WoW Mage Guide – Knowing Different Playing Styles as a Mage
Like mages in most other games the mage in WoW has low HP and defense which means if you are an inexperienced player you will fall quickly in battle. Not being able to have a tanking pet makes this a bigger problem.
If you play as a mage, your job is to deal as much damage as you can while stay away from the enemies as best as you can. A mage in a group will be very helpful since they have crowd control abilities and high DPS spells. There are a few playing style depends on which talents tree that you want to focus.
Arcane Mage
An Arcane Mage can burst high DPS (Damage per Second) continuously; even surpass the heavy fire mage which already known for the high fire spell damage. It doesn’t come without price though, you need proper gear and large amount of mana to support this build. These are basic playing style as an Arcane mage:
1. Your main spell will be Arcane Blast, available at level 64; this spell will increase the damage of your arcane spell by 15% as well as increase its own mana cost. You can stack this spell up to three times, giving you a very high damage boost. At the third cast, it increase your base damage by 45% and cost around 56% of your base mana, which will make your mana pool suffer if you do it without proper gear.
2. Once you powered yourself with 3 times Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage will be your choice of spell. Cycling between Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage will give you high DPS while not having to deal with the debuff.
Overcoming the trouble with mana isn’t impossible; you do have a few things you can use: runic mana potions, mana gems, evocation, and mage armor.
Fire Mage
You will be the one that everybody in your group expect to deal the most DPS while they protecting you and while you will not throwing half of your mana for damage boost like an Arcane mage, you still need adequate amount of mana to keep burst high DPS. Also keep in mind that you don?t have the survivability like a Frost mage have, so you will need a little more control skill. These are the basic playing style as a Fire mage:
1. Your primary spell for damage will be Fireball. You won’t want to spam it since it will drain your mana pool. You can mix it with other spells to complement it. With Improved Fireball talent you will lower your cast time which means more DPS.
2. Flamestrike is the best option for AoE (Area of Effect) spells. You can cast it from a long range which will protect you and you can talent it to gain high critical rate.
3. The job of the Fire mage is to deal high damage so you will want to add all talents that will increase damage, such as these: Improved Scorch, Fire Power, Ignite, and Incinerate.
4. You can gain 6 yards of range, and increase your survivability, by adding Flame Throwing. This is a must have talent for your Fire mage.
With high damage as this build?s goal, your next concerns is getting spell damage gear and enchant to boost your total damage output and use it correctly.
Frost Mage
A Frost mage will have increased survivability because you will have spells to kite like the Frostbolt. You will not have problems with mana because frost spells are mana friendly. Even with these advantages, frost spells have lower damage than Fire spells, and they don’t have insane damage boosts like Arcane spells. For this reason be careful how you use your points. Here is a list of basic Frost mage playing style:
1. Your main damage spell is Frostbolt, but the spell is not very effective on its own. Complement it with Frostbite, Ice Shard, Shatter, Piercing Ice, and Frost Channeling will get you a nice damage package. Don?t forget to invest on Improved Frost Bolt; it will reduce your cast time, which means more DPS.
2. Take Blizzard along with Improved Blizzard as this AoE spell will have the effect of lowering target movement.
3. Arctic Reach will add to the distance of your spell so you can stay safely away from your enemies.
4. Frost Nova is the gateway to the Shatter effect.
5. Ice Block is an essential defense skill; you cannot act for the skill duration but in exchange you will immune to everything, clear almost all debuffs, drop all aggro, and give time for your group?s priest to heal you.
Casting Blizzard won’t burst as much damage, but by adding Improved Blizzard, Frostbite, and Shatter you can help out your group since you can kite the whole mob and allow them to be killed by your group.
This is only a basic idea of some of the builds available. In this WoW mage guide I have focused on just one build for each talent tree. There are other creative builds for each playing style like: Arcane-Frost, Fire-Frost, etc. Each build will provide a lot of variation. It doesn’t matter what build you choose you will need gold to buy gear. A mage is very dependent on the equipment to add to his survivability and DPS.
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