I have played a lock and Shammy with almost no problems in BFA but my mage, christ I am dying a lot. I am playing fire, as that’s what I played in Legion and I just continues where I left off. I have only been back for 5 months and been leveling in other content more than BFA. I just don’t want to die as much lol.
Any suggestions? I think I may be under-geared with the speed of leveling with the wisdom buff?
Some tips if you’re dying a lot while leveling:
It’s either your spec, your rotation, or your gear. But I can tell you what it is not and it isn’t being a Mage. You probably have poor muscle memory and spell knowledge when in the middle of a fight so u don’t blink when needed, don’t kite properly, or just don’t do correct damage combos. If you are dying its something you are doing wrong.
Wow, way to be a d-bag. Nothing useful or constructive, just insults to someone asking a legitimate question.
If you read that post negative that is the fault of your negativity, not because of anything I put. My post may have been blunt but negative, that is where I don’t see a valid argument. Useful and constructive? Hmm did you not read my tips? You clearly gave no valid helpful feedback, you just attack me. Is that promoting positivity? I see you post a lot. Your attitude tends to be mages are the worst. So maybe you are the negative mage and you should refrain from commenting under me.
Technically nothing can kill you if you are frost. Arcane too but you need a little setup. Fire is an instanced spec but you can also spec it with Firestarter, Kindling and whichever Essence that lowers it’s CD to bring your Combustion up frequently. Though that’s not recommended for raiding for sure.
Also for tougher elites as fire I like to open with Gpyro, CC and another Gpyro. That should soften them up a ton.
Thanks all, I would have to spend some time in front of training dummy for frost and arcane and learn to time things. I tried those specss, and well I did suck as Leegaron said.
I went back to fire, something I am familiar with, I still used the tips that were given. The problem with a mage is that they have no healing except what comes in a bottle. When I played my main, this one I was wrecking everything because Lock is my main spec.
If I played my monk/druid/dk/Shammy/DH/Pally/warrior/ Hunter, I would see no problems.
I even think my priest and Rogue would be easier. One on one fights is not my issue or even 1 on 3. It’s when I aggro too many, and in Falconhurst, well that is a tight spot.
That being said I finally finished the Crimson cutthroats wanted quest.
@ Leegaron, poor muscle memory could be true but I am playing a lot of characters. I got em all to 110 without spending a dime. I have just NEVER run into this problem.
Blink is hit or miss…but you’re probably right I probably don’t use it as wisely as I should. My combos are fine…
Also, why would you point out the obvious? A lot of your post is good whether you come off as a jerk or not.
The most useless thing you pointed out is
its something you are doing wrong
Of course, it’s something I am doing wrong!! Why would I come to the forums for advice?
Now if I posted I am not doing anything wrong and I am dying it’s not fair blah blah blah then, by all means, go for it.
If I were doing everything right, I would not have posted anything because I would not be dying as much. So thank’s for your last tip sherlock. lol
Pro tip* ignore idiots who point out you are bad and wrong when you coming to a class forum asking for help.
As for healing, you have to rely on the Azerite inner circle traits, sadly.
Also the leveling buff might not be helping, I am 118 and not even out of Drustvar yet. I am still wearing (some) gear from legion.
One thing that would help if you posted on your mage,then we could see what talents and gear you could choose to optimize.
Yeah…
Mm hmm
riiiiiight…
Hard to misread anything there, sparky. Just one “you suck” after another. As for me posting on the issues of mages, most notably arcane, yes indeed, we need a lot of work. But none of my posts are d-bag responses to players asking for legitimate help. Nice try, but you’re exactly the toxic jerk that these forums don’t need.
I’m sorry but the kiting advice is a half a**ed bull for anyone leveling a mage since the zones are so densely packed in BFA, many mobs have ranged attacks, and some just outright blink/backstab you. The advice is the same bull that Blizz sells - here’s a snare and an environment that will never let you utilize it properly. The truth is mage is just a pain in the butt class to solo PvE level with.
Fire/Frost can also easily inadvertently pull mobs they don’t need and then delay their leveling or just die since Fire cannot actually control its cleave and Frost’s spells that actually do decent damage have an AoE or cleave component to them. The design is just flawed terribly. Please stop peddling this nonsense.
The best suggestion for not dying is to kill the enemy quickly. If that fails, go frost. Frost has slows, roots, and a more powerful absorb shield at the expense of speedy damage. I love frost, but I am staying away from it because fire has better single target and automatic cleave damage once you have a decent amount of critical strike rating. Use Blast Wave and Dragon’s Breath and Frost Nova to keep enemies from beating down your Blazing Barrier. Cauterize can save your life if you should have died, but the speed buff is there to get you away from danger so that you can eat more conjured food.
You are very right! I use freaken spell steal to pull sometimes…at least it’s good for something outside of pvp lol As I am getting better gear I am dying a lot less, even up against multiple mobs.
And yet, that’s exactly what I’ve done every single expansion. Yes, sometimes you run out of room to kite and you accidentally pull some mobs, but it is most definitely possible.
I wouldn’t level as fire. Arcane is nice in that you can get to four charges, blow stuff up, and just regen mana between pulls. If you mess up, you have an instant invis to get out of trouble. Frost is nice in that the mob will often be unable to reach you due to the built in snare and your pet’s freeze. I would recommend either of them instead of choosing fire, at least for leveling.
Last few expansions I leveled as arcane. On-demand burst is much greater than fire. It also helped for the first few levels that I had raid gear from the previous expansion. It was outdated by about level 105, but until then it helped a lot.
With arcane, I pretty much didn’t have to kite anything except maybe the elite giants in Stormsong. Kiting may not always work and it’s slow. But it’s still better than dying.
That said, mages are still a pain to level and do quests with. My mythic raiding mage main is now 478. I have a much lesser geared havoc DH that hit 120 less than 2 weeks and is only ilevel 460. On the DH I can easily solo enormous groups of mobs or tough elites that my much better geared mage cannot handle. And I end the fight at full health… unlike my mage who has to sit and eat mage food.
Ignite hasn’t done this for a long time.
That’s what you’ve done because that’s the only thing you can do, and since many of your spells come with a snare it’s not like you can turn it off. What other option does the class have? They just suck terribly at solo PvE leveling.
Even healers can level on their healing specs more comfortably. My MW monk got to 120 with much more ease than my mage. In fact even now, he’s 30 ilvls below my 460+ Frost mage yet manages dailies just fine and isn’t even that proc reliant while my Frost mage’s Frostbolt is the epitome of a wet noodle.
The snare argument is absolute bollocks though, and was what I was and am against. Blizzard peddling it since forever (especially for Frost) as if it’s the ultimate leveling tool is just nonsense. It’s only worth snaring a target if you meet four criteria:
a. Your target can be snared - some, especially elites are immune
b. You have enough distance in the environment to actually kite without pulling other stuff you don’t want to (good luck with this)
c. The target can’t counter snare (eg: charge you, appear behind you, just have a ranged attack, etc.)
d. The target does enough damage to warrant kiting it over just outright DPS-ing it down to save time.
^ to have a target meet all 4 criteria is very, very rare in BFA. Top it off with the fact that many mobs are in groups where if you pull one you’re going to pull the rest, and with cloth armor and questing greens death has a great chance of occurring.
Another thing that isn’t addressed here is just the fact that mages also move very slow, and just have Blink as a mobility option. Faster movement is better DPS, and they’re out shined by many classes when it comes to mobility.
Ultimately, there’s something really wrong when a pure DPS class is advised to avoid one spec to level - and has to get to max level and re-spec into it, learn and master its rotation, and acquire new Azerite gear or re-roll Azerite traits, etc. Nothing against the people posting comments here suggesting it though, I’m just pointing out the issue with it.
I leveled as fire and still play fire. And hopefully fire will be desent in shadow lands
I firmly believe that anyone who actually believes that leveling a fire mage sucks has never done it hahaha. The only way it could be easier is if we had pally LOH.
Pyro>Fireblast>Fireblast>Instant Pyro will almost kill, if not outright kill pretty much any non elite leveling mob. And if it survives then it will almost certainly be in execute range so its autocrit Scorch>autocrit Scorch> Instant Pyro> Loot corpse>repeat.
And with either double shimmer or blastwave, combined with frost nova and dragon’s breath you can kite any mob easily. And since all fire spells cleave once you talent into it, if you end up pulling a couple extra mobs it’s not the end of the world. Plus with all mage defensives (combined with how easy leveling/questing/pve is these days) you either have to REALLY suck, or be completely talking out of your a$$, to think its hard to level a fire mage.
P.S. Once you get Breath of the Dying Rank 3 you can basically one shot pretty much any non elite mob with an instant cast (and if you kill it doubles its next damage, and has a 5 second CD. Meaning i can do kill 12 of x quests in about a minute by walking through the zone and one shotting all mobs )