Talent Progression GuideFollow

I wanted to get fancy and color-code the spell names for easier identification as frost or fire, but it seems that the interpreter adds a newline when I close and re-open the pre-formatted block. That table more as it should appear:

 
lvl   spell  t (w/ Imp FrB)  mana   dmg        d/t   d/m 
12    Fi 3   2.5             65     66        26.4   1.02 
14    Fr 3   1.7             50     54        31.8   1.08 
18    Fi 4   3               95    100+4.5    34.8   1.1 
20    Fr 4   2.1             65     78        37.1   1.2 
24    Fi 5   3.5            140    163+8.75   49.1   1.23 
26    Fr 5   2.5            100    132        52.8   1.32 
30    Fi 6   3.5            185    232+12.25  69.8   1.32 
32    Fr 6   2.5            130    182        72.8   1.4 
36    Fi 7   3.5            220    295+14     88.3   1.40 
38    Fr 7   2.5            160    237        94.8   1.48 

Bump, and some thoughts (sorry Spika, this is not much of a response to your question, I'll have to defer to those with experience for something substantive on that)....

As GoedelOnNathrezim's post suggests, the damage tradeoff in general terms between heavy fire and frost builds is not as great as you might think, and in circumstances, frost gives better DPS. On the other hand, my belief is that the tradeoff in survivability talents (esp. PVE) is quite significant - as Spika and others have indicated, frost is usually better on that note (thought both have access to blink, frostnova, etc obviously). Personally, I'd have a hard time going back to heavy fire and give up Ice block, ice barrier, cold snap, the chill and frost effects, and the various improvements for frost nova and other key spells.

True, for raiding your DPS will be greatly lowered because of the immunity to frostbite/freeze effects; but keep in mind that, in general, you'll encounter more fire-resistant than frost-resistant mobs and bosses (esp. in the 'old' content, though maybe less so now). Also, as pointed out, frost tends to be more mana efficient, which is good for soloing and raiding. One last general observation - fire tends to give better burst damage (eg, pyro), which actually is a bad thing in most raid situations (except when you're trying to finish a boss off and don't care too much about aggro). Certainly, some fire mages argue that fire-based raiding is more challenging, and therefore requires more 'skill' to play. But that supports my point - in general, fire offers less survivability, and is more challenging.

That said, I've played both heavy frost and heavy fire builds, and heavy fire is undeniably a lot of fun. And it all depends on your play style - no one can tell you that only fire or only frost is viable for raiding or anything else. Fire does give you more of that 'heavy DPS' feel that most associate with the mage class.

Spika - I've never played arcane-heavy builds, so I'd defer to someone who knows what they're talking about, but my sense was that deep arcane builds (and "3-minute mage" arcane/fire builds) were PVP builds. Not to suggest that some arcane talents aren't great for raiding and solo PVE (like arcane concentration), but overall the sense I get is that in PVE you'd get more out of shifting those points to fire or frost. But hey, it depends on playstyle I suppose. I personally don't rely much on arcane missiles, arcane explosion, arcane blast, or most other arcane combat spells (except for poly, of course) when fighting mobs.

Presence of Mind is too deep in the Arcane tree. In order to get Presence of Mind, you will need to invest 20 points into Arcane, plus 1 more point for PoM.

While the Arcane tree offers good talents for PvE (Arcane Subtlety, Arcane Concentration, Arcane Meditation), they are more useful in group instances and raids than for solo grinding. For a pure grinding build, the 21 talent points are much better used in the Fire tree to boost your single target dps.

Presence of Mind will only give you 1 instant cast Pyroblast (assumed best spell to pair with PoM) every 3 minutes. This is not worth the 21 point investment in my opinion. Moreover, you will be able to open up each fight from max range with a normal casted Pyroblast anyway.

The build you linked is Arcane/Fire. Maybe you linked the wrong build?

For PvE, it is hard to go without at least 10 points in Arcane for clearcasting. Most will go with 18 points to get Arcane Meditation for the mana regeneration. It is feasible to go without Arcane. I'd imagine it would require a good amount of mana/5sec gear to help your mana efficiency so that you don't have to sit and drink all the time.

As for PvP, most top arena mages I've seen on Armory (armory.worldofwarcraft.com) are using 40/0/21 Arcane Frost or some variant of a deep frost build (x/0/40+)

Frost/Fire doesn't make much sense as you won't benefit a lot from the fire talents. You won't have Presence of Mind for 3 minute Pyroblast goodness. You won't have the deeper fire talents to boost your fire spells. You won't benefit from Impact because your primary spells are frost. Same goes for Incinerate. You'll have a shorter Fire Blast cooldown and Blast Wave. That's about it. You'd likely be better off with Frost/Arcane.

Fire/Frost also doesn't make much sense for similar reasons. Plus, the 21 points to get Presence of Mind in Arcane is very tempting for a deep fire mage. Of course, at 21 point Frost you can get Ice Block. So maybe a Fire/Frost build would be the best way to go for PvP.

Ditto

from your own experience, which is better for leveling? is it better to go with the solo targeting method or the AoE method? they both sound good to me, i just can't make a decision.

Great help, thanks.

I posted in this thread before, and I've got some new questions. My current build is: [link=http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/mage/talents.html?0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000505023010004000000000] at level 29.

My first question is, at level 32 if I was to respec to one of the suggested Frost AoE, would questing even be viable? Quests are more fun, less boring and you get rewards, but leveling quickly could be beneficial as well.

Also, since I'm a tailor I've been trying to pimp out as much + frost dmg gear as I can and I currently have +45 frost damage, with more to come at level 31 with a cape a guildie found, and more from the azure shoulders once I get my tailoring to level 190(it's currently at 162). I saw a few people say that it's better to get +int and +sta gear for Frost AoE than to go for + Frost dmg. Is this the case even if you have a lot of + frost dmg gear?

And of course I'd like to know whether my build is decent. :-)

I don't see how the suggested Frost AoE Spec would make questing any less viable. If you want to quest, the talent build will not hamper you in any significant manner.



You will see little benefit from +spell damage gear in Frost AoE grinding because the spells you will be using are all AoE; meaning they only benefit from 1/3 of your +spell damage. IIRC, spells like Cone of Cold that have an added effect (slowing) further get another +spell damage penalty. Not sure if this applies to Improved Blizzard since it gains a Chill effect.

A bigger health and mana pool will help you to survive when things go wrong, and make things easier when things go right.



Well, since I wrote this progression guide, you already know what I feel are good specs so no need for me to comment I suppose :)

Edited, May 14th 2007 5:45pm by echou

You'll find that it'll speed up some quests to switch from a single target focused build to a an AoE build, but it may also result in others(the ones you can't AoE) being slower.

Simple rule of thumb:

Look at the talent tree. If it has Improved Fireball, you want to use fireball. If not, then it's a scorch/fireblast build.

/bump