Some small tips for fellow mages from an experienced one.

1) research... gather the components and seek out old school mages such as
myself that had to work research in order to see those spells. My research
is maxed for lvl 49 (last lvl where research is used), and i've been asked
quite a few times to combine spells for lower lvl mages. Do it, most high
lvl mages will do the combine for free if you catch them while they are not
busy (EC/bazaar/cities/etc), you'll save lot of time/money/frustration and
won't have to waste training points in research. Also remember to have
enough components for at least 2 tries, failure can still happen once in a
while with maxed research skill, also bring the compendium in wich the
combines are made, most high lvl mages will have destroyed it by then.

2) When you are low lvl, make sure to max out offense/defense (max at 145
for 60, i think 140 till lvl 50 but been a looooooooong time so only sure
about 145 at 60) and weapon skills (max at 110 pre and post 50). It might
not seem very useful past mid 20s, but there's some awesome caster weapons
in the high end game that make it worthwhile to jump in and melee even at
60 on uber mobs. (for example there was one yelinak fight where, as a mage,
I did about 10k in MELEE dmg, and I don't mean the pet, I mean the mage
(me) wacking his little stick did 10k dmg (now 10k melee + nukes + pet melee
+ dmg sheild = one ******** of dmg dealt by one person). Of course that's
with VERY high end weapons that you won't see for a while (primal 2hb 45/44
till avatar procs, then switch to staff of the silent star 15/18 1hb with
400 dd fire lure proc with 254 dex from avatar and shammie buffs... I still
need 1 dex!!!). With primal brawl stick I can hit up to 167, miss more than
anything but still connect a few good swing here and there. I know a lvl
50ish rogue once in a small velk group went WOW! when he saw me (he had
other hits on) hit for 133, 140ish and 119 or so to finish off a random
spider. Plus it's always fun to kick another caster's butt in a melee only
duel... Also defense/ac/hp will save your life more than you think, with
raid buffs i have close to 4k hp, 800+ ac and maxed defense skill, i CAN
live a round or 2 of tormax melee if I somehow am dumb enough to aggro,
also HP will help as much as resists on high end mobs.

3) Learn to use all your pets, except the post 50 fire pets, those little
wizzies suck, they can't even port you, wizzy are useless without ports or
the high end DDs, and our pets use lvl 24-29 dd, they really sucks. Even
doing lord Rak'ashir in CoM, use the decoy pet, higher dmg sheild (fire pet
sheild versus okeil radiation = ownage), better melee and won't waste 1/2
his time casting newbie dd spells that will be resisted anyway... Every pet
has a use, except post 50 fire pets (wich I still consider a nerf to this
day, a fire elemental is MUCH better than a wizard pet... /sigh verant).

4) Learn to use and love the malise line, that line is the best resist
debuff in game and while shammies have it sooner and get a better version
at lvl 60 than we do, most of the time a mages is a better choice to land
malosini on the mobs than a shammie. (shammie need mana to malo and slow,
mages should attemp to land malosini right after malo is in and chain cast
until a) it sticks or b) shaman was able to slow before you could malosini.
Malosini is also a great spell for working with enchanters, won't break mez
but will allow it to stick easier/longer, same with root or charm or any
other spell pretty much, except the disease based one. Malise line is one
of the defining lines of a mage at higher LvLs, you make any caster's life
MUCH easier if you take the habit of puttin malise on anything that you see.
Malise line WILL get resisted a lot at higher lvl, but it's still your job
to put it in (and yes, I malosinied the sleeper, so i know what i'm talking
about).

5) dmg sheild... while you don't see the dmg done (i have dmg sheild off, no
choice when you are in 30 people raids 99% of the time, you go LD if you
see the sheild message spam), USE them all the time, especialy on the main
tank. Sheilds EASILY outdamage your best nukes, and they are unresistible.
If i remember well, at 49 I did the maths and it took about 13 hit on a dmg
sheild to make it more mana efficient than my best DD, wich a) if you sheild
wisely, a tank will get hit MUCH more than 13 time during the duration of
the sheild and b) it CAN'T be resisted, wich means even if your fighting a
red con mob with uber mr and fr, you'll still be dealing 80% of your dmg
potential with only pet and sheilds.

6) For high end pet useage, and until you get /pet hold ability, do NOT
summon a pet pre-fight with AoE mobs (such as most dragons), pets will
aggro very far from a mob AoE, and it will be a pain to control and failure
to do so will mean death for your raid. So wait till dragon/boss mob is
pulled and engaged, THEN make pet and send him in, much better to lose 10~15
seconds of pet dmg than to lost 50 minutes of preparation/res/cr for a whole
raid.

7) Post 50 life change a lot, you go from one of the best soloing class
pre-50 to more of middle of the pack as far as soloing is concerned past 50
(druids/necro/bards/monks/SK/shaman/wizzy can usualy solo better than a mage
post 50 in most cases). In a group you're still a dmg dealing class, but
you lose a lot of your edge to tanks wich get better with each new weapon
while our dmg is pretty much constant from 50 up. Your pets are still decent
tanks, but once again "real" tanks are improving with each armor upgrade
while your pets still tank the same. So past 50 expect to lose a bit of your
"dmg dealer" tag and be more of a utility caster (malosini, CoH, mod rods
v.2.0, arrows/shurikens for pullers/etc), especialy on the high end mobs,
you can still pack a punch in normal xp groups.

8) EQUIP your pets. Sure they don't proc swords of runes on everything like
they used to, but they can still use the stats/AC of the random mages
summons. When I setup my pet, he recieves 2 daggers of runes, full set of
summoned plate, a muzzle of mardu, coldstone (5ac neck) and the luclin
summoned shoulders, wich gives him nice AC and resists boost.

9) as far as epic goes, yes it's worth it, but still a serious pain in the
***. You'll need a guild size raid for quite a few parts
(hate/phin/air/CoM, although CoM and kedge can be done with 1 good group) so
I wouldn't bother with those until you have done all the "soloable" parts.
Plane of Sky used to be a real pain, prolly much easier now with cleric
epic, necro robes and primals and such. I remember the pain it was to clear
PoS with only kunark gear/weapons, now we could prolly do it with twinks...
ah well )

Those are my opinions, and they are not perfect nor the ultimate truth but
that's how I see the mage class after 60 LvLs, way too much played days on
mage and LOOOOOTs of killing/raiding.

Woonnusseek Brainstorm <The Dark Exile>
7th Hammer server
http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=75721