Class most excited about TBC

[rayfieca]

Ok here is a question for all of you lucky beta testers.
I am getting bored with my priest now who has been raiding for a while and maybe it is just a phase, but I find myself logging in less and less and when I do staying on for a LOT less time. I want to start an alt to level up for TBC.
What classes look like TBC is going to be good to? What class would you pick for an alt for TBC?

[Kyusoath]

i'm leveling warlock and loving it, its gonna be a really hot class in tbc.
but i already have my 60 druid, and the changes made to druids in tbc are by far the most comprehensive of all the class changes, nearly everything the druid community has been asking for is being implenmented.

its an exciting time for druids , things are going to change big time, moonkin will be awesome (hope) cat and bear will be nice options now (potions in forms! weapon procs in forms) improvements all round mean more viability and versatility , essentially with the right build a moonkin can be a meelee mage/ battle mage , something missing from wow(ok shamens are like that but moonkin can have more armour)

[Astayanax]

For most excited, it would be a toss between warlock and druid.

For most dreaded (or least excited), it is mage by a long shot. The class is still getting nerfs for the longest time now, with no compensation.

[inkmva]

For most dreaded (or least excited), it is mage by a long shot. The class is still getting nerfs for the longest time now, with no compensation.


pfft you can do portals and got the best CC in-game, of COURSE you need a huge nerf.

They should just remove all offensive abilities really. That's the only way to counterbalance the horrbily imbalanced crowd control and portals.

Jeez.

:tongue:

[KalziEast]

Or they should just make them not crit 23/7.

[Gyoza]

Or they should just make them not crit 23/7.

I second this... 6-7k crits are ridiculous!

[Grendo]

For most excited, it would be a toss between warlock and druid.

For most dreaded (or least excited), it is mage by a long shot. The class is still getting nerfs for the longest time now, with no compensation.Best outlook going into TBC: Warlocks and Druids

Worst Outlook: Hunters and Mages.

[kreyson]

I agree with the warlock and treehuggers, but, the shammans are going to be shapping up quite nicely too.

The enhancement tree is going to be very sweet and i had a hell of alot of fun leveling my alt shammy up to L60.

[Astayanax]

pfft you can do portals and got the best CC in-game, of COURSE you need a huge nerf.


I won't say sheep is the 'best' CC. It is as equally viable as fear except fear had the edge for soloing and pvp while polymorph the edge for pve groups.

As for portals shrug, the game not only have hearthstones, but at TBC will allow people with access to Outlands the ability to portal to any major city they want. At least here, warlocks got a 'nerf' as mages since there will be summoning stones at instances.

[rgirty]

Priests, I think a lot of raiding priests have already parked their mains at the trainer drooling to hit the shadow button.

[kagirath]

My feral/resto druid is loving the changes coming up. I won't have any of the high tier talents, but I will have tons or armor, tons of mana, low mana cost on my spells, and a lot of melee power.

[Beruen]

I won't say sheep is the 'best' CC. It is as equally viable as fear except fear had the edge for soloing and pvp while polymorph

Not sure I can agree with that. Sheeping has a lot more than just an edge once you start instancing. I almost never see fear used in an instance, since it almost always brings down more on top of you than you're scaring off. The only exception to this is if we've cleaned out all the trash mobs in the area. On the other hand, if no sheeping is going on, it usually means we don't have a mage in the group.

And I say this on behalf of my mage, priest, and warlock. The removing all offensive abilities is going to far, and I took it as scarcasm.

[inkmva]

And I say this on behalf of my mage, priest, and warlock. The removing all offensive abilities is going to far, and I took it as scarcasm.

You won, I salute you with a waving smiley:
:wave:

[KalziEast]

Wow, I'm surprised I didn't get a HUGE wave of anti-me posts. =D

[Suave]

cat and bear will be nice options now (potions in forms! weapon procs in forms) improvements all round mean more viability and versatility , essentially with the right build a moonkin can be a meelee mage/ battle mage , something missing from wow(ok shamens are like that but moonkin can have more armour)
Procs and pots have been taken away again.
Melee moonkin won't really work till blizzard change it so that swing timer doesn't reset on spellcast for them (this is already the case with shamans and paladins).

[dsrbo]

Been looking around at what BC offers and wanted to point out: for shamans its rather boring. The resto tree gets nice things, but the new talents from elemental and enhancement just don't do any good. It's fun for a few hours, but then again you feel useless.

[Lezwyn]

I'm quite excited with the priest changes. I know most healers don't like the changes to decursive and downranking, but I've never relied on those two anyway, so I will probably not notice the changes that much. Besides that priests got some cool new spells and still probably have the most specialization available in the talent trees. Not as in am I going to be tank or dps'er, but more like do i want to be a pvp healer? Do I want to be a pure pve damage dealer? pvp damager? solo ability? etc.

[KalziEast]

Pretty much anyone who's not a Rogue is excited. Grats to everyone who got buffed. =)

[Lezwyn]

I don't understand how priests will be able to beat rogues anymore with cloak of shadows, pvp trinket and will of the forsaken. There isn't even a point anymore in casting psychic scream now. My best bet would be to just stand there cast powerword shield/prayer of mending and hope someone will save me, because it's hard to deal much damage to a rogue when you're so often interrupted.

[KalziEast]

I hope you realize that PRIESTS SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO BEAT ROGUES. Priests = Healers, yet look at that... We still do less DPS than them, especially on single target DPS. That's like watching a Paladin 1-hit a Warrior or something.

[Suave]

So who should be able to beat rogues Kalzi? You're one of the most partisan posters I've seen on these boards :P

[KalziEast]

Nobody should be able to beat Rogues in DPS, flat out. That's all I'm saying.

[Lezwyn]

I hope you realize that PRIESTS SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO BEAT ROGUES. Priests = Healers, yet look at that... We still do less DPS than them, especially on single target DPS. That's like watching a Paladin 1-hit a Warrior or something.

I have no idea what you're talking about when you say priests deal more damage than rogues. However this is not about PvE, but PvP where honestly I think rogues will be much stronger than priests especially 1v1. I know not every fight will be 1v1, but it's not like it's hard for a rogue to pick his fights.

[KalziEast]

I really hope that we finally do beat Shadow Priests in PvP.

[Suave]

With Cloak of Shadows you'd have to be pretty gimpy not to :)

[KalziEast]

Lag + Me = =(, so, that actually doesn't help that much. I'm mainly a PvE person.

[Suave]

Please don't tell me you want rogues to be so overpowered that you can still win easily with lag :P

[Netow]

Priests SUCK in the expansion, I'm about to give up on mine and level a warlock. Why those keep getting buffs anyway?

And Kalzi you have no idea about what you're talking about

[Valas Azuviir]

I'm going to level a warlock. Why those keep getting buffs anyway?


Because for the longest time, they were one of the redheaded step-classes in the game and got nerf after nerf, and considering they left Beta barely functional, some TLC was required.

[inkmva]

On one side, theres some TLC.
On the other sides, theres just plain insanity.

They're probably fine, but in the beta I run the other way when I see one after a few encounters. Might just be me.

[KalziEast]

Yes, they went from one of the WORST classes in the game (I had one early game =P) to one of the best classes (BC) It took 2 years about, but I guess it's finally getting better for them.

[runeful]

i think the priest ability un unbubble a pally is gonna make them even harder to kill in pvp (from a pallys view any way)
but i am excited bout the pally prot tree in TBC as we will be viable tanks now be nice to have a change from spam FoL and cleanse in raids or goin full ret speced for PvP we can now acualy do as a pally does and keep u safe from dmg and give the fury war a time to shine. plus i think we will lvl faster due to the act that we can nock ff "red" quests easily solo so more xp ya

[Hrungnir]

The warlock buffs are a mixed blessing... on the one hand, those warlocks who started back when we kind of sucked and had to get by on skill are now AWESOME... on the other hand, we now have a bunch of wannabes crowding up what used to be a very elitist class :) And because the old school warlocks are now overpowered, no one likes us :/

Still, even I think our talents inTBC are a bit... much...

As a druid, these changes make me ecstatic... aside from the fact that I'll still have to heal all of the time anyway. I already mitigate as much as most warriors in less than tier 2, but it hasn't saved me from healbotting now, and I doubt it will in the expansion.

[Mordivine]

My warrior is fully respecced to prot and i doubt i will ever have to pay for a talent reset ever again as blizzard are imo pushing all warriors down the prot tree and i dont mind that.
I do have my lock who i am going to be using for all things not pve.

[KalziEast]

Yeah, the Warrior Protection Tree got NICE. A 41 point Prot Warrior will be the best aggro holder ever, and he'll also gain at least a little DPS from a couple talents in there. Especially the 40 pointer =).

[Delex]

Having now played a Blood Elf Rogue to level 15, I really love arcane torrent for a rogue. Mana Tap three mana users and over the next 10 min get a free 30 energy. Kinda cool.

[sheffra]

Pretty much anyone who's not a Rogue is excited. Grats to everyone who got buffed. =)

Cloak of shadows is godly. Combat will continue to be the best PvE dps tree...

What are you talking about?

[KalziEast]

Mages > Rogues in DPS especially AoE, and now they're going to be the best single target DPS as well. One new skill isn't going to make THAT much of a difference.

[Suave]

You realise AoE for mages was recently nerfed right?

From what I've heard bears still out-aggro warriors just like live.

[pyros templar]

Not sure I can agree with that. Sheeping has a lot more than just an edge once you start instancing. I almost never see fear used in an instance, since it almost always brings down more on top of you than you're scaring off. The only exception to this is if we've cleaned out all the trash mobs in the area. On the other hand, if no sheeping is going on, it usually means we don't have a mage in the group.

And I say this on behalf of my mage, priest, and warlock. The removing all offensive abilities is going to far, and I took it as scarcasm.

As you progress in instaces, polimorph is used less and less. Actually, I've only used poli to my own team members for quite some time. Fear is used in a few bosses and trash mobs (such as the mob before Twin emperors...). I'd say, including poli MC party members, it is used at least as often as poli in the BWL+ instances. Neither is much used.

[pyros templar]

Mages > Rogues in DPS especially AoE, and now they're going to be the best single target DPS as well. One new skill isn't going to make THAT much of a difference.

There is no logical reason that dictates rogues as the top DPSer, even on single targets. And although Blizzard publicly put Mages as the top DPSer before launching the game, that doesn't mean that they have a divine right to the spot.

On live, Rogues usually top the charts, followed by mages and then locks. Sometimes those positions get a bit more mixed up, but, in general, that is the order.

Seeing the buffs/nerfs in actual beta, I really don't think that Kalgan's statement (the one that put mages as the top dps in single targets) has any real connection with what the players are actually reporting from their experiences. "Mage damage = zomg"? sure, if you are POM specced and use arcane blast. It will do great damage.. for a few seconds, then you run OOM. Not the basis for raiding and killing bosses...

So, and connecting to the subject, rogues seemed to have been buffed quite a lot for PvP, and still very respectable in PVE (I really doubt that mages will outdamage them even in high AOE scenarios... if they will exist). So they do have something to look forward.

Locks, well, guess they have no reasons not to be smiling. And a lot. Priests also are happy (shadow specced ones :)).

Mages, well, they are talking more about reroling than anything else...

[Loriel]

I think Kalgan is seriously regretting making that blanket statement declaring Mages to be the #1 dps class, even on single targets - as it made all the Rogues cry out in frustration. In live WoW, Rogues with an equivalent equipment level outdamage my Mage all the time on single targets. IMO that doesn't mean that I suck at playing my Mage, it's just that this is the strength of the Rogue class - high, sustained dps. A Mage will outdamage them on AoE and probably do more burst damage for a period of time, but because of mana constraints it is hard to sustain it. I think Rogues will still outgun Mages in many raid encounters, simply because Rogues have the "luxury" of not bringing any major utility to the raid. They can focus on doing max dps at all time, while Mages need to CC, decurse etc. Mages can also dps from max range, requiring less TLC from the healers and in general being less stressful to keep alive.

As such I can understand the Rogue class' concerns. If a Mage can outdamage them while still safely providing the needed support functions, why would a raiding group pick a Rogue over a Mage? With the new 25 man raiding cap, those slots are hard to come by - and it's understandable that all classes feel like they should have abilities that justify them taking up one of those slots.

If OTOH this frustration is fueled only by the e-peen desire to be #1 on the damage meters, then nope - no respect from me. Then again I never did care about damage meters :)

I was skeptical of the Mage changes at first, but having thought about it and also tried out my Mage in BC Beta I am pretty optimistic. I think the Fire tree is a bit lacking when compared to the Arcane tree, so I think a lot of Mages (including me) will do like pyros - spec deep into Arcane for the heavy burst damage, and then enough points into Frost to get Shatter. Personally I'm pretty excited about eventually going raiding with a heavy Arcane spec, which I've never done before - simple because it hasn't been a viable option.

[Lezwyn]

I think Kalgan is seriously regretting making that blanket statement declaring Mages to be the #1 dps class, even on single targets - as it made all the Rogues cry out in frustration.

That Kalgan quote you speak of said mages were the top class damage wise and this let to some nerfs etc, so it's not really Blizzards intention to keep them first it seems.

[Ravaha]

I am a druid and I know- I would never go that again if I had to choose again knowing what I know now. I have spent alot of time lvling it to come to find its one of the weakest in the game. I am thinking about requesting it be moved to a pve serverer for I am sick of being owned everywhere I go. After runing from the graveyard about 1000 times gets very old very quick. I think at times the horde fells sorry for me at after they kill me a bunch of times They seem to even leave me alone. It is very very sad. Seems turning yellow and running doesn't even work anymore for I am so weak now it don't even matter anymore. I know alot of people are deleting there druids because of it. It even seems hunters will be able to own druids in the new update. So if they move it to a pve server at least I could turn the flag off. Then only the monsters will be able to own me. I heard in the new update warlock are the only thing to play. Why you think cloth idems are selling so good now.

[pyros templar]

I am a druid and I know- I would never go that again if I had to choose again knowing what I know now. I have spent alot of time lvling it to come to find its one of the weakest in the game. I am thinking about requesting it be moved to a pve serverer for I am sick of being owned everywhere I go. After runing from the graveyard about 1000 times gets very old very quick. I think at times the horde fells sorry for me at after they kill me a bunch of times They seem to even leave me alone. It is very very sad. Seems turning yellow and running doesn't even work anymore for I am so weak now it don't even matter anymore. I know alot of people are deleting there druids because of it. It even seems hunters will be able to own druids in the new update. So if they move it to a pve server at least I could turn the flag off. Then only the monsters will be able to own me. I heard in the new update warlock are the only thing to play. Why you think cloth idems are selling so good now.

AFAIK you can't move chars from a PVP to a PVE server. Anyway, druids are a not so easy to master class, and yes, they are weak on the PVP area - although mages do have quite a few difficulties in dealing with them, if nothing else, because you are immune to most of their tricks.
But do wait for the BC before passing judgement, because the druid class will be quite reworked, although I'm not familiar with the details.

Regarding hunters, well, they were buffed a lot to this patch. Yes they can two or three shot a clothie, mages in particular. It is not even hard it seems - 2 instants and a 0.5s skill (and they even complain they have to stand still for that one...).

Look in the bright side - you can stealth.

[Golug]

AFAIK you can't move chars from a PVP to a PVE server.

For the record, you can. You just can't move the other way. :)

[pyros templar]

For the record, you can. You just can't move the other way. :)

Oooops, ISC, sorry, my bad :embarassed:

Mixed the restrictions :rolleyes:

[Baboon]

Kinda offtopic, but as a priest and rogue, what annoys me most of warlocks is that their fear hardly breaks from anything. That gives them an extreme edge over my characters. A big shadowbolt should really break it, or 4 dots.

And if my rogue manages to work around it with a stunlock, kick, running through etc, there is always the dreaded deathcoil. In that situation a priest would be screwed, he can fear only once anyway.

So I know warlocks used to be hard and weak, but now they are really really strong, and I don't see any reason why they should get those talents which obviously makes them stronger again.

Btw I have a warlock myself and kinda abandoned it. I know for raiding they aren't the best, but the pvp part isn't right atm.

[Academos]

Well as to mages and dps, why cant blizzar not just alter the mage talents so we have a dmg spec, a survivobility spec and a balance spec? Im so tired of getting outdamaged by rogues in instanses, even with my dmg gear +470dmg i can only just about keep up with rogues if i dont need to do stuff like decursiing and so on. There should be a magic based dps class who atleast could be as good at dps as rogues. Im not saying that i want the mage buffed, just our talents shifted so that we get a chance to focus on full dmg.

[pyros templar]

Aham, in live mages do fine damage. I really don't support the "e-peen" approach of the damage meters. And, actually damage meters do cause quite a few wipes...

The issue - to all classes - is what they bring to the table in terms of gameplay, and, talking about PVE, in terms of cooperative gameplay. Damage (single, multitarget; direct, over time; magical, physical..), healing, crowd and enemy control (poli, banish, fear, tranq, root, FN, interrupt, silence) and other utility abilities /mana, protection, summon, resing, dispelling,...) are all part of the assets a player/class has. Question becomes how do you balance all those attributes among the classes, and, at the same time, still provide a fairly balanced PVP.

If you start having a class that has better PVP, better crowd control, better damage and more utility than another - like Locks vs Mages, you start to have problems in class balance.

Going to the mages, in live, they have 3 trees (bet you didn't know this one! :P). One is damage (fire), the other is survival (frost) and third is utility - exists to support the other two really. Maybe not perfect, but it works. One of the reported problems in TBC is that mages new talent trees lead to only "3 minute" mages are viable in every tree...
But we shall see what the final version brings.

[Academos]

I know that fire have the role of the mage dmg spec in the current pre TBC game, however if u wanna PvE u cant use this spec since all bosses in MC and BWL more or less are imune to fire dmg, so mages has mainly been forced into frost if they wanna PvE. I dont want to ofset the balence of the game i just want a tree where i can focus my talents on doing dmg:)

[Esoterik]

One thing i will say not being a mage in BC beta but just trying 41 talents on the ptr 2.0 arcane is the buff mages have been waiting for. The major thing in my eyes that a mage is a paper cannon. We have HUGE burst dps with little or no escape from the damage or a fight if we cant kill it. Rogues can vanish blind ext. to get out of a situation not to mention if there engineering with the cloaking device in pvp thats just an extra vanish. Mages have no real escape from damage hence my feeling they should have the high dps = or > a rogue. Not to mention the cloth armour we wear. I think the greatest +dmg is going ot be mind mastery trying that out in the PTR was amazing you get +damage from any int buff in the game and slow really levels the playing field when it comes to high dps high resistance wars or rogues. now like i said i havent played the BC yet and havent seen the new spells upgrades and such but just the 41 talents fromt he PTR makes me pretty excited to see it.

[Astayanax]

The issue - to all classes - is what they bring to the table in terms of gameplay, and, talking about PVE, in terms of cooperative gameplay. Damage (single, multitarget; direct, over time; magical, physical..), healing, crowd and enemy control (poli, banish, fear, tranq, root, FN, interrupt, silence) and other utility abilities /mana, protection, summon, resing, dispelling,...) are all part of the assets a player/class has. Question becomes how do you balance all those attributes among the classes, and, at the same time, still provide a fairly balanced PVP.


Actually, this is only skimming it. You have to put in the factor of how many of each person is needed to do the other things into consideration as well as how many other classes (cross references) can also do these things.

Looking at mages, this show why their ultility is weak compared to every other class in the game except rogues who more or less has none.

Decursing - Druids can do it.
Water/Food - Convenience. Doesn't offset battles. Better versions can be obtained elsewhere
Portals - Convenience. Doesn't offset battles. Everyone will have access to portals in xpac
Dampen Magic - Great potential but Blizzard ruined it due to people farming some crap. Would be nice if this was made the anti-dot skill which would be balanced as both locks and priests (the dot classes) can remove it.
Amplify Magic - Great potential but ruined in its current implementation. Should be similiar to CoE except it should affect all schools of magic by a % and raise mana cost by a % (I am thinking 5%)
AB/AI - Decent but surprisingly the worst 'int' buff in the game available to all classes (even Druids own is better considering that they buff give other stuff too)
Healing/Rezzing - Can't do

What is even worse is that 1 mage (not 2, 3, 5, but --1--) can do ALL of these things for the group easy unlike other classes where you need multiple of them if you want to experience all of the buffs or in the cases of battle rezes/SS to have more than 1 of them.

When it boils down to it, most people look at mages for damage only and rightly so. With that said though, I do think that no Arcane/Frost mage should touch a combat oriented spec rogue in damage over the long run but a fire mage who have the least surviability in the game, the lowest hp, lowest armour and the least tricks of the trade (no improved CS for example) should at the very least match to what a combat rogue is capable of IF they get geared up to do so. I am well awared of the sacrifices rogues have to make, but fire mages aren't any better, just different in the sacrifices taken.

[Grendo]

One thing i will say not being a mage in BC beta but just trying 41 talents on the ptr 2.0 arcane is the buff mages have been waiting for. The major thing in my eyes that a mage is a paper cannon. We have HUGE burst dps with little or no escape from the damage or a fight if we cant kill it. Rogues can vanish blind ext. to get out of a situation not to mention if there engineering with the cloaking device in pvp thats just an extra vanish. Mages have no real escape from damage hence my feeling they should have the high dps = or > a rogue. Not to mention the cloth armour we wear. I think the greatest +dmg is going ot be mind mastery trying that out in the PTR was amazing you get +damage from any int buff in the game and slow really levels the playing field when it comes to high dps high resistance wars or rogues. now like i said i havent played the BC yet and havent seen the new spells upgrades and such but just the 41 talents fromt he PTR makes me pretty excited to see it.You also get to maintain 'safe' dps from 36-41 yards away. Not only does this increase the amount of threat youre allowed before you're 'it' but you also have less AoE concern (see: Cleave). The only difference vanish vs. iceblock is that iceblock makes you immune for x damage, vanish drops you from combat. Nevermind the utility (however favored) that mages have vs rogues.

As a hunter, I think the rogue edge in damage is more than justified in a pve environment. its not like its a big gap, anyway.

[sheffra]

Mages > Rogues in DPS especially AoE, and now they're going to be the best single target DPS as well. One new skill isn't going to make THAT much of a difference.

Mages are the AoE kings what do you expect?

And yes Cloak of Shadows makes THAT much of a difference. Wow, seriously.

[pyros templar]

You also get to maintain 'safe' dps from 36-41 yards away. Not only does this increase the amount of threat youre allowed before you're 'it' but you also have less AoE concern (see: Cleave). The only difference vanish vs. iceblock is that iceblock makes you immune for x damage, vanish drops you from combat. Nevermind the utility (however favored) that mages have vs rogues.

As a hunter, I think the rogue edge in damage is more than justified in a pve environment. its not like its a big gap, anyway.

Run death counters in instances and check who dies more often...Thats the definition of "safe". Last time I checked, rogues came on 4th - mages, priests and tanks above them (ok, tanks because they do get to be rezzed on bosses, so its MT, ad sometimes they die twice).

Oh, and IB is a 21 point talent. It is quite common for mages past MC not to have it.

[Astayanax]

Run death counters in instances and check who dies more often...Thats the definition of "safe". Last time I checked, rogues came on 4th - mages, priests and tanks above them (ok, tanks because they do get to be rezzed on bosses, so its MT, ad sometimes they die twice).

Oh, and IB is a 21 point talent. It is quite common for mages past MC not to have it.


Thank you for replying before me. This is the typical response rogues give without really thinking about it. Yes, (fire) mages can dps up to 41 yards away but tell me the last time you see this:

- Mage tanking Vael for 30 seconds
- Mage tanking Nef for 45 secs
- Mage tanking the 'Instructor' for 10+ seconds

Rogues while frail to aoe damage (which hurts fire mages especially just as much too if they are near) does and can turn around and 'tank' if need be with their evasive skills and naturally high dodge rate. Doesn't hurt that they have more HP and wear leather as well. Like I said above, it is a give or take in the sacrifices these 2 classes (fire mages and rogues) take to do their damage. If you want to say that rogues are a high maintainence class (for healing), that is more accurate.

Next, all rogues can vanish, blind and use various other tricks at hand to get rid of the heat once it is on them. a fire mage can not do that. Once they get the attention, it is a matter of luck physically dodging the mob long enough to stay alive. Sure Ice mages can iceblock, double ice barrier, get good armour and so forth but last I remember these guys aren't beating (pve) rogues in damage to begin with unless there is some ridicious aoe encounters involved.

The fact is that fire mages are the riskiest pve class to play with along with tanks and in some cases healers.

[pyros templar]

I know that fire have the role of the mage dmg spec in the current pre TBC game, however if u wanna PvE u cant use this spec since all bosses in MC and BWL more or less are imune to fire dmg, so mages has mainly been forced into frost if they wanna PvE. I dont want to ofset the balence of the game i just want a tree where i can focus my talents on doing dmg:)


Actually.. yes and no. Fire mage does quite well in MC and BWL if he is geared for that. Ofc that it is more sensible for guilds starting MC/BWL to have frost mages, but in a AQ40 lvl guild, you'll do MC/BWL quite well with fire mages, particularly if they are elementalists with (almost) all the damage of the fire and of frost, without any utility "perks" from arcane, or defense from frost (no IB) - a 0/31/20 tree.

Oh, and another thing regarding aggro management, rogues vs mages - not only rogues have a superior aggro dumping tool (vanish) as the effect of getting aggro as a mage is far worse in a boss encounter: if a rogue gets the aggro, he may get killed, but the tank usually can get the aggro back without further issues, and the encounter continues. If a mage gets aggro, the boss starts running towards him, into the caster group (including healers), and usually results in a wipe.

[Mackrealtime]

IMHO, mages and rogues have no reason to complain in PVE.. You guys both get aggro reduction, mages have a "better" sustained damaged, as with rogues. In pvp you guys may complain about deathcoil but the only people that complain about it are the people that dont have 60 locks. Locks have to be one of the softests classes if specced raiding, at all.. We have no blink, no snares, and a easiably kickable shadow school which pretty much limits our ability to do anything, also our spells are mana intensive with NO aggro reduction.
Sadly, the new warlocks will not be able to know what it was like before tbc and when the world of warcraft would just be realeased
And ps. We needed these buffs, some guilds bring 1 warlock to a raid just so we can improve mage dps, Fear has gotta be the easy spell to get out of anthing, gg

[pyros templar]

IMHO, mages and rogues have no reason to complain in PVE.. You guys both get aggro reduction, mages have a "better" sustained damaged, as with rogues. In pvp you guys may complain about deathcoil but the only people that complain about it are the people that dont have 60 locks. Locks have to be one of the softests classes if specced raiding, at all.. We have no blink, no snares, and a easiably kickable shadow school which pretty much limits our ability to do anything, also our spells are mana intensive with NO aggro reduction.
Sadly, the new warlocks will not be able to know what it was like before tbc and when the world of warcraft would just be realeased
And ps. We needed these buffs, some guilds bring 1 warlock to a raid just so we can improve mage dps, Fear has gotta be the easy spell to get out of anthing, gg

Mmmh... our Aggro reduction was nerfed from 30% to 10%. I just imagine the mage casualties in the 5 man instances. That is just one of the reasons that mages are NOT looking forward to this XP as much as they would otherwise be. Went from fairly balanced to fairly broken.. or so it seems :cry:

Personally I don't think locks needed any buffs - they could do damage well enough, although not as good as mages or rogues - as they already had superior utility compared to mages or rogues. Any guild that only takes one lock to a end game raid is rather, or has few locks or doesn't like SL to tanks, COE and COS, and, ofc, soulstones - all that takes more than one lock in a raid.

[Astayanax]

IMHO, mages and rogues have no reason to complain in PVE.. You guys both get aggro reduction, mages have a "better" sustained damaged, as with rogues.


I agree. however, mages are getting a threat reduction nerf next patch so they are the same as warlocks, and unlike warlocks will still have the lowest hp/armour in the game with no defense and no pet if spec fire. Even as far as wipes go, warlocks can kill themselves for no durability penalty thanks to hellfire.


In pvp you guys may complain about deathcoil but the only people that complain about it are the people that dont have 60 locks.


Wrong. I even see lots of threads from warlocks saying that this skill is op and not what the warlocks asked for. What gets me about Deathcoil in particular was that it was designed to be a defensive skill against melee, yet it was given huge range and thus be used as an offensive move against ranged. The skill range needs to be put down down to 8yrds or so but that is another topic.


Locks have to be one of the softests classes if specced raiding, at all..


Maybe before Deathcoil.


We have no blink, no snares, and a easiably kickable shadow school which pretty much limits our ability to do anything, also our spells are mana intensive with NO aggro reduction.


'Kickable' shadow school? Should explain.


Sadly, the new warlocks will not be able to know what it was like before tbc and when the world of warcraft would just be realeased
And ps. We needed these buffs, some guilds bring 1 warlock to a raid just so we can improve mage dps, Fear has gotta be the easy spell to get out of anthing, gg

No guild brings 1 warlock, even when they were at their worst because of curses, SS and the imp buff for tanks. Unlike mage ultility, yours can't be dimmed down to 1 person.

[Oatmealsmurf]

People are routinely taking 2 warlocks to Naxx... please speak of what you know. Threat reduction is a huge issue for locks in PvE. Now that I have a 60 mage as well as a 60 lock it simply amazes me how many frost bolts I can put out without drawing aggro. If I started shadowbolts right off after 2-3 sunders with my locks I'd have aggro by the third bolt. No one will "need" the lock's soulstones now that everyone gets Shaman with ankhs you can use them for wipe prevention. A lot of guilds don't use curse of recklessness that means one lock necessary for the tank group/imp buff and curse of elements. You don't need curse of shadows when you only have one lock. (although now with the tree changes and mages going arcane Curse of Shadows will be the primary curse people use).

Locks are only necessary for certain fights such as Garr and Lava Packs in MC... their CC on humanoids is unreliable because you can't reapply it before it breaks.. and it's dependent on having a pet out who is fragile and will die from one aoe attack. Fear is out of the question except on fights like Razorgore. You are vastly exaggerating lock utility in terms of needing a full compliment of locks on a raid. Most of our utilities are merely nice to have, but can be done without. So what you find in places like Naxx where locks simply can't keep up DPS wise due to lack of threat reduction talents you might as well bring a mage.

As far as the kickable shadow school I believe what he means is if you wait until casting a shadowbolt or channeling drain life you can kick and/or counterspell the shadowschool and make locks useless. Now I'm guessing he's specced SM/Ruin or Affliction and those are two bad PvP builds. If you are destruction you are going to be using a lot of fire based spells as well so the kick becomes less of a concern... and as a SL specced lock you have enough survivability to get past it.

DC however is no more overpowered than a big fat POM pyroblast. The bottom line is both mages and locks are basically reduced to pure ranged DPS in most cases under the current raiding format but Locks can't keep up with mages so many find themselves on the outside looking in when it comes to high end PvE content.

[pyros templar]

People are routinely taking 2 warlocks to Naxx... please speak of what you know. Threat reduction is a huge issue for locks in PvE. Now that I have a 60 mage as well as a 60 lock it simply amazes me how many frost bolts I can put out without drawing aggro. If I started shadowbolts right off after 2-3 sunders with my locks I'd have aggro by the third bolt. No one will "need" the lock's soulstones now that everyone gets Shaman with ankhs you can use them for wipe prevention. A lot of guilds don't use curse of recklessness that means one lock necessary for the tank group/imp buff and curse of elements. You don't need curse of shadows when you only have one lock. (although now with the tree changes and mages going arcane Curse of Shadows will be the primary curse people use).


My guild usually takes 4 locks to Naxx and 6 mages. So I kinda know what I'm speaking of. Ofc you'd get aggro far faster with shadowbolts.. do they make the same damage as the frostbolts? and the same crits? If I opened with a Pyroblast crit on 3rd sunder I'd get aggro almost for sure :azn:
Don't know if the arcane is going to prevail - maybe so, but the mana efficiency looks.. well...

Locks are only necessary for certain fights such as Garr and Lava Packs in MC... their CC on humanoids is unreliable because you can't reapply it before it breaks.. and it's dependent on having a pet out who is fragile and will die from one aoe attack. Fear is out of the question except on fights like Razorgore. You are vastly exaggerating lock utility in terms of needing a full compliment of locks on a raid. Most of our utilities are merely nice to have, but can be done without. So what you find in places like Naxx where locks simply can't keep up DPS wise due to lack of threat reduction talents you might as well bring a mage.

In TBC mages will have their Threat reduction seriously nerfed. Locks can outdps a mage in that scenario. Am I exagerating the warlock utility? Think not, and I do believe it is quite superior to a mage. Ban+fear certainly beats poli in terms of use. AOE, better not talk about it. COS will be quite used, not due to mages arcane tree but to buff Shadow priests. Oh, and the soulstone will remain as usefull as ever - as battle res if nothing else.

If you couple superior utility, with superior or on par damage, superior durability, well, that begs the question - why should you take more that a token mage for the AI? There is nothing that a mage brings to a raid (utility wise) that could not be done by a single mage.

DC however is no more overpowered than a big fat POM pyroblast. The bottom line is both mages and locks are basically reduced to pure ranged DPS in most cases under the current raiding format but Locks can't keep up with mages so many find themselves on the outside looking in when it comes to high end PvE content.

POM is a stupid spec in life, therefore DC is far more powerful.

Tbh it saddens me that Blizzard seems so keen in destroying mage cooperative play (ignites and AOE) and, at the same time, making all viable mage specs a 3 minute affair (at least according to beta feedback).

[Oatmealsmurf]

Dude please... you obviously run in a different than ordinary guild if you're taking shadowpriests on raids. The majority of guilds simply won't take them once they start BWL... let alone lean their raiding tactics towards them. The usual is a raid taking one shadow priest to aid the locks dps output with shadow weaving.

In PvE decursing, AI buff, free food/water and sheeping has much greater utility than banish fear... I think you must just be talking at this point because you took the stance and now you have to dance the dance. Where do you use banish outside of Lava Packs, Garr? And where do you use fear?

Granted my guild is not in Naxx yet but no banishing in ZG, AQ, or BWL thus far.. the only time banish is used in MC is for Lava Packs, Garr or if there is a bad pull and we pick up an extra anihilator or a surger. We use fear in AQ but warriors and priest have fear as well so it's not like not having a lock is going to kill a raid. And we use fear in the Razorgore fight... aside from that... where is the utility?

LFG channel is littered with requests for mages in groups... usually the only time you get a request for a lock specifically is if you are running DM or BRD. I see no logic in your arguments whatsoever.

[Mr_Teatime]

This is why I'm glad I have a high tolerance for pain. I played a warlock since release, when they were apparently the worst class by far, and leveled him to 60 without complaint. I love my mage now, and plan to make him my first 70 in BC, probably without complaining. Hehheh.

Anyway, I'm just curious about the term "3 minute affair." You mean mages can't live longer than 3 minutes?

[Aeracus]

The term '3-minute mage' is coming from mages who spec Arcane power, presence of mind or combustion, they all have 3 minutes cooldown so the mages aren't able to unload full power the rest of the 3 minutes after using these cooldowns.

And for the mage-warlock fight. Mages are doing superior dps at the moment since warlock dots are getting pushed of the 16 slots a lot and shadowbolts are really manainefficient, yeah we can lifetap, but that costs both time and healer mana, while mages have talents to use spirit better, which is passive, except for evocation but that too goes faster than a warlock lifetapping. Mages also have superior aggro reduction at the moment

After the patch, I really wouldn't know how much better the warlocks dps will get, but I have the feeling that it will go up quite a bit, because dots staying on. and we get almost equal aggro reduction. On AoE encounters though, mages will always stay the king, hellfire deals more dps than any other aoe, but it's cast on self, which means we are in melee range of mobs and thus it's easier to take aggro (130% more aggro for ranged, 110% for meleerange), it requires a lot of healing and it's channeled.

[Druishprnces]

Locks have to be one of the softests classes if specced raiding, at all.. We have no blink, no snares, and a easiably kickable shadow school which pretty much limits our ability to do anything, also our spells are mana intensive with NO aggro reduction.

No aggro reduction? 5 points in master demonologist + imp (which you should always have out in a raid anyway) = 20% aggro reduction. The demonology tree is highly underrated for raiding and I'll be shocked if it remains so after the 2.0 patch. It's always been the key tree for survivability, but the new talents make it a legitimate contender for dps too.

If you're seriously having a hard time as a level 60 warlock, consider respeccing.

Demonic aegis + fel armor and demonic knowlege combine for an (unbuffed) +123.8 spell damage with an imp out at level 60. 5 points in demonic tactics gives you an additional +5% to ALL damage. Add to this the best soloing pet ever (felguard) and I'll bet that most warlocks who focus on PvE (world and raid) will be putting 41 points in the demonology tree in the next couple weeks.

I hardly ever PvP, but I suspect the felguard will be a useful in battlegrounds as well. It's hard for a rogue to stunlock you when he's stunned himself. 30% damage reduction from soul link doesn't hurt either.

Sure, you can get a bit more damage from the affliction and destruction trees now (and even more in the expansion. But what does a couple DPS matter when you're reluctant to cast for fear of stealing aggro from the MT? At level 70, it will be 9/41/11 FTW

[pyros templar]

ahh, lets start

Dude please... you obviously run in a different than ordinary guild if you're taking shadowpriests on raids. The majority of guilds simply won't take them once they start BWL... let alone lean their raiding tactics towards them. The usual is a raid taking one shadow priest to aid the locks dps output with shadow weaving.


Firstly I'm talking about TBC - my guild doesn't take many shadow priests into Naxx also - actually just one to help in MC of instructors adds. But taking into account the very competitive damage and party utility (both healing ability and sinergies with locks) in TBC I do expect this will change. The limit will be the ability to recruit good priests (a rare comodity).


In PvE decursing, AI buff, free food/water and sheeping has much greater utility than banish fear... I think you must just be talking at this point because you took the stance and now you have to dance the dance. Where do you use banish outside of Lava Packs, Garr? And where do you use fear?

Granted my guild is not in Naxx yet but no banishing in ZG, AQ, or BWL thus far.. the only time banish is used in MC is for Lava Packs, Garr or if there is a bad pull and we pick up an extra anihilator or a surger. We use fear in AQ but warriors and priest have fear as well so it's not like not having a lock is going to kill a raid. And we use fear in the Razorgore fight... aside from that... where is the utility?


Free food is irrelevant. Water is more used, but it is a "nice to have" not really critical. And we shall see if the water regen in TBC will match the NPC sold one - as it is there are mages in the beta buying water from vendors, but the new water isn't implemented yet. And, like I said one single mage can provide water and AB for a whole party. Decursing is a nice feature, but like fear, it is a shared ability - and druids are the primary decursers (namely due to range and rythm).

Now, fear+banish vs Poli:
Uses for fear and banish in end game 40 man instances:
-MC: banishing accross the instance (lava packs, Garr adds,...)
-BWL: Razzorgore
-AQ40: adds at the end of the "AOE" tunnel (fear), adds b4 twins
-NAXX: ??

Uses for poli:
-MC: Majordomo Adds
-BWL: -
-AQ40: MC party members in Prophet
-Naxx: ??

Now, if you see, the trend is those CC utilities not to be used in end game instances at all.

What is used: Soul link, healthstone and soulstones. Tanks are critical in end game raiding - keeping them alive, that is :)


LFG channel is littered with requests for mages in groups... usually the only time you get a request for a lock specifically is if you are running DM or BRD. I see no logic in your arguments whatsoever.

Well, I'm not saying that mages get no party invites today - this thread is about TBC expectations.
And actually I'm not saying they will not get any invites in TBC either. There are several reasons for that - mages will continue to be a respectable DD, yes they give water, and, above all, are flashy :P.

What I was stating is that for logical, competitive, end game raiding, mages could very well become not very desirable, unless they have higher sustained damage than locks. 5-man and 10 man instances in TBC, well, will depend on the instance design (eg - Strat Scarlet as a "mage instance", DM as a "lock" instance).

But it still is in beta, so it is all conjectures and speculation.

[Grall]

Lots of talk about mages (which I know almost nothing about; my only mage is lvl10), rogues (which looks to have many new good skills and talents) and locks (which also look good).

Not so much talk in almost a full 7 pages about hunters though! :)

I can only speak for myself, but I am personally very excited about them, and feel it will be one of the funnest classes to play. Certainly for me, who is a kind of lone wolf-type character who prefers to go his own way etc. If I party, I generally play my priest instead and do the whole healbot routine.

There are a lot of new, exciting synergies in the hunter talent trees where one talent helps another talent or skill in interesting ways. That hasn't typically been the case before for the hunter, but now we have a bunch. One of the coolest is the talent that gives a chance to daze the target that goes hand in hand with our new steady shot, but we have the good ol lethal shots that give crit% that will help kill command and the go for throat talent (focus for the pet).

This gives rise to new and intriguing build opportunities that all hunters will prosper from methinks, despite the initial worries about "nerfs" to agility and such. From what I've seen from the test server, we have only grown better and stronger compared to what we were/are still in live. I know some whine we've become weaker compared to the best classes, but first off I don't know if that is really true to begin with. None outside blizzard, not even those on open beta, have actually tested the most recent betas of TBC, and nobody the finished game. Tweaking isn't fininshed yet.

Second, we still are one of the safest classes around. We have the best aggro-dumping skills around, we have traps, we have snares. We have a pet that in the coming version will take more abuse than ever without complaint while delivering even more damage still.

I don't see what people are complaining about. You can't both be ranged with superior escape abilities AND have superior damage delivery, it just doesn't make sense from a game balance point of view. The way I see it, we do more than decent enough damage, while having our safe life with feign death and disengage and all that. What more do we really need? :D

[Oatmealsmurf]

LOL... I like how you conveniently neglect to address decursing as a Mage utility. Let's see you get past even Lucifron without decursing. And fear as a lock utility is being vastly overstated by you. It's nice to have the single target fearing but our group fear that you need for Razorgore is a slow cast and usually a priest or warrior has already hit their fear by the time we can get ours off. Of course it will be improved in the TBC which is nice.

But anyway the whole point is that even though we're talking about TBC you need to look at how things are now to understand why locks are getting some of the stuff they are getting. And the fact is that as gear was scaling up locks became more and more expendable because we couldn't reduce our threat and that mitigated the amount of damage we can put out. Our other raid utilities are nice but not that vital to a raid's success except in certain encounters. Basically one per raid instance.

I do think the door will start to swing the other way though due to DoTs getting a boost in their spell damage bonus, threat reduction and more debuff slots.

And for whoever mentioned demonology. All raiding warlocks know about the option of going demonology and having the imp out for threat reduction. The problem is that the only way to match the damage output of a build like SM/Ruin is to sac your succy ... and if you sac your succy you can't have the imp out for threat reduction. It's a big catch 22. Either you can have threat reduction but not need it or need threat reduction and not have it.

[Grall]

Oatmeal and Pyros, maybe it's time for you two to simply agree to disagree. You don't seem to be coming any further in your discussion... ;)

[Druishprnces]

And for whoever mentioned demonology. All raiding warlocks know about the option of going demonology and having the imp out for threat reduction. The problem is that the only way to match the damage output of a build like SM/Ruin is to sac your succy ... and if you sac your succy you can't have the imp out for threat reduction. It's a big catch 22. Either you can have threat reduction but not need it or need threat reduction and not have it.

Going demonology, what you loose in DPS is minor and what you gain in survivability is major. I'm usually in the top 5 on the damage meters, and I very rarely pull aggro unless the MT dies. Granted having a lot of +damage gear probably helps, but I don't feel the least bit crippled with a 9/31/11 build.

That's how it is now. It will only improve with the new talents and spells. Demonic aegis + fel armor and demonic knowledge will add quite a bit to your damage output in a raid setting. In a solo PvE / PvP setting with the felguard, it gets even better. Don't forget, no matter what your preferred style of play is now, you'll be doing a lot of solo and small group questing in the near future to level up to 70. That felguard is going to be your best friend for a while.

With 43 points in demonology you get:
+15% Stamina (Demonic Embrace)
+3% Mana (Fel Intellect)
+3% HP (Fel Stamina)
+30 Spell Damage (Demonic Aegis [with Fel Armor rank 2])
+5% All Damage (Master Demonologist)
+30 All Resistances (Master Demonologist)
+5% All Damage (Demonic Tactics)
+75ish Spell Damage (Demonic Knowledge)
+3% All Damage (Soul Link)
30% All Damage Taken Transferred To Demon (Soul Link)
-3% Chance to be Critically Hit by Melee and Spells (Demonic Resilience)

And the Felguard would have:
+15% Intellect (Fel Intellect)
+15% Stamina (Fel Stamina)
+20% Melee Damage (Unholy Power)
+5% All Damage (Demonic Tactics)
+3% All Damage (Soul Link)
-15% All Damage Taken (Demonic Resilience)

When you add it all up, it's pretty impressive.

[Oatmealsmurf]

Not saying that your survivability doesn't go up drastically but no ruin and no saccy succ and no shadow mastery = gimped dmg output period. You can get all the +dmg gear in the world and it still won't change the fact that you don't do as much damage as you would with a different build. Soul Link is simply not a DPS focused build. I love the build but it's not a good "dps" build comparatively.

The new demonology tree however is very nice and you won't be gimped much at all (if any) interms of dmg output depending on which pet you play with. It's great and now Demonology looks like a very viable raiding spec.

[Astayanax]

LOL... I like how you conveniently neglect to address decursing as a Mage utility. Let's see you get past even Lucifron without decursing.


Who said mages have to decurse?


And fear as a lock utility is being vastly overstated by you. It's nice to have the single target fearing but our group fear that you need for Razorgore is a slow cast and usually a priest or warrior has already hit their fear by the time we can get ours off. Of course it will be improved in the TBC which is nice.


Granted but nevertheless it is used. Personally though I am not a fan of fearing for this encounter so I may be more inclined to go with you for a point here.


But anyway the whole point is that even though we're talking about TBC you need to look at how things are now to understand why locks are getting some of the stuff they are getting. And the fact is that as gear was scaling up locks became more and more expendable because we couldn't reduce our threat and that mitigated the amount of damage we can put out. Our other raid utilities are nice but not that vital to a raid's success except in certain encounters. Basically one per raid instance.


SS is always vital; always unless you have an instance on farm in which case it doesn't really matter who you send. The Imp's buff the same reason. Curses are always useful (not saying needed) as well. The thing is though that mages do in fact get better with gear as they are dependant as warriors. When I started MC, locks and shadow priests had the damage charts topped easy.


I do think the door will start to swing the other way though due to DoTs getting a boost in their spell damage bonus, threat reduction and more debuff slots.


You think? I know the door is going to be slammed the other way. You have to understand that it isn't just warlocks getting buffed; but mages getting nerfed.

[Oatmealsmurf]

From what I've seen... no one is getting nerfed. Locks and Druids certainly got some of their main gripes addressed but I also play a mage and a hunter (the two classes screaming about being nerfed). I'm sorry I don't see it. While slow is a horrid 41 point talent IMO it's still a nice utility. Mages are still going to be the kings of AOE and the arcane tree looks very very nice.

To me it just looks like Mages aren't getting as much as a buff as some of the other classes. But given that mages got their review not too long ago that's to be expected. Mages got a ton of great stuff in their review and expecting another huge buff for the expansion is just being plain greedy IMO. And no one is as dependant as warriors on gear. Mages are as gear dependent as most other classes in the game and no more really.

[Astayanax]

From what I've seen... no one is getting nerfed.


I beg to differ because:

- Mages are losing 20% threat reduction (unless specced Arcane)
- Rolling ignites got nerfed not once, not twice, but 3 times
- Elemental Precision for raiding purposes was butchered

Take it from me, these are not trivial changes and from tuesday you will see a huge difference in (fire) mages raiding capabilities and can more easily tell the difference between the good and bad ones.

From a pvp standpoint, there is the CS 'fix' which while good for consistency spells doom for even more mages again widing the gap between good and bad mages. Doesn't really help either that damage have been homogenized (I know I spell this wrong) yet surviability wasn't.

On the other hand, base damage was increased but that is kind of meaningless if you can't make the most out of it (PvE wise).


Mages got a ton of great stuff in their review


Have you been following the xpac? Virtually all of that 'great' stuff you mentioned is being taken back from Blizzard.

[Oatmealsmurf]

Rolling ignites are a creative use of game mechanics that was not intended. ... suck it up and deal with it. Mages are not Locks ... they are meant to do direct damage and not have a continuous debuff DoT that is better than debuffs a class that was made to be a debuffing class. You should have to do more than spam scorch to get that kind of damage output. And with the new limit of 40 debuff slots ignite would never get pushed off. That wasn't it's purpose and thus it was fixed.

And welcome to the world of actually having to control your aggro in pve. The locks welcome you.

You'll have to explain how elemental precision was butchered

[Gealach]

Our guild prefers to have 4-5 locks in raids. We don't generally bring any shadowpriests tho. The tanks LOVE the HP boost the imps give.

Mage raid utility is overrated. Sure we're nice to have, but locks can AoE and druids can decurse so we're not irreplaceable. Only on a couple minor fights is sheeping even useable, much less necessary.

Elemental Precision's effectiveness was cut by 50%.

On the other hand, fire spec has always been more of a PvP spec than frost and arcane, so I believe its being balanced according to how the new PvP will go. Its PvP buffs are quite nice. Frost threat reduction got nerfed but I'm not really that worried, since good mages can still manage their own aggro without much problem. Arcane spec may be the new raid spec, I'm not sure yet.

I'm unclear on why widening the gap between good and bad mages is a bad thing. People should play a class they're good at, and skill should be rewarded. "Easy to learn, hard to master" is Blizzard's motto.

Warlock buffs may have gone too far, but FOTM classes generally move to the head of the nerf line, so I'm not worried long term. Blizzard's logs > anecdotal experience, theorycraft, and whining.

[Astayanax]

Rolling ignites are a creative use of game mechanics that was not intended.


That is irrelevant; the fix of this is still a nerf to mage damage.


And welcome back to the world of actually having to control your aggro in pve. The locks welcome you.


Just correcting for you.


You'll have to explain how elemental precision was butchered


Gaelech answered this much kinder than I would.


Frost threat reduction got nerfed but I'm not really that worried, since good mages can still manage their own aggro without much problem. Arcane spec may be the new raid spec, I'm not sure yet.


I agree, this will further seperate the good mages from the bad. However, the problem here is damage output is defined by the maximum amount of aggro you can sustain before pulling it which in most cases will mean a drop in the damage done.

[Oatmealsmurf]

Well whatever... I'll agree to disagree at this point. Overall mages are better off after the new talents come out and from what I've seen the Arcane tree is prety sick now and Ice Lance is nothing to sneeze at. I don't think Mages have anything to complain about except the fact that they got a lame 41 point talent (pvp wise) in slow... although for pve it'll make kiting with an arcane spec as easy as frost... so it's not useless.

[Gealach]

I agree, this will further seperate the good mages from the bad. However, the problem here is damage output is defined by the maximum amount of aggro you can sustain before pulling it which in most cases will mean a drop in the damage done.

Currently I don't have to slowpedal my DPS. I expect that given the changes to other classes I prolly still won't have to slowpedal my DPS, even tho my spec (frost) had a threat reduction nerf as well.

The way I see it, PvE raiding is a group effort so its the DPS of the whole raid that matters, not the DPS of any individual. As long as the raid doesn't take too much longer due to slower killing pace its just not that big of a deal.

Perhaps if your guild is one where the raid leader tracks individual DPS/utility and bases raid invites on that information then its an issue. I'd hate to be in that type of guild tho.

[Astayanax]

The way I see it, PvE raiding is a group effort so its the DPS of the whole raid that matters, not the DPS of any individual. As long as the raid doesn't take too much longer due to slower killing pace its just not that big of a deal.


I disagree with this. While I have no problems with specs per say, everyone in the guild raiding force should be playing the very best they can. This means for dpsers that they should learn how to ride the aggro limit. It is true that one or two people not doing this is not going to have an impact, but you are left with two scenarios here:

a) If only 1 or 2 people do this and the rest are kicking their ass off, then as far as I am concern these 1 or 2 people are leeching.

b) The other people may decide why bother go all out if noone else seems to care about people who don't which will result in a HUGE difference in raid output.

Numbers have little to do with this as that for most part is gear dependant; however performance is skill and attitude dependant. This also extends to tanking and healing as well.

[Oatmealsmurf]

What makes you think you are going to have to scale back your DPS while raiding? There are going to be a lot of new utilities that allow warriors to generate a lot more aggro than before.

[Suave]

By lots you mean...? Devastate and... uh...
Yeah.

And according to most beta testers Devastate isn't actually much good.

[Oatmealsmurf]

As well as talents by Hunters like Redirection/Misdirection or whatever it's called.

[Astayanax]

I agree Oat. I am looking forward to see how the new balance between the threat Warriors can gain be in comparison to the threat reduction mages lost but when you have mages like me who can crit for nearly 4k (3500-3800 range) with fireballs every 3 seconds (once improved scorch and CoE is up with no other buffs), it is going to have to be pretty impressive.

Lets just say if in fact powerful mages don't have to hold back anymore than normal, without having invis I would be really surprised since after all, that is the main reason why they can do so much more damage than locks in the first place (well along with other things that also got nerfed). In the end it is fine as if we do have to hold back some, it is a matter of finding the new threshold.

Hunters misdirection was a TBC skill I thought although if it is available in the patch, that would be pretty good.

[Oatmealsmurf]

yeah I believe it's a trainable for TBC.... so it won't apply for tomorrow's patch I don't think. However, it was just the first example I could think of off the top of my head.

I think Warriors will be able to generate tons of aggro... but I also suspect that there will be a lot of aggro shedding bosses. It should be pretty interesting to see how everything meshes. We're gonna do Ony and either MC, ZG or hopefully AQ 20 (completely farmable instances for our guild) on Teusday if servers aren't too bad come patch day, to test how the respecs work out for different classes in a raid environment... Ony especially because it's an aggro control fight and it'll give us some idea of how the new talents will balance in that area.

[imbored]

I love the new druid skill hwoever im dissapointed us druids have always wanted to be "equil" but now that we are i dont know if it will be as fun

[pyros templar]

Rolling ignites are a creative use of game mechanics that was not intended. ... suck it up and deal with it. Mages are not Locks ... they are meant to do direct damage and not have a continuous debuff DoT that is better than debuffs a class that was made to be a debuffing class.
...

Are you advocating that shadowbolts to be nerfed or altogether removed from the game. (ok, and take searing pain with it)? Because, you know, SB crit higher than Fireballs on equivalently geared players and mages are "the direct damage class"....

All nonsense really.

Now, reagarding TBC, is it my impression or are druids/palas seriously competing with priests in healing - even outhealing them?

[TeamRamrod]

would anyone mind telling me whats wrong with being a mage in TBC? im starting up a mage and would like to know b4 i level him up alot. and what about rogues?

[Astayanax]

would anyone mind telling me whats wrong with being a mage in TBC? im starting up a mage and would like to know b4 i level him up alot. and what about rogues?


Nothing wrong really except mages will require more skill in pvp to play correctly than ever and will not really have any edge in pve now. In other words, expect a challenge from a damage/convienence ultility class.

[Oatmealsmurf]

Are you advocating that shadowbolts to be nerfed or altogether removed from the game. (ok, and take searing pain with it)? Because, you know, SB crit higher than Fireballs on equivalently geared players and mages are "the direct damage class"....

All nonsense really.

Now, reagarding TBC, is it my impression or are druids/palas seriously competing with priests in healing - even outhealing them?

The raw crit of a fireball but we all know the highest crits come from frostbolts so mages still rule the roost in the direct damage category in terms of crits. On the other hand base damage of fireballs out damage base damage of Shadowbolts when you spec for fire. vs. specced for destruction.

Nice attempt at a tip toe around the truth. And what does searing pain have to do with anything? The reference is out of place as it doesn't rank anywhere near the top of the direct damage chart.



Anyway after testing my mage out finally I definitely am not feeling sorry for mages. You generate like no threat with arcane spells anymore. I barely have to wait for one sunder before I can start spamming arcane missles which for me (blues, couple of greens and RotAM) hit for 400 non crit per tick. Means for each time I cast Arcane Missles I'm doing at least 2000 dmg and they crit about 40% of the time at 650 per... which equates to about 2500 per cast with hardly any threat? So while frost got a threat nerf.. Arcane is insane and slow is actually a little bit more useful than I originally thought it would be and it enables you to kite still like you would with a frost spec. I will admit that I'm a bit underwhelmed by the frost tree but my damage still went up considerably. I will play with fire next...

[pyros templar]

Nice attempt at name calling, but guess it is sop, right?

anyway I'm curious about the test - how many of those arcane missiles could you put out before running OOM? After all you were spamming them, and I heard that Arcane tree was doing really great damage but at insane mana cost, particularly Arcane Blast. In life AM is rarely used, despite having good damage, because the DPM and DPS are rather.. underwhelming to say the least.

Btw, has anyone confirmed whether Slow works against bosses?

[Oatmealsmurf]

No one is calling you any names. You conveniently avoided the fact that while the Fireball crit is lower than a Shadowbolt crit it also gains the benefit of a dot with the SB does not and the fact that frost bolts crit higher than shadowbolts. Also you have to spec into ruin (in otherwords you cannot be a demonolgy lock with Fel Guard or full affliction and necessarily have your SBs crit higher than fireballs). You deliberately attempted spin the discussion in a way that was misleading. That's not name calling that's just what you did. Not to mention the fact that you are going off what you "heard" about the arcane tree. Surely you didn't expect to not be called on that.

As far as spamming arcane missles I did not have a problem with mana. Granted my mage is not my main so I've only been in ZG and UBRS with him to this point but the only time I was having trouble with mana was in the 6 side rooms with summoners in UBRS but that was because we aoe those rooms and I was using AE which was a mana drain. Other than that... I spammed Arcane Missles all the way through the rend event and Drak and never even had to use evocation. I was able to make it through Bat, Spider and Snake in ZG using evocation and mana rubies/RotAM.

They use more mana to cast than frostbolts but my frostbolts were critting for 1600-1900 with 51 points in frost... regular about 800-900 or so... (prepatch my crits were 1400 tops with frost bolts in a 17/0/34 spec with the same gear) and I didn't have clear casting obviously.

But as I said above one cast with AM nets me an average of 2500 damage... if they all crit we're talking slightly over 3k damage... plus I have clearcasting as well as the talent that allows you to get 50% crit chance off a clearcasted spell... (which is better than shatter in raids since even on the mobs you can freeze in place they are often broken out of freeze before you can cast a frost bolt). In other words I use more mana for the same number of casts but do far more damage so it balances. For direct damage Arcane is the tree you want. You might not have used AM pre patch... But if you spec arcane you will find that AM will be the spell you get your primary damage out of. I was hoping for a bit more out of AE... but that's really negligable.

I haven't tried slow on bosses I just assumed it wouldn't work like most CC.

[SwervinCL]

So since update 2.0 is out with all kinds of new content. Are the talent trees going to remain the same, or are they again going to make me respec? I was under the impression that the new talent trees were going to stay. Correct me if im wrong.

[Dheemersi]

This is easy. If you want to be a mindless DOTer and stand around hitting the same keys over and over again be a Warlock. If you want the challenge and have the dedication to be the best, get the gear/skill, be a mage.