I know there are still some players who are concerned about their Mage leveling and farming. So in this guide, I want to bring you my 10 tips and tricks that will help your Mage become better at AOE farming in WoW Classic Season of Discovery. So if you are ready, let's get straight to these tips without wasting any time!

1. Jumping To Increase AOE Distance

For those that don’t know, AOE that comes from player models can have their range increased by jumping when they cast the spell. We used to jump to maximize the distance so that sappers would go. This works well with all AOE that come from the player. I will use Arcane Explosion, and it does not hit the mob. Neither of us moves, but when I jump in the air, my Arcane Explosion gets a little extra distance. A lot of the time when I am Arcane Explosion spamming, I will be jumping to make sure I am hitting every mob in my range.

2. Avoiding Daze

Daze is a pretty annoying mechanic. It reduces your move speed by 50%, and if you are unlucky, you can get chain dazed and die. You have 2 options to bypass this mechanic, both of them pretty cool. When a mob strikes your back, there's a possibility of experiencing Daze. You can avoid daze easily by making sure you turn and face the mobs as they are hitting you. Another way to avoid daze is by shield effects. You are unable to be dazed when you have a shield buff applied. This includes Power Word: Shield, Mana Shield, and Ice Barrier.

Quick note: You can only be dazed by melee attacks, not ranged attacks. Using Mana Shield and Ice Barrier, as well as facing mobs, will be key to future farms in avoiding daze.

3. Leeway

Leeway is in the game for lag and melee attacking. It’s a latency system that buffers melee combat to allow people to hit targets a little further than you normally would in case there is weird lag going on. Melee swings can cover a much larger distance with leeway attacks.

When someone in combat is strafing or jumping, melee range is increased by a lot. This happens for enemy mobs too. If you are strafing or jumping, they will benefit from leeway. This is a trick we see used a lot currently in Wailing Caverns. You can avoid a lot of melee damage taken when abusing leeway correctly, such as backpedaling while kiting.

4. Ice Block Mob Stacking

Ice Block is used for more than just saving your life. It is very important for getting a lot of mobs stacked in one spot. When you Ice Block, all ranged mobs will stop using their ranged attacks. When you’re in an Ice Block, all ranged mobs will run to your position and start auto-attacking your Ice Block. There are a lot of farms where you can not line of sight and get ranged mobs closer to you.

You will see Mages constantly using Ice Block to get numerous units stacked for an easy kill. When you leave an Ice Block, never jump, as this will cause you to take a lot more damage from melee attacks. If you just hold forward out of the Ice Block and spam Nova, you’ll be able to avoid a lot of instant damage coming out of the Ice Block.

5. World Buffs & Movement Speed

The World Buff from BFD is pretty massive, and the main reason for this is 20% move speed. In WoW Classic, the only way to get this kind of buff was from The Zanza elixir. This buff was massive for basically every dungeon farm in the game. The 20% move speed allows you to easily outpace mobs with Blink and avoid huge amounts of damage. While the other buffs from Boon of Blackfathom are also incredible. But it is not a good idea if you are farming without 20% move speed.

6. Engineering

Engineers get access to a lot of cool toys and effects that can assist in farming, but the main reason you want it is for Grenades, Sappers, and Dynamite. Even for just Phase 1. Let’s talk about the the Heavy Dynamite. Heavy Dynamite does 128 to 172 damage. Arcane Explosion Rank 2 does 58 to 65 and costs 120 Mana. So, on average, one Dynamite is worth 2 to 3 explosions of damage and Mana.

Being able to kill all the mobs before they can run away very smoothly. As we get further into Season of Discovery, our pulls will become much longer and more intense on our Mana. Dynamite, having a 60-second cooldown, will allow you to get multiple casts off in the longer pulls. It’s very important. I couldn't recommend Engineering more.

7. Spell Power

This may seem like an obvious one, but I want to emphasize the scaling of spell power with Living Bomb. The kill phase is way cleaner, and I have plenty of Mana left over for Arcane Explosion. Living Bomb scaling with spell damage is amazing. I recommend prioritizing it wherever you can. Phoenix Bindings, Phoenix Gloves, Invoker's Mantle, and Invoker's Cord are all really cheap and easy spell damage options you can pick up off the auction house by your SOD Gold.

8. How To Face Tank AOE

The first playstyle I want to go over is face tanking, which I use a lot in open-world farms or versus mobs that are lower level than me, such as Deadmines. The key interaction here for face tank farming is Living Flame and Regeneration. Living Flame does spell fire damage, which counts as Arcane damage for the healing from Regeneration. The amount of healing you receive will keep you alive versus some pretty insane damage.

Before casting Living Flame, make sure you have Temporal Beacon on yourself. I like to get 4 to 5 Living Bombs out, then Living Flame. Then you just spam Arcane Explosion until all the mobs die. Add on the extra healing you receive from the Arcane Explosion spam, and it’s pretty incredible what you can live through.

9. How To Dungeon Blizzard AOE

This is the playstyle I expect to be dominant, from now on into Season of Discovery, so I recommend learning it now. Blizzard will be amazing for massive pulls where you can’t handle the incoming damage from Elites slapping you. You can play this style with or without Regeneration. If you aren't running Regeneration, I recommend Fingers of Frost.

In Phase 2, we will have 5 points in Shatter for 50% increased crit chance. It will be pretty amazing. What you want to do for this style is grab as many mobs as you can and then get to your kite spot. You will then start throwing out 6 to 8 Living Bombs, Living Flame, and then begin to Blizzard kite. By using Living Flame after the Living Bombs are out. Make sure the Blizzard keeps all the mobs tightly stacked in the Living Flame for maximum damage. Add on the Living Bomb crits from Fingers of Frost, and you speed up the kill so much. Come Phase 2 with all the extra mana and talents we will have. This style will be king for a lot of the content.

10. WeakAuras & Addons

There are a few addons I couldn’t recommend more for Mage farming, and the most important one is called WeakAuras. This addon lets you create custom code that will track certain things for you in-game. I highly recommend Plater. It makes it way easier to see what HP the mobs are at and who is missing Living Bomb. I also use Nova Instant Tracker to track my dungeon lockouts, how many mobs I’ve killed, as well as the XP and gold gained during those runs. There are a lot of WeakAuras out there that can track your uptime on buffs and other things. Make sure to customize this to your liking.

That’s my list. I hope you found these tips and tricks helpful. There’s a lot going on with Mage farming, and it can be pretty overwhelming if you dive straight into it with big massive pulls. Start small, learn small pulls first, and then work your way up to the big challenges. We Mages are kings of farming, and you can become one too.