Re: Tips/Suggestions for PvPing my Mage...

On Jan 13, 12:18 pm, IYM <"S U N risr"@optonline.net> wrote:
I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to play a mage in a
PvP enivironment.  I've rolled a level 67 frost mage in a PvE and do
very well for myself, by myself and in groups & instances.  I know my
job when in an instance and I know my class.  The problem I'm having is
when I have a PvP instance I have to do to earn to get better gear (i.e.
the quests in Hellfire to take the stadium, etc).  I get slaughtered,
I'm sure do to my lack of experience with PvP.  When fighting the
environment, it's fairly predictable in how the game will react.  The
challenge with the mage is they can't move for most attacks of mine that
do decent damage (although I just got ice lance, so maybe that'll help)
so I just get pummeled by players that run, jump around, whack at me
with my paper armor before I can get a shot off (instead of being nice
and just walk straight at me like mobs do after hitting them with a bolt
of ice...lol - joke)  I guess I'm just not a good PvP player which is
why I rolled in a PvE...maybe my reaction time is too slow and
coordination bad...dunno.  I don't mind losing a fight, but I swear I
have never even come close to beating someone and I don't like getting
slaughtered.  Anyone have any suggestions as what I can be doing to
survive or at least make it close?

Nothing is more powerful in this game than a well-organized team
working together. Nothing. Not gear, not skill, nothing.

Even a team of two is far more powerful than the two individual
characters separately.

Very soon, if you haven't already, you're going to outgrow any rewards
that can be gotten from the Hellfire daily anyway.
You should be queuing for Alterac Valley in between Northrend quests.
(I realize I'm speaking a couple of levels past your character, but
it's been a few hours since your post.)

Spec your mage deep frost. Don't even put a single point anywhere
else. Glyph for Eternal Water.
Run Alterac Valley over and over and over and over. This is a fast
track to the high 70s. Don't just follow the mob to Van (I assume you
are Horde). Learn a tower site (I prefer Frostwolf) and play Defense
on it. Don't pay any attention to what anyone says about Defense in
Battleground chat. When the Allies come to take your tower, you can
kill the first wave yourself. Stand on the tower and Blizzard the
gate. 7.2 seconds of Blizzard, 2.4 seconds of eating, rinse, repeat.
This will slow them as they come through, and your water elemental
will get a hit on them too, and you will have time for a Frost Bolt.
Rack up a few kills that way, and then loot the badges from the
corpses and turn them in at the bunker for reputation. Horde will win
more often for two reasons -- 1. Frostwolf is defended instead of
mindlessly sacrificed, and 2. If others in your group know what they
are doing, your rep quest turnins will increase the strength of your
faction.

You will get really good experience from doing this.

A mage alone is not going to magically become a PvP player for melee,
that is simply not going to happen, don't even try to do what the
paladins and the DK's and the feral druids do. Mage PvP is not at all
the same kind of play.

Spellsteal might be the best thing in your arsenal, by the way. Alone
as a mage, you can:

Counterspell a healer (this *severely* weakens a melee character, more
than they will admit)
Spellsteal buffs. This weakens many classes.
Invisibility gets you out of trouble.
Put your Water Elemental on Aggro and send him into fights to finish
off what others started.
Make a macro to drink your endless healing potion, cast Lifeblood, and
Iceblock. Your pet will stay on aggro for those 10 seconds and this
will often save you long enough for them to die. Blink and cast
invisibility.
Feather Fall FTW -- more useful in WSG than in AV, but it gets you
away from people who can't follow.

I can't stress this enough, though -- spec deep frost and learn that
slowing them down and stopping them is just as important as damage.
If you counterspell a Paladin, he loses his Holy school, which is the
reason he's so tough. If you counterspell a healer Druid, he's out of
the game and in the graveyard.

You should take it as a compliment when they gang up on you, not a
weakness. A mage is so dangerous that it is actually worthwhile for 4
or 5 of them to spend the precious time attacking YOU, and you take a
good while to die... during that time they aren't attacking a plate-
wearer on your team. Think about it. BG deaths aren't expensive on
repair, and sometimes take you to a graveyard that's a better tactical
position than where you died... And if they are wasting time killing
YOU, there's a bunch of melee players who they are ignoring.

No amount of gear and no amount of experience is going to stop you
from being a squishy. Gear helps a little, but won't help as much as
knowing where to stand and what fights to get into, and getting an
instinct for when and how to run away.

And I will say again, there is nothing that will give a higher
competitive advantage than teamwork. If you join a BG as functional 5-
man group and stick together and cooperate, you will own it. I
realize that's a tall order -- getting a group of people to cooperate
on *anything* is *hard* even when you are paying them salaries. But
even a group of 2 can simply own, way better than either individual.
.

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