The Basics

It’s very important for any class to set a right foot forward when they begin the game. Race and class are very important decisions and that’s not different with the Mage. As a matter of a fact, race selection with the Mage class changes the playstyle dramatically!

Be sure to check out our Mage forum if you ever have any questions about your Mage  or have something to add to this guide!

The first thing to consider, is the Mage class right for you? There is no sense at all in playing something that you won’t enjoy. The Mage class isn’t for everyone, so it’s always best to give a look over what the class does and see if it fits how you want to play the game. You can get a good grasp on how a class plays by taking it to level twenty. Sure, you won’t have all the available skills, but you will have a good idea of how the class works. If it isn’t for you, then you can make a new character and not worry about such a large time investment.

• Mages use magic to inflict the majority of their damage. They can do all kinds of spectacular spells, including inflicting large amounts of damage on multiple targets.
• Mages can tap into arcane magics and turn their enemies into animals. They can summon fiery infernos to engulf their enemies or conjure frosty shackles to lock their enemies into place. While many mages may only specialize in one form of magical destruction, they utilize all three types of magic to lock down and obliterate their enemy.
• While their magical damage is powerful, they are completely dependant on their mana for their damage. There is no magical auto-attack and their melee damage is horrible. When out of mana, a Mage must wait on it to regenerate or use a potion to continue their assault when in combat.
• Mages are very frail. Their damage is very high but they lack the defense of heartier classes like Warriors. Outside of soloing, Mages can’t stand at the front of battles. They stand in the back and lob magical spells at their enemies.
• Mages are masters of escaping. With various snares, roots, and ability to incapacitate their enemies they can get out of many tricky situations. Not only that, but they can easily kite their enemies around which gives them extra time to deal with them before they break through their defense.
• Can summon their own food and water to make leveling easier.

In a quick summary, you could say the Mage is the master of ranged offense. Pure ranged damage with some great utility.

Picking a race as a Mage can be really tough. There are a lot of good choices that can change how your Mage performs! Remember, it’s your character and you will be spending a lot of time with it, so make the choice by what you want. If you like a visually appealing (to you) race over one that seems “better”, then go for it.

Alliance

Human: Humans gain 5% spirit and the ability to actively seek out stealthed characters. They also gain faster reputation then other classes and get a bonus to swords (which is useless to a Mage). Humans are a fine choice for a Mage.

Gnome: They gain more starting Intelligence, a passive 5% bonus to Intelligence, and can flee from certain effects with Escape Artist. Gnomes are another fine choice for a Mage, if not better then Humans based purely on stats.

Horde

Blood Elves (Burning Crusade): Blood Elves may seem like the de facto choice for making a Mage, but remember they aren’t the best… even with their addiction to magic. Their mana tap ability grants them extra mana, but the amount is only worth a few spells at best.  They do make excellent Mages though!

Undead (Forsaken): The Undead lack any purely Mage orientated racials, but are fine choices. Their cannibalize ability can decrease the time needed to regen after battles and the do look pretty cool!

Trolls: Trolls make great choices due to their beserk ability. This lets you cast faster for a short period of time depending on your health. This can be useful in many scenarios and makes Trolls another fine choice for Mages.

If you need additional help in leveling up or finding places to level then see these other extremely helpful resources that should aid in getting you started:

• Making Money Guide
• Alliance 1-60 Guide / Horde 1-60 Guide
• PvP Survival
• City and Starting Region Guides
• Weapons Guide
• Where to Adventure
• Must Know WoW Tips

• Herbalism and Alchemy
  A perfect choice for a Mage of any level. The ability to brew your own healing and mana potions can be very helpful. Not only that, but it's a great money making combo.
• Mining and Blacksmithing
  As a Mage it's best to avoid this combo until after level forty and then only take it up if you plan to make money off of it. Blacksmithing provides nothing, outside of the quests, for a Mage.
• Mining and Engineering
  Engineering is kind of useful for Mages. The grenades are useful for any class and many of the gadgets are helpful. Some Mages may not get as much use out of Engineering as some other classes, but it's still a fine choice.
• Skinning and Leatherworking
  Like with Blacksmithing, Mages can not equip anything other then the cloth. So Leatherworking would be of no use to a Mage. Only consider taking up after level forty and with a plan to make cash from it.
• Mining & Skinning or Herbalism & Skinning
  A combination of gathering skills is often times the best choice when starting out. Selling everything you gather on the Auction House can create enough money to fund new armor, weapons, and even a mount! This is the BEST way to go before level forty! At level forty you can drop the second tradeskill and match it with one you like.
• Talioring & Enchanting
  Talioring is a fine choice for a Mage. You'll be able to turn cloth drops into gear that you can often use and it's far from the most expensive tradeskill. Enchanting is a good choice too, especially for Blood Elf Mages.

Mages rely on something known as Mana to cast their spells. It can be replenished by drinking, potions, or just waiting. It regenerates based on spirit and does not regenerate during casting without the help of something like Mage Armor.

Learning to best use your Mana will be key in defeating enemies as a Mage. If you use too much then you'll spend more time regenerating. If you try to use too little then you may find you are sacrificing more health to use less mana. Remember though, it's easier to sit down and drink then walk back to your corpse!

Spells are cast by choosing the target and using the spell. The spell will begin casting. During the time it is casting the Mage may not move or else the spell will fail. If the Mage is attacked during the casting of a spell then the spell will reset some time off of the cast making it take longer to cast (some talents can change this for some spells). After the casting is finished, the spell is then slung at the enemy.

Understanding this, it's always at an advantage to be casting from a distance and with nothing attacking you. Skills like Frost Bolt can snare the enemy on their approach and skills like Frost Nova can lock them in place while you move out of attack range.

Mages do not have much defense. Outside of your normal quest monsters, you may find yourself always at a disadvantage once something is within melee range with you. That's why it is important to always have Frost Armor up. This gives a chance to snare the enemy and slow their attack speed which can be helpful in case you need to flee (or just by slowing their attack speed).

Armor for Mages isn't very important. Cloth armor scales up slowly and you may not find much benefit from a piece of armor with a few more armor points. Although, unlike Warriors and Paladins, a few armor points can greatly increase your defense.

A major attraction to many Mages is the ability to summon their own food and water. This can help with downtime after battles and remove a major burden on your wallet. It's always good to remember to summon food and water at the start of the session, but not too much. It disappears at logoff!

Mages rely on many statistics, the primary ones though are Intellect, and Spirit. Stamina is also somewhat important to Mages, but generally less than the other two. Since the Mage is devoted entirely to casting magic, Spirit and Intellect are essential. Stamina is considered useful for “survivability” so really it is a close second to the other two stats. Strength and Agility do not have much benefit for a Mage and shouldn’t be sought after.

The stats equate to in game effect as follows:

Strength - Increases your Attack Power thereby increasing your damage. Strength also increases the damage that you can block with your shield. Nothing useful for a Mage.

Stamina - Increases your health points. This is critical for Mages since our battles are generally short and we can only wear cloth armor.

1 Stamina = 10 Health points

Intellect - Increases your mana pool and your critical hit chance with spells. It also increases the speed at which you earn weapon skill points. With Mages since mana is the most important stat they have, it is essential to max out as much as possible on Intellect.

1 Intellect = 15 Mana

And

100 Intellect = +1% to critically cast spells

Spirit - Spirit raises your health and mana regeneration rate. While it is noticeable at higher levels, it takes a significant number of points in this to regain mana quickly enough that you will not want to stop and drink to gain it back.

Agility - Agility increases the following: attack power with ranged weapons, armor, critical hit chance and your chance to dodge attacks. The ranged weapon bonus is somewhat meaningless to Mages as we can only use wands as ranged weapons. The armor bonus is nice for Mages since we can only use cloth armor.

2 Agility = 1 Armor point

Contributors past and present to this guide include:

• Messiah - Currently maintaing guide
• Ratboy - Mage on PVP server Sargeras (Ratboy on TTH site)
• Boomjack - EQ2 Paladin on the Oggok Server for the format of this guide
• Trashcan - Mage who contributed Frost/Arcane - Freeze Cheaply
• S-D - Added "Group Dynamics" Article
• Darth Molen - Contributed "In's & Out's of Magehood"