Most every class has some kind of functionality that enhances the play of others in the group.
For Mages, the two most obvious things are the Intellect buff and the fact that Mages can conjure water and food from a very low level. At level 70, a Mage can get a hold a couple of training tomes (by dungeon drop, Auction House purchase, or from a friend or supportive guild) that allow for the creation of the highest level (and most potent) of food and water currently available on the game, and once both tomes have been learned, the Mage can go back to their Mage Trainer and learn a spell called Ritual of Refreshment.
What Is Ritual of Refreshment? How Does It Work?
RoR is normally referred to as a “mage table” by other players in the game, because when created it looks like a floating TV tray with drinks and food displayed on it.
The mage table itself distributes Conjured Manna Biscuits which require level 65 but the main benefit is that the biscuits heal both 7500 health and 7200 mana over 30 seconds when consumed - taking up less inventory space and being much more effective than other food and drink combinations.
I’m Not A Mage, What Can I Do To Help?
To cast Ritual of Refreshment, a Mage needs two things:
- Two Arcane Powder - costing 10s each
- Two players in the raid or party to assist with the cast
So, you could help in two ways - buy your neighborhood mage some Arcane Powder as a thank-you and social wheel greaser (like I as a Mage at times bring Sacred Candles or Ahnk things for those who bless or rez the party), and help bring the table into existence without being asked to help whenever you see a Mage (or a Warlock making the healthstone distributor) casting their channelled spell.
Helping either a Mage or a Warlock in this way involves you right-clicking their portal and standing still until the spell is finished casting - if you move while the spell is still channelling you’ll cancel it and if your timing is poor, you may activate the Mage or Warlock’s cooldown and be stuck without their services for another 2-5 minutes (long enough for the Battleground round to start).
How Many Biscuits Should I Take?
When I’m doing an instance run, I, as the Mage, tend to take about 200 biscuits right at the start. I also encourage people to drain the table if they so desire, because there’s 50 stacks of 20 biscuits in there - 1000 biscuits in total! I’d rather everyone fill up their inventory and have to throw biscuits away than have to make another table because everyone only took what they needed for themselves and then we had a couple of drop-outs and replacements asking me to make a new table.
In a battleground, I have no real recommendations. All I can really do is talk about how I see them being used in this scenario, and how I have adjusted my play style to allow my experience to continue to be joyful as the Maker of the Mage Table.
How Mage Tables Are Used In Battlegrounds
The spirit of the table is just like the spirit of the buffs before the battle begins - if you make things easier for your teammates, improve their stats a little bit, or give them something they can use in-battle to improve their survivability, then you as an individual are better off because your team is better off.
Thus, for most battlegrounds that I enter, I make a Mage Table outside of the general crowd and then make sure people are aware it’s there. I tend to take 2-3 stacks each round I create a table in, and I’d say that in 80% of the times that I make a table, there’s still charges left on it when we all leave the starting area and head into battle.
There are times, however, where I make a table and it’s obvious that someone there has a macro set up to suck the table dry because it’s there for a second, and then with the crowd around it so it’s hard to tell who did it, the table disappears before anyone else in the group gets a chance to get a stack. I guess for those poor sods who are in raids without a Mage who has taken the time to obtain the tomes and learn the ritual, this is one of the only ways for them to get free food and drink for their raid attempts. It’s just too bad they wouldn’t wait a minute for the REAL battleground people to get a stack or two, and then clean out what’s left…
I’ve seen a few times where players come into the battleground with the intention of /afk’ing out once they received a plethora of buffs and had taken a healthstone and a mess of stacks of biscuits, too - most are not vocal about what they’re doing… they come in and stick around long enough to get the goods, then they leave. But, there’s been at least one who pushed for buffs and pushed for a healthstone and pushed for a mage table… and then /afk’d out and was commented upon by a number of the buff contributors.
What I Do When I No Longer Feel Like Sharing My Magely Skills
Generally, I’m good for making 5 or so tables (costing 1g in reagents in total) in 5 different PvP rounds, and then I feel like I’ve done my magely duty for the night, stocking enough PvP and PvE players, as well as filling my own inventory with 2-3 stacks per round. Now it’s time to let someone else make the tables, or just not have them made at all.
So, what do I do when I don’t feel like sharing?
I don’t go into the battleground until the majority of people have already entered, and the round is about to start in about 15 seconds, or has already started. The battleground-entry window that pops up when I’m assigned to a round stays there for 2 minutes before timing out, so I just time it to where I go in after a full minute, and by that time if there’s not already a table there, the people who are the most vocal about wanting a table have already stopped begging and I don’t have to pretend I didn’t see their plea’s.
Does It Help When Someone Asks For A Mage Table?
In short, no, it doesn’t.
I am a proud Mage, I like the fact that I put the cash and time into advancing to 70 in this class, and that I bought the two tomes that allow me to learn and use the Ritual of Refreshment to make the Mage Table for others to benefit from.
I like going into battlegrounds and firing up a table right away, I like announcing that there’s a “table up in back”. I like to fire up a table as soon as we zone into a Dungeon with a PUG or a guild team. I like to carry a whole bunch of extra biscuits so if someone needs some mid-field, I can share.
But… if someone asks me for a table - especially right at the start of a round or 2 seconds after having zoned into the battleground (which takes longer for those of us with a billion addons), I’m much less likely to fire up a table, even though I would have done it immediately had there not been the prodding.
Don’t Ask For A Table, Or Ask Politely
So, in closing, let’s just say that this whole Mage Table thing is a standard thing - if I have something that you want but cannot get for yourself except through me, then being polite about it is going to get you that object way quicker’n if you come across as feeling entitiled.
And if you somehow have it in your mind that I’m one of those Mages who expects payment for every vending service and begin to treat me the way you’d treat a Mage like that, realize that I have no reason to want to give you free services except to reward polite and respectful behavior. If you’re a jerk to me because you expect me to be a jerk, why would I bend over backwards to “prove” to you that I am not? What benefit is it to me?
I’ll make you a table when you ask if:
- You’re polite about it
- Saying “please” or its short form in the request
- Including a smiley face
- Saying “please” or its short form in the request
I’ll pretend I didn’t see your request for a table if:
- You’re impolite about it
- Your request comes across as a demand (because there’s no please, generally)
- You’re highly insistent, repeating yourself 3-4x because the table didn’t start up the second you landed in the battleground
- You make derogatory comments about the people behind the Mage characters (why do people think that I’m going to “prove myself a good Mage” to someone who behaves like an ass?)
- Your request comes across as a demand (because there’s no please, generally)
The End. :)
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