AE Team: To mage or not to mage?

[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: