Leveling as mage in Legion

[The Archmage]

As petless casters we always had to be weary of what we pulled... that's how Mage is.

Gear helps tremendously though... expecially as Fire, once you surpasses the 45% crit threshold and you unlock a few core artifact traits things melt with a few casts. Arcane is more CD dependant, but again once gear kicks in you can rotationally use your available cds in order to destroy stuff each time you pull something.

Cannot really talk about Frost cause i did not try it out.

Anyhow, it does seem that Fire is the solution for everything these days, but people are gravely mistaken: Arcane is so splendidly resourceful that in the hands of skilled player i feel it will be capable of outshining the other 2 specs, and by a fair margin.

[Deleted]

I've levelled 2 mages sofar on the beta to 110, one in the premade gear as arcane and one with my own live toon as fire.

Arcane, The artifact quest is what did my head in as arcane, there was alot of damage incoming with no real way of avoiding it, died afew times on it, definately feel that out of the 3 Artifact quests arcane is the more challenging one. As far as levelling goes, pretty easy I went with a build that included words of power, Mirror images and Resonance (godsent if you pull alot of mobs). you tend to learn to keep ice barrier up all the time, weave in displacement/blink to get away from mobs and pop mirror images for some extra things that can pull threat off of you. You don't really have any trouble with elites/rares just pop timewarp/AP and blast em down.

Fire, Was aot eassier to level as arcane, the talents just felt more in sync with the spec that and passive damage seems to be alot higher, while the ignite pulls can be annoying at times, damage more then makes up for it, again mirror images while levelling help alot, keep ice barrier up (even though ice barrier is markedly weaker for fire then it is for Frost/arcane) remember that ignite has a nice short cooldown and you good to go.

While i agree alot of melee classes have it alot eassier while levelling I think mages have it pretty good, few little buffs/weaks to frost and arcane and it would be even better.

[Synadrasa]

I leveled my mage as fire to 110 and it went very smooth. A tip for people leveling in Legion if you don't know you can assign a champion from your class hall to help level with you which can be helpful.

[Deleted]

I leveled my mage as fire to 110 and it went very smooth. A tip for people leveling in Legion if you don't know you can assign a champion from your class hall to help level with you which can be helpful.

None of them can tank like Illona.

[Deleted]

I leveled my mage as fire to 110 and it went very smooth. A tip for people leveling in Legion if you don't know you can assign a champion from your class hall to help level with you which can be helpful.

I haven't played in over 2 years. What is champion from class hall?
(I plan on starting with LEGION again)

[Deleted]

nvm. remove, I misread.

[Deleted]

Fire is by far the best spec for leveling IMO, espacially overgeared. You almost have no downtime, mostly instant casts, low CDs, great burst, great AE dmg, you survive group pulls, Dragon's Breath stun, blink selfheal if you choose the talent. Also with the archimonde trinket you have perma slow and free AE dmg 24/7.

Arcane suffers from long cast times when Charge Up and Orb is on cooldown and the mob is not dead. Group pulls are a pain since AE and Resonance got nerfed so you take too much dmg. Also no self heal, no stun.

I tried frost, but it was meh as far as I remember. Can't say too much about it, fire was just better so I switched back.


Dispite of all that, you kinda have to level as the spec you will play in raids/dungeons later. So it's most likely a choice between fire, fire, fire and maybe arcane.

Well to be perfectly blunt if we're talking overgeared (up to around 105 with mythic HFC gear) anything is fast. Arcane doesn't have to cast much when it's overgeared by the way, a spam of Arcane Explosion can be very potent. They built up very powerful with 4 arcane charges, the barrage is also strong, and if they fix Nether Tempest to work with 4 arcane charges it will be also OP.

If you go undergeared Arcane can be pretty fast without much casting either (I won't go much into it again).

- - - Updated - - -

That confirms what everyone knows (although some people don't want to admit it): we, the mages, are the most squishy class of all, especially the Arcane ones

Wait until you see the double bubble of 500,000 HP at least.

- - - Updated - - -

Anyhow, it does seem that Fire is the solution for everything these days, but people are gravely mistaken: Arcane is so splendidly resourceful that in the hands of skilled player i feel it will be capable of outshining the other 2 specs, and by a fair margin.

Absolutely for levelling. I'm not sure about raiding. But, I believe a lot plays out around 5mans for the first few days and a lot of what you see and hear is actually very much affected by that and more precisely by the question "what can do both trashes and bosses fast?" (it needs a general purpose spec, last time it was obviously frost).

[Video Games]

just leveled a mage from 90-100 as arcane over the last few months and this actually sounds to be quite on par with my experience in that leveling bracket as arcane. one or maybe two mobs at a time otherwise your dead. maybe if you blow all your CDs you'll live but otherwise i was popping invis. especially at 100 trying to do the daily in tanaan was slow going at first until you get some gear. i imagine its more of the same here.

Pretty much. I, at least in wod, recommend going frost till 4p t18 and class trinket. Arcane has terrible cleave for leveling and low gear. 740 right now though and I can pull 15+ mobs and pop crystal and barely get a scratch.

Legion though I think fire leveling will be alright with all the instant casts and decent amount of cc and because I don't want to go frost. I'm going spriest anyway though. Woop woop.

[Deleted]

Before judging undergeared Arcane on levelling try this rotation. Cast Charged Up + Cast Presence of Mind, cast Rune of Power, and see them go at least to half health already within 2 seconds. It sounds that the CDs will come back slowly but they don't, because levelling has a lot of downtimes and you can mix some alternation of Arcane Power with Rune of Power if they are dying too fast with the method (and they do).

[Magden]

Wait until you see the double bubble of 500,000 HP at least.

You've mentioned the "double bubble" twice in this thread, but I'm unfamiliar with what you're referring to. Mind explaining that for me?

[Deleted]

You've mentioned the "double bubble" twice in this thread, but I'm unfamiliar with what you're referring to. Mind explaining that for me?

Ice Barrier can become double with two traits from Frost and Arcane Artifacts. Arcane's trait is called Mana Shield and Frost's Shield of Alodi.

They are both pretty early and pretty much obligatory, early.

[gallamann]

Our dmg output is exactly our strongpoint atm, at least for fire. Arcane and Frost will get buffs, don't worry.

My money is on Fire is going to get kicked down hard. It is definitely the FotM on Beta for mages at the moment.

As to leveling, I found all three to be fine. I have always approached leveling with mage as a one mob at a time affair, kill it fast and grab the next.

[Deleted]

I have always approached leveling with mage as a one mob at a time affair, kill it fast and grab the next.

That doesn't justify having to drink after every 1-2 mobs. It's humiliating when you have to sit there chugging mugs for 20 sec every minute while other classes nearby have at it non-stop until all objectives are done. No DPS class should have to put up with mana issues, they said that plenty of times.

[Neoxx]

My money is on Fire is going to get kicked down hard. It is definitely the FotM on Beta for mages at the moment.

Not sure really. Seeing our raid test logs I think fire is pretty much finished and may go live like it is now. Maybe they will nerf Ignite and Living Bomb a bit.

[gallamann]

That doesn't justify having to drink after every 1-2 mobs. It's humiliating when you have to sit there chugging mugs for 20 sec every minute while other classes nearby have at it non-stop until all objectives are done. No DPS class should have to put up with mana issues, they said that plenty of times.

I leveled to 110 as Frost on Beta, the only times I had to sit and eat were when I pulled and wound up with a couple extra. That was less than 10 times from 100-110. Half of those would have been after using Invis to GTFO cause shit went south.

Played Fire and Arcane through artifact quests, didn't need to eat on those either.

If you are not talking about arcane and mana, then you are probably trying to play a mage as a melee class and ignoring a lot of your "keep the hell away" tools.

[stevenho]

Do you really care about levelling? It lasts 2 days, then the rest of the expansion lasts 2 years.

[Taeron]

Why are people surprised at this? Theoretically, all DPS classes are equal in DPS, however a Mage wears cloth, has no real healing, and no pet that can tank. Of course levelling will be harder for a mage than most classes. But is it really hard??

Levelling in the beta, I died a couple of times between 100-102 - mainly against named mobs.

Not sure what's changed but at level 103+, its a breeze. AB with 4 charges hits like a truck, and I'm killing things in 2-3 casts. Named mobs I just use CD's and end up on 120k dps or so.

[justinhalfout]

I've levelled 2 mages to 110 on Beta (Arcane and Frost) and currently levelling my third as Fire which is 108.

If you're experienced with the class levelling is not that difficult and all three specs are viable for such,sure we can't herp-derp like some melee or Huntards or pull entire zones like Warlocks with their pets and their lolabsorbtion shields and expect to not have to run back to collect our corpse, but this was always the case anyway for as far back as i remember,a smart mage is one who plans their pulls in advance,is aware of their surroundings and tries to avoid facetanking everything.

[Deleted]

AB with 4 charges hits like a truck, and I'm killing things in 2-3 casts.

Best way to kill your mana bar in 2-3 casts. Arcane is a joke.

[Deleted]

Best way to kill your mana bar in 2-3 casts. Arcane is a joke.

Have you played the spec in levelling? You don't do sustained raiding damage. You keep having downtimes.