I am a little confused. A had a few quests in Stromgarde Keep and it was full of mid lvl 30 elites. I had to kill Lord Falconer and Otto, collect some badges, etc. I don't recall any place to buy anything.

Ignore the previous post. I have a terrible habit of not exploring all the areas on a map. I found the place and I am good to go. Thanks for the help. Much appreciated.

So I shelved my hunter for a bit and rolled up a mage this weekend. My lord are they fun! The playstyle is so much different and I can actually get instance groups without having to beg! I just hit 21 and have done wailing caverns twice now. I love doing crowd control...sheep is one of the funniest spells out there, until some jackass warlock keeps dropping dots on em! :hmm:

Havent had much chance to PvP with him yet though, any mages care to share some strategys with me?

Woohoo! the content patch with the new instance (Dire Maul) and the two new outdoor raid bosses is going live after this Tuesday maintenace (5AM to 11AM PST) hooray for new content!

oh yea ive been playing WoW since launch, lvl 58 NE Hunter on PvE server Hyjal name is Rasputiine, send me a tell in game if you have a alt on Hyjal.

Is anyone using Cosmos? If they are what's the best add-ons and why?

So, uh, I made a mistake. I created an alternate dwarf and sent him to IF so I wouldn't have to move all the way there when I wanted to use the auction house. Then I sent him a bunch of random items from my primary 39 hunter. The problem, of course, is that I sent him a bunch of items with 25-35 level requirements and he didn't receive any of them...Anyone know what I can do to retrieve these items other than bothering to level up the character that much?

Welcome to the light! Mages are fun indeed and an extremely powerful PvP class when played right. If played poorly you'll get murdered so fast you won't know what hit you. The most popular mage build on my server seems to be 31 fire/20 arcane or 31 arcane/20 fire. The point of these two builds is to frontload as much damage as possible, i.e. sheep the target and cast combustion or arcane power followed by pyroblast/fireball depending on your build and then some instant cast spells.

This is usually a good tactic since most targets will panic and do something stupid after that first beating. However, more experienced pvp'ers know that this is what a mage is likely to do and won't panic. Any healing class for example can heal up and then go to work on you. This is where counterspell comes in handy. These two builds are nice but you'll be a kind of one-trick pony that if you don't do enough damage after that first round, you're most likely screwed.

I like a more versatile scorch build that is becoming more and more popular due to Otherguy on Ilidan who posted some very impressive PvP movies. This guy is very very good at playing a mage and most people think if I can copy his build I'll be just as good which isn't true. His movement, camera control and knowing how to play against other classes is what makes him good.

Check out his movies here: http://www.warcraftmovies.com/viewauthor.php?id=180

His build is either 30 fire/21 Arc or 28 Arc/23 Fire. Personally I'm using the latter, 28 Arc/23 Fire, but it's personal preference. I like the burst damage I can get off Arcane Instability over the constant 10% damage increase in Fire Power.

This build is based on kiting and not frontloading a ton of damage. If you can move well, you'll do very well. If you stand still, you're dead. But basically you'll be relying on scorch and fireblast for most of the battle only using presence of mind -> fireball as a finisher.

Hope this helps a bit!

--jaded

EDIT: I can't comment on frost/ice builds for PvP since they are few and far between from what I've seen. Maybe they are good I don't know.

Your alt. character should still recieve the items even if he can't use them. I'd file a ticket with a GM and hope for a fast response. Or the mail system may just have been lagged. Keep in mind that it takes up to an hour before he will receive any item. Mailing cash, on the other hand, is instant.

Hope you get it worked out.

--jaded

Yeah best thing about Dire Maul. Going to kill yer same realm mates. IE : Horde for me. Currently on Stormreaver PvP and most of the horde are crying carebears..

If anyone is on the server send a tell. I am Cardinal.

Hopeing to get my hands on some new loots. I play a mage and need some newer cloth. And my damn brightwood just wont drop for me!

A combination of Fire and Arcane talents is the best overall like Jaded said. You can do some utterly amazing damage and stuns with 28 Fire, but some parts of Arcane shouldn't be missed because of their handiness in groups.

I agree with Jaded though -- Mages will die faster than any other class if you don't know what you're doing. I've beat mages two or three levels higher than me on my WARRIOR...it's all about the player behind the character. If a warrior or rogue EVER gets close to the mage then it's game over. My warrior specializes in group PVP...in other words, the more players I'm up against, the more powerful I get. If I can get within hitting range of a mage then I can usually take them down if they don't have potions. I few of those 1000+ crits will drop their HP bar pretty fast. :)

-Lasereth

Yeah, turns out I was just impatient. When I logged in this morning, it was all there. The reason I freaked out was because I sent him some gold at the same time that I sent the items, and the gold arrived, but the items didn't, so I thought they'd just gotten lost in the ether of the mail systems. Thanks.

Best mage build is 31 Arcane/20 Fire. Listen to this and listen to it closely:


Instant Arcane Explosion combined with a good healer turns any "instance" intio a "nuisance."

Sunken Temple with a 52-60 mage is a fucking joke with Instant Arcane Explosion. A MUST-HAVE no matter what build you do :)


Cosmos reports my Damage Per Second to be around 1500-2500 when I do Instant Arcane Explosion in Sunken Temple. It's incredible.

It's a very solid build no doubt and most mages will have instant arcane explosion. The 31 arc/20 fire build isn't called cookie-cutter mage build for nothing ;)

You can get instant arcane explosion w/o putting 31 points into Arc though. I have it in my 28 arc/23 fire build for example but I feel more versatile in PvP. 31 arc/20 fire isn't the best build, I don't think there is a best build out there. It all depends on your style of play. Frost/Arc mages are much more useful in later instances since mobs tend to have high resists against fire if they are not immune.

--jaded

Thanks for the tips guys. Im gonna stick with the mage for a while now, the arcane/fire build is what I am going with right now since it seems the best for grinding. I can tear through mobs a lot faster than I thought I would be able to, not as fast as my hunter but still very respectable.

Got to do some PvP last night and had a blast...literally. I came up over a crest in the barrens and ran into about 30 or so Alliance on their way to crossroads...needless to say I was steamrolled, I did get a fire blast off though, this troll is going out fighting! :thumbsup:

I was using cosmos but now use Ultimate UI which is cosmos with a lot of options and add-ons pre loaded. Fairly easy to configure and I love the gathering mod..Now I can beat those pally's to the ore!! Check it out Cyn, I reccomend it if you like cosmos.

I would just add two things: 1)Its not exactly "instant" arcane explosions there is a minimal cooldown. 2) I would go into Arcane as far as to get your Clearcasting abilities to full. You spam your Scorch until you get a CC then blast them with Arcane Missles (coupled with Ignite there can some serious damage done).

Instant Arcane Explosion means the casting time is instant, not that the cooldown is instant. :)

-Lasereth

I have a frost mage, 36frost/15 arcane, and usually win in pvp. I do have clearcasting, and instant ae which helps in groups, but since I hit 60 I was thinking about experimenting in different specs because frost helped me most in soloing, but not sure how it will affect me in raid instances etc.

You are right, of course, in that Instnat means instant cast. I don't know what I was thinking. Disregard my post. Listen and abide by what Lasereth has to say.

well i respec yesterday to ice/arcane at lvl 54 human mage. after playing fire/arc. I have half the down time. no agro in groups hardly at all and i have 61%-88% health after a battle using no pots or frist aid.

now granted the killing is slow over the burst dmg of a fire mage, but ice barrier i can open that chest while stuff pounds on me.. or nuke a ton of stuff , the ice berg spell.. cant do phy attacks, cast spells or move.. but i can drink a pot or frist aid and keep it going after that.

cold snap the bomb to me, i miss combustion but this puppy. i shine. in pvp i laugh at most peps on lothar. instant cool down on all frost spells.

copulated with 5 imp arc miss, 5 for clear casting and 5 for imp arc exp it will own. currently im 5 imp arc miss and 2 in the talent for clearcasting. the clearcasting is the winner for me.. % for a free mana cost spell is pwnage.

now with my frost spells, nothing flys away from me or the group. attack speeds and movement are slowed longer. frost nova heh.. i get a better frost nova type proc that hits them that ups my dmg . i lose a bit o range over fireball and pryoblast, but with frostbolt and arc miss my agro is greatly lowered.

oh and sunken temple is nice for fire but in BRD and higher good luck with those fire spells vs. the fire elemental types. only thing that sucked about being a fire mage for so long hahaha.

btw i look like a borg now got my blue eyepeice this past weekend off a boss in lower brd hehe.

i wanted to go frost from the start. but everyone complained about thier downtime. now on bonechewer i started a frost/arc build ud mage. guess what i still have less down time than a fire mage. now that they fixed arc miss channeling ill pwn even more.

cosmos is by far a popular mod but we found a better one to use lately

http://curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=297

I'm also going the Frost/Arcane route; so far I'm 24 Frost/18 Arcane as I've found Imp. CS a must have talent and I can't imagine living without it. I was arcane/fire leveling up, but the survivability and control of frost is more important to me than the burst damage of fire. I'm on a PvE server and not really interested in PvP until Battlegrounds so keep that in mind :)

Hooray for patch day! Been trying all day and have not been able to log in...

Had the patch downloaded since 6:30, haven't been able to log in since. Oh well...

patch has caused so many problems its rediculous. they are not very good with testing stuff.

new UI stuff messed up my display, made playing the game impossible. posted about it already in the forums, they have no clue what the deal is.


though the new area, dire maul, looks neat, i admit.

Love their new UI. Althou i will add a ton to it. The base setup is great.

Got to diremaul. Ran into crap load of alliance and had a huge PvP fest outside the instance portals. That was fun for abit. Then we got all of our 5 member group toghether and entered, We got maybe a quarter of the way through and the instance crashed. MANY TIMES OVER! So needless to say i am lvling another charavter on a different server.

Dire Maul is awesome so far. I really enjoyed Maraudon and the right wing of Dire Maul is basically Maraudon on steroids. Very, very interesting layout of the dungeon. We got to the VERY end of it, and the server crashed. Lots of horde outside the instance. The new UI is fucking awesome too. Never using Cosmos again.

I hate the new UI, I absolutely hate it. I want my old Cosmos to work again. I should have the option not to use their new interface. I hate the auto hide of empty slots, I hate that I have to open my spellbook to move something from my backpack from my actionbar(s) (so the empty slots appear), I hate the fact that I can't change things back. This my sound petty and overly rash but this might be a deal breaker. I finally got on my server and had to stop out of rage and frustration. /rant over

Sorry you're hating the new UI so much, Mahler. I dropped Cosmos immediately in favor of it. I aggree that it's a little annoying to have to open the spellbook to make the empty slots appear, but other than that, I think it's just what I wanted.

On a side note, I finally hit level 40 last night...with 85 gold. Oh the horrors! I can make up the difference farming later tonight and then sweet sweet mount.

I counted at least 6 server crashes since the patch... ugh.

Well I would post up some screen shots but I can't attach pics so I guess later!

The new patch has completely screwed up cosmos...I can't even open my backpacks. I deleted and re-downloaded, to no avail. NOT COOL.

that's happened each time they have made a new patch...

and the cosmos guys have to repatch it.

Why would anyone still be using Cosmos after the patch? That piece of buggy crap is worthless now that the WoW UI has extra buttons and timers and features that Cosmos was making up for. I'm loving the new UI. I got to 52 earlier today too!

-Lasereth

Mine patch works fine....but I have been disconnected twice!

Quest Minion, Self-cast, auto-shout for low health, alarm clock, etc.

Well, so maybe this wasn't my best idea ever, since I have equipment only befitting of a level 25 hunter and the skills of one who is level 30, but I finally got my mount. I'm so pleased.

Now if I could only figure out how to upload a picture to here, I'd show him off.

I wish i still had cosmos, I was used to the button layout. I miss AltSelfCast, Quickloot, Mapnotes, Map coords, Reagenthelper, Quest lvl numbers, and INSTANT QUEST DIALOG!!

new patch has a quest minion included
you can get less bulky UI for some of the other stuffs

I ain't playing again until they fix it...Maybe I won't play ever again if my new game I'm getting is any good. And a friend is going to give me his Neverwinter Nights. So, this maybe goodbye, sweet WoW...

Anyone know of anywhere I could find addons for map coordinates, quickloot, quest lvl numbers and instant quest dialogue that wouldn't require me to get a full set like Cosmos? Those are the only parts of it that I cared much about. The rest was far more than I wanted or cared about for the number of problems it gave me.

If you want to fix your cosmos here's what you do:

Run the cosmos.exe file (usually located in your folder where you installed WoW)
Go into "Configure"
Select which distribution you want (Alpha is working)
Check the Complete file check box
Download

This should fix your cosmos.

To choose which addons you want:

On your select character screen there's a a button in the lower left corner labeled "Addons". Click this. This will bring up your list of addons. Select which ones you want to use and deselect those you don't want to use.

I currently still run a few of the cosmos addons in combination with the new UI. Works like a charm. Self-cast, clock, look-lock are musts in my opinion.

Hope this helps!

--jaded