How to Be a Successful Mage in World of Warcraft

Mages are one of the most entertaining classes to play! You can zap enemies from afar, turn monsters into sheep and they have some of the best Area of Effect spells to be had. They are also highly reliant on mana, have low hit points and can only wear cloth armor. They are also hampered by the lack of a pet, but playing a Mage is still a rewarding experience!

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Get used to being a vending machine. Mages have the ability to conjure food and water. This makes them extremely popular with…well, everyone. Lots of people exhibit extremely rude behavior toward Mages in their attempts to coax Mages into conjuring food and water for them. This is a facet of Mage life that unfortunately must be accepted, as nearly all Mages will encounter it at one time or another.

2. Run away if you need to! Mages have three spells that make running away a breeze for them: Blink, Frost Armor and Frost Nova. Blink instantly teleports you a short distance, quickly increasing the amount of real estate between you and danger, while Frost Armor slows enemies and Frost Nova stops them in their tracks.

3. Find the sweet spot with your Frost Nova. This is the point at which you can hit an enemy with Frost Nova and continue attacking them, but are far enough away so that they cannot attack you.

4. Learn to conserve mana! ALL of your abilities are dependent upon mana! If you run out of it and have no Mana Potions, you are virtually defenseless!

5. Take 'em all on! Mages have some of the best crowd control around. Frost Nova, combined with several area-attack spells, allow Mages to take on large groups of enemies and eliminate them quickly.

6. Learn to sheep-pull! A Mage in conjunction with a Rogue can successfully control and pull a fairly large mob. Have the Rogue sap one enemy, use Polymorph on another, then Frost Nova the remainders and pick them apart, safe in the knowledge that you have a little time before your Sheep and Sap wear off.

7. Be sure to maintain your First Aid skill! Spells in abundance you may have, but you will find yourself lacking in healing skills. You can regenerate mana easily enough, but make sure you keep your First Aid skill high! If you run out of potions and are still unable to eat, bandages become your best friend!

8. Learn to keep your damage relative. Mages have tremendous damage-dealing potential, but this is a double-standard. It means that you can dish out a lot of hurt really quickly, but also that you generate a huge amount of threat. If you hurt a large monster too much too fast, your tank will loose aggro and the monster will come after you! Several mods actively display your threat generated, so grab one and make sure you’re practicing some damage control.

[Quacker]

on 3/27/2008 and there's an invisible comment size limit, nice.

3...heroic instances with them. gather a few hundred badges of justice and purchase good gear with them.

4. form an arena team with two of the friends you've found, go do rated arena games with them and gather arena points, spend enough time to obtain good gear.

5. either continue with 4 indefinitely, or start searching for a raiding guild doing karazhan, zul aman, serpentshrine cavern and tempest keep.


useful defensive abilities for mages, learn how these work and use them when needed: polymorph, counterspell, remove lesser curse, iceblock, frost nova, spellsteal, invisibility.

[Quacker]

on 3/27/2008 Anyone who played mage above lvl30 would know Ice Armor replaces Frost Armor at that point. Also you CAN get a pet as a mage if you spec deep frost. And saying you should conserve mana is simply wrong, because very few fights last long enough to force a mage oom, and when you're not fighting you regen mana quickly with the water you can conjure for yourself.

REAL steps for mage success:

leveling 1-70:
1. gather gear with +dmg on it.

2. shoot magic at monsters (frostbolts with every talent point put to frost tree) one target at a time until you run out of mana.

3. drink and eat your hp full.

repeat 2 and 3 until lvl70.


at lvl70:

1. go deep fire with 11 points in frost.

2. gather gear with +dmg, +hit and +crit on it.

3. do instances with people, get to know the ones who seem skilled, form a group of competent people over a few weeks and start clearing heroic i

[kurtis51]

on 3/24/2008 While those are all good tips for 5 man instances, have you ever raided as a Mage?

Being a vending machine for guildies is just part of the class but not for the average player out there. The one mistake Mages make is to give out free water and food. Next, they will be giving out free portals.