The Mage: Strengths

You are channeler and healer, death-dealer and life-giver, the spellpower behind the party's muscle.

A mage stays in the rear, choosing targets carefully and always thinking ahead to the next damage spell or heal. A mage can conjure fire, encase allies in impenetrable force fields, or drain the very life from a victim.

Tapping into any of the four magic schools (Primal, Creation, Spirit, Entropy), the DPS mage supplies firepower, especially against large enemy groups, the healer supports benevolent spells that can turn the tide in a close contest, or the hybrid mage balances both offense and defense in one versatile package.

Though the mage doesn't have the same kind of access to weapons and armor as a warrior or rogue (unless the mage specializes in arcane warrior), consider his spell arrays his artillery.

The Primal school gives the mage the power of the elements: fire, earth, cold, electricity. By the third spell in any of these chains, the mage can cast devastating AoE attacks that destroy large enemy groups.

In the Creation school, healing and buffs take precedent. The power to regenerate health, mana, and stamina fuels your party to greater glory.

Your last two schools, Spirit and Entropy, grant mind-bogglingly cool abilities that stretch beyond pure damage or healing. With nearly 70 spells to choose from, no two mages need be the same.

Mage specializations offer the greatest possibilities to transform your class into something outside the normal class boundaries.

An arcane warrior trades magic score for strength, ditches staff and robe for weapons and armor usually restricted to warriors, and can enter melee as a hand-to-hand brawler.

A blood mage taps into the life force flowing in most creatures' veins, and uses that dark magic to control minds, damage enemies, convert blood to mana, and heal from the pain of others.

A shapeshifter can change into a combat-oriented spider, bear, and insect swarm, or master them all for potent alternate fighting forms.

Finally, a spirit healer is the ultimate savior, able to heal the entire party at once, cure injuries, and even bring the dead back to life.

If you like to sling spells from tactical positions and play around with the fantastical, the mage class is for you. World-class spells are at your fingertips, and you will rule the battlefield from afar.

No other class can touch you when it comes to obliterating hordes of monsters at once. Just remember that if those monsters get up, you'd better have enough mana to knock them back down.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Think of the mage as a cannoneer or a field medic, depending on your play style and spell spec. If you lean toward a DPS mage, your spells can do tremendous damage to single targets (possibly killing them with a single spell) or major damage to a large enemy group.

You can even contribute damage over time to opponents with such spells as Fireball and Walking Bomb. If you become a healer, your spells will keep you and your allies alive, even in battles that may seem lost at the start.

Either of those skills sets would earn you a place on the team, but you also have crowd control spells (Grease, Earthquake, Cone of Cold, etc.) that keep enemies from swarming the party, and party buffs (the Heroic chain, Spellbloom, etc.) that aid your allies with additional abilities.

Advantages

• Stat Bonuses to Magic, Willpower, and Cunning
• Great Ranged and AoE Damage
• Healing
• Crowd Control Spells
• Party Buffs

With all those great spells a hand gesture away, mages pay the price with armor and weapons: they can use only robes, cowls, staves, and the less powerful armor and weapons.

Mages aren't built for hand-to-hand melee, unless they devote several spells to melee offense/defense or seek out the arcane warrior specialization, and spellcasters can't go toe-to-toe with foes like warriors and rogues can.

Even worse, mages' damage spells, especially AoE spells that strike multiple targets, generate significant threat and will pull monsters to you. You need a capable tank to regain the threat or you will find yourself bloodied on the ground.

Disadvantages

• Limited Armor and Weapon Choices
• Generally Weak in Melee
• Damage Spells Can Generate Significant Threat

You may not be the party member who jumps into the thick of melee, but you can be the tactician who stands in the back and surveys the whole battlefield.

If you like to blow up lots of things at once, or, on the flip side, choose your targets wisely to pick them off one by one, the mage's spells have you covered.

You will have the firepower to bolster your party from competent fighters to veritable forces of nature.