Best mage aoe spec for leveling with a pallyFollow

I'll be leveling with a pally specced prot and am wanting to do aoe damage while the pally holds aggro. What is the best talent spec for this? I'm thinking fire but am not really sure.

Well, your best bet is to use Arcane Explosion with the Arcane Subtlety, Arcane Concentration, and Arcane Impact talents maxed out. After that I recommend fire for Blastwave, Dragons Breath, and Master of Elements. But keep in mind what Sushi said above, you will pull the mobs off the pally by your 3rd cas (maybe 4th with arcane subtlety), unless you wait 10 sec each pull for the pally to build agro. Honest all the pally will be useful for will be gather the mobs into a neat little clump for you, then it won't be much different than soloing them except you getting half the experience.

You didn't mention what levels you were referring to but I will assume it is new chars from 1-70. If that is the case I would just like to mention, in case you were under this impression, that AoE grinding is not the fastest way to level. In fact since they raised the quest exp rewards it is much slower and with a partner you can double that time.

I would recommend the pally be Ret at least from 1-63, and the two of you just DPS ur way thru the levels, it will be much faster and a play style where you can support each other better.

EDIT: If your really set on an AoE fest, would the pally consider going holy? Use the pally just to gather up the mobs but not fight to maintain threat. Once clumped up you pull them off him with AoE and he can add more with his Consecration, heals, and taking care of mobs that get outside your AoE radius. If you go this route Frost and imp blizzard instead of fire would be a solid tactic (just don't get frost bite if you use Blizzard). Sorry this post turned into a "what the Pally should do" rather than focusing on you. I just think you will find that your carrying a Prot Pally way more than if he was a different spec. And that is just due to the difference in killing speeds of the play styles.

Edited, Aug 29th 2008 12:47pm by ocyen

If your dual boxing that is a little different. And no his consecrate has nothing on your AoE. It would work tho if he holds them with consecrate with you single target killing them. For example on a pull your pally would throw shield (higher levels), Judge Righteousness, holy shield (lvl 40+), and then consecrate. Use the mage to kill the first target that was front loaded with threat (ie the one that was judged) then by the time you move on to the others consecrate probably has a lot better hold on them. But Aoe right from the start will probably pull them off the pally too fast.

Edited, Aug 29th 2008 12:55pm by ocyen

Arcane explosion has the highest damage cap of your AoE skills and with Arcane subtlety it has the most threat reduction (40%) so I would recommend getting those talents in the arcane tree (Arcane Sublety - threat reduction, Arcane Concentration - chance you next spell will cost 0 mana, and Arcane Impact - 6% crit to your AE spell). Then after that you can go frost or fire. You will have frost nova regardless of the tree and should only be used when you pull agro to keep the longer on the consecrate.


Frost with Ice barrier (lvl40+), and its Water Elemental (50+) will give you lots of room for error in your control of mobs. If you are doing good on your pally keeping agro and you don't need the survivability, Fire is much faster to kill with (AoE or single target).

Blizzard is a great and fun spell to use to AoE kite with, but it is super mana intensive and best used at range when the mobs are trying to get you. But since this is all about how to work with the Pally I haven't been mentioning it much.

Frost up to shatter and icy veins, rest fire, I reckon.

Alternatively you could focus on arcane explosion and pick up shatter and all talents that improve arcane explosion's crit chance.

Slow Day at Work...

My main is a Mage and my alt is an AOE Paly Tank/Grinder. Here's my opinion:

The Paly will judge the mobs and bless himself to provide healing on each hit. (You will go /oom with AOE kills much of the time, so he will not need to judge/bless in order to provide him with mana because if he has mana and you have none, that's really no use... So he can go /oom while you do the same, but he can take on more mobs because he's getting the +Heals from the seal and the +Heals from the judgement... aka - he doesn't have to split the difference and judge one while sealing the other.) ---- Instead, both of you can drink free mage water.


For the Long Term:
I'd recommend you go frost and get the improved Blizzard. Your best AOE farming solo will be with blizzard and the same is true for group AOE like this. You'll be able to be far away from the action. AOE'ing down mobs when you are right next to them (aka - Using AE) is dangerous and will get you killed a lot. Imp. Blizzard is available by lvl 22, but the Paly won't be ready to AOE Tank until the mid 30s. (Real AOE tanking - not BS 2/3 mob tanking) By your mid 30s you'll want to have Imp Blizz and what ever frost spells you personally like. (Frost is the preferred solo lvling tree - so just choose what you want...)

Before lvl 35 - AOE using AE. Just spec to get the reduction in threat. Then go for it. You'll die some times, but it's fun. By the time you get into Tarnasis - you'll be dead if you do this. By the 40s your Paly buddy will be able to take on 4-6 mobs and having 4-6 suddenly turn agro on you = dead you in about 3 seconds. By the time you hit your 50s you'll end up over in WPLs and your Paly will have 8+ (maybe 10+) on him... That's when you will really see how powerful your ranged Blizzard attack will be.


SO:

Pre 35 go for AE and threat reduction
What I'd get:

2/2 Arcane Subtlety
3/5 Arcane Focus
5/5 Arcane Concentration
3/3 Arcane Impact
1/1 Arcane Fortitude
Then pick Fire or Frost and spec out that. That way you have the biggest AE helpers and can still pick up stuff to make you a good Solo'r till 35.


Post 35 get IMP Bliz and spec deep frost. Any frost leveling spec will do... SO pick whatever you want to play as a Frost Mage. Deep frost will give you the most survivability PLUS you'll be the best AOE buddy for your Paly friend.

If post 35 you choose to go Fire, then you need to find another person to tell you what to do, I'm not sure.

This (What YJMark said). I have a prot pally, and a frost mage. The issue w/ using Arcane Explosion is that you are in melee range, so you are much more likely to grab aggro (30%, to be precise). After level 30 or so, your Pally can hold aggro just fine. Salv the mage (so now you need to out-threat the Pally by 60%), put on RF, and have a lot of water ready. I am currently doing this w/ another mage friend and it works great. Just stand in the back and blizzard all day long. If your mage is a Draenei, gift of the naaru on the Paladin please. :)

Really, your spec is not as important as your gear here. Just get green "of frozen wrath" gear approx your mage's level, and Blizzard away. Be ready to blink in and FN if there are runners.

It's a great way to level.

Edited, Sep 8th 2008 7:41pm by Willowthorn