Guide to a Mage By DoNu7 Version 1.32 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Version History 3. Definitions and Acronyms 4. Skills 4.a. Arcane 4.b. Fire 4.c. Frost 5. Talents 6. Professions 6.a. Manufacturing Professions 6.b. Gathering Professions 6.c. Secondary Skills 6.d. General Tips 7. Equipment Picks 8. Combat 8.a. Solo 8.b. Group 8.c. Solo PvP and Dueling 8.d. Group PvP 9. Disclaimer 10. Helpful Sites ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Introduction Thank you for choosing this mage guide! I have played my mage for a while now, and I have found this class to be very intriguing and fun. I would like to make a few notes before we begin. First off, much of the information in this guide is opinionated. Some people may disagree with the facts, while others heartily agree with what I have written. However, whether you agree with the facts or not, I hope that you will find some use in this guide. Another note that I would make is that we mages have burst damage. this does not mean we are the highest damage dealers. Rather, we deal damage in a short period of time, but if the fight lasts longer, well-equipped Rogues and Warriors would outstrip us badly in terms of damage. We also have an ability that can help to control large numbers of enemies. While we do not have many abilities that directly help our allies, such as healing spells, or the ability to tank, we help others by quickly finishing off enemies, and therefore making the battle safer for everyone. Mages also have an ability that can help us get out of dangerous areas, and we have spells to instantly return us to our capital cities. Mages also have a number of abilities that help reduce downtime, and that makes us quite versatile since mages frequently need some downtime to replenish their mana or health supply. However, we mages have our problems too. An obvious one is that we tend to have frequent downtime, and some players may feel that they are slacking off because while they are having their downtime, because they aren't doing anything. Mages are also very fragile, in fact, second only to the warlock, who must rely on their pets for protection. However, each class has their problems, so there is no reason to think that mages are a weak class for in fact, we can solo very well and we can kill enemies with quick succession. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Version History 1.00 Release 1.01 Tiny update, fixed a couple of minor errors and edited the disclaimer, added new section (this one), fixed some incompleteness that I missed. Might add Battlegrounds section at one point, but so far I have never tried one yet. 1.02 Few errors fixed. Fixed Disclaimer a bit. 1.12 Changes to a couple of sections. 1.22 Fixed more errors. Added new information. Hope I haven't missed out on anything... 1.32 Many changes to PvP section. Removed part of the group section which didn't seem to be very useful, but rather a huge waste of space. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. Definitions and Acronyms Here is a list of the definitions of some more obscure words that relate to mages. Add-Extra monster that enters the battlefield Aggro-Also called threat, determines chances for enemy to attack it's opponent. The higher the aggro, the more likely the enemy is going to attack you. AoE-Area of effect. Buff-Spell or ability that benefits the target. Caster-Character class that uses spells to damage enemies and heal allies. Dps-Damage per second. DOT-Damage over time Int-Intelligence. If someone asks you "int buff please", it would mean that they want an Arcane Intellect, or Arcane Brilliance buff from you. Kite-A term that means to keep the enemy at range while damaging them. NPC-Non-player characters. These are the vendors, enemies, quest givers and trainer of the game Puller-Person that pulls enemies to a party. Mages do not make good pullers, despite what some may think. Act as puller only if you are assigned to "silence pull", which means silencing the target with Counterspell so that they are forced to come to the group and melee, rather than fight from range. PvP-Player versus player. PvE-Player versus enemy. Usually refers to enemy NPC's. Root-Trap the target in place. Spam-Repeatedly cast a spell on a target as fast as the spell regenerates. Spi-Spirit. Stam-Stamina. Threat-See "aggro". For a complete glossary, visit this page: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info /basics/glossary.html;jsessionid=CC6857B8D2332ED6B877B67528439F68.app02 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. Skills The first section covers the uses of the skills of a mage. For information on the stats of each spell, go to http://www.thottbot.com/?c=Mage. -------- 4.a. Arcane -------- The arcane line consists of a variety of spells that deal damage and protect the mage. This isn't the most damaging line, but it has many other uses to offer. Arcane Brilliance This spell is dropped from loot. Basically, it has the same effects as Arcane Intellect, only it buffs the entire group, so this is a good way to instantly give everyone Arcane Intellect. In addition, this ability lasts 30 minutes longer than the generic Arcane Intellect. Amplify Magic Amplify Magic increases the amount of magic damage taken. This may sound like a downside, but the good part is that it also increases amount healed. For this reason, cast it on the party when there are no enemy casters, and be sure to tell them to turn it off should any casters appear! Arcane Explosion This is the spell for the ultimate fast AoE damage potential. It dumps a ton of mana down the drain, but it dishes out the damage just as fast. With the proper talents, this spell becomes instant and it can be used to help you kite a single enemy. This spell is very good to spam when all the enemies are aggroed by a party member and all that is left is to have someone damage them. Arcane Intellect This is an important buff that increases your intellect by a moderate amount. The amount of mana increased through this buff can't be overlooked however. All casters love to have this buff, because the increased intellect really does make a difference in the battlefield. As you learn higher levels of this buff, it will become very costly, but this is not a problem because the long term effects of this spell are much more worth it. Arcane Missiles This is a powerful spell that quickly dishes out the damage. While it has a higher dps than most of your spells, the amount of mana used may not be worth the total damage inflicted. So therefore, it is like a tradeoff, you dish out the damage quickly at the expense of more mana. Another thing to be aware of is that arcane missiles is channeled, so if any damage is done to you, it will reduce the length of the channeling, and may even threaten to cancel your casting. Fortunately, there are talents to prevent this from happening. Arcane Power (Talent) This is a buff learned through the arcane talent line. When activated, it increases the damage from all your spells by a substantial amount, but it also increases the mana cost by the same percentage. For this reason, the best use for this spell is if you want to quickly finish off the enemy, and you aren't too worried about your mana pool. This is surprisingly useful in PvP because it can help you kill your opponent so fast they won't have much time to retaliate. Blink Blink instantly teleports you 20 yards forward. This may not sound like much, but it will gain you quite a bit of distance in PvP or PvE fights. As you know distance is very important to a mage, so being able to instantly gain some distance is a crucial thing. An important thing some other people pointed out to me was that Blink can get you out of stuns. This can be great if a Rogue Cheap Shots you and you need to get away fast. Conjure Food The use of this spell could not be underestimated. Conjure food allows you to conjure food that is quite reasonable for the level you are currently in. The big plus for this spell is that you can create food out of thin air, and you do not need to go to vendors to buy food. In some cases, even the hunter's pet in your group may wish for a loaf of free bread! Conjure Water This is similar to food, although it conjures water instead. This is much more important than food since liquids are the only things in World of Warcraft that replenish mana. Spells and bandages can replenish health, but not mana. The only exception to this is the mage's Evocation. Conjure Mana Agate/Citrine/Jade/Ruby This spell allows you to conjure a mana gem. In some ways, these gems are like mana potions because they instantly restore mana. The only difference is that all you need for this is mana! Take note that only one gem of each type can be in your packs at a time. This does not mean that you can't have a mana ruby and a mana jade at the same time! Conjuring several types of mana gems and keeping them in your packs is a very good idea. Although gems recieve a cool- down after you use one, some of the longer fights may be so long that you'll use all your gems in one go. Note that mana gems are bind on pick-up, so you cannot give it to other players. Counterspell This is one of the best ways to anger enemy casters. What it does is that it halts enemy casting mid-sentence, and they cannot cast any spell from that school of magic for another ten seconds. The only problem is that it creates a large amount of aggro, although this isn't a problem during soloing. In groups use it wisely. Only if the enemy is threatening to wipe your entire group should you attempt to cast this spell. Improved Counterspell greatly helps this ability by attaching a 4 second silence to it. Dampen Magic Dampen Magic reduces the amount of magic damage taken by a small amount, and also reduces the amount healed. Magic damage includes anything from poisons to curses. Of course the downside to this is the reduction of the amount healed through spells. Use this if there are no healers in the group, or when soloing. Note that it does affect the amount healed through healing potions too. Detect Magic Nothing special about this spell, just a waste of money. It does have a very low mana cost though. Most of the time, you could already tell what the enemy has put on itself. For example, if a firey shield appears over it, you can tell that it is probably a fire ward or a damage shield. However, a good mob to use this on is Shazzrah in Molten Core. Other than that, there's not much other use. Note that this ability does not generate threat, so you can cast it on an enemy before the fight begins and they won't notice. Evocation (Talent) Evocation allows your mana to regenerate at super fast speeds for a couple of seconds. Your mana begins regenerating even if you have just cast off a spell and you aren't using Mage Armor, or you haven't learned the talent to allow mana regeneration while casting. Note that this is channeled, so any damage taken will shorten its length. Also note the long cooldown, so save this spell for important battles when you absolutely need to quickly replenish some mana. Mage Armor A relatively new spell that was added through a recent patch. Mage armor increases resistance to all schools of magic, and it allows some of some mana regeneration while you are casting. Unfortunately, it does not provide an armor bonus like Frost/Ice Armor. If you constantly find yourself running out of mana while retaining tons of health, you should consider migrating to Mage Armor. If your mana and health seem to always stay at the same level, stick with Frost/Ice Armor. Mage Armor is great for groups. In a group setting, you will rarely get hit, and the only thing you will need to worry about is mana. Mana Shield Not a bad spell, but it gets your mana drained pretty quick. The big bonus to this is that it negates any interruptions. This means that you can cast away without losing any casting time, or losing your channeling. Also works with bandages. A good way is to shield then bandage so that it doesn't get stopped. This also negates daze effects when the enemy attacks your back, so it's a good idea to use mana shield when you are making a run for it. Mana Shield is also very good when paired with mage armor. While you are casting, your mana will still regenerate a tiny bit, and this will help keep up your mana reserves. Polymorph This spell turns the enemy into a wandering sheep. This is definitely the best way to control large groups of enemies since even putting at least one enemy out of action would make a difference during solo and group. The downside is that any damage done to the sheep would cause it transform back. Also, the target quickly regenerates health as a sheep. For this reason, it is not a good idea to cast sheep on an injured target. Polymorph can also be used to buy you, or your group some time as they bandage up, regenerate some mana, or start a long-casting spell such as Pyroblast. Portal This is a special ability learned through a portal trainer at a major city. Be aware that you can only learn to be able to create a portal to whatever city that trainer is in. In order to create portals to other cities, you will need to talk to the trainers in those cities. Only you and your party members can go through the portal, and once you go through, you cannot come back. Presence of Mind (Talent) This is an ability that reduces the casting time of your next spell by 100%. The only abilities that are not included are portals, teleportation, and hearthstone. For other spells, this is exrtremely useful. Mages who also go into the fire line generally get Pyroblast to pair it with this spell as Pyroblast has a very long casting time, and making it instant is absolutely killer. Remove Lesser Curse Although this spell says "remove LESSER curse", it could apparently remove any curse as long as it is around your level. This spell doesn't cost very much mana either, so feel free to use it any time you need to. Slow Fall Completely useless. All it does is that it reduces some falling damage, and there is almost no use to that. You also need a light feather for it, and they can only be found on the lower levels, which makes it difficult to obtain at the higher levels. Teleport Same effect and rules as Portal, except it only affects you. However, this ability is cheaper and a rune of teleportation cost only half as much as rune of portal does. -------- 4.b. Fire -------- The fire line is mostly centered around damage. Fire spells are best for high damage while maintaining modest amounts of mana. This makes an efficient line in which damage is dealt with quick speed. Blast Wave (Talent) This is an instant AoE that hits surrounding enemies with a wave of fire. In addition, it also slows them to 50% normal speed. This can be quite useful if you need a quick AoE and you do not have Improved Arcane Explosion. Be aware of the long cooldown, so you'll probably only get to use it once in a given battle. Combustion (Talent) This an instant ability that raises your chance to crit with your next fire spell by 100%. Paired with a Pyroblast, this can be tremendously powerful. Of course this can also be used during the course of a fight as it really does turn the tide of a battle. Unfortunatly, you cannot have Combustion and Presence of Mind at the same time, you must have one or the other. To sum it up, soloers will probably be better off with Combustion, while PvP mages will excel with Presence of Mind. Fire Blast This spell instantly blasts enemies with a hit of fire. It's usefulness cannot be underestimated. Use it to complement your normal spellcasting whether you are frost, fire, or arcane as it will increase your DPS by a large amount. Be aware of the short range and the cooldown. Fire Ward This spell is nice to have when fighting fire casters. It'll stave off a few hits from fire spells from mobs. When fighting other mages, expect it to only last one fire ball. Still, it will save you quite a bit of health. Fireball A very basic spell, this will be the main thing you'll be using if you are a fire mage. It does have a relatively long casting time at the later levels, so talents really help. It is more mana efficient than Arcane Missiles, and is a good thing to use when fighting mobs. Complementing it with occasional blasts of Fire Blast and that makes things even better. Flamestrike The primary AoE of the fire line, it does a modest amount of damage immediately, but the damage it does mainly relies on the DoT that comes along with the spell. Indeed half the damage is from the DoT, while the rest is from the immediate hit. Obviously it'll require the enemy to stay in that spot so that the spell can do its full damage potential. This makes the spell quite useless for repeated casting. A good idea is to Flamestrike the enemy, then Frost Nova them in place and start using Blizzard, or spam them with Arcane Explosion. A tank at the head of the battlefield will also be useful as they can keep the enemy in place. Pyroblast (Talent) This is a spell learned through fire talents. Sure it has a long casting time, but the damage it does is tremendous. Use it against unsuspecting targets in order to get a good head start, or pair it with Presence of Mind during the course of the battle to unleash a sudden, tremendous attack. Scorch A low DPS fire spell that also uses a very low amount of mana, it sure doesn't do very much damage, but it has a very fast casting time. Use it when you don't have time to cast a Fireball, or spam it in groups to keep a steady flow of damage while not consolidating too much aggro. -------- 4.c. Frost -------- The last line for a mage, these spells do somewhat lower damage than fire spells, but when used in the right combo, plus the correct talents, this can be a very potent set. Blizzard One of the main AoE's that you will be using, this is a channeled spell that showers an area with ice. The power of this ability cannot be underestimated. With the right talents, this spell will also be able to slow enemies down, and will even gain a chance to freeze the enemy in place. This reduces the need to use Frost Nova to keep the enemy in place while you pound them. Be aware of the large mana cost. If you learned Arcane Concentration, then it is a good idea to cast some other spells to gain a Clearcast, then unleash a mana-free Blizzard. Cold Snap When activated, finishes the cooldown of all your cold spells except for the spell itself. The spell itself does have a long cooldown, but it can be used if you really need to pull off that extra Ice Barrier, Frost Nova, etc. Cone of Cold This is an AoE spell that hits a cone of enemies in front of the caster with frost damage. A good idea is to run backwards so that the enemies will tighten up a bit, then use cone of cold to hit them all. A good combo with this spell is to use Blast Wave first, then use CoC when the daze affect goes away. Cone of Cold also reduces the enemy's speed by 50%, so you can use this to accomplish what Blast Wave fails at. Also note that it has a relatively short cooldown, so you can use this much more often than Blast Wave. Frost Armor A basic and necessary spell, it increases your armor by a substantial amount, and enemies also have a chance of having their movement speed and attack speed slowed down. Frost Armor is simply awesome when you have also learned Frost Bite talent. With each hit from the enemy, they have a chance to freeze in place. Unfortunatly, it does not stack with Mage Armor, so you have to choose whether you would have one or the other. Frost Nova This is one of the most important spells to use to get you out of melee trouble. Whether you are in a group, or you are soloing, this is one of the most important spells you will get. Paired with Blink, this spell becomes even more powerful. Note that it does have a pretty long cooldown, so you'll probably only get to use it once during a battle. Frostbolt Just like Fireball, this is the spell you will be using most of the time if you are a frost mage. However, even if you are specced in something else, this is still not a bad spell to start off a fight with since it slows the enemy down by a modest amount. This will force the enemy to take some time to get to you while you dish out spells at it. Frost Ward Similar to Fire Ward, except it absorbs frost damage instead. The only bad part about your ward spells is that only one can be activated at a time because the moment you activate one of them, the other ward spell also receives a cooldown. Therefore don't accidentally activate the wrong ward. Ice Armor Similar to Frost Armor, except is also increases your frost resistance by a tiny amount. Like frost armor, it also replaces Mage Armor if you activate it. This can only be learned later on, after Frost Armor. Ice Barrier (Talent) The apex of the frost line, Ice Barrier acts like the priest's Power Word: Shield, except it absorbs less damage and can only be cast on the self. Note that it also has a longer cooldown, but it also lasts longer. This is a great ability to use if you need a little "extra" health and you are low on mana so Mana Shield would be a bad idea. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. Talents In World of Warcraft, talents are a special ability tree that is similar to the skill tree in Diablo II. However, talents only help to improve your fighting capability of your character, rather than being the deciding factor of how well you will be able to fight as spells do. -------- Arcane -------- Arcane talents improve your arcane spells, and they also improve your mage overall. For example, there are talents that reduce the casting time of your Arcane Explosion, and there are talents that increase your total mana pool. Arcane Subtlety This talent reduces the amount of threat generated by your arcane spells. This means you'll be able to cast lots of arcane spells during a fight while not getting too much aggro. Arcane Focus Not very useful to me. It reduces the resist rate of your arcane spells by a small amount, and I don't find much use for it since enemies rarely resist your spells anyway, unless they are 3 or more levels higher than you. Improved Arcane Missiles This makes it so that while you channel Arcane Missiles, you can escape the chance of having your channeling being interrupted. Note that your channeling will still be stopped if you are stunned, silenced, counterspelled, etc; basically, anything that would completely stop a timed cast. Wand Specialization Not very useful, you won't be using wands very often, solo or group. Even if you did put talents in this, you won't do that much more damage since wand damage is relatively low. Arcane Concentration Now things are getting interesting. This talent gives you a chance to gain a clearcast with every hit from a damage spell. A clearcast causes your next damage spell to be 100% mana free. When maxed out, this talent gives you a 10% chance to gain clearcast. AoE spells are awesome with this talent because with each target hit, you get a chance to clearcast. Improved Dampen Magic This talent increases the amount of damage that this spell reduces. However, it also increases the reduction of the amount healed through healing spells. Therefore, this is sort of a double-edged sword. Choose carefully as to whether you would like to have this talent, or not. Improved Arcane Explosion IAE reduces the casting time of your Arcane Explosion. When maxed out, this will make your Arcane Explosion an instant cast with no cooldown except the one second cooldown all spells receive whenever you cast a spell. This allows you spam the spell, or cast it repeatedly and deal massive damage. Evocation See "Evocation" under the spells section. Improved Mana Shield This talent reduces the mana drained with each point of damage taken. Although it will not reduce the mana drained to the point where one point of damage drains one point of mana, this is still worth it if you choose to use mana shield often. Improved Counterspell This adds a chance to silence the target for 4 seconds. A silenced target cannot cast until the silence goes away. This is obviously very good, but four seconds is not very long, so the usefulness of this talent is a bit iffy. In short, this is probably better in PvP since everyone has such a wide variety of spells. Mobs generally don't have such a variety, so this talent would pretty much be wasted on them. Arcane Meditation This talent allows some of your mana to regenerate while you are casting. Sure it sounds tempting, but it's a very low amount. When maxed out, it will only allow 15% of your normal mana regeneration to continue, and this is in fact very little mana. This talent is probably not that useful because the mana regeneration that it allows is way too little to make a big difference. Presence of Mind See "Presence of Mind" under the spells section Arcane Mind This talent increases your maximum mana pool. This is quite useful since a larger mana pool is always good. When maxed out, this talent will allow you to pull off one or two extra spells with your increased mana. Sure this doesn't sound like much, but even one extra spell can sometimes be the deciding factor between victory or defeat in a close fight. Arcane Instability This talent increases your overall spell damage, and the chance to crit. It only increases those attributes by a tiny amount, but they do make a difference over a period of time. Plus, this is the last talent before Arcane Power, so there is no reason not to get this talent. Arcane Power See "Arcane Power" under the spells section -------- Fire -------- Fire talents are to further increase the damage and overall usefulness of your fire talents. These talents are essential for any mage who decides to invest in fire. Improved Fireball This talent slightly reduces the casting time of your fireball. After being maxed out, the casting time reduced may not seem like very much, but in this game, every tenth of a second counts. This talent can make a difference after repeated casting. Say a mage shoots 3 fireballs without this talent for over a period of 10.5 seconds. Another mage fires 3 fireballs with this talent. Instead of 10.5 seconds, this time it would only require 9 seconds. 1.5 seconds is enough to pull of an extra scorch, so as you can see, with multiple castings this talent could make a significant difference. Impact This talent gives you a relatively small chance to stun the target with a fire spell. The stun also lasts for only a relatively short period of time. This may not sound very appealing, but in fact this is a very powerful talent. Stuns cancel any action, movement, casting, etc. If your counterspell is still recharging, then a stun would help make up for the counterspell. In addition, a stun would help buy you some time so that you can make a quick getaway. Ignite This talent causes the target to burn for a percentage of your spell's damage for a period of time. When maxed out, the extra damage provided by this talent is huge. Mix in some talents that increase chance to crit, and the damage racks up even more. Improved Fire Blast Not a very useful talent. The amount of cooldown reduced decreases as you add more and more points to this talent. Of course it's not bad to be able to use fire blast more often, but it is a better to use your points on some other talent than this. Flame Throwing This talent increases the range of your fire spells. This is very important in solo, although it has some diminishing usefulness in group settings. The reason this is so good in solo is that you can start hitting enemies from even farther away than normal, and that means that they will have to spend extra time trying to get to you. Incinerate Incinerate increases the critical strike chance of your Fireblast and Scorch. It only does so by a very minimal amount, but it does help especially if you also go for Critical Mass. Pyroblast See "Pyroblast" under the spells section Improved Flamestrike This talent increases your chance to critical with Flamestrike by a large amount. When paired with Critical Mass, you get a 21% chance to crit with Flamestrike, and that means that in a group setting, if you take on 5 or more enemies, it can almost be guaranteed that you will crit at least one enemy. In addition, you also have a base crit chance, so generally you get a 26% crit chance, depending on how much intellect you have. Burning Soul This talent gives you a chance to avoid interruption when casting a fire spell . This is very useful, and when maxed out you will be able to avoid interruption most of the time. This shows its face the best when you cast a fireball while you are getting hit constantly by an enemy that is dual- wielding. On the other hand, if you are getting hit, you shouldn't stand there and try to throw off a Fireball. Rather you should get out of range and not get hit at all. Improved Scorch I. Scorch gives your Scorch spell a chance to make the target more vulnerable to fire damage, in which the target takes extra damage from fire spells. This effect can be stacked up 5 times, allowing fire spells to be able to do 10% more damage against that specific target. Note that this talent will require you to use Scorch as your primary spell. While this is not a bad talent line, it does not offer the extreme burst damage provided by Fireball. Improved Fire Ward This talent causes some of the damage absorbed by fire ward to damage the enemy. It may sound appealing, but the damage reflected is very low. In the long run, this talent won't make any noticeable effects, so this is something that you should pass by if you were to go for the fire tree. Critical Mass This talent increases your chance to crit with any fire spell by 6%. This is a large amount, and you will definitely see some improvements in the number of criticals that you will get. Pair this with Ignite and other talents that improve chance to crit for more chaos. Blast Wave See "Blast Wave" under the spells section. Fire Power You've got this far, and this is the big reward for your efforts. Fire Power increases the damage of all your fire spells. When maxed, this talent increases damage by 10%. That's as much as the fire vulnerability provided by improved Scorch. For the first few hits, it may not seem as if you are doing that much more damage to the target. After killing multiple mobs, you will notice the substantial improvement in your kill rate. Combustion See "Combustion" under the spells section. -------- Cold -------- These talents severely improve your cold spells. When this line is maxed, a frost mage can do almost as much damage as a fire mage while using much less mana. Frost talents are best for soloers and group settings, since in such places, a slow kill while maintaining mana is often more desirable than a fast kill with huge amounts of mana. Improved Frostbolt Similar properties as Improved Fireball, except it reduces the casting time of your frostbolt instead. Permafrost This ability increases the duration of your frost effects. Note that this does not include freeze effects, where the enemy is completely frozen in place. This is best used for situations where you only wish to cast a small amount of frost spells, although this does have uses in other situations too. For example, the frost effect of Cone of Cold is much more powerful than any of your other frost effects, so increasing the length of the 50% speed reduction would help dramatically. This is the same if you have Improved Blizzard. The speed reduction is extreme, but it lasts for only a very short period of time. With this talent maxed out, the effect will last for 300% of its normal length for Blizzard! Ice Shards This talent increases the critical strike damage bonus of your frost spells. A spell critical is about 50% more damage, so with this talent maxed, your frost criticals will do 150% more damage. This is a dramatic increase. This talent is best paired with Shatter and Frostbite. Winter's Chill This talent increases the amount of speed reduced by your frost spells. However, the amount of speed reduced given by this talent isn't a very high amount. For this reason, it is better to spend your talent points on other talents than Winter's Chill. Improved Frost Nova This talent reduces the cooldown of your Frost Nova by a small amount. Generally speaking, this is not a very significant amount of cooldown reduction, but it does allow you to cast Frost Nova more often during urgent times. Plus, this talent is also necessary for a very powerful talent: Shatter. Piercing Ice This talent increases the damage of your frost spells by a small amount. It's not very significant, but it does allow you to do more damage while using the same amount of mana. Therefore, it helps to increase the efficiency of your frost spells. Cold Snap See "Cold Snap" under the spells section. Improved Blizzard Improved Blizzard adds a chill effect to your Blizzard spell. The chill does seem very appealing, and the amount of speed reduction is even more appealing. However, there is one thing to keep in mind, and that is that when you are using Blizzard, your opponents aren't supposed to move at all. For this reason the chill may seem to be wasted because if the enemy isn't supposed to move at all, then what is the reason to slow them down? There is probably one use for this, and that is to slow down the advance of a particularly tough mob. Sure it will drain your mana quickly because Blizzard is an enormous mana sink but it prevents you from getting damaged too badly. In addition, if you have learned Frostbite, your Blizzard will also have a chance to freeze the enemy. Arctic Reach This is similar to Flame Throwing, except it increases the range and radius of some of your frost spells. There is something to note about this talent, and that is that it also increases the radius of your frost nova. This doesn't seem too bad since it means you can stop enemies from farther away, but it does mean that it will increase your chance of accidental aggro, or hitting a polymorphed/sapped target. Frost Channeling This is a must have. It decreases the mana cost of your frost spells by a modest amount, and with this talent you can save hundreds, perhaps thousands of mana points throughout the game. There is nothing better than having this talent, and it will increase the efficiency of your frost spells even further. Shatter Shatter increases the chance to crit against a frozen target. When maxed, it will increase the chance by 50%, so you will crit more than half the time if the target is frozen in place because your frost spells also have a base chance to critical. Of course getting a critical on a frozen target means that they will be able to break free 90% of the time, but it is still worthwhile and you won't be disappointed. Improved Frost Ward Not much use. Some of the damage absorbed by your frost ward will go to your mana pool, but this is in fact a very low amount. It will probably allow you one more cast though, and that is quite important in this game, but you also need to consider the fact that there are very few enemy cold casters in this game. Ice Block See "Ice Block" under the spells section. Improved Cone of Cold This talent increases the damage of your Cone of Cold by a large amount. With this talent maxed, plus Piercing Ice and Frost Channeling, it will make it seem more worthwhile to use Cone of Cold against single targets, rather than saving it for multiple enemies. Frostbite The second to last talent of your frost spells. This is extremely useful in that it gives your frost spells a chance to freeze the target in place, ANY frost spells. This includes your Frost/Ice Armor effects too. Constantly casting frost spells with Frost/Ice Armor on will cause enemies to freeze most of the time because you'll have a chance to freeze them as you shoot at them, and they will have a chance of getting themselves frozen simply by meleeing you! Ice Barrier See "Ice Barrier under the spells section. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6. Professions There are numerous professions in this game, as well as numerous combinations of professions. So you're probably wondering, which profession or profession combo would suit a mage the most? The fact is, any profession would suit a mage. This even includes Blacksmithing, since in that profession, you can create keys that help you open locks, and some of the one-handed swords and daggers that can be made through this profession may have some aspects that will benefit you. Here is a list of professions and how they will suit you as a mage. Following that is a section on tips for professions. 6.a. Manufacturing Professions -------- Alchemy Best profession to pair this with: Herbalism Benefits at a glance: Potions to increase mana/health pool for short periods. Potions to instantly recover mana/health. Increase run speed so you can make a quick getaway, or speed you up on a delivery quest. Cons: Some of the potions do not have very important effects. Potion effects are temporary. Alchemy is a solid profession to take for a mage. Most of the effects are instant, short-term effects rather than long-term effects. For this reason, potions can be notorious for quickly turning the tide of a battle. If you take part in a lot of grouping and PvPing, Alchemy is definitely the profession to take up. In addition, there are potions that damage enemies, and potions that increase your movement speed whether above ground or underwater. There are also potions that increase your stats, however these aren't very important. Since you will rarely go into melee, strength and agility potions go out of the list immediately. Intellect potions are useless too because you can already buff your intellect pool. There are potions that add spirit and stamina (or they add directly to your health) and these are somewhat more useful. Possibly the best types of potions are those that increase your spell damage. Although some of the potions are useless to you, they may benefit others, so you can go around selling potions you wouldn't use normally and bring home the money. -------- Blacksmithing Best profession to pair this with: Mining Benefits at a glance: Open your own lockboxes! Create one-handed weapons that add bonuses if you wish to take up an off-hand weapon. Create different kinds of fine equipment with which to sell to others to make large clumps of money Cons: Most of the equipment created through this profession cannot be used by mages. Normally, mages don't take this profession because it has very few attributes that will benefit you. However, it does have some pluses. One of these is that it can help you earn large amounts of money simply by auctioning various products. Some of the equipment that you can make later on, such as Phantom Blade, will really get people to dig into their pockets. One of the direct bonuses of this profession is that you can open lockboxes by yourself without the need of a rogue. Blacksmithing also allows you to create sharpening stones that increase your melee damage by a small amount. Therefore, if you wish to take up a bit in melee, then these stones are a perfect choice. -------- Enchanting Best profession to pair this with: Any, but mages usually take it with tailoring Benefits at a glance: Increase the effectiveness of your equipment. Earn tons of money by selling enchants, likewise you will not need to spend tons of money of purchasing enchants from others. Cons: Big money sink at the beginning where people generally don't wish to purchase your inferior enchants. Takes time and practice to get customers, although the amount of time and effort taken is often worthwhile. This is a very good profession to take up if you are a mage. It allows you to marginally increase the effectiveness of your equipment by placing enchants on them. You can also earn lots of money later on because usually, people are willing to spend huge amounts of money on your enchants. Some good examples include the Icy Chill enchant, which usually sells for around 80 gold, and the Firey enchant, which usually sells for around 45 gold. Note that this profession is a big money sink if you cannot get customers. This is because the reagents you get for enchanting are from disenchanting items that are uncommon or better. This means that instead of being able to sell such items, or auction them at the Auction House, you must instead disenchant them. To sum it up, you will run out of money quickly if you don't find customers fast. Most people who get lucky off this profession can purchase their mounts earlier than others because they were very successful through their enchanting profession. Enchanting effects you over a period of time, so it will not make dramatic changes in a battle like what Alchemy can do. -------- Engineering Best profession to pair this with: Mining Benefits at a glance: Bombs to help increase DPS, allow stuns, etc. Cloth head armor that provide high intellect or spirit bonuses. Numerous nifty items that help groups and solo. Cons: Big money sink, and once you dive into this profession, there's no way you can redeem that money, unlike enchanting where you can sell enchants. This is because most of the engineering products can only be used by other engineers. This is also a very good profession to take up. You can use the bombs to increase the damage dished out during a group fight, but the biggest reward for this profession are the goggles. These cloth headgear are perfect for casters, and the attributes that they have can help improve your stats even more. Of course there's also nothing like a stun with a bomb to disrupt enemy spellcasting should your counterspell still be recharging. There are many other pluses as well. A main addition to this profession is that you can summon pets. Mages have very few options in order to protect themselves, so a combat chicken or an arcanite dragonling will seriously help defend you should you get attacked by multiple mobs and you need some backup. One serious problem with engineering is that it uses up gobs of money. The reason for this is because the reagents needed for engineering becomes very broad toward the end. Unless you have alternative characters who have invested in other types of professions, you will need to go to others to buy reagents from them. This will cause you to spend a large amount of time and money. Ultimately, this will be worthwhile and you will well appreciate it. -------- Leatherworking Best profession to pair this with: Skinning Benefits at a glance: Armor kits to provide massive boosts to your armor. Ability to create numerous leather and mail items to sell to others. Cloaks can be created through this profession, and these benefit everyone. Cons: You will not be able to use most of the products. Leatherworking isn't a very good choice when you are a mage, but it does help in certain ways. One of these is that you can create armor kits out of it. The armor boosts provided by these kits will overlap any enchants, but if you don't have any enchants on that particular item, then it doesn't hurt to slap on an armor kit. These kits can only be used on the chest, hands, legs, and feet, but when you put the bonuses on each of these items, the effects will stack and the overall amount of added armor will be extreme. A good example are the rugged armor kits. These provide 40 armor each, and 40X4 would equal 160 armor. Casters generally don't get more than 1000 armor at level 60, so even 160 armor would help a great deal. Another benefit of this profession is that you can earn lots of money by creating leather products and selling them to others. Some of the later leather armor and mail armor are quite diserable, and many people will surely dig into their pockets in order to buy one off of you. The last bonus of this profession is that you can create cloaks. As you know, cloaks can be worn by anyone, so this is one type of leatherworking product that you can wear. The bad part about leatherworking is of course the fact that you won't be able to wear most of the products. They will either have to go to the vendors, or to the hands of another person. -------- Tailoring Best profession to pair this with: Any, but most people pair this with enchanting. Skinning is not a bad choice either. Benefits at a glance: Create your own high-end armor! Create bags, which just about everyone needs. Create high-end items to sell to others for a profit. Cons: Slightly less cash income, due to the fact that instead of being able to sell your cloth, you'll have to use them, and cloth generally sells for quite a bit. Also counters with First Aid because First Aid also requires cloth. Tailoring is probably the best profession for a mage to have, in fact any caster class would benefit greatly from Tailoring. One big reason is that you can create some high-end items later on with Tailoring. A couple of these are bind on pickup, so it becomes even more important to grab this profession because you will not have a chance of having those items if you did not take up Tailoring. In addition, you can also create bags from this profession. Everyone loves bags because it gives them more room to store their items. At the Auction House you will generally find many bags that are being auctioned for. Don't be discouraged, make a ton of bags and stick them in. Most of them will sell because so many people wish to have bags. Possibly the best profession to take with this is enchanting. The reason is that you can create items from this profession in order to level it up, and you can disenchant these items to get reagents for enchanting. Therefore, the two professions help each other out. The biggest problem is that you will need cloth to make your items, and these generally sell for quite a bit. In addition, this profession also counters First Aid because in that secondary skill, you will need cloth to make bandages. While you use cloth for that, you will also need the cloth for your tailoring. -------- 6.b. Gathering Professions -------- Herbalism Best profession to pair this with: Alchemy Benefits at a glance: Gather herbs which are required for alchemy. Herbalism is best taken with alchemy. The reason is because almost all the products require herbs. This is a relatively easy profession to take up, and your herbalism will go up in no time. -------- Mining Best professions to pair this with: Blacksmithing, Engineering Benefits at a glance: Mine ore, and transform them into bars for use in blacksmithing and engineering. Also gather rare gems that are also needed in some of the recipes. Mining is definitely the thing to take when you have Blacksmithing and engineering. These two professions solely rely on mining, although the ingredients needed for engineering tends to be quite broad. Note that you can also get some rare gems that are required in some recipes. In addition, the stones that you sometimes get through mining will also help as they are used in certain other recipes. -------- Skinning Best professions to pair this with: Leatherworking, Tailoring Benefits at a glance: Skin the hide of beasts in order to get leather for certain recipes. Also a great way to bring in large amounts of cash if that is what you are going for. Skinning helps leatherworking the most. This is because leatherworking is mainly reliant on the leathers gathered through this profession. In addition, skinning also helps Tailoring. One of these is that at certain times, when you skin a sheep they will drop you some wool. Another thing is that certain tailoring products will require you to get some leather. Some of the more popular recipes, such as Small Silk Pack will require leather, and since you will be making large quantities of them, it will mean requiring large quantities of leather. In addition, skinning is a great way to bring in the cash. You can generally make large amounts of money in a short period of time by selling your leather. -------- 6.c. Secondary Skills -------- Cooking Benefits at a glance: Create food to eat. Generally, such foods also provide a short bonus to certain stats. Cons: Mages can already create your food, being able to create additional sustenance is not very impressive, although generally turning a pile of meat into a steak will increase its sell value. Cooking is definitely unnecessary. Sure it provides some statistical bonuses, but these aren't very useful in the long run. Plus, you can already reduce your downtime through your conjured food and water. A good thing about cooking is that it will increase the sell value of an item than when it was raw. For this reason, you can actually increase your income by a small amount. Plus, it's quite fun to see what types of food that you can cook, and some of the foods such as Dragonbreath Chili are outrageously wild. -------- First Aid Benefits at a glance: Allow you to quickly regenerate health in or out of combat. Cons: When you have downtime, you also need to replenish your mana, and this will not help decrease your downtime since you still have to sit down and drink. In fact, this will increase your downtime because you cannot bandage and drink at the same time, while you can eat and drink at the same time. First Aid isn't very important in some cases, it won't help reduce downtime, and generally mages die so fast that if they try to bandage themselves, they will get killed before they regenerate a decent amount of health with their bandaging. In addition, it will grab off cloth from your tailoring profession. One of the pluses to this profession is that you can bandage others, so if you have an injured warrior who is not getting hit, you can bandage him and save the need of having to have the healer use their mana supply to heal him. However, for a Mage on a PvP server. First Aid may benefit a mage more than any other class in the game. When a rogue comes out of nowhere and ambush/backstabs you to 1/4 health, you're going to want to polymorph him and use a bandage. First Aid and evocation coupled with polymorph can basically reset any fight, except against druids (and to some extent shamans, since they're so hard to polymorph). -------- Fishing Benefits at a glance: Fish up fish that can be eaten or sold. Also allows you to hook up fish that are needed in certain alchemy potions. Sometimes, you might also get a rare object that will help one way or another. Cons: Raw fish sells for very little, although cooking tends to nearly double their sell value. Fishing benefits your mage depending on which professions you have taken. In general, this skill helps no matter what you have taken. Fishing can always allow you to fish up something needed for alchemy, but there are times where you just might get lucky. One of these are the health and mana potions. These are generally hard to come by. Another thing that you can fish up are clams, and just like clams dropped from mobs, they might contain a pearl inside. Then there are the times when you can fish up a Venture Company crate that contain various engineering parts, therefore helping you out if you are an engineer. There are also the times when you get REALLY lucky and you can fish up an uncommon sword! -------- 6.d. General Tips -------- Bringing in the Money There are certain people out there who just like to bring in the cash. There is nothing wrong with this approach. Generally, these people are able to buy many quality items from the auction house, and they usually get to purchase their mounts earlier than others. The matter with this is how to bring in the money. The most straightforward approach is to take Mining and Skinning. Leathers from skinning can sell for a ton. The ores, stones, and gems go for quite a bit at the auction house, especially the high-quality ones. Cooking is also good to take up. It will help increase the sell value of many of the items received from beasts. Another, but riskier way of bringing in the money is to take Tailoring and Enchanting. Enchants can sell for tons of money later on, and if you get costumers to buy those enchants, then you will get even more rich than if you were to take Mining and Skinning. The only problem is the risk involved. You must be able to find costumers, otherwise you will end up quite broke. Make sure that your enchants are reasonably priced also, so that people will actually be willing to get your enchants. -------- PvP Professions If you are going for a PvP mage, then the best thing to take is Alchemy and Herbalism. This combo is very nice at changing the way a battle is going. The potions that regenerate health and/or mana are the most worthwhile. In addition, the flask effects, as well as the potions that increase damage or do damage themselves will greatly help too. Just note that with this profession combo, you will not receive very many long-term effects. Another good profession is engineering. There are many gadgets and such with this profession that help change a battle also. The main difference between these two is that potions tend to center more on defense, while engineering is all about damage and harassing the enemy. -------- PvE Professions The best thing to take for a player versus enemy mage is Tailoring. When fighting mobs, you'll generally want things that last. Tailoring will allow you to create items that will benefit you over time. For this reason, any mage that like to fight mobs will generally like this profession since the benefits are so useful. Enchanting is awesome too. When you receive a high- quality item and you wish to put it on, enchant it to improve it further. For example, if you receive a staff that adds a large amount of spirit, put an intellect enchant on it so that not only will it provide spirit, but that it will provide intellect too. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7. Equipment Picks Finding the right equipment is important to all classes. Mages need to care about their equipment too, however, mages don't need to swap equipment as often as many classes. Melee classes must constantly update their weapons so that they can do their damage to the fullest. Even priests and warlocks need to make sure that they have the best wand possible for their level since they use wands so much. Fortunately for mages, they don't need to update their items as often as such classes, however it is important to have gear that is suitable for your level. -------- Armor When looking for armor, the primary attributes are intellect, spirit, stamina, and additions to spell damage. Defense skill bonuses, armor, strength, and agility are secondary. In fact, attributes such as strength are not required. When looking for items that add spell damage, always check to see if there are other versions of that item that provide huge bonuses to your stats. For example, chest armor provide high statistical bonuses, so it may be better to look for one that adds stamina/spirit/intellect rather than one that adds spell damage. On the other hand, back armor generally provide little bonuses to stats. For this reason, it may be a better idea to invest in back armor that add spell damage. -------- Weapons When looking for weapons, always get those that add to your stats, or to spell damage. The only exception to this are wands since they are quite important for dishing out light damage if the enemy is dying, or if you are running out of mana. There is a debate as to whether it is better to use a main-hand weapon and an off-hand weapon or a staff. The fact is, both of them are really good. However with main-hand/off-hand combo, you can generally expect more variety than with a single 2-H staff. With main/off, you can literally customize some of the stats, while with a staff, you have to stick with whatever stats it already has. Generally, the stats staves come with aren't too bad. When looking for a wand, look for ones that deal a high amount of damage. Also look for those that add spell damage since wands generally provide low bonuses to stats, at least during the lower levels. Some of the higher level wands provide very nice bonuses to stats, and these may be more desirable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8. Combat In this section, we will discuss various tactics on playing as a mage. There will be many tips concerning what to do to handle various situations. Note that there are many exceptions, so any of the scenarios that are stated will not always be what they are in this guide. -------- 8.a. Solo Talents: Frost-Main, Arcane-Secondary Professions: Tailoring/Enchanting. Soloing is what you will be doing for the majority of the time that you will spend on this game. Later on, you will probably participate more and more in groups. People who have reached level cap generally group the entire time in order to take on raid instances, towns, etc. In the other times, you will be soloing. The first thing to consider during solo is to take frost as your main talent line with arcane as your secondary line. Frost rocks in solo. It does very nice damage while using very little mana. Generally, you can kill around four or five enemies around your level before having any downtime. Make sure you get Arcane Concentration with the arcane line since this can help save you hundreds of mana points in a given fight. With frost, Ice Barrier is definitely a good thing to take if you are making a break for it, or if you are in for a difficult fight. Ice Block cannot be missed out either because it will buy you some time in case you get into a tough situation. In addition, it reduces your threat level by a large amount, so during groups you can use it to get a particularly tough mob off of you. Tailoring is solid in solo since equipment tends to have some great long-term effects. When fighting in solo, the first thing frost mages should start off with is Frostbolt. Cast another frostbolt while they are approaching, then hit them with a Fireblast. This is of course a fire spell, but using it when it is available will severely increase your DPS. After this time, use another frostbolt or two. Then frost nova and hit them with another frostbolt. By then you'll have them down to very little health. Hit them with a scorch or two, or use another frostbolt if you feel they still need an extra beating, then switch to wand/melee action to save up your mana. Do this only if you have more health than mana. When fighting enemy casters or such, make sure you put up a suitable ward, then switch off between frostbolt-fireblast. If need be, Blink next to them, then frost nova and use a frostbolt for an extra crit. If you get a Clearcast at any of these stages, then use an Arcane Missiles, or if you need instant damage, use a Cone of Cold. For fire oriented mages, Pyroblast is definitely the thing to start off a fight with, (if Pyroblast is still recharging, use Frostbolt plus Arcane Missiles). After that, repeatedly cast Fireball and Fireblast. If you learned Improved Scorch, then make sure to mix in some scorch in addition to your Fireball and Fireblast. When the enemy is nearing death, use some scorch, plus some melee/wand action to bring down the enemy. Following up is a list of what to do during a given situation. -------- Fighting single, normal mobs: When fighting single mobs, the best idea is to keep them away from you for most of the duration. However, there is no need to keep on trying to get away from them if they barely do any damage to you. When the enemy approaches you, frost nova is definitely not a bad idea, but there is no reason to use blink since it becomes quite mana-costly later on in the game. Always take advantage of your clearcasts (if you are arcane-oriented). Use your highest dps spell that costs the most mana. During solo, it is also important to bring them down as fast as possible. There is no need to worry about aggro control, but then again, make sure to use spells that do a lot of damage, but are also mana efficient. For example, arcane missiles has a very high dps, but it is not as mana efficient as fireball and frostbolt. Fighting elite mobs: Generally, elite mobs are very difficult, and they take some carefulness to kill. The best idea is to keep them as far away from you as possible, and this means constantly slowing them down with frost spells and any engineering gadgets that you have. A nice spell to start off a fight against an elite mob is Pyroblast. Then follow up with a frost bolt and start shooting whatever else you have. Frost mages should start with frost bolt and repeatedly switch between frostbolt and fireblast to try to freeze the enemy. Ice Barrier is also a very good thing to throw up when you are taking a beating. Generally, it will last you about 6 seconds, and this is definitely enough to change the tide of the battle into your favor. However, no matter what you do, the most important thing is to not mess up. A frost nova that was cast way too early will probably result in doom. Any mistakes you make will lower your chances of coming out victorious. Fighting multiple mobs: Generally, the best idea is to pick on single mobs, but there will be some occasions where you will need to fight multiple attackers. If you are fighting only two enemies, then polymorph one and fight them one by one as you would with single mobs. If there are more, then it gets a bit trickier. The best tip for a fire mage would be to activate combustion, then use a Flamestrike. This works wonders, and it damages the enemy really badly. If you are a frost oriented mage, throw up an Ice Barrier, then use a Flamestrike to get the DoT going and run into the middle (to keep the enemy in place) and let loose a Blizzard. When your shield goes down, your channeling will probably end. After this happens, you have two options. You can blink out of the melee if there are no casters, or if there are casters, then gain some distance and frost nova the mobs and use Blizzard again. If there are no casters and you blink out, use a Cone of Cold as they approach you, then frost nova them in place and either use another Blizzard, or spam them with Arcane Explosion. From then on, keep on using Arcane Explosion. Improved Arcane Explosion works wonders, so if you didn't get that talent, you will probably have a harder time here. As always, keep a health potion and a mana gem at your fingertips, and if you are a frost mage, always be ready to activate Cold Snap to use another Ice Barrier or Frost Nova. Fighting multiple elites: You should never fight more than one elite alone. Unless you really need to get someplace. Even so, the maximum numbers of elites should be two. If so, then polymorph one, and solo the other. When you finish the first elite, run away until you are out of combat and eat and drink up. Then go back and finish the second elite. If the elites aren't too hard, you can use a mana gem, a health potion, and an evocation if you have it, and proceed to the second elite without any downtime. -------- 8.b. Group Talents: Any. Professions: Tailoring/Enchanting or Alchemy/Herbalism. During group settings, the key isn't to finish enemies off as fast as possible (unless they have high damage capabilities too). The key instead is to maintain damage while controlling aggro. Fire-oriented mages generally aren't as good because they do so much damage that they tend to draw tons of aggro. For this reason, arcane oriented or frost oriented mages generally do a better job in groups. They can keep up a steady stream of damage without drawing too much hate. However, no matter what talent line you go for, one of the most important things for success in a group is a high DPS wand. Aggro control is very important in a group since your damage is so high, so it is important to switch to wand and melee action once in a while. A good strategy is to cast in bursts and use wand/melee in between. This is the best idea because your mana doesn't regenerate (or regenerate properly if you have mage armor) when you are casting. If you cast for periods of time and wand and melee the enemy the rest of the time, you'll be able to recover some mana. Preserving your mana is important too. No one likes to have to wait for their mage to sit down and take time to regenerate their mana. Of course this is inevitable at times, but if you can prevent the need to regenerate mana, while dishing out damage, then your group will well appreciate it. The only exception to this is when fighting bosses. When fighting bosses, you should give it your best shot, and unleash everything you have, after about 5 seconds or so when the tank has consolidated enough aggro. Make sure to ask a paladin for a Blessing of Salvation before this happens. Also, ready any mana gems and health/mana potions. In a group setting, remember what your role is. Your role is to provide the group with fast kills, outstanding AoE's, food/water, and crowd control. Rogues that take the Ambush/Backstab line will probably outdamage you. This does not mean that they are more useful! Although you may be out-damaged, you can still provide the group with AoE's, food, water, etc which rogues cannot provide. -------- 8.c Solo PvP and Dueling Normally it is not a good idea to try defeating other players by yourself, unless it is a duel. When PvPing, you never know if there are other players nearby. Also, when PvPing, you won't be able to defeat enemies of a higher level. If you had a higher level person to help you, then you can go for players of a broader level range. The following will contain strategies for killing each class of enemies. Note that situations will change depending on your talent line and depending on the level of the enemy as well as the talent line that they picked. Druid -Easy to Medium Druids can offer an easy fight, but if you aren't careful it will get pretty nasty. To start off with, you can expect them to use cat form and Prowl. There isn't much you can do about this except to keep mana shield on and hope that you can find them before they can jump you. After they pull of their opening move, keep your distance and continue blasting them. Eventually, they'll come out of cat and try to heal themselves. Counterspell their healing and keep on bolting them. They'll use Rejuvenation to heal themselves since it is an instant cast, but eventually their healing will not be able to catch up to the amount of health they are losing. If they manage to pull off a healing spell for whatever reason, keep on shooting them until they run out of mana and won't be able to cast any healing spells. Make sure you have a mana potion and a mana gem handy should you come to such a situation. Another situation is where they stay in caster form and spam you with Moonfire. If you don't have high resistances or stamina, this will most likely mark your doom. Your best bet is to silence them with Improved Counterspell later on when they are low on health. This way, they cannot damage you or heal themselves, marking their end. Hunter -Medium to Hard Hunters can make a fairly difficult fight. Polymorph them first, then, when their pet gets close, frost nova the pet and let off a flurry of shots at the hunter. If you can, Polymorph the pet afterwards. Hunters have a region where they cannot fire at you, and they cannot melee you. This is between the 5-8 yard range. Most hunters won't let you get into this secret spot, so it's imperative that you frost nova the hunter at some point (provided that it has recharged) and get a few moments where you won't get damaged. Use instant abilities or Arcane Missiles when they can fire at you. Hunters can shoot very fast, preventing you from using timed casts. Also make sure to have mana shield or Ice Barrier on. If they get lucky on their crits, you'll lose in no time. Mage -Easy to Hard The difficulty of fighting another mage is quite varying. If two mages have similar builds, it will mainly come down to resistances and stamina. I generally lose to other mages because I just don't have the time to get high resistance and stamina gear that also provide good bonuses to intellect. Since mage vs. mage battles are relatively short, intellect doesn't really matter except for crits. Always try and get the upper hand first. Start off with a silence followed by Polymorph. Then, throw off as many spells as you can within the next two or three seconds. This will usually get you in good stead. After your initial barrage, your best bet is Arcane Missiles since it will interrupt timed casts and should be able to take down about 1/3 of your opponent's health. Fireblast them in the end and this should take out most mages. Paladin -Medium Paladins can prove to be a somewhat easy fight. Most people get the feeling that Paladins don't die, and that they are the most difficult things to beat. While this is very true for a warrior, it's definitely not true for a mage. As always, start off with Polymorph, then let fly as many spells as possible. By the time they reach you, they'll most likely be down to 1/4 of their health and they'll have to shield and heal. Gain some range as they patch themselves up. Then turn around, and when their shield drops, Fireblast them and follow up with Frost Nova. Gain some range again, then cast as many spells as possible. By the time they reach you, they'll be low on health again, if they don't use Lay on Hands, use some Arcane Explosion and they'll be dead. If they do, polymorph again (unless you have all these DoT's on them). Then, bandage and use Evocation. If you can't poly them, use a mana gem, then kite them and deal as much damage as you can while conserving mana. Once your Frost Nova regenerates, use it, gain some range, hit them hard and that will be their end. Priest -Medium Priests may seem easy, fragile beings, but they're not. They're Mind Blast does some bad damage, and they also have a shield as well as numerous healing powers. Holy priests also gain access to Holy Fire, which if equipped with the proper talents has the casting time of a fireball (with no Improved Fireball), and has the same mana efficiency. Holy priests also get Holy Nova which heals them and damages you. Human priests also get an ability similar to Lay on Hands. Shadow priests get Vampiric Embrace, and undead priests get Devouring Plague, and these spells damage you and heal them. One more trick priests have is mana burn which slightly damages you, and burns away a portion of your mana. Sounds tough? You bet it is! Priests definitely aren't easy targets. The good part is that they die just as fast as mages. Break their shield, then keep on pounding them. Counterspell them when they use a healing spell (their hands will glow yellow), but use some judgment too. If their hands glow yellow early on, then they'll probably be using Smite, and that is a damage spell which you won't have to worry about too much. Counterspell them later on and they won't be able to heal themselves, and they will be as good as dead. Rogue -Easy/Hard The difficulty of a rogue is quite varying. If they're the type that uses Cheap Shot to open up the fight, they generally won't pose too much of a threat as you can just blink away to cancel the stun. If they are the Ambush kind, then things will be tougher. Their Ambush, when used will most likely drain 1/3 of your health, even with mana shield. Your best bet is to try and reveal them with rank 1 Arcane Explosion. I like to use this against rogues so that I may get a chance to detect them while stealthed. Once they are revealed, get some distance and polymorph them. If they chose to vanish, try to find them again, or use bandages to regain any lost health. After they come out of their second stealth, get distance, polymorph, and start firing. Just don't let them get close enough to Gouge/Blind you, then backstab and you will be fine. Shaman -Hard Always stay out of range of these guys and never ever try let them melee you. Most shaman will have Windfury Weapon up. This shaman buff gives them a chance to gain two extra attacks that have extra attack power. If their Windfury procs, be ready to face some major damage. It's a bit hard to stay away from a shaman because many times, they will use Frost Shock to slow you down, then move in for the kill, so it is imperative to slow them down as well. Save up your counterspell as well. When you see them heal up, Counterspell to prevent their healing. The main reason Shaman are "hard" is because they have very good damage and they also have plenty of health. You can pretty much think of Shaman as Warriors that can heal and have much higher damage, but less armor. This can make it so that Shaman can toast any class, even one that has excellent mobility like a mage. Warlock -Medium/Near Impossible Warlocks will be, by far, your toughest fight. While they probably won't pose much of a threat if they have an imp or Voidwalker out (just polymorph caster and kill the pet), it will be near impossible to kill a warlock with a Felhunter. The Felhunter has many anti-caster abilities such as a counterspell, an ability that damages you when you cast a spell, and they can also remove buffs from you. Not sure if they have any other abilities, but these are the ones that I can confirm. In large scale PvP, warlocks generally won't be using Felhunters because it is a far to specialized pet. In this case, you'll probably have a leg up them and they will most likely prove to be a medium-hard fight. After you kill a warlock, you will generally die after their DoT's get through their full duration. Therefore, it's a good idea to have a priest along your side so that they can despell magic effects. However, even if you do eventually die from the DoT, they won't be able to get you as an honor kill since they're already dead. Warrior -Easy/Medium You can almost be sure that they'll start off with Charge. After the stun you receive wears away, Frost Nova them. Polymorph them so that they can't shoot you with ranged weapons and hit them hard. After this, you can be sure they'll use intercept you. If they don't have enough range, they'll scooch back a bit to get their range. Note that Intercept also has a 3 second stun attached to it, so blink away immediately after they pull off this ability on you. Throw some more spells at them, then when they close the range, Cone of Cold or Blast Wave them. Afterwards, start walking backwards or sideways (whichever way to get a bit of range) and spam Arcane Explosion. This should be enough to take out a seasoned warrior, even one with a lot of hit points and resistances. -------- 8.e Group PvP So far, I think PvPing with a raid party is the most fun. There are so many people, and it is very chaotic and quite exciting. When PvPing in a group, the first thing to remember is to keep your range. Stay inside large crowds, or hide behind obstructions so that enemies will have a hard time getting at you. Use AoE's whenever enemies are clumped together in one spot. Oftentimes, if you use ranged AoE's such as Blizzard, enemies won't really know who's casting it. If you use stuff like Arcane Explosion, the enemy players will generally be able to home in on you. If you get sighted, don't panic, try to dish out as much damage as possible before you die. Frost mages and mages who take Alchemy and Herbalism have an upper hand here. They can use an Invulnerability Potion, or an Ice Block to stop any incoming damage. This buys them plenty of time, and by the time the effects wear off, the enemy players will probably have lost interest on you and would have gone after other targets. There really isn't a right or wrong target to fight, so long as it is not labeled as "Civilian". However, you should consider which targets to take down first depending on their role in the battlefield. Priests in the enemy group should be taken down first, or taken out of action by polymorphing them. Priests not only can heal, but their AoE Fear can be devastating. Once the priests are down, or put out of action, go after other targets. Take out mages and rogues first to prevent them from doing their damage. In addition, take out Warlocks so that they can't start fearing when their priest is gone. Targets that can't deal much damage, but have high survivability can be put at the back end of the list since they won't pose much threat to your group. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9. Disclaimer Copyright (c)2005 Josh Gregs. All rights reserved. This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. I will grant www.gamefaqs.com, www.neoseeker.com, www.gamerstemple.com, www.wowarmy.com, www.supercheats.com, and http://www.onlinegametrader.net to post a copy of this guide. If you wish to post this guide at your site, or if you have suggestions, e-mail me at: lotr9_1@hotmail.com I am open to any suggestions you have, because in order to create a perfect guide, I must have opinion from readers! In addition, I might be able to learn something from others too. Thanks go to: -Noah Parquette for pointing out Blink can get you out of stuns. (Wish I had known that earlier.) -Valjiin who had a ton of suggestions. -Craig Henderson and me Kender for giving extra suggestions on pvping against hunters and warriors. -Ryan Thiessen for helping me with some warlock and shaman pvp tips. -Joe Blow and Xalrath for more Warlock tips. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 10. Helpful Sites For additional information on mages, as well as information about the wonderful World of Warcraft, here are some pages that you may wish to visit: http://www.thottbot.com (World of Warcraft information database) http://wow.allakhazam.com (Another World of Warcraft database, slightly different information) http://www.worldofwarcraft.com (Official World of Warcraft website) http://ui.worldofwar.net (Tons of World of Warcraft UI mods) http://www.curse-gaming.com (More UI mods.)