Peter's Blog

Maecyn

I got caught up in mage play and ran Maecyn up nine levels to level 20. I'm not sure I would call Mage easy mode but in getting to level 20 she has died a total of three times despite fighting predominantly equal level mobs and tackling whatever quests I attempted, e.g. clearing Trogg camps in Loch Modan. This is better than I managed with Paladin/Hunter/Warlock/Druid.

I dont' think this was because mages are overpowered but rather because Frost Nova is just THE most useful thing in the world. She can use it as a freezing trap during a fight or she can drop it while running away and leave a group of monsters standing. I've spent the talent points in reducing the cooldown to 21 seconds so I can use it twice in particularly tricky fights. This attack works nice against melee mobs:

• Frost bolt (damage + slowing effect)
• Arcane Missiles (damage as the slowly approach)
• Fire Blast (instant damage, 6 second cooldown, I think of it as a shotgun for some reason)
• Frost Nova to freeze them
• Jump back
• Fire bolt: three second cast for them to say their prayers
• If the Fire Bolt didn't get them, a Fire Blast or wand will.

Fighting anything with a ranged attack becomes a problem. Mage has a 'Dampen Magic' buff that reduces damage taken from spells (and reduces friendly healing which isn't an issue when soloing) but it didn't make much difference against dragonkin or knife/bow weilders (anything with 'scout' in it's name). Because the mob isn't frozen the mage is continually taking damage so the mob has to be burnt down quick. I found this to be quickest:

• Fire Bolt (three second cast but this is 'before' the fight i.e. the enemy isn't hitting me)
• Fire Blast (have to get into 20 yard range to fire it now, get it in early so the cooldown will start running and it can be used again)
• Arcane Missiles. During this time the mob is firing back and some of the missiles may not fire if I am taking hits but some of the missiles do land. A Fire Bolt during this time will be interrupted a lot, too much to be useful. Repeat Arcane Missiles till Fire Blast has cooled down.
• Fire Blast.
• Wand to death

Ranged mobs are much harder than melee and Maecyn usually needs food/drink between EACH fight (bah).

Polymporph (sheeping) is handy when attacking pairs but it is very situational. I sometime polymorph an add during a fight but I am aware that sheeping allows it to heal so I only use it on healthy mobs.

At level 20 she got Blink, Blizzard, Teleports and some other goodies.

• Blink: I love it. Heavenly. If frost nova is on cooldown, this instantly puts 20 yards between you and the mob. Melee Mobs are invariably slowed by Frost Armour so 20 yards gives good time to land some Arcane Missiles. Maecyn could handle level 23 raptors with the aid of blink. Also good for running away, in one case it seemed to put in enough distance to instantly make the mob give up. I had one fight in murloc country go very wrong and she ended up running through level 25 murloc territory. Frost Nova/Blink got her through it. She uses it every 15 seconds while running, passes the time on long runs watching the cooldown expire.
• Blizzard. I don't think she is in AoE grinding terriory yet but when an add joins a fight she can frost nova the pair then use this to finish off the first while damaging the second.
• Teleports: Ironforge and Stormwind are 10 seconds away! Love it too.

ToDo: script to eat & drink bound to a hotkey. Oh and conjuour water automatically if there isn't any. And make space in inventory for the water. And play the game for me while I watch telly.

UPDATE: @ level 20 I also got Mana Shield and then completely forgot to try it, too busy blinking. Too many goodies in one go. There's another skill to regenerate mana but it has an 8 minute cooldown