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Mage in BG, Really completely useless ???Follow

#1 Jun 08 2008 at 1:28 PM Rating: Default
Mage in BG, Really completely useless ???

What does a Mage do in a BG apart from dying...?

I tried it for some time now as a LV 30 Mage, but OK, you're the lowest level so more than annoy people you can't do. Had fun anyway, (even captured a flag once, they weren't looking).
Now I'm a LV 38 (fire)Mage, but still, the dying part seems to be the only thing I can do well.
My Firebolt still takes way to log to cast... Hardly get one off before I'm stunned, confused, in love, or scared again, or something. I have no defense whatso ever to any of those... Crowd attack spells like BlastWave and Arcane Explosion don't do nearly enough damage and take up huge amounts of Mana. FrostNova doesn't freeze anything long enough to be of any use.
The damage I do is pathetic. I haven't seen a critical yet. I need to hit chars with Levels close to mine at least ten times and of course I do not have the Mana for that.
On the other hand it takes only two, or three blows from anything (even e LV34) to wipe my *** out...
Needless to say... This isn't fun anymore...

Can anybody suggest a strategy for a Mage in BG. What spells are the most usefull ?
#2 Jun 08 2008 at 1:47 PM Rating: Decent
Can you post your armory and talent tree build?
#3 Jun 08 2008 at 3:08 PM Rating: Decent
I hope this is OK, (don't know how to link to the handy littl'e pictures.)
============================================================================
Equipment:
Head: A-40, Stam+6, Intel+7, spirit+10
Neck: Stam+7, Spirit+4
Shoulder: A-35, Intel+7, spirit+7
Back: A-23 Stam+6, Agil+3
Chest: A48, Intel+11, Stam+7
Wrist: A-14, Spirit+2, Stam+2
Hands: A34, Stam+4, Intel+8
Waist: A-88, Stam+4, Intel+3, Magic/healing+11
Legs: A-35, Spirit+6, Intel+7, Stam+4
Fingers: Spirit+7, Stamina+7

Sword: 20.7dps, Agil+5, Stam+7, skill 97
2nd Hand: Intel+4, Spirit+4

Wand: 28.8dps, speed 1.30, skill 163

Stats:
Strength:28 - Agility:36 - Stamina:92 - Intellect:125 - Spirit:126 - Armor:473
Bonus Dmg:18 - Bonus Heal:18 - Hit Rating:0 - Crit.chance:4.01% - Haste:0 - Mana regen:103

Talents (6-22-1):
Arcane: Arcane subtelty:2 - Arcane focus:1 - Impr.Arc.Missiles:2 - Magic Absorb:1
Fire: Impr.Fireball:3 - Impact:5 - Ignite:1 - Flame throwing:1 - Impr.Fireblast:1 - Incineration:1 - Impr.flamestrike:1 - Pyroblast:1 - Burning soul:2 - Impr.scorch:1 - Molten shield:1 - Master of Element:2 - Crit.mass:1 - Blastwave:1
Frost: Frost warding:1
#4 Jun 08 2008 at 4:52 PM Rating: Decent
Type in your characters name in the armory box click your character copy the URL and post it. Alright and as for your spec you might want to go frost for now and wait till end game to go back into fire especially if BG'S are something your are really into to this would be the spec I would recommend for now http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZhZVAMcofb. But if you would like fire this one maybe http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZxgRzrcsoo. Hope I could help.
#5 Jun 08 2008 at 11:06 PM Rating: Decent
First of all, Mage is not useless in bg. That is a different story anyway cos I think your problem has nothing to do with class.
Low Bg's are full of twinks, did you know this? I have no idea about your experience in wow so maybe we can assume that someone reads this who dont even know what is a twink. You are leveling your mage and also visiting bg but some people dont level their characters anymore but play them in bg @ 19, 29, 39, 49 etc you get the picture.

So if you dont manage to kill anything there it's not a news. There are people who have spent more than 1000g for character and they have 3 times more hp than you. You dont stand a chance. Second thing is that if you want to be able to shine in pvp as mage you should be frost, use instant attacks unless you have warrior or other taking dmg while you can nuke from backround.

In AV (starts at 51) you can be more helpfull since there is a lot more players. I go in AV as my raid specc and try to make best of it, meaning that I normally top dmg meters in boss killing. Otherwise I try to survive using other players as my shelter and sheep - nuke - aoe - cc - cc - cc.

Just go there and enjoy, dont care about dying cos it's part of the game in bg's. I'm waiting that I get my shaman to AV's and then I will be enhacement spec but it will mostly be chain-chain-chainheal!!!

Edited, Jun 9th 2008 9:07am by Causa
#6 Jun 09 2008 at 2:44 AM Rating: Decent
2 Aderius...
What "armory box", where ???
#7 Jun 09 2008 at 2:55 AM Rating: Decent
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109 posts
PvP in the lower brackets tends to be fairly one-sided. There will be the people who have decided to spend hundreds (if not thousands) of gold twinking their character and there really isn't much you can do about that. If they did it right, they'll have hundreds more hp than you, more spell dmg (or AP depending on the class) and they will pwn you. There's no way to avoid rampant twinkage until you get to level 70.
#8 Jun 09 2008 at 3:37 AM Rating: Default
Well, I tried the "frost" Mage, doing a little better, but I'm starting to get the point now... So either you spend hundreds of "real" dollars buying gold and twinking, or you suffer death ,after death, after death... Isn't Blizzard doing anything about this? Cause **** like that really takes the fun out of the game.
#9 Jun 09 2008 at 5:33 AM Rating: Decent
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1,262 posts
Well, a couple of things. 1) You will die in PvP if you don't do a lot of PvP. The mindset is completely different from PvE. For example, in PvE you would never start casting a fireball and then quickly juke to the left in order to draw that rogue into kicking you. There are skills that are PvP only skills. 2) You should be at least x7 to go into a BG or else you're a hinderance to the BG. You should not ever go as a 30-36, IMO. 3) You should stay ranged if possible. Find places to do this from. Know what your character is good at. For example in AB, you can blink to the flag and hop around like a retarded monkey spamming Arcane Explosion to buy time for others to get there. You can call out incomming enemies. You can sheep healers.

A well played mage is a boon to any battleground they are in... a poorly played one is just another free honor kill. Check out Evertras' movies to see how a 70 mage kills things in duels. There are *reasons* that classes other than hunters and locks say mages are OP.

This advice comes from my experience with my 70 mage who has 13.5K honor kills. The only reason it isn't more is because I rarely play him in favor of playing alliance toons with my wife.

Edited, Jun 9th 2008 8:34am by ktangent
#10 Jun 09 2008 at 5:34 AM Rating: Decent
It will be on the main worldofwarcraft site in the upper right hand corner. And I agree with Somnus you most likely will not be able to defeat a twink till 70 they might of had years more experience and tons more gold. Just judge who you think you can take down and go after them with a passion. And it does not take the fun out of the game just go grind and stuff get better armor and a staff the sword really is not helping much to a mage class then at 70 or so go back to the BG's with your pimped out gear.
#11 Jun 09 2008 at 6:51 AM Rating: Good
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1,634 posts
A couple of points to note…

1. You quote your sword DPS and your skill Same with wands… Question – Why? You almost sound as if you are using this as a weapon. I’m not trying to accuse (as I had problems as a Mage PVP too once), but if you are using a weapon you’re not being a mage….
2. You are a main DPS in PVE, but you are a support character in PVP. You know how you DPS the life out of things in a 5man and the shamy just supports you, helps the tank, buffs the healer, maybe throws DPS out there??? That’s you in PVP. Sheep something, somewhere. You should always sheep someone. If a flag carrier is there – don’t kill him. Stop him. Frost Nova, Dragons Breath (Above you now), Sheep him, Frost bolt (Slow) him. Let the other people kill him – your job is to STOP him. You can kill, but you’re job is better served as a slow, stop, trapper. Where’s the rogue? Lvl 1 Blizzard will find him. Healer causing problems? Sheep or Counter Spell him.
3. Fire is not a PVP build. Like #2 stated – you are a supporter. Don’t Burst DPS people down. Why – It draws attention. The pain in the *** mage that froze you, slowed you isn’t such a big deal when a Rogue, druid, paly are pounding on you, but when half you HP is gone in 1 hit, you notice and kill that person.
4. Go frost. Get a better weapon. Pay up and respec. You should be full frost or 2 Arc/rest frost at this point. The fire is not super-dps until you get to Combustion (aka – pretty much guarentee’d crits) Also – fire is the super DPS when you can get POM in arcane. (Which is way later for your lvl) Go frost and survive.
5. DPS meters make you think DPS matters – winning matters. Stop that flag carrier, bliz the flag room (at lvl 1) for the sneaky rogue.
6. You’ll die a lot. Your job is to win.

Also – on a side note – Never, never get frost warding.
#12 Jun 09 2008 at 6:56 AM Rating: Decent
Have you really thought about some of the things you can do in a BG?

Have you considered in the WSG, casting Blizzard (Really helpful with Improved) against a piled up force? It slows them down, and if your team has the flag, it can buy you guys more than enough time to get back.


OR....

What about polymorphing a (non-Druid) enemy healer? Or running through spamming Arcane Explosion?

No no, you're right, we're useless.
____________________________
"Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible c*** : me."
#13 Jun 09 2008 at 8:12 AM Rating: Decent
like said above it definitely gets better. at 70 i'm usually top 2 in kills and top 4 in dmg every bg, no matter what map. Especially when you reach AV, with the large amount for people in there, your mainly stand back behind the fight and nuke away, especially if your fire.

At all lower lvl brackets you're gonna run into twinks. while lvling my mage WSG especially was never fun due to all the little gnome rogue twinks, so i just stopped doing BG's until lvl 40ish. then i stayed strictly to AB (less twinks imo).
#14 Jun 09 2008 at 8:43 AM Rating: Decent
I agree. My mage at 70 has 10216 hp and 315 resilience atm. I have a ways to go yet. But mages are particularly good in bgs as frost. U have many ways of escape and lots of shatter combos with ur elemental. I say either get some nasty spell dmg at ur level bg or just get to 70 and go from there.
#15 Jun 09 2008 at 3:52 PM Rating: Decent
Tx for all the reply. At least I now know I'm not doing something horribly wrong... Just need to adjust from PvE to PvP.

Quote:
"Not ever go as a 30-36, stay ranged if possible. Find places to do this from. you can blink to the flag, spamming Arcane Explosion to buy time, sheep healer"


The above I kinda figured out as well by now. I guess I got the strategy down than, more or less...
And I pick my targets way more carefull nowadays... (must be getting some of that illusive experience).
So the rest is Twinking...?

Oh, one thing... What does
Quote:
"you should be at least x7"
mean? (I'm not really up to speed with the lingo).

Tx Borsuk... makes a lot of sense...
#16 Jun 09 2008 at 8:30 PM Rating: Decent
Quote:
mean? (I'm not really up to speed with the lingo).


17, 27, 37, 47, 57, or 67 for the respective brackets.

The reason being, you're within two levels of the highest level in the BG; below that, you're doing two things:

1) Standing around with a target over your head saying "KILL ME!"

2) Taking up valuable room in the BG.

People like to win (Unless losing involves a payoff), and having a low(er) level character in with all 28s and 29s, for example, greatly reduces that chance.
____________________________
"Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible c*** : me."
#17 Jun 09 2008 at 11:06 PM Rating: Good
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3,761 posts
Little PVP tip, if you stay fire, DONT USE FIREBALL IN PVP USE SCORCH AND FIREBLAST

Pop and move, pop and move. Nova, move, scorch, fireblast, blink, scorch, scorch, fireblast. Use cone of cold to slow your enemies when nova is on cooldown.

Go to your "Interface Options" in game, and make sure to Show Enemy Castbars or something like that. Use counterspell against enemy mages who are casting (frostbolt, polymorph), use it on warlocks (fear, drain life), use it on paladins (flash of light, holy light), you get the idea. If someone is about to do lots of damage to you or your teammate-- or heal one of their own teammates, counterspell them.

Sheep rogues, run around with frost armor up so they're always walking slowly. I would really level as full frost especially since you want to PVP along the way. Frost is much better for PVP.

Dont worry too much about PVP before 70. I hit 70 with like...300 lifetime kills, now I have 20,000+

The game is only balanced around level 70 PVP. It sounds dumb when you're new to the game, but keep playing for months or years and you'll understand. Getting to 70 itself is actually the short part.
#18 Jun 09 2008 at 11:21 PM Rating: Decent
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69 posts
I take it u are very new to this game to use fire in bg and expect to not die alot.....Frost is the way to go for pvp until later lvls and even then its still better for the survival and burst.......If u think that mages are useless you are completely looking at the class wrong....Like above stated we stop people very well, can sheep and have tons of burst dmg spells....Learn your role and dont always go for most dmg go for the win.
#19 Jun 10 2008 at 6:35 AM Rating: Good
I'm not an experienced player, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of BG, and am loving it. The way I figure it, it's my JOB to die. I kill more at x8 and x9, but I still die a lot. I don't agree with not going into BG until x7, though, because, hell, I'm there to die. Lemme 'splain.

I mostly play AB. I try to find groups of the enemy, and run right up in the middle, frost nova, spam the hell out of explosion, etc, then lock myself into a tight little ice cocoon. What this does is gets people to kill me. While people are focused on beating the hell out of my ice block, guess what my team mates are doing to them? :) The fun thing is when you can just -hear- the other side saying "KILL THAT MAGE!" because, for some reason, I'm seen as a threat. They'll pile up on me every time, and meanwhile, my team will beat the tar out of them.

Lotsa fun! :)

It's also fun to just hit from a distance while someone's pummeling the enemy, just not AS fun. :)

I also like to defend nodes, and blizzard is pretty good about that, because, for one thing, if you spam blizzard right at the flag, they'll try to avoid it, and that just gives my team mates time to kick their ****** Plus, like someone else said, shows rogues. Of course, this has the side benefit of "KILL THAT MAGE!" that I mentioned earlier. :)


And, hey, even if your team loses, you still get that "welfare" mark, and they add up, I'm here to tell you. lol. I just need to figure out what to spend mine on right now. :)


Have fun!
Trill
#20 Jun 10 2008 at 7:27 AM Rating: Decent
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1,262 posts
I was on my alliance mage last night in battlegrounds. My alliance lvl 38 mage is 0-10 in BGs now at this level. I find that the biggest issue is "everyone wants to pew-pew and no one wants to guard". A mage alone at a node is a free HK for a twink rogue. But it seems that hardly anyone cares about that. I think I'll just skip pvp till 70 and take it from there. At least until the 40s. I'm hoping people get more intelligent at BGs at higher levels, and on my alliance warlock, that seems to be the case. It is just frustratingly stupid to see lvl 32 people in BGs getting 1 shotted when they could be replaced by a lvl 37 or so that actually can do some damage against enemies. Oh, and as far as your mage PITA theory... you get 1 shotted and then you're not a PITA anymore. The only exception to that kind of thing might be a healer which can heal at any level, but still your spells aren't all there until x8 for any given BG level, so you're not as useful as an x7-9, but moreso.
#21 Jun 10 2008 at 8:42 AM Rating: Good
Hey, if they're 1 shotting me, that's 1 less shot taken at my team.

Anyway, the idea that someone shouldn't take a spot until x7 is just an unfun way to think about something that's supposed to be fun. I'm not betting my money or my clothes on it. Yeah, it's more fun if you win, but, for me, at least, I have fun while playing. If people wanna get pissed at me for that, let em. It's a game. :)

Trill

ETA: I agree with you about tons of people running off and leaving mages to guard nodes. If that happens, I just say "mage alone guarding (whatever)" until someone joins me. But one useful thing that a mage CAN do is alert the rest of the team of incoming. I can do that even if I'm 1-shotted.

Edited, Jun 10th 2008 11:44am by Trilliandent
#22 Jun 10 2008 at 8:43 AM Rating: Good
Here's my quick sum up of the thread.

Twinks - People with lvl 70s and *** loads of gold will use that gold to "twink" a toon out. This means that they'll have friends run them though instances and get them the best gear they can have at whatever level their twinking at. Then spend gold to enchant said gear with the best enchants they can use at that level. I have a 49 twink sham with 3700 HP and over 700 AP. So much fun.

Armory - Go to www.worldofwarcraft.com (or the EU one if your across seas), click on "Armory" in the upper right, then type in your name. Find you on the list if people on other servers have the same name as you (you can look by server) and it will bring up a pic of your mage and all his gear. Then you can paste the web link here and we can all check out you stats, gear, build.

BGs as fire - Like some people said, only use scorch and fireblast. Only use fireball if you KNOW you can get it off, like when nobody sees you.

BGs as frost - Cone of cold and fireblast are you friends. Frostbolt when they are nova'd and you have some distance.

BGs in general - Since you don't have the survivability at your lvl you won't make a good defender. Try and travel in a group and stand back away from the action. There's a reason we have a range on our spells. Also, sheep is your very best friend. Sheep a healer, sheep that person running at you, sheep one of the 2 people beating on the war in front of you (the one he's not beating on). That's where your support comes into play. Try not to focus so much on taking out that guy, but more on helping your teamates take out that other guy. Then in return they'll help you take out that rogue that's beating on you.


Edited, Jun 10th 2008 12:45pm by DarkHybridX
#23 Jun 10 2008 at 2:07 PM Rating: Decent
I feel that a mage is not even close to being useless. From the beginning i started looking at your gear. Most of it is just pure stats. Now that Wow has introduced +healing and damage take advantage of that by lvl 35 i had +69 dmg to all schools of magic because almost everything i have has +Heal and damage.At the sametime though the stats are helpful to keep you from running out of mana and HP. I did not start out twinking my mage but it looks like i did. I use enchanting to my benefit. If you do ench/tailoring you make some gold. Mats for tailoring is easy to find most instances you run some form of humanoid drops the cloth needed. Make only green items in tailor and DE them. It benefits you both ways ups your tailor and gets you mats for Ench. If you don't need the mats anymore AH them.

While reading this i felt like the fire mage got the shaft till the middle. From there i agreed with pretty much everybody especially the first person that said use Scorch and Fireblast to your advantage. And like everybody said your really not there to pwn everybody by yourself. Your there to help pwn others. While a melee friend(war, rog, druid, etc.) is in hand to hand scorch them while the are focused on your ally and then fireblast them. If they stop to attack you then that gives the opening for your friend to really waylay them especially a rogue with good backstabing!

Anywho the moral of the story is "No matter what class you pick your GONNA DIE!" Just some classes tend to die faster than others and really its all about your play style. You can be all twinked out as much as you want and still get pwned by some none twink because you don't know how to play.
#24 Jun 11 2008 at 6:29 AM Rating: Good
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1,634 posts
This is not the point of the post, but as to the x7, x8, x9 issue...

Unless you are a healer - I don't like seeing people in BG below x7. The reason for this is the same reason I hated sports prior to the age where they start making cuts to the team roster. I hated that everyone got to play. I was not an All-American, but I was pretty good. I hated that we had to sub-in the kid who couldn't catch, throw, or bat because everyone got to play. Or in Pee-Wee football when we had to put the kid in who was afraid to tackle. He just ended up costing us the game and sometimes getting someone hurt.

Look - lvl x0 through x4 is grossly under powered for facing off against an x8 or x9
lvl x5 and x6 are ok, but you're sorta like the "special kid" on the baseball team that can run fast, but throws all the baseballs over the fence and into the woods. (Thanks, buddy, you're helping)
lvl x7 ok. You're not perfect, but we could use you and if you're a caster, all the better. You should be getting hit too much.

x5 - x6 --- Support or Heals. I run as a paly and did enter WSG at 36. Mainly to buff, heal the runner, BoF the runner, and defend the runner (At our base when they had our flag). Also, there are so few people who enter BG to heal - I guess we'll take what we can get.


#25 Jun 11 2008 at 12:11 PM Rating: Good
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1,259 posts
Mages suck in Battlegrounds.

If you are concerned about my gear/talents, check my sig below.

Edited, Jun 11th 2008 4:13pm by Ebonspine
#26 Jun 11 2008 at 2:26 PM Rating: Decent
Everybody, thanx for all the comments. It helps knowing that I'm not doing something terrebly wrong.

And I never actually said Mages are useless... I just wondered if I was... (as a mage)...

I am getting the hang of it, now I understand more about the pro's and con's and yes, it is already more fun...
Thanx for a couple of good tips, stuff I will definately try. It's just... I'm not thinking that quick yet...
But by all means... keep the comments coming. I'm sure a lot of people besides me like to read them.

Grtzz Nicolass
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