AoE Mage Spec

[Dahine]

When I'm playing my mage, I can't pull too many mobs and aoe them down. I remember when it was so easy for mages to do this and I am wondering which spec would be best for doing this. I am currently arcane and just kill one mob at a time instead of trying to aoe. Anyone have any suggestions to solve this problem?

[Deleted]

Frost has a really strong aoe on trashs/packs/dailies.

It's really easy to pull 7/8 mobs and kill them in less than ten seconds.

[Shangalar]

Even as Arcane you can AoE with Frost Bomb, Flamestrike, Blizzard, Explosion or Barrage cleave. Frost's advantage comes from Frozen Orb, not from some hidden magical secret, everything else is shared.

[Deleted]

Even as Arcane you can AoE with Frost Bomb, Flamestrike, Blizzard, Explosion or Barrage cleave. Frost's advantage comes from Frozen Orb, not from some hidden magical secret, everything else is shared.

Double nova for frost bombs (triple if you PoM Ring of frost) + Frozen Orb + Glyphed ice lanced = Win.

I've yet to see any arcane specced mage go over 200K dps on heroic trashs (including me), as frost, you do this with every pack, you can even go as high as 300k+

Sure, most of it is shared between specs, but the synergy isnt optimal with other specs.

[Shangalar]

Oh I agree that Frost is superior in terms of AoE potential, I just wanted to point out that Arcane isn't as crippled if you actually bother to use everything at your disposal. Sorry for the confusion

[Kodaz]

When I'm playing my mage, I can't pull too many mobs and aoe them down. I remember when it was so easy for mages to do this and I am wondering which spec would be best for doing this. I am currently arcane and just kill one mob at a time instead of trying to aoe. Anyone have any suggestions to solve this problem?

Really? Try this, spec arcane and choose NT with invocation and make sure you glyph invocation and arcane explosion as well as cone of cold. Then just run around casting NT on each mob to pull them, start chaining arcane explosion, then once they are clumped just nova and cone of cold and continue to arcane xplosion. At ilvl 496 I can solo pull about 12 level 90 mobs and aoe them down pretty quick with this technique. With ice barrier and coc slowing you won't take much damage. I can make a lot of gold farming this way, have not seen any other class able to pull as many mobs as a mage so far in the areas I farm. Of course I tend to farm me lee mobs as casters would be problematic.

[Dahine]

See that is what I am doing but my ilvl is about 460/461ish so i think it's more of a gear problem then a performance one.

[Zoros]

I prefer Living Bomb over Nether Tempest to do aoes. Living Bomb is more fun, requieres less spam, and has and obvious shatter combo. Glyph of cone of cold is really good, and the sequence nova-cone-snap-nova-cone with arcane power is awesome.

You can try even harder street fighter combos with arcane charges, nova-snap-altertime-barrage-nova-altertime-barrage, add living bomb detonations and boom.

Ice Ward usually is the most playable option. Stack charges equal to the amount of targets -1, then Ice Ward and cleave barrage.

[mrgreenthump]

As arcane I find it that, Multidotting NT to around 6-12 mobs and then doing 1 AB/AE spam(depending on if mobs are stacked or not) to finish them off is quite fast way to do stuff, now ofc it might not be the fastest way around there, but it got me from 4/12k with black prince to 12/12k in 20 mins or so.. and was even hindered by mobs not respawning fast enough..

[reflection]

When I farmed my cookings tokens to get nomi I always killed about 10-15 birds in one pull. Use nethervortex, apply to every mob you pull and run. Most mobs will die before they reach you. If you have lowish gear you maybe want to go frost. Glyphed Cone of colds and pet-/frostnova can also help a lot. But all over AoE did get reduced for ranged DDs. That's at least my feeling.

[Deleted]

As arcane I find it that, Multidotting NT to around 6-12 mobs and then doing 1 AB/AE spam(depending on if mobs are stacked or not) to finish them off is quite fast way to do stuff, now ofc it might not be the fastest way around there, but it got me from 4/12k with black prince to 12/12k in 20 mins or so.. and was even hindered by mobs not respawning fast enough..

actually you dont need to aoe farm black prince at all, i just did my hon->rev grind and found something really really nice

in the cave @ krasarang wilds cord 80, 17, there is some mobs called Reliquary Blood Knight + a few others, they cast a seal on them self that we can spell steal, and it STACKS.

what i did was go arcane with invocation. Run to the bottom of the cave there is a room(there is a little pool of water) were half of the mobs got that seal, and half is just some mages or scouts. now you just need to steal a few seals(with respawns you should be able to keep 3-8 seal buffs) this basically 1 shot every thing you touch, so in order to be able to steal the seal before you kill the mob cast a dot as it will not trigger seal, AM AB and AE all triggers the seal, and i found the proc rate to be 100% if not really close to it. then proceed killing 1 of the mobs with the seal, and 1-2 of the mages. Note that the seal dont stack if you steal it from the same mob(they recast it almost instantly)

I had seal procs for 700k :P, but 200-300k is more normal. though with mobs only on 395k hp ab/am+proc = dead.
So basically stay @ 6 stacks, use evocate to heal/mana back and AE if stacks is about to expire after evo.

I had great fun

[Grumash]

I came to this thread hoping for a little advice on what to use as AOE as arcane. Not exactly important, but Id like to not be 10th on trash pulls in raids (i has ego :3 ). So does anyone know what is the best rotation for aoe? ATM i put nethertempest on 5-6 mobs then arcane explode until it runs off then i refresh it, barraging if i hit 6 stacks. I start NT and just blasting a single target at around 5 mobs, still dropping with barrage until like 2 mobs.

... or is arcane aoe so shitty I should just afk and know i suck at aoe...

[Elegiac]

Mage AoE is pretty crap compared to the old days; the best you'll get is as said, going with Frost. Arcane has semi-ok AoE, but it's lack of snares and roots compared to Frost make it vastly inferior.

[Imnick]

Considering that the 90 talents would still exist it wouldn't even need to be Sniper Training, just give Arcane the increased mana regen rate at all times.

[Elegiac]

Considering that the 90 talents would still exist it wouldn't even need to be Sniper Training, just give Arcane the increased mana regen rate at all times.

Wrong thread, Nick.

[Soulstrike]

Mage AoE is pretty crap compared to the old days; the best you'll get is as said, going with Frost. Arcane has semi-ok AoE, but it's lack of snares and roots compared to Frost make it vastly inferior.

uhhhh back in the old days?? im confused..... you mean in cata?? because our aoe really sucked "back in the days"

sure our aoe isnt as good as surv hunters but our aoe is pretty decent.

@imnick wrong thread lol XD

[reflection]

uhhhh back in the old days?? im confused..... you mean in cata?? because our aoe really sucked "back in the days"

sure our aoe isnt as good as surv hunters but our aoe is pretty decent.

@imnick wrong thread lol XD

But as Arcane I think it actually think on mobs with not very much hp + having to be mobile. I think Arcane is really annoying if you are questing. Prefer Frost for these situations.

[Kodaz]

I came to this thread hoping for a little advice on what to use as AOE as arcane. Not exactly important, but Id like to not be 10th on trash pulls in raids (i has ego :3 ). So does anyone know what is the best rotation for aoe? ATM i put nethertempest on 5-6 mobs then arcane explode until it runs off then i refresh it, barraging if i hit 6 stacks. I start NT and just blasting a single target at around 5 mobs, still dropping with barrage until like 2 mobs.

... or is arcane aoe so shitty I should just afk and know i suck at aoe...

Not that anyone in your guild should care about trash dps (if they do they're shit anyway) but I do pretty competitive AOE dps as arcane in my gear, and though I can't keep up with our hunter and windwalker monk for large packs, packs 5 and below I'm usually 1st or 2nd.
Arcane has serious cleave potential. Just use living bomb, spread it with glyph of fire blast, then spam AB until you are n-1 stacks where n is the number of mobs in the pack, then barrage and repeat. If it's only two mobs, maybe 3, then just use your single target rotation and continue spreading living bomb as barraging is not as efficient here.

[Imnick]

Wrong thread, Nick.

I have absolutely no idea how I managed to do that