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Alliance 1-60 (Mythrid)

The Worst Part of being a Mage:

Down time, down time, down time!  Manna = life.  Without manna, you are useless.  You will burn through your manna faster than any other character.  In between fights, you will have to 'sit down' and wait for a recharge.  At higher levels, this problem becomes worse.  Currently, the water that mages can conjure doesn't regenerate nearly as much manna as mages can get.  So, with this, it is a good idea to get a good wand during the course of the game, and use wands to finish off mobs when you can.  It is boring having to wait for a recharge all the time, but if you are going to play a mage, get used to it. 

PVP TIPS:

The greatest spells in a mage's arsenal for PvP:  Polymorph, Blink, Nova, Fireblast, Fireball. 

Right now, mages are not the greatest in 1v1 PvP.  Many characters have a "strength" that is tailored to counter a mage.  Hunters cannot be rooted, Shamans can interrupt you and heal themselves, Paladins have their bubble. Its going to take tactics to beat other players 1v1.  But this doesn't mean it can't be done.    Fight the hunter outside of melee range and inside of gun range.  Blink out of Rogue stuns.  Use poly warriors then hit them with your   poly+AP+PoM combo.  Most mages playing right now will agree that PvP doesn't 'tilt' in their favor.   Mages need less 'manna' downtime, hopefully this will be something Blizzard fixes.  In group PvP, it is entirely a new story.  You will decimate the opposition with AOE spells.   In Group PvP, the side that doesn't have a mage is going to lose.  As a side note, a great thing about being a mage will be your ability to portal, if trained, to other regions, saving great time running around from place to place.

Your basic role is to dump on the nukes on the pulls that have been laid before you. Give the group tank a few seconds to take agro before piling it on, and you should never be attacked when getting solo pulls.

Frost Bolt
Key spell used to slow down a target.  Use this to prevent a target from coming into mele range, or to stop him from running.

Arcane Missile
Save for groups.  This is a great spell in groups, but in solo, it is slow and can be interrupted.   

Polymorph
A crowd control spell.  Also a key ingredient in PvP to buy you time to restart a combo.  If you are in a group, pulling a mob that looks to overpower, poly the strongest monster in a mob, and keeping him there until your group fends off the weaker ones.

Frost Nova
You will use this like eating candy.  It roots in place all enemies in a given radius.  This buys you precious time to decide to flee the scene, or go for a kill.   Great in both groups and solo.  Hot key this one. 

 PROFESSIONS

Again, toss out skinning, leatherworking (obviously useless for a mage), mining, smiting.  Really, the obvious choice for me is Herbalist/Alchemy.  If you want to make cash, then enchanting/tailoring might be an option (you can disenchant your own items with tailoring, allowing you to profit off the magical items you find, rather than destroying them to disenchant).

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