Mage...ing
Mages are able to produce more damage than any other guild. Their only significant blasting rivals are the evil priests.
Before becoming a mage
You will need:
The best intelligence boosting held item or weapon you can afford. You'll turn this into a mage staff, which will grant increasinly powerful benefits over time. If you can afford a cost of well over 10M gold you might try to find a player willing to sell a +10 int item, but most would-be mages have to live with an item that only gives +7 or so.
An intelligence set, preferably a lightweight one. As a mage, your damage and spell point maximum will be influenced by your intelligence.
A large large leather pouch for storing reagents. You can get them for 60k at Asidonhopo's general store. A reagent pouch will let you store the reagents required for the best mage blasts, as well as the best conjurer protection spells.
Reagents, preferably power reagents. Reagents are needed for your best blasts, and their quality determines how many spell points you'll use up when casting them. Reagents are a fairly constant drain on a mage's cash supply.
A spell point regeneration set, preferably a lightweight one. Spr gear is a standard requirement for all spellcasters.
Experience. How many experience points it takes to make a decent mage is inversely proportional to the quality of the gear you own. This is true of all guilds of course. If you have a 20M value equipment set and boons, you can make a passable thrikhren mage with even very low experience totals. If you have little or no guear, then the sky is the limit.
Friends. Mages who know what they're doing CAN solo, especially with levels in other magical guilds, but they have a harder time of it than anyone else except healers.
Mage staff
Using the 'create staff' skill, you can turn any item meant to be worn in the held slot or wielded into a special mage staff. Your percentage in this skill doesn't make much difference. The created staff is a normal item in every way, and can be kept through rebirths, protected, and disintegrated. It retains the standard bonuses of whatever item was used to create it, but loses all other special abilities. As you adventure with this item, it's power will grow, and it will start giving special bonuses.
Essences
Essence masteries grow as you use your strongest targeted blast spells. They grant a few special bonuses, notably some special damage strikes and the slowdown of the use of reagents.