How to Play a Mage in World of Warcraft

Last Updated: September 4, 2019

The mage in World of Warcraft is an ingenious class, built around the ideals of self-sufficiency, high-damage, and controlling your enemies. It's not the hardest to play, by any sense, but playing one well requires a measure of panache. When playing a mage, it's not necessarily about dealing damage, but doing it gracefully. Here's how to play as a mage.

Steps

1
Decide what role you want to play as a mage. This is crucial. Do you want to deal as much damage as possible in the shortest amount of time? Do you want to sustain your damage output long after everyone else has become exhausted? Or do you want to play a suicide-bomber? Do you want to succeed in end-game content? Or would you rather PvP? Or even perhaps, just chill with your friends and explore?
2
Choose your race! On the Alliance-side, you can be a Human, Gnome, or Dranei. On the Horde-side, you can be a Troll, Forsaken (undead), or Blood Elf. (See Tips #1 to help decide.)
3
Name your mage! This might be more important than you think, along with your appearance, you will have to live with this name for the rest of your Mage's career, so pick one you LOVE.
4
Start leveling your mage! Quests are essential to leveling quickly, coordinate them with the area in which you are spending the most time.
5
Make lots of friends! Leveling takes a while, but if you have friends to play with, you won't even care.
6
"Spec" into talent points focusing on damage dealing (as opposed to mana-conservation or utility). Fire and Arcane pair well, Improved Fireball, Impact, Improved Scorch and Incinerate are very nice in the fire tree. In the arcane tree, Arcane Subtlety, Improved Arcane Missiles, Arcane Concentration, and Improved Mana Shield are also nice. If you are dying a little too often for your liking, play a Frost Mage, not quite as much damage, but you will be able to survive a lot easier with spell such as ice block and ice barrier, not to mention slows, etc.
7
Focus on killing quantity over quality for leveling. Killing more easy monster grants more experience than killing one difficult monster.
- As you level, learn to kill monsters by a technique called 'Kiting'(this is also a very good skill to learn for PvP), in which you keep the target's movement hindered, yet still apply damage. Good Hunters can train you with this.
- There is a technique called 'AoE Grinding' that has proven itself to be very effective. AoE grinding requires the kiting of many monsters (3 or more), while applying AoE damage.
8
Pick your primary professions! You can have two, and you can change them whenever you want. (They will reset to zero when you do though, so be careful.) The most common Mage professions are Tailoring/Enchanting and Herbalism/Alchemy. But pick whatever you like most.
9
Once you hit your level-goal, work to obtain the equipment you require for your goal, don't be greedy, the first time you see an item drop WILL NOT be the last time, so be generous, even if you don't get that particular item you want, there's always more waiting. Don't put loot before your friends! You didn't know loot even existed before you started playing, so don't let it define your game.
10
Now go do what you originally set out to do when you started playing! If you want to go and take over a town, do it! If you want to conquer the end-game, do it!
11
Join a guild, if you want to raid end-game content, this will be necessary. Be prepared to make sacrifices, but don't join a guild just because they are raiders. Join a guild with people that you like and have similar goals. Don't let your guild push loot onto you that you don't want.
12
Once you've done what you set out to do, congratulate yourself! Most people get lost along the way.
13
Pick new goals, or pick a new game! And don't forget to add to this wiki if you learned anything new.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:
How to AoE Grind as a Mage

1
Buff yourself with Arcane Intellect and Ice Armor. (If you plan to use potions to further increase your effectiveness, save them for when you become proficient at AoE grinding. If you die, you'll lose the buffs from the potions!)
2
Fill your mana and health bars.
3
Cast Mana Shield. (And Ice Barrier if you have it.)
4
Mount up! (AoE grinding before level 30 is VERY difficult.)
5
Aggro two to ten(The amount you can aggro increases with your level) mobs and run them to a clear area.
6
Dismount, and immediately cast Frost Nova. Be sure to hit every mob you pulled.
7
Run to about 30 yards (27.4 m) from the farthest mob you pulled. Only spend a second or two doing this.
8
Cast Improved Blizzard.
9
Cast it again, if the mobs are far enough away.
10
Cast Cone of Cold if the mobs are too close.
11
Run around the group and cast Arcane Explosion a few times.
- If you picked a good place to grind, you just killed three mobs at once!
12
Now experiment with what spells you prefer, Flamestrike is very useful, as is an occasional direct damage spell if one mob resisted your AoE.
13
Frost mages need to keep the enemy slow at all times, cone of cold, imp. Blizzard, frostbite (imp. or not) are your main tools to dealing damage (not necessarily a lot) and not take damage
14
If you are a Fire mage, use Pyro, then spam Fireball with occasional Fire blast. If done correctly, you can kill an enemy before they can even reach you. Turn and Blink if you are taking damage after Cone of colding to slow them.

Part 2

Part 2 of 3:
The Jump-Shot

1
Run from an aggro'ed mob.
2
Jump into the air.
3
While in the air, use the mouse to turn your character at least 180 degrees around.
4
Cast a Cone-of-Cold or another insta-cast, such as fireblast or ice lance.
5
Rotate 180 degrees again so you face straight forward.
6
Land on the ground.
7
Keep running.

Part 3

Part 3 of 3:
A Mage's Role in Dungeons

1
Here are some notes that you will need to know about when playing as a mage in a dungeon.
- Each member of a raid or party has a primary role to manage threat levels and aggro in an instance. For a mage this means staying at max range from the mob being tanked and hesitating after casting a critical hit. Frost mages after level 30 have an advantage because they can use Ice Block which, for the duration of the Ice Block, wipes their accumulated threat. As mentioned above, being a great player does not mean doing the most damage, especially in an instance. So the mage may have to resort to their wand at times so that the tank can maintain aggro.
- Critical hits tend to come in groups, so it is inevitable that a mage will grab aggro away from the tank. Should the mage get the attention of the boss or mob being attacked it is important to run or blink toward the main tank instead of running away. Do not compound your error of grabbing aggro by making the tank chase you and the mob around the instance.
- A mage will be called upon to "sheep" a mob when there are multiple targets in a group that your party must kill.
2
Here are some important notes to know about.
1. There will be times when the leader will call for a sheep pull, which requires the mage to start the fight by casting the sheep spell on the indicated target. After completing this cast, the rest of the mobs in the pull will want to kill you, so it is important that you do nothing further until the tank has gotten the attention of the rest of the mob to keep you safe.
2. When a rogue is part of your party, the mage will be required to wait until the rogue has performed their crowd control (Known as: Sap) before casting their sheep spell, as Sap can only be done out of combat.
3
Back to the original notes:
- At other times the tank or a hunter may pull a group, and the mage will need to sheep their target as it is running toward the tank.
- Whatever the pull turns out to be, remember that your sheep will probably break (revert to it's true form) before the end of the fight. Your mob will be very angry with you, and will want to kill you as quickly as possible. At this point your number one priority is re-sheeping your target.
- If you are in the middle of a cast, hitting the escape key, or space bar will stop your cast.
- Re-target on your ex-sheep and cast sheep quickly.
- If you are in a good group, the others in your party will leave your mob alone, but it is not unusual for them to try to save you by attacking it. It is a good idea to continue re-sheeping until you know that your group is leaving that mob alone.
- A great technique for re-sheeping is to make a "focus" macro pair. One macro is to /focus on a target, and the next is /cast polymorph on the focused target. This will allow you to instantly re-sheep without re-targeting. You just have to re-designate your focus target before each pull.
- The Mage has the capability to remove curses from their fellow party members. In some instances, bosses will do terrible damage with curses and the mage will be required to spend the majority of their time removing these curses in a particular fight. There are addons and macros that will assist the mage in identifying group members who are cursed. The World of Warcraft community forums are a good place to begin learning about addons and macros for mages.
- Finally, a mage will make friends with all mana users if he or she has prepared several stacks of conjured water for the group. Once the mage has Arcane Brilliance, at least one stack of Arcane Powder is essential for short runs, two or more for long runs like MC or Karazhan.

Warnings

First and foremost, you will die often. No matter what. Learn to like it, every death makes you an incrementally better player.

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Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
Beware of Warlocks with a Felhunter, or Warlocks in general, they were made to be mage killers.

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Helpful 18 Not Helpful 6
Beware of the Rogue that you cannot see, try to use "Arcane Explosion" so you can hit them when they are close by, when they come out of stealth try to use "frost nova" So they will stand in place. Then use Frostbolt to slow them down by 50%, and then it's up to you what you like best and what does the most damage.

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Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
More damage does not equal "better player". It is what technique you use. Tanks don't like to chase their mobs, and priests/pally's will not be happy at having to heal/res you over and over. Make sure to control your aggro, and know when to stop casting.

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The World of Warcraft Mage is not supposed to be the highest damage class in the game, it's generalized to be able to deal the most amount of damage in the shortest amount of time (AP-PoM-Pyro).

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Helpful 13 Not Helpful 5
You will often be out performed in damage. This is normal. Get over it. It doesn't mean you're any worse of a player.

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Get outdoors at least once a day - away from the computer. There's a bigger world out there! Go experience it. If you can't do this, you may need to break your World of Warcraft addiction.

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Helpful 21 Not Helpful 9
Do not even think you need that staff, those robes, that enchant, or be in that guild. This is your character, don't let anyone, even the game, define how you should play it.

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Helpful 19 Not Helpful 3
The World of Warcraft forums can be informative, but do not ever take them seriously, as most posts are created by people who haven't played very long, have done very little research into the subject of their post, or are merely trying to get a reaction.

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AoE grinding takes practice to learn, and a little more to become proficient in. Be ready to die! This type of killing is only useful in heavily farmed areas, since killing one at a time is just as fast as kiting 3 mobs and killing them.

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Things You'll Need

A computer meeting the minimum system requirements. If you plan on raiding, or larger-scale PvP, your requirements will be higher.
A stable internet connection.
Patience! You will get angry, frustrated, and depressed. This is normal, and will pass. The class is very fun, has low responsibilities in raids (beyond giving your party-mates food, water, and your intellect buff, and dealing the damage that you already deal very well.), is strong in PvP, and looks good while doing it all.
Mana. It's your lifeblood. Without it you are weaker than any other class.
Good reflexes.

Glossary

Aggro: How much threat any given mob considers any given player attacking it. Be proud of the aggro you cause, learn to know just how much aggro you create.
Mage: Arcane Spellcaster, DPS Class.
DPS: Damage-per-second. A good number to determine how effective you are at dealing damage.
DoT: Damage-over-Time
HoT: Healing-over-Time
AoE: Area-of-Effect.
DD: Direct Damage.
Channeled Spell: A spell whose casting time occurs over the duration of the spell's effect. As opposed to normal spells where you are required to spend casting time up front. Any damage cancels a channeled spell.
Buff (noun): Beneficial Player Enchantment. (verb) To enchant a player beneficially.
Debuff: Malignant Player Enchantment.
Nerf (verb): To reduce capability.
Mob: Short for Mobile NPC, specifically pertains to enemies.
Lag: Death to Magi, get a faster connection or more RAM.
Strafe: Run sideways. the 'Q' or 'E' key in World of Warcraft.
Spec: Specialization, Specialize. Refers to how talent points are spent.
Talent/Talent Points: Various abilities either active or passive that improve/define certain aspects of your character.
Pyro: Pyroblast (Fire mages only)
imp.: improved, as in Improved Blizzard slows enemy down
CC: Crowd Control.