Help a Nub Mage

[ImNot1337]

Alright, I read the stickies. I googled. Lurked the Mage forum. I can say I did my due diligence and I will be rolling a Worgen Mage come Cataclysm. However, it is the only class I have never played. I am typically a melee-orientated player. I'd prefer to bash you in the face with a mace or cleave you in half with a sword. So, waving my fingers about in the air and casting fireballs isn't exactly my forte, but Worgen Mages look badass and that pretty much settles it for me.

However, I've seen very mixed opinions (especially after 4.0.x), on what is a good leveling spec. It seems to come down to Arcane or Fire, but which one is the "quicker" one for soloing? (Not that I won't be grouping, but with my schedule soloing happens a lot too).

Please help a (soon to be) nub mage. KTHX.

[Arac]

wowtal.com/#k=Ksna0U5.a8t.mage. (just optimal (imho) for leveling 1-85, not best for raiding)

i always lvl'd as frost before, but since the sloweffect is automatically aplied in arcane, it definitely is my first choice. fire is good dmg, but goes higher the longer the fight goes on, arcane does it, when it's needed since mobs die in about 8-20 seconds. in combination with magearmor, mana ain't an issue at all.

frost actually is a good lvling spec, the snare effect itself is awesome and really nice cc-abilities u sometimes need in lvlsituations come in handy as well.

aside to the theorycrafting, think about the fact, that leveling has for most ppl a high potential of boredom, so play, what u like, not what is theoretically the best choice. i leveled many chars from 1-80 and i never visited any theorycrafting crap, i skilled and played what fitted best for me. worked for me, maybe too for u =)

p.s.: me not english man, so u please excuse bad language mistake i maybe made. fanx!

[Goliethlol]

Frost is the best by far...

Fire is weak because the mobs in cata are not pushovers like they were in Wrath. They do hit fairly hard, and have enough health that you cant just burst them down with scorch fireblast etc, meaning you are going to take damage. The damage of fire is actually pretty awful, especially as crit scales down as you level.

Arcanes ramp up time is too long because you really do need to cast a few ABs for decent dmg.

While it is true that fire and arcane technically do more sustained damage over longer duration fight, it is not exactly relevant to leveling. Frost has extremely high burst damage with shatter, and on extremely short fights (ie, mob to mob) your 'average' dps is actually insanely high. As frost you literally one shot mobs until like lvl 83 in shatters, and the extra defenses that frost give are simply invaluable. While leveling you have a shatter for almost every mob you fight between your pet nova, actual nova, and cone nova.

Protip for frost: If you use pet nova on one mob, use the 2 FoF charges on another, then shatter the other mob that is still in the actual nova

Elite mobs are generally immune to slows / stuns, in which case Frost has a huge advantage over the other two specs with being able to avoid a significant amount of damage through both the additional absorbtion spell, as well as being able to use a pet for a 'tank'. Engaging with a pet, popping images to absorb hits, then invising to drop agro onto your pet while you continue to turret away damage gives quite a bit more 'free' damage on those types of mobs. Not to mention that you have a second iceblock available, and a ridiculously strong second absorb barrier instead of only mana shield like the other two specs.

You also need to take into consideration that you are basically guaranteed to have some type of pvp encounter if your server is PVP based. Frost is certainly the best at managing mulitple enemies, which is most likely going to be the case as you're probably going to get attacked while trying to kill other mobs, and even in a 1 on 1 situation, frost is still arguable the best pvp spec.

I suppose there is something to be said for leveling with the spec that most appeals to you, but you should also consider how much you value convenience and effectiveness while leveling. It really isn't a competition in those two categories, frost is just simply better than fire and arcane...

Consider this for a leveling spec that is finished at 85 http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#oMZcbMoZdfbGsusd0o (pick your talents with this, or something similar as your goal, and then respec as needed once you actually hit 85)

[ImNot1337]

Thank you both very much for the really helpful advice, especially about frost. The information about elite mobs is particularly interesting. It's pretty clear that frost is not getting a lot of love based on the research I did, it was very pro-fire, but that was probably based more on a raiding mindset then just pure leveling?

I will definitely give frost a go, dual spec fire, and respec if needed.

[Imnick]

Arcane's slow is good but it's very far down the tree. I'd recommend you at least start as frost and then switch to one of the other two later on when you have unlocked a few more abilities (or stay as frost, nothing wrong with frost).

[nimryas]

I would use frost for questing because of the great survivability it gives and probably arcane for dungeons, fire is to much stat dependant imo.

[Goliethlol]

Thank you both very much for the really helpful advice, especially about frost. The information about elite mobs is particularly interesting. It's pretty clear that frost is not getting a lot of love based on the research I did, it was very pro-fire, but that was probably based more on a raiding mindset then just pure leveling?

I will definitely give frost a go, dual spec fire, and respec if needed.

Well, there is this common misconception that because fire and arcane are the specs that does the most pve damage, they therefore must do the most damage leveling, and therefore they are the fastest way to level. As I said in my previous post, it is very dependent on the fight duration, and on a mob to mob basis, shatter combos net the highest average dps.

Don't get me wrong though, fire is incredibly fun to level with in and of itself, and is a very nice change if you are getting bored with frost. Personally I find shatter comboing mobs and players to be incredibly amusing, but to each his own. My only point was that regardless of how relatively fun a certain spec is to play, it doesn't have anything to do with how effective it is to level with.

I would definitely suggest trying out all of the specs to see how you feel about them. To start out with I don't really think it makes too much of a difference until you start getting most of your abilities. I can only imagine though that frost would be your best bet to start out with given that it gives you an elemental at level 10. I would also save any judgments on the specs until you get most of the core abilities for them. For frost that would be after you get shatter and icelance, which I believe is available around level 30 now that everything's been changed.

[Konst]

Frost spec is a classic for leveling. )

[Arsene Lupin]

Frost is superior in damage, survival and mana consumption.

[zephid]

Leveling a second mage right now and I started out as frost but switched to arcane at lvl20.
I pretty much 1-2shot every mob I've encountered as Arcane between 20-60.

[Deleted]

I would go for frost to be honest. I am going to reroll a Goblin Mage so i gave a thought to it that there will be a hell load of PvP coming up in the 1-85 Period. So the high survivability is very important i think. And i think that a pet later on can make life a bit easier.

[iadygaga]

Frost is extremely good for leveling, I'd advise you take that route

[Magnum]

I've had the most fun with fire, also with fire pyroblast pretty much one shots anything while leveling. Arcane you usually run out of mana too quickly but other than that it does kill the mobs pretty quickly. Frost may not have as much damage as fire or arcane but frost makes it harder to kill you. I would advise you to go fire or frost, I went fire until level 73 and then finished the rest of my leveling experiance as frost and I enjoyed fire alot more than I enjoyed frost.

[ImNot1337]

Apologies for necro-posting but...big thanks for all the advice. I rolled frost on my Worgen (will dual spec Fire later) and I'm having a blast. Frost indeed kicks much ass.