Hi, just returned to the game after a long break and wanted to start a new caster. I will strictly be solo leveling with maybe some grouping towards end game. I hear in game that Mages and Necro's get nerfed alot, so I have no Idea which class to pick. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I just dropped my necro, that I've had since beta 4, from my box group recently. They just don't do enough DPS anymore when grouping. And it does not look like there is a fix anytime soon. Go with one of the other classes unless you plan to solo 95% of the time.
Necros lack a bit of dps in groups, wiz are pretty one dimensional, and mages are overrepresented atm. But overall any of those will do fine. Need to consider their perks too - ports, FD, CotH...
Ultimately it comes down to playing what you enjoy. You can't worry too much about what gets nerfed or what's strong/weak at the moment. Those things can change overnight with one set of patch notes. If you're still undecided, I'd vote towards mage, just because it's the most overall flexible of the 3. It's good solo, group or raid. No real weakness.
Necros are going to be the best bet for soloing. They will also yield the greatest sustained DPS in a raid setting. Mages are also great for the solo game and DPS is very good atm. Wizards are the poorest class for soloing due to not haveing a pet and being primarily a burst DPS class pretty much if it summons you will have a really hard time killing it. The Enchanter is better then all 3 of the others, but you don’t seem to want to play one.
Necromancers are garbage because they're the only class that still needs to stack about 12 different spells in order to do nice DPS. Should that change, they could be fun again. Wizards are not an alone class though you can play it that way, it's just not that fun. Mages are the way to go out of your list. Enchanters are probably the next best class to go at it alone, could be the best but not sure how well they do moloing rare monsters these days. Before the rune changes they were able to do it almost as well as mages. They are wanted for groups and raids.
I would argue that the mage is weaker than both necro and enchanter when things go south, or when needing to split 3 mobs, etc. If mobs are not on the pet, the mage goes down fast. Both the necro and the enchanter can counter this (fd, runes, stuns, mez, etc)
Necromancers are better at control for sure, and surviving, too, but they are much worse at actually doing damage, due to not getting the damage change they were promised. Look at their best damage spells, it's complete garbage compared to priest spells, beast spells, enchanter spells, etc. Once they get what they're supposed to get, they should be strong again. As for enchanters, enchanters are excellent at control, but what are their options when it comes to monsters above their level limit or rare monsters? When against such monsters, mages lose no advantage, but enchanters lose every advantage. Enchanters are excellent against lower level monsters, but there are other classes that have huge advantages against lower level monsters, too. Mage and beast are just strong right now. Enchanters also, but for different reasons. Wizards are, I would say, okay; while necromancers are in a bad place due to not getting their damage changes.
This for the truth. My ench adds so much dps to the group and himself that I've now given up on my shaman almost completely (just don't need the healer over cleric merc and if I do I go cleric and add a wizzy merc) and I've flat out dropped my necro who I have had since 99 beta because his DPS sucks. I now run a mage or wiz in the box group. Right now necros are about as bad as I've ever seen in the group game - I'd compare it to the old raiding days where we were freaking mana batteries....
Yeah, and unfortunately there's too much that is wrong with the class, for it to be ever be strong in a full group setting. Just look at the fast damage spells, as an example. Even those are targeted at 24 seconds, while in a competent group, the monster should be dying in 10 to 15 seconds. The rest of the spells are much, much worse in terms of damage to time efficiency. The best role I see necromancers having, is as a two or three person group, where you want to get the most out of your one DPS class. But until they fix the damage such that you don't need to place 12 spells on one monster just to do effective damage, even this won't happen. The way I see it, necromancers should be able to cast 6 or 7 spells and do 10 million damage within 60 seconds, which gives them around a 200,000 DPS that is comparable to strong DPS classes today. They are no where close to that due to the amount of spells they have to cast to do 10 million damage. With no other relevant role in groups, and too much effort for too little return in raids, it's no wonder less and less people are playing the class.
Agreed, but... The OP will solo. Mages are great at soloing singles. As the opposition increases in numbers, mages fall behind, especially solo. Also, the enchanter will be more varied, and more sought after.
Between fade, CoN, snowball, EoLS, cazic stasis thing, and fd pots it’s really not as bad as it used to be. That and you can pair with virtually any pulling/tanking/dps/cc types to great effect, too. Not saying your point is wrong or anything, but mages can still do ok-ish tanking multiples or splitting creatively in a lot of content. Love me some mage, both great solo/molo and fits into a group/raid pretty well too. So that’s my vote OP.
Wizards are pretty good if there's no ADPS but otherwise yeah.. No reason for encs or mages to lose really. Group or not.