There are a few variations to talents that you could go for depending on your playstyle. This is because if your first Frostbolt doesn’t get a Shatter Crit, you’ll have time to cast a second one before the end of the duration of Frost Nova, giving you 2 Frostbolts at a 55%+ Crit chance. I instead just move away while the GCD tics and cast my next Frostbolts from about 10 yards away. When Shatter comes online, I opt for not creating max distance after Frost Nova. In the earlier levels, you’ll be swapping Frostbolt spam with Fireball spam whenever you’ve trained a new rank. You can weave in some Fire Blasts for added DPS at the cost of mana efficiency (I tend to opt for this). If they are low enough to die to 2-3 wands or 1-2 staff hits, you can finish them that way. Your base rotation is to Frostbolt until the mob reaches you, Frost Nova them, get some distance, and Frostbolt them until they die. Wonderful guide (once again Tommysalami) here. This allows us to only re-leash the mob we want out of a pack while running away from the others, who will Evade after 10-15s. Split Pulling is a very useful mechanic to us as Mages because we can take advantage of the fact that packs of mobs will leash individually instead of together if we pull them simultaneously with an AoE spell like Flamestrike or Blizzard. There’s a bit more to how this works exactly and anyone interested should check out Tommysalami’s Leash Guide.

Leashing is a mechanic whereby a mob will reset or “Evade” once you have made it either out of render range of a mob or you and the mob haven’t interacted for a certain amount of time (usually ~10-15s) and you are far enough away from where you pulled them. This happens because the game is periodically calculating resistance to that effect throughout its duration, so on an unlucky roll the spell effect will break. Heartbeat Resists are when a spell effect breaks earlier than expected. Underwater Breathing is great for underwater quests and Will of the Forsaken can remove Charm, Fear and Sleep but you don’t encounter these often when leveling up. The Undead aren’t without their own benefits, but they are more niche. Berserking gives you a 10-30% casting speed buff every 3 mins, which is great for taking down important targets. Trolls get 5% more damage to beasts, in-combat health regeneration, and a DPS cooldown: Berserking. Hordeįor the Horde, you’re looking at either Troll or Undead and there is a clear winner: Troll. Humans on the other hand really only bring 5% increased Spirit. Gnomes get 5% more Intellect, +15 to Engineering (one of your go-to professions), and Escape Artist to get out of sticky situations. If you are interested in pursuing AoE for some or all of your hardcore journey, take a look at the great guide written by Durtyrandy Best races Allianceįor the Alliance, your two options are Human or Gnome with Gnome being the clear winner here across the board. However, this guide specifically does not leverage this AoE prowess due to it being centered on hardcore survivability for players newer to mage and/or hardcore. Note that one the biggest strengths of Mage is their ability to be absolutely AoE gods. Arcane is fine and a lot of fun too, but not recommended. For players wanting a change of pace from Frost, Fire is also a very strong single target spec losing out on a bit of survivability for bigger damage, and is a lot of fun to level in.

It is highly recommended that you level your Mage in the Frost spec for hardcore, as the name of the game is survivability and this spec is unmatched in that regard. They get early access to CC in the form of Polymorph and Frost Nova and are focused on bursting mobs down before they get a chance to reach them. They are a glass cannon class built on two core principles: control and big direct damage. Mage is one of the strongest classes to level in hardcore for both new players and experienced ones, especially if you choose to level in the recommended Frost Spec.

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