At level 22 I’ll be respeccing to the AoE spec and I have found a lot of AoE guides to level. This is where I’m kind of “stunted” at… Do you usually AoE farm until you get better gear improvements from drops or do you stop at certain levels to go into the respective dungeons to get your loot and resume AoE farming/leveling? Also, out of all of the AoE leveling guides, they all seem to skip from levels 35-40. Where do I go to do this at? Or is this the time that I spam SM Arm/Cath for these levels? Any insight would really help. Also, I have tailoring and enchanting while leveling, is there any point of actually trying to level these or just wait until I can truly AoE farm for Tailoring, mainly?
jokerd has a guide that shows what areas are farmable all the way up until 60.
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You aoe farm for xp only the gear is almost non existent and you’ll be in hobo gear the majority of the time saving up for mount. Like you said at certain levels you should stop aoe’ing open world and go run dungeons for loot that will be used for a very long time in your play through. SFK is the first major hub for good gear and you are approaching the level requirement for it soon… robes and feline mantle last you for a long long time as mage. The random skips you are referring to is probably for dungeon aoe groups which are much faster in cleaves and the predominant method I used to level. Starting at cathedral to Zul then BRD all the way to 60. If you don’t like dungeon grinding then there are many solo world spots available but expect loads of competition for spots.
Ok. Now here is my other question. What are the pros and cons of doing this AoE leveling? I mean, it’s cool to see that you don’t need to really do quests that deviate you from here to there for just a small amount of xp. But the loot from some quests, you lose out on. Would it be smart for me to not train any professions during this level up and just go back to the lower leveled areas to gather the mats? Is it worth Disenchanting everything up to 50/60? Or vendor them? Just curious as I’d like to be able to definitely afford the 40 mount, at the very least.
I would wind in SKF, SM runs (cath/library) and ZF for the couple caster pieces there. Maybe do a few princess runs to get some of the caster loot from princess and rotgrip.
Otherwise you either hope you get good drops or spend money on AH gear if you want it.
Fast leveling is about the only pro and the constant flood of loot for cash. You won’t be successful leveling anything besides tailoring and first aid from all the cloth.
You can always go back and do those quests for the useful trinkets at level 60
I don’t particularly care for AoE farming to level - I prefer single target DPS. I’m rocking a single-target pvp spec for leveling (frost) and I’ve been having fun running around doing quests. You can also AoE farm but it’s risky on a PvP server at least.
I do skinning/mining and I had more than enough gold at 40 to buy my mount and I could buy a second one if I wanted at this point - sell all whites/greens/blues and cloth you aren’t using to level first aid on the AH.
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It depends on how you like to enjoy the game.
Dungeons have level ranges. It’s fun to do them on their respective range. Are you going to do Deadmines at level 60? Skipping them is all on you.
I bought gear from the ah to make aoe farming easier but it caused me to have to grind another 20 gold or so after I hit 40 so it’s really a choice if you want a smoother journey with a grind at the end or a less forgiving path with an easy mount at 40. Either way you’re going to want to level tailoring as you go so that when you finally hit 60 you can craft your robes of the archmage which is bis robes for many phases to come. The extra bags and useful +spell power damage gear is nice too along the way (robe of power for instance is the first nice upgrade exclusive to tailoring). Dungeons and AoE Grinding offer so much cloth that it’s almost wasteful not to use it all to max out your tailoring (I also got 300 first aid with the spares I had like seriously it’s so much cloth). If you decide to AoE Grind in the open world I suggest trying for humanoids since they drop the cloth you’ll need but these areas were very contested for me a month ago so I doubt there is much room for new comers. I’d stick to dungeons honestly and the only quests you pick up are ones that associate with the dungeon you are running. Disenchanting is a nice money grab as well since the result is typically worth more than the Green itself, and you can also disenchant tailoring equipment you make as you level. Myself not being an enchanter I sold all my tailor greens to a guildy friend at vendor price because it felt pretty wasteful otherwise.
You can also level skinning pretty easily if you aoe animals, and frost mages can solo devilsaurs for leather to sell.
Do not do plus spell dmg. You need alot for it to matter with blizzard. You want stam intell. The Of The Eagle Gear while leveling up.
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Levels 34-40? The Murloc camps in Dustwallow Marsh. There are 3 camps fairly close to one another that allows you to pull pretty much continually (but it’s a fairly well know area so you may have to fight for your mobs) Even though this guys does it at 40-43… you can go there at 35 or so and really clean up. When mobs are a level or 2 above you… make smaller pulls to reduce chances of double resists (resist ice nova/cold snap/resist ice nova)
Early 20’s is VERY tough grinding… but it can be done. high 20-s thru the 30’s is decent… and at 40… it’s godlike.
As mentioned… of the Eagle… Stam and Int… Stam to survive the occasional smaks you;ll get… and int to give lots and lots of mana.
Dying wastes a lot of the advantage of AoE grinding… as does having to “bail” because you ran out of mana… or got an extra resist.
At first it can be frustrating till you get the “hang of it”… after which it gets faster and easier.
I know in Dustwallow Marsh, the northern coast has a lot of 37ish Murlocs on an island that are all melee (or predominantly) that can be AoE farmed with a rather quick respawn timer. There’s always that option.
Albeit every time I’ve been to that island, I’ve seen a mage there doing just that… so you might have competition. Probably could just group up with them and share the exp. Not as ideal, but certainly easier than trying to mess up each other’s farm. 
Where is this said guide? cant find Jokerd’s guide anywhere there all by other people
what spec did you run to level?
I was like OP – at 22 I read all the guides, picked the AOE spec and tried AOE grinding. simply didn’t work, for me. I was much happier when I stopped trying. Now that I’m 40, maybe I’ll try again, based on the post above.
I’ve been playing Arcane (with 3 points in Frost’s Elemental Precision). I always dungeon group when I can. When I solo, it’s single-target kills.