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Originally Posted by 00111000
So I shelved my hunter for a bit and rolled up a mage this weekend. My lord are they fun! The playstyle is so much different and I can actually get instance groups without having to beg! I just hit 21 and have done wailing caverns twice now. I love doing crowd control...sheep is one of the funniest spells out there, until some jackass warlock keeps dropping dots on em! 
Havent had much chance to PvP with him yet though, any mages care to share some strategys with me? |
Welcome to the light! Mages are fun indeed and an extremely powerful PvP class when played right. If played poorly you'll get murdered so fast you won't know what hit you. The most popular mage build on my server seems to be 31 fire/20 arcane or 31 arcane/20 fire. The point of these two builds is to frontload as much damage as possible, i.e. sheep the target and cast combustion or arcane power followed by pyroblast/fireball depending on your build and then some instant cast spells.
This is usually a good tactic since most targets will panic and do something stupid after that first beating. However, more experienced pvp'ers know that this is what a mage is likely to do and won't panic. Any healing class for example can heal up and then go to work on you. This is where counterspell comes in handy. These two builds are nice but you'll be a kind of one-trick pony that if you don't do enough damage after that first round, you're most likely screwed.
I like a more versatile scorch build that is becoming more and more popular due to Otherguy on Ilidan who posted some very impressive PvP movies. This guy is very very good at playing a mage and most people think if I can copy his build I'll be just as good which isn't true. His movement, camera control and knowing how to play against other classes is what makes him good.
Check out his movies here:
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/viewauthor.php?id=180
His build is either 30 fire/21 Arc or 28 Arc/23 Fire. Personally I'm using the latter, 28 Arc/23 Fire, but it's personal preference. I like the burst damage I can get off Arcane Instability over the constant 10% damage increase in Fire Power.
This build is based on kiting and not frontloading a ton of damage. If you can move well, you'll do very well. If you stand still, you're dead. But basically you'll be relying on scorch and fireblast for most of the battle only using presence of mind -> fireball as a finisher.
Hope this helps a bit!
--jaded
EDIT: I can't comment on frost/ice builds for PvP since they are few and far between from what I've seen. Maybe they are good I don't know.