The mage is a DPS casters that specializes in burst damage and area of effect spells. Their primary role in a group at lower levels is damage dealing and crowd control through the use of Polymorph, temporarily changing humanoids and beasts into harmless critters. At end-game levels, mages' damage is supplemented with Counterspell, Remove Curse, and Spellsteal. Mages' utility spells also include conjuring food and drink and the ability to teleport to major cities and open portals for party members. In PvP, Mage deals ranged damage while using snare effects and Polymorph to control enemy players. As damage casters, primary stats are spell power, spell hit rating and spell haste. intellect, stamina, spell crit, and spirit also benefit mages, but to a lesser degree.
When first created, a mage is only able to wield staves and wands; one can later learn how to use daggers and one-handed swords from weapon masters in Stormwind, Darnassus and the Exodar for the Alliance, Undercity and Silvermoon for the Horde. Wands go in the ranged slot and have the autoshoot ability, and do not require any form of ammunition. A mage can only wear cloth armor.
Mages have a wide variety of spells which fall in to three schools of magic: arcane, fire and frost. All spell schools include damage spells. Arcane includes some crowd control and utility, and most Frost spells provide a movement-slow effect supplementing their damage.
Fire spells are primarily damage-dealing spells, including direct single-target damage and area of effect damage. Many Fire spells include damage over time effects.
Frost spells are primarily single-target and area of effect damage-dealing spells, but with more emphasis on chilling effects. Nearly every frost spell has a chill or freeze effect that fully or partially immobilizes an enemy. This includes freezing it in place (called a root) or slowing its movement speed (called a snare). Frost specialized mages can further improve these chilling effects and increase frost damage output to respectable levels. Frost spells help the mage use kiting as a combat tactic.
Arcane spells include single-target damage spells and utility. Arcane spells allow the mage to remove curses, provide crowd control, absorb damage, teleport himself or others to major capital cities, Slow Fall, Counterspell, buff players' intellect stat, save mana for later use in the form of mana gems, conjure food and water for himself or others, and provide many other conveniences.
Arcane and Fire are the trees currently best suited to raid damage. Frost's snare effects and Ice Barrier make it the best leveling and PvP tree. Fire and Arcane specs lack the control and survival abilities crucial to leveling and PvP.
