Frost mage raiding in classic

First time mage here used to play warrior proc in raids back in the day of vanilla. So I’m only level 40 got awhile to go before raiding but I want to know how mages maintain there mana during raid bosses. Considering how long some bosses are I would think they would go oom fairly quickly. I’m assuming you can use 3 mana gems in a raid but still it seems like it’s inevitable that you will go oom very quickly in raids. I heard someone say wait 5 seconds to get a tick in while people say use potions. I’m assuming the only way is have 3 different gems during each phase, utilize mana potions and have the right food.

evo, gems/pots, offhand if you have it, and archmage robe if you have it on.

its not really a big deal on most fights.

My recollection from raiding in Vanilla:

  • Evocation - once per fight (was initially on an 8 minute cooldown, but this was patched to 5 minutes sometime in Vanilla WoW).
  • Mana Potions - can use once every 2 minutes. Unlike retail, you aren’t limited to just one per fight. Bring lots to each raid.
  • Mana gems - the lower ilevel gems aren’t that useful, but at least they’re free.
  • Intellect Gear - As a raider in Vanilla, I found equipping a few pieces of high intellect gear (typically tier gear) was quite useful. Conventional wisdom at the time was to equip only gear with DPS boosting stats like Spellpower or Crit%. But I found if that’s all I had on I went OOM very quickly. However, having just a few pieces of high Int gear was enough to get me through any raid fight without running OOM and I outperformed the mages who only wore DPS-stat gear and neglected their mana supply.

Some of the other suggestions that have been touted, I did not need. And neither did the other high-output mages in Vanilla:

  • Wanding - if you ever ran out of mana and found yourself shooting your wand, you screwed up. As a mage at anytime in WoW’s history the rule for dps casters applied: “always be casting”. A mage who spent time shooting their wand universally did less dps than one who always cast.
  • Downranking - with a few pieces of intellect gear on, I never needed to cast lower rank spells to conserve mana. Only casting the highest rank produced significantly higher dps, as well as greatly simplifying the rotation and UI.

Don’t forget Mage Armor mixed with Arcane Meditation for 50% of your mana regeneration during combat. Your readily available mage gear will often have spirit on it. If your paladins are nice, you’ll have Blessing of Wisdom as well.

Haven’t played much classic, but I know in Dragon Soul, the last boss gave so much haste that I’d OOM like crazy, to the point I’d actually have to resummon my mana gem mid fight.