Mages are incredible in World of Warcraft Classic. They have great damage, three different schools of magic to pursue, and tons of awesome utility. Mages are the only class that can teleport around the world to all the major cities, which cuts down their travel time immensely. And that’s not all, they can also create free food and water for themselves and their party members, making them one of the most sought-after classes in any group content in the game.
These are all amazing strengths, but where Mages truly shine is in AoE mob grinding. When properly specced into the Frost tree, Mages can pull an unlimited number of mobs and AoE them down with Blizzard. When you add in strong shields, permanent slow and Ice Block, it’s easy to see why Mages are one of the crowd favorites.
In this WoW Classic Mage leveling guide we’ll share some of our tips on how to maximize your Mage leveling speed, as well as which talents to pick for optimal leveling efficiency.
@ High Ground Gaming
What Talents to Choose as Mage
The best spec to level with as a Mage is most certainly Frost. The Frost spec offers incredible damage, crowd control and survivability, which the other two specs simply can’t match. When building a Frost mage from the ground up, you have two choices – build for a single-target Mage spec which will focus on questing and taking mobs one by one, or opt for a more risky AoE spec that has the potential to be one of the fastests leveling specs in the game.
Single-Target Frost
The single-target Frost spec will be fairly similar to the AoE spec, but the main difference will be the talent Frostbite. This talent will give your chill effects a 15% chance to freeze a target in place for 5 seconds. When paired with the Shatter talent, which essentially gives a whopping 50% crit chance on frozen targets, Frostbite becomes a true powerhouse talent.
This spec will be fun to level with, especially if you’re looking to do any world PvP while questing. But even if you’re not a PvP type of person, leveling from 1 to 60 will be a breeze. The mobs will almost always die before they even have a chance to reach you, and your mana won’t ever be an issue. We recommend this spec if you’re planning on leveling a Mage on the official WoW Classic Hardcore servers.
AoE Frost
Now this is where things get fun! The AoE Frost spec is probably one of the strongest specs in WoW Classic for leveling and just general WoW gold farming.
The AoE spec doesn’t pick Frostbite, but instead goes for Improved Blizzard and Permafrost talents, allowing the Mage unparalleled control and AoE damage. This spec is not designed for questing, although you can quest with it if you really want. Where this spec truly shines is in AoE farming. The goal is to find a dense group of mobs, gather them all together, and kill all of them with Blizzard in one go.
Plenty of mages use this spec even at level 60 in order to farm dungeons and other dangerous places where other classes can’t go solo. There’s stories of Mages who hit WoW gold cap soloing Zul’Gurub or even Stratholme, specifically using this spec or a similar variation.
@ Dailymotion
How to AoE Farm as a Mage
You can technically start AoE farming as early as level 14 using Arcane Explosion, and then pairing it with Flamestrike at level 16. It’s a bit clunky, but completely doable. The exp rate is still faster than questing, so if you feel like you’re up to the challenge, go ahead. The level where AoE farming truly starts to shine is at 26 when you unlock Cone of Cold.
Your rotation at 26 would be to use Rank 1 Fire Blasts and your Wand to gather 4+ mobs, group them together, Frost Nova to gain distance, and then just Blizzard until the mobs die or get low enough for you to finish them off with an Arcane Explosion. It takes some practice, but once you nail down the rotation and get the feel for it, is when the exp really starts ramping up.
Master Your Mage
Mages have an extremely easy leveling, but very high overall skill cap. Some of the best WoW players play mages, and to reach their level, you’ll have to invest some time and effort to truly master the class.
Thankfully, the class is so fun and addicting that you won’t be able to stop playing once you start. Level your Mage to level 60, and by the time you’re done leveling, you’ll know all there is about it and will be able to tackle end-game content with no issues whatsoever.
Hopefully you’ve learned something from our WoW Classic Mage leveling guide. If you’re looking for more tips about WoW, check out our WoW news section where we have all sorts of guides waiting for you.
