I've had a few people chew me out already for my lack of interest in this change, so let me explain:
Primarily, mages are not class that take a lot of damage. The class has the best tools of any in the game to avoid physical damage, and while there are definitely windows of vulnerability especially against multiple targets, I think most mages would rather just see their abilities made more effective than "tank" damage they cannot avoid better.
In arena, mages are seldom the focus fire target of choice. Some teams will try to MD an IB and kill opposing mages, but I'm yet to be convinced this is any easier than simply getting on the priest or warlock (if there is one). Spending a large amount of item budget on 1000 armor isn't enticing when you're rarely the target, and it is even less enticing when you think that after this change, you will even be less likely the first choice of enemy focus fire. Very frequently as WE, I'm trying to force opposition to attack me just because WE mages are ridiculously hard to kill. Some teams definitely put pressure on the mage to force IB, but most do not at least on Stormstrike; this is so much the case that I pretty much always use Molten Armor over Ice Armor in arena now. This armor sacrifice is pretty similar to the 1000 we gain with the new gear, and honestly, even when a warrior hops on you with MA and you're sporting extremely low armor, you're still a horrible target relative to your teammates very often.
I do think the set will be fantastic for dueling rogues, feral druids, hunters, and warriors and for that I'll certainly pick up the pieces eventually, but I'm pretty sure that if could choose to use any gear for arena at this point, it would no longer be gladiator gear I would select.
I think for fire mages this type of set makes some sense especially with the incoming reduction in DoT damage through resilience, running around with blazing speed might be more feasible. For frost mages, gear with significantly more offensive power seems like it would be a lot more powerful.
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8 comments:
You can have more armor than me now =/.
lolarmor
Blizzard gave all cloth classes the same armor bonus, completely ignoring their role and abilities in arena play.
Maybe 1K armor is great for locks and priests who have to outlast one or two MS warriors, but for mages it's mostly stupid.
More int, even mp/5 would be a lot better than armor.
As a result of this new armor increase I do hope we see some different specs in high level 5v5 other than ap/frost or WE. DB fire mages, maybe even more elementals ect. Doubt it though. Our roll hasn't really changed in classic builds.
I secretly think about trying DB all the time; it is definitely an interesting spec that has pretty much seen zero play due to its fragility and lack of huge burst but the spec has other advantages
I wish elemental was more viable in TBC as playing 28/23 from the mage revamp till the end of WoW 1.0 was really the "golden" age of the class for me. Granted mages were extremely overpowered especially when combined with engineering. ^^
The strengths of the spec were:
Mobility: Poking with scorch->fireblast with tons of great tools for keep distance (rank 1 frostbolt, blastwave)
Burst: Comparable burst to PoM specs against nova'd targets, granted you could seldom take advantage of novas (well you could with nades!)
Survivability: Better survivability oddly than even frost as you still had IB but your playstyle kept you out of harm's way a lot more than 21/0/30
It was really a great spec for showoffy-fancy play too ^^
I found 0/38/23 to be a very confused spec, or maybe I was just confused in how to play it well. The problem I felt was always that when I was level 60, I could scorch for 600ish on targets with 4-5k hp, but in BC I was scorching for 700 against targets with 10k+ hp. The damage scaling just isn't there and combustion is not giving you that extra burst you need to take down healers reliably. Though this is somewhat obvious, the spec would be perfect if you could have both DB AND IB as it makes up for the fact you have a totally untalented CoC and gives you a tool for generating damage and getting off casts. But that will probably never happen. ^^ (Though I do wonder if even DB + IB would be as strong as WE 1 on 1 lol) Either way, I really hope at level 80, every 51 point talent is atrocious, and we mages can go back to specs like 48/23. ^^
Yeah I agree. Though I have seen 0/40/21 elementals in 5v5s doing nothing but spamming scorch, using Ice Armor with Warding, Perma, Precision, Fbite, Shatter, not the traditional Imp Frostbolt for rank 1's. They do quite well too. Atleast in my battlgroup (Rampage). The way I see it though is that scorch is fast, low mana, and provides that extra debuff with imp scorch while grabbing some ignites on the way to stacking them, and can result in a really nasty fireblast crit when the target is at 20% with motlenfury. You're probably all too familiar with all of that already though :p
I've pondered the idea of DB in 5v5's too, using it as a secondary interrupt and using it defensively. Still Iceblock lingers over my head like the plague. I hate the idea of dieing and thinking to myself "well if I had Iceblock!"
Mage set compared to warlock crit set
........Mage.....Warlock
AC......1837.......1837
Stam....246........269
Int........81.........68
Crit.....105........110
Resil....130........135
+dmg...192........198
Warlocks get more total stam/crit/resil/dmg.
------------------------
Warrior S1-S2 gains
+639 Armor
+36 Str
+31 Stam
+22 Crit
+18 Hit
+6 Res
Mage S1-S2 gains
+997 Armor
+6 Stam
-4 Int
0 Crit
4 Res
17 Dam
The difference between the 2 upgrades is 358 AC and 17 spell dmg for mages, OR 25 Stam, 22 Crit, 2 resil, 36 Str, and 18 Hit for warriors.
Their itemization team is EXTREMELY POOR
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