2v2 Mage Arena Strategy and Tips

Disclaimer: Playing as a Mage in 2v2 is viable and will get you your desired rating of 1850 or 2000. However, it should be something you do for fun–you will save yourself alot of stress this way. Just remember, for every mage above 2k there are about 30+ druids.

That being said, I wanted to make my first Mage arena guide something very basic.
Before starting, the most important DO for mages in arena is getting a “viable” partner. Fortunately for mages, they are a wild card (trademark ;) ) dps class–meaning that as long as they are running with another DPS class it will be viable. Most mages opt for a rogue partner as I have done, but your partners are not limited to rogues. If you’re asking yourself right now… “Why not a healer?”, i’m going to assume you do not play a mage and therefore do not realize why this would not work. Anyways, I digress.

THE BASIC DONT’S OF PLAYING A MAGE IN ARENA

1) Ice Block Timing

This is where I see Mages screwing up time and time again. For some unexplainable reason, Mages have this automated response to the “Low Health” warning as “IC3 BLOK TIM3!” To shortly explain why this is bad, I will now make a horrible analogy and you will love it. Using ice block to avoid death is like taking a megaphone and yelling to the entire arena: “HEY EVERYONE, I AM ABOUT TO DIE AND AM IN ALOT OF DANGER…OK?”. This announcement will lead to an either of two crappy situations: they will CC your partner and wait for your 10 sec immune to end, or they will 2v1 your helpless partner.
Use ice block to avoid damage and NOT death. Most probably your partner has no healing abilities and you will save yourself the match in most instances if you follow this basic rule of thumb. Some examples you ask? If a rogue is glowing red and sprinting at you screaming jihad while foaming from the mouth, now would be a good time to ice block. If a warrior has a full rage bar and is looking to use your kleenex armor as a polishing rag, now would be a good time to iceblock. /end crappy examples

2) Water Elemental Strategy

To avoid a lengthy opener, Mages… PLEEAAASSEEE summon your pet on passive mode. Make it obey you like the little slave it is. I have fought several mage/rogue teams where there water elemental has actually water bolted me out of their rogue’s blind. This is really a pathetic way of losing a match. Set your water elemental macro to summon on passive and I also recommend keybinding pet attack to a button, therefore if you target switch (which mage teams do alot), you will not have to worry about ol’ squishy disagreeing with your change of focus. Always pay attention to who your elemental is attacking, put up a pet’s target frame if you have to… just make sure it is ALWAYS on your kill target

3) Crowd Control vs. DPS

As a mage in 2v2 (hell, in any bracket) your basic role should always be CC. If there are targets that need to be controlled, CONTROL THEM! Your partner can do damage too, let him do it. Alot of mages seem to have this mindset that if they are not constantly doing damage then they will not win. If you are running with a rogue, chances are they will hold there own in 1v1 as ShS. Make sure that healer doesn’t give his partner an unfair advantage over your rogue. In general (do not always follow this) most arena matches I run involves me running around CC’ing and casting instants on our target, only stopping to chain Kidney Shot with a Shatter Combo. I have seen too many mages cast spells as their partner is getting their ass torn open while me and our partner are running free. Remember, even if DR are in effect, your snares count as CC also against melee classes.

4) Mana Shield

“The spell is so bad that if it were allowed to be cast on enemy players, it would be overpowered”
- WoW Mage Forums

5) Mage Invisibility

Alot of mages like to enter an arena with this up to initiate an “element of surprise” in their enemies. There is in fact nothing wrong with this, on paper at least. Lets take some real life examples (actually happened) that allowed me to learn the hard way of why it is better to save this spell:
- you pop invisibility only to be met by a warlock staring you straight in the face, Result: wasted cooldown, no gain
- you pop invisibility against a double stealth team, great… now what? your partner can’t communicate anything to you. And chances are, you could end up uncloaking right infront of a rogue, Result: wasted cooldown, possible bad start up
-you pop invisibility, get a good opener w/ surpise, now your left to 1v1 somebody and have no mana or health to do it…invisibility could have saved you the match here, Result: possible lost match
You can get where i’m getting at here, we have actually won matches before due to me getting several ticks of a drink off due to invisibility. Not only that, it has helped me evade death before to bandage back up. Save this cooldown, you’ll know when to use it… trust me. It is highly situational, but yields high gains if saved for the right team. Remember, you are not a stealthing class.

6) Using Rank 1 Spells

Frost Nova: Freeze is a capped duration, higher rank damage costs more mana for crappy damage.

Polymorph: In pvp only, CC is capped at 10 seconds. Rank 1 lasts up to about 20 (iirc). It saves you mana for the same duration of CC

Frostbolt: While kiting, using this to refresh a snare can be life saving. Set it to a [shift] modifier of your normal frostbolt key for maximum effectiveness

Cone of Cold: Same as Frostbolt, only during extreme kiting.

7) Your not a mogul, wand it up baby!

Key bind your wand. There is nothing I can stress more than this. Other than to actually USE it. If you are locked down with nothing else to do… wand. Any bit of damage will help. I have actually won matches due to a wand while OOM before. There is no excuse not to use it– regardless of how “marginal” the damage may seem

That is all for now though, it was a little longer then intended… but that’s not my fault now is it . This barely scratches the surface of mage strategy in arena, but some people just need some basic ground rules put out for them.

Strategy courtesy of Orichi