Mage leveling difficulties

[WixZ]

Hello,

I'm a super old veteran who just came back to WoW after over 10 years of not playing. Wanted to try out Classic wotlk and level a mage. Since I'm too old and don't have too much time to play anymore I decided to get Zygor. But I have to say that I'm experiencing extreme difficulties following the guide. The first part in Elwyn forest was fine (I'm Ally) but then Darkshore and now Bloodmyst isles cause me to die extremely fast. Like literally 2 mobs and I'm dead. I'm doing my very best to keep my mana high, get all my buffs on me, upgraded my armor and bought all skills as soon as they became available. I even use polymorph to try and survive. I'm playing my ass off but I still I constantly die. Am I really THAT bad? I don't remember myself being that bad at the game. I've levelled over 10 chars to max on retail. Why am I struggling so hard this time? Or is it just mage being super weak in Classic?

Would love some advice on this because sadly it's not very fun atm and I'm already contemplating hanging up the coat and cancelling my sub on both Zygor and the game.

[ZG Support 1]

I never really played a mage in classic so I'm not sure on the comparisons but I've always felt that mage was the epitome of being a "glass cannon". In a solo situation I normally go for solo pulls because when you get 2+ the chance of death increases exponentially (my opinion). I would also rely heavily on frost spells to give me more chance to hopefully kill the mob before it reaches me or so that when it does reach me it only gets in 1 shot before it dies.

I personally prefer the pet classes (warlock and hunter) simply because there is a pet to get hit for me which greatly increases my chance of survival.