Why is Frost popular for leveling?

[Noctiphobia]

Might also add that if you play with war mode on, you get deep shatter, which makes your frostbolts really strong (stronger than ice lances, and you can hit a frostbolt together with an ice lance on a frozen target) - and between frost nova, your elemental's freeze, ice nova, frostbite and brain freeze procs, you're doing that pretty much constantly. I don't think the other specs gain nearly as much consistent damage from PvP talents, or just the fact that enemies can be frozen in general.

[JeckThron]

Nice discussion this is!

[shise]

No idea, I guess because it’s super safe. Arcane is many times better for levelling, in fact it’s one of the fastest specs in the game.

Leveling generally implies world pvp.

Frost offers the best survival and you are abel to take tons of mobs at once, wiht little control issues.

[pallesenmogens]

I just finished leveling my frost mage - I really enjoyed pulling larger packs, slowing them and then casting my blizzard to AOE the pack. Arcane never really did anything worth mentioning for me. Fire was/is still a blast.

[Etna-the-Undying]

No idea, I guess because it’s super safe. Arcane is many times better for levelling, in fact it’s one of the fastest specs in the game.

I recently went into retail to check things out and decided to lvl a mage. JUst went Arcane after a while you dont really run out of mana and just spam arcane blast with 4 stacks over and over. super high damage.

[Trumpcat]

Fire doesn't do damage outside Combustion, levelling with it is a drag. No aoe worth mentioning either (outside Combustion). Very poor damage in dungeons and poor damage in the open world, but it can do good damage on a boss if Combustion is ready.

Frost is fishing for procs, if you get them it's nice, if not it can take ages to kill stuff. Quite slow in dungeons too as mobs can move out of your aoe and the aoe itself has cooldowns. No burst worth mentioning.

Arcane can 2-3 shot most mobs, has spectacular burst and can aoe endlessly on the move. It's by far the best Mage spec for levelling dungeons and open world content. Unlike Fire it has a reliable slow and unlike Frost it doesn't need fishing for procs nor is there danger of mobs getting out of your aoe.

[RobertMugabe]

Arcane is by far the best leveling spec. The last time frost was the best mage leveling spec was in MoP, maybe WoD.

[Linkedblade]

First of all, I'm only lvl26 so bear with me. I've never played a mage before. I know Frost is the most popular leveling spec, but at my level its so slow and horrible to kill things. When does it start to shine for leveling?

Frost barrier, ice block, frost nova, water ele chill, usually have a lot of options for survivability and control.

I'd say arcane is faster, you can just ab spam through quests.

[Djaye]

i personally prefer leveling frost due to being able to do MASS 1/4 zone pulls.
its a great spec for hoarding up huge mob packs, keeping them still and nuking them.
i level by burning down 30+ mobs at a time, dont even need to dungeon grind if you do it in progressive zones.

[epigramx]

Arcane could be the fastest, but only if you're overgeared though. If Arcane needs its time to do something: it's a pain in the ass.

Frost is more mobile and more generalized, so it can be a middle ground. Fire is also specialized and needs build ups etc.

Mage for longest time has specific niches of "hard to move arcane and hard to set up fire and middle ground frost".

[HansOlo]

First of all, I'm only lvl26 so bear with me. I've never played a mage before. I know Frost is the most popular leveling spec, but at my level its so slow and horrible to kill things. When does it start to shine for leveling?

It used to be like 10 years ago.

I remember my frost mage - I would gather 10-20 mobs, root them with nova, cone of cold AoE damage, blink away, round the mobs up again, nova again, and then blizzard. I would die instantly if my timing with blink was bad.

That was the way you would level - simple by killing mobs. And you would find these guides on youtube. Things are different and more flexible today.

I can only imagine Arcane is strongest now. The sustained damage is extremely good, as frost/fire is more bursty and less sustained. Problem is that there is no leveling scenario, where you get the full benefit of frost/fire playstyle, as the mobs die so quick anyway. It's better with constant high damage as arcane.

[loras]

Arcane is bae

[touriafuji]

When does it start to shine for leveling?

[Sesethi]

Because the monsters can barely reach you while with the other specs if you pull great packs its gonna be something all right

[Auxis]

I leveled frost (granted I was questing +Random Dungeoning) til about 30 then I swapped to Fire. Once I got the 3 Fire Blasts, 3 Phoenix Flames+guaranteed crits, and hardcastle Pyro (30% cast reduction, 10% crit increase) talents I never looked back.

Maybe frost picks up later on and is ideal for DF questing?
And does Arcane still have slow affixes to their Arcane Blasts or was that changed in the talent revamp?

[Cynical Asshole]

Because it's the only spec that works. LOOOOL.

Otherwise you get rekt by mobs or have to eat after every 2 mobs.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Because it's the only spec that works. LOOOOL.

Otherwise you get rekt by mobs or have to eat after every 2 mobs.

Leveling with arcane was no preblem at all, you burst stuff apart so quickly, it frankly doesn't matter that you need mana every now and then. Not to mention that you have plenty of ways to get it back without drinking. If anything you only need to eat sometimes to recover health after overpulling.

[Scrizix]

I like frost for leveling because of strong cc and ae capabilities.