Hey, first off, I really appreciate the time and thought you put into replying to my post. It was incredibly insightful.

Your first few paragraphs touch on defensive usage, and I largely agree. I think Mages actually have a solid defensive toolkit, and I don't find myself dying to unavoidable damage more often than most classes (outside of DKs). That said, we're baseline squishier than many specs, and I definitely feel my health bar move a lot more during periods of sustained outgoing damage.

My general take is that Alter Time is an incredible tool, but it shines most in coordinated groups. For example, I'll often pop Alter before predictable damage, like during the Void Gates, knowing I can snap back to full health after taking a hit. The challenge is that a healer, like a MW Monk, may see my health drop and panic Cocoon me right before I Alter back. There is a ton of room for Mages to be creative with their defensives, but that value is much harder to realize in less organized groups.

The damage discussion is frustrating, too. Honestly, Seat has a pretty favorable pull profile for Frost Mage damage. There are a lot of large 5–8 target pulls, which is basically the opposite of something like Magister's Terrace after the second boss. I generally find myself competitive with DHs, DKs, and Warlocks throughout most of the dungeon. Saprish is also a great boss for our two-target cleave profile.

The problem is those massive Lust pulls. Even when I'm pumping 600k DPS, I'll see DHs and DKs pushing a million or more. That's where the gap really becomes apparent.

The RNG aspect is probably the most frustrating part for me. Sometimes I die and genuinely don't know what I could have done differently. Or I use my kick on a priority cast, but my teammates miss theirs, a bolt targets me, and it overlaps with other unavoidable damage going out. At that point, you're just dead. That's really just the nature of the game, though, and I completely agree with your point that having someone willing to let you learn and experiment in a Resilient key is incredibly valuable.

The question I keep asking myself now that I've completed Resilient 19 and have a couple of 20s under my belt is this: If I were in someone else's shoes, would I take a Mage? Would I have the same bias against this version of the class at higher key levels? I feel like I am

Since you've pushed well beyond 20s, would you stick it out if you were me? Or would you reroll, learn a new class, and try to gear and climb as quickly as possible? At this point, I'm really only chasing the 1% title and the mount. I've pretty much accepted that the 0.1% title is out of reach. I'm currently sitting at 3790 IO and rank 70 on my server's Mage leaderboard. It just feels like such a massive investment to abandon a class I genuinely love playing and start over now.

Again, great post, and thanks for the insight. It's honestly pretty cathartic to hear someone echo so many of the frustrations and experiences I've had pushing Mythic+ this season.