| Name | A Complete Mage Guide: Fire, Ice, and the Arcane (Things Every Mage Should Know) |
| Category | Class |
Hyacintha, your very own Skryer Enchantress is here today, to tell you all about Mages. To help me, I have brought along Nadandren the Mage to help answer some of the most important questions you could possibly have. Never fear, anything you have ever wanted to know about Mages, from their skills to their armor to their talents, you will find, right here the in the pages of this interview. Prepare to take an in-depth look at this popular, yet underplayed class, and be ready to understand where is allure originates from!
In this first installment, Nadandren and I will hit on several topics, like, what race is best for the Mage study, how best to live up to your class and people’s expectations, and much, much more.
Hyacintha: We are going to start with the basic basics here. What would you say are the basic principles of being a Mage? By that I mean, Rouges stab things and often like to do it from behind. What can be said of your class?
Nadandren: Well, mages have all means of blowing things up. They are the most arguably strong area-of-effect class in the game, as well as the only class able to shape-shift or polymorph their enemies, and can deal some of the quickest, highest amounts of damage. However, mages are not for everyone. Why? Because, this class really cannot take a hit. Low hit points and dependability on mana makes this class a challenge when presented to the correct scenario. But still, mages always have a way to escape with their tricky abilities like blinking and freezing enemies to the ground. The best part, is that you never have to purchase food and water to sustain your mana and hit points. Mages and conjure their own sustenance.
Really, there is nothing cooler than being able to dominate in World of Warcraft, and that is just what mages do. With all of the neat abilities in our magical arsenal of spells, there are unlimited opportunities to kick butt. Whether you are blasting away your enemies in Player versus Player action, raining fire down on them from high above, only to Feather Fall away when they catch up to you, or freezing a mob in place to save the priest from getting punched in the face, it is a lot of fun. Not to mention the countless polymorph occasions.
Hyacintha: Incredible! I guess you can say that Mages are the masters of ‘ranged defense’. Up close they are bound to get punched into the ground, but if they can stay far away, they are fantastic damage dealers and over all utilitarian! Now, I know in reality you cannot pick what ‘race’ you are, but, what are some of the plusses to being the different races?
Nadandren: Well, each of the races in World of Warcraft that can study to be the Mage class, have their own bonuses that make them excellent choices. I will briefly go over them in my personal order of preference, starting with the least useful racial ability.
Undead do not have any mage related abilities. They merely can cannibalize, which allows them to regenerate health by ‘eating’ a dead mob. This lowers the time it takes to get back to leveling, but, it is still not that fantastic considering mages can conjure food.
The next couple are hard to choose between. Trolls gain the ability Berserk, which allows them to cast faster for a short amount of time. However, this is only useful in certain situations. Nonetheless, it still makes Trolls a good choice if the player is tactical enough to use it. Blood Elves get Mana Tap, which allows them to regain mana back on occasion. This is quite a good ability to have, but, it does not necessarily make them the best. This Mana Tap will likely only give the mage a chance for a few spells at best.
Draenei have a healing ability called Gift of the Naaru, which while a weak heal, it may help you get out of some tight situations. With Inspiring Presence, they also gain +1% chance to hit with spells. This is also granted to the party. Additionally, they have a shadow resistance bonus of 10, which makes them stronger candidates for PvP and some high end content.
Humans gain 5% spirit, stealth detection, and faster reputation gain. Conversely, better than that is the Gnome, who gets a higher starting intelligence and an additional passive 5% to intelligence. Not only that, but they get the ability Escape Artist, which will let them escape from ensnarement situations.
So as you can see, each of the races that can be Mages have good reasons to choose them, excepting maybe the Undead’s ability.
Hyacintha: Okay, so moving right along, what professions would you say are a good idea for a mage to take?
Nadandren: A perfect choice for a Mage of any level is Alchemy and Herbalism. The ability to brew your own healing and mana potions can be very helpful in any situation. Not only that, but it is a great money making combo, especially when you get to Outland content!
The next choice would be Tailoring. You can make fantastic sets of armor late in game and some good frost sets low in level to get you going. Paired with Enchanting, you can disenchant what you make while leveling the skill to get mats which can be used to enhance your gear even more. There are also the high end ring enchantments that add damage to your rings. This is fantastic because you can only enchant your own rings. If you do not want to take enchanting with tailoring, you might wish to take Jewelcrafting.
Jewelcrafting is an expensive profession, but it is excellent for Mages because you can make some really nice jewelry, trinkets, and armor pieces, such as head pieces, that will really improve your damage.
If you choose to take Jewelcrafting, you may want to take up Mining as well. However, mining, which is usually paired with Jewelcrafting, Blacksmithing, and Engineering, is only good for a Mage for making money, unless you pair it with one of the other professions.
Engineering can make some handy items for any class, and the mage is no exception. Spell damage goggles, flying mounts, and various exploding toys will make this expensive profession seem well worth it if you can keep up with it.
Blacksmithing is utterly pointless for a mage, as is Leatherworking. Mages cannot use anything made in either profession, and sadly there is not much money to be gained from it versus the amount of money you will put into it getting it up.
Skinning is fine to take if you only want to make money from it. However, I would recommend one of the other two gathering professions over this one for you, as you may be more likely to use those later.
As for secondary professions, cooking is pretty pointless unless you want to make the high end buff food for spell damage. Yet, seeing as you can make your own food, and give yourself a intelligence boost, and magical shields, it seems a little pointless. Likewise, fishing is just as pointless unless you enjoy it or you would like to sell the fish for a little profit.
First aid is always good to have for any class that cannot heal themselves. Seeing as a mage meets that description, you should likely learn to make your own bandages.
Hyacintha: So what are the basic stats a mage needs?
Nadandren: Intellect, and Spirit are very important for a mage. Stamina is also somewhat important to mages, but usually less than the other two. Since the mage is dedicated completely to casting magic, Spirit and Intellect are essential. Stamina is measured practical for “survivability” so really it is a close second to the other two stats in most situations, but it should never be considered more important. A mage will never survive if they do not have the intellect to critically hit, keep their mana pool large to start, and to raise their spell damage. Strength and Agility do not have many advantages for a mage and therefore should not be sought after at all.
Here is how the conversion works.
° 1 Stamina = 10 Health points
° 1 Intellect = 15 Mana
° 100 Intellect = +1% to critically cast spells
° 2 Agility = 1 Armor point
Hyacintha: So, I have heard about this thing called kiting. Some ranged classes seem to be especially good at it. The mage is one of them, is it not?
Nadandren: Of course. With our ice spells Ice Armor, Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, and Frostbolt, we have a wide array of abilities to use. The premise of kiting is to draw an enemy’s attention, but keep them chasing you without them ever reaching you. Of course, as a mage, there are plenty of things you can do if the enemy reaches you – so long as you have mana.
A basic kiting technique would go something like this.
Making sure your target is at max range distance from you and that you have enough mana to perform the needed spells. What you will want to do is toss Fireballs, Arcane Missiles, or Frostbolts (whatever your highest damaging spell is) at the enemy until they are right in front of you. Then, you will cast Frost Nova to lock the mob in place, gain distance and continue to cast your high damaging spells again. If for some reason the enemy is not dead and makes it back to you, use one of your other snaring, slowing spells, like Frostbolt to quickly get away and finish them off. Those are the basics to kiting.
What is it good for, you might ask? Well, if you never get hit, your armor never takes damage and you never die, so you do not take further durability damage. In other words, it is a money saver, and in essence a time save, because if you are not being hit, you are not interrupted.
Hyacintha: From what I have been able to understand, as a high damage class, mages have many opportunities to pull threat. What do you have to say about mages and threat?
Nadandren: Well, your statement is true. Mages, especially in five man instance groups, may have many situations arise where their threat is very high. In such situations, it is important to know how to react. You can use the spell Invisibility to wipe your threat, or Ice Block to drop agro and let someone else, like the tank, attempt to build up higher threat than you. I recommend using external game mods to help you keep an eye on your threat. It makes all the difference.
Hyacintha: As a mana costly class, I suppose it would be important to know the math on your spells, right? I guess what I mean is, your spell efficiency.
Nadandren: Yes, this is very important. Being able to understand which spells put out the best damage versus which spells return the best amount of mana consumption is critical for knowing what spells to mix and match in the many combat situations you will face.
Some situations will require you to cause a lot of damage no matter what the cost is. These are the times where you need to 'go all out' and do as much harm as possible. An example of such a situation would be in instances where you need to burn an enemy down and kill them before things escalate and get out of control. In these situations you want to use whatever your highest DPS skill. Typically, such a situation would call for Fireball or Arcane Blast, dependent on what is going on. Another 'go all out' time is in PvP if you are being swarmed or close to death. When you are about to die in PvP, there is really little use to conserving you mana.
However, other situations will require you to conserve your mana. In order to find out how efficient skills are with your mana simply take how much damage is done on average by the spell, then divide it by the amount of mana it costs. In other words, a 1000 damage skill that costs 100 mana would be 10 mana per damage. The lower the mana per higher damage, the better.
For example, at level 60, depending on how you are specced, the following list here is about what you can expect. This takes into account talent points that you would have spent on the various abilities, but I recommend trying to do the math yourself to figure it out more accurately. Keep in mind that these are approximated and do not take in account your gear.
- 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)
- Frostbolt (2.0 damage per mana)
- Blizzard (1.0 damage per mana)
- Cone of Cold (1.0 damage per mana)
- Arcane Missiles (1.6 damage per mana)
-Arcane Explosion (0.65 damage per mana)
Hyacintha: Are there any ‘mage specific’ quests we should be aware of?
Nadandren: Indeed there are. You are going to get your first mage quest at level 10, which will lead you to get a piece of equipment. You will then get another two at 15. One is to do some ‘Ghost-Busting’ and the second is for a robe. At 26, you will get yet another robe quest. Between 30 to 35 you will get several more optional gear quests. The only interesting quest you will really have as a mage are the final quest you can do.
This optional quest, gotten in Azshara, will allow you to turn people into Pigs rather than Sheep. If you are interested, it is a very fun spell to have.
Hyacintha: Okay! Well, in our next interview, we’ll be going over the Mage abilities. So, care to brief us on where the trainers can be found?
Nadandren: Certainly.
· Dun Morogh – Magis Sparkmantle
· Dun Morogh – Marryk Nurribit
· Durotar – Mai’ah
· Elwynn Forest – Xaos
· Elwynn Forest – Zaldimar Wefhellt
· Ironforge – Bink
· Ironforge – Dink
· Ironforge - Juli Stormkettle
· Ironforge – Nittlebur Sparkfizzle
· Orgrimmar – Deino
· Orgrimmar – Enyo
· Orgrimmar – Pephredo
· Stormwind – Elsharin
· Stormwind – Jennea Cannon
· Thunder Bluff - Thurston Xane
· Thunder Bluff – Uthnel’nay
· Tirisfal Glades – Isabella
· Undercity - Anastasia Hatwell
· Undercity – Kaelystia Hatebringer
· Undercity – Pierce Shackleton
Hyacintha: Thank you Nadandren for this first installment. Look for the next few parts of this exciting interview when Nadandren talks all about a mage’s spells and what they can do! I am very pleased to get to know all of this information first hand, so stay tuned!
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