Epic Guides: 2008

Mages possesses the power to control fire, frost and arcane magic. The mage is able to cast damaging spells at enemies or give "buffs" to his allies with his knowledge of these three schools. The mage is limited to how many spells he casts by how much mana he has. As a mage grows in stature his understanding of each school deepens enabling him to wield more powerful spells. After a battle the mage will automatically heal and gather mana but the mage is the only class that can use mana to conjure water and food. These items allow you to recover health and mana much much quicker.

Mages really shine in groups

The Role of being a Mage
Mages are a support class in groups. Depending what school of magic the mage is specialized in they help with DPS (damage per second [Fire]) and/or CC (crowd control [Frost]).

DPS: Most fire spells will cause additional damage after the impact of the spell.
CC: Most frost spells will reduces movement speed, attack speed and can freeze in place. Polymorph will incapacitate one enemy at a time. This helps when you or your group pulls multiple enemies at once.

Since the mage is able to conjure water and food a group with a mage is able to move through enemies quicker. Mages be ready to make several stacks of each for your party members. It takes time now but allows for a quicker funner gaming experience.

If left alone to cast there spells mages are deadly. The downside is that mages have low health and need space from their enemies to cause heavy damage, thus mages really shine in groups.

Schools of Magic

Arcane
Arcane allows the mage increase his own armor, spell damage, mana regeneration rate, spells miss less and harder to resist, decrease mana spell costs and can even to turn a foe into a harmless sheep. Greater learning of this school will increase your spell power, enables you to stop someone from casting a spell and give you the ability to cast a deadly slow effect on your enemy. Arcane spells complement Fire and Frost spells very well.

Frost
This cold magic is a favorite of many mages for many good reasons. Frost allow gives the mage major CC advantages with slowing and freezing effects. Right of the bat you get these abilities. This is good because mages are only able to wear the weakest armor in the game, cloth armor. More on cloth later. As a mage deepens his knowledge of the magic of frost he learns to freeze enemies in place, call down blizzards upon multiple enemies, summon a water elemental and invoke the ice to completely shield him from all damage. Frost allows the mage to stay alive allot longer than the other two schools of magic.

Fire
Two words describe this school. Pure Damage. Fire is the hardest hitting magic in the game. Fire spells are the same as the frost spells but have more damage and stun effects instead of freezing and slowing. The most favorite of all fire spells is Pyroblast. This spell takes the longest time to cast but once released this fiery ball of molten damage will devastate your opponents. When you are fighting against the environment (which you do allot) fire spells cause enemies to attack you more often. This event is call "aggro". More on aggro bellow.

Buffs
Buffs are spells you can either place on yourself or your allies to increase their strength, health, mana, attack or defense. The mage has the ability to cast Arcane Intellect on any ally increasing the targets max mana. The mage can also increase or decrease any spells effectiveness on teammates. Note: This allows for greater healing but make spell damage increase as well.

Debuffs
Debuffs are the very opposite of buffs. Debuff spells are placed on your enemies to decrease their strength, health, mana, attack or defense. Mages do not have any debuffs but posses the power to take some off.

Armor
Mages can only wear cloth armor. Cloth is the weakest when it comes to actual armor but the most beneficial when it comes to increasing your mana and spell damage. Check out the Gear section.

Aggro
Aggro stands for aggravation. The more you use powerful spells on an NPC the more you aggravate it. By doing so the NPC is more likely to attack you even if it gets attacked by other players. Aggro a big deal when you are in a group with 4+ other players in a dungeon (also called Instances). Instances provide better armor and weapons but are filled with very tough NPCs. These tough NPCs are called Elites. If the mage gets constantly attacked by an Elite the mage will die rather quickly.

Spell Damage
Spells can do the following: Hit, Critically Hit, Miss, be Resisted, be Absorbed or Evaded.

Hit: You will always know how much your spells will Hit for by the description on the spell.

Critically Hit: All spells have a chance to Critically Hit your target. When a spell "crits" (game lingo) the damage can increased a substantial amount. Often more than twice the normal damage.

Miss: There is a factor in WoW called Dodge. If the persons Dodge rating is high your spells have a higher chance of being avoidable, totally missing the target and causing no damage.

Resisted: There is also resistance to spells. Each person in the game can increase their spell resistance by getting better armor, enchantments, buffs or gems.

Absorbed: Some classes can shield them selfs with magic. Note: The mage is able to learn this ability. When a spell does damage to a target with a magical shield the shield absorbs the damage instead of the intended target. Most shields have an amount of damage they can absorb before they break.

Evade: A lot like miss. This will only happen if you are fighting a NPC (non-player character) and you run away long enough for that target to give up pursuing you. When this happens that same NPC cannot take any damage until it gets back to the same position it was when attacked.

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