dualboxing mages at lvl 75

[goatsnake]

Just a snapshot, this is from aoe grinding around zeramas. I wanted to see which was faster questing or aoe grinding. It's a great place to grind at 75.

I'm dualboxing an Arcane mage focused on spellpower, and the puller is an Ice mage focused on stam first.

I took stats for 1/2 hour, then my bags were full. It's hard to stop, so I kept going pretty consistently with maybe a break for a flower picking or something. It ended up being 85610 xp in 1/2 hour. So, if you can do 3 quests @ 20k xp, and killing those mobs it may be slightly better to aoe, but when you add quest results, it's better to quest. But I am out of quests, because if I get confused or it looks frustrating, I just do something else, so I'm sure I've missed a lot of chains. Don't care really, but what's important to me is that I can get pretty close to the same thing by aoe'ing to the next level and just do those easy quests and repeat - or even just take a few hours break and aoe.

I was getting roughly 5k xp per pull.

If you have some aoe locations, let me know!

XP and time:

512757 @ 1200

517671

522367

528087 @ 1204

533649

541209

545835 @ 1210

549673

554341

557103 @ 1215

563561

567415

572011 @ 1221

575663

580223 @ 1224

586925

592721

598367 @ 1230

[Jubex]

how many mages you using bro

i have a elemental shaman + 2mages setup atm

I didn't find a good dualboxer blizzard/flamestrike macro like the one that was patched out and arcane explosion just aint the same :(

[goatsnake]

Just 2 mages, one computer 2 monitors. The first time - when I took these stats, I just used AE. I'd gather the mobs, freeze, run in a circle and AE, and I never died. The 2nd round I used imp blizzard, and I'm able to pull much more mobs, but if something goes wrong its death for sure. I died 3-4 times perfecting the technique, but for the payout I think blizzard is more efficient. I don't think you could blizzard without 2 monitors since it takes a mouse click on the other window for the 2nd character to act. But you could imp blizzard 2x with your frost mage then AE with both, that works well too.

My first death was by using keyclone to hotkey blink both mages together, and that breaks follow, which meant death in that case, because I naturally walked forward to get char2 to face the right way to bliz. So now I gather, let them hit me a sec or 2 with frost armor on, freeze them, and blink, char2 follows and I'm casting imp bliz on the frost mage. Meanwhile I move the mouse to screen 2 and turn char2 around and bliz. Takes a bit to make it habit, but once you do, you can gather as many mobs as will follow.

[an0mali]

I dualbox 2 mages (both frost, now 78 ) and definitely questing is faster than AoE grinding, but I have found while dualboxing that I can run out of quests before being the appropriate level for the next zone, so it does work as a filler (though I usually try to find my way into instances runs then). Casting 2 blizzards is quite a trick to learn, and there is no easier way to do it than targeting each one manually that I know of. I run two computers with Synergy with keybroadcasting, so I can move my mouse to the second computer's screen. I also have a second mouse next to my main one just in case I need to change the view angle (Synergy messes this up badly on other screens)
You should look at picking up QuestHelper though. It makes questing so much easier by taking the guesswork out of a lot of quests with map icons and mob tooltips. =D

[goatsnake]

<---- mod-aholic. I love questhelper, I think wow should just institute it in the game.

Some quests, since I'm dualboxing especially, are complicated, especially ones where:

- char2 gets stuck a lot on uneven ground
- there's water
- there's traveling involved
- I have to gather 2x (can't imagine having to gather for 5!)
- I can't AOE to complete the quest
- I'm walking around going wtf, where is it
Any number of these made the quest sucky enough for me to drop it, mostly a combination of any 2 or more of these reasons.

You may be on to something about running out of quests before the appropriate level. Plus I kind of screwed myself, since I was dualboxing I jumped ahead to higher level mobs to get more of an xp bonus, and now when I ran out, all the available quests are green in the 2 level 70 zones. I figured that it would be faster to just go AOE to 76 than to do green quests and kill lvl 70 mobs. Realistically I'd say I drop less than 10% of quests, so it's not like there's tons to go back and try again, there's maybe 5ish over the 3 zones my level (dragonblight, zul drak, and grizz hills).

Anomali, I'm interested to know why you picked 2 frost mages? Wondering if you could make a case for me to respec my arcane mage. --thanks

[an0mali]

I've played two frost mages because I really enjoy the playstyle. I played arcane in BGs and arenas at 70 because it was fun to blow people up with two arc mages focus firing, but arcane was so mana inefficient for questing / leveling. I tried a frostfire spec for a level (76 to 77) and although individual mobs died faster as fire, it was slower overall for a few reasons. I had to drink more often (though not as much as I did for the brief period I was arcane in PvE) and pyroblast takes forever to cast. But anyways, thats not really the point...
Also, frost mages work well together because they can work off of each other's frostbites. I got very familiar with the tactic of firing off an ice lance at the end of a frostbolt so that they land at the same time (have to get used to incorperating lag), so when a target is frozen, I can get the shatter bonus on two frostbolts + two ice lances (not counting FoF), which will kill just about any mob right then and there.
Finally, I like two frost mages for their survivability. Having them both have ice barrier is quite handy, and when I pull out the WEs, I have 4 frost novas at my disposal.
For how much I prefer frost in PvE, I will probably be switching both of my mages over to a PoM+Pyro spec for 2v2 arenas at 80. Im figuring I need to blow up one opponent really really fast in 2v2 to have any chance to win.
EDIT: That doesnt read real well to me, so heres the TL;DR version. Mana efficiency, shatter burst, more control and survivability are the reasons I play frost in PvE. Also, its fun =) I would suggest trying it, but ultimately it comes down to which one you enjoy more.

[Gadzooks]

Any opinions on Frostfire builds? I just respecced my 78 mage to a cookie cutter frostfire build I pulled off of Elitist Jerks, and my fire mage is handing out MASSIVE crits from FF, and jaw dropping DPS. Just spamming it is pretty mana efficient, and a simple scorch/scorch/ff rotation puts her waaaay up on the damage meters. Threat is way up, I'm working on that - but mobs are dying so fast it's not an issue.

I'm in leveling gear (black duskweave) with 840-ish spellpower, I can't wait to see what FF does at higher levels!

[an0mali]

I found that frostfire was a substantial DPS increase on boss fights in instances, and everything else died too fast for it to make much of a difference. I respecced out of it because I find myself questing with just my two mages most often, where frostfire provided me little benefit. I chose to go back to frost because of the fact I spend most of my time out questing just the two of me. Frostfire is definitely the way to go for instances/raids though. And I do miss the two pyro crits to open up that would flatten a normal mob instantly with my two mages. =D Made me feel like a 5-boxing shaman for a second!

Here are my two 78 (almost 79) frost magi:
Anomalee (main) ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ravencrest&n=Anomalee')
Anomali ('http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ravencrest&n=Anomali')