Class Strengths and Weaknesses

Mages do amazing damage, and have some of the best crowd control in the game. They are also the easiest class to die. Essentially, Mages are glass cannons.

Mages do damage with direct spells, they can unleash huge damage in a little time and they have effective area of effect (AOE) spells that slow and damage every enemy in a certain radius.

Mages have great crowd control. Their enemies are left to wander around lost and dazed as they are polymorphed by the Mage into sheep and other critters. They can slow enemies in a blizzard of frost. In either PVE or PVP game play, the Mages crowd control functions well.

Mages are depended upon to cause major damage in groups (raids and instances) as well as give out intellect buffs to all casters, polymorph key targets and set a nice table by way of conjuring a Table of Refreshments providing food to regenerated mana and health.

Suggested Professions

Tailoring with Enchanting is a good choice for a Mage (if you have lots of gold to level these expensive professions). You can create awesome armor for yourself that won’t be exceeded until you get raid gear.

An excellent choice for various buff is Alchemy which will either compensate for you deficienies (more life, damage absorption) or improve your strengths (more spell damage).

Obviously, Blacksmithing and Leatherworking have little to offer, unless you are able to make them into lucrative gold-making professions.

Mage Talents

Starting with level 10, and from then on at every level, you get a talent point to spend. Tailoring your WoW character is provided by way of talent trees. Each of the three talent trees you have to choose from has a different focus of capabilities. Be sure to spend your talent point each time you level.

Careful planning of what tree or trees to spend your points on is vital. You have to pay gold to get talent points refunded. A few suggestions for the best mage builds are made for your class in World of Warcraft Mastery guides.