Mages are one of two support dps classes - Warlocks are the other.
Their main role is not only that of giving good damage per second -
dps- but also to apply crowd control -cc- and silences on enemies.
Sheep spell is great for CC and does exactly what it says to an
opponent rendering them bleetingly useless. They also have counter
spell, which either silences all trees for 4 seconds or if a person is
counter spelled during a cast, they cannot cast a spell in that tree
(fire/holy/shadow/frost) for 8 seconds.
As well as this they have a right good dose of dps that makes them a
very valid suport class. Their ability to kite is also of note and know
how to keep well away from melee classes or mobs. They possess blink
(shoots them 15 yards ahead), frost nova (freezes everyone in a range
for X seconds), and armor that when hit slows or freezes opponents.
They are powerful but there is a balance to this in that Mages are
notably "squishy" - they die fast if you can get to them.
Various specs makes them very useful in arenas. Most will go deep frost
which boosts their survival rate. On the other hand some Mages who have
exceptional kiting abilities will play as 21 fire or deep fire and this
gives them an sizeable burst dps.
and a pet, with its own frost nova and abilities that greatly increase
the Mages' overall dps.
Frost Mages:
Used mostly for defensive teams where fight tend to drag on longer.
Fire Mages will simply not withstand consitent damage meted out for
long spells. A frost Mage has two ice blocks:frozen and immune to
anything but heals, they can absorb damage using an ice barrier, use
chill armor to give them kiting options
Because of these defensive abilities, Warriors will usually only hop on
a Frost Mage if it has Blessing of freedom to get through all the
kiting. Frost Mages are seldom targeted in 5v5 arena - an ice block
stops all dps on him. Even if this does not apply until the
uppoer echelons of 5v5, Mages high up often employ most of their time
crowd controlling opponents and deaing out heals and dps through CS and
kiting. Mages will only really start to dps once one of the opponents
drop below the 50% range, then the mage goes all out hoping to drop the
target.
Fire Mages:
Are more often seen on very aggressive teams, such as PvE Clickers and
some 4 dps lineups. They have considerably less survivability than
their Frost Mage counterpart, but they make up for that with the
ability to put out extremely high burst dps. Fire Mages shine even more
when they are played by people who have learned how to kite effectively
with one. Deep Fire mages have a chance to get a sprint when attacked,
and they do not lose the frost nova and blink that allows them to keep
people off them.
I had a personal problem in one 3v3 arena with a Fire Mage as he was
extremely good at kiting/sheeping/ccing and we could not bring him
down. Along with this he had the ability to put out insane damage over
a very short amount of time. He could take me down, with over 13k hp
and 250 resilience (very good), in 8 seconds after he counter spelled
me. This damage definitely comes in hand with 4 dps teams, where their
goal is to kill an opponent extremely fast. The Mage is usually
targeted first in this scenario (unless their is a Shadow Priest) so
its job is to get a sheep and/or a cs off during the initial phase and
then unloads all of its abilities on their target before it dies,
although as mentioned earlier some top players can stay alive.
