I know I’m not the best caster player, but sheesh. This thing is a nightmare to level. Pull 3 mobs? Dead. Try to fight an elite without good kiting radius? Dead.
Not to mention it takes an insane amount of casts to actually kill something. I’m crawling through packed areas to complete quests and praying respawns don’t catch me. It’s just … not fun. I’ve never felt so helpless leveling a character.
So, some questions:
1.) Is this a Frost Mage specific problem this expac? I know Fury Warriors had a similar issue in Legion leveling, so … is it the Mage’s turn now?
2.) Is it because I’m using the weak heirlooms instead of Azerite gear? If so, then why the frick aren’t heirlooms more powerful to compensate for the 110 - 120 leveling experience? O_o
3.) I’m only leveling the Mage to unlock allied races. Would it be faster to just speed level through island expeditions, get LFG / Warfront gear, then go back and complete the zones / campaign?
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Just have to stay at range. They are easiest caster to do damage at 120 but maybe not good leveling.
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most dps classes are squishy till they have two rings of azerite traits on their three armors. and the mob scaling doesn’t make them a total pushover till item level 350
try getting the crafted alchemy trinket, it “victory rush” effect really helps when killing quest mobs that patrol into your dance floor
I noticed that mages tend to struggle alot at the beginning of each expansion (lvl 100 for legion, level 110 for BFA). It really comes down to gear - they are so gear dependent. Once you get a BFA piece of gear in each slot - it will become much easier. If you have the gold, buy from the AH.
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Don’t worry, my mage only started to get fun after ILV 330 or so… Before that it was a nightmare, but hey, once you do, Frost becomes a living god for world content.
Casters are struggling in general in BFA’s leveling zones.
Do some TW dungeons starting tomorrow. You’ll get some gear there.
Azerite is a big one if you aren’t using it. Those traits amount to a massive amount of power for your character, the heirlooms don’t come close to competing.
There was a thread about it when they were first raised to 120.
Perhaps it’s a spec thing? Generally when I was levelling my Mage as Frost at launch I didn’t have any problems, even with large groups. When I didn’t have short cooldowns I definitely felt like I couldn’t handle groups, however with Ice Nova and Comet Storm I didn’t have an issue.
I usually rotated my large pulls between Frost Orb (I was using the targeted Orb PvP talent) or a Comet Storm / Ice Nova combo. Most of the times I was able to have at least one of these options available to me, then I would just do a single pull or two if I needed one to cooldown then rinse and repeat.
Edit:
To clarify I believe the build I was using was Ice Nova, Shimmer, Incanter’s Flow, Frozen Touch, (can’t recall next, might have just been Ice Ward for the extra Nova to keep things together), Comet Storm, Ray of Frost (good to rotate on those solo kills to rip them down quickly).
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Mage was the worst to level by far of the ones I’ve done, especially in heirlooms. I would switch to azerite gear and back to heirlooms for quest turn-ins.
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It’s the scaling. Depends on what you need to unlock the allied races.
The other two specs are worse. I’ve played mage a lot over the years, and it’s never felt as bad to solo/level with as it does right now; maybe it gets better with gear, or requires azerite traits to be a complete class (because that’s fun) but before you have it it’s absolutely punishing to the point that I just got tired of even trying.
It used to feel fairly versatile, quick to move, and your shield was useful. Now, the barrier is down in a flash and has an absurd cooldown, and after it’s gone that’s pretty much it. None of the healing or sustainability of past expansions, little to none of the defense, and it doesn’t really do any more damage than any other DPS to compensate for the lack of defenses either. I love mages, more power to people who continue with them, but of all the issues with classes in BfA I think mage just feels crippled in all the wrong ways in anything but group content.
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Yep, that was it. Took the advice in this thread and swapped to Azerite gear for combat, heirlooms for quest turn ins. That’s SO much better. XD
Thanks for the tip guys!
… Though this still brings up the question: Why the frick didn’t they add power to the heirlooms to compensate? ![:confused:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/confused.png?v=6" ":confused:")
Not sure to be honest, it was in big discussions when it was on PTR with blues even involved.
Everyone said it was going to be an issue and yet they still continued with it unchanged.
One of the major issues cited was that while not only being terrible for solo play, it also made you a liability in any group based content while levelling.
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My frost mage was getting killed all the time, and it wasn’t fun leveling past 110.
I made the radical move of switching over to arcane mage using talent level 30 mana shield so that I could keep the mage shield known as prismatic barrier up as much as I needed to during fights. It was like the difference between night and day. I was staying alive! Purists would prefer I just kite a lot, but kiting alone was not keeping me alive since I solo quest all the time. Prismatic barrier is great!
Then, to dish out a lot of damage quickly, I experimented with talent level 45 rune of power along with buffs like arcane intellect, arcane power, time warp, charged up, presence of mind. If you can rune of power and buff just prior to attacking you should be able to easily double or triple your dps.
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I began leveling my fire mage with 2 or 3 incursions. I gave up after how badly it felt like I was made of glass. There’s no other caster class that’s as broken to level up.
I used to troll my friends a lot during pre-patch and for a short time after hitting 120 (until they hot-fixed Mana shield) with Mana Shield.
You literally just couldn’t take damage through it, absorbed damage with no cooldown and only converted 20% of it to Mana taken.
You would just spam instant casts with Prismatic Barrier mixed in when Arcane Barrage or Nether Tempest was on cooldown. If you got trained hard you just spammed Prismatic Barrier until you were safe.
Fire mage is a really fun spec with awesome graphics, but, at level 110, it was just as squishy as frost. That is why I made the ‘radical’ change to arcane, and was very glad I did. Now that my mage has ilvl 391 gear it’s not difficult to stay alive so I might give fire another try, for fun’s sake.
I think mage and rogue are the worst classes leveling… and rogue has stealth.
What on earth is going on in this thread
Frost mage is one of the fastest classes to level next to maybe boomkin, you can literally aoe 20 adds down at once with orb/comet storm/ice nova in seconds, nothing can touch you with pet nova/blizzard/frost nova/cone of cold slows and roots etc.
Thought I’d test it out and see.
The lowest mage I have between 110 and 120 was a 114 Blood Elf Mage. The only heirlooms she has are the cloak and the Hellscream’s War Staff. She has 2 legendaries equipped. I activated Frost spec, checked her talents, ate some food and organised the spell bar and then headed off to do the Stormsong Valley intro quest that opens up the Horde base in Stormsong.
I had very little trouble. I never dropped below 50% health at any time even with multiple mobs and I never died.
I found her very capable of holding her own. You just need to remember to keep moving. Frostbolt to slow them followed by major spells like Ebonbolt, Frost Nova and Shimmer to move from melee attacks, interrupts on casters, etc and so forth. Frozen Orb does heaps of damage.
Mages can be very powerful and I rarely have any issues with them. If it gets too tough I can also go invisible and run away for a little to heal up and eat/drink. I also make sure I have healing potions and bandages handy.
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