How to Use A Mage Leveling Guide
As a Mage you have some great advantages while leveling. Of course, many classes have their pros and cons but a Mage is great to level because he can make his own food and water, teleport to cities from one to another continent and is able to Blink which also reduces run-time. As for the best leveling build, the opinions are divided. Some would swear with the Frost build because it is more mana efficient. I however, would go for a Fire/Arcane build for the simple reason that you take down the enemies faster and the Arcane tree will provide you with mana regeneration and more stats.
Lets first have a look at the
full Fire talent tree though.
As a Fire Mage you can start
attacking with either a Fireball or a Pyroblast, shoot a 2nd
Fireball and then a Fire Blast. If the target isn’t dead yet you just Frost
Nova, take a step back and make another Fireball+Fire Blast combo. Blast Wave
and Dragon Breath will also become available at a later level and they can do
the finishing touches as well.
Now why I didn’t take Improved Scorch is because you don’t use Scorch until you get the Hot Streak talent. Molten Shields, Fiery Payback and Blazing Speed are not necessary for leveling purposes. I did choose Impact (I know many Mages skip this one) because it’s nice for leveling. If you manage to use three or four Fire based spells before the mob reaches you, you have a 30-40% chance to stun the mob for two seconds before he even reaches you.
I took a bit of Frost because of
the reduced mana cost of both Frost and Fire spells through the talent called
Precision.
Another option, and my favorite,
is to go Arcane+Fire which is a nice combination.
This build has a mana preserving
advantage because 60% of the regeneration continues while casting. You will
also be surprised with the amount of critical hits you will get with this build
which will also refund 30% of the spell’s costs. You will also have 10% more
Spirit and 15% more Intellect. Arcane Concentration will allow about 10% of
your spells to be cast free of costs.
This build will not give you AoE
spells likes Blast Wave and Dragon Breath but will be mainly focused on
Fireballs, Pyroblasts and Fire Blasts. Your Arcane Explosion will be boosted a
bit so that is a good choice for AoE purposes. Presence of Mind and Arcane
Power will give you two extra great abilities that will cause high burst damage
when needed.
You can choose to go full Frost but especially in the first 30 levels you will be a lot worse of than the builds stated above. Shatter then becomes nice, and later you got Icy Veins, Water Elemental, Cold Snap etc. but the damage output of this build isn’t as high as compared to the ones above.
Mage - Magic is what they do best
A Mage is a powerful casting class capable to do immense amounts of damage and control the enemies.
While using Arcane, Fire and Frost a Mage is definitely one of the best damage dealing classes in WoW. Mages are known to do great Area of Effect (AoE) damage with several great abilities and be able to control both enemy NPCs and players with Polymorph, Frost Nova and the like.
The downside of a Mage is that
one usually has low hit points and his cloth armor doesn’t help with his
survivability. He does have spells to keep enemies at bay though or to cast an
Ice Block which makes the Mage immune to any damage for a period of time.
A mage is incapable to heal or
tank so damage dealing is his main purpose. The Mage does have other abilities
that make him wanted in many groups and PvP teams. Like said before, the
Polymorph ability is great to control mobs because it turns a Humanoid or Beast
enemy NPC or Player into a Sheep, Turtle, or Pig. A Mage can also teleport to
other cities and even make portals so others can benefit from his ability.
Another reason why a Mage is always welcome in a group is his ability to
conjure food and water which is especially welcomed by healers that otherwise
would have to buy their mana drinks.
These abilities also come in very handy while leveling. Being able to teleport will save a lot of time on the long run and making food and drinks whenever one pleases is also a time and money saver.
The Mage can also buff himself
with Arcane Intellect and has several magical armors he can choose from. He can
also cast Arcane Intellect on his party or even entire raids.
One nice thing that is nice to
know is that Dalaran, the capital of Northrend, is a Mage city. The Kirin Tor
is a faction of Mages and all the Mage players start with Friendly reputation
towards this faction.
Mages have three talent builds
namely Arcane, Frost and Fire. You will run into mages that have specialized in
any of these talent trees because they all have pros and cons. It is up to your
own preferences to whatever build you would like. I would advise you, if you
intend to make a Mage, to try out several builds to see what you like best and
not just follow anybody else’s opinion.
I can tell you though that the
Frost Build is quite nice to level because it doesn’t burn your mana away that
fast and you have several nice abilities like the Water Elemental and Ice
Barrier which absorbs damage. At 80 this build is still nice and can be seen
quite often in PvP.
Then there is the Fire build
which focuses mainly on single target damage, even though also two AoE spells
become available in this tree.
It was never really worth it to
go 100% Arcane until the WoTLK arrived. With some new talents and a bigger
variety of damaging attacks this build has become a lot better and is now also
a great build for PvE and PvP. Arcane is also often used for Hybrid builds
(Frost/Arcane, Fire/Arcane).
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