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

[Skandranon]

I won't go so far as to categorically state it as truth, but I think mobility in combat is always worthwhile. I'm pretty sure the cliche "stand still and die" originated in combat somewhere. :)

Yeah, but not combat with WoW mobs. That originated in battles with people against people, which is why mobility works in PvP. But WoW mobs, as I already stated, have so many abilities which seem to have as their sole purpose the negation of mobility as a useful force.

We use all the snares we have to keep them from catching the mage. The mage has blizzard and frost nova, and we'll add shammy totems for earthbind if we have them available.

That's a good point: Alliance has no equivalent to Earthbind totem, so I've never played with one around. That might change the equation somewhat. The only area snares available for the Alliance side are Improved Blizzard and Blast Wave, both of which have significant drawbacks.

Sorry, guess that part of my post wasn't clear. The zipping around enables him to bring the attack to the mobs, so we can make sure none of them escape the AoE. That's one of the biggest benefits he brings over having a warlock do AoE. No, it doesn't increase the frequency of attack.

In which case, your assertion that the mage has better "effective" AoE has another built-in assumption, that Warlock AoE will miss some targets without the ability to move around. That's just not true. If I can arrange it so that I always hit every target I want while standing perfectly still with IAE, Warlocks can do the same with Hellfire.

As a matter of fact, from my own extensive experiments with kiting AoE (I wanted it to work, I really did) I find that AoE while moving is far more likely to miss one, two, five, or more targets as they fall to the edge of your AoE envelope. This is not a problem endemic to AoE attacks.

I didn't assume that. I read your posts as saying categorically that 1) mages didn't have the best AoE damage in the game

169 DPS is greater than 208 DPS. As long as they always hit, mage damage isn't the best. Always hitting is *not * a problem, unless you're moving around.

Just as I'm coming from the position that AoE cannot be done while moving, you're coming from the position that it has to be done while moving. AoE missing targets is a large factor in your experience - but it doesn't have to be. Mage mobility solves a problem that mage mobility causes.

I'm attempting to disagree civilly and specifically. I've inferred a lot of "it won't work, don't bother" from your responses, but no "I've tried that, and here's why I don't like it".

Well, I'd never have made the arguments as to why it won't work without trying them out myself and finding that they didn't work. The problem with mobs is their long reach: I've been AoE kiting in Hillsbrad quite a lot, because you need to AoE guard rushes and you can't stand still or a hunter will pick you off. So I do move around and pop AEs.

My constant experience is that if a mob is too far away to hit me, it's also too far away to get hit by my AE. Mobs have an effective melee reach of up to ten yards - running just doesn't do it. I've been generous and been assuming that with another mage tossing Blizzards and perhaps with use of Blast Wave that it's even possible to hit them, but even that doesn't accord well with my experiences.

I suspect that a great deal of your "AoE kiting" is that the mage kites and hits about half of them with the AE, kiting and avoiding the hits from the rest, but also not hitting them. The assertion that the mage can hit them all and yet remain distant and unhurt I find simply unbelievable, because I've never been able to pull it off. I don't claim to be exceptionally skilled, but I do know that I'm not bad or ordinary.

I just happen to play with a mage that plays all-out for aggro, and we've learned as a group to make that work for us. Rereading your guide, for instance, you write about blizzard as a closer skill to ensure you don't get aggro. My buddy, OTOH, opens with blizzard because he wants the aggro -- he wants all the mobs clustered, chilled, and coming towards him. It's part of his different style.

The thing I object to about the tactic is that, even given all the tools to make it work, it's inefficient and disaster-prone. Yes, you're maximizing the mage's AoE output (it's questionable, but I'll give it to you). At the same time you're degrading everyone else's damage. Everyone else's stationary AEs are only having effect every now and then, and the poor melee-range fighters are having to run around chasing the mobs left and right. It seems like a mage-centric strategy at the expense of the team. In such a situation, okay, the mage will be putting out the most damage, but that's not necessarily meaningful.

And moving around - running - is one of the largest complicating factors anyone can throw into a situation. My philosophy is: things go wrong. The best way to avoid wipes is to minimize the chances for something to go wrong, which means a mostly static battlefield and heavy use of CC. Running around, forcing at least half the party to chase after you, and flinging spells around with wild abandon, to me, constitutes a massive multiplication of opportunities for something to go wrong.

Runners are hard enough to catch under normal circumstances; in the chaotic circumstances of a running AoE engagement, it's so easy to miss one or two. An alert party can miss runners even when the AoE isn't moving. And that's not the least of it: in Strat and DM you can pop boxes/pods, and in every instance in the world you run the risk of drawing patrols and other groups. I don't doubt that your team has found a way to make it work for you, but I also have no metric as to how frequently you run into problems, and I suspect you may have little metric as to how frequently teams who don't engage in that tactic have problems.

Bottom line: stationary AoE is easier to pull off, is just as effective, and is almost certainly friendlier on teammates. Warlocks engaging in this type of tactic will almost certainly outdamage mages. Mages may have access to a different kind of tactic, but it's certainly not easy to agree that it's better.