I pretty much stopped playing my Mage after the pet nerf. But to be honest that before the nerf you could level so fast it was scary. A true killing machine.
But to someone new like you, you won't miss it. A mage can still kill as fast or faster than any other class but a Bard. And I am not much into running around in circles for 6 hours straight lol.
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] So just go ahead and play one. They are powerful as hell and liked in groups. So you picked a great class trust me. And easy to play also.
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You can chain cast pets and level quicker but like I said above even just keeping the one pet they kill fast. If you buff the pet and give it some toys, heal it, it will make you smile at times how much fun it is watching them just flat out beat the snot out of stuff.
And you don't really need ANY gear on a Mage to play one well either. Cheap fun.