Frost AoE Grinding without taking damage - updatedFollow

Ok I know I'm going to be blast for this but I agree with some of the points first centurion made. I do like the response by leatherpatches. But I think the point first centurion was trying to make was that aoe depending on your play is not alway best way to level up. I speak from personal experience. I have done the aoe grind & quest grinds. My sytle of play is more gear to quest grinds. I don't do instance too often neither. I found that I grind just as fast as my friend who use aoe grinds. Honestly biggest different was amount of money they make in aoe. But I usally got better item because I was fight mob closer to my level or above. I might not kill as many as they do but I get more exp for what I do kill & plus quest rewards. I don't buy the whole idea aoe level faster unless they are killing 15 mobs at a time (unlikely on a consist bases). I am not trying to down aoe mages because I have friends that do really make it work for them. But it is very hard to get down to a consist base & it not alway best way to level. But with that said I do think Leatherpatch makes good arguements for aoe and his method is excellent guide for those who goes down that path.

I can see and understand how questing can be faster (if done in the complete correct way, barring deaths and minimal travel time) than AoE grinding. But for shear speed, money, decent drops, and a decent build that is somewhat applicable to BGs then AoE is nice.

I also agree with leatherpatches here that it is for someone who wants to level an alt quickly with little care for quests.

My frost/aoe mage is actually my first char (almost lvl 43 right now) and the reason that I decide to AoE with him is because I feel that it is faster than running around, finding a party for questing, then going. I do enjoy doing instances, and I try to get most of my good gear from them, but I still find it fun to follow the AoE grinding method. Especially when you can do it with another priest or mage. It may take longer, but it seems to go by a lot faster.

/bump for great justice -_-

that video is surely the only one besides the 4-man onyxia that's impressed me about WoW. it's interesting that he seems to avoid using FN, and doesn't even touch AE. it would help his mana if he could get off a longer blizzard, though his timing seems tight enough anyway.

here's your build:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/mage/talents.html?0000000000000000055032000003000004250220131351301

it's definitely true that ignite makes music with shatter, but unless you're actually gonna go with an elemental build, i'd advise against that setup. the reasoning is that MoE just does not approach the mana savings of concentration, your fire crit rate suffers along with only incinerate to boost it and not even scorch talents to make incinerate worth including in that particular build. it's true you have frost channeling in there to compliment MoE, but you will be using frost AoE tactics -- blizzard does not crit, so the use of MoE with a frost AoE build is just about none. as far as pvp is concerned, fireblast talents don't do enough to warrent the points you put into it. you include impact, and it's true that impact can be an annoyance -- but that's all it is. and worse yet: impact doesn't help out your frost tactics (with your posted build, i strongly recommend against using fire as your main offense).

considering what you *did* include, it's obvious that you see the benefits of a 10arc build, but i'd like to encourage you to use it: it's a "standard" frost template for a reason!

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/mage/talents.html?2300050000000000000000000000000005250230132351351

would definitely perform AoE tactics better than your posted build, and it has several benefits in instances and pvp over your elemental post. your posted build include elemental precision, so i assume you're worried about resistances; therefore, i included subtlety to start arcane out toward concentration. basically, the full frost tree is marvelously capable, though in pvp you may find that frostbite can be more useful than impact (it's up to you to decide if you're good enough at AoE tactics to leave frostbite in for AoE farming). as far the loss of MoE and ignite are concerned... it's not a loss. the increase in the crit rate of your frost spells more than makes up for including ignite in a primarily ice build, and concentration just flat out is better than MoE for mana conservation (unless you have impossible crit rates... which is -- impossible!). incineration to go with fireblast is just adding sewage to a raw wound: why would you put that many points into supportive fire talents when your build plans for ice as a main attack?? likely, you are concerned about casttimes in the heat of pvp battles. if that's the case, don't play a caster class.

now, if you *did* want an elemental build to do everything with,

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/mage/talents.html?0000000000000000055002312003310005053200100051300

would take my dollar every time. there's even one point left over! there's a real focus on fast-paced AoE tactics, but you'll find that your single target damage is more than capable. main problem? mana. gimme a break, it's an elemental build.

plus side! monstrous crit rates (and crit damage) from both fire and ice, and you'll have a very wide variety to choose from when you want to sustain damage on a single target. these talents spread out the cast times of your spells so you will need to pick which spell to cast at a given moment based on how much time you have (basically, scorch to proc impact, and frostbolt for sustained damage, a nice slow pyro for lazy openings and sustainable efficiency).

you'll be able to pvp in the style of both a frostie and flamer, though you won't have quite the special tricks that a specialist would have (namely, combustion, barrier, and pom). still, you can be sure this build can hold its own, just stand back when your three major cooldowns are up and find out why i included flamestrike in that mix: avec shatter, background rate, and critical mass -- flamestrike approaches 70% crit rate! which basically guarantees that you'll get off a 30% discounted AoE attack... in practice, it's still not as efficient as blizzard, but you'll still be able to AoE in pve just fine (remember to use the burn area).

that's about all the alternative builds i wanna suggest that would do the same thing you're wanting. tip: when you've got your AoE swarm in kite, and then you FN? don't run more than a few steps before turning and starting your flamestrike: if you're fast, you can squeeze in a blastwave to take advantage of shatter at the same time. and wait until *after* daze has worn off to use your CoC for snare effect. sprinkle explosion for flavour.

Hey there :-)

First of all...well written guide. Gives me alot of inspiration to play with my newly created mage!

Ive played a Warrior and Rogue to level 60 and I really want to use this guide to level my mage.

Only thing is the talentbuild. It's one with all 51 points spend. Im currently level 20 with 5 points in improved Frostbolt, 5 points in Ice Shards and 1 point in Piercing Ice.

I wonder what talents you advice to get first from the talents mentioned. I assume take all frost talents first? And in what order?

thanks in advance

Wow - some seriously well written and informed responses by fractalsynapse. Thanks matey.

Gnwarl - you've set a real challenge there - laying out the ideal talent in order. I'll get to it this evening and include it in the original post, mostly based on what fractal advises (it's solid advice).

Edited, Oct 18th 2006 at 9:18am PDT by leatherpatches

you're correct that against most mobs that little combo won't kill them all. if you're not gonna go pure frost AoE though, your options are limited to fast-paced instant spell spam. really, it's important to realize the *timing* of elemental AoE kills is very important. keep moving, and don't let your blast wave and CoC overlap. between your two AoE snares, you'll be pumping out a lot of mana via AE (i can't tell you how important it is that AE is instant cast without talents these days!). the flamestrike is there because while targets are frozen, flamestrike crit rates make it incredibly powerful: blizzard traps you in channeling mode for 8 seconds. flamestrike is a 3 second casttime, and is not a small amount of damage in one DD blast! the burn area is important to remember if you're concerned about efficiency. but truly, trust me, between frost nova, blast wave, and CoC, not to mention blink, you have more than enough kite time to kill high greens. potions help, priests help, bandaids help, but the same is true for frost mages =P

although elemental builds really only shine in high levels, try this out: in tanaris, go south to the pirate cove, and there's a nice bunch of pirates (arrr!) on the docks. there's five or six where the dock meets the shore, so round those up (mounted) and kill them first before doing the lot out by the boat. these mobs aren't terribly high, but they have good cloth drops, and the shooters are all wandering around in the camp on shore. this spot is wonderful for practicing small-area kites, and you'll thank me later for that!

basically, in general, yeah. AoE kites are used against mobs lower level than you, though obviously frost being a better AoE build can handle more powerful or more numerous swarms. if you're nervous, just invite a priest! an elemental mage with a priest along has NOTHING to fear.

mmmm, yeah i see your point about that heavier-frost build, but i don't really like how it arranges the crits. namely, if you're gonna be elemental, you rely on MoE and shatter to improve your mana pool (the fact that shatter helps fire crit is a marvelous icing on our cake). if you're gonna go so passive toward frost, you really really should just go 10arc/frost =P i agree, the lack of scorch talent is an interesting trait, but do do DO feel free to shift those points from impact over to fireball if you want. you'll be using fireball and frostbolt as your main attacks, and there's nothing wrong with that. if you want a scorch heavier elemental build, you'll have to decide whether to give up the flamestrike talent for that.

while i was playing with elemental builds during patch 1.12, i noticed that i really didn't miss the loss of blizzard or permafrost. i DID notice that frostbite was extremely helpful though. since i tend to AoE in very small areas, i just don't really have a problem with frostbite procs during swarm kills: it's a chance for another crit! i enjoyed the interruption caused by frostbite and impact procs during pvp, and i don't feel that the scorch talent was worth taking over, say, flamestrike or something because scorches are not the best way to do damage and in just about any scenario where i'm not a pure fire mage in a group, the fire vulnerability just doesn't have the time to stack up and be noticeably effective. that's really it, i think. i don't feel like, as a fire mage, i have the time to sit around and scorch in order to overkill with a big fireball =P

just gotta get used to it: elemental builds are centered on CRITs, with a weakness of mana volume, and they don't have the points to flesh out with jewlery like firepower or frostchanneling. with that theme in mind, i didn't believe that taking talents like permafrost or blizzard would have helped my AoE kills unless i was actually a frost mage.

to date, i still enjoy frost builds the most, but that's because i'm a control freak in battle. and i'm really really reconsidering whether cold snap is worth it. because i can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that i've ever actually used or needed to use it.

i really really don't recommend an elemental build for raiding. talents like flamethrowing and arctic reach do make raiding easier, though your main problem will be running oom during long fights (i will note that the argument could be made: doing so much damage is what mana is for, and counterbalances the times that you're oom) and controlling aggro (sometimes you may not want a crit right at that moment! hilarity ensues!)

yeah, le sigh, elemental AoE farming is pretty hectic. feels like frost builds have made me lazy -- you just have to get more used to hauling *** around while fighting.

typical AoE kills tend to be between 5 - 10 mobs. maybe just because it's harder to find an area better suited to the more delicate elemental AoE style. with frost and barrier, you can run around all day to gather mobs from wider areas and you have more leeway with your health. alchemists make great elementalists ;-)

there's no doubt about it, you WILL be getting hit a few times as an elementalist, but as long as you don't get killed, i consider it a successful kite. after all, you still have to sit and drink afterward, why not actually USE your summon bread button? >=D the part where you're most likely to get hit is right before your second frost nova: as you're using CoC to extend your kite time. but don't forget that you DO have blink....

if you don't mind killing slower, and want to be much more careful about getting hit, you can just take off as fast as you can after the first nova/strike/blastwave (instead of hugging inside AE radius). you'll still have to be near the mobs to CoC, so really you should wait until after that you hoof it while you wait for nova again.

regarding cold snap, yeah i guess. but it's just such a looooong cooldown that i always get this sense of aversion to actually *using* it hehehehehe. my philosophy is that it would be a rare situation indeed where a coldsnap would allow you to live or accomplish anything that you couldn't do just as well by running away. besides, the cooldown doesn't really allow you to use it often enough in battlegrounds (namely, WSG) where it would be most valuable.

still. yes -- it is just a single talent point! so i guess it's worth at least that.

the main why you shouldn't? CoC. but in real life terms, you shouldn't give up such an important talent as shards because you'll never be ONLY grinding against swarms. it's at least as common that you will facing single targets (if not more often than you are AoEing).

consider. at level 60, your blizzard's base damage is 1192, and 6% more damage added to that is only an increase of 71.52 (leaving the decimal in, because this is theorycraft after all). now, granted, 71 points would be useful if you were level 26 (the level at which you could have both blizzard and piercing ice), but your blizzard spell at level 26 only does 200 damage. 6% more gives you a whopping 12 points of damage more.... basically, that tiny increase doesn't even cover the variance of damage caused by other spells. you're much better off putting those points to better use.

remember, talents aren't about how sweet one talent is (or isn't), it's about what you'll be giving up if you put your points there instead of somewhere else.

by the late game (when you have two or three spare points laying around), i can see how the argument would be made that elemental precision would do more to help you out than piercing ice.

to return to the CoC topic real quick: CoC DOES crit =) and so does frostbolt. you will be doing instances (many instances even have areas that just seem *made* for a mage's AoE) and i recommend you not try to spamm blizzard against the boss. setting yourself up to use a single spell at such an expense to your others is just......... not a good idea.

if you really really reeeeeeeeeeeeally must have piercing (sigh) then find another talent to take points from, because shards and shatter are basically what MAKES the entire frost tree.

That's great guys, thanks! Hadn't thought of it in those terms :-)

hi there~ just wonder, the way i turn back and drop blizzard seem slow, i saw some of the videos they can look at their back immediately (probrably with one key?), how can i do the same?

Hi there! Nope I am not turning using keyboard, I'm doing exactly like what you did, Q is my FN and E is my AM, and relevant spells around the ASDW of course.

However I did see someone in the video that, the view can "switch" from looking front to looking back, of course while the character still moving forward. I guess it's a warlock video showing "oh shxx, soulstone" while he just killed another warlock if i didn't remember wrongly. turning via mouse is good, but sometimes a key will be much better, just for "looking exactly" what happened to your back.

Maybe I saw wrongly, but is it possible?

if you're looking in a direction with your left-click, and you're moving in another direction, you can right-click to immediately change your character's facing to match your camera's.