A tale begins...one AOE mage and...?

[Cyath]

A friend of mine plans to join me on Tich, and he's very keen on the whole mage AOE thing, so he wants me to make a character to play with him. Thing is, which class would be good? Priest is out since I already made one (don't want to replay it), same goes for Warrior and Rogue. I'm looking at either another Mage or a Warlock (the latter mainly for the "cool" factor ^_^)

If I were to play a Mage, what would the most effective combination be for AOE damage, assuming we solo together? Dual Ice? Dual Fire? One of each? Arcane? Dual Ice seems to be the best bet since we'll have excellent CC to make up for the lack of a priest, but I'm not certain if ice effects from one mage help the other.

Warlock would be nice to make but I'm not sure how it would really help Mage AOE since Helllfire hurts the caster, RoF isn't so good and the rest of the spells are single target aggro...

[Treesh]

Warlock would be nice to make but I'm not sure how it would really help Mage AOE since Helllfire hurts the caster, RoF isn't so good and the rest of the spells are single target aggro...
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Curse of elements, healthstones, soulstones, minions if things get too hairy. But especially curse of elements. :)

[bonemage]

Curse of elements, healthstones, soulstones, minions if things get too hairy.  But especially curse of elements. :)
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I agree, a warlock would make a good partner for a mage. However, AoE doesn't work too well without healing, and isn't effective against elites (works wonders on non-elites) unless they have been hurt pretty seriously. However, a warlock with a voidwalker would be an effective companion.

1) Send in voidwalker
2) Pick target together
3) Mage casts amplify magic while warlock casts curse of elements
4) Mage and warlock pull out very big guns and nuke target for massive damage
5) Goto 2

I regularly play with a mage (I'm a warlock) and we have great fun with curse of elements, pyroblast and soul fire. Curse of shadows (also brings down arcane resists) with arcane missles and shadow bolts works very well too with the tactics above.

Those are single target tactics that are proven, but here's an AoE idea that's completely unproven but might be worth trying, especially as this grouping idea is based on AoE.

1) Send in voidwalker in group of baddies, uses suffering (AoE taunt)
2) Warlock uses curse of shadows on everything and no other skills except a DoT or two on the voidwalker's target (we don't want the warlock grabbing aggro)
3) Mage wanders into pack and lights up with arcane explosion while warlock bandages him
4) Warlock sacrifices voidwalker and uses Hellfire to help clean things up if needed
5) If things go badly, the warlock can resurrect himself with a soulstone while mage runs to corpse. If preferred, these two roles can be reversed. ;-)

[vor_lord]

Curse of elements, healthstones, soulstones, minions if things get too hairy.  But especially curse of elements. :)
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We've been kicking around an idea for fun: Make a party of all cloth wearers:

Mage
Mage
Warlock
Priest
Priest

Use curse elements/shadow and nuke like crazy. See if you can bring them down before they bring you down.

Primary reason for two priests instead of three mages would be so there are more rezzers, as I think deaths would be frequent. But with a soulstone maybe that isn't needed, so you could go with three mages.

Heals are secondary -- was thinking the priest would go shadow/disc. It's a nuking theme we're going for.

Crowd control: sheep/sheep, shackle, mind control, fear for when you're desperate, voidwalker especially for boss fights when you can't bring them down quickly.

It sounds like a fun experiment.

[Icebird]

Any time you're talking about AOE, priests are useful for Power Word: Shield. Besides Voidwalker sacrifice, the other method of mitigating Hellfire damage is through Fire Protection Pots. They'll generally absorb most of the fire damage from a cast or two. After that though, you need healing. I'm currently farming dragon whelps for more Small Flame Sacs after using up my fire pot supply during the Divino-Matic Rod quest in Zul Farrak.

Chris

[The Gnu]

Playing several mages in a group is surprisingly effective. I've played in LBRS in a group with 3 mages, one priest and a paladin. Sheeps were all over the place, and the ones that were left were tanked by the paladin, or pinballed between the mages.

Not to mention, triple arcane missiles look -cool-! B)

[mjdoom]

We've been kicking around an idea for fun:  Make a party of all cloth wearers:

Mage
Mage
Warlock
Priest
Priest
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I've run with similar types of groups before and this can work quite well. The biggest issue you run into I think is those hard hitting bosses that you don't have a true tank for. Other than that the aoe power of two mages and a warlock can take out elite packs. Smart use of PW:S and healing will allow one priest to keep two mages and a 'lock alive long enough to take out most everything that doesn't hit particularly hard. Because only one squishy will have aggro at a time (most of the time) this is actually easier to do than you might think. Generally letting the mage open to grab initial aggro before the warlock opens (due to the fact that the warlock is taking damage just by aoeing) might be preferrable. Your aoeers will also probably want to load up on stamina to make it easier for them to live long enough for a second shield in the heat of battle. (int/stam for mages stam/stam/int for 'locks :))

Some places with hard hitting mobs, especially instance bosses and the like, will be extremely difficult if not impossible. Keeping a cloth wearer alive in those situations is hard and if you are nuking all out a VW is not going to be able to hold any aggro. In those cases you probably won't be able to take out the mob before it takes you out.

Just my 2 cents.

- mjdoom

Edit: Added stamina comment.

[vor_lord]

Some places with hard hitting mobs, especially instance bosses and the like, will be extremely difficult if not impossible.  Keeping a cloth wearer alive in those situations is hard and if you are nuking all out a VW is not going to be able to hold any aggro.  In those cases you probably won't be able to take out the mob before it takes you out.

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Hmmm, how about shadowform + pw:s + inner fire as a tank? Haven't compared mind blast threat but if the mages show just a little restraint a nuking shadowform priest could probably hold aggro against a single target, and should have with this combination decent damage reduction.

Plus saying your priest is a tank is just plain amusing :P

Combine this with vampiric embrace + the second priest healing, we probably could make this work up in the Scarlet Monastery. I think Archaedas would slaughter us -- the faster you kill him, the more adds you have to deal with. Everyone would be out of mana with no way to control the pace of the fight by tanking the big boss.

What about a soul-linked warlock for the big encounters? Probably couldn't hold aggro...

I don't know, just thinking...

[playingtokrush]

3) Mage casts amplify magic while warlock casts curse of elements[right][snapback]73154[/snapback][/right]

You can't cast amplify magic on anything but party members.

As for your duo with a mage, I'd recommend a paladin, shaman, or another mage. A frost mage duo would be a lot of fun if both of you know how to kite.

[bonemage]

Other than that the aoe power of two mages and a warlock can take out elite packs.  Smart use of PW:S and healing will allow one priest to keep two mages and a 'lock alive long enough to take out most everything that doesn't hit particularly hard.

-snip-

- mjdoom

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I'm assuming that your comment about two mages and a warlock AoE killing elites was in reference to my statement that they can't. I was addressing a mage and warlock pair, where you have a fuller group with a healer. I'm not disagreeing with you and all, but that a mage/warlock twosome will die before the elites do. Your scenario works well, and I'd love to do a two mage and a warlock setup in a party with a healer and a tank. I felt the need to clarify that we were discussing two different things with the 'can't' and 'can' statments. I agree with everything you said.

Your tactics on proper use of AoE in a party are spot on. An unshielded Hellfire using warlock won't be able finish the spell as it is channeled and will be interupted. An instant fire arcane explosion mage will still be able to attack while being pummeled. The mage will also hold aggro over the warlock as his damage is superior. Our group's mage and I used this tactic to great effect in ZF last week with only one failure (we didn't get our heals.) Fortunately, we were the only ones to die. Apparently one scarab is enough to occupy the 3 remaining members of the party. (rolls eyes at vor_lord) ;-)

[bonemage]

You can't cast amplify magic on anything but party members.

As for your duo with a mage, I'd recommend a paladin, shaman, or another mage.  A frost mage duo would be a lot of fun if both of you know how to kite.
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I've not tested this, but I've heard from a mage friend that that particular spell was changed in the last patch and can be cast on non-friendlies, but that is probably a bug and will be fixed later. However, that is why that was in there.

[playingtokrush]

I've not tested this, but I've heard from a mage friend that that particular spell was changed in the last patch and can be cast on non-friendlies, but that is probably a bug and will be fixed later.  However, that is why that was in there.
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Your friend is full of it.

[bonemage]

Your friend is full of it.
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I'll let him know, and then I'll make him do the proper LL thing and TEST IT. ;-) That'll teach me for using hearsay. If it did work, I think it would be too powerful and step on the warlock's territory of curses.

[mjdoom]

I'm assuming that your comment about two mages and a warlock AoE killing elites was in reference to my statement that they can't.  I was addressing a mage and warlock pair, where you have a fuller group with a healer.  I'm not disagreeing with you and all, but that a mage/warlock twosome will die before the elites do.  Your scenario works well, and I'd love to do a two mage and a warlock setup in a party with a healer and a tank.  I felt the need to clarify that we were discussing two different things with the 'can't' and 'can' statments.  I agree with everything you said.

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Hmm, something got lost in translation. I wasn't actually referring to your comments at all, just adding some general information to the power of aoe when used properly.

If we are talking about a duo situation my comments are completely worthless. In those situations if you go mage/warlock you don't have a healer and it's very possible to die before you can aoe the mobs to death. This is most certainly true of elites and there may even be some non-elites that would make the situation very hairy (nothing specific comes to mind but it seems like this may well be true). In the duo situation it is strictly a battle to see who dies first.

I was referring more to a party setup like vor_lord mentioned where you can have healers to back up your aoeers. In this case aoe can be extremely powerful and can take out lots of mobs. The farthest into the game I've seen this tactic used effectively was to take out the dragonkin packs in Sunken Temple (our Pally might has well have not even been there).

On Stormrage our 6 members who climbed to 60 together happened to be Priest, Pally, Mage, Mage, Warlock, Hunter so we've had plenty of experience nuking while having our pally or even our hunter's dps pet tank for us. This allows you to take full advantage of crowd control and learn some of the devastation that mages and warlocks can cause when played well.

Vor_lord's comment about using a priest in shadowform to tank sounds like it could be fun. I would still speculate that some battles would be very difficult (like Archeus was mentioned) but it could at least be fun to try. This might be a specific case where you want your second priest to go all the way to Divine Spirit and have mages pop on that mage armor so that you can hopefully keep nuking for a longer time. If a shadowform priest can stand up to Archeus and the mages use burst damage to drop the adds (or even the VW tanks with one priest concentrating heals on it as noone else will be building hate toward Archeus) that fight might actually be winnable. One thing is for certain, when everyone goes "all on" Archeus when the elites wake up you will be able to mete out a lot of damage quickly in an attempt to drop him :)

Just as a point of reference, I have run with a 5 man group exactly as Vor_lord mentioned (Priest, Priest, Mage, Mage, Warlock) once before. But that was doing Princess runs when we were all 60 and we were able to easily drop her, the croc, the stone giant, and the goblin all in under a half hour.

- mjdoom

Edit: Didn't like the way I worded something

[vor_lord]

Hmm, something got lost in translation.  I wasn't actually referring to your comments at all, just adding some general information to the power of aoe when used properly.

My fault, I hijacked the thread (apologies to Cyath).


And with reference to said scarab, bonemage: it was only occupying me -- not sure what happened to the druid and obviously the warrior is of dubious value with two AoEing squishies.

If squishies want to aggro large groups of mobs to AoE them, they shouldn't do so while the healer is in combat, especially if they are going out of the healer's range, no matter the insignificance of the combat :huh:

Plus you shoulda seen this scarab! Ok, it was non-elite, but it was a particularly nasty version, I swear :P Even with my uber paladin DPS I didn't finish it off before people died.

[playingtokrush]

I'll let him know, and then I'll make him do the proper LL thing and TEST IT.  ;-)  That'll teach me for using hearsay.  If it did work, I think it would be too powerful and step on the warlock's territory of curses.
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I ran my level 60 mage out of Lagforge to test this on a trash beast in Dun Morogh, sure enough, I couldn't cast Amplify Magic on anything but myself.

[Cyath]

vor_lord, no problem, as long as we all learn something new I am not bothered about who gets to say what. ^_^ I'm finding all this AOE information quite instructive anyway.

We are currently considering going ice for the start just for Imp Bliz and foregoing IAE for now...later on considering respeccing to fire for dual Blast Wave. What do you all think?

[LochnarITB]

We are currently considering going ice for the start just for Imp Bliz and foregoing IAE for now...
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Be aware that Blizzard does not crit, somewhat reducing its damage output.

(Ignore that statement if it was fixed in the last patch. I have had few opportunities to play Lochnar since the patch and I'm sure I didn't cast Blizzard when I did.)

[playingtokrush]

vor_lord, no problem, as long as we all learn something new I am not bothered about who gets to say what. ^_^ I'm finding all this AOE information quite instructive anyway.

We are currently considering going ice for the start just for Imp Bliz and foregoing IAE for now...later on considering respeccing to fire for dual Blast Wave. What do you all think?
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Well, in the early levels when you have few talent points, a fire build gets more bang for the buck. A frost build doesn't really get interesting until the late 30's.

The long cooldown on blastwave doesn't make it particularly great compared to IAE. Ignoring combustion, two IAEs is usually somewhat comparable to one blastwave. If you haven't killed your targets by the time you've both used blastwave and don't have IAE, you're probably in trouble.

[Cyath]

Hmm, Bliz not critting might be a problem...can anyone confirm this? I don't know any high level mages who use Bliz often.

For Blastwave, we are sort of planning to Blast Wave first, Nova, Flamestrike, CoC, and repeat in some combination, so it should be ok with double of everything. ^_^