WoW Mage Tips for Beginners
How To Play World of Warcraft's Best Damage Caster Better
Playing a mage Blizzard's popular mmorpg is all about bringing enemies down quickly through arcane abilities.
Mages produce the highest straight DPS of any casting class in World of Warcraft. A mage can call upon arcane forces to turn living mobs into sheep. While a monster is a sheep it is incapable of hurting the allies of the mage in any way.
Playing a mage well can be tricky, but a player who develops a steady rhythm will soon find the mage an easy class to play, despite its lack of pet like its darker warlock counterpart. These mage tips will help.
1. Blink, Fade, and Freeze the Mage’s Way to Victory
The warlock may have a powerful pet summoned from the netherworld to keep the mobs away from him, but a mage character must keep his distance from the mob for full effectiveness. Unsurprisingly, the first mage tip is to use the movement, slow, and freeze abilities to keep mobs as far away from the mage possible.
When soloing with a mage, it is best to start out with a frost bolt which will slow a soloing mob down, cast fireball or arcane missiles for damage, and then cast frost nova when the enemy catches up.
2. Use Crowd Control Effectively
In a move that distinguishes World of Warcraft from most other mmorpgs, crowd control abilities such as sheep can only be used on one target at a time. The second mage tip is not to play "musical sheep." A mage should keep one enemy polymorphed until his group s ready to fight the mob. Polymorphing a mob into a sheep effectively removes it from the combat, but targeting another enemy removes that enemy from a battle but brings the original polymorphed mob back in.
3. Use Wands to Keep Mage DPS Up
This is even better advice for mages who chose the arcane branch of the class's talent tree. Wands allow a caster trained in the use of wands to continue to damage an opponent even after the caster who uses the wand runs out of mana. The third mage tip, is not surprisingly, to always have a wand in a mage’s inventory. Potions may help boost mana in battle, but most potions have a two-minute cool down time and food can only be used outside of combat. Wants solve the problem of what the oom mage can do and still contribute to the group quite nicely.
More Mage Tips
Some of the best places to get advice from other players are the official World of Warcraft forums maintained by Blizzard, or the unofficial forums. If a player is lucky enough to have a guild, fellow mages can give tips on raids, groups, and instances. Because tips on how to play a class tend to be one person's opinion, a player should figure out what advice works for his character and what advice should be discard to suit his play style.
