5 mages

[Multibocks]

Just wanted to post some Mage updates. Learning from Beeq's movies I have cleared SFK and stonecore. I have had limited success with GB, VP, the crocodile instance. I have not tried deadmines (yuck) or the water instance(double yuck). I have done almost all the bosses that Beeq kills in ZA and ZG. Those places the trash is annoying, but doable. Highest dps I have hit is 45k per toon. My guys still need some upgrades so I should move up in dps.

I also tried farming BoT trash, but after 2 hours of grinding I gave up with no epics. I also tried Onyxia, but need more hit to take her out.

Anyways just an update on my Mage progress, curious what the other mage teams have done.

[Malgor]

My all mage team just hit 55 so it'll be awhile!

[Akoko]

That's very interesting that cataclysm heroics can be done without any sort of healing. Do you have to just blow up all the bosses before they can even hit you once or something?

I'm curious because I'm levelling up a team of 5 boomkins and I'm already having difficulty with certain bosses around level 25-29ish that can kill my characters in a several hits. Will 5 boomkins be good for max level heroics?

[Redbeard]

Its incorrect to say you can do heroics without a healer.(necessarily). Its not true across the board.

What is correct is that 5 mages have pwned most of the bosses / instances. They do this with a combination of very high dps and the mirror images cooldown.

I am working on 5 boomkin too but not sure how well theyll do, theyll never have that DPS and they dont have the cooldown... not sure.

[Multibocks]

images tank for 30 secs so no mage takes any damage except for cleave or magic damage. Mages are expensive in that you NEED to have flasks and use volcanic potions on every boss until your gear gets really good and then you can probably drop the flasks.

Mages work because Blizzard didnt foresee 5 of them blowing all CDs and killing a boss very quickly, because arcane mages eat mana so quickly its ridiculous. In fact the only thing limiting a few of my kills lately is that:
A. images disappear before boss is dead (too much movement to fight or phase transitions take too long)
B. boss has too much health (use all mana before hes dead)

I am limited to bosses of 5.5 million health right now, so I need better gear to kill them. Good thing is most heroic bosses are around 4 million health.

I tried the 3rd boss in City of Tol Vir (spelling?) yesterday and I can easily kill him except his phase transition takes like 10 secs and my images disappear before I can get back to killing him.

edit: Im getting pretty good at clearing trash now and I actually suicide before bosses because I have to wait for Timewarp debuff to expire. =(

[beeq]

If I remember right, the pumpkin soldiers act exactly like mirror images.
(summoned with The Horseman's Baleful Blade)

I don't have those blades atm, but I think the mighty Faxmonkey demonstrated it on one of his "Stupid mage tricks"-videos.
If the pumpkins wipe your threat while they are up, then it opens doors for other dps classes as well.
(also awesome when you can switch weapons in mid-fight, so when images fade, drop your soldiers to keep aggro for another 30? seconds ^^)

The reason why I think 5 oomkins would not work is the fact that after the pull the boss is already on one of your toon's skin. Also I can't imagine even epic-geared boomkins do the similar dps than an arcanemage is capable of.
(dunno how treants threat work tbh)

Thumbs up Multibocks! My experiences on setup of five mages have been awesome, and still is! My other 5 mages are now 81, and starting to 10man stuff in near future, old content 10hc/25man stuff so let's see what adventures that small army can still achieve!
Btw, I just leveled alchemy for guild cauldrons. Much cheaper to spend 4 flasks and some stuff on a cauldron, than drinking 10 flasks each hour. Especially when guild cauldron flasks last 2 hours, on an alchemist 4 hours

[balderrdash]

I can say that these mages are the most fun I've had with WoW since first learned to box with my shammies. I'm only low seventies but when I blew up a boss in nexus in six seconds I almost had a heart attack.

[Cookiebo]

Do I need full heirloom gear to get this team working, while lvling? or is heirloom staff x 5.. okay?

[Akoko]

The heirlooms would probably help in equalizing the mages' aggro so the mobs will bounce between them. But I would forsee some hard hitting low-level bosses being difficult to down without multiple mage deaths because at those levels you don't have the important abilities like Mirror Image and Time Warp.

Even with 5 sturdy boomkins, I find myself having to shift out of form and heal very often in low level dungeons, and I can only imagine that while mages do a bit more DPS than boomkins, they are a ton squishier and most bosses would be immune to slows or CC.

[Cookiebo]

The heirlooms would probably help in equalizing the mages' aggro so the mobs will bounce between them. But I would forsee some hard hitting low-level bosses being difficult to down without multiple mage deaths because at those levels you don't have the important abilities like Mirror Image and Time Warp.

Even with 5 sturdy boomkins, I find myself having to shift out of form and heal very often in low level dungeons, and I can only imagine that while mages do a bit more DPS than boomkins, they are a ton squishier and most bosses would be immune to slows or CC.

ye okay.. maybe I should Q them up.. and BG.