Tee
5th January 2007, 19:21
Posted by Ming in : World of Warcraft ,
Mage:
1v1:
The hardest class for a rogue to overcome in TBC, period. You see water elemental mages are quite nasty at 60 for all but COS rogues, but they are not even close to full power without ice lance. This instant cast, spammable attack completes the build. Against a 41 WE mage at 70, I sometimes feel like taking kick off my toolbar (unless it is improved kick), he will never, ever cast a single non-instant spell. The mage summons the elemental as fast as possible then basically jumps around like a monkey throwing darts at you. With frostbite, frost nova, and of course WE’s ranged nova, it is a lot of roots. The mage never has to sheep you, if you get rooted and you didn’t break it fast enough, you are going to eat an ice lance that has 65-70% chance to crit for 1500+. WE’s water bolt is nothing to sneeze at either, 600-700 damage a hit. A frost mage can pretty much remove frost bolt from his toolbar, maybe fireblast too, ice lance is that good when you have so many root effects.
Fortunately, the rogue class also improved by a big margin in TBC. For starters, the 3 second garrote silence can be comboed for big damage. Water elemental itself isn’t too sturdy, as a combat rogue if the mage ice blocks I can kill it in 5 seconds with AR up. What is really lovely is the nerf to polymorph. The old school days, if you get sheeped by a mage and you already used your PVP trinket, it is over. First two sheeps usually last 10+ seconds and he has enough time to bandage, evocation, smoke some pot, and comes back to finish you off like a warrior who can’t intercept. This is not the case anymore. First sheep is 12 seconds and the second sheep is 6 seconds. Time is no longer on his side. A mage can not longer say, sheep a priest over and over then eat/drink to drain his mana bar. Even if I am out of CDs, the 1 minute COS usually comes back in time for me to finish a low health, low mana mage off, provided that he too used up most of his CDs.
My conclusion is if the mage is a good sport and stands there at the start of a duel to take a garrote up the rear, as a combat rogue I feel I have a 50-50 chance to win, as long as he doesn’t pop cold snap. If he jumps around like a monkey and spam level 1 AOE I am forced to use CS or improved kick to start, it is a much harder fight. With the prep nerf, cold snap gives him a second elemental and a second ice block and 2 more novas, it is quite nasty. Increased stamina/resilience with PVP gear will also work to their favor, as we are cooked once we are out of CDs and they are still not dead.
Mages without WE I used to consider farm status. However one ability caught my eyes: molten armor. You see coupled with impact, everytime you hit a mage you have 10% chance to be stunned for 2 seconds, an eternity against someone with AP POM pyro ready. This procs MUCH more often than frostbite. Because frostbite can only proc on the initial frost armor proc. Molten armor can proc every single hit. -5% crit reduction coupled with future resilience can reduce your crit % by as much as 15%. This ability opens the door for all sort of elemental builds, and gives AP/fire mages some much needed defense. I still say ice block is a must have for arena fights, and 41 WE is their strongest arena build, but there is a lot of room for creativity if you want to play elemental. Let’s see, 10% chance to stun the opponent when hit, 10% more to gain improved sprint. It should be a very fun build to play.
Dragon breath is a fun talent, but whenever I go into an arena fight and the mage I am with has that ability, I really hate it. I rather have him as AP nuke spec than dragon fire, at least he can almost always bring someone down if I focused on the same target. Slow can be spammed but for a class that already has so many snares/roots, I really don’t see it have any future.
5v5:
Ice block is the ability that everyone hates. A top mage is unkillable until he uses up not one, but both of his ice blocks. This puts a lot of pressure on the other team. If you leave him alone, he can do excellent damage via ice lance and pet to your team. Their sustained damage is simply amazing. A 41 WE mage consistently outdamage me by a big margin in arenas, and he only has 600 spell damage. Two novas is a lot to cleanse/dispel (if you hit three targets, it takes 4.5 seconds minimum to remove them all). WE adds a lot of micro to a class already gifted with playability. You can’t focus fire him, and you can’t leave him alone, that is what makes 41 WE mages so hard to deal with. For my war/war/pal/pal/rogue team, I will most likely chase him down personally, and put the warriors on their warlock or priest. Just putting one DPS on him can greatly reduce his effectiveness. You have to guard him, but you can’t kill him until the very end. Mana bar is still the one thing against him. As long as I can slow him down initially, he becomes useless later in the fight.
AP/fire builds are not completely out of luck if they are backed by a paladin. BOP can be dispelled, but it buys enough time for the mage to get his big nukes off. I just feel with higher stamina/resilience, the 1-2 shot thing will be far less common. 21 points for ice block, you still have a lot of flexibility to pick up other talents. Elemental builds or even AP/frost builds will be popular, I just think 41 WE is too complete of a build for cooldown-oriented arena play.
TBC improvements:
Ice lance is one of the biggest buffs to this class’s strongest PVP build. Molten armor will be a favorite for fire mages. Spell steal is too expensive to be used as an offensive dispel, but can be a game winner when used properly on something like BOP. Invisibility’s requirements are harsh, but you can still /assist another player on your team to find your target at the start of the fight. Quite simply, one of, if not the best TBC classes, 1v1, GvG, PVP, PVE, arena, BG, PVP movies, you name it, they are top notch in it.
Source:
http://www.worldofming.com/?p=302&page=1
Mage:
1v1:
The hardest class for a rogue to overcome in TBC, period. You see water elemental mages are quite nasty at 60 for all but COS rogues, but they are not even close to full power without ice lance. This instant cast, spammable attack completes the build. Against a 41 WE mage at 70, I sometimes feel like taking kick off my toolbar (unless it is improved kick), he will never, ever cast a single non-instant spell. The mage summons the elemental as fast as possible then basically jumps around like a monkey throwing darts at you. With frostbite, frost nova, and of course WE’s ranged nova, it is a lot of roots. The mage never has to sheep you, if you get rooted and you didn’t break it fast enough, you are going to eat an ice lance that has 65-70% chance to crit for 1500+. WE’s water bolt is nothing to sneeze at either, 600-700 damage a hit. A frost mage can pretty much remove frost bolt from his toolbar, maybe fireblast too, ice lance is that good when you have so many root effects.
Fortunately, the rogue class also improved by a big margin in TBC. For starters, the 3 second garrote silence can be comboed for big damage. Water elemental itself isn’t too sturdy, as a combat rogue if the mage ice blocks I can kill it in 5 seconds with AR up. What is really lovely is the nerf to polymorph. The old school days, if you get sheeped by a mage and you already used your PVP trinket, it is over. First two sheeps usually last 10+ seconds and he has enough time to bandage, evocation, smoke some pot, and comes back to finish you off like a warrior who can’t intercept. This is not the case anymore. First sheep is 12 seconds and the second sheep is 6 seconds. Time is no longer on his side. A mage can not longer say, sheep a priest over and over then eat/drink to drain his mana bar. Even if I am out of CDs, the 1 minute COS usually comes back in time for me to finish a low health, low mana mage off, provided that he too used up most of his CDs.
My conclusion is if the mage is a good sport and stands there at the start of a duel to take a garrote up the rear, as a combat rogue I feel I have a 50-50 chance to win, as long as he doesn’t pop cold snap. If he jumps around like a monkey and spam level 1 AOE I am forced to use CS or improved kick to start, it is a much harder fight. With the prep nerf, cold snap gives him a second elemental and a second ice block and 2 more novas, it is quite nasty. Increased stamina/resilience with PVP gear will also work to their favor, as we are cooked once we are out of CDs and they are still not dead.
Mages without WE I used to consider farm status. However one ability caught my eyes: molten armor. You see coupled with impact, everytime you hit a mage you have 10% chance to be stunned for 2 seconds, an eternity against someone with AP POM pyro ready. This procs MUCH more often than frostbite. Because frostbite can only proc on the initial frost armor proc. Molten armor can proc every single hit. -5% crit reduction coupled with future resilience can reduce your crit % by as much as 15%. This ability opens the door for all sort of elemental builds, and gives AP/fire mages some much needed defense. I still say ice block is a must have for arena fights, and 41 WE is their strongest arena build, but there is a lot of room for creativity if you want to play elemental. Let’s see, 10% chance to stun the opponent when hit, 10% more to gain improved sprint. It should be a very fun build to play.
Dragon breath is a fun talent, but whenever I go into an arena fight and the mage I am with has that ability, I really hate it. I rather have him as AP nuke spec than dragon fire, at least he can almost always bring someone down if I focused on the same target. Slow can be spammed but for a class that already has so many snares/roots, I really don’t see it have any future.
5v5:
Ice block is the ability that everyone hates. A top mage is unkillable until he uses up not one, but both of his ice blocks. This puts a lot of pressure on the other team. If you leave him alone, he can do excellent damage via ice lance and pet to your team. Their sustained damage is simply amazing. A 41 WE mage consistently outdamage me by a big margin in arenas, and he only has 600 spell damage. Two novas is a lot to cleanse/dispel (if you hit three targets, it takes 4.5 seconds minimum to remove them all). WE adds a lot of micro to a class already gifted with playability. You can’t focus fire him, and you can’t leave him alone, that is what makes 41 WE mages so hard to deal with. For my war/war/pal/pal/rogue team, I will most likely chase him down personally, and put the warriors on their warlock or priest. Just putting one DPS on him can greatly reduce his effectiveness. You have to guard him, but you can’t kill him until the very end. Mana bar is still the one thing against him. As long as I can slow him down initially, he becomes useless later in the fight.
AP/fire builds are not completely out of luck if they are backed by a paladin. BOP can be dispelled, but it buys enough time for the mage to get his big nukes off. I just feel with higher stamina/resilience, the 1-2 shot thing will be far less common. 21 points for ice block, you still have a lot of flexibility to pick up other talents. Elemental builds or even AP/frost builds will be popular, I just think 41 WE is too complete of a build for cooldown-oriented arena play.
TBC improvements:
Ice lance is one of the biggest buffs to this class’s strongest PVP build. Molten armor will be a favorite for fire mages. Spell steal is too expensive to be used as an offensive dispel, but can be a game winner when used properly on something like BOP. Invisibility’s requirements are harsh, but you can still /assist another player on your team to find your target at the start of the fight. Quite simply, one of, if not the best TBC classes, 1v1, GvG, PVP, PVE, arena, BG, PVP movies, you name it, they are top notch in it.
Source:
http://www.worldofming.com/?p=302&page=1