I've played a few heros now with reasonable success, including a shifter, and really want to make a non-shifter mage work.

I tried a drow invoker, hoping for scion, and got my ass handed to me left and right. Got stranded in the low 30s and just could not find a group. I mean, two weeks of real time playing pretty good amounts of time, and getting a group was just stupid ridiculously hard. No one wants to group. Everyone is either busy hunting, training, or a villager/applicant. So I gave up on that one, after dying too many times to feel like I could move on with any kind of success. I figured I learned some things, I'll try a neutral type build so I have more options to group and keep advancing beyond the punching bag levels and get to a point where I have some more powerful spells.

And here I am again, in the mid-30s and stuck again to a point where I find myself losing all enjoyment with the game. I can practice spells for so long, but what gives? I feel like every time there is someone who can tank, they're in a group. All I can find is highly marginal groups (with lower ranks or bad tankers) that go so slow, and get attacked so often, that it's just getting to be no fun.

Then I see someone awake that might make a good group. And maybe they've been awake for 5 minutes at most and they're already in a group with others. Just stranded in the mid ranks again and about to give up. I need some encouragement or advice about how to get over this hump because it sucks. Exploring for wands gets me killed (and in an exp hole) because I can hardly kill anything on my own (even when consider says otherwise). Standing around gets me killed.

Supposedly at high levels magi kick ass. But getting there is a pain in the ass when you can't find a group for weeks on end. To a point it's fine, I can practice and explore, but I really feel like it's too tough to find a group. And jesus there are just so many villagers and shifters compared to anything else, and I see why-- because trying to find groups sucks and they can dominate (or at least survive) in the mid-ranks. Is this investment going to pay off or am I just in for a life of frustration as a mage?

Also been seeing a lot of the bad sides of a few players lately and feeling on the wrong side of the imbalances of the game. Trying to keep pushing through and hoping the fun will come but sometimes it's tough to keep the faith, I have to admit.