Leveling mage.

[zoxan]

Hey guys, I really whant to start a mage, but I really have no clue about the talents?
DCould someone sned me a build or atleast some advice what for specc and what would you whant to avoid etc.

Spud.

[rox0r]

I simply cannot fathom why you would start a character from zero this late in the day, it baffles me.

[Splishy]

On the plus side the changes in the last few months mean that you should be able to hit 70 in next to no time.

As for levelling spec, go fire. Frost just takes too long until you get imp blizzard.

[Jaxc]

i think frost is prety good

[Splishy]

As a starting spec? It just takes way too long to kill stuff until you get your major AoE grinding gear in the mid-late 40s.

[Sylantar]

i levelled as fire before all the changes and would still recommend it.
i'm levelling one from scratch as well in SP so when you get to lvl 10 give me a shout

[zoxan]

I simply cannot fathom why you would start a character from zero this late in the day, it baffles me.

Roxor I dont get it Wrath is still not out yet.. we still have a small month to go so I just whant to level this guy and when wrath comes out continue?
But still wrath is not out:, So I have lots of spare time just doing dailies and pvping gets sometimes boring.

[Nerdanel]

I don't know what the other mages think about this but i've been playing arcane spec for the last 7 levels and i'm starting to have problems with my mana consumption.
Even with mage armor on I have to drink after about 2 sometimes 3 mobs.
my mana pool is about 10600 don't  know if this is enough so any one any ideas or is a respec to fire or frost at 80 the only solution?

[Splishy]

Arcane spec has *always* been a mana sucking whore. That said... what's your rotation?

I'm seriously looking at taking Fortuna Frostfire spec when 80 hits - with my current deep frost built the combination of the high efficiency of FFB and the water elemental every 2 mins is a good levelling spec as far as I can tell.

[Choleric]

I have to drink about every 5 mobs in Fire, I go with a Fireball or Pyroblast to start off with and then stack a couple of scorches on them, by now they are usually at about 25-30% health, and then I finish them off with a combination of Fire Blast and some Ice Lances if they are still alive.  Remember, in Fire spec Scorch makes the mob vunerable to fire and it can make for some nice crits.  I use Combustion and Frost Nova the mobs when Ice Lancing them as Ice Lances do more damage to Frozen enemies.  I also sometimes pull the next mob when the first is near to death so I can AoE them both, killing the first and making a start on the next with one mana expense.  My Mana pool is about the same as yours.

Not saying mine is the most mana effective or the best way to do things.  But with no Frost talents to help AoE grind, this is the way I choose to do things and it has served me well.  It obviously depends on gear too - your hit and crit rating will have an impact on your mana efficiency in Solo as well as Raiding.

Unfortunately I can't advise you on Arcane as I don't really have much experience with the Arcane tree, but hopefully you've got some insight here as to how Arcane and Fire compare.

[Splishy]

FFBx2 (3 dependent on your haste rating) then a Fire Blast. Take advantage of any procs for free/instant cast stuffs.

If you're struggling to see when your procs are up install Mik's Scrolling Battle Text. It's awesome, and I've added about 20% to my DPS since installing it.

[Nerdanel]

from what i've found out now arcane is a pretty good leveling and pvp spec most of it's tallents will give you a great damage boost.
In raiding however arcane get's a big dip and looses alot of dps.
Am currently frostfire spec and although my gear isn't the best around and I'm still looking for a descent spell rotation the dps seems really good and the survivability is great

Haven't had a chance to try arcane out with top gear ofc so it might be possible to use it as raid spec once you have really good gear

[Sylantar]

arcane has always been higher dps for me at least.  At 70 and fire spec with my less than great gear fire didn't give me enough dps so i swapped it for a arcane spec and it resulted in a large increase in dps.
i did more dps while leveling and in instances at 80 than i am doing with my current fire spec. however i love fire spec which is why i'm determined to make it work

[Splishy]

The playing with Rawr that I've done this past week (see, not just slacking off!) tells me that at my gear level (check armour if you want to see what that is) the highest DPS spec for a single mage in a party or raid is Frostfire, followed quite closely by 18/0/53 frost which is my current spec. Fire lags behind by some way, until you have a second mage to keep up the relevant fire debuffs (which frost and frostfire don't rely on), at which point fire blasts ahead. Arcane is great for burst DPS, but terrible for mana efficiency.

That said, even if I *were* able to produce the numbers that Rawr suggests I'm still nowhere near competitive with the higher DPSers (Rafaar, Parzifal, Kyon in shadow form), which suggests that there's still some way to go before I can be competitive in raids.

[Sylantar]

i didn't have that much mana problems with arcane, though the glph for the arcane armour is awesome, with the mana gems and evocation i didn't really have many mana issues.
my fire spec is working ok at the moment but having the battle text is really helping to remind me when i can reuse icy veins, combustion, mirror image and the random procs of hot streak (instant cast pyroblast).
I ma having some mana issues but again using mana gems and evocate keeps be up and running.
another mage to help stacking the scorchs would be cool but i've not had that yet so am used to stacking it myself. i can hit around 1k when using aoe but single target it's around 800dps at the moment. i do need to get some serious upgrades on some of my gear though

[Splishy]

Arcane works awesomely for solo levelling, but once you start looking at a 6 minute+ boss fight the maths suggests that you'd be running on fumes even if you'd popped mana gems every cooldown as well as a runic mana pot.

That said, I've not experienced it myself and I'm basing everything about the spec on what I've read at EJ so as always ymmv.

[Nerdanel]

Am trying frostfire spec out atm but can't seem to find a descent rotation (and apparently the frostfire spec doesn't depend on keeping up the scorch debuff wich means i now don't know what to do next) been reading up on elitist but the frostfire section is just a jumble of numbers and stats wich don't make alot of sense to me

[Splishy]

FF spec essentially relies on the procs from the FFB itself. Install Mik's Scrolling Battle Text to help you keep track of when a proc happens - when you get Fingers of Frost throw an Ice Lance etc etc etc. High crit is pretty useful in this spec, but you need a good base level of spellpower (and to be hitcapped) to make it worthwhile.