Mage leveling 85-100

[Atelo]

The other thread was locked due to other reasons, but I wanted to continue the discussion about the difficulties in leveling and how I think it is very gear dependent. The OP of that thread got flamed and told he sucked at the game.

Also want to correct Zelendria in claiming "a naked level 90 has 146k life regardless of class". At level 100, I removed my gear and have 53.4k life, so I think your estimates are the ones that are way off. Try removing your own gear and see how much life you have.

To the others who wondered why I had no gear from MoP, I did Jade Forest, and Valley of the 4 winds, then hit level 100 and went to Draenor. The gear I found in those 2 zones from questing were not upgrades, or were sidegrades to my Cata raid gear. I think I got 1 epic from a world boss in the Valley. Pretty much every quest reward and nearly every drop in Draenor was an upgrade while leveling. During that time, mobs were hard to kill, and low life at 100 meant dying to level 100 mobs rather quickly.

[Ragnork58]

To me it also felt like certain specs are just better than others. For the longest time Fire has been on the bottom of the design block for Mages. LEveling 90-100 as Fire was really hard for me, having to switch to Arcane or Frost at around 95, it became WAY more easier to kill enemies than it was as Fire. I blame its mechanics of, rolling Ignites into a large Combustion. But hopefully in Legion with the change of Combustion it will be better.

[Wildo]

I'm leveling a mage from 90-100 right now and am at 95 currently.

I'm destroying pretty much everything as Arcane (including occasional 1-shots when my charges are up) and leveling faster than any of my other 6 characters that I got to 100. I only struggle with some rares but the outpost abilities usually help me when I struggle.

[Atelo]

My point was that in the other thread, everyone basically said "I didn't have any problems, therefore, you suck" and I wanted to propose the idea that maybe other people had different experiences due to other factors, such as gear.

Another factor that affected me besides my lack of MoP gear, was the fact I am in Australia now, and my server is US, and already a little dead. Add to the fact that I'm playing when literally nobody else is, every single mob in an area was up. This made kiting rather difficult. You'd be surprised how thick the mobs are in this expansion if you play when nobody else is. Combine that with my poor choice of spec that would break my polymorph, and lack of a second frost nova from my water elemental and I died a lot more than any other expansion... Raid gear helps a lot.

I am currently trapping elite wolves with 880k life in Nagrand without any problems.

I actually came to the forums looking for a place to help make gear upgrade choices and optimize. Could anyone suggest a good place? I used to use Rawr years ago but it hasn't been updated in years.

[mrgreenthump]

Mage design overall has been a bit meh when it comes to leveling, we still suffer from the "glass cannon" syndrome when they took our ridiculous damage and burst away, but left the defences as they were. It also doesn't help that the spec that has most control over mobs when leveling(frost) usually is also the best low gear dps. Arcane can be manipulated with stacking Arcane Charges to gain immense dps bursts. Fire just suffers from Pyro being such a high hitter and crit being pretty low at starter gear.

Legion seems to fix quite many things, just need to actually test it to find out if things are still like this.

[Deleted]

i recently level'd my mage from 85-100 as it had been collecting dust since cataclysm, it had no raiding gear only some of the older pvp gear, i level'd as frost and the whole process took somewhere around 8 hours including a few 2v2 skirmishes and dungeon runs along the way. i have all classes at 100 and i've never struggled getting any of them from 1-100 its such a breeze to do now. i almost entirely skip questing and just go for bonus objectives aswell.

[Atelo]

i recently level'd my mage from 85-100 as it had been collecting dust since cataclysm, it had no raiding gear only some of the older pvp gear, i level'd as frost and the whole process took somewhere around 8 hours including a few 2v2 skirmishes and dungeon runs along the way. i have all classes at 100 and i've never struggled getting any of them from 1-100 its such a breeze to do now. i almost entirely skip questing and just go for bonus objectives aswell.

You leveled 85 to 100 in 8 hours? Impressive. I have heard the bonus objectives can level you faster... but I heard that after leveling with quests. I really just played the game casually and didn't look into specs or best ways to level or anything until now.

[haxartus]

My point was that in the other thread, everyone basically said "I didn't have any problems, therefore, you suck" and I wanted to propose the idea that maybe other people had different experiences due to other factors, such as gear.

No, it's entirely skill. I recently came back to WoW, created a mage on a new server and boosted it to lvl 90. The first few levels were a bit slow, but at 94-95 I started to destroy pretty much anything with 3 crits.
Here is how you kill packs of mobs at 98 - 99 in 3 seconds, with green questing gear:



I think I died only once during the whole leveling experience.

[Imnick]

Some specs are definitely better at soloing end game content than others, and we certainly not the best class at that. I honestly don't really have any problems with a hunters or Death Knights being the best at this, Blizzard have to pick their battles to some extent and "who is the best at doing 2-3 person content on their own" isn't a valuable one to spend time balancing around to make sure it's fairly even.

When it comes to just levelling though, I'm still astounded that anyone has difficulties, and as this post is still just "X user is wrong" it's hard to give specific feedback.

Figure out your limits. Don't over-pull. If you do, don't be too sluggish about turning invisible and trying again (before you've lost your health, is the ideal). Glyph your filler so that it slows, if you are not playing as Frost. Make good use of Frost Nova and Frost Jaw/Ice Ward. Blink away when things get close after using Cone of Cold, and... best of all, just use your extreme damage to kill things in seconds.
On the off chance you are taking damage, keep some potions to top yourself up or (oh no) use your damned free food. Is it slightly slower than other classes can maintain themselves? Yes. I assure you that it isn't going to waste you more than a combined ten minutes over the whole levelling process though, unless you are simply face tanking five mobs at a time every time.

[Deleted]

in the other thread, everyone basically said "I didn't have any problems, therefore, you suck" .

That's not true.


Anyway, the subject is not very complex. The game is designed for end-game for the most part. 99.9% of the career of a regular character is spent into raiding or arenas or battlegrounds when it gets to the gameplay of its class so it is not designed with levelling being very balanced.

Fire mage has very high AOE, just as in raiding or PVP but that comes at a cost that it's low single target hence it won't be that great in some quests, if not all. It might be cool in dungeons though since the trash packs there are about 50% of the instance.

Arcane is a bit crappy in several cases because you have a very long cooldown between burns while frost has a very short recharging of its mini-nukes and it lines up almost perfectly with the ~10sec downtime between un-elites. It's also OK in 5mans.

[Atelo]

No, it's entirely skill. I recently came back to WoW, created a mage on a new server and boosted it to lvl 90. The first few levels were a bit slow, but at 94-95 I started to destroy pretty much anything with 3 crits.
Here is how you kill packs of mobs at 98 - 99 in 3 seconds, with green questing gear:
I think I died only once during the whole leveling experience.

Sorry dude, I disagree. You kind of just refuted your own argument by saying it was entirely skill based, then showing it also required crits which are entirely random and based on gear. No amount of skill can make you crit more often, or crit when you need to. You also have ice lance procs in those screens, which don't always happen when you need them. I often had strings of no crits and no procs, which required kiting farther than normal, often into patrols, or extra mobs since the areas are thick with mobs when nobody else is playing on your realm. You're missing the point. I said I died more than any other expansion, not that I died every pull, or died pulling 2 little talbucks where I critted 3 times in a row and had double ice lance procs.

Thanks for making my point though in demonstrating non-skill based requirements to kill mobs quickly.

I am not saying this expansion was harder than others. I'm merely pointing out that this was the only expansion I started in which I was behind on gear, and it was *really* noticeable compared to previous expansions.

[Sarm]

Sorry dude, I disagree. You kind of just refuted your own argument by saying it was entirely skill based, then showing it also required crits which are entirely random and based on gear. No amount of skill can make you crit more often, or crit when you need to. You also have ice lance procs in those screens, which don't always happen when you need them.

Using the water elemental's Freeze will generate a Fingers of Frost charge for every enemy you successfully root. And Ice Nova can shatter off of itself, so just a freeze -> Ice Nova x2 will usually be enough for a high chance at critting with both of them. It wasn't as bad when arcane and fire also had access to Shatter, but the ability pruning limiting it to frost didn't really do those two specs any favors. Now fire just seems to flounder about for the most part.

Although the idea of showing off screenshots of double Ice Nova as a demonstration of skill put me into a small giggle fit.

[Bathrezz]

Mage was prob my least fav

[Deleted]

Sarm and don't forget about deep freeze which is the base of the spec in pvp too.

[haxartus]

Sorry dude, I disagree. You kind of just refuted your own argument by saying it was entirely skill based, then showing it also required crits which are entirely random and based on gear.

You know that I have guaranteed procs and basically 70% crit chance, right ? And that this gear is entirely questing gear and nothing else ?
Questing gear, guaranteed crits, guaranteed procs, enough damage to kill a pack of mobs at your level in less than 5 seconds.
If you have any problems leveling with frost, it's you, it's not the game. Also the fact that you didn't understand how shatter and fingers of frost work proves my point that you have no idea what is going on.
I don't want this to be entirely a negative post, so here is a bit of advice:
You should not be taking any damage whatsoever while leveling. Polymorph on ranged, slowing, freezing, kiting, letting your pet take aggro instead of you, counterspell on casters, you should be doing all of that. It's a controlling class, keeping 4-5 targets away from you is something you are supposed to be able to do.

[Sarm]

Sounds like he was leveling as an ungeared fire mage, since he mentioned his spec breaking polymorph and not having a water elemental. In that case, I could understand why someone would struggle a bit since you have to rely on crits to use Pyroblast.

At the very least, use Glyph of Ignite and Dragon's Breath while we still have them, and go searching for clickable 650 items in Tanaan if you can access it.

[Rotted]

Levelled recently as fire 90-100, not going to lie full looms bar the ring. Had heroic garrosh staff and void trinket.

I hit 90 on her and left her to rest in the garrison, full rest, I did most. The quests in Gorgond and one dungeon atleast a day, at 96 I got to spires, used the inn started buying accelerated potions and hit 100 in spires. Still got 3/4 of the quests to do in both regions,

Piece of piss, worth the investment,

Without looms I levelled a monk, wind walker 90 boost, I really didn't struggle with her,

I was about to say, I've also levelled a dk in basic green mop gear for a tank, as a dps and just started a hunter in cats greens with mop instance stuff. Then I remembered, you get blue gear from introductory stuff to draenor? So why have you still got low level stuff?

[Atelo]

You know that I have guaranteed procs and basically 70% crit chance, right ? And that this gear is entirely questing gear and nothing else ?
Questing gear, guaranteed crits, guaranteed procs, enough damage to kill a pack of mobs at your level in less than 5 seconds.
If you have any problems leveling with frost, it's you, it's not the game. Also the fact that you didn't understand how shatter and fingers of frost work proves my point that you have no idea what is going on.
I don't want this to be entirely a negative post, so here is a bit of advice:
You should not be taking any damage whatsoever while leveling. Polymorph on ranged, slowing, freezing, kiting, letting your pet take aggro instead of you, counterspell on casters, you should be doing all of that. It's a controlling class, keeping 4-5 targets away from you is something you are supposed to be able to do.

Again, you've missed the point entirely and instead jumped to "you must suck" while implying that I'm dying every pull or something. Your abilities are not always available, your 70% crit chance with ice lance does not equal 100%. Sometimes shit happens if you aren't geared to kill mobs fast enough. Sometimes you pull extra mobs, especially when nobody is on your realm and every single mob is up. Sometimes shit respawns on top of you. Sometimes your abilities are not available right when you need them (because I'm actually using them). Sometimes mobs have abilities you aren't prepared for, such as the level 100 aberration dogs over at Pillars of Fate who leap at you and do 30k damage (20k leap + 10k melee) instantly and punt you, aborting your casting. At level 99, I pulled two of those (didn't see the other over the hill) and they leaped, and did 60k damage instantly, then melee for 10k each again, leaving me with about 10k life, which was then taken by the shadow bolts of the warlocks. no time to counterspell anything, no time to invis. Shit happens. That was 4 mobs, and I didn't let that happen again. Today I go back with 270k life and they are no problem at all. I can pull packs of them and have no issues.

Are you implying that you are so good, that things like that can never happen to you? Or did you simply avoid the areas that were "too hard"?

Also, I already stated that I didn't realize when the game automatically removed my extra frost nova from my pet bar (for improved water elemental) that it was still available in the spell book. I assumed it was replaced, and I was level 100 before I realized it. So I leveled from what, 95? 96? to 100 without a second frost nova to trigger procs. That was my mistake, but obviously reduced the number of mobs I could deal with.

I was not geared to kill stuff fast enough if I didn't get all the crits and procs I needed and obviously if my abilities weren't available. It was noticeably more difficult than previous expansions, and I chalk that up to gear. Still, I gave no numbers of how many times I died while leveling. You imply that death simply can't happen, while totally dismissing any other possibility or circumstance that can kill you in the game.

What if the other guy in the other thread also made the mistake of assuming the water elemental's frost nova was replaced and leveled without it? This has been my whole point. Other circumstances may be contributing to someone having difficulties. Immediately saying someone sucks, and then continuing to dismiss any other possibility is *not* helpful.

[Linkedblade]

Yeah that's really strange, perhaps you should change your leveling path on pandaria next time you level. What level do you leave Jade forest? Make a decision based on that or once you hit 88/89 quest in townlong and dread, that way you get the appropriate leveling gear.

[pfbe]

Is undergeared leveling still a legitimate issue nowadays? The market should be overflowing with cheap crafted gear, and heirlooms are usually 10 ilvls above your level's questing gear. In any case, leveling as a mage I would not trade in fire for anything else.

That said, yes, there areas I would not quest in due to poor NPC placement, regardless of spec - or class. Why anyone would is beyond me. One bad pull and you can tell a lot about an area. Cold snap, blazing speed, blink and never go back.