Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28140663-20160629201602

"Mage classes have main their source damage from their abilities. Being exhausted in mana (or other resources) would be devastating for a mage classes's ability to fight. In addition, having their abilities in cooldown would be also be devastating. While some mage classes can kill without the need of abilities (i.e Vulca), their full potential is not gained until a mage class properly uses their abilities." -Strife Wikia

The difference between a Main Role Mage and a Subrole Mage is that Main Role Mages have more ranged potential, and Subrole Mages might as well throw their controller away when they see a Nether due to their lack of range.

Mage classes primarily focus on their abilities, if your Mage constantly needs to drain mana to keep functioning in tip top shape and cooldowns are the main limitation, then you're on the right track.

Mages are known for their high range and mana:damage ratio. Trooper can kill a player with a full clip that only took 30 mana to refill, and still have a few shots left. A single Vulca V if timed properly, can destroy any class in seconds while ignoring blocks too. If your Mage needs to use 100 mana to deal 5 damage, you probably aren't doing it right. Mages are always ranged, subroles might not have good range, but main roles definitely rely upon range. A main role Mage with no range or weak ranged is probably a Subrole Mage.

This high mana:damage ratio makes most Mages end up as a Rusher subrole, so if you're out of ideas for a subrole, Rusher is the to-go option that's never wrong.

The passive of a Mage doesn't necessarily need to help with anything related to abilities. Infact, Vulca and Trooper's passives are stat based in comparison to Nether and Cryo's more ability-oriented passives. This pattern however shows that Mages either have stat oriented passives or ability oriented passives.

The E ability is always tied in with their abilities in some way (Nether and Cryo), or at least acts almost like an Ability itself (Trooper and Vulca) so utilize this pattern as well. This is also one of the times that two classes share E abilities (Frigost, Omega; Vulca, Trooper) so don't be afraid to recycle!

Z is always ranged, or at least linked with range (Trooper) The Z ability should be cheap, easy to throw out, and deal damage just as good as any other source. Other patterns noted in Main Role Mage Zs is that they are able to be dodged or avoided, and might give a buff/increase in some sort of thing (Cryo freeze stacks; Vulca ATK buff; Trooper clip refill)

X is generally a move that has an AoE involved and can hurt quite a bit (Vulca Red Field; Trooper Deadly Impact; Nether Slice Wave) or is debuffing and requires some criteria of some sort (Nether Void Orb hits an object; Cryo Frostfang hits a player and Drakes are available) Note that they should all have a high mana:damage ratio, though you shouldn't be able to kill someone just by using X over and over again.

C is either a powerful self buff (Trooper; Vulca) or some sort of field/AoE (Cryo, Nether) so try to follow the pattern or be unique! C usually gives you a massive advantage passively by just having it around, or can be used to have extra effects like ambushing (Cryo, Nether) or crowd control (Trooper, Cryo) C abilities should also be easy to avoid or punish if they are used incorrectly.

V is where the high mana:damage ratio is highest. Usually this attack is also tagged with some extra flavor (Vulca ignores blocks, Cryo adds freezing stacks with a large AoE at any position, Nether has massive knockback) However the V in a Mage also takes skill and setup to use correctly, as you can potentially waste Savage Wrath, Void Breaker, Power of Red, and Obliverate because it didn't have the maximum potential or didn't hit at all.

Elsewise, a Mage's stats and effects are based on their subrole more of than their actual role.

This concludes the Main Role series, onto Subrole and more. 