Playing A Mage

Playing a Mage
Basic Mage Templates As of 4/01/09
10/30/10/80/100/100 War/Melee D spec Train Life Mana Conversion Item Creature Lore and then whatever you want after that
10/100/10/10/100/100 War/Magic Defense spec Train Life Mana C Item Creature Lore Melee D and whatever else you wish
30/80/10/10/100/100 War/Life Train Mana C Item Creature Lore Melee D and whatever else you wish
These are some of the most basic mage templates out there that I have seen recently, and in order of how often as well.
I personally play the War/Melee D with starting stats of 10/80/10/30/100/100 I trained Arcane Lore, Life Magic, Item Magic, Creature Magic, Mana Conversion and Leader as of now.
"Getting Started"
1. Learn how to get used to carrying the necessary amount of prismatic tapers and the required scarabs to cast the spells you plan on using. Running out in a dire situation usually ends in quick death of a mage.
2. Get into a guild, look for any active players. Many players of AC tend to be very helpful, sometimes TOO helpful (Lol) but always willing to do just about anything for a new player, or even returning players.
3. Practice on learning about the main pro's and con's of a mage, i.e. having to take 4 schools of magic, definately needing to specialize war magic, also trying to understand the concept of how mana conversion works, and how a higher level of it can drastically change how many spells you can cast.
4. Practice learning how to cast spells with the keyboard...this is a must, its just to damn hard to cast fast enough with a mouse anymore...try mapping a certain keyboard button to cast and use that, i currently use R for previous spell T for next spell and F for cast spell.
5. Understand that as a mage, you will not be using a shield...unless you are running through somewhere, and if you intend on hunting monsters that are melee based, then roll a mage that has melee defense somewhere in the template and I even recommend putting a few starting attribute points into quick for the bonus to melee d in the end.
6. For fastest method of leveling, Get yourself some rended no wield wands, preferably , one fire, and one bludgeon, but pierce will also work until 290 base war as well. I suggest first going to the olthoi arcade until 20, which is cake, then I would suggest Black Spawn Den with the tusker guard kill quest out there that is 20 million xp, you should be able to get close to 50.
7. As soon as you hit level 50, you should have over 320 war magic buffed, should have no problems going to abayar's study, which is also called Fiuns, fiuns tend to hit for less damage than other ToD monsters, but they will war the crap out of you, I recommend atleast 240 buffed Magic D for a decent time, stay on the top floor until 90, then flag yourself for the actual lower part of fiuns and take on the higher level fiuns and you can easily level up there to 110.
8. By level 110, you should have been able to get yourself a decent enough melee defense to evade the Eaters in the Ravenous Vault. This is a great place to level a mage quickly, I have seen someone go from 110-130 in two days here. Slash or Pierce Rend with high tinked Melee D is a must here or you will die quickly.