Mage TroubleFollow

In my humble opinion, Mages need to be reviewed by the developers. They're doing far too much damage compared to their now less fragile health pool.

4,500 Pyroblast crit anyone? 2,000 Fire Blast crit?

C'mon now.

Remember an Arcane Mage gets +33% spell damage with Arcane Power and the sub-talent Arcane Instability. With two points in Spell Power they also get +50% to their critical strike damage bonus. And with Mind Mastery, also from the Arcane tree, you get more spell damage equal to 25% of your total intellect.

And guess what, with those talents you can still get Pyroblast and Blast Wave.

Add a trinket on a low cooldown to it, like [wowitem=28040]Vengeance of the Illidari[/wowitem] or the one from Molten Core, though the first one is way easier to get and only has a 1½ minute cooldown or so.

I don't know the numbers, but take a Mage with +700 spell power and calculate in those talents on a Pyroblast crit.

EDIT: Tried some math.

Rank 10 Pyroblast (level 70): Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 939 to 1191 Fire damage and an additional 356 Fire damage over 12 seconds.

Let's say you've got 400 intellect (not impossible at level 70 with the Arcane Mind talent), that's +100 spell damage and then +700 from your gear, making it +800 total. One talent increased your spell damage by 3% which makes it +824.

Another talent increased your spell's damage by 30%. If we take the absolute base max of Pyroblast, 1191, that would increase it to 1548 damage. Add the 824 from your gear and talents and that's 2372 damage. Plus 120 from your trinket.

Max Pyroblast HIT = 2492 damage.

Then we had the talent which increased the crit strike bonus damage by 50%, making it double damage on crits (normal crits do 150% damage).

2492 x 2 = 4984 damage.

Using a 1½ minute trinket, yes. Using heavy +damage gear, yes. But it's all much easier to get now with the expansion than before.

Oh, and don't forget Ignite. It deals 40% of the spell's damage to you over 4 seconds. 40% of 4984 = 1994 damage.

So all in all, that Pyro crit will deal 6978 damage over 4 seconds, unless my calculations are way off.

Heh, and by the way, with the talent build I used for my calculations, you also get Presence of Mind. Double trouble.

13956 damage in roughly 10 seconds.

Ps. I forgot about the Pyroblats DoT. But I think I'll leave it out.

Edited, Mar 3rd 2007 8:54pm by Mazra

you suck if your getting killed by a mage hahaha. I kill them so easy as a demon lock. the only thing thats tough about them is their silence ability, which they will prolly use during shadowbolt, so i spam searing pain after i cast my dots. mages kill fast but die fast as well.

Hey, Ice-mages are getting dangerous too, Ice-lances ARE hitting for over 1400 average hit on frozen targets at 70 without breaking a sweat. When they CoC, Freeze and Ice Lance you before you throw off a fear and your down by half your health or more and you know they can still Ice Block out of Death Coil, Fear, Seduction and any DoT's you start realizing it's a bit screwed.

I hope tier 6 and further give the mage what they are supposed to, int and spell damage and such, without giving them 7000 stamina as well (it is ridiculous, I have 8500 and probably not nearly as much spell damage and intellect as they do).

Well people, on the oter side of it all, how long have you been eating mages alive for?

They need a turn in the spotlight, so let them have it untill blizz turns some other class into freaks for a few weeks.

Lets see, to do 12k damage in 10 secs the mag have to blow all his cd and trinkets while the dots you have on him is ticking away...sure, if he is lucky he killed you first but ummm don't you have soul stone? You pop right back up and send his sorry butt running the other way with fear while your dots are chewing him up.

Coming from both camps having both a Mage & Lock (Lock is my fave already) I can see that the FN nerf is a bit harsh.

Making it so a mage's crit will break it is harsh enough....but allowing ANY crit from a rogue, warrior, etc. is just overboard.

Speaking of cooldowns, Soulstone is on a 30 minute timer.

And you don't have to blow all your trinkets to kill me. Just use the right talent build and you'll have Arcane Power, Pyroblast, Blast Wave, Ignite and insane crit damage bonus, plus crit chance.

If I use my Soulstone to resurrect, I'll be at low health and mana, with no demon. What prevents the Mage from using Fire Blast, Blast Wave and Cone of Cold to finish me off.. again?

Two HK for the price of one!

Check this build.

You get Pyroblast, Ignite and Blast Wave from the Fire tree. All very good talents. Ignite does 40% of your critical hit's damage over 4 seconds. If you crit for 2600 with a Fireball (happened to me in AV today - at level 60), Ignite will tick for another 1040 damage over 4 seconds. So in reality, that Fireball crit did 3640 damage. Ignite adds 40% extra damage to all critical hits with fire spells.

Now, the build I linked gives you Clearcasting, which is pretty nice, right? But it also has Arcane Potency which increased your crit chance by 30% if you have Clearcasting on.

If you take a level 60 Mage with newbie Outland gear (possible to get some of the gear without turning 61), you'll have 300 spell damage and, what, 400 intellect?

Make that 460 intellect with Arcane Mind. And thanks to Mind Mastery, those 460 intellect gives you 115 extra spell damage. So now you have 415 spell damage.

Get the trinket which increases your spell damage by 120 and you'll have 535 spell damage for 15 seconds. It's a reward from a level 63 quest, but you can get it at level 60 and have friend help you with it.

Thanks to Arcane Power (which is on a 3 minute CD), your spells will deal 30% more damage for 15 seconds. I'm not even going to count in Arcane Instability because I don't know if it adds 3% to your +spell damage or 3% damage to your spells. But it adds something, and +3% crit on top of it.

If we take the max rank Pyroblast for level 60, it'll deal 708-898 damage.

Apply the 30% damage from Arcane Power (I'm not sure if Arcane Power works with base damage or is applied after +damage, but in your favor we'll work with the pre-+damage version) and it'll deal 1044 damage (using median on the Pyroblast damage).

Now, Pyroblast has a 170% spell damage coefficient (right?), so our 535 spell damage turns into roughly 909. Apply that to Pyroblast and you're looking at an average HIT of 1953 damage.

Thanks to the talent Spell Power, your crits deal 200% damage.

So that Pyroblast crit would do 3906 damage, on average, if it crits.

BUT! We forgot about Ignite here! Add 40% to that damage, dealt by Ignite over 4 seconds afterwards.

All in all, your level 60 Pyroblast crit, using two cooldowns, one on 3 minutes and another on 1.5 minutes, would deal 5468 damage over 4 seconds.

Now, if your target against all odds, should survive that at level 60, you can always blow another 3-minute CD and use Presence of Mind (talent) to throw another instant Pyroblast. Let's say this one doesn't crit, or perhaps the first doesn't crit, but this one does.

You would, at level 60, in easy-to-get greens and blues, using three cooldowns on a timer of max 3 minutes, be able to deal:

7421 fire damage to a single target in less than 10 seconds.

And guess what, you still have Cone of Cold, Blast Wave and Fire Blast ready for instant use if your target is still standing at this point. All are instant casts. Two are fire spells and can activate Ignite. Two of them are Area of Effect spells.

You tell me how a Corruption can kill you while you deal out that damage. Beause I would like to know.

Curse of Agony you say? Remove Lesser Curse works on that one, doesn't it? Immolate? Fire Ward at level 60 absorbs just a bit more than the Immolate spell deals in fire damage.

Siphon Life? - Affliction Warlock, meaning you'll kill him even faster. Besides, Siphon Life did little around 80 damage every 3 seconds at level 60 when my Warlock was spec'd Affliction. Nothing you can't beat by

Unstable Affliction? - Mediocre DoT (about the same damage as Corruption). It has a 1.5 second cast, so if you use Silence (also provided by the above talent build) you will silence your target for 4 seconds. Unless the Warlock has his Felhunter out, it's easy for the Mage to Silence and Polymorph the Warlock. The Warlock's PvP trinket breaks Polymorph, but you have Presence of Mind. Use it to insta-cast Polymorph again.

Death Coil + Fear? - Death Coil is unbreakable, but resistable. If you should happen to get Feared, your own PvP trinket will break Fear and if you use Silence just after, well, you get the idea.

Basically, Mages are no longer the fragile glass cannons they used to be.

Ps. I've played a Mage repeatedly on the test servers. You have so many tools to kill people with, it's insane. Plus your burst damage is unlike anything anything you've ever seen before.

Edited, Mar 7th 2007 3:33pm by Mazra

I just wanted to say that what Mazra said is true. It's not like "oh a mage is here, its easy bait", its all other classes scared of pryroblast and insane crits. We get close to you, sheep you, crit pyroblast, blow our instants and OMG! You are alreadly dead. thanks for sticking up for mages, Mazra.

i generally get it proc 2-3 times in a fight vs a class that uses shadow of fire damage, yes there have been the odd times when it doesn't proc, and then other time when it's on constantly. but it is just a constant I WIN proc, the main thing is that you have to make advantage of it. if you're a nub who has the talent 'cos it sounds cool and doesn't realise what to do when it procs then well.. you're a nub and so obviously wouldn't understand the power of this ability. if you use it to your advantage whenever it procs then it's amazing what it allows you to do. (or more precisely, what it allows you to forget about for those 4 seconds and just spend that timing dealing damage or setting up for a massive damage burst)

Just noticed this(bored and Allakhazam is slow).

Actually, it's 50% of the bonus damage only. So now it's 175% instead of 150%.

Meaning it's 2492 x 1.75 = 4361 damage.

6105 damage after ignite.

Didn't look at the other math, though.

i dont see how you could possibly lose to a mage any good lock can take a mage down unless the mage is some sort of godly player you should be able to easily take a mage just use fear and curse of tongues drop those dots (yes i know fear suffers diminishing returns the whole 12 seconds first 6-8 seconds second 3-4 seconds third fear) you should be able to take a mage out before he casts a spell but note curse of tongues will not work for long WE WILL DISPEL IT but if you are a affliction lock we are dead demon lock we are dead destro is the only spec throughout the 3 months or so that i have played i have stood a chance against.

well thats where I beg to differ, you have a lot of input, like the targets YOU pick, distructo locks with NP would rather fight a shadowpriest vs a warrior, they are both a win in the bag, just that the Distruco lock knows beyond a shadow of a doubt he will win the fight vs the SP.

Saying a lock has no input on NP is like saying you have no input on nightfall procs(becaus you do, you can corrupt more targets and start draining.)

The only thing that could make NP More powerfull is if it reflected the attack.

I would stand with Vallock if my target was a lower leveld Shadow priest or a affliction lock, but if i were up against a fire mage(cirt specialised) or a distructo lock(same) then i am 100% in the camp with Jenovaomega. I had NP keep me "protected" for neer 16 seconds before.

Honestly i noted that with the NP spec most firemages just gave up and would sheep me and run(BG).