in '' World Of Warcraft '' are spell-casting characters designed to deal damage, while also preventing monsters from dealing damage and providing utility for the rest of their party. In return for their ability to deal large amounts of ranged damage, although with an overall smaller DPS than Rogue , mages are very poor at physical combat, they wear the weakest of all armor types, and they have no ability to heal themselves. Races available for mages are: Humans, Gnomes, Undead, and Trolls.
- Excellent single-target burst damage dealer.
- Ability to damage multiple opponents simultaneously with Area of Effect Spells.
- Ability to even out fights with polymorph.
- Ability to conjure food and water (which can restore health and mana when not in combat).
- Ability to nearly instantly teleport themselves and party members to major cities.
- Practically nonexistent physical combat abilities.
- Dependent on a mana pool, limiting ability to perform over long periods of time.
- Weak armor and lack of any ability to heal.
- Their ability to deal single-target damage is now overshadowed by the melee-oriented classes in endgame.
- Poor caster item customization marks little improvement in terms of damage and survivability.
- Cannot sustain its damage dealing over time as well as other damage dealing classes.
'' casting Polymorph on an Orc grunt.]]
Mages are defined by their ability to cast various spells. Each of these spells costs 'mana' which can be replenished by resting, consuming drinks (spring water, milk, juice), or drinking mana restoration potions; Potions can be drunk at any time, but food and drink can only be used while the mage is out of combat. During long fights, mages can easily run out of mana and as a result will be unable to contribute to their group because they will not be able to cast any of their spells. Fortunately, mages are given the ability to conjure water, meaning they do not have to spend money to purchase water from vendors.
Mage spells fit into three categories: Fire, Frost, and Arcane. Fire spells are mostly pure damage spells. They allow the mage to deliver quick bursts of heavy damage, although some are not very mana efficient. An example would be fireball; at its highest level, this spell deals on the order of 700 damage to a target instantly, and another 50 or so over the course of several seconds. Frost spells are somewhat more defensive in nature; most deal damage but also slow enemy monster's movement, or even root them in place. An example would be frostbolt, a spell that does around 500 damage but also slows the movement of the target for several seconds. Arcane spells are mostly utility spells, although the two damage dealing spells in the arcane school are quite useful. An example of a utility or Crowd Control would be polymorph. This spell turns the mage's target into a sheep. While in this form, the opponent cannot attack or use any abilities, although its health is regenerated very rapidly. Arcane missiles is a damage-dealing arcane school spell, which is widely use by mages. It is a channeled spell which forbids the user from any other activities while the spell is channeling.
A mage's primary role in a party is to deal damage to monsters in the game world. Mages can blast a single monster with fire spells to quickly kill it, or 'kite' the monster, using frost spells to deal damage to it and slow it down, allowing the mage to keep distance between himself and the monster. Mages possess an unparalleled ability to deal damage to multiple targets at the same time, through the use of 'area of effect' spells, which deal damage to multiple targets in a geographical area.
In addition to dealing damage, mages have the ability to remove monsters (or other players) from a fight, preventing them from dealing damage or using abilities. The spells in the frost tree can slow monsters' movement, or even keep them rooted in place. Mages can even 'kite' monsters, by running away from them while they use slowing spells and deal damage to the monster with frost spells. The monster will chase after the mage, but will never reach because its movement is impaired. A mage can also remove one monster from a fight altogether by turning it into a sheep, allowing the mage and his party to focus on a single target instead of two.
Outside the battlefield, mages possess handy abilities. They can conjure food and water, saving money for themselves and their party members. They can teleport themselves and members of their party to major cities, saving potentially enormous amounts of time and money.
In patch 1.11, mages are scheduled to receive a class review. The developers will look at what needs to be improved with the class, and after testing, put the patch (1.11) onto public realms. As of now, Blizzard has released the following:
Tseric:
"Mage Community Concerns/Desires
Overview-
As the game has progressed in development and other classes have been reviewed and/or buffed, it is a common sentiment that the mage class has been surpassed in effectiveness and players feel relegated to a utility class rather than a master of ranged damage. Several elements serve to illustrate a disparity between this class and others:
- Itemization for melee classes is more robust, allowing for versatility and/or involvement in many aspects of the game. An example being the selection of PvP rewards for melee as compared to caster.
- How damage scales between melee and caster classes in the high-end game is felt to be inconsistent. With basic improvement in stats, the melee classes garner more potential damage output, while casters receive benefits through improved stats that do not assist in improved damage output. An example of this is how crit% can be increased through agility for melee, but caster classes must rely on specific items to improve crit%. With spell effectiveness being capped through spell level, melee classes do not have a similar damage curve, as weapon/armor upgrades are common and allow a continued damage increase at the high-end.
- While mages have the potential to deal solid amounts of damage, this is curbed by the challenge of aggro management. So while mages may still possibly be the best direct-damage casters, in practice they must hold back in raids/dungeons due to a lack of agro management spells/abilities. This is a paradox of paper/practice that mages would like addressed.
- Increased melee damage is allowing players to get closer to “one-shotting” mages. As a mage’s health pool is lower than most (if not all) of the other classes, this makes large crits and single melee hits more effective against this class
Spells/Abilities-
- In terms of damage-dealing, the Arcane tree is considered weakest. Any consideration to add more damage potential to this tree would be desired (especially in relation to Arcane Subtlety)
- Added teleportation would be desired. Possible bonuses due to reputation standing for portals. An example being a free/reduced-cost self-port to a main city with which you had Revered status.
- The DoTs added from multiple-sources of spells such as Fireball and Ignite should stack instead of taking up valuable “real estate” in the debuff slots.
- Ice Armor/Mage Armor does not scale at the high-end, decreasing effectivness as players progress through the end game.
- Amplify/Dampen Magic is not used much as spells; The talents for improvement, less so.
- Continued increases to stats/mana pool drives the need for higher level Conjure Water to keep up with demand. It is regarded as simpler/more efficient to make Conjured Water regenerate by a percentage rather than by set quantities.
- Mages would like some enhancement to the functionality of Detect Magic. As it stands, there are few circumstances where this is found to be useful.
Talents-
- Because many mages regard Improved Arcane Explosion as necessary, it would be preferred if it was simply made into an instant-cast spell available through training alone and not through talent point expenditure. The same sentiment applies to Evocation.
- Arcane Focus and Subtlety should affect all spell schools instead of just the Arcane tree.
- Wand Specialization is deemed by many to be worthless.
- Arcane Power is regarded as overpowered and generates “cookie-cutter syndrome” or a necessity to spec in the arcane tree to obtain it.
- The cost and restraints on Combustion do not seem to be worth the talent point investment.
- Improved mana shield would be preferred to scale better.
- Improved counterspell should be merged with the spell, as warlock pets get the silence effect flat-out and a player ability should be more powerful than a pet.
- Pyroblast has an excessive cast time compared to talent point cost. It’s damage compared to other fire spells enforces its undesirability in usage.
- Ice Barrier would be considered more effective if it scaled with +dmg gear.
- Ignite is preferred to have the DoT effect removed and have damage dealt in one lump sum.
Items/Itemization-
- It is regarded that fire-resistance on items is too proliferous. This can greatly affect the PvP environment, where melee classes do not necessarily have to sacrifice other bonuses to have a great deal of resistance to a spell school. As it stands, fire spells are having damage mitigated through resistance to an excessive degree.
- Due to game mechanics, +dmg bonuses affect instant cast spells to a lesser degree than longer cast time spells. In PvP, with a desire for burst DPS and overall speed, this is considered to be unbalanced. Melee classes can maintain a consistent damage output while casters are relegated to longer cast times to get the most from +dmg gear.
- Set bonuses for the Arcanist set are regarded as lackluster.
- Zandalarian Hero Charm and Talisman of Ephemeral Power are highly desired for their large bonuses to spell damage and were once considered overpowered, due to their stackable nature. The ability to activate both trinkets simultaneously was removed in patch 1.10, thus reducing concerns about their perceived overpoweredness.
- The Royal Seal of Eldre’Thalas is felt to be incomparable with other, similar classes’ trinkets.
Stats/Mechanics-
- The nature of binary spells works in a way to mitigate damage in a way that is not comparable to other types of damage mitigation. Unlike fire resistance damage reduction, a resisted frost spell will not deal any damage.
- The distinction between how Str/Agi effects melee class damage output and Int/Spi effects Mana cap/regen is not one that sits well with mages. It is regarded that this distinction allows melee classes to continue damage improvement easily, while mages are left only with +dmg gear to increase damage.
- Dispellable effects/talents are a thorn for mages, particularly in a PvP environment. Many top tier talents are desired to be undispellable or incur some cost to dispelling them.
- Melee classes can get crits on sitting characters, while casters can not.
Misc-
- Numerous bugs which have been prevalent for a while affect gameplay negatively for mages. Mages would like more attention invested to correcting these (espc. Blink, Arcane Missiles)
Wish list-
- Allow for some control of direction with blink. An example being, blink in the direction you are moving/strafing.
- Reduce cooldown for Evocation
- Remove the reagent cost for slow-fall
- Mana stones should not be soulbound
- Invisibility!
- A talent that allows for multi-target sheeping
- A knockdown/back effect with Cone of Cold (possibly talent based)
- Make Silence affect Hunters
- A method by which to interrupt melee attacks, much in the way melee classes have caster interrupts
- An Arcane Ward similar to Fire/Frost
- Some manner of dispel (aside from remove curse). Or even, trade spells with the priest class"
- Markable (set to any location) Teleport/Portal Runes.
Mages in endgame content such as Molten Core , Blackwing Lair , Zul' Gurub , and Onyxia's Lair have certain roles different from those outside the endgame. Mages are primarily brought into raids to:
- Conjure water and food for other members
- Provide strong AoE spells
- Provide ranged DPS
- Crowd control
- Decurse party members
- Detect buffs on various mobs to be dispelled
While mage DPS is generally secondary, their constant output and large burst damage ability make them a strong force in any endgame raid. Nonetheless, in player vs. player combat, the mage's ability, once equipped with good gear, to one-hit kill enemies makes them the first or second target in group PvP. However, if they are coupled with a decent healer and stand away from combat, a mage can kill a few enemies in a very short period of time before being noticed and decommissioned. Mages also have attained the second-highest numerical hits in the game, second only to warlocks. However, the mage class currently does not have abilities to lessen aggro like a priest's fade, a rogue's feint or the hunter's feign death.
|
