So Frost is pretty much always the optimal leveling spec. You can probably just figure out what you want, almost every talent is useful except for the one that buffs Ice Ward. But I, personally, would grab the talents that give chance to freeze target from Frost spells, so you can freeze targets from your Frostbolts, and then the talent that gives you bonus crit chance on frozen targets.
It's pretty straight forward.
But if you want something more spicy, I've known people who've leveled fire.
For professions, I'd look at doing a gathering profession to fund your tailoring. Not entirely sure you'll get much gear from tailoring while leveling though, but you'll want it at 60. So maybe you go dual gathering professions and then ditch one of them for tailoring at 60?
I don't know of a weapons progression guide for mages, but it's not like it matters that much. For rogues it matters because weapon dps is super important for their kill speed, etc. But the difference between one staff and another for you is like an extra 2 int or 2 spirit. It barely matters. I think just getting raw exp should be your focus, not hunting down a staff that gives hardly any meaningful upgrade.
I am confused with people not maxing out improved Frostbolt first, or at all. It's a 3.4% damage increase. Potentially more since that half second can mean less pushback, or another spell, so on.
The entire build is based off of Frostbite so you literally destroy frozen targets and you want to get Frostbite as soon as possible, which means you'll have to skip out on certain talents, in this case Improved Frostbolt. The extra 0.3 seconds are useless compared to the other talents you're spending your early points on.
- Elemental Precision is one of the most important talents as resisting a Frostbolt can end up getting you killed.
- Frost Nova is a key ability and reducing its cooldown by 4 seconds is huge.
- 5 points in Ice Shards increases the critical damage damage bonus of Frostbolt by 100%, also huge and compliments your 5 points in Shatter which increases your critical chance by 50% against Frozen targets, which then compliments your 3 points in Frostbite.
- Ice Block, another key ability for Mages.
Would you mind going a little more indepth for me? So what exactly is "freezing" a target, I see Frostbite also supplements "chill" effects. What applies a chill?
In the nicest, sincerest way possible...why would you read a talent guide?
The Frost mage talents are super, super intuitive. There are ones that focus on kiting, and others on damage. And you pick which one you want. There are zero bad talents except for the Ice Ward talent.
Maybe I'm unnecessarily taking it out on you, but like, c'mon guys, you don't need guides as much as you think you do. And I feel like if you just read the talents you'd know what you were doing. You'll have lots of time spent in the game running from point A to B, plenty of time to read them and figure out what you want.
I am confused with people not maxing out improved Frostbolt first, or at all. It's a 3.4% damage increase. Potentially more since that half second can mean less pushback, or another spell, so on.
The entire build is based off of Frostbite so you literally destroy frozen targets and you want to get Frostbite as soon as possible, which means you'll have to skip out on certain talents, in this case Improved Frostbolt. The extra 0.3 seconds are useless compared to the other talents you're spending your early points on.
- Elemental Precision is one of the most important talents as resisting a Frostbolt can end up getting you killed.
- Frost Nova is a key ability and reducing its cooldown by 4 seconds is huge.
- 5 points in Ice Shards increases the critical damage damage bonus of Frostbolt by 100%, also huge and compliments your 5 points in Shatter which increases your critical chance by 50% against Frozen targets, which then compliments your 3 points in Frostbite.
- Ice Block, another key ability for Mages.
Would you mind going a little more indepth for me? So what exactly is "freezing" a target, I see Frostbite also supplements "chill" effects. What applies a chill?
freeze a target happens when they can't move think only frost nova does it in classic forget the details but when they can't move and are frozen like that your crit dmg is boosted and it's to easy to burst them down " chill " is the slow effect from frostbolt shots, cone of cold and blizzard it when you hit them with a ice spell but they can still move they get chill ( slow effect ) and easy to kite them or get more shots off.
their a lot of details that typing alone will miss and their tons of videos and guides with better info that are worth checking out.