How Do You Want Your WoW Mage Works?
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.
It is important to remember that if you want to play a mage you have to burst all the damage possible while keeping yourself safe from attack. Having a mage in your group can be helpful because he has good crowd control abilities and good DPS spells. There are a few playing style depends on which talents tree that you want to focus.
Arcane Mage
Arcane Mage have high damage per second (DPS), more than the heavy fire mage who has high fire damage. In order to do this, though, you will need the right gear and a lot of mana. Here are the basic playing styles of an Arcane mage:
1. Your primary spell is Arcane Blast which you will get on level 64; this will allow you to increase the damage done using arcane spells by 15% for each cast. You can stack this spell up to three times, giving you a very high damage boost. On the third cast using this ability your total damage boost will be 45% but it will use around 56% of your mana, so in order to preserve your mana you must have the 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
The fire mage will be expected to deal the most DPS while the rest of the group protects you; while you aren’t using as much of your mana for damage boost like an Arcane mage, maintain enough mana to keep high burst DPS is still necessary. 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 is Fireball, but it is not a wise decision to spam it since it will make your mana pool suffer; the best way to use it is mixing other spells to complement this spell. With Improved Fireball talent you will lower your cast time, which means more DPS.
2. For AoE (area of effect) spells Flamestrike is your best choice since you can talent it to create high critical rate and it can be cast from a long distance.
3. Your aim as a Fire mage is deal as much damage as you can, so take talents that will boost your damage such as Ignite, Incinerate, Improved Scorch, and Fire Power.
4. Having Flame Throwing will increase your survivability since it gives you an extra 6 yards of casting distance. Definitely a must have talent.
The goal of this build was high damage, thus the next thing you need to concentrate on is spell damage gear and enchant boost which will increase your total damage output when used properly.
You may notice that those two builds rely heavily on gears, enchats, and items to make it powerful enough. Check the best farming spots where you can stack gold in Northrend to fund your gears and items.
Frost Mage
As a Frost mage you will have greater survivability since you have spells to kite such as Frostbolt, frost spells also are ‘mana friendly’ so you won’t have the problems with mana. Despite all these advantages, Frost spells don’t have as much damage as Fire spells or insane damage boost as Arcane spells, so you need to invest your points very carefully. These are the basic playing style as a Frost mage:
1. Your main damage spell is Frostbolt, but the spell is not very effective on its own. If you add Frostbite, Ice Shard, Piercing Ice, Shatter, and Ice Channeling you can increase your damage. Add Improved Frost Bolt which will lower your cast time and that will lead to more DPS.
2. Blizzard coupled with Improved Blizzard will decrease your target movement.
3. Arctic Reach will add to the distance of your spell so you can stay safely away from your enemies.
4. Get Frost Nova, it is the gateway to Shatter effect.
5. Ice Block is a must have defensive skill; you can’t act during it, but you will gain benefits by becoming immune to everything, almost all debuffs cleared, lose all aggro, and buy you time so that your priest can heal you.
You won’t burst much damage, but by casting Blizzard with Improved Blizzard, Frostbite, and Shatter, you will be able to help your group because you kite a whole mob which will make it easier for the others to kill them.
These builds are only basic WoW mage guide that focusing only on one talent tree; there are various creative build that aim for different playing styles such as Arcane-Frost, Fire-Frost, etc with so much variation on each build. If you planning to start a mage, I recommend that you check Ultimate WoW Guide Review for a fast leveling guide with in game talent guide included.
Note: if you are into spellcasters, you might have interest in playing a Warlock, which has very unique methods to kill his adversaries; learn more about it at world of warcraft warlock guide.
Related posts:
Leave a Reply
