[Mage] Best Spec for mass farming Old Content?

[Calm]

Hey guys, title says it all. I'm just trying to break into the tailoring/enchanting market on my server, and I'm looking to get a stock going so i dont have to dump 10000g into mats at the very beginning. I'm looking to mass farm mobs in oldish content (right now 25m and 25m heroics from Cataclysm and Dungeons/elite mobs in Pandaria.) I tried doing the BoT 25m first room farm, but I couldn't do it. On my warrior, I can pull the entire room and kill it in 1 bladestorm (1 dragon's roar nearly kills it) with no die by the sword. On my mage I'm struggling to pull the main 3 groups and not die ( I just can't pull the side groups too). I've tried in fire and frost with comet storm/meteor and the normal dps options, and frost with Prysmatic crystal and ice nova seems to be the best I can do.

For the pull, I'll do blazing speed to get close enough to ice lance the farthest group, then blink back. I'll use ice barrier and cast P. Crystal where I anticipate the group will land. When they get close I'll throw out frozen orb, then quick pump out 2 Frost novas, then spam ice lances. when i'm out of FoF procs, I'll blizzard down casters if melee are all dead. I'll throw out a water jet and keep using fof if melee is still alive. Using all my CDs I can just barely kill the first 3 groups. The side groups are a lot easier, though.

Do any of you seasoned mages have any tricks here or do I just have to pull smaller groups? I'm around 630 Ilvl if it matters at all.

Thanks guys!

[Polarthief]

"Not Mage" :P.

Frost is good if you can burst something down, but otherwise Arcane or Fire w/ Leech would be better since Frost is terrible after cooldowns. Also Icicles is still bugged.

[heasy]

Any spec you want. Anything cataclysm or lower is solo-able with ease. Personally I just stay arcane. Supernova does boss aoe damage to grouped up enemies.

[Oozlz]

Balance druid with starfall runs through things without stopping. And because you are a druid, you can easily keep yourself alive.

[Mountain Called Monkey]

Personally I think Fire would be the best. Spamming Living Bomb on everything is a pretty sure way to nuke an entire zone

[Auress]

I'm not sure how well it works on MoP bosses, but Rogues with Burst of Speed and stealth can skip all trash, and then use leeching poison on bosses to keep yourself up. Works great for me, but I haven't done any MoP.

[Potato Bus]

Prismatic crystal is useless for old content. The crystal is technically level 101, so you do not get boosted damage onto it. Testing it as I type this, I get ~3-400k non-crit arcane blast @ 4 stack on BoT trash. My ABlast onto PC are hitting for 35-40k and prismatic is resonating for ~35-40k damage per blast. It may actually be more broken than I thought, it's supposed to be 30% higher, but it matches the ABlast damage exactly.

I usually roll fire usually for old content, just living bomb -> inferno blast on trash, meteor for good measure and everything is dead. Arcane works well too, suggest Arcane Orb for 100 talent, great aoe compliment for supernova, and ArcExplosion (glyphed) is also great for trash. Keep barrier up and nuke as hard as you can if you're struggling. Leech helps a bit (not enough tbh if you really need healing), Cold Snap, and mirrors if they will live for a decent duration, otherwise Incanter's so you can kite and still benefit.

For the trash you were talking about, pulling all 3 packs, casting AOrb through them and spamming out 2 supernovas killed everything in range, had to clean up a couple of the hunters that were a bit behind the pack still. And this was using Dragonwrath on accident because I finally got it and refuse to use any other mount. Putting on a 670 staff (~1500 more SP) gave about the same result -- most mobs were closer to dead with 1 supernova, 2nd was just to clean up. Point being I think your talent choices were holding you back, as long as you're level 100, it should be simple to clear that pull out even if you're not in raid gear yet.

Hope this helps.

[kaelleria]

Ice Nova should one or two shot all those mobs...

[mrgreenthump]

My advice.. if there is trash to be cleared and you can 1-2 shot mobs with Arcane Explosion.. Well Arcane ofc.

If it's something from level 85 or 90, then maybe Frost is best for now, though any spec works in the same range.

So end result unless you really care to minmax your l90 instances, go Arcane, cause you can just bind AE to every button and run, though if there is any spec you prefer to play.. play it, there is no magical things for any mage spec that makes you solo a lot better.

[Deztru]

Arcane explosion is superior in old content farming

[Polarthief]

Balance druid with starfall runs through things without stopping. And because you are a druid, you can easily keep yourself alive.

I'm not sure how well it works on MoP bosses, but Rogues with Burst of Speed and stealth can skip all trash, and then use leeching poison on bosses to keep yourself up. Works great for me, but I haven't done any MoP.

Not sure if you guys are coming from the front-page, but this is a Mage forum. Unless you jokingly recommend the OP rerolls their class, tips to playing non-Mage classes aren't helpful here.

[mrgreenthump]

Not sure if you guys are coming from the front-page, but this is a Mage forum. Unless you jokingly recommend the OP rerolls their class, tips to playing non-Mage classes aren't helpful here.

Was kinda my fault not noticing the thread had no Mage in the topic, fixed now though.

[Polarthief]

Was kinda my fault not noticing the thread had no Mage in the topic, fixed now though.

To be fair, people should really filter out classes they don't care about, or at least see what forum they're in prior to responding