Mages, at 85, how would a 5 mage setup work for pvp?

[Pycno]

I had 4 mages and 1 priest since TBC. It was strong in TBC, even stronger in Wotlk, ridicilous in cataclysm. I did not level them past 80 but I think they would become much stronger at max level with good items.

I didnt bother much with arena, I prefer challenges in games not based upon grinding. My highest rating was 1600, tactic was to use everything I had and either win/lose within a few seconds. I used fire spec because of the massive aoe.

[Littleburst]

The advantage in Arena though, is that you can macro your sheeps. Which is a lot harder to control in BG.

[Ualaa]

Looking at each of the compositions I've played extensively in battlegrounds, at one point or another.
-- 4x Elemental + 1x H.Paladin // 5x Elemental.
-- 5x Feral // 5x Boomkin
-- 4x DK + 1x Paladin.

I never have an issue getting out of combat to rez a fallen toon.
Of course I stick to the larger battlegrounds, heavily favoring AV.
In something like EotS, once enemies are taken at a base, but the graveyard hasn't capped... a rez is easy.
Once the graveyard is held, it is so close that releasing is the best option.
In AV at say Iceblood Graveyard before it has capped, with Stormpike as the nearest alliance graveyard... having a rezzer is infinitely preferable to being half the map away from those who died.

[Toned]

I came up against a 5 mage team in 5s rated at about 1900. The key to 5 mages is more the massive CC options you have. They all started invissed, almost 1 shotted one of my team then sheeped the rest and just focussed them down one at a time.

The game was over so quick they hardly needed any healing. Between frost shield, ice block, healing through evoc I got 1 kill from memory.

The issue with having an effective 5s team like that is that cc is key though and I can't imagine how hard it would be to control the cc from each char. Doing it in PvE is one thing where sheep lasts 6 times as long and mobs don't have trinkets and dispels. Doing it in PvP where you are getting cced/dpsed too is a completely different story.

So as 5 individuals I reckon mages are a really tough team esp. against a 1 healer, all melee dps team like mine. As a multibox team though, it would take some serious organisation, low ping times and reaction times for regular wins to come.

/cast [@arena#] Yourspell = mass sheep/hex etc it's easy

[drevil]

any words on a frostmage nerf?

i just played 20x 2v2 games and got 15x frostmage+misc .. they don't even need to try hard .. blizzard failed so hard

if there is no statment from blizzard i'll start leveling up 4 mages asap.

.

[Ualaa]

There's nothing on nerfs to the control of a frost mage.
The damage is tweaked a bit, up and down.

But the snare and freezing, is on several different (four I believe) diminishing returns.
Sure with a bunch of mages you won't be able to use every root effectively.
But still you can round-robin a bunch of them.
Such that Freeze A, goes Mage A, Mage B, Mage C, Mage D, etc.
And try to not cycle through them too quickly, but instead of Root A (Mage 1), Root B (Mage 1), Root C (Mage 1), Root A (Mage 2), Root D (Mage 1), Root B (Mage 2)...

Blizzard stacked will suck for anyone caught in the AoE.
Not sure the team is overpowered from a damage point of view.
But if you can manage your CC effects, including Roots...
It will suck to play against your team.

You can Polymorph at Arena Targets, for coordinated CC.
You could Round-Robin sheep, in battlegrounds... even if its not macroed to specific targets (arena 1, arena 2, etc).
You can start an arena match invisible, and then basically blow someone up.
Not sure if you can go deep enough for Presence of Mind -- if you can, 5x Instant Cast something with a cast time, 5x Instant Cast... that's 10 nukes without warning.