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Mage vs Lock

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I know this is mostly based on opinion, but I'm going to ask anyway. I've been wanting to level a caster for some time. I ruled out Shadow Priest, so down to locks and mages. Which is more fun to level, has better survivability, and higher dps at endgame. What are the Pros and Cons to each? Which has the more challenging rotation, I've played a hunter so i think I'm ready to step up my game in terms of rotation difficulty lol. Thanks ahead of time Posted Image

Edited by Damien
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Mage by a landslide. Locks are evil and stupid. Posted Image

Ok now that that has been said, Locks are a pet class and being so are probably a little easier on survivability while leveling. I, personally, find pet classes boring to level (not sure why) so prefer the mage. Mages have the unique ability to teleport, summon food, and against elites you have Time Warp (one of the most powerful cooldowns in the game. As far as endgame dps all classes are always in flux and they will switch often. As to what's best, there is no real answer. I will say that in pvp (currently on the mage) I am blowing up most classes (except warriors and ferals). I don't know how endgame warlocks play but the mage rotations are very fun! All 3 specs have a very unique feel to them. I will say that warlocks burst AOE is significantly better than mages, so if you run dungeons primarily you'll see higher dps on mob groups.

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Vlad offers a Mage's side, but I'm here to vouch for the vastly superior Warlock.

Warlocks offer the versatility of raid buffs, raid utility, and are just straight up cooler than their inferior step-sister, the Mage. The age-old tale is anything a Mage can do, a Warlock can do better. Each Warlock offers a different playstyle, and oddly enough, you don't even have to play with a pet anymore (it's actually beneficial to not use a pet!)

Affliction is all about draining your opponent's soul and empowering yourself to slowly, yet powerfully, wittle away at the strongest foe's health. Affliction is currently simulating at the top of the charts over every other class due to it's easily sustained rotation, quick burst, and high multi-target DPS capabilities. Multi-dotting is an exciting thing to do in raids and dungeons rather than Multi-shotting or using Blizzard. As Affliction, you'll take Grimoire of Sacrifice, sacrifice your pet, and do incredible damage alone while gaining an ability of one of your pets. You can choose between a Shield Wall type ability, an interrupt, or a magic dispel! Affliction feels very fun to play and the learning curve is nowhere the level it used to be.

Demonology Warlocks bring the fun of turning into an Illidan look-alike and using powerful demons to take down your foes with very little, if any, discrimination. Imps, Felguards, Infernals, and Doomguards will be at your calling while you turn into a powerful demon to slash at your foes and perform some of the highest AoE capabilities in the game. With your cooldowns, you can have 5 Imps, 2 Felguards, and a Doomguard out at the same time. You'll make Death Knight's Army of the Dead look like a Mage spell.

Destruction Warlocks play similarly to a Fire Mage, but way cooler with the incredible Chaos Bolt! Here again, you'll use Grimoire of Sacrifice to empower yourself as you quickly and powerfully burn your opponent's life away by using hard hitting fire spells to charge up the use of Chaos Bolt. Unfortunately, Destruction isn't performing as well as most other classes at the moment, but that's likely because Affliction is at the top.

Mages bring Timewarp, which can also be supplied by Shaman's Bloodlust.

Warlocks bring a battle ressurection (Soulstone), amazing Healthstones, a new portal system to help raid members mobility, and 5% extra magical damage on enemies brought only by other Warlocks, Assassination Rogues, or a Hunter pet that no Hunters like to use. If you had to choose between the two, I think the choice is clear.

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Thanks both of you :) maybe ill play around with both. Before the patch i would've played mage because i was reading up on the lock rotation and it looked extremely confusing, but i think now I'm honestly leaning more towards playing the lock. Again thanks :)

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I originally played a Mage and started playing a Warlock for writing our Mists of Pandaria guides. I've had fun with both classes, but I found Warlocks to be extremely versatile, with all three specs being so different from one another.

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I originally played a Mage and started playing a Warlock for writing our Mists of Pandaria guides. I've had fun with both classes, but I found Warlocks to be extremely versatile, with all three specs being so different from one another.

Death to the traitor! Posted Image
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Death to the traitor! Posted Image

Hard to condemn an intelligent man to death when he has done no wrong. Just be ready for the onslaught of /lol and /poke while you're Iceblocked =)

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It really depends on what your end game is. leveling is a no brainer anymore so dont worry about that. If your looking pure DPS, I think mage and lock are comparable. I pvp 95% if the time and I like the different mechanics each class provides.

A typical win strat is 10 on defense after a flag cap and they farm all incoming. Locks are great for this. Have your tank wait at your Demonic circle. If you get to the flag, you port out, drop and let your tank take it the rest of the way. I have seen this done numerous times.

Mages give great snares to slow people down instant polymorph is a great ability.

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If PvP is in consideration, go mage! I flat murder just about everything (especially Locks). Go fire and enjoy the carnage you reap after a deep freeze, pyro, combustion combo and if your target has allies nearby, inferno blast and watch them die also :)

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I got both of them, and as stated above, leveling is no longer an issue. At level cap, tho, i'm really undecided. Mages got some "old-times fascinating" way of playing expecially for fire mage, throwing pyroblasts in the face of the mobs and stuff like that... BUT! To me warlocks have a cooler way of playing, expecially for affliction and destruction. I just used demo to leveling, but i've never liked its style in PvE high-end.

So that's my way to see those 2:

Classy and neat dps, simple rotation, cool results : fire mage.

Challenging way of playing a caster : frost mage.

More intricated dps rotation, but very exciting : affliction warlock.

"Unusual" way of playing a dps caster = demonology warlock.

Best to me, for appeal and for how it looks = destro warlock.

My 2 cents :)

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Personally i prefer a mage, but everyone is different. Locks definitely have a better "appearance" ie pets, some tiers, etc. For me i chose mage specifically for the fire spec (not that i haven't had to go arcane in the past). I loved the concept of dotting up a boss, then rolling those dots into one nastier dot. The other plus sides were of course food creation, Portal/teleports.

But i will say locks do have, in my opinion, a more dynamic utility with the summoning portals. Not to mention they have their own (more restricted) version of teleport.

It comes down to preference to be honest, do some research and try to balance internally which one fits you better. :D

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I have a 85 mage and a 85 warlock. Before the latest patch I would have recommended a mage. However, post patch the Warlock class rocks. Killing with my affliction warlock is so fluid and smooth. It's a joy to play.

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I have both classes and raided with both. Both do bring things useful to a group and do well alone for questing. My mage spec is fire and the warlock is affliction. Both have their share of DOTs. Overall, I prefered the mage before the 5.04 patch and really prefer it now. In both cases mana has never been an issue for the mage and the damage to groups is hard-hitting. With the warlock it was a lot of life tapping during boss encounters to keep mana, which made it harder on healers, at times. Mages have Evocation and mana gems and can maintain themselves. That being said I still like my warlock and will continue to play both toons into this next expansion but overall mages seem to hold their own better. I haven't put the warlock through any heroics since the patch but I hope the mana usage and regen is better. Either way you have a squishy caster. You need to master the art of keeping enemies at range, much like a hunter, as well as moving the least for being able ot cast everything in your arsenal.

For leveling, I liked the variety of warlock minions. They not only did some damage but held aggro for me while I DOT the mobs to death. While leveling the mage I tried frost for the water pet but it did not compare to the warlock variety in the least. Therefore, I went fire.

Edited by Beeba

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be wary of mage mana regen as it is on live at the minute as its askew. Mage mana regen was boosted by a LOT a few days ago to cope with the fact that arcane couldnt play without the lvl 90 talent because the mana regen sucked so much. The amount it was boosted by will drop each level till you get to 90 now.

Yes, warlocks have to lifetap, but to counter that, you get healthstones. With their charges, they are now OP. It takes 1 CGS to use a mana gem, and 2 to lifetap/healthstone. Not too much difference. Not to mention all the useful self-protection shizz we get: incoming damage reduced by 40%, Our own version of cauterize, all our self-healing abilities and also the ability to glyph lifetap so it no longer consumes health, but absorbs healing of the same amount instead.

As an affliction lock, the only time I really have to lifetap is on Yor'sahj when the voids drop. In that scenario, lifetap > mana gem simply because theres no Cooldown and if you healthstone to recover, then it doesnt count as a stack for the healing debuff.

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be wary of mage mana regen as it is on live at the minute as its askew. Mage mana regen was boosted by a LOT a few days ago to cope with the fact that arcane couldnt play without the lvl 90 talent because the mana regen sucked so much. The amount it was boosted by will drop each level till you get to 90 now.

Yes, warlocks have to lifetap, but to counter that, you get healthstones. With their charges, they are now OP. It takes 1 CGS to use a mana gem, and 2 to lifetap/healthstone. Not too much difference. Not to mention all the useful self-protection shizz we get: incoming damage reduced by 40%, Our own version of cauterize, all our self-healing abilities and also the ability to glyph lifetap so it no longer consumes health, but absorbs healing of the same amount instead.

As an affliction lock, the only time I really have to lifetap is on Yor'sahj when the voids drop. In that scenario, lifetap > mana gem simply because theres no Cooldown and if you healthstone to recover, then it doesnt count as a stack for the healing debuff.

You are speaking of small situational parts of a single encounter. I am speaking of overall abilities and mechanics. And now they gave the mages a better damage-absorbing shield called Ice Barrier as well as mana-regeneration means far beyond a simple mana gem. Since I raided with both about equally I can say from first-hand experience that I used lifetap a lot more than a mana gem in DS. This is not a knock on warlocks but a reality of the class that kept them from being OP and more in line with other classes in overall DPS. Now I cannot speak for arcane or frost mages because I never used them at higher levels but the fire mage had little or no problem with mana. Even before the boost you mentioned to help arcane mages mana was not a concern for me. Also, you are correct that the glyph of lifetap allows you to use lifetap at no health cost but it also causes a healing absorbsion debuff which makes the glyph less desirable and its use a likely loss in DPS in many situations as there are better glyphs.

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After bringing my warrior to level 90, I had the chance to put the mage and warlock to the test for real. It seems at least for now I did not have any mana concerns for either class no matter how much I tried to use the whole arsenal, even on crowds. I put the mage through one dungeon at 85 with DS gear and led dps even though there were level 86 members of the group. The warlock is level 86 and I am already sure there will be no mana issues in a dungeon. Waiting on the nerfs now but hoping to get both to 90 before Blizz does weird things to either class.

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My opinion on Mage vs Lock would be very biased towards mage, so I won't badmouth my inferior lock brothers.

I will say that I feel every raid needs one of each. These two classes have been rivals since day 1. My best rivalries in past haven't been with hunters or boomkins or spriests. Every one of them, a lock. Always trying to 1-UP each other on the meters.

With MOP though, I must say I envy one thing about locks and only one thing. The fact they have a glyph that lets them tank.

Like, really? REALLY?! Fine. I'll put on my barrier and show you I can do it too.

~Sage

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My opinion on Mage vs Lock would be very biased towards mage, so I won't badmouth my inferior lock brothers.

I will say that I feel every raid needs one of each. These two classes have been rivals since day 1. My best rivalries in past haven't been with hunters or boomkins or spriests. Every one of them, a lock. Always trying to 1-UP each other on the meters.

With MOP though, I must say I envy one thing about locks and only one thing. The fact they have a glyph that lets them tank.

Like, really? REALLY?! Fine. I'll put on my barrier and show you I can do it too.

~Sage

Inferior. Lol. I see what you did there. I don't have to try to 1 up anyone on the meters as a Warlock. I just win. Any Warlock who decides to tank is doing it wrong. They must not enjoy being the best DPS out there. I know Mages love to tank. You guys usually try to tank for 8 seconds while you're encased in ice. Then you blink, use your barrier, then die. Thanks for your worthless cakes. They taste like crap, too.

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Thanks for your worthless cakes. They taste like crap, too.

They're baked with tender love, care, and cyanide.

On that note, I thought I tasted something familiar in your cookies.

~Sage

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They're baked with tender love, care, and cyanide.

On that note, I thought I tasted something familiar in your cookies.

~Sage

I'll raise you your cyanide and throw in a bit of milky kerosene. The cookies won't bite....too hard. Who has their cake and eats it, too? Grab a cookie.

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I'll raise you your cyanide and throw in a bit of milky kerosene. The cookies won't bite....too hard. Who has their cake and eats it, too? Grab a cookie.

What're you gonna do, neuter the raid? I'm offing the healers to make things more... interesting.

You know they like their cake.

~Sage

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What're you gonna do, neuter the raid? I'm offing the healers to make things more... interesting.

You know they like their cake.

~Sage

At the closing of every raid, I say the following:

My name is Zagam reminding you to have your kids spayed and neutered to help control the troll population on the WoW forums!

So yeah, yeah I am trying to neuter the raid. Problem?

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After reading all this stuff Posted Image I could either offer my two cents worth or just keep it simple..So, simple it is..

WARLOCK ALL THE WAY!!!! Posted Image

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in my opinion, mages are far better than a warlock any day, warlocks just dont feel to be that fun and cool for me and i find them so bad and boring to play whereas i cannot keep off my mage

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I know this is mostly based on opinion, but I'm going to ask anyway. I've been wanting to level a caster for some time. I ruled out Shadow Priest, so down to locks and mages. Which is more fun to level, has better survivability, and higher dps at endgame. What are the Pros and Cons to each? Which has the more challenging rotation, I've played a hunter so i think I'm ready to step up my game in terms of rotation difficulty lol. Thanks ahead of time Posted Image

Mage. Warlocks are flooding the wow population after all of the MoP changes and class questline. Yeah, they're fun, but so are mages. Be different a go with a mage.

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