Bangy's guide to Mage Blizz AoE grinding

After the stickies were deleted, there weren’t any guides to Mage AoE grinding, which is a very big part of the class. A lot of people have been asking questions about AoE grinding, so I thought I might write my own little guide, sticky or not. This guide does not have technical analysis or big calculations, but is what I hope to be a friendly guide to those new mages who have no idea in what the heck AoE grinding is, or how to do it.

If you like it, please request for some gloo!

Edit: Yay, I'm a sticky! Thanks all for your great support! Especially Yianee for sticking around, and those who posted insightful comments!

My views are over 9000!

Before reading this guide, check out this excellent video - http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=44168

THIS GUIDE IS NOT THE BIBLE TO AOE GRINDING. I ONLY WANT TO GIVE SUGGESTIONS AND ADVICE. FEEL FREE TO CUSTOMISE IT TO YOUR OWN PREFERENCES!

UPDATE: 4/11 Hello guys, I took a long break from WoW, but now I'm back. I'm aware that many things have changed, I'll try to update this guide accordingly.
Right now, AoE grinding as a principal levelling method is not viable, since questing offers much more xp. However, it still beats single-mob grinding if you prefer to grind, and it's useful when you've got that one bar left and you don't want to do quests.
It is still great fun and is a very interesting skill to learn, and it is a good way to push the limits of your mage even further.

AoE grinding

In case you’ve been living in a hole, AoE grinding is a very famous type of grinding only available to mages, and sometimes good protection paladins.
It’s famous due to its insanely fast xp gained, as you can kill 10+ mobs in almost the time it takes to kill 1, so you get 10x the xp.
It’s also incredibly fun – the sight of seeing your ungodly destruction on 10 mobs, or watching other people’s reactions when you utterly omgwtfpwn them is amazing.
However, it’s not easy, and it does require fast reactions, quick thinking and lots of training.


Here is what's in my little guide.

1) Pros and cons of AoE grinding, why it's good or bad.
2) What kind of talents you need!
3) How to do it.
4) Notes on (3)
5) Some good places to try it out!
6) Other things, such as gear.
7) Tauren meat.

So I’ll start with the pros and cons.

Advantages:
- It’s fun, and fast, boosting you through the horrible grind between 55-60, or if you want, your entire journey between 1-60. I haven’t tried doing 55-60 as fast as I can, but I’ve seen friends level ridiculously fast.
- Much better than normal single-target grinding.
- Gives a lot of gold, and cloth (you’ll be generally grinding on humanoids or undead)
- Also the advantages of grinding, as opposed to questing.

Disadvantages
- It’s hard, and you’ll often die, especially in the beginning. You’ll look like an idiot, rounding 10 mobs and then just dying >.<
- You need to spec to a certain AoE spec, which essentially wipes out your single-target DPS.
- You might have to miss out talents which you may really like.
- Also the disadvantages of grinding, as opposed to questing.

So firstly, we come to the talents. Generally we pick the frost tree due to Blizzard and CoC.
Flamestrike and Blast Wave IS possible, but that’s IMO harder to do, so I’ll focus on the frost spells.

I also prefer Blizzard AoEing than CoC kiting AoEing, as it’s easier to do. However, if you do want to do CoC kiting, these talents are still more or less valid, but you’ll want more +crit, and less imp blizzard.

Teh epix spec - http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=RZZMhMIsf0sro
You can either fill in the rest of the frost tree, or spec somewhere in arcane.