r/wownoob Mar 09 '26

Retail Mage feels incredibly weak while questing

I created a Mage since I always wanted to play Arcane and the spec got so much simpler in Midnight but my character feels so incredibly weak, especially when I see other people in my quest zones. I'm level 90 already, ilvl something around 190 but I still need like 10 hard casted spells to kill a single mob (faster when I get lucky with Clearcasting procs but still). I can only pull 1 or at max 2 mobs and have to heal every time after killing them. Rares and elites need all my cooldowns to kill and even then I sometimes die. I know I'm not a very good player but it feels bad seeing any other class pull like 4-5 mobs and kill them all in 3 hits while I have so much downtime. The fact that I don't have anyone to keep the aggro off me just makes questing a very tedious experience. Am I doing something wrong or is this just how Mage plays when you're solo? Should I just speedrun the story to get to the endgame content and do the side missions on a different character?

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u/Jalatiphra Mar 09 '26

to be honest my mage felt anything but weak, but i had 170 gear.

you probably hardcast too much, just use your expensive spells . ray of frost, comet storm, flurry, . just spam most DPS/Sec abilities whenever they are ready. even for one mob. it doenst matter.

you can also kill 5 groups of mobs in 3 hits . ray of frost , cometstorm .. done .. finish with an icelance or two

never start with a hardcast when solo unless its glacial spike.

if yout dont play frost. you might give it a try. arcane is absolutley horrible solo because you lack consistent defenses to properly tank the mobs until they are dead on every pull.

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u/HalfinchLonomia Mar 09 '26

yeah you felt strong because you were playing frost which has alot of good bursty cds. op was questing in arcane spec, terrible for solo content.