Its seems like these days more combat focuses classes are the most popular, but the mage remains an extremely powerful class in WoW. Those that would rather not spend all of their time using melee combat techniques and would rather cast spells will be well suited for the Mage class. Its important to keep in mind that the decision you make when it comes to picking your character’s race will greatly impact your gameplay style and ability. Since the Mage isn’t the strongest class when it comes to combat, its good to keep that in mind when trying to decide on a race that would be a good fit.
Once you have gone through the preliminary steps of creating a character and choosing a faction and race, you will be able to select your mage class, but there are a few things you need to know before being successful as a Mage.
Learning the Ropes in the Mage Class
You will start with simple cloth armor as a mage. This is obviously considered a downside and can sometimes make things difficult when you are first starting out. This is why its crucial to take advantage of the Mages strengths as a distance fighter with ranged weapons and spells and do your best to completely avoid up close and personal melee combat. Its important to keep this in mind a lot during the early stages of the game as you will not be that powerful and can easily get in over your head before you know it.
Once you have started to get a feel for your place in combat, its wise to choose a profession. Of course picking a profession that is well suited with the Mage’s abilities is ideal. Some of my recommendations include herbalism, enchanting, and alchemy. You can also be successful with cooking and fishing if you enjoy those professions, but they are typically not the best idea for the average Mage character.
Skinning as a profession might come in handy for those that intend on doing a ton of grinding, but I generally would advice against it. In my opinion, since you will have to make your own cloth armor as a mage, the tailor profession is a much better fit as a secondary. While some players might tell you different, from my own experience I would always avoid mining, leatherworking, or blacksmithing when using the Mage class.
The Mage’s Skills
As you probably have already assumed, magic is the real strength of the Mage. This is why in order to have an effective and powerful character as a Mage its crucial to train and learn new spells as much as you can. Skills for protecting yourself and armor will be in short supply, this is why its good to make sure you learn a number of defensive spells early on. You will pretty much only have staves and a wand as your weapons during the early levels and these wont be able to do much against more melee drive enemies, so it will be essential to have skills and spells you can use to protect yourself.
Frost, Fire, and Arcane account for the three main types of spells that you will access to as a Mage. While all of these spell types can be extremely effective at stopping an enemy cold in his tracks, its extremely important to use them wisely. You will not be able to last against melee focused combatants up close for pretty much any length of time. This is why keeping your distance and efficiently managing your mana supply will be absolutely crucial. Remember, you will eventually begin to lose health points if your mana is drained too low.
