrupts while enslaving. . . all the while taking damage and aggro.