WoW Mage Guide

The Mage class in WoW focuses completely on ranged spell power attacks. They do a lot of burst damage and have some of the most powerful area of effect damage. The mage class is all about DPS when it comes to raiding, they have no healing abilities and obviously are not a tanking class, if you think of any mage class you know that this isn’t a healing or tanking class.

Mages have many things going for them, one of these things is their powerful area of effect damaging spells, depending on which talent specialization you choose will decide which of these spells you use but the blizzard spell in the frost specialization is a very powerful spell, I can say this from personal experience playing a mage. Another ability mages have is that they are able to create their own food and water and eventually create a portal which requires a couple other players to click and it will create a table for anyone in the mages party or raid to click and receieve a stack of mana strudels which will regenerate both health and mana while eating at a very fast rate. Mages are also very good at kiting mobs/players around and getting out of trouble. They also have some nice buffs they can use on themselves and hand out an intellect buff to other friendly targets. They also have a mana shield which will absorb damage taken at a cost of mana. Mages are also very good at crowd control and have the ability to turn their enemies into animals.

As with any class mages do have their flaws and disadvantages. They are limited to cloth armor which makes them vulnerable to mobs and especially in PvP, their mana shield helps with this but if dispelled the mage can go down relatively fast. They are completely dependant upon their mana, without that they will be doing hardly any damage at all. As you can see the pros seem to outweigh the cons when it comes to playing a mage but the big disadvantage is that when they’re left alone they are an easy target to kill.

What Racial Abilites are good for Mages?

Mages are limited to three races on both Alliance and Horde side, they can choose from Human, Gnome, or Dranei as an Alliance and Undead, Troll, and Blood Elf when choosing the Horde side. They are unable to be a dwarf, night elf, orc, or tauren. When choosing your race you will want to consider what you enjoy doing more, PvP or PvE and try to base your decision off this but it will not matter too much. The PvE abilities will also be useful in PvP but the PvP abilities won’t be quite as useful while raiding.

With the three alliance races you have to choose from, we will start with the human. The stealth detection is nice for PvP to catch people trying to sneak up on you and get them in a frost nova, the 3% spirit increase helps both ways. The removal of movement impairing effects is also very useful making the human a good selection for a mage. Next is the gnome which has the removal of immobilization or movement speed reducing effects, they also have a 5% increased intellent which is very useful as a mage since mana is so important. Finally the Draenei, the Gift of the Naaru racial heal is very useful for mages since mages are so vulnerable a heal can really help them get out of tough situations.

Now for the three horde races you can choose from, starting with Undead. The Undead race is not very helpful for a mage, it has the ability to remove fear, sleep, or charm but other than that it doesn’t really do much. Next is the troll which has the berserking ability to increase casting speed which is helpful for DPS but other than that the troll doesn’t have anything going for it either. Last is the Blood Elf which has the Arcane Torrent which can be used to silence enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds and regain 6% of your mana. Of the three choices I would have to go with Blood Elf personally because of the mana you can regain because as I said before mana is so important to a mage, and the silence is a bonus as well for PvP.

Which talent spec should I choose as a mage?

The three possible talent specialization trees as a mage are Arcane, Fire, and Frost. First I will discuss Arcane which can be very powerful in raiding if used correctly. The arcane talents focus a lot of mana regeneration and resilient talents making this a good PvP spec as well. Arcane mages have some very useful abilities they pick up in their talent trees, one of the last ones you will be able to get is Spell Power which will increase the critical strike damage damage bonus of all spells by 25/50% and also Netherwind Prescense which inceases your spell haste by 2/4/6%. The last arcane talent is Arcane Barrage, this is an instant spell with a 3 second cooldown costing 27% of base mana with a 30 yard range launching several missles at the enemy causing 386 to 470 arcane damage.

Next I will talk about fire, fire is probably the least used talent specialization at 80, but can do some good DPS, it is not used very much for PvP either. Fire focuses on hard hitting spells doing more single-target damage but will cost a lot of mana and longer cast times as the other trees are more constant attacks. Some talents in the fire tree are Fire Power which increases damage done by fire spells by 2/4/6/8/10% and also Dragon’s Breath which is an instant spell with a 20 second cooldown costing 475 mana which will create a cone of fire in front of the caster causing 370-430 fire damage to targets in the cone and will make them disoriented for 3 seconds, this ability also shares a cooldown with Cone of Cold.

Now I will discuss frost which is a very useful spec in both PvP and PvE. Frost focuses a lot on AoE damage, a lot of frost mages will Frost Nova their targets which will cause them to be stuck in ice and not be able to move and then proceed to do a blizzard attack on that area causing constant damage to targets in the selected region. This is very powerful in both PvP and PvE. The frost tree is also the only one to receive a pet, although the pet will die after 45 seconds, it is learned at the very end of the frost tree as Summon Water Elemental. It is an instant cast with a three minute cooldown costing 16% of your base mana and will summon a Water Elemental to aid you in combat for 45 seconds unless killed.

What stats are important for a Mage?

Mages are limited to cloth armor which is something you will have to deal with when choosing a mage, mages are going to want to focus mainly on getting spell power and intellect more than anything else. Of course mages will want to also be hit capped for raiding and some stamina is also useful but not quite as much as the other mentioned stats. Spirit is also something you can use especially when going as an Arcane mage since the amount of mana regenerated from your spirit is based on what your intellect is. Mages can also learn how to use daggers and 1h swords later from the weapon masters in stormwind but are limited to staves and wands in the beginning.

What professions should I choose as a Mage

As with any class the professions are mainly personal preference, mages do wear cloth so repair bills aren’t something you will need to worry about as much as other classes so you could focus on professions such as tailoring and enchanting to create and enchant better gear rather than some gathering professions used to make money. But some people like to have a lot of money to spend so you could very well go with gathering professions as well. But most mages I know go with tailoring, enchanting, and some go with engineering.

Hopefully this guide has helped you with the creation of your mage and good luck.