I think it’s just a trade off. You either love being that fragile and that deadly or you … don’t. I don’t think Mages are going to change that much in the near future. Time to roll a Shadow Priest?

Hooray for being the last one standing!

“The things that make fights fun and interesting for other classes just piss off mages because it hurts their numbers, and as a pure, if you’re not topping the meters you’re constantly trying to justify your value to the raid. Movement and target switching hurt mage dps. They need to stand still and chain-cast, timing cooldowns and procs in order to achieve chart-topping dps. The best mage is often the guy that figures out how to minimize the “fun” things he has to do.”

has finnally caught up with me, I´ve been frustrated over this facts for months 4 nights a week and I´ve just about had enough, I thought I could bypass this problems with the changes to fire in 3.3.3 but then again, since we are a pure class and not allowed to have fun to justify our value I signed off after having a 96% attendance 4nights a week since july, 2 times this week. My mage is dying, it`s very sad but I can’t stand it anymore, I just can’t.
1. You are overrun by restodruids in raid, you flee for your life on BQL saving IB for the 2nd airphase, oh you got a late HoT, oh you died on phase 1 why priests and locks have much more survivability not to mention their maintaned damage during heavy movement fights like Rotface. Oh did you end up running away from players who just had to hug you on airphase? Did they survive but you got oneshotted?

2. Did you get mutated infection on Rotface and not the full attention of a disc/holy priest while getting to the big-ooze or a tad bit slow restodruid, did you die within <1 sec?

3. Mage glass-cannon utility is just so plain wrong should I be a raidleader I´d probably exlude them alltogether in favour of locks. Oh, let´s not forget Arcane Empowerment, oh wait, it gets overwritten by rets able to take way more damage and less healing-attention. Oh right, mages have "AWESOME" burst-dps, let`s save 2-3min CD:s for 1 add/ooze phase and justify gimping our CD/dps cooldowns in favour of being a bit more useful on 2/30 total add/ooze phases.

4. Getting bitten on BQL (I guess this is supposed to be fun) and ending up having to bite someone during airphase, oh didnt you IB right after? Where you unlucky with a strike, you got oneshotted :/.

I could go on for ages and ages but there`s no doubt in my mind, mages are all in all replaceable in ICC in favour of more raid survivability in ICC, less straing on healers, while ending up with more damage done on all movement heavy fights in favour of afflication locks or (insert random dps class/hybrid here).

I´m going casual on sunday, I´m sure Mutak knows the frustration mages bring and how we instantly die when a healer loses focus for <0,2 sec during random boss ability and blaming a pure dps (dont blame anyone, all in all its a class-mechanic issue) is heaps more easy than anything else. We have to constantly rely on <22 healers and dps except tanks to respect the various /range but as the case often is, they end up standing 1-2 yards too close and you can chose between getting 1 shotted, or running/blinking away/around for 0,5-5 seconds, stopping dps, finding a new spot, just to see another player end up close to you, hence dropping largely on your sole job of dps:ing and yet prove once again we`re horrid on any encounter with the slightest of movement/raid damage mechanics.

1148 haste mage, it`s been awful knowing you in this expansion, I would give ANYTHING to get all the time I´ve invested in you, all the frustration and not reaching the goalline with a LK 25 HC kill because I´ve just had enough with the stupid fragile mechanics of glass-cannons.

And thanks Mutak for being the first one since I decided to stop raiding 2 days ago to spot-on find the reasons/words for all the frustration I´ve had, english isnt my native language and couldnt have put it better myself.

Gl though to end-game raiding mages who still finds their class fun and all mages who are pvp:ing, good luck to you all.

I switched my little gnome to arcane, and she’s back at the top… but I have to admit, arcane feels like “Mages for Dummies.” Hit this button 4 times, if this proccs, hit button 2, if not, keep spamming button one until it does, rinse, lather, repeat. At least with Fire I had to pay attention – I literally led a Random heroic by like 2k (H UP) while I was eating a sandwich and talking on the phone. It’s kinda… boring.

I figure I’ll pay for dual spec and respec fire – just frustrating that I felt like I HAD to go arcane to keep up. And I do so <3 my druid.

Is there anything more annoying that a Mage who tries to freeze all the mobs each pull in an instance?

2) Seems like everyone i know has a mage alt. That could explain a lot of the unskilled perception. Mages fun to play in casual, solo environments – lots of people roll them and most never learn how to move beyond that.

3) The things that make fights fun and interesting for other classes just piss off mages because it hurts their numbers, and as a pure, if you’re not topping the meters you’re constantly trying to justify your value to the raid. Movement and target switching hurt mage dps. They need to stand still and chain-cast, timing cooldowns and procs in order to achieve chart-topping dps. The best mage is often the guy that figures out how to minimize the “fun” things he has to do.

4) The things that make mages fun to play are useless in a raid environment. Kiting, AoE, control, escapes, etc. None of it makes up for lower dps in a raid because it almost never matters more than straight single-target dps.

5) You’re never in control of your own fate, but you’re always blamed first in a raid. A mage in a melee-heavy raid will be called bad for not being up with the rogues on DPS despite not having the buffs they would need to get up to that level. No one wants to point the finger at the tank or the healer because if they get pissed off and leave, the whole raid falls apart, but it’s fine to take it out on the dps – they’re replaceable.

etc.

Aside from scenery, almost every boss fight is the same for a mage, and for most ranged pure-dps classes — just spend as much time standing in one spot and nuking as possible, and that simple playstyle combined with arcane’s simple rotation is what’s driving me, at least, to spending less time on my mage.

I admit that I haven’t played my mage much (I actually moved from a raiding position in my guild, to a casual position) not because I don’t find being a mage fun (I seriously suggest you roll one ) but because I’ve seen most of the content as a mage. There are only so many arcane blasts I can send.

Hopefully with 3.3 I’ll get another round of fun with my mage, until she waits for Cataclysm. I feel like the two classes that you’ve mentioned (mages, warlocks) have more downtime between content patches because we can’t switch from one spec to another and enjoy fights in a different perspective. Sure, I can switch from fire to arcane, but that only changes my rotation, and very little of my playstyle.

Whereas on my paladin, I can switch from protection to retribution and it’s an entirely different game.