[Magus] Why so weak?

[ToXoS]

The origin story of van horstman is one of my favorite wfb novels

Such a beautiful tragedy for sure. Needless to say, Chaos Sorcerers are a force to be reckoned with, and while WAR takes many liberties (such as DoKs, or SnB on SMs and BGs), I have always felt that Magus fell short of any expectation I had for a powerful mage of Tzeentch.

That's for damn sure.
Oh, you forgot male dark elf sorcerer too...

[Gobtar]

The origin story of van horstman is one of my favorite wfb novels

Such a beautiful tragedy for sure. Needless to say, Chaos Sorcerers are a force to be reckoned with, and while WAR takes many liberties (such as DoKs, or SnB on SMs and BGs), I have always felt that Magus fell short of any expectation I had for a powerful mage of Tzeentch.

That's for damn sure.
Oh, you forgot male dark elf sorcerer too...

Male Dark Elf Sorcerers DO exist but incredibly rare, Malekith attempted to cull all male Sorcerers when he made his proclamation, this was at the same time he claimed the female sorcerers as his 'wives'. This was also around the same time that nobles were permitted to ride upon Cold One Chariots, a pleasure originally only enjoyed by the Witch King

This fluff was to allow Dark Elf players from previous editions (Pre-6th) to use male sorcerer models, and opened up Cold one Chariots as a wider army choice. These male sorcerers were considered outcasts and only ursurping houses would seek to ally themselves with such a pariah. Later on Malekith cursed all surviving male Sorcerers to be Doomfire Warlocks.

Again I don't mind male sorcerers in WAR (they are thankfully the minority) as it gave Malekith a means of dealing with a great threat. By having these undesirables be sanctioned, he could commit them to war in hopes of killing them off, and also puts the spot light on successful mages. Those that had earned too much favour from success he could use have them eliminated by the other houses who could see a prominent mage as a threat to their own plans of power.

Intrigue, gotta love Dark Elves.

That all said, a Dark Elf Sorcerer, male of female, does hold incredible power with the Dhar wind. but it's raw and destructive. Chaos magic on the other hand is not just harnessing the winds of magic but also imbued with divine power, however, Chaos is fickle and so didn't automatically succeed (unlike other divine magic)...If my earlier suggestion was to be "entertained" I would rather see the pets do more damage over. I would like to see a more unfettered version of the Horrors of Tzeentch. This really has no bearing on balance, and more wishlisting at this point...but this isn't a balance forum.

[Sido]

No, that's not what I'm saying.
I mean that besides the dots, magus have nothing.
Rift is not a damaging ability, or that's what I'm talking about here. Rift is a very situational ability anyway, meaning that most of the time, you will not do anything useful for the group.
Dissolving mist isn't a danger for a half-decent wb. Come on, have you ever used this ability? Because everytime I used it, either the enemies don't stand on the spot, or they stand with any healer (generally a WP) and it's alright for them, the WP would be here anyway to heal the melee train. Don't even think of putting the DM near the squishies, you will not have the range for it. Again, a very situational ability, useless most of the time.
Of course on theory the magus sounds nice, but on the field it's a whole different story.

I don't know on which tier you're playing magus (or if you even play it) but in T4, it's literally hell. I remember on the other tiers it was more than acceptable, but in "end-game" it's awful.

Although I agree with you about the Rift ability, I totally disagree about your Dissolving Mist statement. It actually has a great impact in several situations (1v1, smallman, sc and BO/keep):
- 1v1 : most of your opponents are WL and WH, that means they will kd you sooner or later. For the WL you see them coming so be sure to get kd while laying in your DM. For WH you'll have to set up your comfort zone after their opening+kd, it's more difficult if you're not well stuffed but eh, each time you succeed it's even more a good feeling.
- Smallman : use the Mist as a safe zone, your gameplay is not only about kiting or long cast time stationary damage dealer, if you're dealing more damage than your opponents, you don't really need to kite, "kill or be killed" strategy, with instant pet summoning+aekd and your no-cd snare, you're able to crush a small melee train or at least discourage the weakest of the group to stay in the pack if they don't have more than 1 healer
- SC and BO : put your Mist on flags, no one will be able to tag for the next 30sec. Actually (unlike you said) the fight often stays in there in SC (I can't believe that I'm placing the DM on better spots than you tbh), so okay 1 wp will easily sustain your DM deal with group HoT and group heal, but he won't be able to sustain also your teammates damages for a long time, so think and use it to assist and put pressure on healers, with your spirit ae debuff it can do up to 900-1k with crit on last ticks.
Keep : pretty obvious with all enclosed spaces it provides.

[ToXoS]

I'm not really into SC, so I can't say anything about that.
Good idea about the BO, never thought of that tbh. I guess that's because I put DM on the fight instead of the flag.
On 1vs1, if you're not spec Daemonology, you can forget it. Best case scenario, you will die first and kill the WH/WL a few seconds after with the DoTs.
On keep battles, DM is good if you manage to cast it on a group of RDPS, but don't expect to deal damage if there's an engie with keg in the mist. Same about group heal ofc. And that's not a rare thing at all.

[footpatrol2]

Another really good spot to put DM is on your healers. What does Mdps/Tanks want to get too? The healers usually. You have to create your groups and composition with this stuff in mind. I predominately play in 12 man's and approach this game as such. You can find room for a changing magus in a 12 man setting.

Racial group stuff for chaos

Spoiler:

So I'm that racial group guy so I'll give a hint for chaos groups here which even the animations support this. Place your darks rite zealot's in the DM. If players try to rush him pop winds of insanity. You are buying time for your melee train to come back and take care of the threat while dishing out damage to the opposition from the DM. You can even stack multiple dark rites zealots in the mist with multiple winds of insanties. If your running a 12 man you can have up too 2 to 4 dark rites zealots with winds of insanities. Winds of insanity doesn't trigger immunities. If your runnning a 12 man control your CC immunities.

Winds of insanity has a 26 sec cooldown, the duration is 6 sec's. Stack all your dark rites zealots stupid close together and rotate your winds of insanity while in the mist. If your running 2 dark rites zealots thats gives you 12 sec's for your melee train to comeback and deal with the problem or if your running 4 dark rites zealots that gives you 24 sec's of basically melee train immunity out of 26 sec's and if they keep trying to push on your zealots they are gettin hit with the mist. Place your changing magus in the center of the mist for melee protection which is provided by your dark rites zealots. Glass up the magus.

You can even do a coordinated Mark of the vortex ability pop on all members of your 12 man group when your melee train comes back to deal with the threat. Tricks for days. Have all 4 zealots slot wave of chaos tactic and place the rituals on top of each other. Place the mist on top of this location also. Your stacking passive AoE damage that is AP free. Due to the ritual's size your actually pumping out passive damage at around 20 ft or 30 ft in addition to the mist damage. I have play tested this recently so I know wave of chaos tactic is roughly the same size of the mist if not slightly larger. Its all about getting creative. I could keep going but i'll stop here.

If you place your dark rites zealots in the mist when you throw out tzeentch's cordial (the 15 sec hot) it will look like your zealots are throwing mutating mist out of the dissolving mist to help your chaos group friends. Your spreading the chaos around.