Beta players: Should I switch 1 sham for a mage?

[Perrigrin]

title says it all:

at lich king release I expect to have 4x 70 sham 1x 70 mage and 1x 70 hunter in crap gear, and 1x 70 pal in decent gear (main).

Now, would the general consensus be that with the way lich king instances are set up, 3x sham+1x mage+1x pal would be more successful (given the added CC) than 4x sham + 1x pal?

Another advantage is that the mage would provide water of the correct level + he is tailor / enchanter, so I could stop level my shaman enchanter now if i went with that

The only drawback I see is that macroing will be a tad bit more difficult and that the mage dont stack that well with the shamans, as well as beimg more squishy.

Would love some input on this, specially from people who seen beta instances (not in beta myself).

thanks!

[Naysayer]

In which ways are you expecting the mage to outperform the 4th shaman? What synergy are you expecting from the mage? As far as I'm aware, the mage will give the group a little more crit%, and that's about it.

[Silya]

Mages do better dps then shamens.
Int buff gives more max mana, and a little crit
Dampen magic for slaves, amplefy magic for tank (unless to meny casters)
And as well the focus magic spell from the arcane tree looks realy nice. (WoTLK talent)
and maby(these arnt totaly desided yet but they could be in the talent tree of mages) :
imp scorch: your scorch spell have a 100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to spell damage, increasing spell critical strike chance against that target by 2% and lasts 30 sec. stacks up to 5 times.
Thats how it looks by now on the test server.

Thats proberly the things for incombat benefits you get, but there will be a some stuff out of combat which is nice by having a mage:
water/food
portals

So yes, fuck the shamen..

[Perrigrin]

thanks for the input so far guys - no one mentioned CC, that about the same factor as it is today - or bigger or smaller?

[Ticks]

For PvE and if you're cool with having multiple classes in your group then I'd say you're probably better off with the mage. Besides everything already mentioned, the Mage AoE would be a nice addition besides the nova totems.

[Elektroz]

Mage's Focus Magic does not stack with Totem of Wrath. Totem of Wrath gives more spell damage than focus magic, too, so it'd be a wasted talent. Good news though is that the only thing imp scorch doesn't stack with is winter's chill, so that's not a problem.

[Stealthy]

thanks for the input so far guys - no one mentioned CC, that about the same factor as it is today - or bigger or smaller?

You're aware that Shaman's get CC in WotLK right? And that it's far superior to polymorph?

Hex150 Mana 20 yd range
1.5 sec cast 45 sec cooldown
Transforms the enemy into a frog. While hexed, the target cannot attack or cast spells. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Lasts 30 sec. Only one target can be hexed at a time. Only works on Humanoids and Beasts.

Two things to note here - target doesn't heal while hexed (unlike poly) and damage may break it.

This comment was posted on WoWhead:


Used on a level 78 Mammoth in Storm Peaks at full health, killed it without Hex ever breaking.

Dueled a level 79 mage friend, hexed and him won the duel in < 10 seconds without hex breaking.

Obviously this won't happen all the time, but it does open up some awesome nuke - hex - nuke combo's.

Cheers,
S.

[NoobShammy]

On top of that dont forget that fire nova totem has 2/2 100% chance to stun for 2 seconds

*stealthy edit* 8)

[Perrigrin]

Doh!

Missed that shamans get CC :P

So, only reason to use mage with team would be a slightly higher dps...will have to think about this one...granted having max level summoned waters are nice for instance running...

[butta]

Hex is going to be pretty SICK using a round-robin keystroke. Four shamans = four frogs. With some clever focus macros (round-robin here too) before pull you could set up four separate focus targets, chain lightning, hex the focus targets, then single nuke whoever needs the least damage to die. I really like this spell, too bad they nerfed the thunder knockback deal (was going to really abuse that in pvp). I'm sure the dueling people and having them die before hex breaks will be fixed. Mages will cry way too loud ;)

[Kaynin]

Purely for pve, I'd swap one shammy for a mage.

But shamans will get cc too in wotlk. :P