Not sure if the + to frost damage is worth it > the stam.
Advice?
The stam might be better to pull a few more mobs but the frost damage will help them die quicker.
I would say either or. You will learn how much you can pull really quick. Although int is probably much more important.
here’s a list of how spells scale off of spellpower,
not sure any of the mage aoe really scales well enough, unless you can stack an insane amount of frost damage.
EDIT: but I also haven’t really played a caster yet in classic, so I have no clue how easy/hard SP is to stack.
I would say its worth it to get +spellpower (frost in the case of azure silk) wherever you can within reason and use slots where you cant for beefy stam/int items. The trick is to find a balance.
Your dps will noticeably higher with copious amounts of spellpower than an equal level mage who just stacks stam/int.
I used all the azure silk pieces with spellpower for the bulk of my leveling and I killed things really quickly. As you level up you’ll have opportunities to replace those pieces with others that have spellpower AND significant amounts of stats, such as the dreamweave vest/gloves/crown.
I targeted quest rings/bracers/necks/hats that gave big chunks of stamina and/or int to make up for the spellpower pieces I had that didnt have any.
Pretty much for a frost mage:
SP > Crit > Int > Spirit > Stam
You want just enough Stam to survive a few hits, otherwise load up on spell power, including frost spell power.
Here’s an article that might help a bit:
To be honest…Int is best stat hands down for AoE leveling. Put points in frost channeling (15% reduced mana costs) also. Getting 1-2 more blizzards and an extra blink is worth so much of whatever else you think is helping you.
For example, 120 spellpower is worth 40 damage on a blizzard. Thirty Damage over 8 seconds. 5 damage per tick. 120 spellpower is awesome on a frostbolt, but you wanted to know the best stats for aoe leveling (and aoe in general).
Blizzard can’t crit. The OP was asking about stats for aoe leveling not a copy paste standard information caster DPS stat spread.
If spellpower had a better coefficient in vanilla maybe I would agree. At the current moment it takes 1/3rd of your spellpower over 8 seconds. This means 120 spellpower only adds 40 damage over 8 seconds (or 5 damage per tick).
Of course DOTs can’t crit. I’m a lock, I know this well. Still, Int is a decent stat for a mage because of the mana and the other spells which do crit.
Pretty much all AOE is 1/3 your spellpower. That’s one good reason you should only use it when there are 3 or more targets. Spellpower is still incredibly good for someone doing AOE.
The information is not just a “copy-paste”, there are very valid reasons for these choices. A frost mage AOE grinding will most likely want to follow that guideline I posted, other types of mages will want a different mix.
Stam doesn’t do much for a mage, especially frost ones. They have lots of escapes and, outside of PVP, they only need Enough Stam to survive a few good hits.
Spirit is useful but they get free food and water. It’s mostly better to use those, except in extended boss fights.
Int is great but, as you said, Blizzard doesn’t crit. So you’re mostly getting it to have enough mana to get through an encounter as well as crit for the spells that do that
Spell power is top. You kill faster and use less mana doing it. No matter if some coefficients aren’t amazing, spell power still does a ton.
I think he was specifically talking about the spell crit part of the stat priority that was listed “SP > Crit > Int”.
For AoE grinding only, Crit doesn’t really have much value if all you’re doing is using Blizzard.
Int, of course, is always good, since you might hit a threshold to bust out another Blizzard or Blink, whereas SP at lower levels is kinda meh for AoE spells in particular.
If the choice is +40 frost damage or +25 Int in those slots, I’d take the Int. However, since the frost damage is so easy to get and cheap to make, and comparable pieces that have Int on them in those slots is a bit harder to acquire, you can pretty much do what you want.
You’ll outlevel it all soon enough anyway.
Ahh, true. I still feel that Crit is good for a frost mage, even if you’re doing a lot of Blizzard. Simply because there still will be a lot of single targets and stragglers to take down with frostbolt or similar.
Maybe crit and Int should be on equal footing if you’re AOE grinding. Anyways, spell power definitely outweighs all else.