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Going caster - Lock, Mage or Spriest - need some pointers
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Post by
168437
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Post by
cloudp
Do you know something about the classes? If not, the pointers would be:
Mage - Frost - Control of the fight, it is yours. You're not there for absurd damage, but you're there to harass any caster/melee though stuns, freezes, snares, polymorphs and interrupts. You need good timings, but if you're good, FMage owns.
Arcane - Mobility & control, bursty damage. You can play a bit of both - Slow+Arcane Barrage gives you a very interesting combo to move at will, Frost Nova is still there, and the best of all, Presence of Mind can lead to good combos. Arcane Power provides a lot of damage.
Fire - In arenas you're there to be laughed. You have too few and unreliable survival skills. In BGs you're a glass cannon - emphasis on the cannon.
Warlock
Affliction - DoTs, DoTs, DoTs, Fear, DeathCoil, DoTs, DoTs, run for your life. Burst is not your ideal - slowly but surely your enemy will fall. You are a healer's nightmare - Unstable Affliction nullifies - i really mean
nullifies
- dispels; and if your enemy is foolish enough to try to dispel it, wreak vengeance through the consequences of that. Your self-healing abilities counter a healer most of the time.
Demonology - Not my area of expertise, but i can say you rely HEAVILY on Metamorphosis. You're in trouble when it is on cooldown.
Destruction - Glass Cannon extraordinaire. BAM them!
Shadow Priest
DoTs, Vampiric Touch is the most important for Dispel protection. Self-heal through Vamp.Embrace means the more offensive you play, the better. You have the possibility of true healing - but be careful about when to drop shadowform, it's very important. This one takes a bit to master but since 3.3 came out it is really viable.
Should you already know the classes, pick what you like. WoW is changing too much for you to pick one "always best" type of deal - Shadow Priests, for example, were horrible for pvp come 3.0, but in their last patch they are finally viable.
Post by
moocow
Fire - In BGs you're a glass cannon - emphasis on the cannon.Just being a Mage gives you a lot of CC for BGs. Fire works great, and is a lot of fun.
Post by
334295
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499948
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Post by
Gnostik
Well, in terms of viability for competitive arenas:
Mage > Warlock >> Shadow Priest
Without giving a dissertation on these three classes and how they compare to each other, there are a few reasons why the Mage is the standout choice, while Shadow Priests fall behind.
The most important point is that the Mage and Warlock both have a spammable crowd control while the Priest does not. Here the Warlock might have the advantage, as a target can be damaged while feared. But Polymorph and Fear both have their advantages and disadvantages.
Meanwhile the Shadow Priest relies mainly on Psychic Scream, a 24-second cooldown that is, nonetheless, an AoE fear which can be very powerful. Note, however, that the Warlock also has an instant AoE fear, albeit with about twice the cooldown. (This assumes the Warlock is Affliction.)
Arena matches often center around powerful cooldowns, and this is where the Mage really shines. Glyph of Evocation, a must-have for Mage PvP, can more or less reset a fight. Polymorph and Invisibility both offer means by which the Mage can get off a full Evocation, but even if you lose a tick or two the ability is still very powerful.
Then there's Ice Block. In terms of the three classes' "oh &*!@" cooldowns, this one wins. On this point the Shadow Priest is pretty far behind as Dispersion is considered lackluster by most.
As someone else said, the Mage just brings the most control to the table, and that is what sets them apart. Any class can put up DPS, it's the utility abilities that separate them, and the Mage has a ton: roots, snares, counterspell, stun, pets, ice block, ice barrier. And I may have missed one or two.
In the end a Shadow Priest will have to work extra hard to do well in PvP. You do have some pretty devastating combos that can win a match, especially if you land a full duration fear, but a lack of powerful cooldowns or spammable crowd control means you are squishy and require a top notch healer or exceptional peeling.
The Mage also requires a good deal of skill in terms of timing and attention, while the Warlock is probably the easiest to do well with, the main challenge perhaps being proper control of the Felhunter.
(EDIT: I should have mentioned that Shadow Priests are doing much better since 3.3, so this ranking may change once people adjust. It remains to be seen what kind of showing they will make in season 8.)
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Post by
Gnostik
Well if you're looking just at battleground and not arena then it hardly matters. All 3 can blow people up real good when not being attacked, and all 3 will die when zerged.
In BG play I think the Shadow Priest moves up a notch. More room to move and kite makes up a bit for their squishiness, and the ability to pop out of Shadowform and heal becomes more useful when you have more periods of safety where you're not being attacked. In the arena a Shadow Priest is going to be focused 90% of the time which limits your options.
it just seems easier to just target someone and start spamming skills then target someone,hit attack with my pet and then start spamming skills
This is a non-factor. Giving commands to your pet doesn't affect your casting at all, so you can target someone, begin attacking, and then send your pet while you're casting. Besides, the pet isn't a significant source of damage for a Warlock in PvP; it's usually there for Devour Magic (Felhunter) or Sacrifice (Voidwalker) with the damage from melee attacks being negligible.
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Post by
TallyWally
Because spamming slow and killing things with one arcane blast is really fun, huh? What skill is there in that!
Trust me, roll affliction, take your time watching your enemies die; silence them, fear them, and make their asses wish they never decided to pick on the warlock.
(On a side-note, being a warlock in a BG is like walking around with a huge sticker on your back that says: KILL ME FIRST.)
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