Each week Arcane Brilliance brings you a new batch of Mageliciousness, served fresh and piping hot on a magical floating snack table. This week, we take a long hard look at a sore spot for the Mage community at large: Arena PvP. Don’t despair! Mages can be useful in Arenas…as long as we aren’t being hit…or silenced…or cycloned repeatedly…or looked at sideways by a Warlock…
With patch 2.4 looming, many Mages may be making that final push to level 70 so they can participate in all that wonderful new content. If you missed Arcane Brilliance’s look at what’s new for us, you should check it out. We’ll wait. Done? Good, because once you’ve had your fill of all that shiny new PvE hotness, you may find yourself wondering what else there is to do until the expansion hits. If you’re slightly masochistic, or into self-flagellation, or possibly just mildly deranged, you may decide to try out the Arena.
Some may try to talk you out of it. You should probably listen to them. I’m not going to lie to you; it isn’t pretty. People get hurt in there. Keyboards tend to become airborne. Expletives may be uttered, and not in a conversational tone. We’re talking “hide the children, Daddy’s saying the naughty words” kind of stuff. Especially when you’re a Mage.
What’s that? You still want to go?
Ok. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now that you’ve decided you simply must touch the stove in order to learn how hot it is, the least I can do is prepare you for that eventual burning sensation, and the emotional and possibly physical scarring that will eventually result. I will try to arm you for the coming battle, my friends, the best I know how.
After the jump, I’ll list 10 things that I wish I’d known when I started my career as a gladiator.
A gladiator wielding a stick and wearing a dress.
1. At first you will lose. A lot.
How many matches do you think you’ll lose before you start winning? Ok, take that number and add a zero or two. You’re in the ballpark. Mages have a hard time in Arena a lot longer than most classes, due in large part to the fact that most of our pre-epic gear is high on spell damage and crit and intellect, and not so high on stamina. Until we’ve earned our first few pieces of high-stamina arena gear, we tend to die in only a few hits from just about anyone. Unless you’ve somehow been adopted into an already established and very good Arena team, you’re in for a lot of pain. Stick it out, assemble a few pieces of gear, and this trend will start to change. I’m sorry if that sounds discouraging, but it’s simply the way it is.
2. You will die almost every match.
Here’s the cold truth: unless you have a healer teammate, the other team is likely going after you first. They see your mismatched blue and green cloth armor and visions of a quick kill dance through their heads. Clothies might as well have a giant bullseye painted on their heads in the Arena. The opposing team will come after you quickly, and kill you before you can say “Ice Block.” Survivability is very difficult to achieve for Mages as a class, perhaps moreso than any other class. There are a few ways to extend your life a bit, though.
a. Spec Frost. No other Mage spec can survive in Arena as long as Frost Mages. Your raw damage potential may suffer by speccing this way, but you can’t Pyroblast anything if you’re dead. Oh how I wish you could Pyroblast things after death. I wish it so much.
b. Learn ways to “drop aggro” when the other team comes for you. There are two tools for this. One is good and the other is only good on very rare occasion. I’ll go into both of them in a minute.
c. Blink. A lot. I mean all the time. When Blink’s cooldown comes up, it’s almost always a good idea to cast it. It’s maddening for melee classes to try to follow a Mage who knows how to Blink and does it a lot. After 2.4 hits, Blink will become a lot better, so learn it and love it. Using it in conjunction with Frost Nova can sometimes buy you enough time to run behind a pillar and bandage or eat/drink. The only time I can think of when you shouldn’t be blinking is when you’re not being attacked. If that’s the case, well, enjoy killing the other team.
d. Make friends with the healer. Make sure he knows he can heal you when you’re Ice Blocked. Bake him cookies. Tell him the Warrior said something nasty about him. Do what you have to do to get him to throw you just one heal, any heal. If you can get just a few more seconds of life, the damage you can do with it is greater than almost any other class.
The trick here is learning to be as useful as possible before your inevitable demise. If you can manage to take down one member of the opposing team before you meet your painful and possibly embarrassing end, chances are you’ve been effective enough to help your team win. Unload your best spells, blow your cooldowns, and don’t hold anything back. Unless you’re very fortunate, you won’t be alive long enough to save your best for last. Hit hard, and hit fast.
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