The Queue: What is a Mage but a miserable pile of portals?

I do have a Mage alt, but I don’t play it enough to keep up with how to play it, which means I usually don’t play it. I just want to go around spamming Arcane Explosion non-stop and be a ball of violent purple destruction, but apparently that’s inefficient and also it tends to result in my death. I’m that player in pugs when I’m on a Mage.

And I’ve been maining a Death Knight lately, so weirdly I’m not actually used to dying a lot anymore. Every other class I play feels squishy, but Mages more than most. So playing a Mage is a hard ask, but maybe I should anyway.

Existential class questions aside, this is the Queue, our daily Q&A column where we attempt to answer your gaming (maybe) questions (maybe) and sometimes succeed (maybe). Let’s get to it.

I would have them teleport me around. I don’t need them to kill stuff, just take me places so I can do things.

For example, if I want do a run around the world to collect old tier sets for transmog, raids are scattered across a dozen continents, connected by boats or portals or airships, some of which you need to unlock by various means with your alts, some of which are phased and you need to find the nearest member of the Bronze Dragonflight to get you to the place you want. If I had a pocket GM, I would ask them to ferry me around so I could get places without having to remember where everything is, and the complicated paths to get around Azeroth.

Sure, if I want to go to Icecrown for my weekly chance to not get Invincible, I can just use my Dalaran hearthstone and then fly north. No big deal. But maybe I want to go to do Shadowlands raids next. Okay, I’ll use my hearthstone to go to (new) Silvermoon and then run to the portal to Orgrimmar then to the portal to Oribos and hope I’m on an alt that has actually unlocked things in Shadowlands, because the whole expansion is phasing hell. Maybe then it’s back to the og tier sets, Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. I could use my guild cloak to go to Orgrimmar and then take the zeppelin to Grom’gal and then fly north.

But there’s a lot of cognitive overhead in even keeping track of how to get around the place, and a lot of travel time in between. So my pocket GM would just be a teleporting buddy. Almost like making friends with a mage.

…hm, maybe I should just do that. Or level a mage to do all of my transmog runs on.

Well, you could always try for snowy weather: Winterspring or Dun Morogh or Azure Span. You could have snowball fights and then go sit in front of a warm fire with cocoa and appreciate that bit of heat.

Personally, I vote for Karazhan. I bet the stone hallways, with their high ceilings, are always pleasantly cool. Plus I assume Medivh would have just magically ensured it was always a pleasant temperature inside. Plenty of nice furniture to lounge on, books to read, regular theater performances… there’s a lot to like about the place. And I’m sure the ghosts are perfectly friendly once you get to know them.

I’m with Kalcheus on this one: drink some water!!

Actually, to anybody reading this, take a second to get a glass of water and get hydrated.

No.

If you want to slingshot yourself into the sun, which I can understand, you will have to pay for your own ride.

That’s all for today. Take care of yourselves, remember to stay hydrated, and I’ll see you in the comments section.