Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 70-80

Each week, Arcane Brilliance invites Mages everywhere over for brunch. We serve muffins,sweet rolls, croissants, and enough mountain spring water to wash it all down. Then, for dessert, Arcane Brilliance conjures strudel for everyone, because who doesn't like strudel? If you raised your hand, you, sir or madame, are a dirty, dirty liar. Everybody likes strudel.

About a billion years ago, when Warlocks still ruled the world, back in those dark days beforeArcane Barrage, spellpower, and elementalist specs--in that bygone era before Death Knightsappeared in Azeroth, bringing with them their ridiculous magic resistances and eighty-seven different ways to silence or interrupt--Arcane Brilliance brought you a series of Mage leveling guides. In those days, we didn't have any of this crazy "rock music" you kids listen to now, and when we fought Illidan, we had to chain pot. We walked naked twelve miles to school through nineteen feet of snow while fending off wolves and dinosaurs with our bookbags,and we liked it. 

Things are different now. Nowadays, when you hit level 70, your experience bar doesn't vanish, never to return. We have ten new levels and an entire new continent to adventure our way through, new talent points to spend, new gear to pick up, and several fresh and exciting ways to barbecue zombies. It's an exciting time to be a Mage, and Arcane Brilliance is here to open a portal to level 80 for you.

If your Mage is at some other point along the leveling continuum, you can find the previous leveling guides here, here, here, and here. You can find the new one by clicking the words "read more" directly following this period.

Starter Zones

You don't need to wait for level 70 to make the leap to Northrend. Just as you could reasonably step through the Dark Portal at level 58 and immediately start questing and equipping new gear, it's perfectly advisable to start eyeballing the trip northward at level 68ish. At that level, you'll be able to handle the mobs in the Wrath starter zones, take the initial quests found there, and begin equipping the gear drops and quest rewards, so feel free.

Once you decide to take the plunge, you'll be faced with your first major choice. Which starter zone should I go to? There are two very nice zones to choose from, and though both offer a fundamentally similar experience in many respects, your decision of where to start will significantly impact your initial forays into the new content. I'm not going to tell you which zone to choose, because I believe the answer is both.

Howling Fjord is my personal preference, from a purely aesthetic standpoint. If I'm being honest, I'm mostly just a sucker for the Braveheartish pipe music that plays there. I keep expecting Mel Gibson to look soulfully at me and demand his freedom. You reach it by taking a zeppelin from just outside Undercity if you're a member of the Horde, or a ship from Menethil Harbor in the Wetlands if you roll with the Alliance.

The Borean Tundra is the other starter zone, reachable by Alliance characters from StormwindHarbor, and by Horde characters from a zeppelin tower outside Orgrimmar. Both of these two zones provide about the same amount of questing opportunities and a comparable selection of gear to be obtained from those questing opportunities.

The most notable differences between the zones, gear-wise, is found at the end of the major quest-lines with a few blue-quality items. Howling Fjord will net you a couple of likely trinket upgrades, including the Horn of the Herald and the Strike of the Seas, while Borean Tundra grants a decent ring (Activist's Signet of Blasting), a selection of neck-pieces (Indomitable Choker of Light or Pendant of Revolutionary Thought for Alliance and Clutch of Undying Will or Chain of Vilgilant Thought for the Horde), and pretty sweet staff (Tower of the Inifinite Mind).

Levels 70ish-72ish

Either of these zones will gain you one or two levels, depending on the level at which you made the jump to Northrend and how much rest experience you had saved up. When you finish up, you'll probably have a quest or two in your log directing you on to the next zone,Dragonblight. I would strongly advise you to ignore this quest for now. Dragonblight is a fine zone, don't get me wrong, but you're missing out if you skip the other starting zone. Sure, you could always go back and do it for the money after you've hit level 80, but the zone is worth so much at the lower levels in gear upgrades and experience points that it's just a better idea to do it now, when the mobs you'll be killing will still be worth experience points. The faction reputation alone makes this a no-brainer.

If you do quest out both zones, you'll find yourself somewhere around level 73ish before you ever step foot in Dragonblight, and that'll make the rest of the leveling process that much easier.

Be sure you're visiting your class trainer every time you ding, because he or she will have sparkly new and improved spells for you every level. Aside from the usual new versions of old spells, level 71 brings you a very nice bonus in the form of Teleport: Dalaran. You can earn this spell by making a short detour into Dragonblight and completing a simple questthere. You should be able to handle it at the level without too much trouble. 

If you need some ideas for leveling builds in this stretch, you're in luck! Arcane Brilliance has you covered.

Levels 72ish-74ish

It's now time to head in earnest for the icy wastes of Dragonblight. This zone is huge, and rife with quests and quest-hubs. There are a number of challenging group quests here as well, with worthwhile rewards. Though you may have been able to solo much of the group quests you've encountered so far (depending on your level and gear), even epicced-outSunwell veterans will probably need to gather friends for the ones found here and in the zones beyond. This zone is also where you will begin (and end) the incredibly long, incredibly cool Wrath Gate quest chain, culminating in several of the coolest lore-moments the game has ever provided us with, and rewarding you with a sweet leveling trinket and some sexy pants.

You should be able to make it somewhere close to level 74 or even 75 before leaving this zone, if you've been questing dilligently. Another word of advice: do the dailies. By this point, if you've completed all three of the zones we've talked about so far, you should have opened up multiple daily quests for several factions. Each day you log in, it's well worth the effort to seek each of these dailies out and complete them as you level. By giving us access to so many faction dailies so early in this expansion, Blizzard has made the overall reputation grind far more palatable, and by doing each of the dailies every day as you unlock them, you're giving yourself a huge leg-up for when you do hit level 80. You'll be revered and possibly exalted with several factions and be able to pick up some very nice faction rewards at the levels when using them would actually be appropriate. Plus, the extra experience points each day doesn't hurt.

Level 74 brings you access to Portal: Dalaran, which is all kinds of cool. You can pick it up for less than ten gold from the portal trainer in Dalaran. You can already teleport there, right? Go get it, and then enjoy porting everybody there for the rest of eternity at the end of every instance ever.

Levels 74ish-76ish

Your zone of choice in this level range is Grizzly Hills. Crank the tunes here. Seriously, if Howling Fjord is like battling through 13th century Scotland alongside Mel Gibson, driving out the evil British, this zone is like running through the forest with Daniel Day Lewis...um...driving out the evil British. I mean French. Both? Oh, who cares.

You'll encounter a large amount of PvP-daily quests in this zone, so if you don't like getting ganked by a level 80 Death Knight while picking quest items up from the ground, you might want to avoid them. I personally enjoyed (and still anjoy) these dailies to no end, but I'm a bit of a masochist. They do grant some very nice reputation gains, and the expected amount of experience points, and barring an inordinant amount of the aforementioned ganking, are reasonably quick and easy.

Level 75 brings you the first of the expansion's new spells, Frostfire Bolt. You can find Arcane Brilliance's overly wordy essay on the subject here, but suffice it to say that this is a nuke that does both frost and fire damage, making it very nice to have around when you encounter mobs with resistances to either of those. It also ends up being the single most-powerful Mage spell in the game at level 80, if you spec specifically to make it so, but I've already said as much about that as I intend to.

You also learn to conjure mana pies, which look suspiciously like pumpkin pies. Who knew that the reason you feel so full after a Thanksgiving feast is because you're full of mana?

Levels 76ish-78ish

You have a choice here again, as you can spend the next couple levels in either of two zones.Sholozar Basin is a good choice because it enables you to start gaining reputation with your choice of the Oracles or the Frenzyheart, and because it gives you yet another chance to mindlessly slaughter wildlife at the behest of one Hemet Nesingwary, meaning loads of experience points.

Zul'Drak is also a good choice because you can start raising your rep in earnest with theArgent Crusade and you get to kill a lot of zombie-trolls, which is always a good time. Also, at level 75 you can find a group for the completely awesome Amphitheater of Anguish quest chain in this zone, which will eventually net you a super-cool staff. You won't find an upgrade for it before the end-game content.

Either choice is completely valid, and once you're done with whichever one you settled on, you can move on to the other for the rest of the trip to 80. Depending on a lot of things, there's a pretty good chance you might hit 80 somewhere in these two zones. If so: good for you. If not, don't worry, there are still two more zones full of quests waiting on the horizon.

Level 77 brings a nice milestone, because that's the level at which you can purchase Cold Weather Flying from a trainer in Dalaran or Sholozar Basin for a cool 1,000 gold. Once you can use your flying mount again, questing becomes a cinch, so don't put this off.

Levels 78ish-80

The Northrend equivalents for Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley can be found in the level 80ish zones of Storm Peaks and Icecrown. If you manage to finish Zul'Drak and Sholozar basin without dinging 80, just head a little further north to complete the journey. Unless you've been seriously neglecting a lot of quest-hubs on your way, however, you should hit that final level-up before going very far into either of these zones.

Level 80 is every bit the milestone that level 70 once was, bringing with it new spells, talent spec options, instances, PvP possibilities, and access to a multitude of gear upgrade options. Your new spells are pretty cool, too. Mirror Image, of which I remain a stalwart advocate, is endlessly fun, and most importantly, you can now conjure strudel. Everybody loves strudel.Everybody.

At level 80, you can begin to gear up for the end-game content, which will be our topic for next week. Trust me, the gear-gap isn't anywhere near as steep at 80 as it was at 70. Wave goodbye once more to your experience bar and congratulations on level 80! Go celebrate by killing a Warlock.

Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 60-70

Mages sometimes get a bad rap. Some say we whine too much, while others claim we stink atPvP, or pull aggro too often from the tank. Here at Arcane Brilliance, we ignore these people, because we know the truth. You see, it's a well-known fact that while people tend to like awesome, they simply can't handle too much of it. When people see Mages in the back row, flinging giant balls of flame and ice from their fingertips, landing ridiculously large crits on everything, or plucking delicious magical food out of the air before them, their sense of what is and what isn't awesome gets skewed, and this makes them feel weird. They don't like it. They fear it. The awesome that Mages bring to the table is just too much for most folks to handle. Remember this the next time you get yelled at over voice chat, or someone posts a nasty thread on the forums. We Mages are just too awesome. It's our curse. Luckily, we canremove curses.
Last week, we hit level 60. A long time ago, this was the end of the line, the top of the heap. Once you hit level 60, your experience bar disappeared, and only by improving your gear could you continue to advance your character. That all changed about 18 months ago, whenBlizzard introduced us to the world beyond the Dark Portal, 10 more levels of experience, and level 57 greens that were better than level 60 purples. Last week, we brought ourselves to the brink of level 60, to the doorstep of Outland, and this week we'll explore that vast and dangerous new frontier and see where it takes us. Join us after the break for a look at what to expect from the last ten levels of the current game.

Levels 60-65

Level 60 is huge. As milestones go, Level 20 is big, level 40 used to be bigger, but once the new patch hits and mounts become obtainable at level 30, it won't be as big, but level 60 is just plain enormous. Once you've made it here, congratulations, the hard part is behind you. Post-60 content was designed much more recently than the content you've trudged through to get here, and is thus far more streamlined, user-friendly, and, well, fun. You'll run into people who prefer the old game, but most of that preference is based more on nostalgia than quality. The fact of the matter is that the Burning Crusade is just a more well-designed leveling experience, and you should notice the difference almost immediately.

Quests are organized so that many can be done at the same time, with objectives that are closer to the hubs they came from, and with multiple hubs in each zone, you'll spend very little time looking for the next thing to do because you'll be far too busy actually doing things. Quest rewards are far more well-thought-out, with clear choices for each class, so that by the time you've quested out the first zone, you'll have been able to almost completely outfit your Mage in superior gear. You'll encounter mobs that hit harder than you're used to, so better gear is a good thing, but you'll also notice these mobs give significantly more experience points than their counterparts in Azeroth.

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's review what level 60 brings us.

New ranks of old spells include Arcane Missiles, Blizzard, Conjure Food (and water), Dampen Magic, Fire Ward, Fireball, Frostbolt, Frost Ward, Mana Shield, and Ice Armor. There a few new spells available, but all require some special effort. A trip to Shattrath, the capital city of Outland, will allow you to purchase Teleport: Shattrath from the portal trainers there. Tired ofsheep? Visit Archmage Xylem again in Ashzara to begin a pair of quests that will eventually earn you Polymorph: Pig. If you can somehow manage to gather a raid together for Zul'Gurub(a sad near-impossibility these days), you have a 14% chance of seeing the boss Gahz'rankadrop the tome that teaches Polymorph: Turtle. Good luck with that.

Level 60 also allows you to visit your race's home city to purchase your epic land mount. This is a big deal because not only do the epic mounts get you around far faster than your old mount, they also look cool. I hope you've been saving your pennies, because the cost of thetraining and the mount itself is going to be around 640 gold. If you aren't quite there yet, don't let it trouble you; money comes fast and furious in Outland, trust me. Many things you can obtain in Hellfire Peninsula alone will sell quickly and for a good price at the auction house, including Netherweave Cloth, Motes of Shadow or Fire, Fel Iron Ore, Arcane Dust,Felweed, or Knothide Leather. Resist the urge to buy things, sell everything, and you'll have the money in no time.

There are two very nice level-appropriate instances in Hellfire Peninsula to help you gear up and augment your experience gains. The first of these is Hellfire Citadel: Ramparts, and the second is the Blood Furnace. Both are generally easy to find groups for, and are well worth the effort. You should notice a difference in game design here as well, as these instances are quick, straightforward, but still challenging when compared to the old-world instances you may be used to. Keep your sheep hand strong, young mageling, and your Fireballs hot.

An important thing to note about life past level 60 is that new skills become available every level, instead of every other. Level 61, for instance, brings a new rank of Fire Blast. It isn't much, I know, but it's better than the pile of nothing you got at level 51.

Level 62 allows you to upgrade Fireball and Arcane Explosion, as well as bringing you a brand new weapon to add to your arsenal: Molten Armor. This new armor spell should quickly replace all others as your DPS armor of choice. Adding a flat 3% to spell crit for offensive purposes and defensive utility in the form of fire damage to every attacker on every attack, and a lowered chance to be hit by a critical strike (and 5% is a giant amount, your resilience rating at level 70 would have to be 200 to lower your chance to be critted by 5%), this spell is very, very nice, and should serve you well from here to 70 and beyond. Mage Armor and Ice Armor will still have their uses, but this spell will likely be your mainstay from here on out.

By the time you get to level 62ish, you're probably about done with Hellfire and ready to move on to Zangarmarsh. This zone introduces you to two more good leveling instances, both located at Coilfang Reservoir: The Slave Pens and The Underbog. You can easily stay in this zone until around level 63-64.

Your up-ranked spells at level 63 are Amplify Magic, Arcane Missiles, and Frostbolt. Level 64 brings you a new rank of Flamestrike, as well as a new offensive spell: Arcane Blast. This may seem at first to be a strange spell, but used as part of a rotation, it can help an Arcane/Fire specced Mage to do immense amounts of damage. There are multiple ways to do it, but the basic strategy is this: start your rotation with an Arcane Blast, which gives you a debuff that makes the next one cost 75% more mana but have a shorter cast time. This debuff lasts 8 seconds, giving you time to sandwich in some other high-damage spells of your choice (Fireballs, Scorches, Arcane Missiles, whatever your spec calls for) before casting Arcane Blast again. If you cast it with 2 seconds or less left on the debuff, you'll get the shorter cast-time, but the mana cost debuff will expire before the spell goes off, giving you a shorter spell at the original low mana cost. Experiment with it, find the rotation that works best for you, and you may find it helps your DPS substantially, especially in long encounters.

Levels 65-70

At level 65 you should probably be well into questing in Terokkar Forest, or even Nagrand. The instances for this level range are found in Terokkar, at Auchindoun: Mana Tombs andAuchenai Crypts.

Your new spells at this level include new ranks of Cone of Cold, Conjure Water, and Scorch. You can also pick up your last portal spell at Shattrath, and forevermore create that portal at the end of every instance you run.

When you hit level 65, I'd advise taking a trip to Nagrand, even if you aren't finished with Terokkar. The reason for doing this is to find a group for a quick and dirty quest chain there called The Ring of Blood. This chain involves a 6-quest series of 5-man boss fights in an arena located in northern Nagrand. It rewards you with a ton of experience points, a lot of gold, and a hefty windfall of potions, as well as your choice of very nice weapon rewards. The Mage choice? Battle Mage's Baton. This staff will likely last you to level 70. A good group can iron this chain out in a very short amount of time, and you can't argue with the rewards it offers.

Level 66 brings an upgraded Fireball, and another new spell, this time one that should make Frost Mages very happy: Ice Lance. This spell is an instant cast, low-damage spell that does a whole lot more damage against frozen targets. It works well as a finishing move or as part of a Shatter combo, and can even be of use to Fire or Arcane Mages as an additional instant cast against a Frost-Nova-ed target, or as a low-mana spell to throw out against grounding totems in PvP.

Nagrand is the next zone to visit after Terokkar Forest. There are some fantastic quest rewards here, like the above-mentioned Battle-Mage's Baton, including but not limited to theSpell-slinger's Protector, Ogre-slayer's Cover, Earthen Mark of Power, Burning Blade Cultist Band, and Nesingwary Safari Stick. You'll need groups for a great many of the quests these items come from, but somebody's always looking for group in Nagrand.

Level 67 gives new ranks of Dampen Magic and Frost Nova. Your instance options around this level include Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad Foothills--located in Tanaris in the old world--and Auchindoun: Sethekk Halls back in Terokkar. Let me personally recommend Old Hillsbrad. It is exceptionally quick, fairly easy, and the reputation gain for the Keepers of Time is a good thing to pick up early. Plus, you get to go back in time!

At level 68 you can learn new ranks of Blizzard and Mana Shield, as well as Conjure Mana Emerald. Your new spell is an interesting one. Invisibility may seem at first to be more useful than it really is. It seems this way because it is this way. The 5 second fade-out renders it less-than-stellar for PvP, and the fact that you can't see anyone who can't see you and the 5 minute cooldown makes it difficult to use it for skipping past content the way rogues and druids can. The main function for this spell is as an aggro drop, and at that it works quite well. When under duress, you can very easily Frost Nova your assailants and run for the hills while going invisible, something that even works in instances. Since threat reduces over the course of the fade-out, this spell can even be effective as an aggro drop if interrupted before the full invisibility buff goes off. Don't expect more out of it than it can deliver, and you'll enjoy this spell. This will supposedly change in the next expansion, when the fade-out period is supposed to be shortened and can actually be talented down to an instant cast effect, but we'll see what actually makes it live.

At this point, you will probably be questing in Blade's Edge Mountains. It is in this zone that you may hit level 70, if you've been questing out each zone you've been entering. There are more than enough quests to complete here to go from level 68ish to level 70, and if you run out before reaching that plateau, you can easily finish things off in Netherstorm orShadowmoon Valley, the game's two level 70 zones. 

Level 69 grants no new spells, but provides new iterations of Amplify Magic, Arcane Missiles,Fire Ward, Frostbolt, Ice Armor, and Mage Armor.

At this point, whether you're in Blade's Edge, Netherstorm, Shadowmoon, or deep within Sethekk Halls, take a deep breath and get ready for what's to come. Once your experience bar gets to the right side of the screen one last time, you'll be level 70, and a whole new game will open up to you. Ready? Ok, go finish those last few quests and be done with experience points forever.

Level 70 changes everything. First, your new spells, the last ones available in the current version of the game. The final ranks of, Arcane Explosion, Arcane Intellect, Arcane Missiles,Fire Blast, Fireball, Frost Ward, Frostbolt, and Scorch are learnable at the Mage trainer, whileArcane Brilliance rank 2 must be learned from a tome available only as a world instance drop. If you didn't manage to scoop one up during your adventures in the various instances of Outland, you can usually obtain one from the auction house without spending too much money. The same goes for the final ranks of Conjure Food and Conjure Water. These are all must-buys, so keep an eye out for them.

Your new spells at 70 are Spellsteal and Ritual of Refreshment. Ritual of Refreshment is pretty cool. It summons a magical table from which you and everyone in your party or raid can obtain Manna Biscuits, which act like food and water in one. Put one down in a battleground and everyone will love you for it. Spellsteal, on the other hand, allows you to steal one buff from an opponent at the cost of far too much mana. The effect only lasts for 2 minutes, maximum, but some very nice things can be stolen here, and there's a lot of fun to be had with this spell. For a list of what can be stolen, visit this wiki, and check out this old Arcane Brilliance column by our own Elizabeth Wachowski and scroll down to the bottom for some ideas for using it.

There are endless things to do at 70, things like Arena combat, new instances, and massive amounts of daily quests and factions to grind reputation with. One very cool, game-changing thing that is now available to you is your flying mount. Head to Shadowmoon Valley to pick one up as soon as possible, you won't regret it. You'll need 800 gold for the training and the mount, but fortunately making money at level 70 is a cinch. The options are endless: daily quests, finish questing in Netherstorm or Shadowmoon, farm primals or Aldor/Scryer rep items...just find a money making method that you don't hate and get on it.

Check in with Arcane Brilliance's own level 70 checklist for ways to start gearing your new end-game Mage for the actual end-game, and enjoy level 70.