Classic Mage: Fire PvP Guide

Some of the best memories I have of Vanilla are roasting people as a Fire mage in PvP on my way to rank 14. It is a build that demands you pay constant attention to what is going on around you and that you react quickly. It does not have the control and survivability of Frost, but I personally found it to be much more fun and enjoyable than Frost. If you really want to see what being a glass cannon is all about you should give Fire a try.

There seems to be a lack of guides though in regards to how to play Fire in PvP. And the guides that I have seen have some serious flaws (like taking Improved Fireball). So I've decided to share the knowledge that I learned playing as Fire on my to rank 14. 

The Build: https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/2300052312201-055232010300315

I recommend a 21/30 build for Fire PvP. Keep in mind this build is solely for endgame PvP purposes. If you use this build for leveling or raiding you will perform terribly. I prefer this build to 31/20 because it gives you more viability outside of Arcane Power. Meaning that you can kill people quite well without using your cooldowns. So your cooldowns are an added bonus on top of an already strong and effective build.

There isn't really a whole lot of wiggle room or customization with this build. You need PoM and you need to upgrade your fire damage as much as possible. This means your talent choices need to be spent as wisely as possible.

Explanation of Choices
Untalented Fireball is a 3.5sec cast, which is far too long for PvP. Even talented down to a 3sec cast it is still far too long for PvP purposes. So it really isn't worth spending points in Improved Fireball for PvP. The better option is to take Impact.

Don't underestimate Impact. It gives your Fire spells a 10% chance to stun. It doesn't sound like much, but it does proc more than 1 out of every 10 spells because it is a chance per spell cast. I don't remember if it can proc off of Ignite, Fireball DoT, or Pyroblast DoT. I want to say that it can, but I am not sure.

With the selection of Impact your main PvP nuke becomes Scorch, which is why Improved Scorch is taken. Scorch is less damage than Fireball, but is only a 1.5 second cast. This makes Scorch ideal for PvP because:

1. More chances for Impact procs
2. Shorter cast time allows for damage to be dealt quickly and then for you to move
3. Harder to interrupt
4. Debuffs the target to take more damage from your fire spells (with the talent)
5. Benefits from the Incinerate talent (4% more crit)
6. Benefits from Critical Mass talent (6% more crit)

So all this taken together means that with Scorch you have a spell with a 1.5sec cast time that you can gain 10% increased crit chance to through talents alone. It is also easy to chain cast, which means lots of chances for Ignite and Impact procs.

The final Fire talent I will explain is Improved Fire Blast. Fire Blast is terrible for raiding and leveling, but it really shines in PvP. Your main PvP "rotation" is going to be Scorch spam while keeping Fire Blast on cooldown (i.e. use Fire Blast as soon as it is ready). Taking 1.5secs off this cooldown means more Fire Blasts and more damage. Fire Blast also benefits from the Incinerate talent.

* In Vanilla (and Classic) Ignites will stack as a single debuff on a target regardless of how many mages crit and apply it. The debuff itself lasts only 4 seconds, but if you crit again within that 4 seconds the debuff timer gets reset and the new damage gets rolled into the previous damage. If you have enough mages and coordinate Combustion usage you can keep this Ignite rolling for quite a while. Rolling Ignites are really more for raiding than PvP, and actually now that I think about it I am not sure I ever got a rolling Ignite in PvP (but maybe I did, my memory is foggy). If they can happen against players though it is another reason to use the Scorch spam and Fire Blast on cooldown approach in PvP.

The only Arcane talents you really need are Presence of Mind and Improved Counterspell. Improved Mana Shield is useful because Mana Shield is one of the few defensive abilities that you have, so losing less mana per point of damage is quite beneficial. The others are just kind of the best available; not terrible, but not super great either.

How To Play

I've already mentioned this, but the basic play style for this build is to use Fire Blast on cooldown and spam Scorch. It's a pretty simple rotation really with the hardest part of the rotation being becoming proficient at using Fire Blast on cooldown. Or at least that is what it was for me.

The hardest part overall of this build is staying alive long enough to use that sweet PoM/Pyro. When the other team finds out that you are a Fire mage you will instantly become a target because they know that you will be an easy kill. They also know that you can inflict a world of hurt on their team if they do not take you down. So the real learning curve with this build is learning how to stay alive. Unlike in retail you do not have Blazing Barrier, Ice Block, Invisibility, and even Temporal Shield to help you stay alive. Instead the defensive abilities you have are all situational: Dampen Magic, Mana Shield, Fire and Frost Wards.

Dampen Magic is only useful against magic. Mana Shield is only useful against physical damage. Fire and Frost Wards are only useful against Fire and Frost damage. You do not have a spell that just absorbs all types of damage. As such you need to take all the precautions you can in order to stay alive. Probably the most useful tip I can offer is to stay in the rear as much as possible to avoid becoming a target. Melee should be the ones making the push into a group, not you. You should be hanging in the back trying to pick people off that get within range of you and protecting your healers.

The other thing you can do is learn how to kite melee intelligently. As a fire mage you have at least 6 primary spells to help put distance between yourself and another player:

1. Frost Nova
2. Blink
3. Polymorph
4. Cone of Cold
5. Blast Wave
6. PvP Trinket

You must learn how to use these spells intelligently in order to maximize kiting effectiveness. This means that under most circumstances you will never want to use these spells back-to-back and will instead want to spread their usage out so that you are always left with at least one option to gain distance on an opponent.

So as an example let's say that you are carrying the flag in WSG (which you shouldn't be, but I need an example of when you would want to kite someone rather than kill them) and you are trying to get back and cap the flag so that your team can win. A Warrior from the other team Charges you and Hamstrings you. You Polymorph him and keep walking. He trinkets out of your Polymorph instantly. You Polymorph him again and gain some distance. Polymorph breaks and he Charges again. This time you Frost Nova and get away before he can reapply Hamstring (or use your PvP trinket if he does). You gain some distance and use a Fire Blast, Scorch, rank 1 Frostbolt or other type of quick damage spell before Frost Nova breaks to keep him in combat and keep running. He Intercepts. You Blink. At this point the Warrior has no other options to close the distance between himself and you aside from a Swiftness potion or the Nifty Stopwatch trinket (or some other speed increase). He might also drop combat and mount up to catch you. If he does use one of these you still have Cone of Cold and Blast Wave as options to slow him down. Hopefully by this point though you've found some teammates that can help you out. Now I'm not saying this is always going to happen this way. In fact, the better option here would probably be to just kill the Warrior, but hopefully this illustrates what I mean by kiting intelligently.

The final part of this build is using PoM/Pyro effectively. You never want to open with this combo. This combo is used to finish off an opponent. You will have to learn at what hp% to use this as it will vary from Mage to Mage based on their gear and spell damage. This is really, I think, the easiest part to master. The harder part is staying alive long enough to use it.

Gear

Classic is much more gear dependent than retail. The real PvP balance isn't really based on classes or player skill. It's based on how many epics you have compared to the other players. So the best thing you can do to increase your PvP success is to get the best gear possible. This means that you will probably end up raiding if you want to be as successful as possible. The reason is because a lot of the "pre-raid BiS" or even "raid BiS" available outside of raids sacrifices stats for +dmg in their item budgets. A good example of this is comparing Robe of The Archmage to Arcanist Robes. In terms of +dmg Robe of the Archmage beats Arcanist by 17. However in terms of stats Arcanist Robes have 19 more Stamina and 13 more Intellect. Now the higher Intellect is good because more Intellect means a higher chance to crit, and Fire really benefits well from more crits in PvP. And the increased Stamina is also good because it will increase your survivability, which you desperately need as Fire. In my opinion it is worth sacrificing the spell power for the increased stats for PvP.


If you don't want to raid the rare PvP set (Champion's Arcanum) is pretty good. If we are getting the final upgraded version that set is actually better than Arcanist from MC for PvP purposes. The epic PvP set (Warlord's Regalia) is very good, but requires a significant time investment to obtain. The reputation PvP rewards are also pretty good. If you decide to focus on PvP alone you can probably end up with some pretty good PvP gear actually.

You don't technically need an on use trinket like Talisman of Ephemeral Power (ToEP) or Zandalarian Hero Charm (ZHC), but I find that this build works a lot better with one.

You don't need a whole bunch of hit either, only 3%, so make sure you get it from your gear because you don't have enough spare talent points to get even one point in Elemental Precision. Crit is a very good stat to stack for this build also as it benefits greatly from more crits.

What I would not do, as I somewhat hinted at above, is use Wowhead's BiS lists as a gearing guide for PvP. The reason is because these lists are raiding focused and are concerned with getting you as much +dmg as possible. In order to PvP effectively as a Fire mage you need stats like Stamina and Intellect more than you need +dmg. Your spells already deal a pretty good amount damage. What you need is more survivability and crits, which is what you get from more Stamina and Intellect. The raid sets and PvP sets are a better choice for PvP than the gear in these lists.

Enchants

I would do the following enchants for PvP:

• +9 stam to bracers
• +4 stats to chest
• + spell power to weapon
• + fire damage to gloves
• + run speed to boots

There are lesser versions of some of these that you can get if you know you will be upgrading an item in the near future and don't want to want spend the mats on the highest one. Once you know you will be sticking with an item though I would get the highest version of the enchant available.

Races

For Horde I would roll Undead. Will of the Forsaken is hands down the best PvP racial in the game and it will save you from having to use your PvP trinket in one of your trinket slots. This means you can run something like Eye of the Beast for more crit in addition to an on use like ToEP or ZHC instead of having to use it for the PvP trinket. Troll is not a terrible option because Berserking is pretty useful, but I think Undead is superior.

For Alliance I would roll Gnome. Escape Artist is much more useful than Perception in my opinion. That's not to say that there won't be times where Perception will be useful, but overall I think Escape Artist will be more useful. 

Professions

The only profession I consider mandatory for PvP is First Aid, which is a secondary profession that can be learned in addition to whatever your two primary ones are.

Alchemists can make Free Action Potions, Living Action Potions, Healing Potions, Limited Invulnerability Potions, etc. Herbalism is good to take with Alchemy because you will be able to farm the herbs for your potions yourself. 

Engineers can make can make grenades and explosives that can be thrown to stun and/or deal additional damage in PvP. The amount of useful PvP gadgets Engineers can make are too many to list, so check out Wowhead for a complete list. Mining is good to take with Engineering because you will be able to farm the ore needed for your gadgets.

The other professions are less useful in PvP. You can still roll one of them and preform quite well in PvP though. 
 

Conclusion

Fire is a very strong build in PvP. One of the strongest in my opinion. The PoM/Pyro combo is a lot of instant damage and you will be able to take down almost anyone with it. The trick with this build though is learning how to be effective and kill people when this combo is on cooldown. The best way to do this is with Scorch and Fire Blast spam to proc Impact and Ignite while staying alive. It really is a true glass cannon build.

Classic Mage: Advanced Guide

First let me state that this is called the advanced guide not because the things presented and discussed are especially hard to execute. This is called the advanced guide because it goes beyond the basics of the class (like talent builds, stats, leveling, etc) and delves into more specific aspects of gameplay.  

This isn't an exhaustive guide, but is limited to general gameplay regardless of talent build and situation (i.e. PvE or PvP). In the future I plan to do more specific articles focused on specific aspects of the game, like PvP.

Learn Where Blink Will Bug

There are certain spots in the world where Blink will not teleport you forward even though there appears to be nothing in the way that would prevent moving forward. A good example of this are the tunnel entrances in WSG (at least the Horde tunnel, I haven’t personally tested the Alliance tunnel). Looking at them there doesn’t appear to be anything blocking the way forward, but if you Blink at the entrance (i.e. at the arch) you won’t go anywhere. There are many similar spots throughout the world that act in this same manner: there doesn’t appear to be anything in the way that would prevent you from teleporting forward, but for whatever reason you don’t move forward.

Blink has been this way since Vanilla beta, and iirc in order to fix it Blizzard would literally have to rebuild the entire world. So basically it’s not getting fixed and you just need to learn to deal with it.

Kiting

Learning to kite mobs and players is fundamental to success as a mage. We do not have massive health pools and we have very little defensive abilities. If you don’t keep melee at distance you will die. While you don’t need to be a master at kiting, you do need to be able to do it effectively. Here are the things that I consider necessary in order to kite effectively:

1. Learn the range of Frost Nova. The range on Frost Nova is larger than the animation makes you think. It is in fact possible (in both retail and Classic) to Frost Nova a mob or player while they are still out of melee range. Practicing with Frost Nova and learning its range can save your hide if you are low on hp and a mob or player is bearing down on you.

2. Don’t Blink after Frost Nova. Blink and Frost Nova are the two primary ways you have to put distance between you and an enemy. If you use them both back to back you are out of options to gain distance. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but 99% of the time you don’t want to use these spells back to back.

3. Learn to Cone of Cold from behind. It is possible to exploit the game latency so that you execute Cone of Cold without facing your enemy. In order to do this (while running away from an enemy):

1. Jump
2. Turn your camera quickly so you are facing the enemy
3. Hit Cone of Cold during the split second you are facing your enemy 
4. Immediately after you hit Cone of Cold turn your camera
back to the direction you were originally running

You have to do all these steps fairly quickly, like in less than a second, but if done properly you will land Cone of Cold on your enemy without losing much speed on your part.

4. Use rank 1 spells effectively. Primarily this means using rank 1 Frostbolt in order to land a quick snare on an enemy. If you put points into the Improved Blizzard and/or Permafrost talents rank 1 Blizzard and rank 1 Cone of Cold could potentially be useful also. More on these later.

5. Strafe and mouse turn. Strafing (running sideways) is much quicker than backing up and it will still allow you to cast instant cast spells. By default the game binds strafe to ‘Q’ and ‘E’ so I recommend rebinding them to ‘A’ and ‘D’ and using your mouse to turn your camera. It will take some getting used to if you’ve never done this before, but it is worth it because of the speed you will gain.

Use Rank 1 Spells Effectively

Classic, unlike retail, has spell ranks and some of the lower ranks are useful. Primarily it is healers who benefit from using lower ranks of spells (because they cost less mana), but mages can also benefit from using rank 1 spells in certain situations. I personally didn’t find myself using rank 1 spells a whole lot during Vanilla, but player skill has increased significantly since then so using these will probably be necessary in order to play at the highest levels. 

I am going to break this section into 2 parts. The first part will be rank 1 spells that I know will be useful because I used them in Vanilla. The second part is going to be speculation on which rank 1 spells could potentially be useful. There are potentially other uses for rank 1 spells than I mention here, so be on the lookout for more opportunities to use rank 1 spells.

There is also the potential that all these rank 1 spells can eat into your available keybinds. Plus it might also be confusing to have your max rank of a spell bound to one key and the rank 1 version to another key. In order to save keybind space and make things easier to remember you “should” be able to use the following macro:

#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:shift] Frostbolt (Rank 1); Frostbolt

Classic is shutdown right down, so I cannot verify that it works, but if it uses the same macro API as retail it should. The way this macro works is: if Frostbolt is bound to ‘2’ pressing ‘shift + 2’ will cast rank 1 Frostbolt, but simply pressing ‘2’ will cast the max rank. Doing it this way will save you action bar space and keep things consistent (e.g. you know Frostbolt is always on ‘2’ and that rank 1 is always ‘shift +2’ and that all your spells are bound this way). You can swap out the spells and use this for every spell you want to use multiple ranks of.

Known Useful Rank 1 Spells

Frostbolt. As mentioned above a rank 1 Frostbolt can be used to kite enemy players or mobs. Its cast time is quite short, it puts on the same level of snare as the max rank, and it costs a paltry amount of mana at max level. It is also good for keeping players in combat (e.g. rogues and warriors) in order to prevent them from using certain abilities (e.g. stealth and charge).

Although I found using this spell to be more trouble than it was worth as fire due to not having Improved Frostbolt. Your experience might be different though, so give it a shot if you’re playing fire and see if you like it. If you do great. If not it isn’t a huge loss imo.

Blizzard. A rank 1 Blizzard can be used to break enemies out of stealth. I found myself using this spell a lot in AV when I was guarding a tower, bunker, or graveyard waiting for it to cap. If you know, or suspect, that an enemy is stealthed nearby use this (or rank 1 Arcane Explosion) to find them and break them out.

Arcane Explosion. I found myself using rank 1 Arcane Explosion to interrupt flag caps in AB and AV. You could use the max rank of Arcane Explosion to do this also (and do more damage), but the mana cost of the max rank will limit the number of times you can do it. I found that using rank 1 was better if I was just interested in interrupting a flag cap, but the choice is up to you. I suppose the “best” way would be to start with the max rank and then switch to rank 1 once your mana starts getting low.

Potentially Useful Rank 1 Spells

Potentially any rank 1 spell can be useful, so this list isn’t exhaustive, but it is my speculation as to what rank 1 spells could be useful and when they might be useful.

Arcane Intellect/Dampen Magic/Amplify Magic/Armors. In classic it is possible to spam dispel abilities; the only limitations are the mana pool of the player, the global cooldown, and how fast you can target an enemy. Rank 1 buffs could potentially be useful to run a player who is spam dispelling out of mana. I personally didn’t encounter a whole lot of spam dispelling back in Vanilla, but player skill is much higher now, so perhaps spam dispelling will be more of a thing this time around. 

I also played a fire mage and there really wasn’t a whole lot of useful things to dispel from me. So I suspect dispelling classes saved their dispels for things like Power Word: Shield, Blessing of Freedom, HoTs, and other buffs on WSG flag carriers and “PvP tanks.” Presence of Mind is a useful dispel, but I always used it macro’d with my trinket and Pyroblast. So it was up for a split second at most, which is impossible, or at least very hard, to dispel. I didn’t run with Arcane Power, so can’t comment on how often that was a target of dispels.

Fireball. This spell has a DoT on it so it could potentially be used to keep rogues in combat, and more importantly from vanishing. I ran without Improved Fireball during my HWL run though, so I didn’t bother using it because the cast time was too long.

The End

That’s it for this guide. If you have any more rank 1 suggestions let me know and I will review and add them. Hope you enjoyed it!

Classic Mage: Basics and Leveling Guide

What is covered in this guide? 
This guide covers the following subjects:
-Basics of the mage class, such as role, stats, professions
-Basics of leveling
-Basic information on talent builds, as well as some sample builds
-Basic information on stats such as, spell crit, spell hit, spell penetration, and spell damage

Should I play a mage?
Well that depends. The Classic mage has a generally good reputation and it was considered to be one of the strongest classes during Vanilla, but it is not for everyone. We are the “squishiest” of all the classes available in Classic due to having the lowest hit points, wearing cloth armor, and not having many defensive abilities. Or in other words, we die easily. Basically, if you’re a fan of running away from things and the saying “The best defense is a good offense” you will probably enjoy the Classic mage class.

It remains to be seen if mages will be one of the most popular classes in Classic. When Vanilla launched we were one of the most complete classes and didn’t have any glaring balance or gameplay issues like some other classes did (e.g. warriors). So obviously a class without glaring balance and/or gameplay issues is going to be much more popular than other classes that do have those issues. In Classic however we are getting the 1.12 version of the classes, and in 1.12 everything seemed fairly well balanced and most seemed happy with their class (which was not the case at launch). So it will be interesting to see how class balance plays out in Classic. Personally I expect it to be pretty well balanced between all the classes.

What is the role of the mage class?
The mage class is primarily a ranged damage-oriented support class. We have three separate schools of magic available to us to deal damage with: Arcane, Fire, and Frost. We also have the strongest multiple target area of effect (AoE) damaging spells/abilities in the game. Our support functions include single target crowd control (Polymorph), and short-term crowd control (Frost Nova/root effects). We are also the only class that has the ability to conjure food and drink, which saves a great deal of cash for us and our friends. 

If you never played Vanilla these support functions might not seem like much, but believe me they are huge. Mana is a critical mechanic in Classic and any class that uses mana will be sitting down to drink after a few pulls in a dungeon. Crowd control is also a critical component in Classic due to classes being quite weak in comparison to the rest of the world (i.e. you are not a great Champion of your faction, but instead a lowly, insignificant adventurer in a big, bad, scary world). So being able to eliminate a mob from a pull makes things much safer and easier for the group in a dungeon. In addition to this, Polymorph is the best crowd control ability in the game because it is easily reapplied, which is not the case with other crowd control abilities in Classic.

So between having the best AoE, the best crowd control, and being able to provide food and drink to your group members you will be a highly sought after class for dungeons. 

What armor, weapons, and trade skill professions can a Mage learn? 
- Mages start out with proficiency in Cloth armor; Mages cannot learn any other armor types, regardless of their character levels.
- Mages start with the weapon skill Staves. Mages can also learn how to wield Daggers and 1 handed swords in addition to their existing weapon skills. You should eventually train all these weapon skills because some daggers and 1 handed swords have caster stats on them (like spell damage).
- New spells become available to Mages on every even-numbered level: 2, 4, 6, etc up to 60. Be sure to visit a Mage trainer as soon as you can upon reaching an even-numbered level so that mobs are not more difficult than they have to be.
- Mages are also able to learn teleport (lvls 20, 30) and portal (lvls 40, 50) spells from portal trainers. Portal trainers are located near the mage trainers in the major cities
- Mages, like all characters, have the ability to learn any two of all the available trade skill professions and all of the secondary professions (first aid, fishing, cooking). 

What character stats are most important to my Mage?
How important a stat is to your mage truly depends on how you wish to play. It is the general understanding of the mage community that Intellect and Stamina are the two top priority stats a mage should focus on while leveling to 60.

Intellect: impacts your critical strike chance with spells and increases your available mana pool; intellect should be the stat you focus on most while leveling to 60.

Stamina: increases your health points. Although it is not as important as intellect for leveling be sure you don’t neglect this stat otherwise you will be making many trips to the graveyard. 

Spirit: although the description states it regenerates your mana and health pools, it is largely seen as insignificant by the mage community simply because of its diminishing returns at higher stat levels and lack of effectiveness during spell casting (i.e. its regeneration doesn’t start until 5sec. after you stop casting, iirc). Spirit does however affect your evocation and some raiding mages keep a high spirit staff and wand in their inventory and use a macro to swap to them when they evocate. 

Other important stats to a mage are spell damage, spell critical rating, spell hit rating, and spell penetration. Spell damage is what it sounds like, an increase in either all spell damage, or the damage of a particular school. It is a passive bonus found on gear and will increase the spell damage up to a particular amount. How much +damage a spell receives depends on the spell.

Spell critical and hit rating obviously increase your chance to crit or hit with spells. This is good for a mage to have because if a spell crits, it is more damage for the same amount of mana. Hit works kind of the same way, if you get resisted you basically just wasted mana on a spell that did no damage; increasing your spell hit will help negate that. Don't forget though that you can't have 100% to hit. 

Spell penetration lowers your target’s resistance by x, which helps with partial resists, such as the ones mages see with fireball. 

Spell damage, crit, hit, and penetration are not needed for leveling and should not be taken over intellect and stamina while leveling.

These stats will be discussed in more detail in a future post.

How do I level a mage?
With the mage class you can really level however you want. We are effective soling and we are very valuable in groups also.

I do not recommend AoE leveling for several reasons. First, mobs are not shared in Classic like they are in retail. That is, if someone else attacks a mob, even if they are the same faction, and they are not in your group you will get 0 experience for killing the mob. You know a mob is tapped by someone else when their nameplate/unit frame turns grey (like retail). So you need to truly be alone in order to AoE level, something that is unlikely to happen, especially at launch. Second, there are almost always ranged mobs present in every place throughout the world which you will not be able to move into your AoE easily or at all. Third, it is dangerous and if not executed correctly you will easily die. Finally, I think it is just plain boring.

The quickest way to level to 60 is by solo questing. The basic method to solo questing is this:
(1) Get to a new town.
(2) Gather up all the available quests (which are not marked on the mini map in Classic).
(3) Complete all those quests.
(4) Hand them in.
(5) Gather up more quests.
(6) Repeat steps 3-5 until out of quests then move to a new town.
If you want to truly maximize your leveling efficiency Joana has the fastest known time for leveling from 1-60 at 4 days 20 hours /played. I would follow his guide for optimal leveling efficiency: https://www.joanasworld.com/

Doing dungeons will slow down your leveling compared with solo questing, but they offer good gear. In fact some of the gear is so good that it can last you for 10+ levels before you find something better. I would recommend doing dungeons unless you are just absolutely hell bent on getting to 60 ASAP. They offer good gear that will make leveling easier and will help you learn your class.

The general rule for leveling is:
-Any mob whose level appears as green or yellow is safe. You shouldn't be killing grey mobs to level as they offer no experience. Ideally you should focus on green and yellow mobs/quests
- Any mob whose level is orange is killable, but will probably cost you a bit more mana and life than a yellow or green mob
- Any mob whose level is red will probably not be killable by you. It is not a good idea to attack red mobs while soloing. 

What stats are important when leveling? 
From 1-60 Intellect should be the primary stat you focus on, then stamina as a secondary stat. Basically if you look for "of the Eagle" gear you'll be fine. There are also a few tailoring pieces that you can make that are pretty good. My personal favorite is Robe of Power.

Spell damage gear is not necessary while leveling; your base damage is more than adequate for leveling. Your main limitation while leveling will be your mana pool, not damage. The more mana you have the less downtime you will have and the faster you will level.

Are there any mage quests? 
Yes, there are a number of mage class quests. You can find a complete list here: https://classic.wowhead.com/mage-quests?filter=38;13;0#0+2+11 

The only one I would absolutely do is the Magecraft line you start at 52. The ones with Tabetha are also good and provide a good reward if you can get them done. Whether or not you do the others is up to you.  

What is the best leveling build? 
There really isn’t a “best” leveling build for mages as either fire or frost builds are effective at leveling. Frost is generally considered the “best” due its low mana cost for spells and the slows and snares that give you more control over mobs. Fire though is equally viable if played correctly and works especially well in PvP situations. 

How do I level as frost?
As frost your priority is to get 5/5 Shatter ASAP. It is an essential talent for leveling and your life will be quite rough without it. In fact you may notice yourself struggling until you do max out this talent. Fortunately in Classic you can use fireball if you need the extra damage before then.

As frost your basic leveling rotation will be (from max range): Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frost Nova, strafe to max range, Frostbolt until low hp, wand until dead.

For your leveling build I would do the following from 10-29:
5/5 Improved Frostbolt
2/2 Improved Frost Nova
5/5 Ice Shards
3/3 Piercing Ice
5/5 Shatter 

After 29 I'd pick up 2/2 Arctic Reach, Ice Block and Cold Snap. 

After those move to the arcane tree and pick up 5/5 Improved Arcane Missiles and 5/5 Arcane Concentration. The reason for this is because Arcane Missiles is a lot of damage, but costs a significant amount mana and gets interrupted by damage (i.e. you lose waves). But if it doesn’t get interrupted by damage (Improved Arcane Missiles) and doesn’t cost any mana (Arcane Concentration) you’ve just done a big chunk of damage for no mana. This improves your leveling efficiency because you will kill mobs quicker and with less mana. 

If you choose these talents your leveling rotation changes a bit. You will still cast Frostbolt, but whenever you proc Clearcasting you will switch to Arcane Missiles. You should be able to make this switch easily with a macro:

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Arcane Missiles

*I have not tested this macro yet because Classic beta is shutdown, but it “should” work. And if you find a better, more efficient macro share it with me.

However, as frost you do not need to use Arcane Missiles on Clearcasting since you are pretty mana efficient already. I find though that it makes the gameplay more engaging. But if you choose not to do this then after picking up Cold Snap I would pick up 2/2 Arcane Subtlety and 3/5 Arcane Focus and 5/5 Arcane Concentration and keep your rotation the same. 

After picking up these talents in the arcane tree how you fill out the rest of your build is up to you. I would recommend filling it out with the frost tree since there are not many beneficial leveling talents deeper than Arcane Concentration in the arcane tree for frost. 

My final build at 60 would look something like this: https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/005005--05350223102351351

How do I level as fire?
Fire is not the “best” leveling build according to popular wisdom, but popular wisdom is often incomplete. The reality is that fire is perfectly viable for leveling if done properly. 

As fire the main difficulty you will face while leveling will be mana efficiency. So the majority of your talent points will be spent in the arcane tree because there are several useful mana efficiency talents available that will help overcome this difficulty. You will also need to switch to Arcane Missiles when you proc Clearcasting; this is not optional unless you want to sit down and drink after 2-3 mobs. See the discussion above for my reasoning behind this.

From 10-19 your talent points will go into:
5/5 Improved Arcane Missiles
5/5 Arcane Concentration

Your basic rotation will then be: Arcane Missiles on Clearcasts, otherwise Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, strafe to max range, Fireball until low hp, wand until dead.

From 20-30:
5/5 Improved Fireball
5/5 Ignite
1/1 Pyroblast

Pyroblast deals a significant amount of damage, but has a very long cast time (6 seconds). You can actually open with this spell if you want, but it is not required. In fact, if you are facing a green level mob you can probably open with Pyroblast, cast Fireball, and then start wanding to kill the mob.

From here you will go back go the arcane tree. You have some options as to where you spend your talents, but the essential ones are: Arcane Meditation, Arcane Mind, Presence of Mind, and Arcane Power. I would personally allocate my points like this:

2/2 Wand Specialization
2/2 Arcane Subtlety
1/1 Arcane Resilience
3/3 Arcane Meditation
2/2 Improved Counterspell
1/1 Presence of Mind
5/5 Arcane Mind
3/3 Arcane Instability

1 point wherever
1/1 Arcane Power

After you pick up Presence of Mind make the following macro and bind it to a key:

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Presence of Mind
/cast Pyroblast

This macro is very useful in PvP situations and can possibly save your hide in sticky PvE situations also.

Once you pick up Arcane Power be sure to add that spell to the macro also:
#showtooltip
/stopcasting

/cast Arcane Power
/cast Presence of Mind
/cast Pyroblast

From here I would fill out the rest of the build in the fire tree. You can really choose whatever, but I would personally allocate my remaining points like this:
2/2 Flame Throwing
2/2 Burning Soul
3/3 Improved Scorch

2/3 Master of Elements
So at 60 the final build would look like this: https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/2152050010231531-505200012302

 

What spells should I train while leveling?

Gold saving is a major consideration while leveling because mounts are not cheap. One of the things you can do to save gold is to avoid training unnecessary spells. Mages have quite a few spells and abilities available, but not all of them are essential for leveling. This is my recommended list of spells to train, but you are free to make your own decisions on this matter:

- Your main nuke, either Frostbolt or Fireball
- Arcane Missiles if you will be using them on Clearcasts, otherwise ignore
- Frost Nova (rank 1 only)

- Blink
- Teleport and Portal spells (people will expect you to have them)
- Arcane Intellect/Brilliance
- Polymorph (the duration increases with higher ranks, so train the higher ranks)
- Frost/Ice/Mage Armor
- Conjure Food/Water/Mana Gems
- Evocation
- Remove Lesser Curse
- Slow Fall

- Cone of Cold (if frost)

- Blizzard

Strictly speaking I consider Scorch, Fire Blast, and Arcane Explosion optional for leveling. Neither of these spells are part of your main leveling rotation, but they are very useful, especially in PvP situations. I would recommend training them regardless of leveling build, but technically speaking you can level just fine without them.

I would eventually train all ranks of all spells, but they are not all necessary for leveling. Fire Ward for example is very useful in Molten Core, but it is not necessary for leveling. So you will need to train it for endgame content, but before that point you can save your gold and avoid training it.

Do you have any other leveling tips?

Yes!

Always logout in a rested area. Leveling in Classic is time consuming, so getting a rested xp bonus helps out a lot.

Don’t repair your gear. You replace your gear frequently while leveling, so by the time it actually starts to break you most likely will find an upgrade for it. Only repair individual items that you know you will be keeping for a while (like Robes of Argus, Illusionary Rod, etc).

Macro all your spells that have ranks. The reason for this is that Classic has spell ranks, and you need to drag new ranks onto your bar to replace old ranks. This can get kind of tedious and you can easily forget to do this. So for Frostbolt the following macro will ensure that you are always using the max rank of Frostbolt:

#showtooltip
/cast Frostbolt

By leaving the spell rank off the game automatically uses the max rank. Other spells operate the same way, so just replace Frostbolt with whatever spell you want to use and you will always be using the max rank.

What is this 33/18, 30/16, 31/20 talent thing I keep hearing about? 
Class talents are broken down into trees and players create what are called talent builds for their characters. Talent builds are usually represented in the form of numbers and slashes: numbers representing the number of talent points into a talent tree and the slashes separating different talent trees. For example, if you see a 33/18 Frost/Arcane talent build, you would expect 33 talent points allocated into the Frost talent tree and 18 talent points allocated into the Arcane talent tree. Typically a x/x/x is Arcane/Fire/Frost unless specified. 

What if I have more questions?
The official WoW forums or fan sites such as Wowhead are good places to ask more specific questions. You can also leave a comment below and I will do my best to answer it.