Announcement

**Brood** · December 29, 2009, 04:04 PM

Hey, I was in the same bot as u. Honestly, I highly reccommend a paladin. They have great auras and buffs, can be healer tank or dps, and are just beasts. I was building a retribution pally, and although they are mainly dps, I was acting mainly as a tank. Leveling was a breeze with him. Hope this helps a little. I suggest u at least give the pally a try=D

**cabby** · December 30, 2009, 01:25 AM

A good cloth that would also fill your dps role would be a mage. If you level with frost spec and don't cast a lot of the fire based spells the downtime isn't too bad and you also have better survivability with the frost when solo. After you're higher you can dual spec into either arcane or fire for some great grouping dps. I do believe frost is also very good with pvp.

**antacus** · December 30, 2009, 10:14 AM

I have a 73 mage and have been grouping in the new random LFG system a LOT since 3.3 came out. Three things for ya:

1) Tanks... I have seen a fair number of pally tanks and they *usually* do well. The druid bear tanks are *ok* but from what I have seen the best tanks are the warriors. Don't get me wrong, I have seen pally's outdo warriors for keeping aggro and I think a LARGE portion is the skill behind the keyboard.

2) My mage is frost speced and I usually never run out of mana. At level 73 with about 60/40% mix of blue/green equipment I run 11500 mana and about the time I hit the 50% mark evocation is ready. My DPS hovers between 800 and 1400 and the range is largely dependant on the group. Even with my lower DPS I top recount 9 out of 10 groups. Bad tanks == lower DPS ... see #1 above

3) I am dual speced and tried all three builds for my mage. In the end I keep coming back to frost. The problem I always had with fire and arcane is the lack of mob control which is probably my lack of knowledge

**silverhawk11** · December 31, 2009, 08:42 AM

Hey there,

Well, as for your tanking class, I'd recommend Warrior or Druid. I myself tank as a Warrior, and it's pretty simple as long as you don't click your spells and keyboard turn. Druid is just ridiculous with their stamina in bear form (saw a 50k HP Druid the other day in ICC). Warrior's have such a great threat pull (which really sucks when DPSing) compared to the other classes; and by far the greatest tanking class available.

Your DPS class has been suggested perfectly from what I can tell; Mage. Mages are probably my favorite class to DPS with, just because they're really cool and when you AoE a huge group of mobs and break 10k DPS, it's really funny. Rogues are great at DPS as well, and if you really felt like being a complete.. censoring myself here, then go ahead and go with Hunter ;-). Balanced classes are great with their full green gear and still breaking 7k DPS (/facepalm).

Last, but not least, the healer. This is honestly what you prefer. I absolutely love healing as a Druid, and hate it as a Shaman; so my opinion will be extremely biased so I won't try and convince you on this debate ;-). Priests are pretty great too, but a major problem with them is they can't cure poison unless they spec. deep into the Holy tree. Which you could easily go with Paladin. I mean, they are such a great idea, you know, being able to wear plate armor and outheal a Priest which is in cloth. Don't forget they can cure poison as well, even as a ret.

It's honestly just really up to you. If you want to be overpowered and great at the game for what it is right now, then you should already know your decision. If you want to explore a class you've grown attached to, then you should already know your decision ;-). It's based off of personality and like/dislike of the class. Sure; we can offer all advice in the world. But, if you like sugar cookies, and hate chocolate chip, why as a bunch of people to convice you to take the chocolate chip? ((Had to bring cookies into the Wall of Text somehow. Mmmmm, cookies!))

Silverhawk11

**antacus** · December 31, 2009, 10:08 AM

Super good point that I did not consider Silver. I have tried many class/race combos and in the end I always came back to the mage. My list of toons "in the works" gets quite long ...

73 gnome mage
71 human death knight
59 gnome warlock
59 night elf druid
59 deaneni (or however ya spell that) mage
59 dwarf hunter
23 dwarf warrior
21 deaneni shaman
plus some other assorted sub-20 toons which been deleted to keep me under ten toons per realm limit)

The 73 mage was the last toon I made, after all of the others. In the end if I would have played the gnome mage like I really wanted to from the start I would have been 80 a LONG time ago

**crownedwithgrace** · December 31, 2009, 10:25 AM

Originally posted by antacus View Post

My mage is frost speced and I usually never run out of mana.

How do you do that? I have a frost mage and I can't stand it because I'm always drinking! I want to continue leveling her but it's just ugh. I normally play a pally so going from that to a mage that's mostly sitting isn't working for me. I just use her to make money through her professions. She's only level 36, though. Is that why? Does it get better in latter levels?

sn11 I absolutely LOVE paladins. Thing is, though, if you're not liking the DK because it's so easy to kill mobs and you're staying above 90% HP, then I'm thinking you'll feel the same way with a pally. My BE pally is the same way. Sometimes I do get a bit bored playing her because of it but most of the time I'm enjoying being able to do quests easily, play solo without frustration, etc.

For a long time my favorite was the hunter. I really liked the pet and I like having a bow and arrow. But I've played a hunter so much and so long that I'm finally tired of it. Plus, it's HORRIBLE in BGs. lol Some say they're great in BGs but I didn't find that to be true. Probably the way I'm playing but my 69 pally pawns in BGs, whereas my 80 hunter just dies, literally, in seconds. So, to me, there's no point in playing another hunter. They're great for gathering, though. If you want a toon just for gathering, I'd go with a hunter.

Out of the choices you listed, I would go with the druid. They're really fun, not a squishy, and can heal (I like having the ability to heal).

**antacus** · December 31, 2009, 10:46 AM

Originally posted by crownedwithgrace View Post

How do you do that? I have a frost mage and I can't stand it because I'm always drinking! I want to continue leveling her but it's just ugh. I normally play a pally so going from that to a mage that's mostly sitting isn't working for me. I just use her to make money through her professions. She's only level 36, though. Is that why? Does it get better in latter levels?

At lower levels, sub-45 or 50 I think it was, I had a hard time and my mage. It was right around 58-60 I changed from fire to frost based upon the guides talent advisor and reading about AoE killing. It was that same time I moved to Outlands. I died a lot trying to learn AoE that far in... and I mean a LOT. I quickly learned that blizzard eats a ton of mana and is really useless until you pick up the better equipment in Outlands. After a few Hellfire quests I started doing more damage and the AoE grinding plus Zygors guide moved me through to level 68 with insane ease.

In the random instance runs it takes a GOOD group to run me out of mana. My strategy is pretty simple. I make about 30 bottles before I start. Single mobs and groups of only 2 I do not blizzard as it is a waste of mana since a good group will wack two out fast. As soon as I hit 75% mark I sip a bottle while everyone is picking up loot and waiting on rolls, that takes a few seconds and that gets me back to 100% mana usually. Bigger mob groups, 3+, I'll blizzard 1-3 times and by then the mobs are <10k life so easy kills from there so simply bolt/lance them the rest of the way. If I hit 50% mana hit evocation and filled up again. Rinse and repeat. I can count on one hand the number of times a group had to wait on my to drink a bottle and I hit the achievement for doing 50 randoms, looking for more, last night

In the end I had varying success from around 25 to around 62 but I really like a gnome mage so stuck with it and it paid off at higher levels.

**Asgari** · December 31, 2009, 11:15 AM

My mage is level 48 now, respecced to frost around 25. I use a lot less mana. I sometimes/usually have to drink once in the time it takes evocate to cool back down. I use Zygor's frost spec, and I'm purely on quest reward gear. Think I'm still using the Embestone Staff from Deadmines, lol.

**crownedwithgrace** · December 31, 2009, 03:32 PM

Ah ok, thanks. I've been starting to use Blizzard more so you can imagine that I had to start drinking more, too. I'll probably only play her if I want to play with a friend at that level. I'm a bit still discouraged with her (lol) but moreso, I'm completely hooked on my pallys. I've got 2 - a lvl 69 (BE) and a lvl 20 (Dwarf). So, I'll be pretty busy with them for a while. Thanks for the info, though. I'll definately keep it in mind when I give her another go.

**cabby** · December 31, 2009, 08:38 PM

Another thing to keep in mind when playing the frost mage, only use those fire spells when you need to burn something down really fast. They're a major drain on the mana compared to your frost spells, so whenever possible just stick to the frost spells.

**crownedwithgrace** · January 1, 2010, 01:02 PM

ah ok, that's another thing I was doing wrong then. Thanks again.

Announcement

Returned to WoW, any suggestions?

Returned to WoW, any suggestions?

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment