Mage against WarlockFollow

When you encounter a warlock, look for a thing that looks like a dog. If it's out, you're better off not fighting him. Especially if he has either of the following buffs:

Master Demonology
Soul Link

Trust me on this.

Mages can get into fair fights with many classes. Warlocks just really aren't one of them.

Seriously bs. Mages can take on almost any opponent with success. It's that whole skill vs overpowered classes. Practice practice practice.

CS his long fear (and I realise you probably don't have imp cs at 40) stay fairly close to him so you can frost nova and shatter crit him. If your FB and COC took down 65% of his hp and you turn those both into crits you have one torn up warlock, right? frost nova/coc cold snap frost nova/coc fb. You win.

Show me a vid of mage vs. resto druid or mage vs SS rogue, Mage vs. MM hunter, Mage vs. Resto Sham, Mage Vs. Disc/holy prist, all in S3 with skill.

Mages are NOT a 1v1 class. Our job in PvP is sheep, slow, CS. That doesn't kill people. That allows other people to kill them. That's why are rep in 2v2 is 18%. It gets better in 3v3 (RMP) and 5v5 (2345). We may be a dmg class but that really only applys to PvE.

But my post was kind of a joke. As your lvling fight anyone and everyone you can. Only way to learn. At certian lvls mages will be better then other classes as you lvl up. But at 70 our real strength is CC due to the lack of mana we have and can sustain.

Mage vs ShS Rogue? There are lots of those. Krymu 4 (rogue PoV but he loses once out of two duels).

And Mages DO do damage in PvP. If you don't you're doing it wrong. Mages do less sustained than, say, a rogue, but we have very good burst. The reason we are low in 2v2 is not because we are not a damage class -_-

Unless it's a bad lock AND a superior mage, the mage won't win. On my 70 troll mage, the only time I beat locks one on one is if I can make them panic, but even then, I have to keep them locked down, and that is just plain hard. When you throw in resilience, then mages really get screwed.

I'm not saying you can't beat a warlock, I'm saying that the cards are stacked against you. Warlocks are the anti-mage class, along with rogues. If it makes you feel any better, rogues are the anti warlock class as well. I had one pop up and kill me (stunlocked the whole time), and his health was at 10%!!! Meaning, he was positive he could kill me and take no damage... and he did. I have had the same problem on my mage.

Now, if you run into a poorly geared lock, your only hope is to CS their shadow tree and burst them down, if you can. More often than not, you'll have that pet on you, so you'll be silenced as well. :-(

you dont have to have imp CS for pvp. i was leveling my mage as fire and was pwning every1 in duskwood in duels, and pwning hordies in WSG.

nova
sheep
pyro
fireball
(fireblast and blink if they get close)
fireball
fireblast

this works for everything butlocks

mages dont beat locks, its kinda doesnt happen unless the lock is a tard

because duels = a good pvp experience amirite?

Ah, but I bet the Warriors and Shamans are saying the same thing about Mages over on their board.

Rock, scissor, paper. That is the system Blizzard has been following when balancing the classes. They aren't balanced around 1v1 PvP and they never have been.

a duel is a less confined 1v1 arena.

when ever i try a new spec b4 i run into BG and get smushed whiel learning it i duel a freind a few times.

this thread jsut comes down to the mages whine again, theres a nice big thread about it on the lock O-boards.

Personally, I would have focused on the fact that he's not level 70 and thus not part of the section of the game that things are balanced around. But then again, surely someone would call me an elitist.

My troll mage just hit 70 and is still in mostly blues/greens, so I'll say up front that this is from the perspective of friendly 1v1 duels with friends and when I come across warlocks 1v1 in a BG, or of course in world pvp.

It's frustrating to say to the least. I don't know the warlock class very well as I've never played one (most likely never will) but it seems they never run out of mana. On top of this, their pet is always on you and even with burning soul it's hard to pull off even a scorch. Seems they resist polymorph most of time, too. I'm guessing they have a talent or something that gives resistance to some such.

Their health pool is just as big as ours if not bigger with similar gear, and they have ways of getting it back without using much mana. Bandaging and pots are our only way to get life back, and we certainly can't bandage with dots on us, or a pet. Thanks to Blizz's awesome logic, we can't even bandage while bleeding. Even using counterspell and dragon's breath to their most strategic potential, it's unlikely that we'll beat them 1v1. Especially when resilience comes into play, since we rely on burst damage and crits, and they don't as far as I know.

TBH I don't really have a problem with this. The rock paper scissors thing can get very annoying, but overall I like the idea of teamwork and utilizing the synergy of multiple classes to destroy the opposition (equal number of opponents of course). Besides, if you don't limit yourself to playing one class, you can use the rockpaperscissors ideal to your advantage in those 1v1 situations. It's no big thing for me to hop on my ms warrior and give that cocky warlock the what-for.

My .02

rock paper scissors is still regarded as the worst class balance system in the world... this is not an RTS (blizzard's forte), and players don't have hundreds of units to choose between and build a tactically viable team in order to combat another player's team.

players in an MMO have only one character. the entire reason developers are (or are supposed to be, anyway) concerned with inter-class balance is that players feel cheated and dissatisfied when their only character is incapable of performing. rock paper scissors means that players will be useless half the time. considering the discontent that pvp has brought to wow (almost the only source of complaints and nerfs/"fixes" so far), i would say it's safe to say that blizzard's idea of "class balance" is just a crock of ****. right now, mages are one of the weakest pvp classes in the game for a number of reasons. it's not that mage players suck, it's not a question of gear, it's that the systems of beliefs by which the mage was designed were built on predicates of pve playability.

mages are simply not a pvp class.

most especially not a small-group pvp class. it's easy to prove this. look at current census reports, look at current arena team makeup and ratings. look at the average populations of all the battlegrounds. mages are a damn stark minority (under-represented in pvp compared to their total server population ratio) in my battle group. out of how many thousand players?

anecdotal observation also tells me that 8/9 classes all ***** about the same one or two classes being overpowered at any given time.

gone are the days when any class could one (or two) shot another player, and with it we now find that mages have the weakest pvp combat control of any class. those classes that can heal we can't kill fast enough within a single CS. those that can't can kill us or keep us from casting long enough that they outlast our mana pool and then kill us. with season4 comming, it's pretty obvious to all that melee classes (and hunters) have the most severe advantage of all against casters (not even just mages).

melee abilities (and hunters) cannot be silenced or countered short of an actual stun or full CC effect. mages do not have any spammable stun (dragons breath is not spammable and barely lasts long enough to get a single spell off) and we cannot attack our single CC target. warlocks (and priests) do not have this liability, and in fact have greater combat control than mages (especially since we cannot CC their pets, but they can ours). considering how weak an effect frostbolt is compared to warriors' intercept or ShS or other classes with significant range abilities (everyone else), spell pushback alone is a crippling weakness that all casters suffer from in pvp above and beyond the LOS exploitation in arenas.

in other words, while warlocks do still have to have LOS, they have one thing we don't have: a means of CC that allows them to damage their target at the same time.

the frost nova nerf was pretty outrageous and was basically the last word on mage viability in pvp.