My Mage, Walkere, has been on the backburner for the most part. He comes off the bench for some Heroic Magisters runs, but otherwise he fulfills a utility role.

Sometimes, I need him to farm herbs. As a Frost Mage, I’ve got it easy farming Talonsworn Forest Ragers. I occasionally patrol around Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley for those rare herbs.

Recently, I’ve found two far more important uses for my Mage: free food and free ports.

Ritual of Refreshment

The Mage Table – Ritual of Refreshment – can be both a blessing and a curse.

It’s awesome for raid night. I used to have to spend 5-10 minutes conjuring tons of food and water before a Kara run – and I could just imagine the quantity of food needed for SSC/TK.

It might not be so awesome for PVP – people expect a table in every BG, and sometimes I don’t feel like shelling out the powder to conjure one. Then I think of the poor Hunters who have to buy bullets/arrows for every battleground and I usually summon a table anyway. At least I don’t have to put up with whispers for food and water.

For the first month or two after I came back, I spent nearly every day running Heroics with my Paladin. He needed a lot of Badges to get all the gear, so I would run them non-stop. Unfortunately, Paladins also use up water… non stop. Unless I wanted to take a long time for each run, I needed to be able to drink until I was half full and then run into combat.

This can get expensive when you pay 50-60s per 5 water. The solution? Conjured water. Unfortunately, there were no Mages in our regular Heroic groups. The two main Mages for our group had now become a Tankadin (me) and a Resto Druid (my healer). Doh!

That’s when we came to the realization that we could summon a table for ourselves!

Here’s what you do. Summon the entire group to the instance. Transfer leader to someone trustworthy and switch over to your Mage.

Have your Trustworthy Leader invite you to the group, get a summon to the instance, and cast Ritual of Refreshment. Log out and switch back to your main. Once you’re invited to the group, you can take food from the table!

It takes a minute or two, but it’s well worth it. Free food and water for you and your healer more than outweighs the 20s cost of two Arcane Powder.

Free Ports? Yeah!

Here’s another great trick I figured out today.

Ever have an Alt that needs ported around the world? I know I have. My Druid was ready to move on to the Wetlands, so I got him ported to Theramore for the boat. My Rogue had to go to Darnassus, so I got him ported there.

You could have a guildy do this, but sometimes no one is around. You could petition a nice Mage to do it in trade, but this can get expensive. As a former Mage, I always tip at least 3g for a port – I wouldn’t waste my time with a stranger for any less. Then again, there may be no generous Mages around.

Today, I was in just such a position. My Rogue wanted to go to Shatt to set his hearth there. No guildies were on. I tried trade, and the only response I got was from a Paladin. He tried to explain to me why I didn’t want to go to Shatt. Apparently it’s busy and there’s no Auction House…

What’s a Rogue to do? I decided to test out an idea.

I positioned my Rogue on the bridge outside the Ironforge Auction House. I then switched over to my Mage, took the Shattrath portal to Ironforge, and positioned myself on the same bridge.

I invited a friend of mine to the group and made him leader. I then cast Teleport: Shattrath and switched back over to my Rogue. My friend invited me, and low and behold… it worked!

I stepped into the portal and I was magically in Shatt.

So, the next time you need a port somewhere, don’t waste someone else’s time. Remember that you can simply do it yourself! All you need is a friend to hold the group for a few seconds while you switch characters.

Don’t Delete Your Mage… He’s Good for Something

So you see, your Mage is still good for something. Some of my friends have this nasty habit of deleting old toons that they don’t play anymore – I don’t believe in that. You never know when you’ll change your mind.

However, if you ever need a reason to keep your Mage around, think of these two reasons – free food and free ports. There’s nothing better in the world.