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Hello, I have a close friend that also plays wow. So I made a character on his realm, An undead mage. My main is a disc priest and I'm having some trouble adjusting. I was looking for some advice on leveling a mage, I was hoping to do so through pvp mostly as its a pvp realm. I've chosen to level frost with herbing, and alchemy. So I would be happy with any words of wisdom.:)
If you aim for a painless levelling, I would tend to say: get to level 15, run instances until you're 30, go to Dustwallow marsh because it is such a mine of easy quests, clean the zone while queuing for instances. Queue instances non stop until level 58, because 40 to 58 is more of a pain than anything else.
At 58 go to hellfire peninsula and quest your staff off while being queued for dungeons all the time. At 68 move to Northrend, preferably Fjord, while, guess what? Queuing dungeons. :]
I would say go to tanaris to level once you get in the forties then hit ungoro around 48-50. those two areas are pretty easy.
He should have recruit a friended you...
If your Battle Ground group is strong, Queuing BG's can net you a lot of XP as well. AV weekends can give you a huge XP boost if your side wins. The down side to using BGs and Dungeons to level is that your tradeskills will lag behind, since you are not out running around the world picking herbs etc. But you can always go back to max those out after you are 80. In a few weeks when Cataclysm hits you will be able to fly to speed that up even more.
Practice your kiting and crowd control skills. One of the good things about mages (and other AOE classes) is you can find those Kill X of Y quests and then gather up a big group of Y and AOE them down. Of course, there's always one or two of the scamps who managed to break away and they will gobble you up if you can't successfully fend them off.
A quick bit of advice that I can offer is for you to switch from frost to arcane, especially if you have a friend questing/LFG instancing with you. If you want to remain frost that is completely fine (it is your toon afterall) I simply feel that arcane offers a quicker and much more satisfying leveling experience. Now, with the new patch, you instantly get the spell arcane barrage which is a huge bonus in leveling. It is an instant cast spell with a 4 sec cd and does quite a bit of damage. With full talent points spent in the clearcasting talent which is a 1ST TIER TALENT this ensures that your fireblast (normally a last second OMG button because of its mana cost) becomes mana free and can be used in a pinch with no cons and provides a nice bit of burst dps. Not to mention you now get arcane blast at level 20 which is the tree's primary nuke. IMO arcane offers a very fun, very exciting, and very fast leveling experience and is very mana conservative if plated right. Fire is experimental at the moment as it has been revamped and frost is still a viable levling spec if thats what you really want to play. If following the above suggestions by leveling through LFG system then the survivabilty of frost is unneeded and arcane would offer more benefits in a group situation. These are just my personal views on leveling a mage come Cata and in no way are the "correct" or only way to level a mage. The important part is to have fun rolling out those massive numbers and watching mobs get roflfacerolled b4 they even touch you.
Arcane is an amazing way to go for mage. I love it. I've been arcane since i started. Its got great burst damage and really good for mana. I hardly ever run out when im in dungeons or soloing. Just do the rotation of arcane blast, arcane burst and when arcane missles comes pops use it. Barely ever drop below half mana. In dungeons i always out dps everyone. Arcane mage is single target dpsing and I out damage people with AOEs in big groups. The only time I drop below half mana is when Im on a boss and want to blow my CDs and out damage everyone else by double. Also in the Arcane spec you can set a talent point to where slow is inflicted on the enemy when you hit them with arcane spells. So they rarely even get close to you.