Leveling up as a Mage can be considered a challenge compared to some of the more level friendly classes such as the Hunter or Warlock, but that doesn’t make it any less worthwhile. There is a sort of mystical enjoyment out of blowing away enemies with fire and frozen might that you can’t get elsewhere. There are undoubtedly a massive number of enemies between level one through eighty that need to be blown away and the more you know about combat then the easier it’ll be to smash their faces in with burning or frosty might.

Battle Tactics - The Art of Kiting

Combat for the Mage is pretty dynamic when they’re confronted with an enemy attacking directly. Mages don’t fare well to sustained hits and need to take their enemies out before they can lay a hit in. Think about it this way. A Warrior is decked out in full plate that is magically augmented to be stronger will laugh at an ogre throwing a mace about. A Mage who is wearing nothing but pajamas and dresses are going to have a mighty different opinion about that mace. That opinion will be GET AWAY FROM IT which should be your motto during the lower levels.

The Mage comes equipped with a large variety of abilities and tools to keep enemies far away. Frost Nova is given at a very early level (level 10 in fact) and will “freeze” an enemy into place. The freeze affect comes into play at higher levels as a way to boost DPS, but for now its primary use is to keep enemies “rooted” into place. This will give you time to get away and grab some distance.

Understanding roots and snares is quintessential in learning kiting. Your first ten levels won’t have a lot in the way of angry ogres with large maces (although there may be some nasty gnolls with candles) so you won’t have to worry much about things beating on you. After level ten is about when you’ll want to take into consideration one of two ideologies. You can either kill things before they can get to you or you can “kite” enemies about. That is, to blow the enemy apart in front of you or run around with them chasing you in simpler non-magical terms.

In most cases you’ll want to aim for the first but that’s not always the case. Sometimes you’ll need to drag enemies about for a bit before you can get them down. In order to this you’ll want to either root (Frost Nova for instance) the enemy or snare them (Frostbolt, Cone of Cold, Ice Armor, etc.) and then gain some distance and unleash as much arcane/fiery/frosty might as you can.

A good play by play example would be pulling a non-descript slime. As a Fire Mage you may find that a Pyroblast, Fireball, and then a Fire Blast are enough to decimate your foe. What if that non-descript slime is super burly, above your level, and has a unique name (in this instance is known as Bob)? Well, what can you do? Start off with a Pyroblast, Fireball, and the Fire Blast but then move in with a Frost Nova. Run as far away as you can and unload more Fireballs into it. When it reaches you again let it snag your Ice Armor and then gain more distance and cast more spells. This way it does a lot less damage to you, prevents a good deal of knockback (each enemy hit can slow your casting speed), and lets you successfully solo an encounter that you may not be able to take by tanking the enemy.

Now, this isn’t always the case. It isn’t always necessary. Some enemies may arrive to you nearly dead and in need of one more spell or some enemies may do trivial amounts of damage to you. Some may be casters which can only be kited with Counterspell (a spell you get much later). For the difficult to take melee classes this is the only way to go.

Battle Tactics - Spell Rotation

Spell rotation is the order in which you cast your spells or use your abilities. For many classes it’s their key to success but for Mages there isn’t a lot to talk about. There are two viable leveling builds: Frost and Fire and each of them have a very basic rotation for the first forty levels.

First Few Levels

The first few levels are very simple. You’ll only have one real ability that does damage and that’s Fireball. Until you get level 15 or 20 you’ll just want to constantly spam Fireball until the enemy is dead. You’ll eventually get Fire Blast which you can use whenever the enemy is hitting you for some quick instant DPS.