PVP Tips & Tricks - Mage

Today I’m continuing the mini-series of PVP from the viewpoint of the Marksman Hunter. During the series, I’ll cover each class and what you should look for each of them to do. We continue today with Mages.

Mage
I hate fighting mages. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I thoroughly enjoy standing far away from a mage and plunking them full of lead (or arrows if I used a bow). What I don’t like is when the mage notices that he’s turning into a sieve and turns his or her attention to me.

Things to watch for:

• Ice mages (the only kind I ever find in BGs) will specialize at locking you down and killing you. If you break free, they’ll kite you. Don’t follow an ice mage to your death.
• Don’t rely on a mage’s cool downs, especially in frost. Cold Snap refreshes the cool down period on most frost spells.
• If you’re facing a fire mage, you must remove a buff with Arcane Shot every chance you get. Presence of Mind allows instant cast pyroblasts, and these hurt a lot.
• Use your trinket to get out of the first frost nova then don’t let them get close to you again.
• Silencing shot when it’s up. It’s better to silence something worthwhile (like a Pyroblast) or anything in the main tree, which is probably frost.
• Scatter shot can put them out of commission long enough to get an aimed shot off.
• Generally, Viper Sting isn’t going to drain enough mana to make it worthwhile. I tend to stick with Serpent Sting to keep the damage trickling in.
• Feign Death will deselect you as a target and get an elemental off of you.
• While resilience is important in all PVP, mage crits can get disgustingly big. If you’re gunning for mages, get all of this you can.
• Mages don’t have a ton of HP normally and only wear cloth. If you can get the drop on them, you can burst DPS them down.
• Mages generally blink after they ice block. However, dropping a freezing trap at their feet while ice-blocked can sometimes trap them.
• Fire and Arcane mages won’t kite you. They want to be close to you to capitalize on their short cast point-blank spells. Blast Wave at least also has a stun component. For these types of mages, use the strategy for melee types. Employ your movement impairing effects (Wing Clip, Frost Trap, Scatter Shot, and Concussive Shot) and keep them at range.