yeah I agree with you Meteo for the most part, and magi do excel at damage dealing. But yeah I look at how a character stands on its own also because partying 100% of the time isn't possible for me. I play for random moments sometimes as short as 15 min, and am afking 5 min here - 10 mins there which doesn't fly in the party atmosphere. It isn't that the mage is unplayable, I am not saying that, I am just saying that in regards to soloing it is the class that is gimped the most. I am an independent type person, I like fighting my own fights I don't like calling on my friends to bail me out of trouble all the time. I do want to contribute in a party atmosphere but I don't want to hide in town if there aren't others to go outside with me. My opinion is that atm the cleric and fighter classes get to solo at will and party very well (getting the best of both worlds). Now if the mage was indispensable to a party the "must have" key component then I would buy it being a class that was unable to solo. Anyways I digress, I love mages just the fiesta mage has not been the best to play for me. Funny thing is I am sticking with mage in OB go figure. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.
*smiles at successfully hijacking the thread*
PS. if you take a mathematician and a literary scholar and enter them in a mathematics competition and a literary competition and the mathematician only succeeds at the math and the literary scholar succeeds in both contests then yes I say the mathematician is the least intelligent of the two. :P