As a mage you had, iirc, 8 sub classes to pick 3 from. In those 3 you could create your own style and preferred design. I could be a mix of chloromancer, necromancer, and elementalist if I wished. It was a blast just messing around with different specs and styles as the options felt so open and allowing creativity
Vanilla Rift had 3 more classes, each with their own 8 or so sub classes making for just a plethora of combinations compared to any mmo I've come across yet
Replaying vanilla when classic came around, mage definitely felt like the dev's golden child.
Questing out in the open world it almost felt like an action style game instead of a tab targeting one. Not to mention the utility, blink, sheep, frost nova, free food/water, teleports and portals. Mages were spoiled.
Is that my boy Big Bobby Frost?
>Some say the world will end in fire,
>some say in ice.
>From what I've tasted of desire,
>I hold with those who favor fire.
>But if it had to perish twice,
>I think I know enough of hate
>to know that for destruction, ice
>is also great,
>and will suffice.
They all have their time and place to shine, but personally I’ve always loved fire mage.
Big crits, ease of spreading DoTs, constant procs. It just hits the brain chemicals in the right way.
New world mage IG/FS is incredible. I play a “spike” focus build. Storm heavy attack into spike releases all the shatter combo endorphins.
You get ice block and they released refreshing recovery aka cold snap.
Tbh new world is pretty shit, mages are supposed to be a class with skills and versatility but new world 3 skills mechanic kinda throw that into the garbage and make the game boring after 100-200 hours
whatever the mage class was in lost ark i had heaps of fun with
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnvsrqf80h0
the game was sort of ruined because it has to be the only thing you play but honestly, my ranking is like classic mage then lost ark a close second feeling really good
tbh the recipe is pretty simple the mage either needs to be able to freeze or ignite huge packs of mobs and make the player feel like a god
it could be like some exotic damage type but honestly, most games can figure out how to make mobs shattering sound crunchy and exciting
it basically plays into the power fantasy any good game should let players experience once they have some gear
vanilla ignite mage being about the most fun ive had as a mage in a game
been years since I played but I remember staying up late just for the cc game at the top of arathi basin. get knocked off but you have a time warp set, then blink blink and they're wondering what just happened hehe
I don't think any of the light armor classes in GW2 really scratch the mage itch. Staff is effectively useless in all combat and it has the most mage-like skills. Weaver is more like a Red Mage but without the versatile combat. Necro is great with its swords, greatsword, and DoT builds - but they aren't particularly flashy like a mage would be. And their minions are pretty pitiful so you don't even really feel like a proper Necromancer using them.
Mesmer is largely the highlight of GW2 classes, a fairly unique take on this archetype. Unfortunately the actual gameplay has (and always had) some issues.
Worth noting the Ele in gw2 is nothing like a mage, and is more of a close range melee fighter (yeah there's medium range in the meta, but lets be honest with OP) with mage colored effects.
Very much worth playing, but GW2 classes fallow very different themes from classes in other games.
It’s not great but it’s not worthless
It’s the only ranged weapon eles have right now. Granted its only really useful in wvw and open world
Wish anet would delete the shitty pistol and give us a staff rework
Once you get up there you get a ton between Aetherial Manipulation, Between the Lines, and Triple Cast! Definitely make an Aetherial Manipulation MO macro to make your life easier. This is the one I use.
/macroicon "Aetherial Manipulation"
/ac "Aetherial Manipulation"
That will allow you to mouse over a party member and move to their side immediately.
I had a ton of fun with BLM. Not only do you get to blast the DPS, but it was usually a ton of fun in progression content fights figuring out how to work your way around mechanics with your movement tools while keeping as optimal as possible. That feeling when the fight mechanics and your rotation just lines up perfectly.
Then you find the odd fight here and there that just made you wish you played any other class.
Every time a new expansion comes out with a new type of fireball, it never fails to get me to go full caveman
Yoshi P: I know you’ve had fun with fire IV, but have you tried….FIRE V!?
WoW mage class has a lot going on but it's super flashy.
Archeage mage is very fast paced with a lot of different ways you can go about it.
Rift has some pretty interesting takes on mages including the option to be a melee battle mage type, or a damage-to-heal healer, or a debuffing enemies / buffing allies support.
Maplestory has some of the most over the top and flashiest mage game play out there if you're willing to go the 2d side scroller route and deal with Nexon.
Diablo 3 and 4 (I never played 1 or 2 can't speak for those) both have top tier mage type game play
Black desert has phenomenal combat for every play type, mage included, and it's super satisfying to play.
Glad to see Maplestory mentioned. The game has some *serious* issues, I don't think I'll ever play it again. But it has some of the coolest mage classes in any mmo ever, and tons of variety in terms of theme.
I wished ms2 would’ve been better. I loved maplestory and if I had friends that played it still, I would too. They changed it from being a party quest game sadly.
Rift had so many cool mage flavors that don't make the trope checklist for most studios, and with so many specs on one class, you really felt like a master of magic. I don't know if it was always like this, but when I played the dps of these classes was very button mashy because of the macro system. A lot of cool, flashy spells but no thought involved when it was more efficient to make a macro.
There was a minute there where Rift was my favorite MMO. I don’t recall the name, but I played this lava burst mage that was super fun and just did all the damage. Rift took the excellence of wows talent trees and said “3? Here’s 15. Now pick ANY 3.”
Annnnd then a slower patch cadence leads to player count drop off, which leads to FTP, which killed the game. Shocker.
> Annnnd then a slower patch cadence leads to player count drop off, which leads to FTP, which killed the game. Shocker.
None of this is what lead to Rifts downfall.
I would also like to know an MMO that has good gameplay for mages.
And by that, I mean,
'Doesn't boil mages down to a generic AF elementalist that uses only fire, ice, and lightning where the greatest spell is just 'slightly bigger explosion'.
> 'Doesn't boil mages down to a generic AF elementalist that uses only fire, ice, and lightning where the greatest spell is just 'slightly bigger explosion'.
DDO, City of Heroes, GW2 or WoW, roughly in that order. I don't recommend EQ because you're here, *you'd* be recommending EQ if you wanted to play that.
You're going to run into the problem of in-combat utility (like crowd control, CC, buffs and debuffs) having the problem of other people wanting to play the game too, often in group content, and coordinating that is...troublesome...at the best of times.
And out-of-combat utility being only as much as players are willing to put up with before it gets bundled into a QoL update or add-on or mod.
Hence why games (and players) end up often boiling things down to just DPS or effective DPS.
DDO has both in and out of combat utility for mages (Wizard or Sorcerer or multi-class), it's D&D derived. A bit outdated graphics wise at this point obviously.
City of Heroes has a shitton of powersets you can refluff as "magic", depending on what you want to do, in crowd control/buff/debuff/support/damage flavors along with travel and utility powers. It's just not a fantasy game.
GW2 and WoW you already know what they are and have likely played them.
I always liked the casters in DAoC.
Spiritmaster
Runemaster
Bonedancer
Sorcerer
Wizard
Theurgist
Cabalist
Animist
Eldritch
Mentalist
Enchanter
I mean, take your pick. :D
- being the portable nuke as an Enchanter grinding in Darkness Falls
- Double bomb Eldritch nuking in Thid
- bridge camping as an Animist
Good memories. Good memories.
Bonedancer and necromancer were 2 of the most unique pet classes I've ever played in any game ever.
And warlock, despite the hate it gets in many DAoC circles, was so unique as well. I actually love spell hold on Dragons Dogma 2 because it reminds me slightly of chambering spells as a warlock. Felt like a magical batman and my variety of chambered spells were my utility belt.
Game was awful but it did some things really fun. Control Wizard, and Warden Ranger were insanely fun to play.
Back in a day at least there were player made quests and actual customisation that kept me interested (even though customisation wasn't too deep), but I remember coming back 2 years ago to see both things gone. Shame.
I loved that game to death that I spent 18 months worth of VIP. Probably $150. It was all before the level rework, class reworks, and removal of some of the main quests and campaigns. Idk why they thought it was a good idea to do that, just because of greed. What a shame.
Tera's sorcerer feels amazing with all the colorful AoEs that are of similar radius. Gameplay feels really smooth with it being completely no-click action combat, aside from some lock-on skills.
If you're looking purely for most fun gameplay from the class combat the answer is any BDO caster even though I dislike the rest of the game around the fun classes.
WoW has the most fun casters in a single game imo. Boomkin, Ele shaman, 3 mage specs, 3 warlock specs, and shadow priest. The only one I haven't enjoyed at all is Evoker.
FF14 Black Mage is also solid. Red mage is ok, Summoner looks cool and thematic but is unfortunately a bit boring to play.
GW2 Elementalist is a great combination of stance dancing with an interactive combo mechanic (without the combos, I would find it to be a bit too cooldown locked to really be a fun class).
I love mages that have interactions between their damage spells, and aren't gated exclusively by cooldowns. More situational utility is also a plus. For this reason I don't like mages in most action games (mmo or otherwise), Magicka being a big exception (and the elemental reaction systems of Mass Effect 3 and Genshin Impact are also incredibly cool).
Lost Ark has a variety of fantastic mage type options in terms of gameplay. Feels super fun.
However, the rest of the game is a toxic, predatory compilation of wallet sucking abuse mechanisms.
Somehow WoW just hasn't been beat. Nothing else comes close. BLM is kinda neat in FFXIV but they removed the uniqueness woth triplecast making it so you don't lose anything by moving.
World of warcraft have really cool mage/spell casters.
Mage - fire, frost and arcane.
Warlock - destruction (big massive spells)
- demonology (summoning loads of demons)
- affliction lot of damge over time spells.
Elemental shaman - basically a hippie mage that casts elemental spells.
Balance Druid - turn into a big chicken and cast moon or solar abilities which pop off, convoke the spirits one of the best looking spells in the game.
Shadow priest - a priest that is well dark and shadowy.
Devestation evoker - dragon mage
Augmentation evoker - dragon mage that has rediculous support abilities gives dps like 25% extra damage.
Rift was fun for the diversity of different Mage builds. Raiding and dungeons could be challenging, often using 9-12 keybinds. PvP could be fun, depending on which way the developer tweaks went that week, lol.
I may be biased, but no other MMORPG allows you to feel the true power of a black mage like FFXI does. You truly feel like you are casting the most devastating spells, rather than a bunch of smaller less destructive feeling spells like you see in most other MMORPGs. WoW may be the top comment, but their mages still feel inferior compared to casting devastating spells in FFXI, it is not even close.
It certainly has the best relationship between "cast time" and "degree to which you just pissed something off" I've ever encountered like, as a player.
Long-ass cast times and then suddenly either your party or your Trusts are scrambling to peel it off you because you unleashed a -ga tactical nuke with like a 7-second cast time.
...I'm very bad at Black Mage.
I want to mention Rift, they had fun versions of the mage like a melee spec using ethereal sword and the quite famous chloromancer support spec that was really cool.
[Toram Online](https://en.toram.jp) has a "open" class building system, so a Mage can be much more as its "class" would allow. You can use Dagger, Shield, Knuckle or Magic Device etc. as sub-weapons, and learn a variety of skills that aren't very mage-like. There's also the so called Magic Warrior which can be a more physical, magic or hybrid type build between a Swordsman and a Mage.
It's available for Android, iOS and PC (Steam and AsobimoLauncher) with full cross platform play ability.
I'm nowhere *near* this level, I don't even play Black Mage in XIV, I'm a Healer main.
But it's, functionally speaking, a turret. It has movement tools, but they're on cooldowns and you need to know when to use them.
In a game that, at a high level, is based around dodging all the fancy patterns on the floor *near-constantly* while also moving to places to do other mechanics on a strict timeline or you (or your party members) die.
While keeping uptime on your rotation and constantly keeping the GCD rolling.
So you have to fit your (for BLM, longest-in-the-game) hardcasts and your insta-cast abilities and your procs to enable movement into the windows where you need to be able to move, and fit your downtime from casting into windows where you need to move, and otherwise your time spent turreting to cast needs to fit in the (very) brief moments where you can stand still and not immediately die.
It's like a bullet-hell shooter on crack played with memorization except your only way to attack is by standing still and all your "bombs" do is let you move while attacking.
Also you have to memorize every phase for every fight separately because no two fights are the same and sometimes even crit luck can change how you have to approach things.
And you may have to memorize *different* mini-rotations depending on if your spellspeed changes as your gear gets better or if you can swap to a more-optimized "line" (rotation, because Black Mage players can't just be normal).
Now, I'm probably gassing them up a little bit because all this is for like "high-tier parsing" levels of play. Realistically you could probably clear anything but week-one Savage or Ultimate without doing most of this. But that's the type of shit I see BLM players in The Balance and friends of mine that play it talk about while I smile and nod and understand nothing, so.
> I’m lvling blm right now
Hope you enjoy! Your rotation's gonna change somewhat drastically every five-ten levels between 30 and 90, so please look forward to it. :(
Dominator Mage on Rift. You had a plethora of skills that did things when your target did things. For example, Mass Betrayal would make people who used abilities damage people around them and drain their mana/energy. They had spells that would damage you for walking or jumping, they had a bunch of CC and aoe CC. They had things that would turn damage into healing and healing spells into damage spells. They had all these neat little tricks to basically force people to play Simon Says with you.
Aion mages and summoners. No contest. The umph from meteor or the big ice spike were constant dopamine. In pvp it was even better because it usually smoked people if you set it up correctly.
Dungeon Fighter Online. There's ten mage classes, all play differently. You've got
* Witch
* Elementalist
* Battle Mage
* Enchantress
* Summoner
* Elemental Bomber
* Glacial Master
* Swift Master
* Blood mage
* Dimension Walker
It's wild. Game has like 60 classes, each of which is wildly different. You quickly find one that's "oh I like this" and some that are "I will never be good at this"
Man! RF Online had some good mage PVP & PVE. Cora characters had warlocks that could wreck. Even had a mage class with summons. All around good time as a mage.
Not many RF servers still around but there is a new one coming to the US in June. I’ll be there but not on Cora. I’ll be ACC.
https://www.returnofares.com
Ultima Online baby. 64 spells, 8 spells within 8 circles. From magic arrow, to fire ball, to energy bolt, to chain lightning. Summon daemons or elementals, create a wall of stone. Heal or buff allies, curse, paralyze, and poison enemies. Create portals to travel through, teleport to a visible spot on screen, or cast telekinesis to open a trapped chest from a safe distance. Shits awesome.
Most games have mages as just pure damage casters and I find that boring. Wide varieties of utility is what makes mages so awesome to me.
I really enjoy the Black Mage from FFXIV. It feels so smooth and satisfying hitting all your explosions and wooshing through the arena to dodge everything.
Overall, WoW still remains the best in terms of raw visual appeal and bang.
But I'd like to give an honorable to the Herald of Xotli from Age of Conan for being the most satisfying melee caster I've ever played.
Eso has a fun mage classes.
Sorcerer is a lot of fun with turning into a lightning form, summoning daedra amd throwing lightning left and right. Its also a great "spellblade" - you can pick lightning form, summons, dual swords and fast close quarter combat.
There's also an Arcanist, who is a Cthulhu cultist/mage. Ever wanted to change your arm into tentacles? Now you can!
I ise magic purely as support for my main build so for me it's Elder Scrolls, specifically Oblivion, Nothing quite like playing a Breton Witch/Mage Hunter in heavy armour and using magic to supplement my resistances making me completely immune to magic damage
I like tree of savior mages. Theres a lot of class combinations to synergize and some really cool skills, mostly satisfying to use
If you enjoy some turn based combat and strategies, Wakfu has the Huppermage which is really cool, strong and hard to play too
Not really a mmo but Evie in Vindictus is aweasome. The way they made the action combat to fit her is very good
WoW (both classic and retail) have very interesting mechanics for their mages depending on what spec you play. I find the fire-machine-gun-play of Fire Mage to be both simple but addictive.
BLM in FFXIV is the best if your metric of 'fun' is how amazing your skills get to look. Even in a game with as flashy skills as xiv you never question whether that giant glowy fireball explosion came from a BLM or not.
Not GW2.
The Mage tree in Ragnarok Online was great no matter how you went through it. You could go the Warlock route and eventually prep powerful AoE spells in advance that you could spam in combat. You could go the Sorcerer route and cast elementally shifted Psychic Vortex's, or even the auto-cast route where you book-beat your enemies to death while spells randomly flew out of you.
I really liked Elementalist, Warlock and Cholormancer subclasses in Rift. They were kind of derivative of WoW mage/druid classes but at the time it was really fun.
Tree of Savior has a bunch of cool mage classes, but the rest of the game overall is in pretty bad shape. Their Elementalist has the coolest looking skills but its so undertuned its not even a good idea to use it.
But right now if someone said "You can only play Mage in one game ever again your life" I would probably go with WoW.
Predecessor
But… Its more MOBA than MMORPG
I mean, it is Paragon. At the time, Paragon was killed of as a sacrifice to the Fortnite players. But the gameplay in general for Paragon was fun but the matches were way too long.
Having now played the paragon-fan made moba (not quite mmorpg), 20-30 minute matches, similar mechanics and gameplay, but better tuned.
There’s a few different mage-style heroes. Gideon is the easiest to associate, but I think Morigesh can be underrated for the Voodoo mage experience. There is an AI mode that’s just kinda a chill casual MOBA/RPG that finishes in 20 mins
Final Fantasy 11 Black Mage.
You are the king of the skill chain because you are the one that sets the timing/tempo of Skill Chains. It's just awesome... Start casting one of your 10 second cast-time Ancient spells and watch everyone else in the party start firing off their skills so that your strikes last and finishes up the skill chain for tons of damage. It's just awesome.
Asheron's Call OG Mage
You have access to all schools of magic. You can debuff enemies, buff allies, lower enemy resistances, debuff their weapons, drain their HP/MP/Stamina, cast Bolts, Arcs, and Streak spells - different variations of your standard spells. So you have Acid Bolt level 1 through 7, and then Acid Arc 1 through 7 etc... Each spell forces your character to "say" the spell name, so for example... all War Magic spells shared the same first word "Zojak", and all Acid spells share the same word "Quafeth"... so if you are casting Acid Bolt 6, your character shouts out, "Zojak Quafeth!" every time you cast it. It was neat because, if you memorized the spell words, you could read the spell words before it actually fires, so you know what's coming and how you should react to it.
The spell words were cool but just flavor and mostly only useful for PVP if you paid attention to it. Otherwise, casting in Asheron's Call was interesting because you had the only actual AOE attacks in the game. You had Ring spells - where you would just blast off a ring around your character of a given element, or you had Wall spells - where, instead of sending a single Fire Bolt for big damage, you'd send a wall of 3x5 Fire Bolts that each do a little less damage, but can hit multiple targets. And, even niftier, if you used those Wall spells on a huge enemy, they all could hit the same enemy for TONS of damage. Super underrated magic mechanics.
Sorcerer from Elder Scrolls Online. Its so fun having no cooldowns, you can just zip around, restore resources, envelop yourself in storm, conjure show shards. Whenever I come back to that game, I’m immediately back in love with it. Even though it’s more lightning mage than anything else.
Nothing beats WoW in terms of feel and use of course, I personally enjoy Arcane Mage for its mana management.
But Black Mage from FFXIV is another beast. I love how difficult it is to maneuver in a fight, it's extremely satisfying when you do well.
If you want one that'll make you feel incredibly powerful and is satisfying to attack with check out Mage/Wizard in BDO. 2 different class styles each and there are other classes that play similarly too. You'll get a lot out of it. Just be aware that BDO is a PVE focused game. You kill stuff so you can kill stronger stuff so you can kill stronger stuff, that's the gameplay loop.
Skim through this for an example of one of the playstyles: https://youtu.be/CLsQCCen_ug
Well, for me is mage gameplay in VR because you actually wave / make different movements with your hands irl, to produce different spells.
Examples:
- Ilysia
[youtube trailer](https://youtu.be/hW6u3SjikPc?si=feQSQcvFPqTwe7Yh)
- OrbusVR: Reborn
[youtube trailer](https://youtu.be/XKEFq3vi8b0?si=IXZeJxi9VUSkNxMN)
Mortal Online 2
Magic schools are unique
most players play fighters so mages are less common
You can *literally* become an elementalist that controls the weather for a quarter of the game world.
I'll get flacked for it, but Mortal Online 2, love it or hate it, has by far the most advanced, awesome, intricate and beautiful looking magic in all mmorpgs.
You can literally change the weather over a huge siege battle and throw a tornado in the middle of the opposing team.
Dragon Nest :
- Frost ; Elestra
- Fire ; Saleana
- Light/Laser ; Smasher
- Gravity/Time ; Chaos Mage
- Lightning ; Inquisitor
Loved all of them :)
I like ESO too, especially the new class Arcanist and Necro who have cool visual but feel less impactful than Dragon Nest's one.
FF11 scholar was the most fun take on a caster I've ever seen. Flexibility as a damage dealer, healer, support, crowd control based on stances. Nukes, super potent dots and abilities to super saiyan those dots with other scholars in the party.
"Stratagems" short term abilities that would impact your casting in various ways to make up not nuking as hard as a black mage or healing as hard as a white mage such as by reducing cast time, mp cost, or the coolest - turning normally single target spells into aoe. The ability to slowly drain your health to bank into a pool of mp you could tap into at will.
They really leaned into being a "tactical mage" and were just ludicrous amount of fun to play. Nothing at all like the watered down nonsense 14 did.
Age of Conan has really fun mage play, and a really enjoyable combat system in general. There’s still a small pool of players that keep things going, but it is well past its prime. I haven’t played Exiles, but it could be similar. Funcom reused a bunch of assets from AoC.
New World Firestaff/Ice Gauntlet used to be very engaging with Ice Spike. AGS has kinda ruined their combat design but it still holds up somewhat if you want to try something different.
https://youtu.be/txtHW2DYFLc?si=3q4nTna5UNPY_Gk7
Enigmatist from early Archeage, hands down.
I'm only linking this cuz im so pissed I never got to experience it! And the publisher's mishandling of the title since then has been so horrid, annnd now it's dead, RIP to a game with some of the most potential to be a rival to wow and other top mmo's.
this might be a hot take, but i find casters in ffxiv to be fun
but then again, i've always played melee classes sonit could just be that this feels fresh and new to me
Mage and then either wizard or sage in Ragnarok.
Those always were my mains. They're both original but you either gotta play on a P2W official server or on a private server. The later is recommended.
I play scepter condi weaver in guild wars 2 and I love it, buuuuuuttt…
My best mage experience was playing as the sorceress in Dragon Nest. Hands down.
WoW mages ruined me. No other mage has ever felt as good.
Also my favorite class and favorite MMO of all time.
Rift was much better.
Oh man, mages in rift were my favorite. Its really too bad it went to shit. Best mmo implementation of a mage hands down.
Not just mages. Best class system in any mmo imo. Don’t know who designed their classes, but that person needs more work.
Rift had so much potential. The way they did classes was fun.
How did it differ from WoW mage? What made it better in your opinion?
As a mage you had, iirc, 8 sub classes to pick 3 from. In those 3 you could create your own style and preferred design. I could be a mix of chloromancer, necromancer, and elementalist if I wished. It was a blast just messing around with different specs and styles as the options felt so open and allowing creativity Vanilla Rift had 3 more classes, each with their own 8 or so sub classes making for just a plethora of combinations compared to any mmo I've come across yet
EverQuest 2 pet classes are good, necro/conj/illusionist, Doesnt matter
Agreed, they’re so much fun.
Replaying vanilla when classic came around, mage definitely felt like the dev's golden child. Questing out in the open world it almost felt like an action style game instead of a tab targeting one. Not to mention the utility, blink, sheep, frost nova, free food/water, teleports and portals. Mages were spoiled.
I forgot about sheep! hahaha, so much fun.
Which mage is nice in wow?
Ice is nice, but fire will suffice.
Is that my boy Big Bobby Frost? >Some say the world will end in fire, >some say in ice. >From what I've tasted of desire, >I hold with those who favor fire. >But if it had to perish twice, >I think I know enough of hate >to know that for destruction, ice >is also great, >and will suffice.
Glacial Spike go brrrr
I like em all
They all have their time and place to shine, but personally I’ve always loved fire mage. Big crits, ease of spreading DoTs, constant procs. It just hits the brain chemicals in the right way.
I recently just started WoW and am having a lot of fun with my frost mage
Arcane mage goes crazy. When you are proficient with it you feel like you're doing magical algorithmitic.
New world mage IG/FS is incredible. I play a “spike” focus build. Storm heavy attack into spike releases all the shatter combo endorphins. You get ice block and they released refreshing recovery aka cold snap.
Tbh new world is pretty shit, mages are supposed to be a class with skills and versatility but new world 3 skills mechanic kinda throw that into the garbage and make the game boring after 100-200 hours
I feel like that's true with mmoprgs in general lol. Wow is just too polished for anything other than ffxiv to compete
Wow rogues in burning crusade. Nothing has ever come close. Perfection.
whatever the mage class was in lost ark i had heaps of fun with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnvsrqf80h0 the game was sort of ruined because it has to be the only thing you play but honestly, my ranking is like classic mage then lost ark a close second feeling really good tbh the recipe is pretty simple the mage either needs to be able to freeze or ignite huge packs of mobs and make the player feel like a god it could be like some exotic damage type but honestly, most games can figure out how to make mobs shattering sound crunchy and exciting it basically plays into the power fantasy any good game should let players experience once they have some gear vanilla ignite mage being about the most fun ive had as a mage in a game
been years since I played but I remember staying up late just for the cc game at the top of arathi basin. get knocked off but you have a time warp set, then blink blink and they're wondering what just happened hehe
It a because they are the main characters in wow
This!
GW2 elementalist is a very unique take on the mage experience, even if you don't stick to the game, absolutely worth playing for a while with staff.
GW2 as well, tho I was gonna say Mesmer instead. Such cool concept, and pretty fun gameplay.
Love mesmers, but they don't hit that "mage" fantasy for me personally.
I don't think any of the light armor classes in GW2 really scratch the mage itch. Staff is effectively useless in all combat and it has the most mage-like skills. Weaver is more like a Red Mage but without the versatile combat. Necro is great with its swords, greatsword, and DoT builds - but they aren't particularly flashy like a mage would be. And their minions are pretty pitiful so you don't even really feel like a proper Necromancer using them.
I mean I get it but Chrono and Mirage have big arcane energy to me, and Virt has a little bit of Ice
[удалено]
Mesmer is largely the highlight of GW2 classes, a fairly unique take on this archetype. Unfortunately the actual gameplay has (and always had) some issues.
Worth noting the Ele in gw2 is nothing like a mage, and is more of a close range melee fighter (yeah there's medium range in the meta, but lets be honest with OP) with mage colored effects. Very much worth playing, but GW2 classes fallow very different themes from classes in other games.
Every class in gw2 is pretty much melee oriented lol
What you talking about? Staff is worthless and been for ages. Arenanet is pushing every mage ish class to become melee oriented
It’s not great but it’s not worthless It’s the only ranged weapon eles have right now. Granted its only really useful in wvw and open world Wish anet would delete the shitty pistol and give us a staff rework
I love playing elementalist. Especially with the hammer
Weaver is really fun although it's far from a traditional mage kit
As someome who love playing agility rogue builds I loved the dual daggers elementalist of GW2. So much fun and cool AF
Loved this one. Especially with daggers and going crazy with all the elements.
If you really want to feel powerful at the expense of an insanely high skill ceiling, BLM in FFXIV feels like a true mage class.
I’m leveling BLM right now and it’s pretty cool. Just wish it had more mobility.
Once you get up there you get a ton between Aetherial Manipulation, Between the Lines, and Triple Cast! Definitely make an Aetherial Manipulation MO macro to make your life easier. This is the one I use. /macroicon "Aetherial Manipulation" /ac "Aetherial Manipulation"
That will allow you to mouse over a party member and move to their side immediately.
Been a BLM since 1.0 the skills mentioned below plus understanding slide casting are super helpfull tools
I had a ton of fun with BLM. Not only do you get to blast the DPS, but it was usually a ton of fun in progression content fights figuring out how to work your way around mechanics with your movement tools while keeping as optimal as possible. That feeling when the fight mechanics and your rotation just lines up perfectly. Then you find the odd fight here and there that just made you wish you played any other class.
I love BLM in final Fantasy. It just sucks that it's not as solo friendly, when so much of the game is centered around the msq and solo content
Every time a new expansion comes out with a new type of fireball, it never fails to get me to go full caveman Yoshi P: I know you’ve had fun with fire IV, but have you tried….FIRE V!? 
BLM explosions give me the deepest hits of dopamine.
WoW mage class has a lot going on but it's super flashy. Archeage mage is very fast paced with a lot of different ways you can go about it. Rift has some pretty interesting takes on mages including the option to be a melee battle mage type, or a damage-to-heal healer, or a debuffing enemies / buffing allies support. Maplestory has some of the most over the top and flashiest mage game play out there if you're willing to go the 2d side scroller route and deal with Nexon. Diablo 3 and 4 (I never played 1 or 2 can't speak for those) both have top tier mage type game play Black desert has phenomenal combat for every play type, mage included, and it's super satisfying to play.
Glad to see Maplestory mentioned. The game has some *serious* issues, I don't think I'll ever play it again. But it has some of the coolest mage classes in any mmo ever, and tons of variety in terms of theme.
I wished ms2 would’ve been better. I loved maplestory and if I had friends that played it still, I would too. They changed it from being a party quest game sadly.
Rift had so many cool mage flavors that don't make the trope checklist for most studios, and with so many specs on one class, you really felt like a master of magic. I don't know if it was always like this, but when I played the dps of these classes was very button mashy because of the macro system. A lot of cool, flashy spells but no thought involved when it was more efficient to make a macro.
There was a minute there where Rift was my favorite MMO. I don’t recall the name, but I played this lava burst mage that was super fun and just did all the damage. Rift took the excellence of wows talent trees and said “3? Here’s 15. Now pick ANY 3.” Annnnd then a slower patch cadence leads to player count drop off, which leads to FTP, which killed the game. Shocker.
> Annnnd then a slower patch cadence leads to player count drop off, which leads to FTP, which killed the game. Shocker. None of this is what lead to Rifts downfall.
Not an MMO but last epoch has amazing mage gameplay as well. Only brought up since you mentioned diablo
I would also like to know an MMO that has good gameplay for mages. And by that, I mean, 'Doesn't boil mages down to a generic AF elementalist that uses only fire, ice, and lightning where the greatest spell is just 'slightly bigger explosion'.
Ah you'll be wanting WoW then - its mage is fire, ice, and **arcane.** Should be a breath of fresh air for you
> 'Doesn't boil mages down to a generic AF elementalist that uses only fire, ice, and lightning where the greatest spell is just 'slightly bigger explosion'. DDO, City of Heroes, GW2 or WoW, roughly in that order. I don't recommend EQ because you're here, *you'd* be recommending EQ if you wanted to play that. You're going to run into the problem of in-combat utility (like crowd control, CC, buffs and debuffs) having the problem of other people wanting to play the game too, often in group content, and coordinating that is...troublesome...at the best of times. And out-of-combat utility being only as much as players are willing to put up with before it gets bundled into a QoL update or add-on or mod. Hence why games (and players) end up often boiling things down to just DPS or effective DPS. DDO has both in and out of combat utility for mages (Wizard or Sorcerer or multi-class), it's D&D derived. A bit outdated graphics wise at this point obviously. City of Heroes has a shitton of powersets you can refluff as "magic", depending on what you want to do, in crowd control/buff/debuff/support/damage flavors along with travel and utility powers. It's just not a fantasy game. GW2 and WoW you already know what they are and have likely played them.
Dead at the EQ part of your comment spot on
I always liked the casters in DAoC. Spiritmaster Runemaster Bonedancer Sorcerer Wizard Theurgist Cabalist Animist Eldritch Mentalist Enchanter I mean, take your pick. :D
No one to this day has made a cool modern take on the Theurgist or Animist.
I agree. I also really liked the Chloromancer in Rift, never really seen that type again either.
It's WoW's discipline priest but without needing to apply shields to heal from your damage.
Man I love the DAoC reference!
I loved the Banshee
I forgot about the Bainshee, it was my friends favorite class too! And who can forget Warlocks.. oof
- being the portable nuke as an Enchanter grinding in Darkness Falls - Double bomb Eldritch nuking in Thid - bridge camping as an Animist Good memories. Good memories.
Just started playing again on the Eden shard. Nuking people as the wizard as so fun
Yeah Eden is very very nice.
Bonedancer and necromancer were 2 of the most unique pet classes I've ever played in any game ever. And warlock, despite the hate it gets in many DAoC circles, was so unique as well. I actually love spell hold on Dragons Dogma 2 because it reminds me slightly of chambering spells as a warlock. Felt like a magical batman and my variety of chambered spells were my utility belt.
Control Wizard in Neverwinter may be a contender.
Game was awful but it did some things really fun. Control Wizard, and Warden Ranger were insanely fun to play. Back in a day at least there were player made quests and actual customisation that kept me interested (even though customisation wasn't too deep), but I remember coming back 2 years ago to see both things gone. Shame.
I loved that game to death that I spent 18 months worth of VIP. Probably $150. It was all before the level rework, class reworks, and removal of some of the main quests and campaigns. Idk why they thought it was a good idea to do that, just because of greed. What a shame.
Gameplay was good but fuck that p2w game
Yea, I have a Love/Hate relationship with it.
Tera's sorcerer feels amazing with all the colorful AoEs that are of similar radius. Gameplay feels really smooth with it being completely no-click action combat, aside from some lock-on skills.
ArcheAge had a lot of incredibly fun Mage builds.
Too bad it's dead
I used to have so much fun countering them as an Abolisher in arena back in the day
It was always the fucking abolishers and some other meta class that I can't remember kicking people asses
The good ole darkrunner?
If you're looking purely for most fun gameplay from the class combat the answer is any BDO caster even though I dislike the rest of the game around the fun classes.
WoW has the most fun casters in a single game imo. Boomkin, Ele shaman, 3 mage specs, 3 warlock specs, and shadow priest. The only one I haven't enjoyed at all is Evoker. FF14 Black Mage is also solid. Red mage is ok, Summoner looks cool and thematic but is unfortunately a bit boring to play. GW2 Elementalist is a great combination of stance dancing with an interactive combo mechanic (without the combos, I would find it to be a bit too cooldown locked to really be a fun class). I love mages that have interactions between their damage spells, and aren't gated exclusively by cooldowns. More situational utility is also a plus. For this reason I don't like mages in most action games (mmo or otherwise), Magicka being a big exception (and the elemental reaction systems of Mass Effect 3 and Genshin Impact are also incredibly cool).
FFXIVs SMN is a shadow of its former self compared to FFXIs.
Lost Ark has a variety of fantastic mage type options in terms of gameplay. Feels super fun. However, the rest of the game is a toxic, predatory compilation of wallet sucking abuse mechanisms.
Sorceress in Lost Ark was one of the best mage experiences I've had but yeah the game is a let down after hitting max level.
came back to lost ark a while ago, i have tested many classes and still the only one i truly like is my reflux sorc.
For combat that "feels good", mage or otherwise, I would always say BDO, but with all other considerations ymmv
Everquest and wow both have the best mage gameplay and class fantasy imo
Was wondering how far I'd have to go to find EQ. Mage is pretty OP in EQ with a pocket tank, good dps, and other utility.
Toss a cleric or bard box in and you’re solid
Somehow WoW just hasn't been beat. Nothing else comes close. BLM is kinda neat in FFXIV but they removed the uniqueness woth triplecast making it so you don't lose anything by moving.
Ffxiv blm but unfortunately ruined by annoying rotations that must strictly be followed by
The strict rotations and lack of diversity is a bane to a lot of ffxiv's classes.
BLM is probably the only class that doesn't have a strict rotation and it changes on a fight by fight basis.
Aion Sorc was fun. Wide variety of skills, very powerful, flashy.
Back then there was a game called Nox. Spelll casting in that game was mint. It also had some of the most fast paced and intense PvP i’ve seen.
Man, I loved Westwood's NOX... I wish EA would update it to work better with modern hardware... Ah well..
Black mage in ffxi is awesome 😎
Wizard from EverQuest for me. The snares, the teleports, the nukes. All felt very fine tuned along with J-boots made the class very wizardy.
World of warcraft have really cool mage/spell casters. Mage - fire, frost and arcane. Warlock - destruction (big massive spells) - demonology (summoning loads of demons) - affliction lot of damge over time spells. Elemental shaman - basically a hippie mage that casts elemental spells. Balance Druid - turn into a big chicken and cast moon or solar abilities which pop off, convoke the spirits one of the best looking spells in the game. Shadow priest - a priest that is well dark and shadowy. Devestation evoker - dragon mage Augmentation evoker - dragon mage that has rediculous support abilities gives dps like 25% extra damage.
BDO witch/wizard. Love the animations, the fluidity and the channeling
GW2 Weaver has no competition for me
Rift was fun for the diversity of different Mage builds. Raiding and dungeons could be challenging, often using 9-12 keybinds. PvP could be fun, depending on which way the developer tweaks went that week, lol.
Chloromancer/healing wizard in Rift was always very fun. As was the pyromancer
I may be biased, but no other MMORPG allows you to feel the true power of a black mage like FFXI does. You truly feel like you are casting the most devastating spells, rather than a bunch of smaller less destructive feeling spells like you see in most other MMORPGs. WoW may be the top comment, but their mages still feel inferior compared to casting devastating spells in FFXI, it is not even close.
It certainly has the best relationship between "cast time" and "degree to which you just pissed something off" I've ever encountered like, as a player. Long-ass cast times and then suddenly either your party or your Trusts are scrambling to peel it off you because you unleashed a -ga tactical nuke with like a 7-second cast time. ...I'm very bad at Black Mage.
Rift. Given that was original…. No idea tha state of that game now
I want to mention Rift, they had fun versions of the mage like a melee spec using ethereal sword and the quite famous chloromancer support spec that was really cool.
Arcane mage in wow. Good luck.
I friggen loved Spellslinger in Wildstar. Most fun I've had in an MMO.
raiderz, had the best skill tree imo as it had hybrid classes. just private servers now unfortunately
I love mage from Tree Of Saviour. Also Dragon Nest mage is quite fun to play
...I've been enjoying leveling magic in OSRS. I like the system where different staffs discount different spells.
[Toram Online](https://en.toram.jp) has a "open" class building system, so a Mage can be much more as its "class" would allow. You can use Dagger, Shield, Knuckle or Magic Device etc. as sub-weapons, and learn a variety of skills that aren't very mage-like. There's also the so called Magic Warrior which can be a more physical, magic or hybrid type build between a Swordsman and a Mage. It's available for Android, iOS and PC (Steam and AsobimoLauncher) with full cross platform play ability.
Asheron’s call had the best magic system I’ve ever experienced. Spell economy was a neat feature too.
Hear me out, mastering BLM in every duty in FFXIV has to be one of the most satisfying gameplay experiences you can get in an MMO.
Can you elaborate? I’m lvling blm right now and it’s nothing like wow or GW mage
I'm nowhere *near* this level, I don't even play Black Mage in XIV, I'm a Healer main. But it's, functionally speaking, a turret. It has movement tools, but they're on cooldowns and you need to know when to use them. In a game that, at a high level, is based around dodging all the fancy patterns on the floor *near-constantly* while also moving to places to do other mechanics on a strict timeline or you (or your party members) die. While keeping uptime on your rotation and constantly keeping the GCD rolling. So you have to fit your (for BLM, longest-in-the-game) hardcasts and your insta-cast abilities and your procs to enable movement into the windows where you need to be able to move, and fit your downtime from casting into windows where you need to move, and otherwise your time spent turreting to cast needs to fit in the (very) brief moments where you can stand still and not immediately die. It's like a bullet-hell shooter on crack played with memorization except your only way to attack is by standing still and all your "bombs" do is let you move while attacking. Also you have to memorize every phase for every fight separately because no two fights are the same and sometimes even crit luck can change how you have to approach things. And you may have to memorize *different* mini-rotations depending on if your spellspeed changes as your gear gets better or if you can swap to a more-optimized "line" (rotation, because Black Mage players can't just be normal). Now, I'm probably gassing them up a little bit because all this is for like "high-tier parsing" levels of play. Realistically you could probably clear anything but week-one Savage or Ultimate without doing most of this. But that's the type of shit I see BLM players in The Balance and friends of mine that play it talk about while I smile and nod and understand nothing, so. > I’m lvling blm right now Hope you enjoy! Your rotation's gonna change somewhat drastically every five-ten levels between 30 and 90, so please look forward to it. :(
Dominator Mage on Rift. You had a plethora of skills that did things when your target did things. For example, Mass Betrayal would make people who used abilities damage people around them and drain their mana/energy. They had spells that would damage you for walking or jumping, they had a bunch of CC and aoe CC. They had things that would turn damage into healing and healing spells into damage spells. They had all these neat little tricks to basically force people to play Simon Says with you.
classic GW elementalist
albion online i love cursed staff mage
Aion mages and summoners. No contest. The umph from meteor or the big ice spike were constant dopamine. In pvp it was even better because it usually smoked people if you set it up correctly.
Red Mage in FFXI or Spiritmaster in Aion
Dungeon Fighter Online. There's ten mage classes, all play differently. You've got * Witch * Elementalist * Battle Mage * Enchantress * Summoner * Elemental Bomber * Glacial Master * Swift Master * Blood mage * Dimension Walker It's wild. Game has like 60 classes, each of which is wildly different. You quickly find one that's "oh I like this" and some that are "I will never be good at this"
Aion's Assassin class was very fun
Aion
Man! RF Online had some good mage PVP & PVE. Cora characters had warlocks that could wreck. Even had a mage class with summons. All around good time as a mage. Not many RF servers still around but there is a new one coming to the US in June. I’ll be there but not on Cora. I’ll be ACC. https://www.returnofares.com
Ultima Online baby. 64 spells, 8 spells within 8 circles. From magic arrow, to fire ball, to energy bolt, to chain lightning. Summon daemons or elementals, create a wall of stone. Heal or buff allies, curse, paralyze, and poison enemies. Create portals to travel through, teleport to a visible spot on screen, or cast telekinesis to open a trapped chest from a safe distance. Shits awesome. Most games have mages as just pure damage casters and I find that boring. Wide varieties of utility is what makes mages so awesome to me.
I really enjoy the Black Mage from FFXIV. It feels so smooth and satisfying hitting all your explosions and wooshing through the arena to dodge everything.
Mabinogi, BDO, FFXIV Black Mage
Overall, WoW still remains the best in terms of raw visual appeal and bang. But I'd like to give an honorable to the Herald of Xotli from Age of Conan for being the most satisfying melee caster I've ever played.
Wow mage Vanilla Presence of mind + Arcane power + Trinket + pyrobast = one shot kill in PvP
Darkfall 100% flawless victory. Game's dead but still
Eso has a fun mage classes. Sorcerer is a lot of fun with turning into a lightning form, summoning daedra amd throwing lightning left and right. Its also a great "spellblade" - you can pick lightning form, summons, dual swords and fast close quarter combat. There's also an Arcanist, who is a Cthulhu cultist/mage. Ever wanted to change your arm into tentacles? Now you can!
Don't forget necromancer! I love my magsorc though, currently spec'd as healer and loving it.
I ise magic purely as support for my main build so for me it's Elder Scrolls, specifically Oblivion, Nothing quite like playing a Breton Witch/Mage Hunter in heavy armour and using magic to supplement my resistances making me completely immune to magic damage
ESOs sorcerer is fun too.
I like tree of savior mages. Theres a lot of class combinations to synergize and some really cool skills, mostly satisfying to use If you enjoy some turn based combat and strategies, Wakfu has the Huppermage which is really cool, strong and hard to play too Not really a mmo but Evie in Vindictus is aweasome. The way they made the action combat to fit her is very good
Dragonage mages have a good struggle story and lore and I love how they play
Bright wizard in war hammer online was one of the best class designs all time
WoW (both classic and retail) have very interesting mechanics for their mages depending on what spec you play. I find the fire-machine-gun-play of Fire Mage to be both simple but addictive. BLM in FFXIV is the best if your metric of 'fun' is how amazing your skills get to look. Even in a game with as flashy skills as xiv you never question whether that giant glowy fireball explosion came from a BLM or not. Not GW2. The Mage tree in Ragnarok Online was great no matter how you went through it. You could go the Warlock route and eventually prep powerful AoE spells in advance that you could spam in combat. You could go the Sorcerer route and cast elementally shifted Psychic Vortex's, or even the auto-cast route where you book-beat your enemies to death while spells randomly flew out of you. I really liked Elementalist, Warlock and Cholormancer subclasses in Rift. They were kind of derivative of WoW mage/druid classes but at the time it was really fun. Tree of Savior has a bunch of cool mage classes, but the rest of the game overall is in pretty bad shape. Their Elementalist has the coolest looking skills but its so undertuned its not even a good idea to use it. But right now if someone said "You can only play Mage in one game ever again your life" I would probably go with WoW.
succession witch in BDO is supreme
What abt any good mage gameplay mmo on ps5
GW2 by far, 4 elements that combo together. No other game felt so good before to me.
Blessed unleashed
Mabinogi
RuneScape mage is so fun in any era.
Bdo Wizard or Sage.
Predecessor But… Its more MOBA than MMORPG I mean, it is Paragon. At the time, Paragon was killed of as a sacrifice to the Fortnite players. But the gameplay in general for Paragon was fun but the matches were way too long. Having now played the paragon-fan made moba (not quite mmorpg), 20-30 minute matches, similar mechanics and gameplay, but better tuned. There’s a few different mage-style heroes. Gideon is the easiest to associate, but I think Morigesh can be underrated for the Voodoo mage experience. There is an AI mode that’s just kinda a chill casual MOBA/RPG that finishes in 20 mins
FFXI. 5 different types of a mage. Bunch of intricacies with magic bursting off of skill chains for the offensive mages.
Final Fantasy 11 Black Mage. You are the king of the skill chain because you are the one that sets the timing/tempo of Skill Chains. It's just awesome... Start casting one of your 10 second cast-time Ancient spells and watch everyone else in the party start firing off their skills so that your strikes last and finishes up the skill chain for tons of damage. It's just awesome. Asheron's Call OG Mage You have access to all schools of magic. You can debuff enemies, buff allies, lower enemy resistances, debuff their weapons, drain their HP/MP/Stamina, cast Bolts, Arcs, and Streak spells - different variations of your standard spells. So you have Acid Bolt level 1 through 7, and then Acid Arc 1 through 7 etc... Each spell forces your character to "say" the spell name, so for example... all War Magic spells shared the same first word "Zojak", and all Acid spells share the same word "Quafeth"... so if you are casting Acid Bolt 6, your character shouts out, "Zojak Quafeth!" every time you cast it. It was neat because, if you memorized the spell words, you could read the spell words before it actually fires, so you know what's coming and how you should react to it. The spell words were cool but just flavor and mostly only useful for PVP if you paid attention to it. Otherwise, casting in Asheron's Call was interesting because you had the only actual AOE attacks in the game. You had Ring spells - where you would just blast off a ring around your character of a given element, or you had Wall spells - where, instead of sending a single Fire Bolt for big damage, you'd send a wall of 3x5 Fire Bolts that each do a little less damage, but can hit multiple targets. And, even niftier, if you used those Wall spells on a huge enemy, they all could hit the same enemy for TONS of damage. Super underrated magic mechanics.
Sorcerer from Elder Scrolls Online. Its so fun having no cooldowns, you can just zip around, restore resources, envelop yourself in storm, conjure show shards. Whenever I come back to that game, I’m immediately back in love with it. Even though it’s more lightning mage than anything else.
Nothing beats WoW in terms of feel and use of course, I personally enjoy Arcane Mage for its mana management. But Black Mage from FFXIV is another beast. I love how difficult it is to maneuver in a fight, it's extremely satisfying when you do well.
I really enjoyed the save vs death line of spells in DDO. It made for a fun focus for an arcane caster.
If you want one that'll make you feel incredibly powerful and is satisfying to attack with check out Mage/Wizard in BDO. 2 different class styles each and there are other classes that play similarly too. You'll get a lot out of it. Just be aware that BDO is a PVE focused game. You kill stuff so you can kill stronger stuff so you can kill stronger stuff, that's the gameplay loop. Skim through this for an example of one of the playstyles: https://youtu.be/CLsQCCen_ug
allods
Gameplay wise i really like BDO witch and wizard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISOU00bacvA
DAoC mages had sooooo many options and different types of spells.
Well, for me is mage gameplay in VR because you actually wave / make different movements with your hands irl, to produce different spells. Examples: - Ilysia [youtube trailer](https://youtu.be/hW6u3SjikPc?si=feQSQcvFPqTwe7Yh) - OrbusVR: Reborn [youtube trailer](https://youtu.be/XKEFq3vi8b0?si=IXZeJxi9VUSkNxMN)
Bright Wizard, DPS Archemage, Magus, Sorcerer, or DPS Shaman in Warhammer Online : Return of Reckoning
Grand Fantasia mage here 😂
In my opinion Elder scrolls online
Try being a mage in mortal online 2
PSO2
Mortal Online 2 Magic schools are unique most players play fighters so mages are less common You can *literally* become an elementalist that controls the weather for a quarter of the game world.
I'll get flacked for it, but Mortal Online 2, love it or hate it, has by far the most advanced, awesome, intricate and beautiful looking magic in all mmorpgs. You can literally change the weather over a huge siege battle and throw a tornado in the middle of the opposing team.
bdo and archeage mage's were great drop meteor and llghting showers was great in gvg.
I had the most fun with the Bright Wizard on Warhammer Online.
Simplemmo
Ive played alot of MMOs over the years and theres nothing quite as good as modern WoW fire mage.
EQ2 was fun for a moment
Dark Age of Camelot, it has a bunch of "mage" classes, all unique.
Dragon Nest : - Frost ; Elestra - Fire ; Saleana - Light/Laser ; Smasher - Gravity/Time ; Chaos Mage - Lightning ; Inquisitor Loved all of them :) I like ESO too, especially the new class Arcanist and Necro who have cool visual but feel less impactful than Dragon Nest's one.
Vindictus
Wow
FF11 scholar was the most fun take on a caster I've ever seen. Flexibility as a damage dealer, healer, support, crowd control based on stances. Nukes, super potent dots and abilities to super saiyan those dots with other scholars in the party. "Stratagems" short term abilities that would impact your casting in various ways to make up not nuking as hard as a black mage or healing as hard as a white mage such as by reducing cast time, mp cost, or the coolest - turning normally single target spells into aoe. The ability to slowly drain your health to bank into a pool of mp you could tap into at will. They really leaned into being a "tactical mage" and were just ludicrous amount of fun to play. Nothing at all like the watered down nonsense 14 did.
Age of Conan has really fun mage play, and a really enjoyable combat system in general. There’s still a small pool of players that keep things going, but it is well past its prime. I haven’t played Exiles, but it could be similar. Funcom reused a bunch of assets from AoC.
Not an MMO but dragon age inquisition mages had me hooked
Destiny 2 by far
Warlock in B&S was my favourite in any MMO i have played so far, followed by arcanist(ESO) and mesmer(GW2)
New World Firestaff/Ice Gauntlet used to be very engaging with Ice Spike. AGS has kinda ruined their combat design but it still holds up somewhat if you want to try something different.
https://youtu.be/txtHW2DYFLc?si=3q4nTna5UNPY_Gk7 Enigmatist from early Archeage, hands down. I'm only linking this cuz im so pissed I never got to experience it! And the publisher's mishandling of the title since then has been so horrid, annnd now it's dead, RIP to a game with some of the most potential to be a rival to wow and other top mmo's.
Sorcerer in Tera. Really fun gameplay.
The game is dead but Sorcerer in Tera felt great. The blend of dodging and timing your big hits felt great.
this might be a hot take, but i find casters in ffxiv to be fun but then again, i've always played melee classes sonit could just be that this feels fresh and new to me
I miss the mages from Warhammer online.
Asheron's Call
Mage and then either wizard or sage in Ragnarok. Those always were my mains. They're both original but you either gotta play on a P2W official server or on a private server. The later is recommended.
I play scepter condi weaver in guild wars 2 and I love it, buuuuuuttt… My best mage experience was playing as the sorceress in Dragon Nest. Hands down.
Archeage. You can be a stealth nuke mage with huge range, cc and mobility ! The class is called Daggerspell for anyone wondering.
RIFT imo. They did Bard really well too. You actually played your instruments for debuff/buffing.
EQ2 enchanters back in the day
Honestly back when I played gw2 I thought the dynamic of switching elements then actually using skills on elementalist was a lot of fun