5 Ways to Occupy Yourself Before Wrath, Frost Style

Thursday, right? Is that when it comes out? It's practically sitting behind me in class, teasing me and making me cry, bringing back horrid childhood memories of preschool, kindergarten and the like. And I will be the first to admit that NaNo has minimized the pre-wrath jitters and anxiety. But they're still there, so what I have now is both NaNo and Wrath Anxiety. (On a side note, I'm still writing for the Scarlet Dawn, but it just so happens that these extras are out of sequence, and I don't want to post them in that manner. Not yet, at least.)

So to deal with the compounded nature of both "deadlines," I'm compiling a tiny list to remind myself of my wrath specific goals, while at the same time find time to chunk up a few thousand words a day to catch up with the pace. Oh, I'm unemployed right now, but that's a post waiting for another day. So here you go, Cryomaniacs, have some fun.

1. Solo Dungeons

Even if it means certain death. Start small, but work your way up to bigger things. I'm talking dungeons and elites. Go to deadmines and the stockades, pull the entire room, and kill them without casting a single spell other than Molten Armor. When you're done that, stealth your way to each boss in Scarlet Monastery with proper uses of blink through patrols.

And when you're done that, solo the stairs event in Zul'Farrak. Free the Prisoners, and Slow Fall all the way down to the bottom steps and proceed to Blizzard everything in your way.

Heck, Solo Stratholme if you think you're adequately geared. Some timely Blinks and stealthy sneaking through mobs can potentially earn you your very own mount. Spicytuna has a great guide for that sort of thing. If you get the mount, go visit his site and thank him! Or rub it in, whatever, just tell him I sent ya there!

There's probably some old-world dungeon achievements that you've yet to complete. Might as well do them yourself, rather than helplessly look for others.

2. Solo Elites

Same thing as dungeons, except with elite mobs that roam around Azeroth and perhaps Outland. Go to WoWhead. Look up every single elite mob that exists, and see if it can be chilled or snared. General rule of thumb. If they can do either or both, they are killable by a Frost Mage. Start with hogger, then work your way up to those Scourge Shadow of Doom guys. Trust me, I've brought one down to 25% before the other mobs started respawning and killed me.

Simple rules for fighting elites.
- If they can't be chilled, DON'T DO IT.
- Talent yourself to maximize chill effects. Get Frostbite.
- Pop Water Elemental AFTER your first Frost Nova. Get distance, pop the ranged Nova as soon as he breaks free.
- Shatter Combo at EVERY opportunity.
- Save Brain Freeze Procs for when you're on the move.
- Pop cooldowns as soon as you can. Get your Water Elemental Back ASAP.
- NEVER Blink after a Frost Nova. Simply run/strafe away. Use blink while they're chilled for essentially the same effect, and it spreads out your kiting cooldowns (Nova/Blink)
- Plan out a kiting route ahead of time. Don't pull any extra mobs. Be aware of the Elite's maximum kiting distance (before it resets and runs back home)

3. AoE Your Way into Northrend

If you're not yet 70, there's nothing wrong with taking your time before the big expansion comes. Take the road less travelled. Go to Hellfire Peninsula and learn to AoE grind on vultures in the Valley of Bones, or just south of the Temple of Thalmat. When you're a little bit higher in level, go to Netherstorm, and take out some guys at the Junk Heap, just south of Area 52. You get some nice rep turn-in items in the process.

If you're pretty well geared as a 70 as it is, look for some interesting ways to flex your AoE-peen. For starters, on your last Kara run before the expansion, ask your raid to let you solo the non-elite trash pulls. They're grouped up in a circle that perfectly fits the ranged nova perfectly for a reason.

Or do some scourge fighting! Go look for an invasion spot that's uninhabited by players, and AoE a few of them at a time. They're melee for the most part, but they do have a ranged slow attack that deals a lot of damage when they all do it at the same time. With sufficient spellpower and HP, you probably don't have to Nova the second time anyways.

The necrotic runes are so easy to farm with a frost mage, second only to perhaps T6 prot pallies. If you're an enchanter, you can buy epics from the vendor with those runes, and DE them into Void Crystals.

4. Read up on Frost Death Knights

If you're a die-hard cryophile like me, either these guys will become your best friends, or you'll simply roll one when the expansion comes. So do yourself a favor, and go look up information about Frost Knights, and have yourself drool at the promise of some good times playing (with) one.

5. Level a Druid

Apparently, mages have a thing for druid alts, or associating with druids. Heck, even some Druids have a thing for mage alts as well, or are former mage mains themselves. With good reason, too. As a DPS spec, it's only natural that one would try out the different roles. Resto healing is perhaps the most fun thing to do when you get to a certain level. Hell, pewpewing with the chickenform is very gratifying as an alternate style of DPS. I have no qualms against bear tanking either. I've done it a few times, and currently am doing so with leyola as she ferlols her way to 70 before the patch hits. She's 66 right now, and taking up pretty much all of my time.

Okay, fine, it doesn't have to be a druid. But level something, because that's what Frost Mages excell at, and feeling the rush all over again can tide you over before Yarrrthas sticks his nose into our business.

Final Thoughts

It's coming soon. I'm excited, yes, but with all the fun I've been having lately, I wouldn't mind if it didn't come as soon as it is.