What You Need to Know About Mages

"Hrmm...so there's more to mages than just tables and portals? Interesting..."

Blog Azeroth's official weekly shared topic for this week is, "What you need to know about [your class here]"

Essentially, the theme asks bloggers to write about their main's class, with the content aimed at an audience whose mains are not of that class. The purpose of this is to inform other classes with regards to having us in their group, or just interacting with us in general.
As a cryomancer, there's no general fundamental difference between me and mages of different specs, so for today, I'll speak on behalf of all mages.

AHEM, THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MAGES

1. Concerning Polymorph

We can only sheep humanoids and beasts. If you put moon on a demon or elemental, we'll kindly remind you. There are a few exceptions to the rule, especially in heroic mode, where certain mobs can't be sheeped. If the mob that was assigned to us is immune, we'll try our best to announce it in party chat. Tanks should pay attention and adjust their aggro management accordingly.

We can only sheep one target at a time. That's kinda obvious, but there are subtle applications behind that rule that people should be aware of. Firstly, we can sheep other mobs that may be dangerous to the pull, such as those that threaten the healer. But if we do that, the previous sheep will break and either go after me instead, or the healer due to healing aggro. So either way, the healer is "gonna' get a hurt reeeal bad". Thus, don't expect us to sheep anything that goes after the healer. We have frost nova for that.

Be aware of diminishing returns on the sheep. If a sheep breaks prematurely, because of AoE, or just by sheer luck, successive sheeping attempts will result in shorter sheep durations. This might not be applicable to trash pulls, but moreso on boss fights that have adds, such as the Priestess in Magister's Terrace. It's the responsibility of the whole team, not just the mage, to really pour on the DPS to ensure that this doesn't become a problem.

Despite that, it's still imperative that the party takes the sheep last, since the other forms of cc are one time only, or require some other fancy shuffling to perpetuate (ie, hunter chain-trapping) that noticeably lowers that member's overall DPS.

Oh yeah, don't AoE or DoT the sheep please. If I see an immolate on my moon-labeled mob, I'm not even going to bother sheeping it.

2. Concerning Warlocks

We are not Warlocks. Don't get us confused with them. We can't summon you to instances, nor can we give you healthstones. Alternatively, we can port you away from instances, and give you food and drink. Our mana gems are bind on pickup, so we can't give them to you.

3. Concerning Food and Drink

There was a WI post about a topic on the official WoW forums regarding mage tables, and there is always a heated debate about player's rights to a table in BG's and raids. Most mages in raids WILL summon a table. If they don't, they're usually kicked anyways. But in an instance, don't expect all of us to table for you. Two arcane dusts spent on a table for five is a waste, especially when your party consists of a rogue and a non-pally tank. Alternatively, we'll just conjure drinks separately for everyone. Let the healers take care of your health after pulls.

Be polite. As obligated as some mages are with giving out tables in BG's and raids, a little kindness goes a long way. There's no arguing or debating that. You're more likely to be attended to if the mage is not put off by the nature of your request. Treat it as a buff, and ask us for food the way you ask priests and pallies for prayers and blessings.

4. Concerning Frost Nova

Frost Nova is our "OH CRAP" spell for aggro, particularly when it comes to healing aggro. It is a good mage tactic to always stay near the priest on trash pulls. If a priest overheals and draws aggro from the pull, us mages can and should nova the mob(s) in place before the priest gets hurt. If the mob is in front of a healer, the healer should move away. Tanks should walk their mobs over to the frozen guy so that the frozen guy can regain aggro on the tank. I've witnessed many a time where the priest never walked away from the nova'd monster and got killed, or where the tank never picked up the frozen monster, only to delay the priest's eventual death.

5. Concerning AoE

Tanks, if we're doing an AoE trash pull, use your best AoE-based threat abilities to keep them all cluttered up. This is obvious to warriors and pallies, since they regularly use thunderclap and consecrate, but druids can do it too by hurricane pulling and keeping thorns up. Druids who don't know what hurricane pulling is should go here to learn how to do it. It's quite awesome.

Oh, and Warlocks, please don't use seed of corruption. It makes us mages look utterly, utterly useless =(

6. Concerning Mages Not in Your Party

If you really consider us to be vending machines, at least treat us appropriately as such. A generous tip goes a long way, especially since tomes for our highest-levelled Food and Drink spells sell for ridiculous prices at the AH.

When requesting for a portal from a capital city, at least tip us to cover the cost of:

1) the rune of portals that will bring you wherever you want to go,
2) the rune of teleportation that will bring me to you, and
3) the rune of teleportation that will bring me back to wherever I was before you asked me to port you.

While 50s will more than cover the three, but publicly offering 50s in trade chat will get you /laughed at even by non-mages. The more you offer, the more likely you'll entice one of us mages who are sitting on our asses watching TV while waiting for the next spellcloth cooldown.

Be aware of the levels when mages learn portals. Portals to Ogrimmar, Undercity, Silvermoon, Stormwind, Ironforge, and Exodar are learned at 40, while Darnassus and Thunder Bluff aren't learned until 50. Mages can teleport to Shatt at 60, but can't portal until 65 (I think, I need to check up on that again).

And once again, politeness comes a long way.