>Kharia avoided PK for role reasons, and yet was 2/1 in the pk
>situations that I was unable to avoid.
>Nah. I'm just pointing out that
>Kharia was my first mage comeback char, had NO wand knowledge,
>and still did just fine.

You can do great things with RP, exploration and so forth without a/b/s, or without even practicing a skill for that matter. But I really think you'd find that as a more pk-intensive mage, you would need to either have abs available at least a decent portion of the time, or play very conservatively. So while I guess you can call 2/1 in pk just fine (though it's such a small sample size) I'm not sure that it really says much. I just wouldn't call opportunistic killing the same thing as raping your range.

Vargal:
I see what you're saying, but my suggestion is really no different than now with regards how often mages are able to keep abs up. In fact, it reduces their ability to keep it up all the time. Right now, a mage can choose not to fight you and just run off and hide until he has a chance to get his wand. That's no different from running off and hiding until he has a chance to create his wand. Unless you really are going to just camp his wand location for hours.

I think mages really do need abs at least some of the time to be on even keel with other classes at hero. They don't need full-time, easy a/b/s, that would be overpowered, but they have to play ultra-conservatively if they and only pick opportunistic fights otherwise. Compare to a warrior or ranger or empowerment class than can pretty much throwdown anytime and have a good chance.