Re-activating your WoW account, or interested in "Trying Before You Buy"?Leveling The Frost Mage To 80, AOE Farming
AOE Questing
My Frost Mage was my Raiding Guild raider in Burning Crusade, whereas my Holy Priest was only a PUG raider, and my Hunter really only did heroics. But when it came time for deciding on what my Raiding Guild toon would be for WoTLK, a number of things came together to let me know it was time to release the Mage and embrace the Priest.
The Mage is now just a muck-around toon for me - he's not advancing very quickly, but has recently, at 75, achieved the status of Exalted with the Kalu'ak, so he too, now, has the fancy-ass Mastercraft fishing pole like my Priest and Hunter do as well.
Frost Mage Spec Is Awesome In Northrend!
Before WoTLK came out, I struggled with one thing with my Frost Mage spec - the fact that I couldn't have a good AOE spec while at the same time having a good Raid spec.
Even when the talent trees were changed in 3.0.2 just before the second expansion came out, I didn't have enough points to have a semi-decent AoE spec while at the same time doing decent raid damage.
Leveling up a few times in Northrend sure fixed that problem! It's great! Now I have my base 70s raid spec but I have extra points to play around with for AOE while I level, and since I'm not yet to a raiding level, I don't have to worry about perfecting my spec yet.
Learning The AoE Farming Skill
I started practicing the AoE farming technique in Frost Spec around level 42, when I was in the Pirate's area on the shores of Tanaris.
I watched a level 42 Frost Mage and his Pally buddy gather up 8 Pirates at once, and while the Pally tried desperately to hold the targets in his Concecrate, the Mage did his AoE farming thing (blinking, blizzarding, frost nova'ing, cone of cold'ing, not in that order) and in no time flat those 8 Pirates, some 2-3 levels higher than the Mage, were dead.
Mage AoE Strategy: Iceblock
Then I got a whisper from the Mage: "Why r u not aoe farming them?"
My initial response: "Cuz, uh, I'd never thought about it..."
My next response was to finish our quest while I opened a browser window to look up this particular player's spec.
After our quest was done, I ported to a city and respec'd, using this guy's spec as a model, and then I headed back to Tanaris.
Practicing Mage AoE Skills
As it turned out, Tanaris with those Pirates was a little bit too much for me with my beginner AoE skills. At the time, I didn't even know ANYTHING about the technique at all, other than what I had watched, and obviously with the quick deaths I was experiencing, I was missing something key.
(feel free to check out a quick 54 second clip of me AOE farming the Rhino's in Borean Tundra through my Facebook Fan page)
After three quick deaths on three different attempts, I backed off and decided to take my practice to somewhere a little more reasonable.
Outside of Grom'Gol Base Camp is a great place, with the Raptor families hung out together in close proximity.
In Dustwallow Marsh there was a great place to practice, too, with more Raptors that were lower in level than the Pirates in Tanaris, but higher level than the Raptors outside of Grom'Gol.
How AoE Skills Help Now
Blue The Rhino Killer
For example, I refuse to purchase Rhino Meat for when the Dalaran Daily Cooking Quest is "Mustard Dogs!", despite the fact that I complete the quest on four different toons whenever that particular one comes up.
What I do instead is practice my Mage AoE skills by venturing to a well-populated area of the game (in terms of Rhino's), and mowing down everything in sight for about a half an hour. I end up with more than enough Rhino meat for weeks to come.
The only thing that would make it better was if my Mage or a friend of mine who could join me were a Skinner, and could benefit from the tons of dead Rhino's I leave in my wake as I keep my AoE skills up.
But ah well, can't have everything I suppose... :)
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!Related posts:
- Practicing the Frost Mage AOE Grinding Strategy
- Back With The Pirates Again – Frost AOE Grinding
- Yay For Mustard Dogs!
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Hello!
There is an excellent video about Frost Mages AOE grinding with the titel:
"In Frost we trust".( Sometimes it is splitted into 2 Parts)
See . http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-903331917281359369
My mage IS a skinner. Win!
Although I've never AOE leveled, I find it so helpful now. My warrior always needs raid food, plus the Chilled Meat etc. for dailies... I am the bane of the rhinos is Storm Peaks and I love it.
It's so funny how our current raiding characters are so alike. I also have a priest that I have raided with, and a hunter that is getting geared for her first heroics so she can raid. After that, I am working on an elemental shaman. My mage is still sitting in Thrallmar, waiting...
I've had you on my reader for a while :) I'm such a horrible lurker!
i first saw frost mage aoe farming pirates at tanris too! so i decided to spec my mage to frost to do that. from then on my mage's duty is to aoe farm whatever i want.
i refused to buy meat too! whenever i need chilled meat or rhino meat, it's frost mage in action!
Ever played a lock? you would love the new AOE spells. ;) That was practically all I did when I leveled through northern.
Ya know, with my recent respec of a respec of a respec on my lock.. I now have some decent AOE from rain of fire... I imagine numbers like I'm seeing are rather common for frost mages using techniques like you have laid out here. I have usually been affliction in my spec and due to mostly shadow damage buffs during TBC I spammed seed of corruption.. The rain of fire technique is definately easier to keep up, although AOE for a lock just can't be beat with hellfire.. IF you have a healer that is..
Peace Val!
Frost Mage is really the bomb, I'm just a sad panda Frost is frowned upon for raiding.
Yes! Yes, I remember this video, I was recommended towards it before. Awesome, thanks for the link again for the rest of the readership.
If my mage ever makes it to 80 (she's stuck at 74), this will most likely be her role in my WoW universe. She went arcane at 70 and never looked back, but times change!
I wanted to let you know that I picked your blog as one of my top 7 on my own blog. I've really enjoyed it every time I've stumbled across it in my wanderings. :-)
I'd like to say, I used to be a frost mage mysef.
I found it easy to mount up and pull really, really big groups, pop ice barrier freeze, blink, blizzard.
In emergency situations i would turn on Cold Snap, so My iceblock, barrier, frostnova, etc cooldown is over.
I found that easiest thing to do.
Harder to do when I respecced arcane, but im fire now. :) GL
Hey, great to meet you!
Wow, that IS coincidental - my Resto Shammy is 61 and clean out of rest bonus ;) Do you have a little Pally coming up too? :) :)
I love the challenge of different roles and responsibilites.
Going from Healer to DPS and back again is always fun, too, because I have to remind myself "hey, you're supposed to get started right away" for DPS, and then when I go back to Healing, I almost feel like I get to relax because the majority of my job STARTS so far along through the fight ;)
I'm just starting to get to see the difference in healing practices between a Resto Shammy and my Priest now that I'm Shammy-healing Ramps and Blood Furnace, etc. So much fun!
AOE farming is such a fun skill to practice :)
And of course, exp flows quickly too!
I have a wee warlock coming up, she's only 34 right now tho.
I am very interested in playing her up to 80, however (and there's lots of time for that :) ) and comparing her to the style of play that I got used to on my (frost) Mage. Very powerful, for sure - and there are NEVER enough Warlocks in Heroics and Raids these days!
Ah yes! I shall be turning to you a lot when I start really fiddling with my wee Warlock (after the Shaman and Pally get to 80) and trying to figure her out. I'm sure the play strategies are going to be a fun shift on what I've done with other DPS classes :)
Great to hear from you again, McGoo!
It was frowned upon in BC days too, but I never got high enough in the raiding chain for it to be a problem.
I was doing SSC and TK and CREAMING some of the "properly spec'd, better geared" fire mages, so nobody really broached the topic ;)
I was psychologically prepared to make the switch when I started to see my performance being hampered.
So, don't give up on Frost too early, and don't give in to those who think there's "perfect" raiding specs that should be adhered to. Pay attention to your own performance and gearing, do the best you can, and you'll know when the time is right to switch specs.
Wow! What a great compliment! From someone who writes because it brings me joy, and who hopes my writings also bring others joy, thank you so much :) :)
I'll come check your blog soon! I'm a little behind ;)
Yep, depends on where you're doing it all, and how much practice you've had at mastering the skill.
With experience, outside of instances the mobs probably don't hit hard enough that you have to worry about shielding first, but diving head-first into the packs in Stratholme definitely required the shield first in level 70 epics. :)
Hi,
I remember leveling from 68 to 70 in Netherstorm while farming etherals for Consortium rep items (badges and keys). AOE frost was amazing: I used to pull about 10-12 of them and aoe them to death...
Havent done this in Northrend though as quests + 5-man-instancing are a very easy way to level to 80.
Hey... thanks again for this article. I just created a Mage and am nearing level 20. Even with the TP armor, I haven't been killed yet (not quite as reckless with this character as my dk). Just wanted to take the time to say "thank you" again. I am really looking forward to leveling.
Im really not sure why you said it wasnt but frost is awesome for raiding. look at the skills permafrost, winters chill, enduring winter. These are all raid functional buffs. Next would be is the dps any good? If you spec right you can have only a little less dps(like maybe 500 or so) than fire. but the key really is the instance you are going to. If your going to toc for the first couple of fights fire would be better as fire is mainly a single target dps, yes you can aoe with reign of fire, but your best dps will be single. on faction champs frost would be best obviously. each fight is different. its basically what buffs you want. two fire mages dont = good raiding. likewise 2 frost dont = good raiding. Another key here is the slows. Granted alot of bosses are immune or resistant to frost, but this is typical of any normal debuff, and likewise fire does not have an advantage since a lot are immune to fire or resistant as well. so my suggestion is don't ever count frost out as it is very raid handy due to buffs and aoe on trash. finally the only thing i have to say is if your guild does not have a frost mage, your really hurting yourself...
eh. just a correction. Re read the comment that set me off, and they didnt say they didnt think a frost was good for a raid, but their guild did. So nothing against you, but your guild seriously needs to learn about raid buffs if they are down on the frost mage. if they need math i can always post some.
They there, Aleksin! Thanks for your note :)
My experience with Frost in WoTLK is that it was great for leveling, as usual, but even I noticed a huge DPS difference just switching my spec from Frost to Arcane, with no gear changes at 80, and I was frost all the way through BC, beating out "correctly raid spec'd" fire mages.
Things wax and wane in WoW of course, so what may have been true when I first hit 80 may not be so true anymore. At one point, Frost was notably the very weakest raiding spec in WoTLK, but I'd be happy if it were balanced out a bit in subsequent patches :)
Valdesta
Hey all, I haven't been able to play wow for awhile now. But I've been doing a lot of research reguarding aoe frost. I wish I found these articals long ago. I struggled from 1to60 just doing quests and single target kills. Now that I've got kiting consept down ill be flying threw the lvls. Once I hit 65 I'm excited to go to BT in Northrend to aor grind the rinos to see if its posible to get lots of exp and of corse make money. Have a question reguarding spec tho. Do I leave out inproved and inpowered frostbolt. Thought I would so I could have more points for other things. Right now my spec is kinda messed up lol. Ty all and have a good day.
Hotie(Fizzcrank)