WoW Mage Leveling Guide

How to Easily Level Your Mage to 80

Leveling a mage is pretty easy. As a ranged caster, you're not supposed to take any damage in most situations, and you have several ways to keep mobs off of you. Additionally, there are no mandatory mage quests in the game anymore. Unlike, for example, warlocks who must obtain their pets through quests, mages have it easy and can just train most spells from any mage class trainer. Finally, a mage relies heavily on his or her spells for damage, not that much on gear.

Sure, gear will always make a difference, but leveling in green and blue quest rewards should be fine. If you got heirloom items and enchants, or gold to buy bind-on-equip blues and epics from the AH, all the better. But don't make the mistake of thinking you must have best-in-slot gear at every (or any) level while leveling. Going out of your way to get a few more points of intellect or stamina will only slow you down.

To summarize, if you have a higher level toon on the server, do supply your new mage with powerful gear. If not, just go with what you can get.

For More information on complete levelling guides for all classes with epic gear, check this out:

Complete Epic Gear Guides

Mage Leveling Gear

As a mage, you can only wear cloth. The base stats you want to focus on for leveling are intellect, stamina and spirit, in that order. However, if you feel your gameplay is one long near-death experience, get some more stamina on your gear in place of intellect. Agility and strength are completely useless to a mage and you should never have gear with those.
Dodge, defense and armor are tank stats, and not something you wanna focus on. Avoid.
Attack power and expertise should also be completely avoided.
Resilience can be good if you're going to level up in battlegrounds, but you're usually better off with offensive stats since BG leveling is slow and you'll likely level in other ways too.
While leveling, it's a good idea to have around 5% hit rating or more on your gear as fire, and 2% or more as frost, if you take the Precision talent. First and foremost, we need to make sure we actually HIT with the spells we cast.
After that, you can focus on spell power (and crit rating if you're a fire mage). Haste rating isn't important until end-game.
MP5, or "regenerates X mana per 5 seconds" is something you may come across, but avoid it. It's useless while leveling.
Spell penetration isn't needed while leveling either.
So, your gear should consist mostly of (NOT in order of importance):

• Intellect
• Stamina
• Spirit
• Hit rating
• Spell power
• Crit rating

Mage Heirlooms & Enchants

Here are the heirloom items you should get as a mage, if you got access to them:

• Chest: Tattered Dreadmist Robe
• Ring: Dread Pirate Ring
• Shoulder: Tattered Dreadmist Mantle (preferred) OR Exquisite Sunderseer Mantle (2nd best)
• Trinket 1: Discerning Eye of the Beast
• Trinket 2: Inherited Insignia of the Horde / Alliance OR Swift Hand of Justice
• Staff: Dignified Headmaster's Charge (preferred) OR Grand Staff of Jordan (2nd choice)

Mage Leveling Talent Builds / Specs

Apart from gear, talents will make a huge difference in how fast you level up. You can either go heavy arcane or fire or frost. Arcane is a poor choice because you only really have arcane missiles as an offensive spell before level 64. AM costs too much mana, and has other drawbacks. So forget the arcane tree until you're a higher level.
Out of frost and fire, I personally prefer fire. Frost is more about survivability and control, with ice barrier and the water elemental pet being a great help for soloing tough fights. Also, the slow from frostbolts make it easier to kite mobs. Frost can deal good burst damage nowadays, by first freezing the target with a frost nova (or pet frost nova) and then casting a frostbolt immediately followed by an ice lance, a so called "shatter combo". With the +50% crit chance against frozen targets granted by the Shatter talent in the frost tree, you can often crit both attacks, virtually insta-killing a mob your level.
Fire, on the other hand, sacrifices survivability for even more crit chance and damage. If you want to see huge crits and insane damage, this tree is for you. You won't have as much control as you would with frost; you don't have ice barrier nor the water elemental pet, and not as many ways to slow mobs down. Therefore, multiple mobs or elites can be harder to solo. That said, fire probably has fewer buttons to mash than frost as you don't have a pet to worry about. Once you get Dragon's Breath and Blast Wave (through talents) you gain more control as well. Not to mention the potential of AoE grinding once you spec into Living Bomb.

Fire Leveling Talent Build / Spec

Here is a fire leveling build you can use (note the glyphs too):http://www.wowhead.com/talent#o0xVbhbhZfEcbR00uiu0hst:mfZV0m
Here's the order in which to place points:

10 - Improved Fireball 1	28 - World In Flames 2	46 - Empowered Fire 1	64 - Arcane Stability 4
11 - Improved Fireball 2	29 - World In Flames 3	47 - Empowered Fire 2	65 - Arcane Stability 5
12 - Improved Fireball 3	30 - Blast Wave	48 - Empowered Fire 3	66 -Arcane Concentration 1
13 - Improved Fireball 4	31 - Critical Mass 1	49 - Blazing Speed 1	67 -Arcane Concentration 2
14 - Improved Fireball 5	32 - Critical Mass 2	50 - Dragon's Breath	68 -Arcane Concentration 3
15 - Improved Fire Blast 1	33 - Critical Mass 3	51 - Hot Streak 1	69 -Arcane Concentration 4
16 - Improved Fire Blast 2	34 - Incineration 1	52 - Hot Streak 2	70 -Arcane Concentration 5
17 - Ignite 1	35 - Fire Power 1	53 - Hot Streak 3	71 - Student of the Mind 1
18 - Ignite 2	36 - Fire Power 2	54 - Blazing Speed 2	72 - Student of the Mind 2
19 - Ignite 3	37 - Fire Power 3	55 - Burnout 1	73 - Student of the Mind 3
20 - Pyroblast	38 - Fire Power 4	56 - Burnout 2	74 - Magic Attunement 1
21 - Flame Throwing 1	39 - Fire Power 5	57 - Burnout 3	75 - Magic Attunement 2
22 - Flame Throwing 2	40 - Combustion	58 - Burnout 4	76 - Arcane Meditation 1
23 - Ignite 4	41 - Pyromaniac 1	59 - Burnout 5	77 - Arcane Meditation 2
24 - Ignite 5	42 - Pyromaniac 2	60 - Living Bomb	78 - Arcane Meditation 3
25 - Burning Soul 1	43 - Pyromaniac 3	61 - Arcane Stability 1	79 - Arcane Shielding 1
26 - Burning Soul 2	44 - Incineration 2	62 - Arcane Stability 2	80 - Arcane Shielding 2
27 - World In Flames 1	45 - Incineration 3	63 - Arcane Stability 3

How to Play a Fire Mage 1-80

Solo leveling as a fire mage is quite straightforward.
Starting at level 1 you only have Fireball as your offensive spell. You also have arcane intellect and frost armor that you should keep up at all times.
Just spam fireball at 1 mob at a time until they die.
At level 4 you get frostbolt but ignore it unless you come across a fire immune mob.
Arcane Missiles is available at level 8, but ignore it.
Polymorph a.k.a. sheep is available at level 8 as well. If you need to pull 2 or more mobs at a time, start by casting fireball on the squishiest mob. While casting fireball, target the add (nearby mob) and cast sheep immediately when the fireball goes off. While casting sheep, target the original mob again and cast fireball immediately when the sheep lands, then kill it. Then deal with the sheep.
You should get used to sheeping something if you're fighting more than 1 mob (or player), assuming they're sheepable (humanoids, beasts). You'll be using this a lot when you make a bad pull or fighting a quest mob with adds etc.
On level 10 you get Frost Nova which changes things a bit. Use it as an "oh crap" button if things go wrong by nova'ing the mobs and running away. Now you should also be able to take on 3 mobs simultaneously if you're full on life and mana.
If there's a pack of 3, cast fireball on the squishiest, mob A. Mobs A, B and C will run toward you. Immediately cast polymorph on mob B. Cast fireball on mob A again. When mob A and C are in nova range, cast frost nova. Get range and kill mob A. Then kill mob C. If sheep breaks while fighting C, recast it on B. Then kill B. Easy as pie.
At level 20 you get Pyroblast. Use it instead of fireball when pulling mobs, but then, after casting it once, switch to fireball. Typically, a fight vs 1 mob may look like:
Pyroblast -> Fireball -> Fireball -> Frost Nova -> get range -> Fireball or Fire Blast or Wand -> Dead
The above is pretty much the rotation you use throughout leveling, throwing in a sheep when needed, as well as Blast Wave, Combusion, Dragon's Breath and Living Bomb (mentioned below).
At level 26 you'll have 2 points in Burning Soul, making it easier to tank mobs while casting so you may not need to nova them every time.
Blast Wave, that you spec into at level 30, has had its mana cost greatly reduced and is now worth using to knock mobs back and have some time to get range to cast a hard nuke. Also works as an additional escape spell and finisher.
Combustion, at level 40, should be used for harder fights or speeding things up.
Dragon's Breath, that you spec into at level 50 was added to the game more as a fire PvP spell, the way I see it. With its low mana cost, though, you can use it instead of frost nova when soloing. While the target(s) are disoriented, cast a nuke like fire ball. If needed, you can then cast a frost nova and another fireball. Also works as an additional escape spell and finisher.
Living Bomb is your final fire spell, available through a talent at level 60. This spell is GREAT for AoE farming, but you need to have decent gear for it as well. Versus single mobs, the use is limited because it does cost a fair bit of mana and you'll likely kill the mob before the 12 second DoT runs out.
IF you got good gear for your level, you can do the following for faster leveling (also works for AoE farming at level 80). Find an area with lots of mobs and start dotting them up with living bomb sequentially. They'll all come running towards you and when they close in on you, frost nova them and move away and watch them blow up from each others' LB detonations! If they need additional work, make use of Dragon's Breath, possibly Flamestrike, and Blast Wave. They should all be dead now. This way you can, depending on gear, take out up to 10 mobs or more in a very short time.
If you come across a fire immune mob, grind it down with frostbolts or arcane missiles.

Frost Leveling Talent Build / Spec

Here's a decent frost leveling build (note the glyphs):
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#o0xVMh0cZZAIcIobu0fzGfot:GmZ0Vm
Here's the order in which to place points:

10 - Improved Frostbolt 1	28 - Shatter 2	46 - Empowered Frostbolt 2	64 - Arcane Stability 2
11 - Improved Frostbolt 2	29 - Shatter 3	47 - Fingers of Frost 1	65 - Arcane Stability 3
12 - Improved Frostbolt 3	30 - Cold Snap	48 - Fingers of Frost 2	66 - Arcane Stability 4
13 - Improved Frostbolt 4	31 - Precision 1	49 - Piercing Ice 3	67 - Arcane Stability 5
14 - Improved Frostbolt 5	32 - Precision 2	50 - Summon Water Elemental	68 -Arcane Concentration 1
15 - Permafrost 1	33 - Precision 3	51 - Brain Freeze 1	69 -Arcane Concentration 2
16 - Permafrost 2	34 - Ice Floes 1	52 - Brain Freeze 2	70 -Arcane Concentration 3
17 - Permafrost 3	35 - Cold as Ice 1	53 - Brain Freeze 3	71 - Arcane Concentration 4
18 - Ice Shards 1	36 - Cold as Ice 2	54 - Frost Channeling 1	72 -Arcane Concentration 5
19 - Ice Shards 2	37 - Winter's Chill 1	55 - Chilled to the Bone 1	73 - Student of the Mind 1
20 - Icy Veins	38 - Winter's Chill 2	56 - Chilled to the Bone 2	74 - Student of the Mind 2
21 - Ice Shards 3	39 - Winter's Chill 3	57 - Chilled to the Bone 3	75 - Student of the Mind 3
22 - Frostbite 1	40 - Ice Barrier	58 - Chilled to the Bone 4	76 - Spell Impact 1
23 - Frostbite 2	41 - Ice Floes 2	59 - Chilled to the Bone 5	77 - Spell Impact 2
24 - Frostbite 3	42 - Ice Floes 3	60 - Deep Freeze	78 - Torment the Weak 1
25 - Arctic Reach 1	43 - Piercing Ice 1	61 - Frost Channeling 2	79 - Torment the Weak 2
26 - Arctic Reach 2	44 - Piercing Ice 2	62 - Frost Channeling 3	80 - Torment the Weak 3
27 - Shatter 1	45 - Empowered Frostbolt 1	63 - Arcane Stability 1

How to Play a Frost Mage 1-80

Solo leveling as a frost mage is boring as hell

Starting at level 1 you only have Fireball as your offensive spell. You also have arcane intellect and frost armor that you should keep up at all times.
Just spam fireball at 1 mob at a time until they die.
At level 4 you get frostbolt so start using that as your main nuke.
Arcane Missiles is available at level 8, but ignore it.
Polymorph a.k.a. sheep is available at level 8 as well. If you need to pull 2 or more mobs at a time, start by casting frostbolt on the squishiest mob. While casting frostbolt, target the add (nearby mob) and cast sheep immediately when the frostbolt goes off. While casting sheep, target the original mob again and cast frostbolt immediately when the sheep lands, then kill it. Then deal with the sheep.
You should get used to sheeping something if you're fighting more than 1 mob (or player), assuming they're sheepable (humanoids, beasts). You'll be using this a lot when you make a bad pull or fighting a quest mob with adds etc.
On level 10 you get Frost Nova which changes things a bit. Use it as an "oh crap" button if things go wrong by nova'ing the mobs and running away. Now you should also be able to take on 3 mobs simultaneously if you're full on life and mana.
If there's a pack of 3, cast frostbolt on the squishiest, mob A. Mobs A, B and C will run toward you. Immediately cast polymorph on mob B. Cast frostbolt on mob A again. When mob A and C are in nova range, cast frost nova. Get range and kill mob A. Then kill mob C. If sheep breaks while fighting C, recast it on B. Then kill B. Easy as pie.
At level 20 you get Icy Veins. Use it for tough fights where you need extra dps or in situations where you would otherwise suffer spell pushback from damage, like when fighting ranged mobs.
The exciting frost mage rotation now looks like:
Frostbolt -> Frostbolt -> Frostbolt -> Frost Nova -> get range -> Frostbolt or Fire Blast or Wand -> Dead
The above is what you do over and over again on your way to level cap. Throw in a sheep when needed, as well as using Icy Veins and your water elemental for tougher fights or quicker kills.
At level 29 you'll have 3 points in Shatter, making it very attractive to cast vs frozen (nova'd) targets. Until you get ice lance, you can do a "mini shatter" by casting frostbolt immediately followed by fire blast. If you're lucky, they both crit.
Level 34 gives you mage armor, which I use even as a frost mage.
Ice Barrier, that you spec into at level 40, should be used sparsely. Remember, you wanna save mana. No point in having the barrier up when you're not attacked or kiting melee. If you're taking hits, though, use it to mitigate damage and avoid spell pushback.

Summon Water Elemental, granted by talent at level 50, ruined the entire frost tree by making the mage a boring pet class. asdf

But you can use it to do shatter combos. A shatter combo is performed by casting a frost bolt immediately followed by an ice lance (or fire blast or CoC if you don't have ice lance) on a frozen (nova'd) target. You can use the pet's freeze ability to cast a ranged frost nova, then start casting frost bolt + an instant cast spell. Alternatively, if you're pro like me, you start casting the frost bolt then, just before it goes off, you do the pet nova on the enemy followed by the insta spell, e.g. ice lance.
Deep Freeze is really quite overkill for solo leveling. If Fingers of Frost procs, you can cast Deep Freeze on any mob. It will deal lots of damage on targets immune to stuns so it can help vs some elites. However, stunning your garden-variety mob for 5 seconds... what's the point? Can be good vs. annoying mobs and casters though.

Even Faster Mage Leveling Guide

As a mage, the rate at which you kill mobs (a big part of leveling) will be largely determined by how much mana you have. When you're out of mana you must restore it before you can go on.
Here are some tips to help you save mana:

1. Always keep arcane intellect up on yourself
2. Mage armor, available at level 34, should be used for leveling thanks to its mana regeneration effect
3. As a mage, you can conjure food and drinks but I suggest you BUY them instead. You can buy higher level food and beverages than you can conjure, i.e. they will restore health and mana quicker. New consumables will be available from vendors at every level x5, i.e. 15, 25 etc. which is 7 levels earlier than you learn the corresponding conjuring spell. You are extremely mana dependent, so especially make sure you buy the highest level water you can use from vendors to minimize downtime.
4. You have a few ways to mitigate damage by spending mana, i.e. frost ward, fire ward, mana shield, dampen magic, ice barrier. Don't use them unless you risk dying. You want to preserve your mana, remember, and once you run out of mana you'll drink or use evocation. While drinking you can eat and evocation will restore health when glyphed. So there's no point in spending mana to have full health when taking a mana break. In other words, don't be afraid to lose some health to preserve mana.
5. Evocation restores 60% of your mana bar, so use it when you're at 40% unless you have good reason to save it. Don't wait until you're at 0% as you want the cooldown to start counting down ASAP.
6. At level 68, when you get Conjure Mana Gem rank 5, you can create a gem with 3 charges. The total mana returned by the 3 charges is much greater than the cost of conjuring the gem, so you can use it every 2 minutes if you need mana. Just be careful so you don't have it on CD when you need it.
7. Choose talents like Arcane Concentration, Student of the Mind, Arcane Meditation, Master of Elements, Pyromaniac, Frost Channeling.
8. Choose glyphs like Evocation, Mana Gem, Mage Armor, Arcane Intellect to minimize downtime.
9. Don't do stupid shit that wastes mana. Don't use Fire Blast as a finishing move when Dragon's Breath or Blast Wave are much cheaper mana-wise. Hell, even ice lance or wanding can do the job sometimes. Don't put Living Bomb on a target that will die in mere seconds.
10. Eat and drink while logging out. You should most of the time log out in an inn or major city to accumulate rested EXP. However, sometimes you will log out in the wilderness in which case it takes 20 seconds. You can eat and drink during that time as long as you started it before pressing log out.
11. Let mobs die from DoTs. As a mage you do have some DoTs, most notably Living Bomb, the Pyroblast DoT and Ignite. If a mob is low on health and afflicted by any of those DoTs in a way that it will die from it, let it. Don't waste mana.
12. If you're going to travel somewhere, don't restore your mana before going. You'll regenerate while traveling.

Mage Survival Guide

Mages have a number of "oh crap"-buttons. As a cloth wearer, you're very squishy so you need to keep mobs off of you. If you got too many enemies on you (from a bad pull or adds) the best thing to do is usually to run away and reset the fight. Casting a frost nova and running works. If you got mobs on you while running away, quickly turn around and cast Dragon's Breath or Cone of Cold then keep fleeing.
Blink, of course, should be used to get away.
Ice block by itself won't do much in solo PvE since the mobs will still be hitting you when you unfreeze, but it's worth using if you need to wait for blink to come off CD or regenerate some mana. If you got DoTs on you, IB will remove them. So a common tactic when low on health is to IB (if DoTed), then blink away.
Invisibility, trainable at lvl 68, will cause you to clear all threat and reset all mobs that were attacking you. If you're DoTed, you'll be taken out of invis on the next tick of the DoT, but the mobs will still be reset just from entering invisibility for a fraction of a second. Just watch out so you don't come out of invis next to a pack of other mobs!
Other spells that will help prevent corpse runs are frost armor, blast wave, ice barrier, mirror image and mana shield. There is no reason for a mage to die with full mana. Keep refreshing mana shield if you're low on health until blink is off CD or until you can use another defensive CD.
Sometimes you need to keep fighting the fight as you can't run away. Those are the times that put your mage skills to the test. Here's what to do: Sheep something that already has full health. Nova melee mobs and move away. Pop mana shield and then evocation (that should be glyphed) or even a bandage. If you got ranged attacking you, the mana shield will keep their attacks from interfering with evocation. Now you're better equipped to deal with the situation.
Frost mages, with their 2x water elemental and 2x ice blocks, 2x ice barriers, 2x nova, 2x CoC(resetable by cold snap) have even more survivability and you should make use of all your CDs before dying. Nothing is impossible for a frost mage so hang in there!
Also remember to use mana gems and mana potions when in trouble.

Even More Mage Leveling Tips

Here are some mage leveling tips to keep in mind:

• Cast dampen magic on yourself when fighting casters
• Remember to use frost ward and fire ward; they make fighting certain casters so easy
• Remember to learn all portal & teleport spells; there are portal trainers (near the mage trainers) in all your faction's major cities + Shattrath & Dalaran + Stonard in Swamp of Sorrows for horde or Theramore in Dustwallow Marsh for alliance. You'll look pretty noob when someone in your party asks you for an Org or IF portal and you don't have it…
• Use Counterspell on mobs that heal or cast spells. They'll come running towards you, though, so be prepared.

Mage Quests

• The only class quest you need to concern yourself with is "Attunement to Dalaran" (Alliance/ Horde) at level 71+ which teaches you teleport: dalaran.
• There is also the lvl 60+ quest "Fragmented Magic" (begins with the quest "Warlord Krellian") that teaches polymorph: pig. It's easy but serves no real purpose. Feel free to skip all the other mage quests.

A Word About Mage AoE Leveling

Area-of-Effect Leveling is not really something I recommend for most mages. It's hard to pull enough mobs to make it worthwhile mana-wise, as the big AoE spells (flamestrike, blizzard) cost a lot of mana. And it's also easy to go wrong and die. Overall, solo questing will be faster and more rewarding for most mages. If you got good gear, though, you can do the following:
Find an area with lots of mobs and start dotting them up with living bomb sequentially. They'll all come running towards you and when they close in on you, frost nova them and move away and watch them blow up from each others' LB detonations! If they need additional work, make use of Dragon's Breath, possibly Flamestrike, and Blast Wave. They should all be dead now. This way you can, depending on gear, take out up to 10 mobs or more in a very short time.