I can't state often enough: WE ARE NOT WIZARDS. Yes, magicians are hurting for DPS in group and raid content. Yes, magicians are hurting in mana regeneration department. Wizards outsustain us, while Necros outburst us (also other way round). But please, do not try to make us into wizards. If you want to play a wizard, roll a wizard.
You don't want me to show parity with my guilds parses. It will not end well for wizards. I'm at work now but when I get home I will be more then happy to enlighten you. I stand by my statements. Prove me wrong...
Actually, I would be VERY interested in an unabbreviated parse of RoI If there are mages who know what to do, they should be there, and set a baseline for my own performance
#1 please don't link any Mage parses, if you want to link a parse, make it a Wizard parse and give a hypothetical of what you would be compared to them. Reason being last time there were Mage parses posted, not even 2 weeks later we received a huge nerf.. As far as the group game goes, I'd rather a way to get mana back more efficiently then just our 1 gather, possibly a gather AA that's got a bit quicker cast? If we had 2 gathers similar to a Wizard we'd actually be much more efficient in group...I for one never have issues keeping up with other classes unless there is a lack of ADPS, sadly I feel Mages are the most dependent on ADPS out of all the casters. As for having multiple of many spells, tbh it "sounds" great but I'd give it a solid month at most before we were nerfed and more then likely they wouldn't revert of many to the original form we have now but a powered down version, cause deybreakgames.. To the OP, raid Mages can be awesome to play depending your guild. If you get the right setup you could possibly beat Wizards/Necro's on certain TBM events. We definitely lost power since the rain nerf but we're still pretty solid.
Prove you wrong about what, though? I'm trying to figure out your goal. While I'd love to see parses, they're fairly meaningless without context, most specifically ADPS. Group black wolf, as an on-point example, is best directed at the class that is rightfully best at converting mana to additional raid contribution, and so I expect that the good wizards you're guilded with have that support from the good druids you're guilded with. Your log would probably reflect that? And when you as a magician do get the wolves and the IoG's and such, they boost your nukes but not the pet portion of your power. But to achieve parity with wizards on the nuking front, do you not expect to have tradeoffs? You claim that no other caster has tradeoffs, but wizards' power comes at the not at all incidental cost of not having a legit tank living to serve in alt+F1, enchanters and druids trade offensive power for their respective suites of utility and healing abilities. Every class has tradeoffs.
Sometimes I wonder if it is the player that needs to change, and not the game itself. I have seen magicians complain about mana in groups. I have noticed these magicians- Do not use a 15% specialized augment for either Evoc or Conj Chain cast spears repeatedly instead of using other more mana efficient spells Use fire form instead of water form Never use a mod rod Do not cast Thaumatise Pet when it refreshes Not use a mount, when applicable Not use Forceful Rejuvenation on Gather Now I am not calling out PMJ or any other magician. I hold PMJ in the highest of regards, and he knows this. But my point is, there are things players can do to help them out but choose not to instead. I do not do most of the above (I use fire form, I use only spec Evoc augment, I use spears but also lead my weave with Fickle, I use mod rods when I need to, I always use Thaumatise) and I never seem to have a problem in the group game with mana. Maybe my group is only killing 80 mobs per hour instead of 82. Big deal. I adapted, I changed, I do what is best for me. I find I rarely if ever have any down time in this expansion, and I find myself doing well on raid parses. I am not #1 but that is fine. I do well, and I know I won't be replaced. Sure I would love to have Gather give more mana back. I would love for Mana Reserve to give more mana back. I would love our self mod rod to give more back. But it doesn't, and I changed the way I played to maximize my mana and kill ratio. And maybe I am killing two mobs less an hour than others. I am fine with that. I have enough life stress to deal with than to get agitated at two less mobs an hour. And in the meantime I am not stressed out about mana either, cause I am doing the things I need to do to manage it. Sometimes it is a game issue. Sometimes it is a player issue...
That's a false comparison and you know it. There are so many other factors that contribute to the DPS that Wizards are able to put out; comparing a select few values means nothing. Anyone who looks at actual DPS numbers can see they're far ahead of us in every time frame, and that doesn't even include the added damage that they're able to provide for others. Defining this conversation in terms of Wizards is pointless, though. The real issue is that mages have significant DPS and mana issues in both the group and the raid game to the point that we are extremely low on the DPS totem poll. Pet DPS has stagnated significantly; receiving a whole new line of pet crit damage AAs has finally brought pet DPS up to CotF levels. This has serious implications for our sustained DPS, as both main pets and RS pets used to make up a much greater portion of our overall DPS than they do now. This change has not come from increases in our spell DPS, but rather decreases in their DPS. Our mana regen has stagnated relative to the mana cost of our spells. We did not recieve an upgrade to our Gather Magnitude line in TDS because of the mana efficiency of our Rains, which were later nerfed. Our mod rods have been given few upgrades. Our AA ones finally received a boost, but the increase was laughable considering how long they had been stagnated. Mage mana regen has not kept up with other classes, and the mana efficiency of our spells has grown significantly worse. Considering the class's sustained role, this makes no sense. We have some excellent spells, some decent spells, and some terrible spells. Storm of Many is an excellent nuke, but it is also very situational. In the vast majority of group scenarios it's mediocre or worthless because there's no hope of having enough pets on the mob. In raids it's awesome, but we're also forced to cast four other spells which are not so awesome. We then use both our 105 and 100 Spears, which are incredibly inefficient. After those, all of our other nukes have a significant drop-off in DPS; Rains, the 95 Spear, Bolt, and Fickle are all terrible options. Based on that, I very much agree with Pie. Magicians need another Spear-esque spell that doesn't increase our mana usage. Anyone that can objectively analyze parses can see that Magicians are hurting, and it's also very clear that we cannot bare the burden of increased mana usage. There are certainly other solutions, but to me that appears to be among the best at addressing our issues.
First, Wizards with full support will most definitely far outpace Mages with full support; in RoI we have comparable ADPS. Secondly, trade offs are important, but I certainly don't believe that having a pet (which is a liability in a raid) is a justification for having extremely little raid viability. That design principle has not historically been applied, nor is it applied to other pet classes.
Brohg is just looking for a fight. He should know that comparing base damage on spells for wiz vs mage is meaningless since both classes have very different abilities that focus the spells. Brohg is also magically forgetting all the "legit tradeoffs" mages made for a pet. Almost no utility compared to a wizard: No root No snare No stun Hugely less mana efficiency Also Brohg, what do you suggest happens to mages for them to get to where they should be (instead of 50% of wizard sustained or burn). If their pets get better, you'll stand in line along with everyone else screaming for pet nerfs. That leaves nukes.
Dicho Companion is pretty broke, but is taking a swing at a short reuse spell that keeps the pet alive but makes it real tough to tank with, while simultaneously channeling damage through it. That's a neat idea. I don't know though, really, as I don't have a dog in this race. I thought it was weird to request spells so symmetric with the core of another class, so I ask more questions. Plus the whole "we have mana problems / we want another Spear" juxtaposition strikes me oddly. It's a weird conversation all through.
well this escalated quickly.. was a simple question guys no need to argue and thank you to those who answered my question
The funny thing is, you don't have a dog in this fight and you decided to bring up another class that the thread does not pertain to. You didn't bring up the drawbacks that I hinted to, you drew side by side comparisons. You also did a poor job at drawing those comparisons because you took things on face value with out considering various spells that 'boost' that mana Regen or that 'boost' the DMG that Wizards do. I honestly could care less what Wizards can do. I find it hard to believe any one that plays currently has parsed Magicians more then I have. With that said, I do believe I understand what the class needs and in what way it can get done. No my idea is not 100% magely, 90% of ideas now are copy/paste from a different class in 1 way or another. Its called the Developers have limited time and resources. Its also called, hey this obviously works because X class has it lets tailor it to something similar for our class. Again limited time/code availability on a lot of things. Like I said in my post, we need another spear because we lost a lot more then a spear in overall damage with the Rain nerfs. Instead of having 2 spears and 2 Rains your at 2 spears and 1 Bolt. Our Rains do 100k+ more DMG then our top Spear while costing half the mana or roughly Equal to our Bolt spell. So, even getting that second Spear we would be losing a lot of Damage but it wouldn't be as drastic as it is currently. The reason why it needs to be on-par with Bolt mana levels is because we can barely afford Bolt in our Weave as it is. That does seem to be pretty much common sense, but what do I know. As to pets on raids, your a funny guy. The majority of guilds ban them, because they are incredibly naive. They are also doing DPS comparatively to what they did in Call of the Forsaken, more then likely less but hey they got upgrades! Their Damage is incredibly inconsistent. You go from the pet burning 15k in 60 seconds, to 28k in 128 seconds. Which is still 10-15k lower then their Reign of Fear burns. Garg pets are even more inconsistent with them being uncontrolled and can not reliably be focused by anything other then Auras or properly timed spells. As to your comments about the side by side Comparisons. Like I said they are flawed. Wizards have more Mana regen and nuking tools then the spells you mentioned. They also have tools that enhance those tools to make them even better that you did not mention. Its here nor there, but accurately represent the facts or don't post the information. Pretty much how 90% of nerfs come about on these forums, half of the story gets told.
We didn't get nerfed because 1 time someone posted parses. Its a coincidence that it happened after parses were posted. It also happened that they were revamping the entire spell Crit system as well, but I feel kind of like the Mage parses posted didn't lead to that happening. It was coming down the line, based on the numerous times Rains were brought up in threads. The only real shot we have with all things considered fair (skill, gear, ADPS, Event tailored to your class), is on Burns to beat a Necro or Wizard. Anything more it would require 1 or more deaths. Sustained simply can't happen. We need Bards chained in our group to maintain the Mana Costs to keep going on long events, and still the Damage out-put is surpassed regardless the duration.
We don't really stand a chance in burns either ... if the burn is longer than 45 seconds, Necros will out-burn us. Wizards outburn us from the very start. Well, at least if they don't slack.
I don't play a mage, however I have several friends who are also worried/confused about their roles/usefulness in raids. This is what I told them: It's not all about numbers, sometimes little things you do greatly affect the outcome. For instance, I can't count the number of times our raid was saved by coh-ing the silly cleric who just got splattered, and planting a mod rod in her hand (since her QM and VP were gone), allowing her to cast the last few heals needed to save the tank.
So in Arx Mentis, where CotH does not work, mages were only semi-useful? But be in CotH or Modrod, you only need one mage per raid for that. Also, tbh, I was glad that my class was a bit more than just a ModRod dispenser and CotH bot ...
I remember during Velious when my job was to drop mod rods on the ground into shapes so that others would pick them up to use. Myself and the other magician would always have contests each raid to see who could make the best design on the ground. But even better was Temple of Veeshan raids. Where because due to faction I was not allowed to damage any mobs and get any faction hits. Those were some epic mod rod ground shapes and designs then! O those were the dayyyyyyyyyyys......
Unfortunately, alot of people do look at the numbers too. Mages get benched on full raids when higher dps classes come on.
We usually had a token human monk as the "rod refresher", picking them up and redropping them to prevent poof. The mages were too busy summoning moar . I think it says a lot that mages are relegated to using a lvl 95 spear given how horridly inefficient they are. It's also worth noting that a lot of these complaints aren't restricted to just mages as well. In the raid vacuum the things that the non warrior, cleric, wizard, rogue classes get as trade offs for the gap in raw power end up being pretty meaningless, especially given the now micro size of "expansions". See similar posts from sks, monks, hybrid melee, etcetc.
I see, my naivety at work again, that's a shame :-(. I don't raid with guilds that bench people because someone else showed up.
