Frost AoE Grinding without taking damage - updatedFollow

Ok, I'll reply to this if only to bump the original post. I wrote my comment before the new talents were rejigged to remove this annoyance. I'm trying to work out the meaning of the second part of your sentence, which I think actually agrees with me?

It's something of an incredible comment, to be honest. It says much more about you than me, I'm afraid.

With the recent profusion of AoE grinding questions, I thought I'd bump this one.

Great guide Leatherpatches, but it would be nice if you could update the build to 1.11. I have sent a few posters to your guide, but I hve to remember to advise them that the build is out of date.

FirstCenturion-There is no polite way to say this, so I am just going to come out with it. Reading your posts gave me a headache. If not from the horrible grammar (maybe you should have paid attention in English class). But the real annoyance is your persistant view that this cannot be done. I have never done this because the highest I have leveled a mage is 20. But I have watched it with my own eyes in the graveyard area of WPL.

I see this as very immature to try and discredit someone's work because you are not skilled enough to do it yourself. In your last post you were coming up with any reason you could find to say this was not viable. You even mentioned casters/ranged attackers AFTER the OP mentioned this oversight on your part from your first post.

Next time maybe try giving people a little credit for their accomplishments instead of making up reasons that they must be lying.

I have a lowbie mage alt...

I started light aoe grinding at level 18... It's not as effective that low, but I could gather 4-6 mobs that were 2-3 levels below me (in silverpine, usually we're talking undead or wolves at the farms) and aoe em down.

At 22 its much more effective. Just having a hard time finding places to aoe grind at that level range. Gonna take alook at the farmers in hillsbrad now.

(I just want to hit 40 so I can max his alchemy to 300 ASAP)

Whilst I hate to blow my own trumpet, I'd also like to see this stickied. It covers most of what is asked and we can add to what is obviously a popular topic afterwards.

Thanks, Alihahd. I've put that link into the original post.

Now, Mr Moderator. There MUST be enough cumulative knowledge in this thread to have it stickied please?

Really tempted to respec my mage to more of an AoE spec.

Just a question why do all AoE specs have shatter? Surely it makes no difference as you norm use CoC on unfrozen targets and Blizzard can't crit? (never has for me, i always get 72 or 73's appearing never anything more).

Nice update! Rating love for the hard work and spent gold. ;)

Admins don't like to have more than three stickies normally. (See the feedback forum for more info) Have you considered making it into a guide? I am not sure what that entails, but it might be worth a shot.

Finally, I have one other question/request. You have made a really frost-heavy build which obviously works well for AoE grinding. I like the idea of AoE grinding, but also do instances and battlegrounds. Since I would rather not respec twice (or more) per week, I would like to cut out some of the frost. Here is my challenge. What are the minimum talents needed to pull off your method? I can see that 31 Frost would be necessary for the shield, but how many of the other points could be removed? (My mage is on his way to a 0/20/31 build at the moment)

Oops. Not reading carefully FTL! Sorry for that.

I duplicated your essential build and found out that 32 points are actually required. Two points are needed in either Frost Warding or Imp. Frostbolt to complete the first talent level. It is also necessary to get Ice Block. Otherwise Ice Barrier is not available. However, I wonder if Piercing Ice is really needed. Does the 6% damage improve the process significantly? I am asking this because I think the points might be better spent in Arctic Reach and/or Frost Channeling. (Please correct me if this is wrong)

Having now looked at the minimum build, I don't think it offers the best possibilities for playing outside of AoE grinding. To make a decent build, it looks like more frost is needed. I ended up with 40 points after adding Arctic Reach 2/2, Improved Frostbolt 5/5, and Frost Channeling 3/3. I put the rest into the Arcane tree to get the Imp. Arcane Missiles and 4/5 Arcane Concentration for a little Mana conservation. Here is a link if you are interested.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=obxmZZVAMIsftho

I would have to counsel against switching the points from piercing ice to winter's chill because piercing ice has an impact on every single frost spell you cast, every single time. 6% is a very large amount of damage, particularly over the course of an instance or grinding session.

Winter's chill, however only has a chance of kicking in. For me it doesn't seem to drastically increase my crit rate, even when stacked 5 times and loads of points in frost. This is not to say it's a waste of time, just that for the use you describe you're better off with piercing ice, in my opinion.

Also, you won't be critting using Blizzard (as pointed out earlier in the thread) so it's often redundant during AoE grinding. You are unlikely to be fighting an enemy pvp player for long enough to get winter's chill to stack, so it will be of limited use in BG.

Winter's chill is really a raid benefit talent, in my opinion. It stacks up on a boss you are fighting over a period of time to add up the frost damage from all players who are hitting him, even if they don't have the points in this talent.

Edited, Oct 5th 2006 at 7:18am PDT by leatherpatches

Since you didn't include Frost Ward as an essential talent, I assumed the effect was minimal. I chose Improved Frostbolt to improve standard play. Your comment also made me wonder if Mana Shield could help? You mentioned that you normally have mana left after a pull, so why not use it along with the Frost Shield? (I think the way these shields absorbed damage changed recently, so this may not have been viable in the past)

Another helpful addition might be to provide a target for minimum mana. You mention 5k in one of the posts but it would be nice to give people a target when they read your initial guide.

I prefer having Arctic Reach over that last point in Arcane Concentration for standard PvE. However, I assume the expanded radius of Frost Nova and range of CoC are also helpful for AoE grinding.

I still <3 your guide and plan to attempt this at some point. Too bad I need a different set of skills for my current battleground and instance activities.