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Mage Grinding Guide
Horde Grinding Spots:
0-15 - Questing fastest possible exp.
15-20 - The Barrens - Harpies *
15-20 - The Barrens - Bristleback(s) *
20-26 - Thousand Needles - Galak Scouts (etc) *
20-25 - The Barrens - Bael Dun Exavs *
20-25 - Hillsbrad - Hillsbrad Farmers (etc)
26-30 - Hillsbrad - Mud Gnolls *
25-30 - Thousand Needles - Grimtotems
30-38 - Shimmering Flats - All monsters. *
38-40 - Dustswallow Swamp - Very North East Islands, Murlock Warriors/Oracles.
Horde And Alliance Grinding Spots:
40-46 - Ferales - Woodpaws (stay away from the ones that disease for slow
casting speeds) **
46-48 - Ferales - Frayfeather Skystormers *
48-50 - Ferales - Harpies
48-51 - Southwest of Gadgetzan - Thistleshrubs *
50-54 - Western Plaguelands - First 'field' to the left, assorted monsters.
54-60 - Western Plaguelands - Scarlet Lumberjacks
52-60 - Eastern Dire Maul - Lashers ****
* = Recommended
EXP Rates:
Levels 30-40 = 18-20k exp/hour
Levels 40-51 = 20-25k exp/hour
Levels 52-60 = 40-50k exp/hour (Dire Maul)
Note: I recently took off the Western Plaguelands spots off the recommended list
because of the release of the Honor PVP system. If you are on a PVE server,
these spots should remain perfectly fine for you. If you're on a PVP server, try
the spots, however, if you're being ganked, just switch back to Thistleshrubs or
the Un Guro Elementals until level 52.
Spell Usage and Order:
Typically, you don't want to use spells such as Arcane Missiles, Frost Bolt,
Cone of Code, and other horrible DPM/slow spells. Your basic spell order should
be something similar to; Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Frost Nova + Strafe Away,
Fireball (Until low HP), Scorch (Until dead). Of course, this doesn't work for
everything, but you get the general idea.
Click here for a video example
Tip: Strafe SIDEWAYS away from monsters, instead of just backing up. Backing up
is 70% movement, Strafing sideways = 100% Movement. I've seen LOTS of mages just
back up. Getting optimal distance helps a lot - especially if you're using
intelligence gear.
Tip: Loot fast! Shift + Right click the body of the monster to auto-loot
everything. So many people don't know about this feature, it's amazing. I admit,
I didn't even know about it for a very long time.
Knowing Your Mage:
Knowing how much damage your spells do helps A LOT. This doesn't only help in
grinding, but with PVP too. I would suggest getting a UI that displays the
opponents (monster/player) HP as a percentage. This makes it easier to
familiarize yourself with damage. I suggest using either Nurfed's UI or CT Mod.
Personally, I use CT Mod and some of the Nurfed add-ons together. The general
point to knowing your mage's damage, is optimizing your mana use. You don't want
to cast a fireball when the monster has only 10% health left - because your
fireball's normally do around 20%. Get the idea?
UIs and Add-ons:
As I just previously said, I personally use CT Mod with some of the Nurfed
Add-ons. However, there are some other good UIs out there, such as Gypsy that
lots of mages use.
As for add-ons, I also use the following:
CastAway: Spell Sequencer with adjustable reset timer
Spell Alert: Notifies you when an enemy monster/player starts casting, and
includes what spell they're casting.
CoolDownHud: Displays transparent icons on screen of the spells that are on
cooldown, along with how long is left on each.
StatusBars: Displays your HP/MP at the bottom of the screen.
Decursive: Lets you bind a hotkey to decursive, which will cast remove curse on
you/your party/your raid, if they have a curse on them.
You can find these UIs/Add-ons at www.Curse-Gaming.com.
Mage Gear
Initially, I would suggest all mages get any * of intelligence gear possible.
Max your mana out as much as you can. If not, settle for Eagle/Owl gear. You
don't want to start having eagle gear equipped (as a priority) until 40+.
Meaning, every time you go to AH, check out gear for levels 40+, because eagle
gear gets harder to come by.
What about AOE leveling?
Lots of people claim AOE leveling is the best possible way to level at all
times. I haven't found this to be true. However, there are certain spots/levels
when AOE grinding is the best and easiest way to level; the major and most
popular spot being Dire Maul. If you solo Eastern DM, you can easily obtain
40-50k exp/hour (yes, this is unrested experience). Are there more spots? I
haven't find many other AOE spots in which I consider viable. It's important to
note that dying decreases your exp/hour rate A LOT, so if there's a good chance
of you dying, it might not be worth the trouble at all. However, I must say that
if you have a priest, then AOE leveling becomes a much better possibility.
However, I wouldn't design my talents around that for obvious reasons; you
always will need a priest to level at maximum speed, and it's not solo.
Wondering how to AE grind DM? Click here to see a video of how it's done.
Talents, What's The Best?!
I've leveled 3 mages past level 40, in retail. Two of them being 60, and the
last one being 40. This doesn't include any of the betas. I can safely tell you
from what I've experienced, a pure fire build is the fastest way to level
initially. This doesn't mean being pure fire at level 60, however. As many know,
talents such as clear casting are very good. I've toyed with this a bit. I've
noticed clear casting doesn't start making a good amount of difference until
around 40-45. So, I would suggest picking a pure fire build (please stay away
from some of the less-used fire talents, such as flame strike), and have it
planned out in a way that when you hit 45, you'll have 16 arcane and the rest
into fire. Why? 16 arcane is IAM, Clear casting, Evocation, and IAE. All the
necessary and supporting spells a mage needs.
Tips: Read Alcaras's thread on talents, located here (Click Me). Plan your build
in a way that meets what I said, but conforms to one of the arcane/fire //
fire/arcane builds. This might save you some cash in the long run, while giving
you the opportunity to test out one of the best viable builds in the game.
Managing Your Time Away From Grinding
WoW is a very easy place to waste time in. From constantly checking AH to doing
professions, you can find yourself with a huge amount of wasted time on your
hands if you don't pay attention.
- When checking AH, check for gear for later (but not too far off) levels too.
Doing this will save you AH trips in the long run.
- Know what spells you get every two levels. Typically, it isn't worth
interrupting your grinding if the spell you receive isn't going to increase your
grinding time. If, for example, you're getting a new fireball spell, that's
definitely worth the trip.
- WoW is WoW. There is no getting around it. Traveling in WoW takes a huge
amount of time. I've seen a huge amount of people go looking for better pits,
for an extra 1-2k an hour, instead of just sticking it out and getting that 20k+
for that amount of time the other guy wasted LOOKING for a place to level. Even
with teleports, don't fool yourself, try to limit your traveling as much as you
can.
- Professions. Professions are a very popular time waster. STOCK UP. Instead of
turning clothe into bolts, and bolts into gear, every time you get materials,
STOCK UP. Do it all in big bundles. Keep the materials in your bags if you don't
need the space (some spots don't drop so much, some do), if not, stock it up in
a local bank.
- Instances. Lower level instances are such a waste of time for a mage. The
equipment received from doing them doesn't increase your performance like melee
classes. I suggest skipping the lower level instances and head straight for the
ones that matter; the end-game ones.
- Dying. As I said earlier, if you're dying a lot, it might be best to chose an
alternative pit. Dying reduces your exp/hour rate a lot. It pretty much is
equivalent to AH trips as a mage.
Best Professions For A Mage
This is typically different for the type of server you're on. The best options
for a PVP mage are Alchemy and Engineering (I cant confirm Engineering myself,
but there's a large amount of mages that think so, so I'll go with that for
now). Other options would be Enchanting and Tailoring. I wouldn't suggest
tailoring, I consider it quite useless. I've had 260 tailoring on one of my
mages, maxed tailoring on another. There's very few items you can make that
you'll find useful, mainly bags. Tailoring is probably a lot more useful on a
priest.
Mage Armor or Ice Armor?
It really depends on the monsters you're grinding on. You'll want to use Mage
Armor when you can. Although the spell does very little, that little might be
the 20 mana you need to caste a scorch or fireball to finish a monster up. If
the monsters do quite high damage, use Ice Armor. An example of this, would be
(from experience): Woodpaws in Ferales don't hit hard if you level on them
correctly (the basic spell order I stated at the beginning of this guide), but
the Stormers (initially) after Woodpaws hit faster/harder, so I had to use Ice
Armor to grind there (only the first level).
The 1-2 Levels Before A New Fireball Spell
These levels can be VERY painful. What I found to help a lot is saving all
quests for these levels. Even if, for example, it's quests you complete by
simply grinding on monsters (Shimmering Flats), don't turn them in until they're
going to turn gray or you're on one of the levels before a new fireball spell. I
do NOT suggest doing purely quests, but knowing which quests are easy/grind-able
on helps a lot. Also, a higher level friend might be more willing to help you,
if they know it's the level (or two) before a new fireball spell, and they know
you've stacked up quests so they have a wide selection to help you from. If you
cant do this, simply keep grinding and deal with the extra couple hours or so of
how long it takes to level. Personally, all I did was not turn in grind-able
quests as long as I could hold out - until these levels came up.
Dealing With The Boringness Of Grinding
There's no way to get rid of it. There's ways to deal with it, fortunately. The
basic ways are to simply play music while grinding, or position your TV to a
location where you don't have to turn much to watch it, or chatting in game.
Grinding doesn't require you to watch your screen 100% of the time, even on a
PVP server, so watching TV isn't too hard. A method I personally like is talking
to friends, RL or on team speak, both are good choices to help you forget about
what you're doing. One thing I urge everyone NOT to think about is how long it's
taking to level, it'll make you extremely bored/frustrated.
Why Do People Grind If It's So Boring?
A simple, yet complicated question. The simple answer is that we're power
gamers/PVPers. We want to get as strong as possible as fast as possible. The
part where it gets complicated is where casual gamers and such are reverting to
grinding, too. With the current state of WoW, there's very little reason to do
quests. One of the only reasons is that you get more involved with the
story/history of WoW. Another is that it is more entertaining than grinding.
While I'm not going to try arguing with either of those, I will tell you the
following:
There's very few rewards to doing quests, one of them being able to buy mounts
from other races in your faction. This, funny enough, isn't very possible. The
other being you get discounts. I'll let you know now that you can easily obtain
an honorable status by questing from 1 to 14-15, which is what I did. Grinding
rewards better than questing, more materials, more gold, more of a chance to
receive rare drops (blues that bind on equip), and most importantly,
faster/better exp. Also, you can grind to 60 and then proceed to do instances,
which means you end up with the same gear as everyone else, but faster.
How long did it take you to max, using these methods?
A bit over 7 days. Of course, it can be done faster, if you already know all of
these spots, fallback spots, etc, and if you go a fire/arcane build (I went
Arcane/fire). Infact, people have already maxed faster than I did using this
guide.
Mage Macros:
Here are some macros for mages. They work great for their purpose.
Polymorph Macro
Description: Announces the gender of the target, as well as their level.
script if UnitSex("target") == 1 then SendChatMessage("Sheeping Female " ..
UnitLevel("target") .. " %t","say") else SendChatMessage("Sheeping Male " ..
UnitLevel("target") .. " %t", "say"); end
/cast Polymorph(Rank 4)
Counter-Spell
Description: It will cancel whichever spell is casting and cast counter-spell.
Works GREAT in PVP.
/script SpellStopCasting()
/script CastSpellByName("counterspell")
WOTF
Description: When you get feared in PVP, you automatically lose your target,
this will automatically target the last person when using WOTF.
/cast Will of the Forsaken(Racial)
/script TargetLastEnemy()
Reparty:
Description: This will leave the party and reparty the person of your choice,
resetting the instance. Very helpful with Dire Maul. Replace "Person" with the
players name.
/script LeaveParty()
/invite Person
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