Cardynal

If we are intended to be the consumer of raid buffs, then yes. Without a heavy dps class to consume the buff...then it is wasted.

Now as far as Mage VS Rogue damage if they're both intended to be consumers of buffs...it does need to be taken into consideration that there are still more ranged friendly fights than melee friendly fights. If a mage were to do as much damage as a rogue on every fight...why take rogues when they're often harder to keep alive from group wide ae's.

 

Muphrid

True, without classes to exploit such buffs, the buffs would be pointless.

But it makes me wonder whether the buffers or the buffed are the ones making the more significant contribution...

 

Prod

People always say this. It just seems like a natural thing to continue to say after years of it. The truth is though that it is currently completely false. Melee are fine, and fights do not overly punish them. In fact, rogues can simply CLOS out of most situations. Sometimes our dps warrior or enhancement shaman get a doomfire or something, but these people are not dying. If anything, our deaths are priest/mages on Gurtogg (somtimes). I really wish everyone would just quit saying melee have it so hard so Mages are balanced around having easy mode raiding.

 

◊ Vontre

Pretty much any encounter with randomly targetted aoe or pbaoe is increasingly hurtful to melee the more you stack, and there are a lot of encounters with these mechanics. Melee is still very much hurt by range issues, it's part of their balance. People don't just say it, it's still true.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Prod

Ok, if completely hypothetically you brought 15 melee dps to Anetheron, then an infernal could cause a lot of trouble. Thankfully in the real world this situation doesn't exist and every guild uses classes like Hunters/Mages/Warlocks/Shadow Priest.

It seems silly that the idea is "if we brought all melee the melee would have a harder time so this is why they do the most dps". There are many dps and debuffing classes. Assuming a guild is trying to bring at least one of each CLASS, after tanks and healers are accounted for, you can't stack the raid heavily one way or the other. In real world guilds, melee are not punished for being melee because the mechanics of boss fights aren't there to punish their limited numbers.

The same argument would work for ranged too. I'm sure if you brought no melee and all ranged dps, they would have a harder time spreading out the damage coming in from aoe and chain abilities. If anything, I think increasing the Mages in a raid composition would increase the difficulty of raid healing. The only way we can really mitigate any damage is frost/fire ward. We can all agree to the lack of utility manashield brings, and the effectiveness of a 5 minute cd IB.

Edit:
I did Naxx/AQ40 again this weekend and I was amazed by how unfriendly a lot of things were to melee compared to current raiding. Trying to 4 man Ouro (16% ), the rogue could almost never be in to dps because of sweeps on the tank. Lots of fights punished our melee simply for being in range. I'm not seeing it in TBC.

Edit2:
I was also amazed by the quality of Naxx compared to TBC, but that is another thread :|

 

Raiste

After seeing the design trends and philosophies of the game especially in the transition from vanilla to TBC, I think it is safe to assume that mages will never ever be the "ranged rogues" of the game (nor they should be), pvp or pve. It may happen due to a fluke or a bug or a mechanic like the 2.2 MSD but never by intention.

In my view mage problems in PvE are two fold:

1)Reliance on outside debuffs to compete: As it has been hashed out nicely by Manly and others, we are too reliant on other classes to do competitive DPS. We need CoE and we need that shadow priest in our group. The opportunity cost of CoE is obviously a CoD/CoA and of giving shadow priest to the mages is e.g. the healers may not get one. This makes little sense why this needs to be so. Blizzard has already admitted they need to address the mana reliance, hopefully they will address the CoE reliance issue as well.

2) No real in combat utility: Sure mages have good utility with food/water, portals, AB etc. But outside of polymorph they bring little in terms of desired in combat buffs/utility:

Rogues: They don't bring any synergy to the raid but they are uncontested DPS kings of endgame raiding. A combat swords rogue in T6 more than justifies his/her raid spot just by the pure DPS they bring over any other class.

Warriors: Battle shout, Blood frenzy (if specced), Ability to throw on tank gear and help "tank" during trash pulls etc.

Druids: combat rez, Tree of life, Moonkin aura, LoTP (ability to OT/DPS without need to respec or change gear!!!)

Shaman: totems, heroism, self rez!

Priests: who doesn't want a shadow priest in their group?

Hunters: 3% dmg party buff for BM, expose weakness for survival, hunter's mark and trueshot for MM

Warlocks: curses that greatly amplify raid dmg, soul stones

Paladins: They are sadly not viable DPSer at least until 2.3, but they refresh judgements, bring 3% crit to the raid etc and paladin blessings (unlike AB) are big DPS buffs in themselves and unlike mages, more paladins = more blessings and at least 3 are almost always desirable in any raid.

This is what concerns me. Currently we bring nothing to the raid while in combat. Our debuffs (imp scorch and WC) only benefit us and only help us remain competitive. No one ever says omg I want a mage in my party and this is the area where mages can use some serious help. Would be nice to get a party buff or raid debuff that was not self centered for a change.

 

Pintofbrew

While I agree with the majority of your post, druids most certainly -can't- tank without gear change. Once in a while, on trash that broke loose, yes, a cat can swap to bear and swipe, but I assure you bears and cats do not wear the same gear at all. And Tree of Life buff isn't relevant to the discussion: We're comparing raid utility of DPS classes.

Shamans also give 10% melee AP buff & Stormstrike to other shamans (though it's mostly chewed up by poisons unfortunately).

As for DPS warrior's ability to offtank during trash, I think it's irrelevant to the discussion: What can be done on trash is not a deciding factor for DPS class ballance.

Finally, on the topic of whose the "ranged rogues" as you put it, I don't see why you disagree with us being it; Rogues you argue, have 0 utility but bring damage that excuses it. We bring near 0 utility, why should we not be ranged DPS kings? Say I agree with your idea that we shouldn't: Who should? Hunters? Locks? Why? You just pointed out they're more useful. Adding best range DPS surely isn't needed to their arsenal of powers.

 

Copernicus

Somewhat 2.3 related, but specifically having to do with respeccing for Illidan as frost.

If I spec 3/3 Imp Blizzard for the Parasites, are my options really between Frozen Core, Improved Cone of Cold, and Ice Floes? I can easily see spending 56 points after getting the full shatter chain, permafrost, imp blizzard (plus all the DPS talents except Ice Floes). And the last three talents all have good things going for them. Does anyone who speccd just for Illidan into frost have any advice?

And on the same note, what's the safest way to use my Water Elemental in phase 2?

 

Nadiar

Yeah, I'd say on my druid only about 1/3 of my Cat Gear is useful in Bear Form. If I'm wearing Cat Gear and jump into Bear, I have very similar statistics to a Fury Warrior with a shield on.

 

Vand1

Given all the talk about exactly what role mages do/should fill in raids, I thought it might be amusing to be reminded of what Bliz's original thoughts were on this matter. Here are a few quotes from the mage page in the original owner's manual.

• "Mages can dish out the most ranged damage in the shortest time."
• "They exist to blast monsters from range. In fact, in this role, they are unrivaled by all other classes."
• "Only the rogue can hope to approach the massive amount of damage the mage can deal out, and even then, the rogue must get to within melee range to do so."

So if anyone wonders why some mages think we should be "ranged rogues," one need look no farther for answers than the book we all got when we first bought the game. Current reality is so far removed that it would not surprise me if we all receive notices in the mail about a class action suit being files against Bliz (just kidding).

 

Raiste

I know full well that cat and bear gear is completely different. But in add fights when you need OT for about 2 mins and once the add dies they are free to dps, druids do better than basically any other class. Of course they wont put out significant dps in bear gear, but their dps will be better than a prot warrior or a prot pally's.

Anyways as far as mages should or should not be ranged rogues, I think devs have made themselves pretty clear that they should not. We were "ranged rogues" in Naxx. Fire mages and fury warriors along with rogues dominated DPS charts with hunters/warlocks etc coming in a distant. Come TBC what were the first things blizzard overnerfed? They overnerfed warriors (warriors for the first two months of TBC were a very weak class due to multiple things), and you guessed it, mages. Before we can even see the "jaw dropping" dps we were supposedly putting out, our coefficients were nerfed as were our empowered talents. We achieved some slight edge in ranged dps classes with MSD and 2.2, but obviously this was not desired either.

Seems pretty clear to me that the devs do not want us to be the ranged rogue class. I at least hope that they can give us comparable utility with other non-rogue dps classes to compensate.

 

Vand1

I just wish they would decide what role it is they want us to play (and make it a valuable one), and then empower us to perform that role better than any other class.

 

Alvira

Hi,

I did some PTR testing when I could (but I couldnt get any data recorded because non of my recount or dmg meters were working). However, based on the new spell queue system and my testing with a hybrid arcane/fire spec (not ready to give up arcane yet), here's what I gathered.

Fire is definitley buffed. BUT the old arcane spec that uses rotations is now even more effective than before. The key thing is, you need two piece T5, and use fireball as part of your rotation.

I was using a rotation of 3XAB and 2XFB. And first the mana efficieny side. The buff to mana regen was powerful. With mage armor up, I took a very long time to run oom, whthout any raid buffs. I think with raid buffs, this rotation can be continued for a very long time, long enough to sustain for most or all fights.

Second, the DPS part. The key weakness of the previous arcane rotations were that their DPS was inferior and they relied on AB spam to get ahead. A rotation with fireball is very high DPS.

I couldn't get actual parse or anything. But with two piece T5, my arcane blasts were averaging 2000 dmg, and so were my fireballs. But fireball took 3 seconds to cast while arcane blast cast much faster. My fireball crit was much higher though, because of ignite, so it evened out.

But the net result I calculated based on a standard rotation was that I would average around 1100 DPS in a typical rotation based on those numbers. And that was non-raid buffed.

And I didn't factor in scorch. If I took time to scorch, the fireball hits would of course be higher, but to be honest, I think its better to let other full time fire mages cast scorch. Because this type of rotation doesn't use fireball often enough to justify spending time scorching.

And with the increased mana efficiency, and with enough raid support, I think this build would be able to spam arcane blast more often, which will then raise its DPS above the typical fireball spam rotation of fire mages.

So, Arcane isn't dead yet. You just have to go back to the old arcane way of rotations and hope/beg for a shadow priest in your group. For progression from two piece T5 up to 4 peice T6, it might possibly be the higher DPS spec. It at the very least should be a competitive one.

Once you hit four piece T4, fire will out strip arcane (and you won't be wearing two pieces of T5 anyway by then). But right up till then, I believe it is viable. Just my observations (can't be backed up any actual parse), from PTR.

Looking forward to the PTR. Arcane is not quite dead yet!

 

Raiste

amen, wish they'd take a queue from WC3 and make us sorta like the enh shaman version of mana users. The best candidates for the changes are already existing spells like armors and dampen/amplify magic. e.g.

mage armor: returns xmp5 to the mage and his party in 30 yrd radius
molten armor: increases crit mage's crit by 3% and party's crit by 1%
ice armor: In addition to the current effects, increases chance to resist stun/fear effects by X% for the party

amplify magic: increase damage and healing DONE by X, increases magic damage taken by 2X
dampen magic: decreases magic damage/healing DONE by X, decreases magic damage taken by 2X

These are not huge changes, just something that would increase our in combat utility with minor changes to things we already have.

 

Tyrian

While its a novel idea, its a step towards turning mages into paladin-like buffers. Every raid, every boss - every class will be nagging you for their buff. "Warlocks need amplify magic pls". They would have to turn the spells into class-buffs like blessings and even then it would be pretty annoying. Passive auras and armor ideas are much more easier to manage =)

 

◊ manly

If they do that amp magic change it still doesn't fix the fact that want no more than 1 mage per raid. It would just confirm that 'oh hey we need a mage in the raid' rather than actually making it interesting to bring more than 2.

If you make it more like a group buff, then yes that works. The problem however is that mages will always be grouped together due to their spriest/shaman requirements. And if you want to make 'stacking mages' something as interesting as stacking warlocks (for increased isb uptime and more COA/COD, which do tremendously help tip the scales comparing one class dps vs another). But something is important to mention, the group buff given my mages must absolutely stack. If it doesn't stack, then since mages are always grouped together it will have no net benefit towards 'making us desirable in a raid'. But then, if you follow this through, you might as well just go ahead and increase mage dps another way, and that'll be good enough to make us actually desirable in raids.

EDIT: in fact, what I would want is something closer to ISB in fact. Something like this:
-each time fireball/frostbolt/arcane missiles crits, a buff goes on the target that lasts 2 seconds which increases magic damage taken by 5%.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

seminarca

Reliance on outside buffs/debuffs is something everyone has to deal with, even Rogues. Take a T6 Rogue with full raid buffs/debuffs, in an optimized melee group.

Now remove his Windfury/SoE totem and Unleashed Rage.

Now remove his Battle Shout.

Now remove his LotP if applicable.

Now remove CoR from the boss .. Faerie Fire .. the 5x Sunder Stack ..

See where I'm going with this? The fact that Rogues perform unequivocally better could have something to do with the fact that most of the debuffs they need are already present (Warriors will stack Sunder while tanking, a DPSing or tanking Druid will put up FF etc). But if you remove the Rogues stackage, you'll find he does much worse.

Theorycraft posts and threads on these very forums suggest if you have a single Shaman in the raid that just so happens to be Resto, you'd be better off plunking him in the melee group for Windfury totem. That bias right there is the issue, and Windfury totem (even after its nerf) is one of the major factors.

Now I don't know whether a self buffed Rogue will outdps a selfbuffed Mage on a boss fight, and neither is that relevant. But my point is: 1) with the commonly available raid buffs/debuffs already present in most raids and benefitting Rogues greatly and 2) melee having WF/Shaman preference does play a part in it. I know that even in our raids (mid-SSC/TK level) melee get pampered with optimal groups (Enh Shaman, DPS Warrior, sometimes Ret Pally or Feral Druid depending on raid makeup) whereas Mages mostly just get a Shadow Priest. Naturally, our melee outperforms ranged on all but AoE encounters.

 

kycan

Could make it as something as simple as casuing Ignite to increase fire damage taken by 10% or some such. The mage equivalent of ISB. Would scale by number of fire mages and is not constrained by group.

 

JasonX

That will be the best and most logical solution I can think of. Maybe frost needs something along the same line too, for 21 point talent. Although I'm thinking that they will likely implement a talent that reduces damage taken by x% for y seconds instead.

 

Hate Monkey

Wouldn't that totally redo how the value of crit and haste are handled? Not just for mages, but all other classes?

 

ReignConfused

Stacking some serious crit if that talent comes into play!

Edit: Removed my question because upon further review, I can probably dig for the answer in the PVP archive and this was also probably the wrong forum. Continue on your way, nothing to see here!

 

Ztorm

Wait for tank to move Flame of Azzinoth to the top of his kite path, then summon your water elemental. Bloodlust immediately after you summon, so your WE gets the best effect. As soon as your WE expires, cold-snap and summon another one. You want to get through phase 2 as quickly as possible, so that's the ideal time to snap. If you are using the camp method and are on the edge of a circle, make sure you summon your elemental away from the tank so it doesn't get hit with blaze or eye beam.

 

Maledict

How would this be the equivalent of ISB? One of the kye features if ISB is that it's increasing damage for two clases (Priests and Warlocks) at once. No-one else uses fire damage - same as no-one else uses frost. If we are to gain buffs that have synergy with other classes, they need to move outside our elemental choices, because all our elemental options give us is a lack of flexibility and compatability with other classes.

 

Gramme

I wouldn't worry too much about choosing a spec for the parasites unless you're the only person designated to deal with them (which strikes me as slightly risky). We tend to use two mages, with help from a third if he's nearby. The parasites are sufficiently flimsy that 2 x (talented but non-shatter) Cone Of Cold and 1-2 x AE should be enough to kill them.

 

Searix

Conversely CoC, Frost nova, ice lance both until dead works just as fast at half the mana.

When i spec frost for illidan i just go the full shi-bang of 0/0/61, getting everything but frost warding and frostbite. Full blizzard helps a deal on the adds, the only mob that can be frost bitten are the parasites, but that doesn't really help. Everything else is just passively good to have.