Remember a couple of days ago when I was enthusing about my future fire mage in Cataclysm? Well, last night I "remembered" that I already had a mage on another server, on the Horde side. He's a level 27 Undead. I decided to hop on him, spec him fire and join a random dungeon to see how it goes.
Since I hadn't played this guy in like 2 years, all my talents were reset. I won't even detail the fire spec I picked because the talents are going to change in a few days anyway, with patch 4.01. But I got the standard stuff.
While queuing for the random dungeon, I tried to set my skill bar in order. It was cluttered with all the crap from way back when I played this guy. Back then I used all the spells in my inventory, and I was specced something weird like an arcane-fire-frost hybrid. The queue wasn't long, and I barely had time to re-arrange my spells before I entered the dungeon.
It was Razorfen Kraul. The run was longish and the funniest thing that happened was when the tank died in the bat cave from some mobs who silenced both him and the healer. I was left with 3-4 elites beating on me so I did the only thing I could: used all the abilities at my disposal to try to put as much hurt on those mobs as possible. I had no illusions of surviving that fight. I had a hairline of life left and thought I was a goner but the healer kept healing me and the other dps were banging on the mobs. Finally, incredibly, we managed to kill them all and survived!
For all practical purposes it can be considered that this is the first time I'm playing this mage. I was surprised to find out that my dps wasn't bad at all. I was in the top 3. The tank and druid did about 52 dps while I did 48-49. This in spite of my really crappy gear. The shadow priest was terrible, barely above the healer.
The only thing that I didn't dig about the mage was that I spent all of the time between battles either drinking water or Evocating.
So there goes my short mage adventure. I wanted to try him before 4.01 and then I'll probably try him again after 4.01 to see how it compares. I don't think I'll play him after that, but instead I will concentrate on my new mage. I can't wait to equip him with all those heirlooms. If my poorly geared mage managed to be among the top dps, I'm sure a fully heirloom-equipped character will be king of dps.
Patch 1.0.5 commentary
12 years ago
6 comments:
Mages are fun, I had one levled to 41 back in time. The only real annoying thing is... you spend most of your time drinking/eating. It's annoying-as-hell. this is why I did not manage to level it further...
I don't know how it will be in 4.01 or Cata, maybe better?
Hopefully there will be some better mana management in 4.01. At any rate, mages are cool, glass cannon and all. Drinking isn't that bad what with the free water but hopefully there's enough time between fights to do it. In my group the other night the tank was rather in a hurry and I barely had 5 seconds between fights to drink. Luckily Evocation takes care of the balance.
Yeah, being mana-poor sucks.
If you can get a JC to make you a Moonsoul Crown, it's a lifesaver. That MP5 built into the item is practically the only one found at such low levels.
Mana is not a problem at all if you spec arcane and also grab the glyph of Evocation. The extra time off of the CD coupled with the glyphs ability to heal Health along with Mana is the uber-solo build. And I also love Arcane cuz you get a lot of instant nukes.
Fire is a mana hog if I remember correctly. I understand wanting to go that route though... I'm sticking with Frost while I'm leveling since it is typically more mana efficient. The heirlooms make a HUGE difference of course. Plus once you get all that great blue gear, mana regen is better. Has a lot to do with the group your in also.
@Redbeard on my Alliance server I will be able to craft pretty much anything I want, including that hat, because I have all the professions maxed out. So it will certainly help a lot.
@Cold I was thinking about arcane too but fire seems so much more badass. I don't find Glyph of Evocation particularly useful in dungeons because ideally I should be taking damage anyway. As for solo-ing, my solo-ing days should be pretty much over what with the dungeon tool. Awesome gear can be found in dungeons and I believe leveling is quicker there.
@DaveTheWaveUSMC yeah, fire is a bloody mana hog. But then again, my Horde mage is pathetically geared. Heirlooms should help a lot.
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