I run a staff battlemage on clasic as my avatar and overall I am happy with my ability to cc them. On clasical at least they seem to stereotype the non monster enemies by making it so that the ones who need to come in melee range to damage you have high phys armor and low magic armor while the backrow guys are the exact oposite.
That may be true for about the first quarter of the game. Then enemies start getting more and more of both armor types until your mage is just uselessly standing around until that one buff is back off cooldown.
