Wizards:
Pros: Great travel ability, great burst DPS, useful on raids, easy epic.
Cons: Very gear dependent, hard to find groups, lots of down time, need to be able to kite to solo effectively
Comments: Wizards aren't for everyone but I know a lot of people who really enjoy their wizard. They are a class that peaks on single targets and winds up sitting a lot more than nuking. They are much like warriors in that they are very gear dependent. They need a very large mana pool to be a successful at soloing or grouping. You can get the whole quad kite to 5% health, but if you are OOM then GL finishing it off =) And they really start to shine with epic and a mana robe, but those aren't easily obtainable. Basically this is a class that requires a certain type of player that is willing to stick it out.
Mages:
Pros: Can solo and group easily. Can farm straight forward camps efficiently, some cool novelty spells. Good DPS. Getting loot on raids that is mage spefic is easy because there are few raiding mage mains.
Cons: Can be a boring class at times. Gets abused for CoTH on raid scene. Not great raid DPS till epic pet. Hard epic quest. Horrible CC abilities.
This is a very fun class. Great at soloing for XP or easy farming where pulling is not an issue. As a mage you will be good DPS and with pretty nice nukes and the best pets in game. The different pets also offer a fun way to switch up your play styles. The best part is your DPS is not directly tied to your mana pool like the wizard. Also once you have epic pet you will wreck things. Take time to look up the stats on that pet, it will blow your mind. That being said, the epic is not easy by any means and has some huge bottle necks that require a raid force. In the end though, this is a chill class that has a good utility at all levels of gameplay. And like one poster said, people always end up remembering how awesome mages are in a group after you group with them.
Conclusion: INT casters have taking a major down turn because of the advantage given to melee first in Kunark and reinforced in Velious, so if you're looking to min/max or be that pivotal class on a raid these are not the classes for you. But that also means a lot of good caster gear can be bought on the cheap side. If I had to pick i'd pick a mage. EQ for me is rooted in the social experience and wizard is simply too isolating of a class. Good luck with the choice!
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