Levelling 5 Mages

[Sam DeathWalker]

You leave the tables at level 80 and head over to cata.

[Shodokan]

You leave the tables at level 80 and head over to cata.

The tables are still crap in comparison to the other area i mentioned. Especially without mob tagging...and even with mob tagging it's NOT worth it there because the spawn to kill time is less than the amount of kills you can get elsewhere on mobs that give full experience.

In group of 4 w/ booster the mobs at the tables were giving 130 exp per between 75-80 (no boa, no guild exp bonus)
In group of 4 w/ booster the mobs in icecrown glacier were giving 388 exp (no boa, no guild exp bonus)
In group of 1 w/ booster the mobs at the tables gave slightly more than 130 per, it was around 280 or so.
In a group of 1 w/ booster the mobs in icecrown glacier were giving up to 800 exp.


On a SINGLE mage, the tables are better since you can actually kill the mobs there and fly away to re-coup as they respawn opposed to pulling unintended mobs. When killing in a group and AOEing them down the experience you gain is substantially lowered and the amount of EXP necessary is comparison to the time investment of questing is not so great.

Questing CAN suck, yes. But in most cases you are better off questing than mob grinding. If you are a group capable of grinding in icecrown then do it. But you need a lot of hit rating to make sure that your spells actually do damage to the mobs, and it is not recommended that you go there until you are level 75 at least.

AOE grinding can be a great means of EXP for a single frost mage, but as a group you are limited by respawns since you kill faster and get less exp. So unless you are using the tables (1 min respawns) or the incecrown glacier (5 min respawn, but TONS of groups of mobs) then it simply isn't as good as questing.

I tried AOE grinding from 82-84. It was inefficient in comparison to questing. Even with a 4x dk team that would nearly 1 shot the groups of mobs with zero downtime, the experience (non rested) was abysmally low. We're talking 4% per 10 mins or so which equates to roughly 25% an hour (no looting). Which questing is actually faster in all cases (especially 84-85), UNLESS you are a single toon mob tagging.

For a group of 5 mages you are going to need to basically run around and arcane explosion things, acting as normal for frost AOE grinding simply would be a waste of time in comparison, though you would still need things like ice barrier and reactive barrier. Hell it might be faster to rotate pet freezes on the groups of 7 mobs in icecrown glacier and just hit ice lance on all 5 toons at once per mob. Take 7 globals and kill them, and would be incredibly mana efficient and yield the highest amount of EXP per hour for grinding pre-cataclysm. With no real means of healing other than evocation (4 min cooldown as frost) you need to play it as safe as possible especially as when you are AOE grinding it is very seldom you have great gear unless you purchase it from the AH.

Efficient leveling is something I strive for. I mean when i level a single toon i will mob tag with my dks and a healer friend outside of group (will be doing this on one of my mages shortly), past level 80. Mob tagging before you have a good health pool just is not possible or efficient. Even with a geared out disc priest and all the + stam gear you can get mob tagging in icecrown is inefficient at best. When killing as a group it is more efficient, competitive with questing. Using other areas where mobs do not give exp, or have lessened exp/drops (table, freya) you are going to get substantially less exp/hour.

It might even be more efficient to use one of the quest "exploits" in icecrown by unlocking the flying quest near the caves off the shore and using the mount to kill mobs for exp (this may have been fixed) with your alts on follow with their 280% mounts.

The ONLY thing that the tables have over icecrown glacier is that you don't have to move... like at all. If AE didn't cost so much mana you could easily use a g15/lycosa (spell check) and just do something else, i mean you can still press your button and watch TV/Movie/Youtube on another monitor, but you would be doing it for a much longer time in comparison to actually paying attention elsewhere.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Maybe you are right, I don't know anymore. Havn't been there for awhile.

Im going to take my level one's over to cata anyways, just need to pay like 3000g for a warlock port for my 2 warlocks and another one of my guys to deepholm, as my highest is still 80. Then Ill set up 6 groups of 5 toons each with at least one level 80 mage in each group. No matter what some group will tag and its a win for me.

The ONLY thing that the tables have over icecrown glacier is that you don't have to move... like at all. If AE didn't cost so much mana

Thats my big advantage as a 31 boxer, my mana usage is spread over more characters. I have 8 mages (spec arcane for now) and I can hold the spot forever.