Mages suck at the start because you dont have enough spells to do anything I guess but after getting to like 40 they start to own bigtime, like that wind mage Azusa her skills cooldown so fast if you get caught in a wind scythe your gonna get spammed to death x_x.
Alota games have classes with a slow start but then get better in later levels anyway...Healing is not all the water mages can do its only a small part. Anyway I don't like leveling mages its too slow for me, I'm gona go for gunslinger for sure I saw some in action @ kLatale they got awesome skills lol