Never played WoW

[Zeladaar]

I'm just wondering if someone could help me decide on classes between Warlock and Mage. Pros, cons, etc? A lot of the ones I look up are up to date on live wow so it's not really valid.

[euronmisc]

-Mages
Pros:
-AoE lords
-Best CC with sheep
-Great dps in PvE
-Lots of instant casts
-Lots of fun in pvp
-Easy to have fun with

Cons:
-Very squishy
-Drinking a lot
-Being a water vendor

In general mages are squishy, but can deal a lot of damage. They have loads of spells to keep their enemies at bay, especially as frost, but when they get to you, you're fuoked. Most guilds raid with at least 4-5 mages, and they're great PvE dps as well as a vital part of any pvp premade.


-Warlocks
Pros:
-Dots
-Pet
-Fear
-Not super squishy
-Decent PvE dps
-Amazing in PvP if you got the skills

Cons:
-Lifetapping a lot
-Farming soul shards which are required to summon / soulstone / shadowburn people
-Difficult to really master
-WATCH YOUR AGGRO MATE

In summary, warlocks are an odd class. They have tons of options for pvp, and two different specs for PvE. Warlocks do decent raid dps, but are not very popular, since most mages, rogues and warriors will outdps them. Their aggro is super wonky, and usually if you crit at the start of a fight you're going to overaggro. I'd say that pvp-wise warlocks are great, but very difficult to really be good at. They have tons of situational spells, combined with pet management and consumable usage they're difficult to get right. However, once you do get it right you can absolutely rek in pvp.

tl;dr If you want a more straight forward dps class mages is the way to go, if you want something more complicated pick a warlock. In PvE it doesn't matter much, mages spam frostbolt, warlock shadowbolt.

[Cousy]

The skill gap between the worst warlock and best warlock is larger than the skill gap between the worst mage and the best mage. This isn't to necessarily say the best warlock is a better player than the best mage but it's harder to be bad at mage than warlock. If this is your first WoW experience, I'd recommend Mage. It's far more forgiving than Warlock is and especially in world PvP that will happen, it has escapability that warlock simply does not have.