Do mages even win in long term DPS vs a Wizard?
I have a hard time believe they do after playing a mage in the raid with wizards. Specialy when all of our monsters summonings mean basicly nothing if the Mob can AoE/Ww/PS.
Yes, and no, our mana burns up quickly if you're doing your job properly. While I would expect the wizard to be oom a bit before the mage, the extra 10% critrate, primals and ultimates, and 5m nukes v pet dps (it gets closer than you think)..even the gap by quite a bit. If, and it's a pretty big if in terms of the raidgame, depending highly on where you're raiding, monster summoning is usable (and by usable I mean of course they do not die and keep whacking away until the mob is dead) then yes, we will win. Of course rarely are there fights which utilize our potential, and indeed in many areas of the game you are pretty much forced back into relying on your older rains due to fire immunities (we're talking lvl60 and lower spells for instance). Our DD is very poor, do not expect to get much use out of it, and should only ever be used on fights where you absolutely positively cannot rain for strategic reasons, or because you are confident you will kill yourself (if you think you have a reasonable shot of pulling off resisting it, or at least getting a few good shots of rain and can haul your ass out of there when you hit below 50, it is still preferable to rain).
Mages outDPS wizards in the high end when fights become longer and longer.
ceteris paribus the caster dps spectrum something like this.
DPS Winners
Long Fight, Many Mobs- Mage
Long Fight, Few Mobs- Necromancer
Long Fight, One Mob- Necromancer
Medium Fight, Many Mobs- Mage
Medium Fight, Few Mobs- Necromancer/Mage
Medium Fight, One Mob- Wizard
Short Fight, Many Mobs- Mage/Wizard
Short Fight, Few Mobs- Wizard
Short Fight, One Mob- Wizard
Highly dependent on fight specifics. On a long fight with 2 mobs, that can be stacked, and are not immune or highly resistant to fire damage, A mage may outdps a necro. Fights where CC is a huge issue tend to invalidate our major form of dps, as there is a reasonable chance of hitting the mezzed mob and waking it up. Also I've noticed the tendency for people to think our mana somehow lasts alot longer than it actually does. If the fight is past a certain threshold in length, or when one of the mobs is killed, which invariably happens, our dps drops to half, allowing other classes to pass us in dps by quite a bit. If the resists on the particular mob are reasonably high, one can expect many classes to outdamage us. Not just necros and wizards.
On a medium fight with a few mobs, yes mana should hold. Provided one isn't trying to stack 3 rains. However the trend of dps drastically decreasing when one goes down, the other classes will catch up, and if the mopup lasts long enough, again outdps a mage.
On a short fight with many mobs, mana will last, but this tends to depend on the nature of the fight tbh as well. Again on CC fights, or anything where the mob moves about alot? We aren't hot at all.
One also have to keep in mind the lower crit rate of a mage.
Mages can damage multiple mobs at almost the same rate they can damage one. If you have a situation with a main mob and adds the monster summoning stacks up WHILE you keep DPS on the secondary mobs. Utility is high.
Well as far as multiples go, unless you're attempting to stack the rains all on different targets, which I may add, is a tremendous pain in the ass (really hit or miss, targeting problems with some models, inability to specify with a great degree of success your desired secondary), we're confined to 2. Monster summoning is nice, awesome, and I love it, but invalidated completely by a large amount of raid encounters, it also chows down on your spellslots like a fat kid in candy store. Utility is pretty confined. Utility for mages consists of the following stuff (Note: I'm looking at utility in terms of what is actually useful for other people, not just necessarily the mage themselves, which is why barrier ward is not included):
1. Rods
2. Searfire
3. Pet rune weapons
4. Elemental Barrier
5. DS
6. Peridots
In terms of single target fights, expect to lose in terms of dps to pretty much most similarly tiered classes that are paying attention. Including melees. We are a good choice for xp groups, a poor choice for a great deal of the 6man content (despite rods), and an okay choice for a raid. Monster summoning was definitely exactly what we needed, but it falls very short not due to it's design, but rather the predominant nature of ae content.
Sidenote: After relic pet you will not need to use any of the previous pets under any circumstances whatsoever. Eliminates a bit of the strategy that was inherent in the class early on, he is however well worth it, as he tanks alooooottt better and does considerably more dps.
Oh, and rains crit less than dd's btw.
