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Playing a Mage

Playing a Mage can sometimes be a daunting task, there can be lots of actions required during combat, but there is one thing that it always is: fun. There are few things cooler in WoW, combat wise, then standing on a hill raining fire down on your enemies only to snare them in ice and fling arcane magics at them.

Here are some useful tactics that are helpful in the daily life of a Mage. Nothing can beat out experience, but some helpful advice can really improve your playstyle! Should you have any questions or want to know more advanced Mage tactics then check out our Mage forums.

Kiting is one of the most basic techniques a Mage can do and is one of the oldest known magical techniques used in most fantasy based MMORPGs. It can simply be described as dragging an enemy around snaring it/slowing it down while you sling away various spells at it. In WoW this process is made simple by Frost Nova, Ice Armor, Cone of Cold, and Frost Bolt.

Let’s say that your enemy is directly in front of you and just at the edge of your casting range. You’d start off by slinging a few Fireball or Frostbolt (depending on your spec) and continue until he’s directly infront of you. At this point, you would use Frost Nova to lock him in place and regain the distance. From here you’d continue to sling spells at him until he’s dead. If he does regain the range, you could easily use a single Frostbolt to snare him and then regain the distance again.

Using this process, you can easily avoid taking a good bit of damage (saving time after battle and removing a lot of risk) and keep the durability on your armor up. Just remember, once the enemy is in range of Frost Nova let it go! It recharges really fast and you can use it for most every battle.

Polymorph is a strange spell in that it will often help the enemy (by quickly refilling their HP) at the cost of stunning them for extended periods. It only works on Beasts, Humanoids, and Critters and only last full duration on NPCs (players will break out much quicker then your NPCs). Polymorph breaks when an enemy takes damage and has three versions (sheep, pig, and turtle the later two being available through quests and tomes at level sixty).

Polymorph is one of the major Mage spells and is essential in instances, PvP, or even while soloing! In instances, a Mage will often be called upon for the sole duty of keeping one target constantly polymorphed (taking it out of battle for extended periods of time).

Understanding which spells return the best damage vs. which spells return the best amount of mana consumption is critical for knowing what spells to mix and match for what situations.

Some situations will require damage no matter what the cost is. There are times where you have to go all out, for example in instances where you need to burn an enemy down fast or else things will be going out of control. In these situations you want to use whatever your highest DPS skill is (usually Fireball or Frost Nova (depending on your talents) or a combination of talents from the Arcane tree).

Other situations require you to conserve your mana. To find out how efficient skills are with your mana simply take how much damage is done then divide it by the amount of mana it costs. So, a 1000 damage skill that costs 100 mana would be 10 mana per damage.

It really differs too, depending on what talents you have. As far any baseline skill goes, Frostbolt will generally be your best damage to mana skill. Fireball, which is slightly less efficient, will be your main source of DPS at the cost of large hits to your mana.

Generally speaking,

Here are some baseline examples for popular spells:

Fireball (Rank 11): 638 Damage (+72 DoT)/395 Mana = 1.8 Damage/Mana
Frostbolt (Rank 10): 446 Damage/260 Mana = 1.7 Damage/Mana
Pyroblast (Rank 8): 803 Damage (+268 DoT)/440 Mana = 2.43 Damage/Mana

Here are some (non-exact) examples on fully beefed up (full talents) skills (at level sixty):
Fire spells in Order from Most to Least Efficient
- Pyroblast (2.68 damage per mana)
- Scorch (1.85 damage per mana)
- Fireball (1.78 damage per mana)
- Fireblast (1.5 damage per mana)
- Blastwave (1.0 damage per mana)
- Flamestrike (0.8 damage per mana)
Frost spells in Order from Most to Least Efficient
- Frostbolt (2.0 damage per mana)
- Blizzard (1.0 damage per mana)
- Cone of Cold (1.0 damage per mana)
Arcane spells in Order from Most to Least Efficient
- Arcane Missiles (1.6 damage per mana)
- Arcane Explosion (0.65 damage per mana)

Mages are wonderful in groups because of their utility (especially the ability to Polymorph and portal) and their damage (which is some of the best in the game). Mages generally have two things to keep track of, their damage/threat and keeping things Polymorphed.

First and foremost is threat. Threat is how much a certain enemy dislikes you. The more they dislike you then the more likely they are to charge and attack at you. You can make an enemy dislike you by doing damage to it (or using any kind of ability on it). Certain abilities cause more or less threat then others (and some items can lower how much threat you cause all the time). Generally speaking, you should never be unloading all of your damage unless that’s what your job is. Moderating your damage output so that the Warrior, Paladin, or Druid can hold aggro is key to a successful battle.

That said, mostly in groups a Mage will be doing two things. The first is the obvious, damage. As already been made clear, the Mage’s damage isn’t suppose to be ramping up as fast as possible but instead be moderated so that you don’t get aggro. Generally after a tank has enough aggro with an enemy then you can ramp your damage up, but it’s always best never to lead into battle with all your magical guns a’ blazing.

The next thing is the Polymorph. As mentioned above, this is very important in many instances and improper polymorphing can lead to the entire group perishing at the enemies hands. Often times you’ll be asked to do a “Poly pull” or “sheep pull”. This is simply you going up, just in cast range, and using the Polymorph spell. Once it’s completed casting you then move behind the group and do absolutely nothing. If any enemies get within melee range simply use Frost Nova and back up. After the tanks have enough aggro go into damage mode until that Polymorph is about to wear out. If it’s about to wear out then recast it. When everything is dealt with then the tank will go up and break it last.

You may be asked to remove curses as well. This is important as Mage's are one of the few classes with the unique ability to strip a curse off of someone. It may be hard to constantly monitor health bars, do damage, and keep something polymorphed but with practice you can get the hang of it.

With all of that in mind, most groups will like Arcane Intellect on anyone with a mana pool. You’ll also be asked to supply food and water should anyone need it. It’s generally a good idea to meet up with the group and distribute food and water at the start so that you won’t have to fool with it once the adventuring begins.

Mostly you’ll want to organize your bars into different sets. You’ll want a bar for your damage spells and active trinkets, a bar for buffs (Arcane Intellect and Dampen Magic) and food/water, and then a bar for various skills like your portals and what not. You’ll want your major damage skills bound to easy access keys along with Blink and Polymorph.

If you’re looking for some good U.I. mods then be sure to check out our U.I. Mod Repository!

The following are some extra resources that may be of some help!

• In's and Out's of Magehood
  DarthMolen's excellent (but slightly dated) guide on the basics of being a Mage.
• Decursive 2.0 (Macro Edition)
  Decursive may be gone, but there are still easy ways to handle removing curses.
• Weapons Guide
  1-hand weapon/off-hand or a staff answered right here!