Hey Mages,
My main question (and the TL;DR) for any Mage that can answer it - What does leveling look like for new mages in Cataclysm?
Back-story: I've never taken a Mage over level 29 (I want to get it higher, but just don't have it in me to level another alt), and thanks to the redesign in Cata, I can go with a Goblin Mage and enjoy the new areas.
For leveling, it will be with 2 other dps, questing as well as dungeons, so when I first took a look at the trees, I figured Arcane would be the best bet due to its nature of being the high burst spec. However, I gather Arcane Barrage will be the only spell available for Arcane users until a lot later on, so the majority of the time it sounds like fire/frost spells would be used instead, right?
On the other hand there is Fire and Frost. Pyroblast and DoTs don't sound like low-level group spells, which leaves the other option as Frost. The Mages I mentioned earlier have all been Frost, and the spec felt decent enough to play except frostbolt spamming could get a bit boring - I tried the Blizzard AoE grinding tactic, but it ended up with me being more bored thanks to downtime.
This brings me back to my first question - how does leveling look for mages. If anyone could give me some insight, for example the downtime for either low-level Arcane or Frost, it would be appreciated. Also, the new Shatter talent - if someone could clarify this for me, but I am assuming that a Frost mage with say 10% crit will have a 30% chance to crit a frozen target when they have 2/2 Shatter?
SC.