New Mage, should I continue or pick another class?

[Vermineux]

Thank you for the thoughtful replies, guys. I'll take all this into consideration.

One more question:

At what point do you recommend that I start to worry about killing enemies with no pet out, or doing 51%+ damage, as opposed to just mowing enemies down and not worrying about the exp hit? I imagine the answer is sooner rather than later so I don't miss exp, but at low levels its so easy to just buzzsaw blues that it hasn't mattered. Any specific range where I should start caring?