Dual boxing mages spec?

[nFuriate]

Hello all!

To start i'm fairly new to the dual boxing scene. Only recently bought a second account to take advantage of the RaF scheme a week ago. In that time i've leveled my dual boxing shamans to 59 but not to 60, otherwise I believe they lose the ability to grant levels. Now that went very smoothly and was very easy to manage, as I specced them both Elemental.

Now, according to my goal to level every class barring the ones I already have at a high level, i've moved on to a mage. I'm debating what spec to have on these. On one side I could go both full fire and just nuke things down. However I could go full frost as i've heard (from these forums) that dual Frostbite and Shatter would be a great combo. Also I could spec fire/frost, but I think this would be shooting myself in the foot so to speak, with the different spell ranges, cooldowns etc.

I am here to ask of you for your opinions on what spec should I level these mages? What works well? At the moment i'm very tempted by the dual frost spec.

Thanks :thumbup: ,

nFuriate

[Rudi89]

I would use two Frost mages. You get good synergy with Frostbite and Shatter and I would think it would be more mana efficient than a Fire build. At least through the beginning levels.

[Akoko]

Two frost mages can keep a large group of people frozen indefinitely. It'd be scary to imagine what 3 or 4 could do.

Assuming fear bombs don't exist however.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Frostbite/shatter works great on dual mages and to some extent on 3 mages. With the changes to crits against frozen mobs a few patches ago, 4+ mages would be much better suited to going fire or arcane/fire.

[Zub]

Frostbite/shatter works great on dual mages and to some extent on 3 mages. With the changes to crits against frozen mobs a few patches ago, 4+ mages would be much better suited to going fire or arcane/fire.

Hi Ugh,
Could you elaborate on that bit a little please? is it that fronzen mobs only allow a number of crits before the freeze breaks or something?
I've started magex3 and was thinking going fire in any case, as i cant see how i'd manage the water elem novas anyway, but i'm interested in this.

Thanks

[Akoko]

Frostbite/shatter works great on dual mages and to some extent on 3 mages. With the changes to crits against frozen mobs a few patches ago, 4+ mages would be much better suited to going fire or arcane/fire.

Hi Ugh,
Could you elaborate on that bit a little please? is it that fronzen mobs only allow a number of crits before the freeze breaks or something?
I've started magex3 and was thinking going fire in any case, as i cant see how i'd manage the water elem novas anyway, but i'm interested in this.

Thanks

Yes and no. A frozen mob always breaks its freeze after a certain (somewhat random) amount of damage. Basically, if your mages aren't casting at the exact same time, your first mage could break the shatter 1 or 2 seconds early, and the clone(s)'s frostbolt(s) will not get the shatter bonus.

The guy playing the Don's is slightly wrong... A theoretically infinite number of mages could shatter on the same target, providing they all frostbolt at the same time and immediately let loose an ice lance (or a fireblast before you are level 66) and all frostbolts and ice lances will gain the shatter crit bonus. Shatter is decided as soon as the spell is cast, not when the spell hits. So a frostbolt/ice lance that is finished casting while the target is frozen will probably crit regardless of whether or not it is still frozen when the missile actually hits the target.

With 2 mages you'd probably be better off not speccing fire... You don't have the sheer power of 4-5 mages so you need to synergize some survivability by having both frost. Four on-demand shatters is nothing to scoff at.

Impact procs would probably only be effective with a large number of mages spamming scorch on the same target.

[Naysayer]

Two frost mages can keep a large group of people frozen indefinitely. It'd be scary to imagine what 3 or 4 could do.

Assuming fear bombs don't exist however.

How do you keep them frozen with diminishing returns?

[Akoko]

Two frost mages can keep a large group of people frozen indefinitely. It'd be scary to imagine what 3 or 4 could do.

Assuming fear bombs don't exist however.

How do you keep them frozen with diminishing returns?

By "indefinitely" meant "as long as it takes for you to actually kill them". Usually a pet frost nova and a regular frost nova is enough, add in a couple sheeps here and there if you need additional CC.

But yes, more than 3 or 4 frost mages is redundant. I think the general rule is 2 box is frost mages, 4-5 box fire or arcane/fire, and 3 box would probably work either way?

Anyway, if you insist against fire, remember there is 40/0/21 with shatter. My 70 mage with almost 1200 spell damage can pull off a 6.5k frostbolt and 3.5k ice lance shatter combo with arcane power and trinket. When he's actually specced for it, but for raiding I use 40/0/21 arcane blast spam without shatter.

If I had 4 mages, I would make 2 frost and the other 2 arcane/frost.

[Zub]

Thanks for the clarification, akoko

Two frost mages can keep a large group of people frozen indefinitely. It'd be scary to imagine what 3 or 4 could do.

Assuming fear bombs don't exist however.

How do you keep them frozen with diminishing returns?

Btw are diminishing returns for the fearer or fearee? i mean with 2 people fearing one enemy, will they still both reach the 'immune' after (lets say) the 4th fear, or will they both have 4 fears each (making it 8 fears before they both see the immune message) ?

[nFuriate]

Seems like i'll be speccing Frost then. Sounds all round good and looks fun as well. Thanks for the advice everyone, i'll start leveling them tomorrow.