When did you begin playing a mage?

[Trustbucket]

Made my mage at the start of wrath but he took the back seat until this tier. Chose mage because of the seemingly high skill cap with arcane and fire, and I enjoy playing my mage over other classes even though fire and arcane can be very frustratingly forgiving (especially with more gear).

WoD changes look great for mages because it seems there will be a high skill cap compared to other classes.

Fire seems to be the spec I'm going to try to play in WoD since there is more thinking involved with the spec now and not just get pyro! and HU, AT, then spam pyroblasts and swap to molten armour and combust.

Arcane seems to have some good changes too, but I wish they build in the T16 2pc since it adds depth to the spec and raised the skill cap.

Frost is still really boring but there is at least some planning involved because you have to plan ahead to when your pet has the water jet ability. The most optimal way to plan around this ability would be to frost bomb before it is about to come off cd and put out all of the FoF procs. Then when water jet goes out, you would spam frostbolts into the target (seems to be 3 with beta gear levels) and hit ice lance if you are about to cap at 3 charges of FoF.

Seems to be more thinking in frost which would make it slightly more bearable in WoD but fire and arcane still seem to be the spec to be. (hopefully)

[Mawza]

Roughly 4.1, I think. My mage actually just turned 3 a few months ago.

[Garrod]

Made mine back in early Cata. Swapped to start maining him in ToT.

Originally was a Rogue in Vanilla, and swapped to Paladin when TBC released and ended up being the raid's token ret up through heroic Dragonsoul.

[herpyderpidy]

http://imgur.com/62Ptn9O

This pretty much tells you when I started my mage

I also played a Druid and a Paladin, but in the end, I always came back to my beloved portals. God life without portals is different.

[Pyrotechnics]

Originally rolled a Warrior at launch but got bored of it and rerolled Mage sometime around the 1.2 patch

[Zavri]

I used to level accounts and sell them back in BC, I was pretty casual.

I had a spare account with a low level mage on it, around level 20. One day I get an email from blizz about that account getting banned, turns out a chinese farmer got ahold of the account somehow and used the mage to farm ore and herbs, got him up to level 58 at the time and had 20,000 gold and bags PACKED full of ores and herbs.

I got the account unbanned and kept everything, at that point I decided "Hey what the hell i'll play the mage" ended up really enjoying it and then eventually transferred the character off to my main account and I've been playing him ever since then.

Funny story, the chinese farmer made my name "Zavri" and I actually liked it and kept it to this day.

[devi]

I started out as a hunter partway through Vanilla, once BC came out my guild had a hard time adjusting to the change in raid sizes and I ended up sitting out a fair bit. So I started leveling my then bank alt mage for fun...one thing led to another and I found myself raiding in another guild on my mage. While this hasn't stopped me from gearing alts each expansion, mage has been my main since then and continues to be.
Initially what drew me to mage was just thats what the guild I was looking at needed at the time but I grew to love the class, the mobility and flexibility during combat. Looking forward to seeing what more is in store for mages good or bad I can't see myself changing.

[Laere]

All through WOTLK and Cata I played a Holy Paladin in top US guilds. I always wanted a dps class, mage looked the funnest. I ended up loving it and made it my main this expansion.

[Kifimbo]

I started with a hunter at what was the very end of Classic, never even getting out of StV. Friends decided to try the game out as BC started, so I re-rolled as an undead Mage, and the rest is history really.

[Persapien]

One of the first characters I made in TBC, but I sucked so badly back then so I abandoned it at around level 30 and played a Paladin instead. During WotLK I picked the Mage up again, got to 80 and thought it was just awesome. I pugged some ICC but yeah I was still pretty bad back then.
It wasn't until T11 when I started to become better than average (but not great by any stretch). I was actually raiding in the same guild as Malon at the time, but the other team, and being in a very good guild I naturally got a lot better. In the guilds I raided with after T11 I was always competing for the #1 spot.

Despite the amount of cool shit Mages can do slowly shrinking over time, I still think they're the most fun.

[Kerbs]

Mage was my first character always loved Fire, started playing in 2005 Vanilla days. oh the old glass cannon

[Lilcutie]

I started as a fire mage in 2004 until I made it into the mountain. From then until sometime in WotLK I was an aggro puller as Arc/Frost. Lilcutie is still my main and always will be.

[TLTeo]

Around 1.11. My mage has always been and always will be my main

[Zrog]

I'm a "new" mage, having only started playing the mage seriously in WoD (although I've leveled her to max every expansion that I've played). I must say that there's a serious difference between questing a mage and raiding a mage...

Zrog (toon = Dedream)

[Vekna]

I played a hunter throughout vanilla WoW and TBC, while PvPing on my Rogue. During that time, my Mage was just an inactive alt, used for DE, etc.

During WotLK I changed to Rogue and I was PvPing a bit on my Mage. During the end of ICC and after clearing it with my Rogue, I took a break and came back to clear it again with my Mage. From that period, I am playing my Mage as a main, but also like Rogues a lot.

If, for some reason, I wanted to play melee, I'd play my Rogue. For ranged, which I prefer for various reason and mostly because I have a much better idea of what is going on in the fight, I'd always go with my Mage.

Same with rogue, what I love about the mage is the utility and tools you have. You don't rely on constant self healing or a big HP pool, etc, but you rely on using your non-passive abilities to make a difference, be it more DPS or more survivability or raid utility.

The only thing I am not thrilled about my mage is the Arcane spec's mechanics and I hope for a change. Imo, no class should have specs that are too dependent on how much movement is involved, excelling with no movement and flunking with enough movement. That's just plain bad design.

[Nisroc]

I played the whole of last expansion on my warlock with my mage being my main alt, they kinda destroyed what i liked about warlocks by removing dotsnapshotting so i decided it was time to bring my mage into the raidgrp instead, my only regret is that i didnt make the decision to go mage way sooner! Havent had this much fun in years

[raynman]

I started off as a Night Elf hunter back in vanilla and remained a hunter until I quit shortly after AQ20 opened to get my MBA. I returned shortly after the start of WotLK and went back to playing a hunter and dabbling with a DK for fun. I switched to DK as main when one of our tanks left and rolled a gnome mage to play for fun. I deleted the toon around level 40 thinking it was a boring class to play, I got bored of a lot of toons in WotLK. When I started researching mages to help a guild mate improve their performance and saw that they were an interesting class to say the least, I rolled a Worgen mage on Cata launch day and had fun messing around with him throughout Cata, but never had a chance to raid with him since I was the best of the three tanks in my guild. MoP rolled around and while I was still the primary tank in my guild, I made a concerted effort to play my mage more. While mostly doing LFR until late into ToT, I ended up finding a second SoO raid group and got 4/14 Mythic while having a blast the entire time.

I still main as a tank and probably always will, but I cannot deny myself the joy of playing a mage. I am still trying to get a grasp on WoD mages, everything seems so slow, but I definitely look forward to the time I will spend figuring it out.

[Gnomecuddler]

Started a mage early TBC, raided T4 until T12 with it.

T13 on Spriest.

T14 and T15 on druid as resto.

Switched during T16 from resto back to mage and will be raiding mage this exp.

[Leon]

First started around late 2004, sometime in December. I mained a Shaman for a while but always played Mage on the side. After a long hiatus, I had to start up on a 2nd account and only played Shaman for a while, though after using my boost from purchasing WoD on a Mage, got more into that class again. I kinda felt bad for using a boost after a while and decided to re-level another Mage for fun, trying to transition him into my main. : )