No to mage. Too much resto spam the higher and higher you go, especially when soloing.
I recommend you read through this thread
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=99926
wut resto spam at higher levels? At 160-180 I have always been able to grind in the halls without the need for any restos and in tower if you stay away from 4*'s solo lixing a glass cannon mage is a breeze.
The xp is slower and it is a bit more resto extensive than say group leveling, but when isn't that the case?
Right now on my 164 mage if I do a solo lix I'm able to get away with under 10 restos a lix.
Without sigils you’ll be spamming restos like a mad man, unless if you want to wait a long time for your energy to go back up with a low level eboost or leave after every single fight to the tavern
Plus there’s simply not enough skill points to balance a good amount of support skills with dps. E shield sucks up your energy, dumping points into eboost means less points for dps skills, less dps means the fights will take longer which increases the chances of dying, which isn’t something you want for a glass cannon.
Ranger seems like the best choice for many because of light heal and bolas... but if a bolas misses on a tougher mob, then you’re probably done for. Light heal won’t save you all the time because you’re either too squishy for the heals to make up for it or it gets interrupted and you die. With their lack of dps skills and reliance on support skills (when playing without heavy plat investments), fights will take longer than they need to, thus increasing the risk of dying
Warrior is still by far the best choice for reasons mentioned in that thread I linked
Overall, energy will be a problem no matter what class you play. Casters and rogues are definitely worse off when it comes to energy. So it comes down to survivability while maintaining good dps output, warrior takes the crown over ranger
If you level warrior you will need energy lixs
If you level mage you will need energy
If you play a jumping rabbit you will need energy lixs
No matter what class you play you will have energy problems, as you say yourself.
I agree warriors are easy as pie to level, why I leveled a warrior first on gwyd. However, I have found mages to be cheaper as they don’t really need any lux etc. so while warriors may be easier per se, due to mages having energy boost and e-shield and almost all of their best gear being drop based and pretty cheap, I find them to be the cheapest along with druids to level, but no one like interruptions
As for not enough skill points, in my guide I discuss ways of balancing out these worries at low-mid game so that a mage is able to retain DPS while still able to level easily enough.
To summarize this all a mage would need to do is:
-) max attune
-) max bolt
-) max storm
-) Level lure to half of max
-) level e shield to half
-) put spares in eboost
— once eboost sufficiently regens energy start putting points into e shield again