Instead of mages with tower shields, do this:

[Luthienne]

I've heard Henrik himself, as well as many others, say they don't like the idea of mages running around with tower shields. Now, while I can appreciate that, the fact of the matter is that mages need an additional way to mitigate damage; especially fat mages, otherwise they instantly die to melee that decides to look at them. If mages were no long anger able to use tower shields (however you might go about doing that), then here are some mage flavored alternatives:

A few things that would be insanely cool:
Water Shield: 20% of damage taken is instead drains mana.
Flame Shield: 20% of damage taken is dealt as fire damage to any target that hits the mage
Lighting Shield: 20% of damage taken is duplicated at the target, draining their mana instead of health.
Earthen Shield: channeled spell that makes you unable to move or act, and drains mana until it runs out, but you turn to stone and take 50% less damage until the spell runs out.

All of the shield spells are mutually exclusive with on another; you can only have one active at a time, and activating another ward cancels out the other one.

Obviously these would need to be playtested and balanced accordingly, but taking tower shields away from mages without giving them an option for defense would be a mistake, and remove fat mages from the game entirely. Do you want to live in a world of only lightning fast Sheevra mages? Didn't think so

 

[Jackdstripper]

Tower shields were busted OP on mages. Its hard to believe they left them in there for as long as they did. It was basically an unintended oversight.

Mages are fine as they are, very squishy and mostly support. Make them any stronger and there wont be any point in playing melee and spending thousands of gold for good gear. Mages require nothing in comparison, and can deal massive damage if left to cast freely.

What mages do need protection from is pets, because those stupidly easy to use.

 

[Luthienne]

Tower shields were busted OP on mages. Its hard to believe they left them in there for as long as they did. It was basically an unintended oversight.

Mages are fine as they are, very squishy and mostly support. Make them any stronger and there wont be any point in playing melee and spending thousands of gold for good gear. Mages require nothing in comparison, and can deal massive damage if left to cast freely.

What mages do need protection from is pets, because those stupidly easy to use.

As a mage player, I feel like pets are fairly easy to deal with using atrophy/firewall.

 

[Jackdstripper]

As a mage player, I feel like pets are fairly easy to deal with using atrophy/firewall.

While you are correct that those spells do help a lot vs pets its never just the pets that you have to fight. There is also the player either smacking you or casting on you.

Mages are already weak in 1vs1, now you ad a pet and its 2vs1 which is extremely unfair to an already gimped class, especially when you consider how easy pets are to use. So you are pretty much forced to have a pet as a mage if you dont want to be obliterated everywhere you go.

Thats my point. Pure mages were not given any tools to deal with the fact that any class can now be a 2vs1 with a pet. Only thing you can do is also get a pet. Once again, SV forcing everyone into the latest brokenly OP build.

 

[CherryKush]

Way back when the game launched almost 3 years ago Henrik said on stream an Ecumenical Magic shield was in the works...

Yeah, just like Thievery was "right around the corner"...

*rolls eyes*