Dabbling in the arcane

Last week I managed to get my mage into our guild Ulduar run to try my hand at raid DPSing. I’ve managed to cobble together some semi decent gear, though I’ve still got some serious upgrades that need to happen.

Now I’m certainly no master of the mage, but I do like the current playstyle of both Arcane and Frost mages. I’ll be playing with fire PvP as well, simply because it’s something else to do.

One thing that I have noticed is that I enjoy the mage DPS much more than playing my paladin as Ret. I don’t know if it’s the lack of a true rotation, or that the mage has fewer raid utility buttons to worry about. It could also be a mind game, as I still think of myself as a tank or healer when I’m logged in on the paladin. I’m constantly scanning the raid for someone needing a Salv, BoP, or a random loose mob.

Tunnel Vision

This is one thing that I’ve been fairly fortunate to avoid, though I did slip into it somewhat on Vezack, and that’s the tunnel vision that I see so many DPSers slip into. I suppose that I can see how this can happen, especially when you’re focused on keeping a tight rotation of abilities to keep your DPS high. With spells pushing the GCD, and haste pushing that to one second, losing a step here or there can have an impact on your DPS.

Here’s the flip though. Dead DPSers have a total DPS of zero. I would rather have someone who can stay alive through an entire fight and do slightly less DPS than someone who does 18k DPS but is dead in the first 30 seconds. We see this all the time in our PUG ToC 25. Someone is standing still during phase 2, continuing to nuke adds, and Anub runs right through them.

I’m thoroughly enjoying the mage, though it’s certainly not as much fun as tanking. I’ve taken a few breaks from tanking to DPSing over the years, but I always migrate back. With dual specs available, and alts so easily geared, it’s very easy to enjoy some face melting on the mage, and keep doing what I love with the tank.

I don’t see me ever making the change to my mage full time, but it does give me another toy to play with, and I’m hoping to round out my five piece PvP set this week. I’ll still be squishy in PvP, but at least I’ll have some protection.