Should You Roll A: Mage ?

Looking at the mage and the final ranged class under the microscope, what are the pros and cons? Should you invest time into this class? Let's find out

[@ameier5570]

i like how the playstile of every tree resembles the idea of the element, as Firermage you are a firewielding maniac, throws firerballs everywhere with at times insane dmg bursts unpredictable like fire itself. As a frost mage you are the cool and collected one shooting icebolds, slow you enemy and crush them to dead without them even reaching you. As a Arkan mage you wield the power of the nether itself powerfull, but drains you useless if you don't take care.

[@TheQuantumSeven]

The ICY Veins guide gave me a super cool "Heating Up" trick. When you do your regular priority and you get a Heating Up proc and cast your inferno blast to upgrade it to "Pyroblast!", hold off on casting the free insta-pyroblast. Instead, cast fireballs until you get heating up again, then cast one more fireball and hit your insta-pyroblast. If you're lucky, your fireball or pyroblast hit will be a crit, and you'll get another free pyroblast.

[@devilcow82]

Preach, how do you not have more views per video?? You're f*kin hilarious and your videos are really detailed and informative. You deserve a lot more views than you get.

[@ZpAuctu]

Add-block off and ready to go. sit back and relax and have a lovely word of my man Mike, keep up the good work

[@CarveMyNameInStone]

@mikepreachwow I totally agree with your argument at the end. Because the three rogue specs are all basically the same, except for cooldowns, and all hunter specs are the same, you have less difference of the feel of yourclass when changing specs. It's hard. On one side it's fun that all three specs are meaningfully different, but raiders will feel forced to always chose the best spec. Now, if they could balance it like warlocks, I would be ok with it, three distinctively different specs.

[@HildesYT]

Always love hearing you rant about the level 90 talents, I had a blast leveling my mage 85-90 as frost and it's the first time hitting 90 was such a letdown and I almost regretted it. It's so sad, I hope they completely change this in the next xpack, not a band-aid but complete change.

[@Newsky79]

Another great Vid Preach, Thank You! as far as the 90 mage talents go, i agree with you to a point. One thing to consider though, If mages didn't have to manage mana how much stronger would they be? It is almost as if the 90 talents are designed to hold you back a bit for that purpose alone. Ret Pallys for instance NEED to keep Inquisition on at all times which means sacrificing a Templars Verdict. NO WHERE NEAR as important as a mages mana.. just a thought. Keep this series coming! :D

[@Anonymous-mp2ln]

I have mained a Mage since Wrath and I love it. Arcane for PvE, Frost for PvP.

[@speedyconkiwi]

i'm going through the exact same thing. wow. only thing i miss about cata is the way it felt to play my mage.

[@Zetherior]

Most EPIC rant I've EVER heard... I didn't even realise it was a rant until it was over

[@branflake0]

I can't help but love arcane, it's been my spec of choice since TBC. Something about blasting raw magic at my enemies is just so much fun.

[@potentiallyRealWarrenGraham]

As it seems, the lvl 100 abilities will be like " Derp, pick the 3rd one or be bad as fuck herp derp im blizzard". Looks totally fun -.-

[@thevictorv]

When are you going to do Should You Roll A: Monk ?

[@lawrenceforbes4762]

Usually I agree with you, and I certainly agree totally with you about mage specs in MoP. My main for literally years was my Arcane mage, Now I no longer play him due to the ridiculous mana conservation Blizz puts them through. My main now is a Lock for exactly the reasons you stated, Locks could care less about mana, it simply is not an issue.

[@serock3]

can you do monk next? :) i'd really like to see if the new class was worth rolling/rerolling for the people who did it

[@SirMalorak]

Cataclysm arcane mage was so awesome. Absolutely ridiculous burst and then recharge...And again burst! And then...Stand on around 30% mana when your CD's are ready again. I loved that. MoP made me uninterested in Mages, rolled a WL and am happy with it.

[@iColinCDN]

great rant .... hit the nail(s) on the head with the descriptions. Thanks for sharing.

[@Just2Gamurz]

Hey preach, how you got the camera that far from your char, didn't figured it out yet, good video tho!

[@yongqiangwu4925]

should I roll a pally or a monk preacher?

[@an0nim0uz]

Depends on what you're doing. I'm a raider. Mage DPS relies heavily on you being able to utilize your level 90 talents.

[@ssjtruncks90]

about the resources for the mage. do you think that blizz should turn the mana gems into a 2nd resource the way shadow orbs are for preists or the way HP is for pallies instead of just a way to have more mana during a fight?

[@AndrwJS]

A Mage was my main for a few years, I eventually got bored and needed more of a challenge, playing a Monk at the moment because I feel they're somewhat the underdogs.

[@ImNotAMonster0]

8 minutes in I decided to get my 85 mage to 90! Thanks Mike, another good video :)

[@joncoish]

Agree completely man about your final recommendation unfortunately... My mage has been my most played character over my WoW life, and is my favorite class no doubt. But man, when I got to level 90 and tried those talents it just ruined the class for me. I wouldn't even care if the talents at 90 were completely useless, but the problem with these is you have to constantly use them over and over, so you can't even just ignore them. I do hope things change eventually like you said.

[@speedyconkiwi]

love your level 90 talent rant. so spot on, it's sad.

[@DarthTRex99]

can u do a should you roll a monk?

[@jifyum07]

I completely agree with the your stance on the level 90 talents... I instantly had less fun on my mage when I hit 90

[@sorinutzus]

Sub needs to be behind the target to use backstab and abmush. You need to maximize the uptime on fine weekness so vanish becomes a verry strong dps cd. Hemo debuff must also be kept up. Honor among theves generates a combopoint every 2 sec ( dosent rly affect gameplay to much anymore due to anticipation). On the other hand i agree that they are indeed similar to some extent, but they are in no way carbom coppys.

[@kmarpet120]

Give us the warrior next! I'm unsure if I should roll one or not.

[@Spulwarre]

Can u tell me the name of the Addon that shows u the symbols of the cooldowns that are ready like Frost Bomb etc..

[@Pathers]

What is the add on that moves his damage to the side and heals received to the other?

[@Wheellos]

it's true that the level 90 talents for mages are not the most interesting, but the upside to mage is that, as you said, they scale really well off of gear and have basically the highest dps potential in the game. The best specc choice at the moment is probably mostly made by what stats the gear you get ends up giving. If the gear gives alot of Crit, then fire will probably give the best dps, if Mastery you go arcane and if Haste you go frost. if u dislike the specc, you can pass the gear.

[@Ishiisan]

Did you cover Moonkin?

[@Tommo6441]

I actually like the idea of rune of power, but i think it should be a really long CD, at least 5 minutes, and be the spell to use with hero at the nuke phase

[@onlyjustthere]

What i think would fix the lvl90 talents for mages would be to make them more different. Look at shaman choices in one tier - echo, ancestral and the haste buff - they all grant the same dps increase if you use them to the fullest potentail but mages aren't like that. They are just do this or this or this and you gain 25% more dmg. If it was three different buffs like shammies have i think that would fix em

[@serbisthehero1987l]

I have been playing a Mage for years since the inception of WoW (beta) and I have to agree with everything you said with the Mage. I noticed around about the beginning of BC that Mages are just so restricted as far as talents and in the general raiding world. I wish they were so much like other classes. It in some ways makes me wish Mages were gifted with fun talents like Paladins and even Shamans...

[@Narzugarmi]

I am having mana problems on my demo lock, what am I doing wrong?

[@jennybailey2998]

I recently rolled a mage, Brenda, Ghostlands, stopped at level 9 cos I can't make my mind up on which spec to go for. Gonna be solo PVE levelling for now.

[@josheboy0815]

what is the name of the addon your useing to show the ticks or debuffs in ur target ?

[@yukowl]

What is the CD bar timer addon?

[@MrMRGamer1010]

Preach what realm you in?

[@FrodanFTW]

i have played a mage since vanilla and i felt so much relief from you saying that level 90 talents are an un-fun burden, i couldnt agree more and i whole heartedly hope it changed in the future

[@Runescaqe_]

Been playing my Mage for about 2 years now and can say it'll always be my default class. PVP is no problem for fire and frost and even a nerf is no problem. Recently I've switched to arcane PVE and its pretty consistent and a little bit more attention need than it did in WOTLK.

[@metalmilitia89]

Monks play really well. Mine is a BM and it is awesome.

[@KingPat_Rick]

Do you think I should roll a warlock or a mage? I like having big consistent numbers

[@blackbloed1]

Should i roll a resto druid?

[@D3Genius]

The fact that one spec is better in certain scenarios isnt a downside, compare it to a boomkin for example they have to play one spec at all times.

[@brandonj4165]

Keep it up Preacher! LOVE This series!

[@MrSaiys]

Dó u have a vid with ur addons

[@WorldOfNothin]

funny would love to see his take on 5.4.....they changed how the lvl 90 talents worked some what and made change to Frost mastery!

[@Alexiully]

The most gear dependent spec atm is frost for dmg, and fire for crit...arcane is fine.

[@cmath182]

I really enjoy my 79 frost mage, he is currently what I consider my main char. I know that in early pvp, if I popped all my cds, i would own anyone. Mirror Images do bonus damage but its also like hunters feign death, and makes whoever is targeting you stop targeting you. so while you enemy is trying to find you, you are criting them like crazy!

[@Camps2630]

Just got back to WoW after 5 months. Can't decide which class for PvP as my first toon on a new server (as well PVE but more so PVP)

[@TheRaileybay]

What is your UI addon?

[@Ecompass4]

Frost mages are amazing now in 5.4 in terms of consistency and gear scaling

[@Grozbitroz]

Boomkin here, what's mana?

[@TattooGuru777]

I agree with you totally Preach.I stopped playing mine entirely at lvl 90.When i'm playing a class as badass as the mage,I don't want to stop casting and blowing shit up just to lay down some crap spell that I have to be standing in the entire fight,otherwise my DPS suffers.However, I have always felt this is a much better class when it comes to PvP and soloing,at least at the moment.Anyways,loved the video as always;keep them coming. :D

[@onlyjustthere]

And I wish i had the tier 26 heroic gear set and for all my stats to be 1000k but that's not gonna happen now is it?

[@arthurinlol]

i love the video length diffrence between the mage and the shaman, before clicking it i thought "level 90 talents"

[@Davesothoth]

Ghostcrawler's pet class. It seems they're getting buffed again for 5.4, for some reason, even though their instants now hit harder than a Chaos Bolt.

[@ayxi_the_kobold]

What Ilevel is your mage toon Preach

[@2ndcitysaint52]

bc the game is about improving your toon, not being a zombie in lfr. you should always be tying to get better and thats why i made the point that if he had better geared to toons to play with it might motivate people to play better.

[@keithyw]

one of the few reasons to roll a mage is that you're going to do pretty good DPS for the most part. however, i know that the movement heavy fights in Throne of Thunder have pretty much made quite a few people complain (especially arcane). heck, i think that ToT is just better for melee at this point anyway. feels painful playing ranged for most of the fights. but that's more of an issue about the design of these fights than the class design imo.

[@CarveMyNameInStone]

@Sorin Spirchez Keep up SnD, keep up rupture, use combo generator, use filler combo expender. That's all three specs. The flavor of the spec is adrenaline rush / vendetta / shadow dance. The only spec that plays different is assassination because it sometimes pools energy (not really anymore, seeing huge hastelevels). Try as you might, all three specs are carbon copies with the exemption of their cds.

[@MikoMikon]

when you say about the mana for mages i love mages but i remember in c ata especially madness fight were mana was a big problem . then the prepa tch for MoP came out were we got are new spells and talants that week i did dragon soul again to my amazment on Madness my mana wouldny drop below 80% im not sure if this was a bug or got to do with high gear levels but i hope it happens again

[@gudge3214]

I honestly do not mind the 90 talents at all. I absolutely adore playing my frost mage

[@Kernash666]

When ever i play frost mage (500 ilvl) i very rarely have to worry about mana, i normally sit around 85% mana at all times during a boss fight if not 90%, incanter's ward is the lvl 90 talent i chose as well because its just a simple click and there are always random damage things going out that will hit u to give u that spellpower increase. Combone that with ice barrier as well and ure pretty sweet.

[@Jelle_NL]

I love playing frost even though it doesn't scale with gear at all :p.

[@dazred1]

14:18 - I'm facepalming at where you are standing with that group >.

[@TeeJus]

I rolled a mage because I've seen people really easily pushed the DPS stats with very little effort. Got it so far up to about 40-50 or so and I just haven't had the patience to really get it up to 90. Just gone back to my Enh Shaman. Nothing beats running up with the tanks and slamming something in the face. Maybe I should just roll another melee spec instead?

[@Saaunn]

I had the same problem with the 90 talents. :( I got my mage to 90 and gave it a go. I ran LFR a little. The more I played, the more pissed off I got. I've given it a go again since 5.4 hit just.. casually. Went arcane. I sort've... kinda like it now. At -least- in seige. I highly dislike the way they've given mages crutches to their dps. To do dps you have to sit there and channel every minute, you have to stand still, you have to take fecking damage at the right time in a fight. I just stopped focusing on it. I went arcane, learned the rotation. It's easy. Arcane blastx4, missiles, barrage. I changed my attention to my mana management and staying ahead of the fight. Knowing exactly where I need my portals for exactly when, figuring out ahead of time how I'm going to plan my blinks. I focused on Always Be Casting. It took me a while, but I'm actually starting to enjoy it. I don't know if I could play mage in endgame content, but I've really found that aspect fun. I do think mana management should be a thing for arcane because that's what arcane is. Without the mana management and planning ahead it's back to firelands and arcane blast spam. I just... wish they could do it better. :s I can't think of how though.The 90 talents have ruined both the other specs for me. Hell, I liked fire more when it was centered around the stars aligning for a perfect combustion. I don't know, maybe I'm just weird.

[@Littlebear57]

I play arcane but i don't use rune of power i preffer incanter's ward and i roll with ice flows for heavy movement

[@AtanasL]

seriously, you could do so much with them during vanilla, I miss the old elemental specs.

[@darkfire8008]

I disagree a little about the frost spec not being proc based. You do get one reliable FoF every minute, BF every 10 secs(frostbomb), and is a pretty consistent rotation all around. There is still periods of time in which your big spells don't come. I.E. no FoF between orbs, or even no or a single extra FoF per orb, both things of which can cut your sustained dps pretty bad. By at least 10%-20% I'ld say. Not to mention Wrath Frosts 100k instant spell. Deep Freeze.

[@eetu45]

umm how do you avoid it? and first of all only one mage spec has deep freeze not all of them.... and tell me how do you avoid it in 1v1 duel as a hunter? you can avoid it once with trinket and that's it. the next deep freeze will be your doom.

[@SuperWoody100]

well here's an idea preach that i would like to throw down, in diablo 3 wizards get the resource acrane power, what if we had something like that for a mage resource.

[@GamingNormaly]

I have a 85 twink mage fire/frost and IT IS awsome with that 48% crit chance or 110% mastery

[@DPRyfe]

The lvl 90 talent are the only thing that drastically needs to change in my opinion

[@cjames22dox]

most of my alts are mages and recently i made them all arcane had a couple fire and a couple frost but like the guy said about fire mages i didn't have the gear for it and i wasn't getting my procs from crits so i was getting so frustrated all the time. Frost maging i could not get my rotation down, yes i read icyviens guide i have watched videos on youtube but i just can not get it down. Acrane, i been playing for years though consistently I have had my rotation down and tweak it every once in a while to give me to make sure i am still doing decent enough damage while I re-position for my next burst.

[@General420smoke]

wait you have more than one mage?

[@BestLuluNa]

Love this series

[@Emilytea]

I'm currently leveling a mage (arcane...ooops?) , and it's great fun. But this has made me worried about level capping >_>

[@SauceNinja]

I played a mage since vanilla. Did the vanilla pvp grind, raided a mage in every expansion, I played a shitload of mage. I agree 100% about those level 90 talents; they're bullshit and I hate having to use them. They are the last fun aspect of playing a mage I've ever been saddled with, and this is coming from someone who was the raid's water bitch in vanilla. I ended up picking incanter's ward because, even though it's a big DPS hit, I can get away with never using it

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

they need to re add the old talent tress , makeing the high teir functions of the spells of the talents and spells of each class being put to the players service agen by modification. instead of the amount of narrow sighted stupidity end tier mechanics of some classes/specs

[@Zerisan]

The lvl 90 talents really do make that much of a difference with a Mage. They are just annoying in the beginning, but the longer you have to deal with them... When Preach made the Mage guides he was using a borrowed Mage because his own hadn't hit 90 yet. So the lvl 90 talents seemed like a bit of inconvenience that didn't really take away from the fun. But by now he lvl his own mage and had played at lvl 90 enough to get lfr footage, and drops, and had the 'fun' of lvl 90 talents a lot longer.

[@Haptikwow]

warrior next pls

[@Noise_fm]

should you roll a death knight wud be cool

[@petertaylor3310]

innervate from a trusted raid mate druid was a must to be able to spec an arcane mage during Illidan days lol Did some dmg tho.

[@bleiddudd]

he did locks individually not a should you roll a, have to find them serperate

[@OneXSora]

Mage hasn't been really really shit since wrath hasnt it? last two expacs its been rather OP from what i hear

[@AIUSTIIIN]

Yep, the 90 talents are a joke, agree 100% with this entire video. Much more fun on my 80 twink mage than my 90.

[@Bechify]

Remember TBC as u say /was horrible as mage / sheep duty thru BT and Sunwell only broken with some tanking of the council which again required us to do alot of pvp for gear. And we were so fragile.

[@kalisperis]

His answer is at 16:12 if you don't watch the whole vid :P

[@Stfuppercut31]

90 talents are why i switched to spriest. Loved new fire changes, n my mage. R.I.P mage.

[@kenybadi]

mike made a video about lvl90 talents. you should watch it. might give you few ideas

[@drexomatic]

Yes you should! don't even loose time watching the video

[@andreynymberg9639]

5.4 from a experienced heroic mage (Mike knows nothing! hes not a troll mage!): - Frost is a total PVE spec now!, good looking icycles, got haste cap? stack mastery! FUN Fire still better with high ilvl! (but not that better now!) More crit= more pyroblast! FUN Arcane are more movable: 3 Stacks of ice floes(cool!) more area for your rune of power. need lots of ilvl scale to beat frost sim dps, best burst (if you got high mastery you beat all other specs on burst), OP AoE! Quite fun.. :( (I try to play hard as arcane but I cant stand in it). Something that you didnt said is that mages have lots of versatile habilities: invisibility (with talent)/ice block/alter time/cold snap/temporal shield! not only blink, you can manage with lots of bosses mechanics and ignore them in your mage way (a good class point) most of times if your team wipe you`ll be the man who survives and brezz them (hunters also). As a mage you got your own food, free cash from portals, teleports to all main cities, cool looking specs! I'd recommend everyone to play as mage, always competitive dps. not a simple class, you have to be good with all specs and try to like them all. I know why you dont like mages Mike, melle plates never gonna like them :)

[@wat3rcooling]

Exactly, mages have shitload of tools to reduce the damage taken, but we're not warlocks just absorbing EVERYTHING with 2 mill sac pacts. Which raises the skill cap for surviving as a mage. But fire is fun that's for sure. (Fuck frost, still lame)

[@sigplayer112]

do you even look when this video was made

[@wat3rcooling]

sigplayer112 Newsflash: people still watch this video.

[@Antifaith29]

LOL not a simple class. Probably the most basic of the caster dps classes.

[@BlankerFx]

Antifaith29 Ever played a Destro Lock?:L Iam a heroic geared Lock,and as of now,Destruction lock is the most faceroll class i have played...All fun has been lost in this class plainly because of the amounts of simplicity it has.Refresh DOTs with procs,use a Conflag on cooldown,and cast Chaos bolt with procs.Notice!! Iam not talking about Warlocks as a whole,because believe me,being competitive on overall dps all the way throughout the fight when specced DEMO or AFFY requires fucking effort.

[@Eschatonx]

Actually, all specs have Deep freeze, but otherwise you're correct. (Although I do have to question why you would use a hunter as an example, because they dominate mages)

[@lawi6969]

10 classes. 5 Casters. 3 Specs. 1 Spec (Arcane) to rule them all.

[@yukowl]

Monk next please!

[@TheBlackei1]

Mmmm.... I remember running my Warlock in Cata. Metamorph, Felguard Bladestorm, Hand of Gul'Dan and Hellfire :3