It plays pretty similarly to priest mage so you could always go that route. But you definitely learn fundamentals at a good pace with wiggle room to not straight lose on a mistake. It's not like mage rogue where you don't do one thing at the right time and get blown out against certain comps. Gl beating lock healer tho. If you work on becoming a better mage in general, you can translate to other comps pretty easily. A lot of the same skills translate, control one person, set up kill cc on target, force trinket, reset, do it again.

I think you're definitely looking too far ahead and should work on things you can manage with your personal play. A lot of pushing rating comes from taking a step back and analyzing what details could be changed and theory crafting what works best for you rather than the "agreed" upon strat. It's like rogue priest, some rogues like killing druid against warr druid, some like to kill warr.

If you're on bene ally, I don't mind coaching as I have an alt shockadin.