|
The sizzle as a firebolt snaps through the air and explodes
against my enemies brings me pleasure. Few things electrify my blood
more than chaining a group of my enemies to the ground in shackles of
ice and then scorching that very same ground with molten fire. My name
is Meritus Bayle and I deal in death.
Being a mage is unlike any other profession; you must be nimble and
ready to maneuver yourself out of harms way and into victory. You must
be thoughtful in how you manage crowds when in groups and most
importantly you must be careful how angry you make your enemies. After
all, if you unleash your full fury of magic mayhem in one quick volley,
it will become evident to your prey very quickly who the biggest threat
is.
Mano y Mano
The best place to solo is wide open terrain. When you can dart around
the battlefield without picking up adds, you can be most effective with
your hit and run spells. Cramped confines like dungeons where you must
plant your feet and fight can be much more difficult.
I Am Invincible!
When fighting an enemy in the open, your level or a few above is
child’s play for a good mage. Death only comes to those mages who are
overly confident and are rarely cautious. Frost nova is your exit pass
and conjured water is the refreshment to get you back in the game.
Begin your assault on your unwitting victim with a frost bolt; with
its slowing affect you can get off an extra spell as it crawls toward
you. Pull out a fireball as your second spell. Its rocking impact will
please you as will the slow burn that its heat leaves on your target. By
now your victim is enraged and within striking distance. At this point
you drop the instant cast fireblast followed by a quick frost nova.
Depending on your level and level of your target, the damage you have
inflicted will leave him at around half his health. Your frost nova has
left him chained in ice staring at you blankly as you pull back. At this
point most mages flee to the full distance that they can retreat while
their nova holds. I find that it is best to drop just out of melee range
and lay another frost bolt on them. If you have invested your talents
enough in arcane, you an now lay down an arcane bolt on them that will
end their misery. With five points spent in arcane bolt you can cast 5
bolts without a chance of being interrupted (as of push 3). This will
almost always leave your quarry dead, unless you are hunting well above
your level. Even a few levels above you and they will be near dead. At
this point your fireblast will be cooled down (so use it again) and your
frost nova will be ready as well. If pulled off right, you should have
only been hit once and still have some mana left over in case any of his
buddies joined up.
Guess Who Is Coming
to Dinner?
Mages hold power enough to drop an entire party of enemies. However,
we wither like flame before water when more than one enemy focuses its
attention upon us. In fact even a summoned snake, capable of being
killed in a single crack of your staff, can cause you to die when
fighting your enemies. Additional enemies or “adds” have two negative
effects cards they bring to the table. The first is naturally “more
damage” in that as a soft and squishy mage, you can not take much of it.
The second is “interrupts”. Each time you are struck by a melee attack
it slows down your casting of a spell. If it is one enemy pounding on
you, you will get the spell off in time, but two or more and you may
never get it off at all. This is why a couple low level creatures can be
more deadly than one big mean sumuvabich to a mage.
When fighting solo, adds are deadly. They essentially separate the
great mages from the good mages. A great mage can juggle polymorph
(turning the add in to a sheep) and then dealing with the original. A
good mage can frost nova his way out of the fight and live to fight
another day and the bad mage sits there trying to cast a fireball as
they both pound him back to the graveyard.
The Walls Are Closing
In
Dungeons are not the best place for mages to solo. If you find
yourself needing to solo in the cramped confines of a dungeon, be sure
that you can handle two or more at the same time of whatever is inside.
The reason being is that either you, or your prey is bound to wander
into some of his buddies.
Polymorphed sheep like to wander. Mages trying to get some distance
to get off a spell do to. Avoid dungeons solo. They can be done, but
will likely result in a trip or two through Black and White land.
Group Therapy
A good mage is always welcome but there are enough bad mages out
there that many groups would rather pass on us. Bad mages end up dead
once things get ugly. They act like teenagers with their first chance to
score, by blowing their mana all over the room in one big clumsy act of
inept exuberance. Then, because the healers cast a half dozen heals on
them to keep the mage alive, the healers go next and so the cookie
crumbles.
However, a good mage will save a group every time. I think of a good
mage like a multiplier. If your group can take 2-3 mobs in an area with
only a few nukes from you, then when the going gets tough you should be
able to take 4-6. It takes a lot of practice to get good at but when
done right you can truly lay some serious hurt on your enemies.
In a group there are three basic roles for you to play. A good group
that is balanced for the area you are in will allow you to play which
ever one you want. However, if you are under or overpowered for the area
it will push you in one direction or another.
Say Hello to My
Little Friend
Your basic role is to simply be around to lay some good thump spells
on the pulls that have been laid before you. If you give your tank a few
seconds to build some agro before laying the smack down, then you should
never be attacked when getting solo pulls. In groups like these, you
generally have mana to spare and life or death doesn’t hang with every
pull.
Two’s Company Three’s
a Crowd
When your group really has a tough time with two, then you need to
put yourself on crowd control duty. Or “Sheep Herding” as I call it.
This puts you near the front of the group, just behind the puller and
its your job to watch the pull and make sure that if three or more is
incoming, that you are going to turn the most dangerous one in to a
sheep. Some argue that you should pick the weakest, but I disagree. Let
your party drop the easy ones quickly, otherwise you may have to sheep
the little guys longer and they could wander in to trouble. Some times
when on sheep patrol you can be tempted to blast the unsheeped enemy
however, usually this will be right as sheep number one poofs back in to
the raging mob whose pride you’ve just wounded. If that second or third
mob is too much to handle keep your attention on keeping him sheeped,
even if it means not laying a spell or two on the other guy.
I am a Mushroom Cloud
Laying Mother……
If you are in a group in which your group outclasses the enemies and
a few adds can be handled here and there, then you can really have some
fun. Area of Effect spells gain a ton of agro and consequently you can’t
go buck wild with them as all that agro needs to be gathered by others
or all the mobs will keep coming after you. So if you want to play this
role routinely in your group you need to be in a group where the others
have the ability to bring them down quickly. With effective use of mana
shield and frost nova, you can get through all your mana before taking
serious damage. You may also have delivered around 300 damage to every
foe in your vicinity with a Flame Strike/ Blizzard combo. Ask your
priest to give you a damage shield each time he sees your Blizzard go
off and you can really spread the pain around.
The Voodoo That You
Do So Well
I am not going to go over all the spells as many are self
explanatory. I will go over the ones I feel should be staples of all
mage diets. Also keep in mind that I spent ALL my talent points in
Arcane up to level 25 so you may find arcane missile and explosion less
effective.
Frost Bolt
Frost Bolt does a decent amount of damage but it is worth more for its
ability to slow your target. Use it to pull and you can have your enemy
down to half before it even gets to you or your group. Also is great to
land right as an enemy gets to a point where it might run as it will
keep them from getting very far.
Arcane Missile
This spell sends off a number of missiles to strike the target doing a
moderate amount of damage with each strike. The combined effect is
generally as much as your fireball. When solo Arcane Missile is not the
most effective spell. It takes a while to cast and is interrupted with
any melee damage. However, in a group it does come in handy. Missile is
a great way of doing damage early in the fight. Because it goes off slow
and then hits in bursts, it allows you to do damage slowly while your
tank or other members gain some agro. It also is loud and flashy which
when I played a tank made a good impression as I would say “oh yeah the
mage is doing something” (since often I would only remember seeing them
sitting and drinking). Think of it as a reminder to everyone that yes,
you are indeed attacking and not just guzzling conjured water and
running around frost novaing everything.
Polymorph
Polymorph is just like you remember from Warcraft 3. Cast it and your
enemy goes “poof” and is turned in to a sheep. You may think it means
you can forget about him, however that would be folly. The sheep can’t
attack but he can wander AND when wandering, his friends may very well
notice him and say “hey…doesn’t that sheep look a lot like Uk’thor
Crusher of Moons?”. Once they recognize Uk’thor or whatever his name is,
they will remember what they learned in Monster 101 which is “Mages like
to turn your buddies in to sheep” that or they just get curious when
mutton wanders near them. At this point the entire cave or camp will
come looking for your scrawny robe wearing butt.
The main function of polymorph is crowd control or “cc”. In a dungeon
where there are few mobs that wander around or “roamers” or “patrols”,
your puller should be able to pull one to three with little difficulty.
Depending on the make up of your group will determine when polymorph
should be used. See Grouping for details.
Frost Nova
Frost Nova allows you to root in place all enemies in a given radiance
in shackles of ice. It will gather agro from everything you hit, but not
enough that most attacks by other classes won’t get the critters off
you. Coupled with mana shield and you can do some decent damage.
Frost Nova is by far your most useful spell. In solo combat it will by
you time to maneuver or flee. In groups it will tie up your enemies and
give your healers breathing room or your tank time to gain agro, in PvP
it can frustrate a whole gaggle of enemies. In short, Frost Nova is your
best friend. Give it the same hotkey spot on every bank you use for
combat. Mine is number seven so I always know to hit lucky 7 when things
get hairy.
Mana Shield
A near instant cast spell,. Mana Shield exchanges melee damage for mana.
By casting it, you can absorb about 1/3 of your hit points with the
shield at the expense of some of your mana. This robs you of offensive
power over the course of a nasty fight, however, you also save your
healer from needing to heal you over and over and thus gain agro on them
as well.
I have met mages who don’t use this spell. Why, is a question I can not
answer. This spell is critical in groups. Normally mages are the first
to die when things get real ugly. The reason is, as a mage you see a big
group and you think “time to bust out the big guns” and so, you go buck
wild with AE (area effect) spells. Well as we stated earlier if mobs see
all their buddies getting hurt as bad as they are, you become the
honorary guest at the mage bashing. However, with mana shield you can
get off more Area Effect spells than you might think.
Frost Armor
Frost Armor raises your armor AND slows down most enemies that hit you.
If you do not have Frost Armor activated at all times you are a bad
baaaaaaad mage and should be spanked vigorously by a large angry woman
with a wooden spoon of some sort.
Blizzard
Blizzard is a brilliant translation of the WC3 (And WC2) spell in that
it kicks serious tail, but also enemies do everything they can to try
and stop it. It does great damage and has a wiiiiide radius.
The trick with Blizzard is to give yourself as much time as possible to
use it. Frost Nova first, find a safe spot drop a mana shield and then
Blizz till they make you stop. If you do it right you can do 200-300
damage to every mob around you. Keep in mind that they will all want to
get to the crunchy red stuff hidden in your bones once you’ve done all
that damage.
Arcane Intellect
It gives you more mana to kill stuff with. Always have it on….always.
Always give it to your casters…always. Be sure and spend points to
increase its effectiveness in the Arcane Talents.
Conjure Food and Water
As a mage you will begin to take for granted what it means to have good
food and water handy at all times. Try not to do this. Whenever you
group hand your buddies food for the melees, water to the casters and
both to the combos. Most of the time they wont need it in a good group
but if they know they got a ton of it, you can speed up a dungeon trip
by having folks chow or gulp down some conjured goodness between fights
instead of a slow gain sit down.
Arcane Explosion
A quick AE spell that does a little damage to everyone but not enough to
get massive agro like Blizzard. Usefull when you know that one or two
are stuck on a warrior or rogue and you can shoot off a few without fear
of getting a bunch on you.
If you spend talent points on this you can get it to a near instant cast
and lower its mana cost. With about ¼ of my mana I can drop a frost nova
and then hit 3-4 Arcane Explosions that will do around 100+ damage to
each critter.
Remove Lesser Curse
It does what it says. This is one of those spells you rarely use but
when you do, it can save your group. This little spell saves groups
thirty minutes in dungeons like Shadowfang Keep where some of Arugal’s
Sons can curse a DoT that makes your teeth hurt it hits so hard. The
same go for fire and ice ward. Know when to use em.
She’s Crafty And She
Gets Around
Alchemy and Herbalism are great skills for a mage. Health potions
will keep your frail butt alive and being able to do some decent buffs
via potions helps add a little more to your resume. Tailoring can be
useful as well but as it is now, the better high end stuff requires
objects that many folks don’t hang on to or sell at vendors. I have been
looking for an iridescent pearl for four levels to make a cloak….only to
find out that I just got a cloak that was better than the one I was
trying to make. However, if you get tailoring get skinning as well since
many items require some leather. Word of warning though, if you get
skinning, get it EARLY. If you out level your skinning ability you may
find it hard to find the time to go back to hunt stuff that does not
give you xp, only to try and get your skinning up.
|
