Mage Leveling

I played with my Mage a little bit more again this weekend and managed to get it to level 36.  So just spare time between other characters and it is moving along like wild fire.  So far I have played the Mage for 1 day and 7 hours.  Not the fastest time ever I am sure but level 36 in one day and a quarter is outrageous.  At this rate I could hit 80 in around 3 days played if I do not suffer real down time.

The thing is I am leveling professions too which takes some extra time.  I am sure if I did not make the effort to level my professions I would be under 1 day played.  I can't even start to tell you the number of time I stopped to fight mobs to get to an herb when I really could have just kept going.

With that in mind I am amazed at the speed of leveling on the Mage.  If it were not for having to stop and drink after every few fights I would be level 50 no doubt within the time I played so far.  I would say at least 1/4 of the time I play is spent drinking and eating.  Maybe even as much as 1/3 of the time.

I think what helps their speed is the ability to teleport to wherever they need to go to.  I set my hearth to where I am questing and have my teleports to jump around.  That saves a ton of time moving around.  Like after finishing a few quests recently some sent me back to Stormwind and some sent me to Ironforge.  I ported to one, ported to the other and then used my hearth to go back to the area I was questing in.  That saves a ton of time.

I would love to set up a speed leveling Mage one time to see how fast I can get it done.  Based on what I have seen so far I could most likely get to level 80 in less then 2 days played if all I did was work on leveling and totally ignored professions and those stupid Mage quests that always love to send me back to an area I finished 3 or 4 levels earlier.  Did someone actually want to plan these out to be so useless?  Don't you think giving you a quest at level 30 should send you to an area where there are level 30 quests and not back to redridge where you last visited when you were maybe as high as 25?  Sure, it is easy going back at 30 but it is a complete and total waste of time.

Being I never played a Mage before I do the Mage quests because I am not sure if at some point I am going to need to do them for a skill and do not want to have to go back and hunt down low level quests to get it.  At least a level 30 in a 25 area can still get some kill experience.  Better then nothing I guess.  I most likely will not do them next time I do a Mage if I ever do one again.  It doesn't seem, at least up to this point, that they are actually needed for anything.

Either way, I am having a huge amount of fun leveling a Mage.  They are so easy to work with, awesome crowd control even at low levels and a wide selection of skills to work with.  Sure I am usually just hitting one over and over again for my frostbolt but when the time comes where I need other things they are there.  Thing is that about 98% of the time I do not need anything but that.  I have started freezing when they get close and then strafing to get some distance and shooting again.  Not because it is needed but because it is good practice for when it will be needed to do it against things that are not about to kill you anyway.

I tend to use those fights to try different things and see how they work.  Perfect learning experience time.  I even kited this one elemental half way across a zone because I wanted to see how long I could get him to follow me.  Kiting as a Mage is stupid easy.  Makes my Hunter jealous, all sorts of jealous. 

With my Hunter kiting is a skill and only a good hunter can do it decently and only a super hunter can do it good.  You can give someone that has never used a mage in their life and tell them when he starts getting close press this then this and keep running your little ass off and tada, they are now kiting.  They do not even need to turn around to do it either if it is a pure kite that is.  If you are trying to kill and kite there is a little more to it of course, but it is not really all that difficult as long as you know the secret that many hunters know.  Strafe running is as fast as straight running and keeps your target in instant range.  Don't tell everyone that, they might get better at kiting if they knew that and they will take my job away.