Posted by
wowgame on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 9:23:30 AM
- Watch Your Cooldowns
Mage class is very different from other classes in that it has many
spells with short cooldown times, and these spells also constitute the
core arsenal for a mage. You should constantly monitor the time left on
Fire Blast; Frost Nova; Blink; and Counterspell, so as to maximize your
damage and survivability. This is a bit harder than it sounds, since it
is very easy to develop "tunnel vision" when there are a lot of actions
going on in the middle of your screen. You could use a mod to help you
in this area, or you could just play more and eventually you will
develop a sense of time as to when your cooldowns are about to expire,
so that you don't have to watch them constantly
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The other aspect of "watching your cooldowns" is knowing when to use
them, especially for your Frost Nova, Blink and Counterspell. For
example, in most cases you don't want to blow both Frost Nova and Blink
in short succession because after that you will have very little
defense left. Similarly, you may not want to use Counterspell at your
first opportunity, but reserve it for the more critical moments. The
same goes for other cooldown-related abilities such as racial traits
and PvP trinkets, I will say a few more words about them in later
sections
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- Move
Even though you are a caster and many of your spells require you to be
stationary to cast, you shouldn't just stand at one place without
moving an inch the whole time. On the contrary, moving is an integral
part of mage combat because you need to constantly adjust the distance
and facing between you and your enemy to take advantage of terrains and
make sure your spells can hit him but he would have a hard time hitting
you. This isn't just for when you are up against melee classes. For
example, if you can run in circles around a caster such as a priest,
he will have a very hard time in landing a spell on you due to facing
requirement, while you can still blast him with your instant spells.
The general rule is that you should be moving whenever your Global
Cooldown (GCD) is up.
- Learn to Multitask
There will be plenty of times when you (and perhaps your teammates with
you) face multiple opponents, and this is where multitasking comes in:
you need to juggle between doing damage; crowd control through
Polymorph and snare; Counterspelling; moving; and staying alive. To
accomplish this you have to be quick in the eyes and fast at hands,
shifting targets and spells constantly to meet any challenge your
opponents throw at you and your team. This isn't something you can
learn overnight just by reading some guides or watching some video
clips, you really need to be in those situations to learn to not to
panic and cast the correct spells under pressure. As I've stated in the
Introduction, the warlock class offers some great training on
multitasking, since you will be controlling both your character and
your pet and coordinate between the two. If you can juggle three mobs
or two players effortlessly on a warlock, then you are well on your way
to become a good multitasker
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- Develop Fast Reflex and Good Anticipation
These two are sort of tied together in that good anticipation will help
you to react quicker. As an example of what I mean by "anticipation",
let's say you are fighting a priest and all of a sudden he runs toward
you, you should realize at this point that he is about to use Psychic
Scream so have your finger ready on that trinket or WotF key. As for
"fast reflex", any PvP mage should be able to Counterspell a 1.5 second
cast under any circumstance. A mage with great anticipation and reflex
such as Saerdna can Cold Snap and Ice Block within under a second after
he senses a potential killing blow is coming.
- Create an Efficient and Effective Keybinding Scheme
I won't get into the whole "Clicker vs. Keybinder" argument, because
there is simply no debate whatsoever that keybinding is absolutely
essential when it comes to PvP. To create a good keybinding scheme, I
suggest you to look at the spells you want to use, and the keys you can
most comfortably and reliably reach during the heat of battle, then
assign the most accessible keys to those spells that you use the most.
You also need to think about what spells you may need to use while you
are on the move, so that you can assign them to keys that you can still
press easily while you are running. It will take a bit of work to get
everything right, but you will be amply rewarded for your effort. This
whole process varies from person to person, but if you need some ideas,
you could check out the movie Sorrow Hill 5 from Otherguy, or you check
out a later section (5.4) where I put down what keybindings I use.
- Watch Mage Videos and Learn
One of the best ways to become better at a class is to learn from the
masters. Over the years a few names stand out from the rest, they are
Otherguy, Saerdna, and Vurtne. Even though their videos are mostly
about World PvP, I strongly recommend that you watch them, because
everything I've said in this section, such as "Watch Your Cooldowns",
"Move", etc., is all superbly demonstrated in these videos. For more
information about these videos, refer to the video section later in
this guide.