4 mages, all fire, all frost, or a mix?

[Lazz]

When classic launches I think I am going to give multiboxing a try. I am testing out some different setups on a private server but I am still a novice to all this.

So I am leaning towards a 5 man group with prot/holy pally and 4 mages. I'll be aiming for dungeon farming and pve grinding and I don't currently have any plans to go into pvp. What I'm curious about is would it be better to go all fire with the raw damage, all frost for the great control, or could I mix it 2 and 2 and have the best of both worlds. I'm thinking blizzard to slow and then scorch and fire spells to nuke.

Also would it be better to stack 4 one way or the other for things like the improved scorch or winter's chill? Anyone have any experience with a 4 mage build?

[Apatheist]

So I am leaning towards a 5 man group with prot/holy pally and 4 mages.

Frost is better DPS than fire until you get BWL+ level gear. Also much more survivable with ice block, ice barrier, cold snap, etc. Fire also goes OOM pretty fast without enough crit.

I recall watching a video of a guy boxing all mages to clear Strath UD a long time ago. On a private server, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaolIYYAI5M

Prot/holy allows you to either tank or heal. You can't do both at the same time. You'll need a tank, healer and 3 mages in order to do dungeons.

[Purpleflavor]

Xzin is a legend, look him up.

[Fat Tire]

Xzin is a legend, look him up.

Exactly.

xzin 4mages/1priest. Solo'd all dungeons,raided with all 5 in mc, bwl up till naxx and got rank 14 on all 5. Xzin and ellay were the leaders of the pack. There was also some weird ass guy named sam-something in vanilla I remember.

[Ethario]

Frost is better DPS than fire until you get BWL+ level gear. Also much more survivable with ice block, ice barrier, cold snap, etc. Fire also goes OOM pretty fast without enough crit.

I recall watching a video of a guy boxing all mages to clear Strath UD a long time ago. On a private server, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaolIYYAI5M

Prot/holy allows you to either tank or heal. You can't do both at the same time. You'll need a tank, healer and 3 mages in order to do dungeons.

My current best team for dungeons is actually 4 hunters and a priest :)

[Apatheist]

My current best team for dungeons is actually 4 hunters and a priest :)

I've done the same thing with warlocks but mages don't have pets.

If he plans to play the paladin as a tank he'll need a healer.

[Lazz]

So I think I'll go with frost for the control but I got to wondering...would a boss a few levels below me, but still able to give xp, be able to be nuked down a good bit with a scorch pyroblast combo coming from all 4 mages? While the control part of frost is great for the trash it doesn't work so well on the bosses.

And I was thinking of using the pally to go shockadin with some extra defence from the prot tree. More so to buy some time for the mages to DPS before I lose aggro and they face tank. More of a DPS race against the boss than a proper tank setup. After I looked at some of Xzin's stuff priest is looking interesting as well, but either way wouldn't have a proper tank.

[Apatheist]

So I think I'll go with frost for the control but I got to wondering...would a boss a few levels below me, but still able to give xp, be able to be nuked down a good bit with a scorch pyroblast combo coming from all 4 mages? While the control part of frost is great for the trash it doesn't work so well on the bosses.

And I was thinking of using the pally to go shockadin with some extra defence from the prot tree. More so to buy some time for the mages to DPS before I lose aggro and they face tank. More of a DPS race against the boss than a proper tank setup. After I looked at some of Xzin's stuff priest is looking interesting as well, but either way wouldn't have a proper tank.

Generally I would think the best way to approach a boss would be to spread your mages out, pop all cooldowns and then open with your biggest, slowest casting spell. Then spam fireball or frostbolt. Ice block and the boss will run to another character. Repeat. As frost you get 2 ice blocks with cold snap plus BoP with the paladin. Some bosses are even able to be slowed so your frostbolt will do work.

At least, that's how I'd try to work it in theory. I've never made an all mage team. Bit too squishy for my taste.

Once you get a decent amount of spell damage I suppose you could try an arcane/fire build with PoM and pyroblast and see if 8 pyros plus a fireblast is enough damage to kill a boss.

800ish base damage
~300ish spell/fire damage
10% damage from talents
30% damage from AP

That's around 13000 with no crits from pyro and another 2800ish from fire blast. So like 15000 damage all up assuming average fire resist. Emperor Thaurissan, last boss in BRD, has around 26,649 HP.

I'm thinking using frost and bouncing the boss around with invulns would be more viable. Either way seems like, bosses with add spawns or other mechanics would give you trouble.

I remember seeing videos of Xzin grinding PvP ranks but I don't think I ever saw him do dungeons. Are his videos still available somewhere? Wouldn't mind watching a few. I'd be curious to see how he managed a boss like Kromcrush or Scholomance trash with all those silences and knockbacks without a tank.

[Purpleflavor]

I remember seeing videos of Xzin grinding PvP ranks but I don't think I ever saw him do dungeons. Are his videos still available somewhere? Wouldn't mind watching a few. I'd be curious to see how he managed a boss like Kromcrush or Scholomance trash with all those silences and knockbacks without a tank.
In an interview with engadget.com

On a side note - to farm gold I simply solo Stratholme - I can do a Baron run in about 30 minutes flat. However, I prefer not to mindlessly farm gold over and over - I have far better things to do with my time.

[laxxle]

The legend, Xzin from Magtheridon?
There was a video of him farming SM for gold on youtube but im unable to find it now (removed?).

[Xyl41]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBJ411I2je0

I assume this is the video you mean? It doesn't look like a very good farm for a level 60 boxing group.


Edit: Also an interview with him:

https://www.engadget.com/2006/12/15/interview-with-xzin-the-man-with-ten-arms/

[Peregrine]

Don't forget that was 15 years ago.

[Kruschpakx4]

wouldnt fire/frost be a better aoe spec since blastwave/arcane explosion can shatter? or can only 1 mage benefit from it until frostnova would break immediately

[Peregrine]

Shatter breaks but you can always rotate nova with arcane explosion. Works at that particular time so if you got 4x mage casting arcane explosion at frozen target it will crit all 4 at same time if cast at same time.

[Grundel]

Originally I was going with a 2 pally 3 mage line up but this post has me thinking that having the pally consencrate and heal himself while 4 mages dps you might never need a dedicated healer. While I think for trash this would be great I wonder if you can do bosses without dedicated healer

[Apatheist]

Originally I was going with a 2 pally 3 mage line up but this post has me thinking that having the pally consencrate and heal himself while 4 mages dps you might never need a dedicated healer. While I think for trash this would be great I wonder if you can do bosses without dedicated healer

Doesn't work. If you're using the paladin as a tank the mobs in every end-game instance have abilities that stun, knockback or silence. You can't tank and heal at the same time.

All DPS teams might work at lower levels but once you get to 55+ and start doing the harder dungeons like LBRS, Scholo and DM where some of the bosses do a lot of damage and have 30,000+ health you can't burst them down in preraid gear, will 2 shot your mages and are immune to CC. Not to mention bosses that summon adds or other mechanics that prevent you from just bursting one target.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's impossible but you'd need gear beyond what you can obtain from the dungeon you're trying to grind and there's no real benefit to it as far as I can see. If you want to do an all DPS team go hunters or warlocks and just use your pets to tank.

As far as Xzin saying he cleared all dungeon content with 4 mages and a priest it might be possible if overgeared the content with raid or PvP gear. Only videos I ever saw him post was one farming SM and a couple of random PvP videos.


wouldnt fire/frost be a better aoe spec since blastwave/arcane explosion can shatter? or can only 1 mage benefit from it until frostnova would break immediately

Cone of cold is a 50% slow for 8 seconds with a 10 second cooldown. I would think it'd be more effective to just cycle CoC while spamming arcane explosion and kiting. Might take a bit of practice and you'd probably have to switch between windows to make sure it was aimed properly. You wouldn't even really need to use nova unless some of the mobs resist your CoC or to create a bit of distance.

Again, not really worth the effort over just having a decent tank, healer and 3 mage group if your goal is to farm dungeons IMO.

[Grundel]

Thank you just answer I needed