SM Cath Mage Boosting Question Extraordinaire

[Doc2e1]

Greetings folks, first post here.

First of all, love the forums, seems like a fantastic group of people.
I've just recently started multi-boxing WoW (5 instances, 1 computer, Keyclone (I own two copies, but am only using 1 atm LOVE IT on a self built gaming PC [vague, I know ;-)])

I have been playing single instance WoW since closed Beta, but the multi-boxing appealed to me.
I prefer PvP servers and my friends currently play on a PVE (Horde, of course is all I play) and I figure Multi will actually give me a challenge ;-P

Onto my question:
I am a 70 Undead Mage (perhaps that I say am instead of have shows the level of addiction, or not, whatever :-) )

I am trying to boost 4 alts through SM Cath.
I can sometimes pull the entire first courtyard and then rest up and single pull the second one.

USUALLY though, if I try to single pull each courtyard, I wipe.
I have about 500+ spell damage and was a 61 point frost mage, I am trying out the arcane/frost, and while interesting is not as successful as I would like.

In searching over the past week for better methods, I am unable to match the ~6 min Cath runs.....

I did notice this after reading the post for the 6th time....
/quote

I found these speccs for my lvl 70 1000+ spelldmg mage to be werrry helpfull :)
From Skuggo in thread:
Mage boostign madness. (Epic Flyers: 1/4) ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=3039')
/quote

Makes me worry that I am not enough bonus damage....but I think 500+ (540 or something) would be enough, or am I doomed to 30 minute Cath runs?

I was trying to use this pattern sort of (now without the elemental since I respecced)
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f361/skuggomann/ScarletMonastery-Mephea.jpg

Forgive me Skuggo for using your pic......

Any ideas?



P.S.
Oh, and Vyndree, you are my Heroine (Female hero, not drug) lol....I love your setup, unfortunately (or not) I left M$ to join the service in 2001 so I am envious of your setup.


Sorry for the large post....

[Enti]

Greetings folks, first post here.

First of all, love the forums, seems like a fantastic group of people.
I've just recently started multi-boxing WoW (5 instances, 1 computer, Keyclone (I own two copies, but am only using 1 atm LOVE IT on a self built gaming PC [vague, I know ;-)])

I have been playing single instance WoW since closed Beta, but the multi-boxing appealed to me.
I prefer PvP servers and my friends currently play on a PVE (Horde, of course is all I play) and I figure Multi will actually give me a challenge ;-P

Onto my question:
I am a 70 Undead Mage (perhaps that I say am instead of have shows the level of addiction, or not, whatever :-) )

I am trying to boost 4 alts through SM Cath.
I can sometimes pull the entire first courtyard and then rest up and single pull the second one.

USUALLY though, if I try to single pull each courtyard, I wipe.
I have about 500+ spell damage and was a 61 point frost mage, I am trying out the arcane/frost, and while interesting is not as successful as I would like.

In searching over the past week for better methods, I am unable to match the ~6 min Cath runs.....

I did notice this after reading the post for the 6th time....
/quote

I found these speccs for my lvl 70 1000+ spelldmg mage to be werrry helpfull :)
From Skuggo in thread:
Mage boostign madness. (Epic Flyers: 1/4) ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=3039')
/quote

Makes me worry that I am not enough bonus damage....but I think 500+ (540 or something) would be enough, or am I doomed to 30 minute Cath runs?

I was trying to use this pattern sort of (now without the elemental since I respecced)
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f361/skuggomann/ScarletMonastery-Mephea.jpg

Forgive me Skuggo for using your pic......

Any ideas?



P.S.
Oh, and Vyndree, you are my Heroine (Female hero, not drug) lol....I love your setup, unfortunately (or not) I left M$ to join the service in 2001 so I am envious of your setup.


Sorry for the large post....
Okay I have used a frost mage with about 650 spell dmg, 7.5k life to do this. Leveled 2 characters from 22-43 in SM Cath doing runs. Normally took a total of 4 pulls to complete it -- 1 for lower area, 1 upper (above waterwall), 1 clearing main room inside, then boss pull with the extra adds - aoed all down.

Here's how I did it, never dying - made this real quick to show you (You do need a semi big mana pool for this but based on your stats you are using a better geared mage for it so you should be fine anyways).
Always use ice barrier and rank 1 arcane explosion to gather the mobs, saving you life and mana to kill them, then ice blocking at the stopping point waiting for all of them to come to you, then frost nova, frost pet, aoe away.

Just how I did it, you can do it whatever way you want, found this way fastest & easiest to pull,live, and kill by.

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/746/smcathpl2.jpg

[merujo]

Regarding SM Cath runs, i think i done over 200 in the past.
I have a mage myself in one acc, and several chars on other, and u must already figured what happens :P

That drawing is an exact copy of what i did/do in SM cath with my mage.

I also tried with arcane/fire and full frost spec, and from my pov, arcane/fire is a lot faster, based on a fast paced mob pulling and strong aoe damage.
Frost in the end is all about control, and get all those mobs in line, frost nova, blizzard, etc, its just too much time.
u gotta be 70, or at least near it, about 7.5khp and 10k mana self buffed. i have 1100 spell dmg, so anything lower than 750, i think it will just ruin how fast u can nuke them.

Record was 10 minutes sm cath, ice lance pulling, some arcane explosion, frost nova, cone of cold and blast wave. Oh u know the drill right :P ?
Another record was lvl30 to lvl40 in one night, 12hours and 30 minutes, and for me at least, it's was more of a mental accomplishment than just level. i really focus on getting 40 that night :P

Anyways, less than lvl70 mage with less then 750spell dmg +/- it's just going to take far more than 15/20 minutes.

[Doc2e1]

Took the day off from work just to have an extra long weekend.

I will respec and try your method in a few.

BTW I have:
7213 HP
edit: 8051 MP (w/AI) with frost spec


I'll try Frost with your map, however I fear that I will be defeated since it is close to what I did before.
Depending on that I will try the arcane/fire that Merujo recommends... Got a spec you recommend Merujo, or you recommend the one Skuggo listed?

Otherwise, I guess I'll have to take to heart Merujo's point of it just taking longer......

[Enti]

Took the day off from work just to have an extra long weekend.

I will respec and try your method in a few.

BTW I have:
7213 HP
edit: 8051 MP (w/AI) with frost spec


I'll try Frost with your map, however I fear that I will be defeated since it is close to what I did before.
Depending on that I will try the arcane/fire that Merujo recommends... Got a spec you recommend Merujo, or you recommend the one Skuggo listed?

Otherwise, I guess I'll have to take to heart Merujo's point of it just taking longer......
Those stats should be fine, make sure to make mana emeralds or w/e and possibly have some mana potions available.. then just keep ice barrier up, round them up, iceblock if needed to get them all near you, frost nova, ice pet summon, start aoeing -- use his frost nova too so you don't get hit.

It's not too too hard, if you can't do it in 4 pulls try more pulls diving each stage into halves to start off, then when you get better try it in 4 pulls again.

[Doc2e1]

Okay,

Frost is working so far, the real trick is to have the Elemental frost nova ready as soon as you cast blizzard.
Oh, and I am at 479 Bonus Damage.....need better gear lol.
For example first courtyard:

Pull
Ice Block
Frost Nova
Summon Elemental
Blizzard
Immediately have elemental frost nova ready (they break pretty quick in Blizzard.
Blizzard
Cone of Cold
Frost Nove
AE
AE
AE
Then mop up leftovers/runners

I make it past the first and second courtyard (be careful to be certain you get all mobs, have had a pat kill my boys several times, even in the corner, stupid huge aggro range ;-))
However the first half of the Cathedral keeps getting me, I think it is more a timing issue there, I am still working on it.

I will say, if you don't have elemental nova ready, don't be surprised if you die....

[Enti]

Okay,

Frost is working so far, the real trick is to have the Elemental frost nova ready as soon as you cast blizzard.
Oh, and I am at 479 Bonus Damage.....need better gear lol.
For example first courtyard:

Pull
Ice Block
Frost Nova
Summon Elemental
Blizzard
Immediately have elemental frost nova ready (they break pretty quick in Blizzard.
Blizzard
Cone of Cold
Frost Nove
AE
AE
AE
Then mop up leftovers/runners

I make it past the first and second courtyard (be careful to be certain you get all mobs, have had a pat kill my boys several times, even in the corner, stupid huge aggro range ;-))
However the first half of the Cathedral keeps getting me, I think it is more a timing issue there, I am still working on it.

I will say, if you don't have elemental nova ready, don't be surprised if you die....You should try getting improved blizzard then, they won't break at all.
I've never had a patrol problem getting my alt even if he was lvl 20... make sure if it's on the bottom courtyard he's all the way in the rightside corner.. and that you fully cleared it.. then start your second pull by going up the rightside stairs which should get the pat leaving nothing left to aggro to your alt.

You'll get it down eventually, just takes some practice

[Klamor]

I know what's going on man... that crap happened to me all the time (wiping after pulling the bottom floor....)

Just try different pull strats and find the one that works for you...
when I pull, like to pull the first hallway all by itself. why? because it's quick and it possibly can save you from wiping when pulling the rest of the bottom courtyard
if you get low on mana, run up above the waterfal and wait for the mobs to gather there, then jump down and use evocation or a mana gem or something.... it works wonders for me :)
I also like to bring a random healer-class as my fifth because if you have him/her spam heals on you, it can really help (just make sure you cause enough threat to them :) )

and one question, when you are pulling the mobs, do you remember to blink after you get 10+ mobs? this helps a lot because it will make your ice barrier last longer allowing for bigger pulls.
when i first started doing AoE with my mage, i ran into tons of problems where I would die because i was a little slow on my blink after ice block or something... lol
I like the flamestrike-CoC combo because it causes insane damage and you can use ice elemental to re-frostnova if you don't kill them all

if you are a clicker, it's going to be hell trying to AoE because you will be extremely slow with everything
and when re-speccing, go for something like thishttp://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/mage/talents.html?tal=200000000000000000000000552003000 0000000000002030023303235013251501
I dissagree when people say that all-frost is best because if you have never noticed, blizzard NEVER crits... even iff you go 5/5 on iceshards, it only works on frostbolt/icelance basically (sometimes frostnova, but not enough extra to make much of a difference)

here's an example of the flamestrike-coc combo ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyig-3brcnk )
basically it's nova, flamestrike, spam CoC when flamstrike is done, rinse, repeat
it works wonders..... trust me

[Doc2e1]

You have me intrigued Klamor....I may respec to this tomorrow and try it with Flamestrike, one thing that was fun as arcane was POM Flamestrike..lol but that's another story.

Oh, and Enti, I do have Improved Blizzard, but I wasn't blinking out, just running out of ice block while spamming Frost nova...so I think if I blinked perhaps the distance will make the difference...

[Enti]

You have me intrigued Klamor....I may respec to this tomorrow and try it with Flamestrike, one thing that was fun as arcane was POM Flamestrike..lol but that's another story.

Oh, and Enti, I do have Improved Blizzard, but I wasn't blinking out, just running out of ice block while spamming Frost nova...so I think if I blinked perhaps the distance will make the difference...Most likely, it will save you a lot of life most likely, gl

[merujo]

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Grim+Batol&n=Garianne

thats my nuke boosting mage

so, my strat is, ice lance pulling...pop mana shield, get them all togheter and...

Frost Nova
Cone of Cold
Blast Wave
Arcane Explosion
Arcane Explosion
Arcane Explosion

by this time i should have Frost Nova up again, and ready to save my ass
this works for me, with around 1100 fire/arcane dmg self buffed

With Frost Spec, i'll advise u to go deep frost, and i mean, all frost, and be creative:

U have ur frost nova+pet frost nova+cold snap(frost nova) in case something goes wrong...
imp blizzard is awesome, and u have plenty of space in SM cath to make it work.

But, being 70, just makes it easier i think.