solo mage = lunchmeat?Follow

You are definitely right. Unless you have the ability to root/snare/kite the mob it will be very difficult to kill the bosses that will be wailing on you.

Comparing my lock to my mage, my lock was able to solo almost anything, but the mage ran into the same issues you have. Funny how a lot of those 'boss' mobs are immune to frost snares, but can be feared...

Same, there are some like Dimensius that just can't be soloed, but non-elite bosses weren't ever a problem. But Culuthas wasn't that bad just kiting as a deep fire mage. Maybe the best strategy on these bosses is to just go all out, pop a potion if you need to and not worry about cc.

Edited, Jun 30th 2008 3:47pm by Kyrin

A great example of this is the Overlord quest in Hellfire. At 70.... He destroyed me. I could have tried to figure out a way - yes - I know his main spell can be LOS or out ranged - but honestly.... I'd rather pay 10G to the nearest tank and have the mob drop quick.

From his name, the OP is clearly coming to mage-land for Paly... My #1 alt is a paly - Paly is just plain stupid-survivable. I can run into a field of mobs, agro all of them, grab a few adds or pats, survive it all, probably coming out with only a few cool-downs burnt...


Mage, on the other hand - we die. We die a lot. There is no other class that is as weak as us.

Why?

1. We have no Heals.
2. We have no Damage Mitigation (Read Armor)
3. We have no stealth, or agro reduction (Read Feign Death, Stealth, etc...)

Poldaren --- I usually say that whatever you and Anobix say is the right answer... My problem with your response is that other classes don't have to 'spec' to do this. Yeah, I can kite the hell out of mobs if I'm geared and enchanted right, but my Paly can walk in, I've got gear 10 lvls old, My cooldowns are 'cooling' still, and I'll probably survive. I have complained about this in the past. As I leveled my mage - I HATED that you needed to SPEC PVP to be even competent. It bothered me that Locks were level spec'd and could destroy me. It bothered me that Hunters were too. If you bump into one while leveling --- just /sleep or whatever - because IF THEY WANT - you are dead. Mage, by far, is the hardest class to play well. You must be an expert to live. 1 mistake - you die. (Don't get me wrong - I love my mage, but you can simply be retarded dumb on some classes - and you'll live.)

Regarding the kiting suggestion. I'm a big fan of kiting slow mobs all over the place (one of my 70's is a hunter). I ended up dropping Boglash using a combination of instant casts and blazing speed. But several of the quests I had trouble with don't provide a lot of room to work with. One in particular (the naga leader one) actually resets once you get too far from his spawn point.

You don't have to spec to fireblast kite. It's just easier and safer if you are.



We have some of the best escape tools in the game. Blink, frost nova, Ice Block(for waiting out cooldowns), an armor buff that seriously slows our foes(and even more with a chance to root if specced), we can turn our mana pool into hit points while we run away(though inefficiently), AoE snare untalented, AoE daze talented, AoE Disorient talented, the ability to polymorph a foe and escape, an aggro drop that does take 5 seconds to channel(but can be done while moving) that works well in conjunction with blink, an armor spell that can work with a talent to proc stuns on foes that hit us, a talented pet that we can use to distract and root our foes while we escape, more abilities to survive jumps from high places than you can shake a stick at(ok, so 3) and several other minor things to help us survive.



Coincidentally, it is arguable that our strongest leveling build is also our strongest PvP build. For the same reason that it's good for PvP, it's good for leveling. If you've read the sticky, you've heard me harp on this before.

Control.
Burst.
Survive.

It applies to PvP as well as leveling. This means we can be competent at PvP and level at the same time. Even my fire leveling build takes talents that are quite arguably PvP talents.



These classes are meant to be able to kill us. Not to mention that many warlocks will also level using a talent build that is good for both PvP and leveling. I'm not sure what hunter talent tree is in vogue for PvP right now, but I know BM hunters are strong levelers and decently strong PvPers, at least as far as mages are concerned, because they have the talents that allow them to destroy us.



Oddly enough, I have taken a ton more dirt naps with my paladin and with my warlock than I ever have with my mage. And those classes are known for their survival abilities.



One part of skill for a player is to know what tasks you're suited for and which ones to use what you can to escape from. I've soloed things that tanks at equal gear levels at the time(back when I and they were just hitting 70 and were in blues and quest greens) tried and failed miserably on. Healers tried and couldn't do them alone. Yet, I, the mage without heals, without mitigation, with no stealth or aggro drop, did them. Because I had the abilities that suited me for the tasks, I prevailed where armor and heals failed.

Sure, I've failed at any number of tasks that a more armored person or someone with heals could have accomplished. But I've succeeded where I've seen others fail because I had tools that they didn't.

You may say mages are weak. I say...

Working as intended.

Pol,

Maybe it’s just my experience, but I’ve found my paly to be much more survivable. As to the points about escaping – I agree with them all, but my point was more aimed at actually taking down the mobs. I can kite, to an extent, but the ability of some (maybe most) classes to take on a big mob and survive – I just think they out-shine a mage in that aspect. I can take on more mobs than nearly any class, but when things go wrong – my only option is to die or run away. Usually, if you die – you die quick.

Just from my brief (lvl 44 --10 Holy/Rest Ret) Paly --- Wow they are survivable. With cooldowns, pots, bandages, and standard abilities – I’ve just been able to do stupid things and live. The OP sounds like a former Paly – thus I think that he’s going to see mage as even more squishy than someone entering with no former bias.

As to the PVP thing – I should have mentioned – I’m speaking about PVP in world – not Arena or BG. As most of the time, I’m not full on mana – and the fact that most of PVP is done with your instants or less mana efficient spells – I find that mages are generally easy targets. Again – from the prospective of my Paly alt – I was in a group and the group leader asked me to /duel. He was a 47 and I was 41. Warrior vs Paly. I won. I’m not even good at PVP – but I just outlasted him. He’d go crazy dealing damage. I’d heal, apply Judgement of Light and Seal up some wisdom…

I agree with you on the 'solo-friendly' comment.

Paly lives, but wow is he slow.

I'm confused by what you mean here.



Generally people associate frost with PvP - I have always found that Fire is a better leveling spec than frost. Your final comment makes me curious. What talents do you think are PvP in your Fire leveling build?



Give your (unquoted) dirt nap comment I suspect that you "think like a mage". I've played every class but hunter at least enough to get a feel for them and gotten killed a lot until I learned to think like that class. Almost without exception I've missed the skills a mage brings to the table (although I do enjoy druids). On my mage, without regard to spec, there have been a small percentage of "regular" bosses that I haven't figured out a way to take down. Sometimes its not pretty. More than once tactical use of cool downs, pots, and bandages were required, and a bit of luck as well. Part of the reason is that Mob AI is predictable and you can use that to tremendous advantage. As you mention there are some bosses that a mage simply can't do solo (or at least I was unable to find a way).

However, when it comes to PvP, where there is another human mind against you, mages, unless PvP specced and (at level 70) PvP geared, are just toast. As an exercise I spent some of the holiday weekend figuring out what it would cost me in time and gold to grind out PvP gear so that I can smack them rogues on the Isle when I'm doing dailies. Short answer is that I'd have to derail raid progression for about 2 months, and spend a lot of resources that I would prefer to put to raiding, on PvP gear that I neither need nor want for raiding. Thats ok with me, I prefer to level and play, and (as long as its viable for the instance) raid as a fire spec mage. If that means that some clown in S2/S3 crushes me like the squishy I am so be it.

I seem to be picking the hardest class's. First I picked a human pally. I have him up to lvl 69 (prot) and sadly have no motivation to keep lvling. Now I made a darni Mage (fire) and seem to be stronger in him then my pally was at his lvl even tho he can only wear cloth.



Anyone have any Advice on how to survive being a Mage and solo most quest.??

Well, my lock throws out 4-6K shadowbolts with kara level gear (destruction spec).

For the OOM comment, I completely agree. Sometimes in BGs it is faster for me to die than it is to find a spot to hide and drink. I've actually gone up to a warrior/rogue and started stabbing them in the face. It does get their attention as well as a few /lols.

World PvP is now and has always been mostly about initiative. The most alert person will likely find their foe first and will get to choose when to strike. When a mage has the initiative, they have multiple options for bringing massive pain upon their foe before the enemy can retaliate. When you don't have the initiative, the battle is often already lost, even for most other classes. Only when the person who was attacked has some other significant advantage will the one who attacks first, be it skill, gear, level, or Rock/Paper/Scissors superiority.

Fire based leveling builds can take massive advantage of initiative, while frost based ones are much better at the counter attack. I'm willing to bet that's why it feels like you often succumb to ganking. That said, mages are probably the second best escape artists in the game, save rogues.

Very true... Everybody who'se in Quel'danas with PvP on on my server is generally a top ranking arena player. I'm not one to bug/grief so generally I leave them alone... I did kill a warrior once when he rushed a 10% shaman from my side tho.