Kiting at low levelsFollow

I have a lvl 22 mage (spec fire), and am having a hard time kiting melee mobs that are 5-7 levels higher than me (or elites of equal level). I thought that kiting should be used in those kinds of situations, but I'm not sure. Of course, since I'm new to the mage class, this is could just be inexperience.

Is there some kind of good spell rotation/actions for kiting? Here is what I try and do:

Pyro, Fireball, Fireball, Frost Nova, run, Frostbolt, run, Frostbolt (repeat until Frost Nova is back up and running), Frost Nova, run, Frostbolt, etc...

The hard part I have is that in between the Frostbolt/run rotation (while waiting for Frost Nova cooldown), the mob seems to always catch up to me and pound me. Then I die (remember that the mob is a higher level than I am, or elite, so they hit hard). Maybe my problem is that I'm not sure how far to run before turning around and Frostbolting again? Any help would be appreciated.

Oh, and the mob does not resist the chill effect since I can see the debuff. So that shouldn't be the problem. I think I'm just doing something wrong.

Side Note: My main is a Pally, so I'm trying to learn the "run from mob' mentality of a squishy :) Thanks for any advice.

Edited, Oct 19th 2007 9:49am by YJMark

Ok, I think I have a couple suggestions. First, I'll say that I'm a frost mage, not fire, and so your strategy may be somewhat different than mine.

First, try a frost bolt between Pyro and your first fireball to slow them down a bit before they get to you. I also see that you FB, run, FB, run. I don't see anywhere that you're using "blink." That should get you far enough away from a mob to cast another Frostbolt without getting hit. I believe blink only has about a 20 second cooldown, so if you time it right with your novas (nova, run, shoot.... blink shoot) it should help a bit.

But I do agree with the previous poster, at that level, mobs 5-7 levels higher than you are going to be really tough. What elites are you going up against so often? I'm having a hard time thinking of where you could be .... but I'm probably just not thinking clearly.

Hope this helps some!

Also consider how much benefit you're getting from a 7+ level mob. The experience you get caps at orange, so if you're level 22, then a level 26 mob is going to give you the most experience (not counting elites, but a 26 elite would give you the most experience there). You would get the same XP for killing a level 73 as you do for killing a level 26, but it's a lot more work and a lot slower.

But...if you happen to have a quest to kill that almost-skull-level mob...I'd even wait, then. As far as how long between shots? Keep the chill effect on as much as you can.

Against a mob 3 levels above you, your spells resist 17% of the time. At 7 levels above you, it's 61% of the time. You won't survive, plain and simple :P Just run, Frost Nova and Blink if you can, and try not to get hit (no dazing). If you've got a solid mana pool at the time, throw up a Mana Shield to try and keep the daze from happening.