AE Team: To mage or not to mage?

[Angrypuffin]

I'm thinking of starting an AoE team. Either 5 moonkin using hurricane, or 2 moonkin using hurricane and 3 mages using blizzard.

Ways in which the pure moonkin team might be better:
1. Everyone could use "mobility" forms like aquatic form or flight form- is that still instant-cast?
2. You could stack way more HoTs on the tank for collecting AoE pulls if you have 5 druids. This might be the difference between 10-mob pulls and 25-mob pulls; I don't know.

Ways in which the mixed team (with mages) might be better:
1. Water.
2. Portals.
3. Little Bo Peep. (That is, 3 sheep, when you're NOT using AoE.)
4. (Most importantly) Insane damage from blizzards critting, especially with lots of chances to apply Winter's Grasp/Fingers of Frost. Depending on the build, you might also have +30% from Arcane Potency if you're frost/arcane.

However, I'd like your feedback before I go level a team up to level 40 (RAF is out, and I don't want to buy new accounts). Have I made good assumptions? Which things are worth weighting heavily?

[Seraphaw]

The thing you must take into account is mages survivability. As in they don't survive if they get clobbered on. As in no more aoe. You could try it, I haven't personally done it...

The added damage of 5 arcane explosions might be so immense that mobs die before you do, but trying to blizzard them down? You'd have to be one crazy player.

[brasssmunky]

mages are glasscannons.
do insane dmg, but die quickly
now this is not so when you are controlling your own mage with finess and skill...
but multiboxing with finesse and skill doesnt work :P
you can't do creative blinking and using of different spells and procs and whatnot..
so i'd say boomkin spam kgo!

[glo]

Doing well in pvp or pve either one with an all mage team would be impressive. Mages need to be mobile to survive, standing still for any amount of time means you die.

[brasssmunky]

Doing well in pvp or pve either one with an all mage team would be impressive. Mages need to be mobile to survive, standing still for any amount of time means you die.precisely.
my main is mage :P
i know how it is...
if you do anything just walkin around, keyturning and frostbolting... its not gonna work.
aside from normal mob grinding and DPSing...
if anyone tries to touch you, you're done.
if anything goes wrong, you're done...
and for AoE, mages strength is kiting... which isnt that easy with multiboxing.
plus boomkinz get ARMORSSS

[Malekyth]

All three of my teams' DPS are heavy AOE and I would have trouble playing any other way at this point ... warlocks (3), mages(3), druids (all five).

I'm most happy with the warlocks, especially with a pally tank, for burning down mobs with Seed of Corruption. All three groups hit massively hard with their AOE and so the differences between their actual damage delivered against normal mobs isn't too relevant -- mobs just die, period. The deciding factor for me is that SoC is ranged, and can help round mobs up. If the puller (usually my pally tank) gets knocked off her mount while rounding up, that'd be the end up of it if SoC didn't allow you to target outside of your little corral and add a straggler or two to the carnage. SoC is the only ranged AOE I can think of that doesn't require you to target the ground -- you just add it to a macro, everyone casts on a mob and stuff starts exploding -- so it's especially good for multiboxing. Finally, the locks have nigh-infinite mana, especially with imps and Dark Pact, and can keep grinding forever without having to stop.

The con, of course, is that you don't get SoC for a LONG time. I used Hellfire while leveling. Meh. I'd level warlocks again if I had to do it over though, it's worth a bit of RAF Rain of Fire and Hellfire to get to the SoC goodness.

My druids are my second favorite AOE team. I love the gigantic radius of Starfall. I mostly rely on Hurricane and Typhoon, obviously ... I don't mind mousing over to the other four WoWs to cast Hurricane on the ground, because I know a Typhoon is going to finish the burning-down and I'm 99% sure there won't be any stragglers beating on me. It's efficient and a pretty fun experience. The drawback with the droods is that I can't round up as big a group as I'd like, because when I'm mounted, I'm wearing crappy leather armor and subject to massive pummeling between being unhorsed and killing the last mob. They also have relatively crappy mana consumption, and Innervate doesn't help as much as I'd like.

My mages hit very hard, and their CC makes them just freaking insanely awesome in most instances. They're my third-favorite AOE team, and honestly I'm having trouble explaining why. They don't have any wild negatives that aren't shared by teams I like more (druids also gobble mana, and warlocks also wear cloth), I guess they're just slightly mediocre in ways that are important to me. That Arcane Explosion is a point-blank spell and the tank has to do more precise rounding-up is probably a factor. Maybe it's that they remind me of the locks, but don't have the huge virtual mana pools to draw from. I'm'a go with that.

So if I had to recommend any team at all, I'd say warlocks are you friends. Based on what you wanna do already, probably go with druids. They're incredibly versatile and just plain fun to play.

[Angrypuffin]

Yeah, I can see that SoC would be awesome. I suppose you have all your warlocks cast SoC followed by something quick- searing pain, maybe- and then start right back up on another SoC, and you'd get better base DPS. I'm still not sure you'd get better DPS in the end, because- again- multiblizzard seems like a good way to stack up crit percentages.

This video demonstrates the blizzard/arcane potency thing.
http://files.filefront.com/PoMBlizzardwmv/;11285411;/fileinfo.html

But my main thought, actually, is survivability. It seems like freezing people with Blizzard would make it more survivable than Arcane Explosion; because, if the pull were done right- and I know it wouldn't be easy- the enemies just wouldn't get to you.

[Catamer]

I would think that if you were going to go squishy that a warlock team would be easier to multibox because the SoC is a targeted AoE as opposed to a mage/druid click-to-cast AoE.
Maybe you could go demon spec and sacrifice your pet for insane health regen + life tap.

if you don't have a problem with the click-to-cast AoE then druids would have to be the most survivable.

[Herc130]

I don't play WoW, but I do play mages on EQ. And mages there are pretty decent AoE casters. My tank that I just built up is an SK and SK's in EQ can AoE agro. So, I pull trains with the SK, maintain agro on him, stun with my chanter as often as possible to keep damage to the SK as low as possible and AoE nukes with the mages. Mages in EQ are "glass cannons" as well, but if you can keep agro off them, maybe they can do their DPS unbothered. Some raids I have done in the past with my guild, we had an over abundance of enchanters and clerics and we'd just pull massive trains while all chanters and clerics did AoE stuns and mages and wizards did AoE nukes. Was pretty effective, but you need to be able to keep the mobs stunned through most of the fight otherwise casters go splat. I don't know the game mechanics of WoW, but maybe you guys can do something similar if you have a class that can maintain agro on all the mobs and survive while the AoE nukers nuke....or stuns.

[daviddoran]

If you aren't gonna have a tank, dont get mages for aoe. I run a prot pally Holy priest and 3 mages, so my mages rarely get womped on (when they do they die fast) I would just go 5x boomkin if I were you. I guess the 2 druid 3 mage could work if you made one a bear tank and one resto (or ele/resto, or full ele if you prefer) and with dual spec u can have 5x dps, and a holy trinity for instances.

[Fef]

I have a 5 x Mages team, currently level 63, and they are a lot of fun to play. Or lets say, a great way to relax after a day at work. They feel a bit like an old school Beat'em Up arcade game in the way their game-play is over-simplistic : 3 buttons, and everything else dies.

They are specialised in Arcane, so a standard game sequence would be : bubble-up, run, grab mobs, and then Arcane Explosion until everything is dead.
On single targets and when they are attacked by horde, arcane missiles x 5 and arcane barrage x 5 make wonders.

Also, 5 identical gnomes running around tend to turn people insane, which is also fun.

Of course I don't run instances with that group, not possible unless they badly over-level the place.
I already ran them by three together with tank and healer from other groups : Grab a pack of elite mobs with the paladin, and then run in with the rest of the group. 3 x Arcane explosions + Priest's Holy Explosion on mobs that are aggro'ed by a plate wearer ... That was fun.

[genocyde]

for the record blizzard is the highest damage aoe a mage can do. Even arcane specced blizzard is better than arcane explosion. Add in that 3x blizzard will keep any mob near it rooted in place until dead and it's pretty good.

Also priests mind sear is another SoC style throw at a mob not ground targeted aoe and it does intense damage but is very high level only skill.

and for PvP I run 1x balance druid 3x arcane mage and 1x disc priest. usually my mages do over 10x the druids damage over a BG simply because they have tons of instant cast damage where the druid is mostly casted.

That being said on AoE pulls starfall + trees + hurricane + typhoon to knockback when enemies get close. Ya, it's massive damage.

If you plan on doing end game PvE personally I would go no more than 2 mages and no less than 1. 3x druid 2x mage being my ideal for dps on all fronts. 2x blizzard to root 3x hurricane to help. bear/tree/owl for instances and my mages do over 5k DPS in 1/3 blues 2/3 heroic gear.

[Oatboat]

I run 4 arcane mages and one Disc priest..... Holy Nova spamming on the same button your Arcane Explosion spams on = Sooooo easy.
Get the glyph that makes holy nova heal for 60% more but does less damage and its cake. Also having a priest fear bomb makes pulling more mobs easy.

If you have the time to try it.. i think you would like it. Reason priest is disc is for better stam and spirit/spell dmg buff. Holy wouldnt be a bad choice as your holy nova would heal better.

[Tasty]

Living bomb. That is all.

No seriously you ever seen someone run around with four living bombs on them? It makes it even better when they run into a pack of their teammates and all four critically explode ;)

edit: Oatboat I agree on every single point you made :) + I think you kinda need discs survivability if you want to PvP I have the trinket/ps/pi macro bound to the same macro as my mages trinket/other buff spells.

And lets not all forget the soon to be buffed from 3 to four mirror images. That puts you up from 17 to 21 people

[Sam DeathWalker]

They are specialised in Arcane, so a standard game sequence would be : bubble-up, run, grab mobs, and then Arcane Explosion until everything is dead.

Mage has a bubble like Pal?

You can stack 4 living bombs on one target?

So Mage should be fire or arcane?

I have 5 mages now and should have 6 at some point, doing arcane but if Living Bomb is like Warlock SoC then it seems nicer to go fire.

[genocyde]

Not that I'm the least bit surprised that you don't know another class Sam but,


Mage has a bubble like Pal?
If you mean the pally's iconic immunity bubble, No... they have a shield (or 2 depending on spec) that absorbs all damage until either timer expires or set amount of damage is absorbed. Usually in the 2.5k - 3.5k damage range last i remember. Similar bubbles(shields) exist on mage / priest / lock / paladin / and soon shaman i believe. Mage also has ice block which grants immunity but prevents all action.


You can stack 4 living bombs on one target?
Each mage can put 1 living bomb on a target and yes it can be the same target I'm sure.


So Mage should be fire or arcane?
What are you doing with them? Where are you doing it? Who is in your party? What level are they?
Arcane = best damage anywhere anytime atm except maybe initial instant PBAoE (which they still do very well).
Fire = Either Fireball or FrostFire Bolt are good option for raids... to be honest I haven't ever specced fire on my mages (3x lvl 80) because arcane does everything better for me.
Frost = Solo PvP, Solo/AoE grinding spec. You can lock down infinite mobs until dead without taking damage as a frost multiboxer as long as the mob is rootable. Probably one of the best AoE spec/class in the game for boxing. (DK's and Locks would be competition I'm sure)


I have 5 mages now and should have 6 at some point, doing arcane but if Living Bomb is like Warlock SoC then it seems nicer to go fire.
Living Bomb is like SoC in the fact it does it's AoE at a mob... however it doesn't trigger on damage like SoC it triggers on a timer (18 seconds?) and with that x5 on a mob any other damage will kill it before LB explodes.

Oh, and what??? only 5 mages... make 25, go frost, get mouse broadcasting setup, bind Blizzard and Ice barrier, kill infinite rootable mobs without taking damage.

Edit: you don't get blizzard til lvl 20. You'll have to bind Wand for the first year of your mages playtime.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well as 4 of my guys are 36/38 I think Ill fire spec for now to get blast wave.

None of the 3 51 points mage talents seems to be all that so not sure what Ill do after blast wave.... Living bomb is good but as you point out its usless if the target dies to fast.

Ya Ice Barrier protects for 3300 damage at best. Far from the pal immunity bubble ...

[Moorea]

Edit: you don't get blizzard til lvl 20. You'll have to bind Wand for the first year of your mages playtime.

LOL!

[Starbuck_Jones]

4 mages and a priest is a very fast and powerful AOE group. My first 5x man team was this and for the first 68 levels, I just walked through everything. It wasn't until I got to the Nagrand quest, Durn the Hungerer that it became clear that this group would had some major pitfalls. (no tank). I built them deep into the arcane tree but enough fire to get an instant cast pyroblast. There really wasnt ever a need to use frost nova, flamestrike, blastwave or blizzard. Arcane Explosion with holy nova/circle of healing was more than enough to get the job done.

Their HP is their armor so PVP style gear with lots of Int, Sta, and spell power worked out perfect for this group. I didnt care about any other stats really and free water kept downtime to a minimum.

This group would still be an absolute epic trash mats farming group.

If your looking for an all AOE group that has survivability as well as an easy button. Prolly a paladin, priest, and 3 mages/warlocks would be better. Massivly OP in the AOE area, and ballanced enough to take out thoes tough sob's that have the purples.

If you have a good mouse solution for ground target AOE's then I would go with mages. Else pick warlocks.

[Stealthy]

And lets not all forget the soon to be buffed from 3 to four mirror images. That puts you up from 17 to 21 people
It's a shame the mirror images won't be polying after 3.1... :( But yeah 5 x mirror image is just evil! :evil: