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Mage Frost Mage Leveling Guide

gotmilk0112

New Member
Joined
May 2, 2016
DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying this is the best/fastest way to level, it's just the way I leveled, and I found it pretty easy and effective.


When it comes to Mage leveling, you've got two options: Fire, or Frost. Arcane is just stupid because it has lower DPS, and lots of mobs in the game have high arcane resist, whereas not many have fire or frost resist.


Frost has a sweet 6% spell hit talent, talents that increase your crit damage and crit chance against frozen targets, increases to slowing effects, as well as the ever-useful Ice Block and Ice Barrier.


While some will tell you to go Fire for more damage, I personally find Frost to be the much better choice for leveling. Especially on a PvP realm like Kronos where you're constantly under the threat of enemy players attacking you. Frostbolt, while having lower base damage than Fireball, also has a much lower mana cost, which is further lowered by the Frost Channeling talent. So you'll find yourself drinking less often. You also have the added defense of slows/snares, as well as Ice Barrier which is an insane boost to your overall survivability. Fire has nothing really, except the baseline Mana Shield and Frost Nova. While it does have higher DPS, it also has much more downtime and much less survivability. Better suited for group play.


Also, in my experience, "Frozen Wrath" greens seem to be cheaper than "Fiery Wrath" greens, at least, at lower levels. Most of them were going for 1g or less, compared to Fiery Wrath greens that would go upwards of 5g. By level 30, I was able to get about +60 frost damage, and by 45, I was rocking +130 frost damage. Really nice to be critting mobs for 30-40% of their health.


Frost can also solo elite mobs and some elite quests quite easily, with all of its slows and snares. I was able to solo all of the elite quests in STV, at the appropriate level. (except Big Game Hunter and Stranglethorn Fever, because they involve more than 3+ mobs at a time)


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TALENTS
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Level 20: http://i.imgur.com/wQACIY4.png
-Get Elemental Precision first, so that your spells will be hit capped (Also, remember that spell hit only goes up to 99% in vanilla!)
-Frostbite because it's really awesome. Note that it procs off of your Chill effects, meaning that any kind of Frost debuff that slows the target, can proc Frostbite. This includes Frostbolt, Cone of Cold, Improved Blizzard, Frost/Ice armor, etc. Even if the target is already affected by a slow, when it re-applies, it can proc Frostbite. So every time an enemy melees you with Ice Armor active, and every time you hit with Frostbolt, there's a chance to proc Frostbite.
-Imp Frost Nova as a prereq for Shatter
-I personally get Cold Snap because it's a great emergency tool. Resets cooldowns on Frost Nova, Ice Block and Ice Barrier.


Level 30: http://i.imgur.com/f17QAL9.png
-Start putting points into Ice Shards, then max out Shatter
-Ice Block, yay! This can be used to remove debuffs, as well as get you out of CC effects. It's pretty much exactly like a Paladin bubble, except you can't move or do anything.


Level 40: http://i.imgur.com/L4tYM5c.png
-Put the fifth point into Ice Shards and continue on from there
-Frost Channeling will make your Frost spells even more mana efficient, and the extra +6 yards on Frostbolt is always welcome


Level 50: http://i.imgur.com/97eL42l.png
-Fill out the remaining useful Frost talents; Imp Frostbolt for faster casting and Winter's Chill for even more free crit chance
-Start going into the Arcane tree


Level 60: http://i.imgur.com/DvazEjJ.png
-Continue into the Arcane tree from here to grab Arcane Concentration.
-Note that Arcane Concentration does NOT proc on every tick of Blizzard, like it does on some other servers. Keep that in mind if you are going to be AoE farming.
-Last two points in Piercing Ice.


This is the build I use to level mages with, however I'm fairly certain it's not the best spec for endgame PvE DPS, or PvP. So you'll want to respec at 60 depending on what you want to do.


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GENERAL PLAYSTYLE
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From 1-10, you pretty much just spam Frostbolt or Fireball. Straightforward. Once you get Frost Nova, you'll obviously want to use that, run 20-30yd away and then keep spamming Frostbolt.


Once you get Frostbite at level 15 though, what you'll want to do is hit 2-3 Frostbolts and then when the mob gets close to you, let it hit you once, to see if Frostbite will proc off of Ice Armor. If it doesn't proc, use Frost Nova as usual.


Once you get Ice Barrier at 40, you can cast a 4th Frostbolt (which would usually be pushed back as the mob would be attacking you at that point) before Frostbite/Frost Nova. In general, you should be keeping Ice Barrier up at all times, as it's just a massive, massive increase to your overall survivability. It absorbs all damage (compared to Mana Shield only absorbing physical), prevents spell pushback, and has a much cheaper mana cost than Mana Shield as well.


That's about it, really. Once you get Shatter and Ice Shards, you'll be dishing out big crits for 25-35% of an equal level mob's health, while keeping them away with Frostbite and Frost Nova.


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STATS/GEARING
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For most general-purpose questing:


Spell damage > Int > Stam > Spirit


SP is your best stat overall, so "Of Frozen Wrath" greens will be very useful, as well as the "Azure" tailoring set. Int is okay, though stacking it does not provide much benefit, as the extra time casting will also come with extra time drinking. Stam is also very nice, seeing as Mage has the lowest base health of any class.


Spirit is relatively useless, as you have no 5-second-rule regen unless you're using Mage Armor, which you should only be doing in dungeons/raids. (and even then it's only 30% of your regen) Spirit's only other use is boosting your Evocation amount, but really, even with 0 spirit on your gear, Evocation still restores at least 70% of your mana, so you really don't need to go out of your way to get spirit. Rolling need on spirit gear will only piss off Priests who actually make good use of Spirit.


Don't completely ignore Int, though. It's okay to sacrifice a few spell damage for a big gain of Int, such as going from a gear piece with 11 damage, to a piece with 7 int and 8 damage. You won't really notice a difference in damage, but that extra mana will be noticeable.




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Useful pieces of Spell Damage gear while leveling:
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-Azure crafted set: Chest+Pants+Gloves+Cloak+Shoulders, will give you a total of +50 Frost damage, and the materials will only cost you maybe 4 or 5 gold total. The chest+pants are trainer-taught, but the gloves+cloak+shoulders are from random world drop recipes, so it might be harder to find a tailor that can make them.


-Star Belt: +4 spirit, +13 spell damage, seems to be a very rare world drop pattern though, so good luck finding a tailor that can make it. I bought the belt itself for 4 gold on the AH.


-Inquisitor's Shawl: +8 int, +9 spell damage, Nice shoulder from SM Cath, will probably last you to at least 50-55 or so.


-Dreamweave crafted set: Relatively cheap, very powerful, and every tailor should have the pattern because it's taught by trainers. Again, these items will easily last you to 60, unless you run a lot of dungeons. The full set (chest+gloves+helm) should only run you about 8-12 gold in mats, if you get the Mageweave yourself. Wildvine is the most expensive material at about 1g each, the rest are really cheap.


-Icefury Wand: +9 frost damage wand from this quest chain: https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?quest=1947 The part involving SM: Lib can be solo'd at level 44.


-Icicle Rod (Alliance Only): +10 frost damage staff, comes from this Wetlands quest chain: https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?quest=279 It only takes about 20-30 minutes total, to complete, and you get a nice weapon that will last you until:


-Zum'Rah's Vexing Cane: +10 int, +10 stam, +21 spell damage, Perfectly itemized for Mage leveling. There are lots of groups running Zul'Farrak, so this should be really easy to get.


-Southsea Mojo Boots: +11 int, +8 spell damage, really easy to obtain from a single quest: https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?quest=8366




If there's any others, let me know.




***********************
NOTE ABOUT AOE GRINDING
***********************


Yes, Frost is the only spec in the game that can (quickly and efficiently) AoE grind to level, but in my experiences, it can be a bit frustrating for a couple of reasons.


You *can* AoE grind as early as level 24, but with the high population of Kronos, I found it very difficult to AoE grind, simply because there were so many other players already there. Either:


-Other players killing the mobs for a quest
-Other mages already AoE grinding there
-Horde characters around that gank me on sight, knowing that it will be impossible for me to fight back in the middle of an AoE pull


And thus, the only time I would ever get to AoE grind, is if I just happened to get there when nobody else was there. Which didn't happen very often.


That and, lots of mobs have really, really buggy pathing if you're not kiting them across completely flat and clear land. So many times, one or two mobs would just walk off to the side instead of walking directly at me, thus ruining the pull because they'd go out of the blizzard and not get slowed. You have to experiment with the area you're AoE grinding in, to find any spots that cause trouble with pathing.


If you are going to AoE grind, the biggest thing of note is that you *CANNOT* have Frostbite. It will randomly freeze mobs and the group will be broken up, with half of them frozen and half of them walking towards you, and it's just impossible to keep them all at range. Also, you'll want to just stack Int/Stam gear. Spell Damage gear is BAD for AoE grinding, because Blizzard does not scale very well with spell damage. You'll just want to stack int to have a big mana pool, and stack stam so that you won't get wrecked when you're running around gathering up mobs.


Also, Blizzard *CANNOT* crit, so talents like Shatter and Ice Shards are useless for AoE farming. But I'd still take them anyway, because there's really not much else you can put your points in. Really the only difference between the "AoE farm" spec and the specs I have posted above, is putting points into Imp Blizzard, instead of Frostbite.


But overall, I would not recommend AoE grinding at all, because the population of Kronos is just too high. I tried AoE grinding about 6 times between levels 25 and 45, and every single time was unsuccessful because of the high population.




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That's all there is to it, I suppose.
 
Great guide, thanks for posting! I especially like the aoe grinding bit, very helpful!
 
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