Mage FAQFollow

About Mages

Mages, what are they good for?

A Mage is a damage dealer and master of Crowd Control. Your main goal is to do as much damage as you can do with out pulling hate off the tank. You are also there for crowd control using spells such as polymorph and “chill affects”. As many say, you as a mage are a “Glass Cannon”; able to dish out unbelievable amounts of damage but can also go down in a blink of an eye if you aren’t careful.

Are mages fun to play?

If you like to take hits so that the rest of your group can do damage then you won’t care for the mage class. If you like to aid your friends and make sure they have the health to continue on, mage probably isn’t the class for you. If you like to deal a lot of damage and potentially fight several things at once, you my friend have just found yourself a new job as a mage.

Which race should I choose?

Alliance

Humans

Perception (active): Enables increased stealth detection radius by 10 yards. It lasts 20 sec and is on a 3 minute cooldown.

The Human Spirit (passive): Increase Spirit by 5%

Diplomacy (passive): 10% bonus to faction point gain

Gnomes

Escape Artist – This enables you to break out of root/snare/traps effects. It has a 0.5 sec cast and is on a 1 minute cooldown.

Expansive Mind - Increase Intelligence by 5%

Arcane Resistance - +10 Arcane Resistance

For PvE Humans have a *slight* edge thanks to Diplomacy meaning you don’t have to work quiet as hard to get the rep needed for certain quests etc.. PvP aspect, Humans get Perception which allows you a better chance of seeing rogues and druids that are stealthed. Gnomes get Escape Artist which is always nice as a mage, another tactic to get away from damage.

Horde

Trolls

Berserking (active): Increases your attack speed by 10% to 30%. At full health the speed increase is 10% with a greater effect up to 30% if you are badly hurt when you activate Berserking. Lasts 10 sec.

Regeneration (passive): 10% health regen bonus, 10% active in combat

Beast Slaying (passive): 5% damage bonus to Beasts

Undead

Will of the Forsaken (WotF) (active): Activate to become immune to fear, sleep, and charm effects. This lasts 5 sec and is on a 3 min cooldown.

Cannibalize (active): Increase health regeneration by 200% while consuming a corpse. This lasts 15 sec and is on a 3 min cooldown

Underwater Breathing (passive): Underwater breath increased by 4 times

Shadow Resistance (passive): All Undead get +10 Shadow Resistance

PvE trolls get regeneration which can reduce down time a little, not too much however. Undead get Cannibalize which can reduce down time drastically and can also save bandages. Onto PvP, Undead get the great WotF to help with fears, the Trolls on the other hand really don’t get to0 much for PvP

While every race has their own strengths and weaknesses, their overall stats and racial abilities don’t make that much of a difference in game play. Don’t let anyone tell you anything other, choose whatever race you don’t mind looking at for hours upon hours while playing.

What are good professions for a Mage?

There are a lot of options; which one is best depends on what you want.

Tailoring helps you keep your gear up to date for fairly cheap since the cloths required by this drop from all humanoid enemies which you fight on a regular basis. You won’t be able to make the best gear for your level (level 35 and can make 30-32 gear) but it is helpful no less. You can also sell what you make in the AH for a little profit.

Enchanting can help tweak your character the way you like. You can give yourself a little extra health, spirit or intellect on items along with spell damage at later levels. You can also disenchant items of value and get materials to sell on the AH for decent cash. Pair enchanting with tailoring (use the cloth you get from grinding to make an item, then use enchanting to disenchant) you can easily make enough money to get by on.

If you're looking for something that will make you stronger in combat, especially PvP, Engineering is probably the best choice. It gives you a nice assortment of bombs, traps, and shields. Most of the craftable items in Engineering can only be used by other engineers so there is next to no (still a small) market on the AH from these items.

Alchemy is very nice, both for personal use and for making money, since everyone can use potions.

If all you want out of professions is money, your best bet is to pick up two gathering skills, probably herbalism and Mining, and sell the materials you gather at the Auction House.

What about secondary skills?

First Aid can come in quite handy in many situations; Polymorph and then bandage up. After leveling my First Aid to 300, I don’t know how I lived without it. I highly recommend that every character have First Aid leveled.

Cooking and Fishing are matters of personal preference. You can make useful foods with them for stat boosts, but you can also get friends to make these things for you, so whether you want to level them up yourself is your call. As a mage you can conjure your own food and water so Cooking isn’t really necessary but it is nice to get the stat bonuses at times.


Edited, Aug 27th 2006 at 7:59pm EDT by Rehana

Edited, Sep 2nd 2006 at 5:49am EDT by Darqflame

Edited, Apr 8th 2008 1:18am by Wordaen

Questing and Leveling

Are there any quest rewards I should be aware of?

Alliance

Staff of Westfall obtainable at level 14.

Manaweave Robe obtainable at level 15.

Horde

Lesser Spellfire Robes obtainable at level 15.

Astoria Robes obtainable at level 59.

Both

Dancing Sliver obtainable at level 59.

Icefury Wand, Nether Force Wand and Ragefire Wand obtainable at level 34.

Are there any BoP drops I should be aware of?

In many instances you will run across Bind on Pickup (BoP) equipment. There is a nifty web-site called WoW-Loot where you can find BoP items you are interested in; below are some that I highly recommend attempting to get as they can be of use for quiet some time.

Shadowfang Keep

Robes of Arugal (lv24)

Gnomeregan

Acidic Walkers (lv27)

Scarlet Monastery

Illusionary Rod (lv34)

Whitemane’s Chapeau (lv39)

Uldaman

Stoneweaver Leggings (lv35)

Razorfen Downs

Deathmage Sash (lv36)

Robes of the Lich (lv39)

How do I AOE Grind and where should I grind at level ___?

Area of Effect (AOE) grinding is a very fun way to level. You must control every aspect of the fight to make it work and the smallest mistake can often mean your death however once you have got the basics down this is very fast and exciting. There are many ways to go about AOE grinding and instead of dragging this guide on forever and a day I will just provide links to other forums that go into detail on locations and tactics.

Here are is a link to one of the many “How to…” threads on these boards. I chose this one not because I think it’s the best guide, but due to the fact it has a lot of very helpful feedback throughout the entire thread.

Another link to a guide on Frost AoE griding. This is (in my opinion) one of the best out there, great job Leatherpatches.

Here is an excellent link to AoE grinding locations. Not much I can say about this but “WoW!”.




Edit - Will be adding more quests as well as more info on the quests which will include the following:

Start quest (if chain)

Recommended Levels/Strategies to complete the Quests

Will be making an "AOE Guide" to add into it's appropriate section. I will be making one for Ice and one for Fire; these will just cover a few of the many ways to do this.

Edited, Aug 29th 2006 at 8:28pm EDT by Rehana

Reserved for Instances/End Game (Thank you Hintz!). This section has been delayed due to real-world work.





Edited, Aug 29th 2006 at 1:00pm EDT by Rehana

good FAQ so far. keep the info coming!

Nice guide, should ask someone to make it a sticky or something, like Filterspawn.

I dont know if you take criticism though, if not, then disregard this.





I feel that most of your sections, and some really important ones, really needs to be more in-depth, else this feels like just some brief description of the class that you would find on any site, Put info on more and longer notes, if you are going to make this FAQ/Guide a long one anyways, why not improve on some of the info that you have now?

Good FAQ! I already requested it to be stickied in the feedback forum.

You two are correct, I will be working on this a lot more in the near future but until the 20th or so of September I am hurting for time. Still trying to get things finished so I can get home from Iraq :P



I know exactly what you are talking about. I don't remember where I saw this but I will track it down and add notes of it.

Linus, thank you for requesting sticky :) As said before, I have taken note of what everyone wants for this and will be working on it towards the end of the month when I have time :D.

Seeing that this thread is not done, i have a simple and fast FR gear guide i made for a mage in guild, if you need it.

It is possible to get some without spending too much time in 5 man pug raids.
If your attuned to onyxia, you have 10 FR, next if you buy the arcanist coockbook and turn it in at library in DM north (can be done solo without killing a single mob) you have 10 FR.
Than there are some runs to brd where you kill 1 boss drops 10 FR wrists, how to do that, see Lord Incindius.
Than there is the Libram of Resiliance, this one takes some time i guess, but it gives FR accordingly, +20 FR enchant to leg or head item, 2 of those and you have +40 FR, you need the book, Libram of Resiliance, a black diamond, and a couple of BRD runs for Burning Essence, and than pick up some crystals in ungoro crater.
Togetter with cloak enchant and the tier 1 gear, you will get a decent start on your FR imo, and it can be done fairly fast.

Lord Incindius
When you get into the instance, you take the left-right-left trough 3 locked doors, and up the ramp. At the top of the ramp you take the left hand way, at some point there is a window on right hand that you can jump trough down on some rock, and than down on a path/bridge. Beware that there are some mobs there. Than go trough the hall with the fireguards, keep in center and you only need to kill the 2 last of them. The following boss drops 1x FR-wrist, random armor-class, so you may have to do it several times, but it is fast with some practise.


Edited, Sep 6th 2006 at 3:23am EDT by oyvind

Edited, Sep 6th 2006 at 3:24am EDT by oyvind

PvP section isnt really necessery..I had some hard times in these few past weeks,so I became PvPer and here is my rule:

1) Your knowledge of your own class,and awernes of opponents moves...

Since mage class is really fragile,you should be ready for every move in advance..there is no big "Do this and do that" guides...

2) Lags are here,so what?....learn to deal with them and make use of them:

example.

Rogue runs toward you..you : Schorch followed by the blink...coz of lag he wont be able to react that fast,just in time for you to fireball his a$$

3) gear

There isnt much to worry about this point,Eye of Flame is a must for fire mages and that is about it- naturaly you will get gear by advancing through ranks :) - your main goal should be rank 7 even before 60 lvl,and ofcourse reputation,in which I suggest warsong gulch as first since you will be able to buy 2 nice armors

4) nothing is unbeatable.....your only worry is Nemesis SL lock(normally) who isnt soo often in pvp :)

5) Use your brain...
Most of priests, warlocks AND shammies abilities have <20yards so stay out of it(with fire talents you can kill from 40 yards) :)
hunters have deadzone,like we all know...but most of people dont know the ice trap radius(which comes in for most of their traps too): 2-5 yards depends on lag issue, so hunters traps cant really do nothing to you if you stick to the rule of beeing in 7-8 yards deadzone

6) Talents
Fire dmg is the best for PvP untill you have bout +300ish-400ish spell dmg,Since frost is pretty much weaker as a dmging tree(which is the essential part in pvp ) at the first few months of your pvp career, ofcourse, elemental or arc combo is completely your choice

In general: fire is the biggest dmg you can make,while frostbolt rank 1 can allow you to kite virtually EVERY CLASS in game - here is the part where elemental build kicks in(with the exception of hunters ofcourse)

there is no pvp guide, only L2P words(I know,it sucks!!1)

Start with dueling evenly geared people...then move to those hardcore pvpers..and learn

probably the best start with talents should be:
30/21 fire

something like this.

now go out and duel a bit :)


edit: This is from fire mage´s point of view,I tried frost and it sucked comparing to fire-since mage inst a class that actually can outlast an enemy...mage - dmg...so I say fire for pvp


Edited, Sep 8th 2006 at 9:21am EDT by ShadowNimph

Early November...?
I guess the real question is which year?

Can a Mager have a Pet or Minion?

You are completely right for the most part but we can post some strategies for taking down certain classes some are easy for mages some are slightly dificult and some are omg so hard we need to post strategies for at least taking out the harder ones this is how i rate taking down classes in dificultie from easiest to hardest warriors pretty easy just nuke and if they get cloe nuke some more for the most part if they get the jump they can be hard rogues easy easy easy if you get the jump can be hard if they backstab you humans use your perception everyone else well spam level 1 arcane explosion thats all you can do for stealth detection priests pretty easy can be an even fight but only if the priest is good just nuke and use your instants shadow priests can be pretty hard but not really hunters pretty dang hard really hard if they get the jump all you can do is sheep pet and focus on the hunter shamans well they are pretty dang hard if they get in melee range your screwed pretty much all you can do is keep your distance but even than they have some serious dps Warloc omg your worst enemy they will drop dots on you remove what you can and sheep the lock kill his pet than focus on the lock and hope to get lucky its still hard but ive won a few times well these are my strategies i will take comments i can always use the pvp tips =)

I would like to pass this over to someone else if possible... I don't have the time to finish this (keep getting tasked for short notice deployments. If you would like to take this over please PM me and I'll delete mine once you have copied it.

- Rehana