It is not uncommon to see threads in this forum requesting advice on talent builds. And it is often the case that new mages are unsure as to which talents are "worth" grabbing. To the new mage, it is often the case that the scope of their experience with the class does not allow them to confidently decide which talents will actually help them "in the long run". It is my hope that this thread will help them in making more educated talent choices.
Please note that this is not a thread about talent builds, but a thread discussing the strengths, weaknesses, and possible synergy of each talent at every tier of the Arcane, Fire, and Frost trees.
If you are looking for talent builds, I have previously written a Talent Progression Guide discussing various types of builds and the order in which to get the talents. er
I have endeavored to make this guide as straightforward and accurate as I can. Please help me make it better by offering constructive criticism and pointing out any mistakes I may have made. Thank you all, and I hope that this will help those who take the time to read it. If you have found this thread helpful, I kindly ask that you post a reply to "bump" it so that it will not get buried.
UPDATED (Mar 24, 2007): Added Fire tree talents
UPDATED (Mar 26, 2007): Added comments on Clearcasting Empowered Arcane Missiles
UPDATED (Mar 27, 2007): Added Frost tree talents. Corrected "Incineration" to "Incinerate" in the Fire tree.
UPDATED (Apr 02, 2007): Added comments regarding spell damage coefficient penalty for each rank of Improved Fireball and Improved Frostbolt.
UPDATED (Apr 03, 2007): Noted Blastwave's daze effect. Added comments regarding Winter's Chill and lowered player cap on TBC raid content, and using the debuff in PvP.
Edited, Apr 3rd 2007 10:22am by echou
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- Guide: Mage Talents Discussed
Guide: Mage Talents DiscussedFollow
Arcane Tree
Tier 1:
Arcane Subtlety
In my opinion, the most useful out of the 3 tier 1 Arcane talents. Lowering your enemy's resistance to all your spells is good in any situation, and is considered very useful in end-game because the monsters will be level 70+
Arcane Focus
Lowering an opponent's resistance to only your Arcane spells is a bit narrow in practice. However, it does help your counterspell land at a crucial moment in battle. Moreover, with the addition of Arcane Blast, mages now have an additional Arcane damage spell that will benefit from the lowered Arcane resistance. The spell's casting time decreases with each subsequent cast but the mana cost increases. I have read that after the second or third casting, it is no longer mana efficient.
Improved Arcane Missiles
Improved Arcane Missiles has its moments but they are few and far in between. Arcane Missiles sees very little use, even from mages spec'd deep into the Arcane tree. For Arcane/X or X/Arcane builds, Fire or Frost spells are better in most cases due to the synergy with the other talents in those respective trees which can be had very early in the tree (e.g. Ignite or Frost Bite). In comparison, the only talent that synergizes with Arcane Missiles exclusively is Empowered Arcane Missiles which is located in the 7th tier of Arcane talents requiring 30 points invested in Arcane. Moreover, while the talent increases the bonus from spell damage gear substantially, it further increases the main reason why Arcane Missiles isn't used more often in the first place... mana efficiency. The talent increases the mana cost of an already mana inefficient spell.
Many mages will use Arcane Missiles when they proc Clearcasting, thus negating the spell's mana inefficiency. Mages who go deep into the Arcane tree can further take advantage of the free cast by getting the Empowered Arcane Missiles and Arcane Potency talents (discussed further down). Thus boosting the spell damage received by Arcane Missiles by 45% and its spell critical chance by 30%, making it an extremely powerful and free spell.
If you took 2/2 Arcane Subtlety, you only need 3 more points to open the second tier of Arcane talents. This is another reason why you may not want to choose Improved Arcane Missiles; because it needs the full 5 points to be fully uninterruptable. Anything less is really a waste.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
2/2 Arcane Subtlety
3/5 Arcane Focus
Tier 2:
Wand Specialization
Most mages view this as one of the worst talents in the Arcane tree. A mage should not have to resort to his/her wand to deal damage. Wands can be used in the event that the mage is out of mana, but these cases should be very few (if any). In order to conserve mana, one can also use his/her wand to finish off a monster that has only a sliver of health left instead of casting a spell which would be overkill. Regardless, Wand Specialization is not a good investment of talent points due to low usage of wands by mages in actual play.
Magic Absorption
Resistances come into play mainly in end-game encounters where certain schools of damage are prevalent. Certain raid encounters often require players to swap out their usual equipment for items that have high +resistance to a certain school of damage. Various potions, abilities, and spells are also used to further increase resistances.
Magic Absorption increases a mage's resistance to all schools of damage by 10. This is not a substantial amount of resistance but it helps. The refund of mana on resisted spells is a nice bonus. By all means, not a bad talent, but dwarfed by the next talent to be discussed in the second tier of the Arcane tree...
Arcane Concentration
Clearly the best out of the three tier 2 Arcane talents. At full points, a mage has a 10% chance to get a free spell cast. This is useful in any situation, but especially shines in long encounters; allowing mages to stretch their mana pool even further. The addition of the Arcane Potency talent (discussed further down) which has a prerequisite of 5/5 Arcane Concentration, gives even more reason to put full points into an already very good talent.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
5/5 Arcane Concentration
Tier 3:
Magic Attunement
Some mages never use Amplify/Dampen Magic while others swear by them. These two spells are one of the more overlooked mage spells as they are only beneficial in certain situations.
For example, buffing each party member with Amplify Magic will boost the healing they receive. However, it will also increase the magic damage taken. For encounters that have no magic damage whatsoever, Amplify Magic is clearly a good choice. In practice, you will often find it is required to toggle the buff off for some encounters and then recast once that particular fight is over. Most people find this too much of a hassle for a relatively small benefit so this spell is often not used.
Dampen Magic, of course, has the opposite effect. It decreases the amount of magic damage received but also decreases healing received. In certain cases where you do not expect to get healed, say a pickup group for a battleground for example, then you may want to cast it on yourself to lower the amount of magical damage you will receive.
Due to the low usage of the Amplify/Dampen Magic spells, this talent is often left out of most builds. In order to open the third tier of Arcane talents, it is not uncommon for mages to spend points in tier 1/2 instead of this tier as the talents are not particularly attractive. The exception usually being the talent to be discussed next...
Arcane Impact
This improved version of what was formerly Improved Arcane Explosion applies the added 6% crit chance to the Arcane Blast spell in addition to Arcane Explosion.
PvE mages will often forego this talent because it is unlikely that Arcane Explosion or Arcane Blast will see much use in typical PvE instances and raids. They often choose earlier talents such as Magic Absorption instead for its added resistances and mana refund. Both of which are of greater benefit to the typical PvE mage.
Mages who enjoy PvP will often pickup this talent because both Arcane Explosion and Arcane Blast sees considerably more use in PvP than in PvE.
Arcane Fortitude
A typical mage will have between 400 and 500 intellect at level 70, which translates to roughly 200 to 250 extra armor points. In most cases, you'd be hard-pressed to see the difference 200 or so armor points will make in any encounter for a mage.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
3/3 Arcane Impact
+2 Arcane Focus (Tier 1)
or...
5/5 Magic Absorption (Tier 2)
Tier 4:
Improved Mana Shield
Not a bad talent per se but one that is often dwarfed by it's counterparts in the 4th tier of the Arcane tree. Moreover, mages who have reached Ice Barrier in the Frost tree will rarely (if ever) use Mana Shield.
Improved Counterspell
Often considered a must-have for PvP mages. The ability to silence the opponent in addition to interrupting the original spell could make the difference between win or lose. It is often used to stop a healing spell at a crucial moment in battle. It's also a useful tool for pulling caster mobs in PvE encounters.
Arcane Meditation
Considered one of the staple talents for the PvE mage, Arcane Meditation helps keep mages "in the fight" longer. This helps to reduce the number of times a mage needs to sit and drink to replenish mana and thus helps a party keep progressing through an instance. It is of special importance in long raid boss encounters as one of the many tools to help prevent a mage from going out of mana before the boss has been defeated.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
3/3 Arcane Meditation
2/2 Improved Counterspell
Tier 5:
Improved Blink
A recent addition to the 5th tier of Arcane talents, but a rather lack-luster one. Blink is an essential part of a mage's ******* of spells but its mana cost has never been an issue. I'm not sure what the developers were thinking when adding this talent into the Arcane tree. A simple talent that shortened the cooldown on Blink would be much more worthy of the 2 talent points and being so deep into the tree. In its current state, I don't see why any mage would choose this talent over others available.
Presence of Mind
Presence of Mind is a signature talent for the PvP mage, allowing him/her to output a huge amount of burst damage in a matter of seconds. This talent is usually paired with a mage's most damaging spell; in most cases Pyroblast or Fireball, but is not limited to this use. It is sometimes used strategically with Polymorph for instant CC in tight situations. I've also seen mages pair it with Flamestrike for instant high AoE damage.
Arcane Mind
Intellect is a key attribute for mages, increasing his/her mana pool and spell critical rating. With the introduction of the Mind Mastery talent (discussed further down), deep Arcane mages have further incentive to get as much Intellect as possible. While not stellar, this is a solid talent and a good choice considering that there really aren't any particularly attractive alternatives at this tier.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
1/1 Presence of Mind
4/5 Arcane Mind
Tier 6:
Prismatic Cloak
Taking less damage is a good thing. For the PvE mage though, this may not be an attractive talent because of the PvE mage's traditional role of backline nuker. When things are going well, Mages won't be taking any damage in PvE encounters. This talent may be more attractive to the PvP mage than his/her PvE counterpart. Reducing damage taken by a static 4% is beneficial in PvP, however, the other talents available at this tier outshine Prismatic Cloak.
Arcane Instability
Nothing but good things to say about Arcane Instability; boosting both your spell damage and spell critical chance. The required Spell Crticial Rating to achieve +1% spell critical chance increases as you level up, making this talent very good as you always get the static +3% boost at all levels.
Arcane Potency
This is an interesting talent; dramatically boosting spell critical chance but only when the spell is being clearcasted. Mages should be mindful of the clearcasting clause, but even with such a requirement, the 30% boost to spell critical chance is very nice. With the prevalence of Arcane Concentration, this is a popular talent to pick up at this tier.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
3/3 Arcane Instability
2/3 Arcane Potency
Tier 7:
Empowered Arcane Missiles
I held high hopes for Arcane Missiles becoming a viable alternative to Fireball and Frostbolt when I first saw this new talent. The bonus spell damage is very good, but unfortunately it also further exposes one of Arcane Missiles greatest weaknesses; mana efficiency. This talent makes Arcane Missiles more attractive than it used to be. I do not have first-hand experience with this talent so I could be wrong, but I believe that with current level 70 Mage stats, it is still not as efficient as its Fire and Frost counterparts. While this talent currently does not make Arcane Missiles better than Fireball/Frostbolt in general, as mentioned earlier, it does make for a very powerful Clearcasted Arcane Missiles when the opportunity presents itself.
Arcane Power
The defining talent of "3 minute mages", Arcane Power dramatically increases a mage's damage output for 15 seconds every 3 minutes. This talent is one of the main reasons (if not the reason) for going deep into the Arcane tree. It is especially attractive for PvP where burst damage is very important. The refresh of all cooldowns in Arena PvP guarantees that this talent will be available at least once every battle. However, its power is a bit diminished in Arena PvP because of dedicated healers and highly coordinated teams. Whereas in Battleground PvP it is often the case that your opponents will not have a dedicated healer, so you will have enough time to finish them off after your initial burst of damage. In either case, this is still a very powerful talent indeed.
Spell Power
Another very good Arcane talent, even better than its brethren in the Frost tree -- Ice Shards -- because it boosts the spell critical damage of all your spells; not just Frost. When paired with...
It's deep location in the Arcane tree makes it inaccessible to most but with the popularity of deep Arcane builds growing in both PvE and PvP, it isn't much of an issue. If you plan on continuing down the Arcane tree (many people stop at 31 points and just pickup Arcane Power) you should definitely put 2 points in this talent.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
1/1 Arcane Power
2/2 Spell Power
+1 Arcane Potency (Tier 6)
+1 Arcane Mind (Tier 5)
Tier 8:
Mind Mastery
The only talent available at this tier in the Arcane tree, and it is a good one. The talent offers nice synergy with Arcane Mind from the 5th tier and will continue to scale as a mage's Intellect increases. While you could opt to put 5 points into previous tiers in order to get Slow, there really aren't many other talents that provide such a direct benefit to Mages.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
5/5 Mind Mastery
Tier 9:
Slow
And here we are at last, the final talent in the Arcane tree. Personally I feel that the 41 point Arcane talent is a bit weak compared to the ones from Fire and Frost. There is often confusion and concern as to what monsters and bosses can be slowed. And it's application in PvP, while good, is not very impressive for a 41 point talent in my opinion. Thus it is not unusual to see many deep Arcane builds going the full 40 points but saving that last point to pickup a 21 point talent from Fire (Blastwave) or Frost (Ice Block) at level 70 instead.
Edited, Mar 24th 2007 1:15pm by echou
Edited, Mar 24th 2007 1:16pm by echou
Edited, Mar 24th 2007 2:47pm by echou
Edited, Mar 26th 2007 12:33pm by echou
Edited, Mar 26th 2007 12:35pm by echou
Edited, Mar 27th 2007 5:56pm by echou
Tier 1:
Arcane Subtlety
In my opinion, the most useful out of the 3 tier 1 Arcane talents. Lowering your enemy's resistance to all your spells is good in any situation, and is considered very useful in end-game because the monsters will be level 70+
Arcane Focus
Lowering an opponent's resistance to only your Arcane spells is a bit narrow in practice. However, it does help your counterspell land at a crucial moment in battle. Moreover, with the addition of Arcane Blast, mages now have an additional Arcane damage spell that will benefit from the lowered Arcane resistance. The spell's casting time decreases with each subsequent cast but the mana cost increases. I have read that after the second or third casting, it is no longer mana efficient.
Improved Arcane Missiles
Improved Arcane Missiles has its moments but they are few and far in between. Arcane Missiles sees very little use, even from mages spec'd deep into the Arcane tree. For Arcane/X or X/Arcane builds, Fire or Frost spells are better in most cases due to the synergy with the other talents in those respective trees which can be had very early in the tree (e.g. Ignite or Frost Bite). In comparison, the only talent that synergizes with Arcane Missiles exclusively is Empowered Arcane Missiles which is located in the 7th tier of Arcane talents requiring 30 points invested in Arcane. Moreover, while the talent increases the bonus from spell damage gear substantially, it further increases the main reason why Arcane Missiles isn't used more often in the first place... mana efficiency. The talent increases the mana cost of an already mana inefficient spell.
Many mages will use Arcane Missiles when they proc Clearcasting, thus negating the spell's mana inefficiency. Mages who go deep into the Arcane tree can further take advantage of the free cast by getting the Empowered Arcane Missiles and Arcane Potency talents (discussed further down). Thus boosting the spell damage received by Arcane Missiles by 45% and its spell critical chance by 30%, making it an extremely powerful and free spell.
If you took 2/2 Arcane Subtlety, you only need 3 more points to open the second tier of Arcane talents. This is another reason why you may not want to choose Improved Arcane Missiles; because it needs the full 5 points to be fully uninterruptable. Anything less is really a waste.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
2/2 Arcane Subtlety
3/5 Arcane Focus
Tier 2:
Wand Specialization
Most mages view this as one of the worst talents in the Arcane tree. A mage should not have to resort to his/her wand to deal damage. Wands can be used in the event that the mage is out of mana, but these cases should be very few (if any). In order to conserve mana, one can also use his/her wand to finish off a monster that has only a sliver of health left instead of casting a spell which would be overkill. Regardless, Wand Specialization is not a good investment of talent points due to low usage of wands by mages in actual play.
Magic Absorption
Resistances come into play mainly in end-game encounters where certain schools of damage are prevalent. Certain raid encounters often require players to swap out their usual equipment for items that have high +resistance to a certain school of damage. Various potions, abilities, and spells are also used to further increase resistances.
Magic Absorption increases a mage's resistance to all schools of damage by 10. This is not a substantial amount of resistance but it helps. The refund of mana on resisted spells is a nice bonus. By all means, not a bad talent, but dwarfed by the next talent to be discussed in the second tier of the Arcane tree...
Arcane Concentration
Clearly the best out of the three tier 2 Arcane talents. At full points, a mage has a 10% chance to get a free spell cast. This is useful in any situation, but especially shines in long encounters; allowing mages to stretch their mana pool even further. The addition of the Arcane Potency talent (discussed further down) which has a prerequisite of 5/5 Arcane Concentration, gives even more reason to put full points into an already very good talent.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
5/5 Arcane Concentration
Tier 3:
Magic Attunement
Some mages never use Amplify/Dampen Magic while others swear by them. These two spells are one of the more overlooked mage spells as they are only beneficial in certain situations.
For example, buffing each party member with Amplify Magic will boost the healing they receive. However, it will also increase the magic damage taken. For encounters that have no magic damage whatsoever, Amplify Magic is clearly a good choice. In practice, you will often find it is required to toggle the buff off for some encounters and then recast once that particular fight is over. Most people find this too much of a hassle for a relatively small benefit so this spell is often not used.
Dampen Magic, of course, has the opposite effect. It decreases the amount of magic damage received but also decreases healing received. In certain cases where you do not expect to get healed, say a pickup group for a battleground for example, then you may want to cast it on yourself to lower the amount of magical damage you will receive.
Due to the low usage of the Amplify/Dampen Magic spells, this talent is often left out of most builds. In order to open the third tier of Arcane talents, it is not uncommon for mages to spend points in tier 1/2 instead of this tier as the talents are not particularly attractive. The exception usually being the talent to be discussed next...
Arcane Impact
This improved version of what was formerly Improved Arcane Explosion applies the added 6% crit chance to the Arcane Blast spell in addition to Arcane Explosion.
PvE mages will often forego this talent because it is unlikely that Arcane Explosion or Arcane Blast will see much use in typical PvE instances and raids. They often choose earlier talents such as Magic Absorption instead for its added resistances and mana refund. Both of which are of greater benefit to the typical PvE mage.
Mages who enjoy PvP will often pickup this talent because both Arcane Explosion and Arcane Blast sees considerably more use in PvP than in PvE.
Arcane Fortitude
A typical mage will have between 400 and 500 intellect at level 70, which translates to roughly 200 to 250 extra armor points. In most cases, you'd be hard-pressed to see the difference 200 or so armor points will make in any encounter for a mage.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
3/3 Arcane Impact
+2 Arcane Focus (Tier 1)
or...
5/5 Magic Absorption (Tier 2)
Tier 4:
Improved Mana Shield
Not a bad talent per se but one that is often dwarfed by it's counterparts in the 4th tier of the Arcane tree. Moreover, mages who have reached Ice Barrier in the Frost tree will rarely (if ever) use Mana Shield.
Improved Counterspell
Often considered a must-have for PvP mages. The ability to silence the opponent in addition to interrupting the original spell could make the difference between win or lose. It is often used to stop a healing spell at a crucial moment in battle. It's also a useful tool for pulling caster mobs in PvE encounters.
Arcane Meditation
Considered one of the staple talents for the PvE mage, Arcane Meditation helps keep mages "in the fight" longer. This helps to reduce the number of times a mage needs to sit and drink to replenish mana and thus helps a party keep progressing through an instance. It is of special importance in long raid boss encounters as one of the many tools to help prevent a mage from going out of mana before the boss has been defeated.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
3/3 Arcane Meditation
2/2 Improved Counterspell
Tier 5:
Improved Blink
A recent addition to the 5th tier of Arcane talents, but a rather lack-luster one. Blink is an essential part of a mage's ******* of spells but its mana cost has never been an issue. I'm not sure what the developers were thinking when adding this talent into the Arcane tree. A simple talent that shortened the cooldown on Blink would be much more worthy of the 2 talent points and being so deep into the tree. In its current state, I don't see why any mage would choose this talent over others available.
Presence of Mind
Presence of Mind is a signature talent for the PvP mage, allowing him/her to output a huge amount of burst damage in a matter of seconds. This talent is usually paired with a mage's most damaging spell; in most cases Pyroblast or Fireball, but is not limited to this use. It is sometimes used strategically with Polymorph for instant CC in tight situations. I've also seen mages pair it with Flamestrike for instant high AoE damage.
Arcane Mind
Intellect is a key attribute for mages, increasing his/her mana pool and spell critical rating. With the introduction of the Mind Mastery talent (discussed further down), deep Arcane mages have further incentive to get as much Intellect as possible. While not stellar, this is a solid talent and a good choice considering that there really aren't any particularly attractive alternatives at this tier.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
1/1 Presence of Mind
4/5 Arcane Mind
Tier 6:
Prismatic Cloak
Taking less damage is a good thing. For the PvE mage though, this may not be an attractive talent because of the PvE mage's traditional role of backline nuker. When things are going well, Mages won't be taking any damage in PvE encounters. This talent may be more attractive to the PvP mage than his/her PvE counterpart. Reducing damage taken by a static 4% is beneficial in PvP, however, the other talents available at this tier outshine Prismatic Cloak.
Arcane Instability
Nothing but good things to say about Arcane Instability; boosting both your spell damage and spell critical chance. The required Spell Crticial Rating to achieve +1% spell critical chance increases as you level up, making this talent very good as you always get the static +3% boost at all levels.
Arcane Potency
This is an interesting talent; dramatically boosting spell critical chance but only when the spell is being clearcasted. Mages should be mindful of the clearcasting clause, but even with such a requirement, the 30% boost to spell critical chance is very nice. With the prevalence of Arcane Concentration, this is a popular talent to pick up at this tier.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
3/3 Arcane Instability
2/3 Arcane Potency
Tier 7:
Empowered Arcane Missiles
I held high hopes for Arcane Missiles becoming a viable alternative to Fireball and Frostbolt when I first saw this new talent. The bonus spell damage is very good, but unfortunately it also further exposes one of Arcane Missiles greatest weaknesses; mana efficiency. This talent makes Arcane Missiles more attractive than it used to be. I do not have first-hand experience with this talent so I could be wrong, but I believe that with current level 70 Mage stats, it is still not as efficient as its Fire and Frost counterparts. While this talent currently does not make Arcane Missiles better than Fireball/Frostbolt in general, as mentioned earlier, it does make for a very powerful Clearcasted Arcane Missiles when the opportunity presents itself.
Arcane Power
The defining talent of "3 minute mages", Arcane Power dramatically increases a mage's damage output for 15 seconds every 3 minutes. This talent is one of the main reasons (if not the reason) for going deep into the Arcane tree. It is especially attractive for PvP where burst damage is very important. The refresh of all cooldowns in Arena PvP guarantees that this talent will be available at least once every battle. However, its power is a bit diminished in Arena PvP because of dedicated healers and highly coordinated teams. Whereas in Battleground PvP it is often the case that your opponents will not have a dedicated healer, so you will have enough time to finish them off after your initial burst of damage. In either case, this is still a very powerful talent indeed.
Spell Power
Another very good Arcane talent, even better than its brethren in the Frost tree -- Ice Shards -- because it boosts the spell critical damage of all your spells; not just Frost. When paired with...
Krane wrote:
5/5 ice shards adds 100% of your crit bonus, 2/2 spell power adds another 50% of your crit bonus. This means crits do 225% of normal damage with ice shards + spell power, and 245% (after 4 seconds) with ignite + spell power.
It's deep location in the Arcane tree makes it inaccessible to most but with the popularity of deep Arcane builds growing in both PvE and PvP, it isn't much of an issue. If you plan on continuing down the Arcane tree (many people stop at 31 points and just pickup Arcane Power) you should definitely put 2 points in this talent.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
1/1 Arcane Power
2/2 Spell Power
+1 Arcane Potency (Tier 6)
+1 Arcane Mind (Tier 5)
Tier 8:
Mind Mastery
The only talent available at this tier in the Arcane tree, and it is a good one. The talent offers nice synergy with Arcane Mind from the 5th tier and will continue to scale as a mage's Intellect increases. While you could opt to put 5 points into previous tiers in order to get Slow, there really aren't many other talents that provide such a direct benefit to Mages.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier
5/5 Mind Mastery
Tier 9:
Slow
And here we are at last, the final talent in the Arcane tree. Personally I feel that the 41 point Arcane talent is a bit weak compared to the ones from Fire and Frost. There is often confusion and concern as to what monsters and bosses can be slowed. And it's application in PvP, while good, is not very impressive for a 41 point talent in my opinion. Thus it is not unusual to see many deep Arcane builds going the full 40 points but saving that last point to pickup a 21 point talent from Fire (Blastwave) or Frost (Ice Block) at level 70 instead.
Edited, Mar 24th 2007 1:15pm by echou
Edited, Mar 24th 2007 1:16pm by echou
Edited, Mar 24th 2007 2:47pm by echou
Edited, Mar 26th 2007 12:33pm by echou
Edited, Mar 26th 2007 12:35pm by echou
Edited, Mar 27th 2007 5:56pm by echou
Fire Tree
Tier 1:
Improved Fireball
This is an obvious choice for mages who will be primarily using Fire spells for damage. The 0.5 second reduction may not seem like a lot, but the shortened casting time will increase your DPS (damage per second) in PvE encounters over time. It is also beneficial in PvP, where opportunities to stand still and cast a spell are few, you want to complete the spellcast as soon as possible.
A common mistake made by new mages is to get both Improved Fireball and Improved Frostbolt. While this may initially seem like a good idea, in practice, you will be using one or the other "99%" of the time. I recommend deciding which tree will be your primary damage dealer, and get the Improved X talent accordingly.
It is important to point out that as of Patch 2.0.6 (1/23/2007) each rank of Improved Fireball reduces your spell coefficient (for the Fireball spell) by 2%. This means with full points, your Fireball spell will get 10% less bonus spell damage from gear when compared to an untalented Fireball cast at the regular 3.5 seconds. However, for most (if not all) mages the shorter casting time will still result in higher overall DPS despite the loss in bonus spell damage per Fireball cast.
Impact
The 10% chance to stun on all fire spells is of greater benefit in PvP but can be useful in solo PvE encounters as well. In PvP, stuns, snares, roots, and CC (crowd control) are all very good because it interrupts your opponents' actions and gives you greater control over the fight. This talent is useful in solo PvE as well because it buys more time for you to cast a spell without being hit by the monster. If you are a fire mage, it somewhat make up for the lack of chill effects when using Fireball over Frostbolt but isn't too important since fire mages can still open with a Frostbolt for the snare.
If you do not intend to be using Fireball as your primary "nuke" spell, then Impact may be a better choice to open up the second tier of Fire talents. PvP mages will often choose to put 5 points into this talent instead of some of the more PvE oriented talents (e.g. Master of Elements and Improved Scorch) to open up deeper Fire talents.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Improved Fireball
Tier 2:
Ignite
This talent increases the effective damage dealt when you get a fire spell critical. In essence, it is the Fire counterpart to Ice Shards in the Frost tree, but instead of dealing the bonus damage immediately, it is in the form of a DoT (damage over time). Moreover, it actually ends up making your Fire spell criticals deal 10% more damage than Frost spell criticals. I do not have the luxury to do the mathematical analysis here, but IIRC (if I remember correctly) the end results were that Fire spell criticals deal 210% normal damage and Frost spell criticals deal 200% normal damage.
Flame Throwing
A good talent for mages who will be using Fire spells as their primary damage spells. The extra range is useful in any situation, allowing the mage to stay out of melee range for as long as possible. It is particularly useful in PvE encounters (usually bosses) where there is some type of AoE (area of effect) damage. The extra range will allow the mage to avoid taking AoE damage more easily. Extra range is always good in PvP as well.
Improved Fire Blast
This talent benefits PvP play more than PvE. Mages often do not have the luxury of standing still to cast a spell in PvP, so instant cast spells are highly important. This is much less important in PvE play because there are more efficient spells with greater range than Fire Blast. In most PvE cases, one would only use Fire Blast to quickly finish off a monster running away from the party. A shortened cooldown on Fire Blast is of greater benefit to the PvP mage.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Ignite
Tier 3:
Incinerate
This is a solid talent in on itself, but is the bread-and-butter of Scorch mages (those who use spam Scorch for the Fire Vulnerability debuff). The extra chance to crit when spamming Scorch is very nice. This talent may also be attractive to PvP mages because it also boosts the spell critical chance of both Scorch and Fire Blast, both of which are often used in PvP.
Improved Flamestrike
A seldomly used talent due to the limited usage of Flamestrike. There are some mages who enjoy Fire based AoE grinding as opposed to the more popular Frost AoE grinding. These mages will usually pickup this talent. The majority of mages however will usually skip this talent.
Pyroblast
The most damaging single target mage spell, Pyroblast is often paired with Presence of Mind in the Arcane tree for big instant cast damage; usually for PvP. On its own, Pyroblast is often used as an opener and/or rotated with Fireball in PvE encounters to maximize the damage dealt by the DoT components of those two spells. It is also a prerequisite for the Blast Wave talent in the 5th tier of the Fire tree. You will seldomly see a fire spec without this talent.
Burning Soul
A solid talent for both PvE and PvP. The 70% chance to avoid spell interruption is very good for PvP and soloing PvE.
Managing threat as a fire mage requires more finesse than a frost mage due to the higher upfront damage being more likely to pull aggro and the lack of survivability talents when things go wrong (i.e. Ice Block and Ice Barrier). Thus, fire mages who have any interest -- however little -- in instances and raids should pickup this talent for the threat reduction.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
1/1 Pyroblast
2/2 Burning Soul
2/2 Incineration
Tier 4:
Improved Scorch
An important talent for PvE fire mages, Improved Scorch allows them to spam the Scorch spell at the beginning of a fight to stack the Fire Vulnerability debuff making subsequent fire spells hit harder. It is an important tool in a PvE fire mages ******* to maximize DPS.
Improved Fire Ward
This talent is often skipped by most mages. The exception is usually PvP mages with an attention to detail. Mages who are particularly interested in PvP will use Fire Ward strategically against opponents who are likely to use fire spells. The 20% chance to reflect those fire spells back onto the caster is a very nice bonus indeed. In general, this talent is skipped in favor of other talents available at this tier.
Master of Elements
A particularly important talent for PvE mages. This talent helps mages further stretch their mana pool, allowing them stay in the fight longer without sitting and drinking. Mages who primarily play PvP however will often skip this talent.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
3/3 Improved Scorch
2/3 Master of Elements
Tier 5:
Playing with Fire
The increased damage taken from spells is often a small price to pay for a 3% boost to all your spell damage; especially in PvE instances where mages are unlikely to take damage from spells (or melee for that matter). The drawback of this talent is more pronounced in PvP where taking damage is inevitable and there is a good chance that a substantial portion of that damage will be from spells in addition to melee. Nevertheless, this is a good talent in its own right, but dwarfed by other talents available at this tier. Many mages also opt to pickup important talents in the previous tiers that they may have skipped earlier (like Flame Throwing or Master of Elements) in order to get the required 5 additional points to open the next tier of Fire talents.
Critical Mass
If you are this far into the Fire tree, it is a good bet that you will be using Fire spells as your primary source of damage. This is an important talent for fire mages and you will seldomly see a fire build without it. For only 3 talent points, you get a good 6% boost to your fire spell critical chance. As you level up, the amount of spell critical rating needed for an additional 1% spell critical chance (against opponents the same level as you) also increases; making this talent even better as the 6% boost remains the same at all levels.
Blast Wave
One of the most powerful instant cast spells available to mages due to its ability to hit multiple targets in its area of effect for a substantial amount of damage and dazing them for 6 seconds. This talent is popular in PvP where there are no aggro issues and because of its potential to critical against multiple targets simultaneously. Most builds that have gone this far into the Fire tree will often include this talent.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
1/1 Blast Wave
3/3 Critical Mass
1/2 Flame Throwing (Tier 2)
Tier 6:
Blazing Speed
This talent is most useful in PvP where it is almost certain you'll be hit by a melee and/or ranged attack. Moreover, it is likely that opponents will place some sort of movement impairing effect on you to control the fight; especially when fighting melee opponents. The chance to remove all such movement impairing effects is what makes this talent so attractive in PvP. The 50% increased movement speed is icing on the cake. A good choice for the PvP mage, but unlikely to see much use in PvE and is often sacrificed in favor of the next talent to be discussed...
Fire Power
A static 10% boost to all your fire damage is simply too good to pass up. As you level and gear up, this talent also scales with you. There really is no reason to skip this talent if you intend to continue deeper into the Fire tree. Not much else you can say about this talent. This one really is a no-brainer.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Fire Power
Tier 7:
Pyromaniac
I really like talents that give you more bang for your talent point buck. Not only does this talent boost your chance to critically hit with fire spells, but it decreases the mana cost of all your fire spells as well. This talent point 2-for-1 is a good choice for PvP and PvE fire mages alike.
Combustion
The question of whether to choose this 31 point Fire talent or its counterpart in the Arcane tree, Arcane Power, often comes up. Both talents have a 3 minute cooldown and both substantially increases the mage's damage output.
Although Combustion guarantees 3 fire spell criticals it still relies on your spell critical chance. There is always the chance that you will die before you get the full benefit of the talent. Whereas with Arcane Power you get a static 30% damage boost on demand plus the potential that your spells will critical while it is active. For this reason, I prefer Arcane Power over Combustion.
Of course, if you intend to go deeper into the Fire tree to get Dragon's Breath then you are only left with the choice of Combustion.
Molten Fury
While not a bad talent per se, the prerequisite of the target being below 20% health really hinders its practical applications. It is nice to have in PvP where it is important to kill your opponents before they can heal or run. The extra damage boost when they are near-death may make the difference between win or lose. In PvE, I can only see this talent make a noticeable difference during boss/raid encounters where 20% health is still a substantial amount of health points. Thus, you will reap the benefits of the 20% damage boost for a meaningful length of time. On regular monsters, you'll probably only get to cast a single spell before it dies.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
1/1 Combustion
3/3 Pyromaniac
+1 Flame Throwing (Tier 2)
Tier 8:
Empowered Fireball
The only talent at this tier, but a good one that further boosts the damage of a fire mage's primary "nuke" spell. An easy choice for the PvE mage, while those who are particularly interested in PvP may opt to go back and place 5 points into the Impact talent.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Empowered Fireball
Tier 9:
Dragon's Breath
The Fire tree's 41 point talent, while not amazing, is still a good one. Outside of solo play however, it does not have much use in PvE due to it's short range. In PvP, it is another tool for mages to gain the upper hand over opponents; dealing a solid amount of damage coupled with a 3 second disorient effect. I used it for several levels while leveling in Outland. While not without its uses, I was not particulalry sad to give it up when I respec'd Frost. In my opinion, it would be much more attractive if it did not share a cooldown with Cone of Cold
Edited, Apr 2nd 2007 5:35pm by echou
Edited, Apr 3rd 2007 10:15am by echou
Tier 1:
Improved Fireball
This is an obvious choice for mages who will be primarily using Fire spells for damage. The 0.5 second reduction may not seem like a lot, but the shortened casting time will increase your DPS (damage per second) in PvE encounters over time. It is also beneficial in PvP, where opportunities to stand still and cast a spell are few, you want to complete the spellcast as soon as possible.
A common mistake made by new mages is to get both Improved Fireball and Improved Frostbolt. While this may initially seem like a good idea, in practice, you will be using one or the other "99%" of the time. I recommend deciding which tree will be your primary damage dealer, and get the Improved X talent accordingly.
It is important to point out that as of Patch 2.0.6 (1/23/2007) each rank of Improved Fireball reduces your spell coefficient (for the Fireball spell) by 2%. This means with full points, your Fireball spell will get 10% less bonus spell damage from gear when compared to an untalented Fireball cast at the regular 3.5 seconds. However, for most (if not all) mages the shorter casting time will still result in higher overall DPS despite the loss in bonus spell damage per Fireball cast.
Impact
The 10% chance to stun on all fire spells is of greater benefit in PvP but can be useful in solo PvE encounters as well. In PvP, stuns, snares, roots, and CC (crowd control) are all very good because it interrupts your opponents' actions and gives you greater control over the fight. This talent is useful in solo PvE as well because it buys more time for you to cast a spell without being hit by the monster. If you are a fire mage, it somewhat make up for the lack of chill effects when using Fireball over Frostbolt but isn't too important since fire mages can still open with a Frostbolt for the snare.
If you do not intend to be using Fireball as your primary "nuke" spell, then Impact may be a better choice to open up the second tier of Fire talents. PvP mages will often choose to put 5 points into this talent instead of some of the more PvE oriented talents (e.g. Master of Elements and Improved Scorch) to open up deeper Fire talents.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Improved Fireball
Tier 2:
Ignite
This talent increases the effective damage dealt when you get a fire spell critical. In essence, it is the Fire counterpart to Ice Shards in the Frost tree, but instead of dealing the bonus damage immediately, it is in the form of a DoT (damage over time). Moreover, it actually ends up making your Fire spell criticals deal 10% more damage than Frost spell criticals. I do not have the luxury to do the mathematical analysis here, but IIRC (if I remember correctly) the end results were that Fire spell criticals deal 210% normal damage and Frost spell criticals deal 200% normal damage.
Flame Throwing
A good talent for mages who will be using Fire spells as their primary damage spells. The extra range is useful in any situation, allowing the mage to stay out of melee range for as long as possible. It is particularly useful in PvE encounters (usually bosses) where there is some type of AoE (area of effect) damage. The extra range will allow the mage to avoid taking AoE damage more easily. Extra range is always good in PvP as well.
Improved Fire Blast
This talent benefits PvP play more than PvE. Mages often do not have the luxury of standing still to cast a spell in PvP, so instant cast spells are highly important. This is much less important in PvE play because there are more efficient spells with greater range than Fire Blast. In most PvE cases, one would only use Fire Blast to quickly finish off a monster running away from the party. A shortened cooldown on Fire Blast is of greater benefit to the PvP mage.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Ignite
Tier 3:
Incinerate
This is a solid talent in on itself, but is the bread-and-butter of Scorch mages (those who use spam Scorch for the Fire Vulnerability debuff). The extra chance to crit when spamming Scorch is very nice. This talent may also be attractive to PvP mages because it also boosts the spell critical chance of both Scorch and Fire Blast, both of which are often used in PvP.
Improved Flamestrike
A seldomly used talent due to the limited usage of Flamestrike. There are some mages who enjoy Fire based AoE grinding as opposed to the more popular Frost AoE grinding. These mages will usually pickup this talent. The majority of mages however will usually skip this talent.
Pyroblast
The most damaging single target mage spell, Pyroblast is often paired with Presence of Mind in the Arcane tree for big instant cast damage; usually for PvP. On its own, Pyroblast is often used as an opener and/or rotated with Fireball in PvE encounters to maximize the damage dealt by the DoT components of those two spells. It is also a prerequisite for the Blast Wave talent in the 5th tier of the Fire tree. You will seldomly see a fire spec without this talent.
Burning Soul
A solid talent for both PvE and PvP. The 70% chance to avoid spell interruption is very good for PvP and soloing PvE.
Managing threat as a fire mage requires more finesse than a frost mage due to the higher upfront damage being more likely to pull aggro and the lack of survivability talents when things go wrong (i.e. Ice Block and Ice Barrier). Thus, fire mages who have any interest -- however little -- in instances and raids should pickup this talent for the threat reduction.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
1/1 Pyroblast
2/2 Burning Soul
2/2 Incineration
Tier 4:
Improved Scorch
An important talent for PvE fire mages, Improved Scorch allows them to spam the Scorch spell at the beginning of a fight to stack the Fire Vulnerability debuff making subsequent fire spells hit harder. It is an important tool in a PvE fire mages ******* to maximize DPS.
Improved Fire Ward
This talent is often skipped by most mages. The exception is usually PvP mages with an attention to detail. Mages who are particularly interested in PvP will use Fire Ward strategically against opponents who are likely to use fire spells. The 20% chance to reflect those fire spells back onto the caster is a very nice bonus indeed. In general, this talent is skipped in favor of other talents available at this tier.
Master of Elements
A particularly important talent for PvE mages. This talent helps mages further stretch their mana pool, allowing them stay in the fight longer without sitting and drinking. Mages who primarily play PvP however will often skip this talent.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
3/3 Improved Scorch
2/3 Master of Elements
Tier 5:
Playing with Fire
The increased damage taken from spells is often a small price to pay for a 3% boost to all your spell damage; especially in PvE instances where mages are unlikely to take damage from spells (or melee for that matter). The drawback of this talent is more pronounced in PvP where taking damage is inevitable and there is a good chance that a substantial portion of that damage will be from spells in addition to melee. Nevertheless, this is a good talent in its own right, but dwarfed by other talents available at this tier. Many mages also opt to pickup important talents in the previous tiers that they may have skipped earlier (like Flame Throwing or Master of Elements) in order to get the required 5 additional points to open the next tier of Fire talents.
Critical Mass
If you are this far into the Fire tree, it is a good bet that you will be using Fire spells as your primary source of damage. This is an important talent for fire mages and you will seldomly see a fire build without it. For only 3 talent points, you get a good 6% boost to your fire spell critical chance. As you level up, the amount of spell critical rating needed for an additional 1% spell critical chance (against opponents the same level as you) also increases; making this talent even better as the 6% boost remains the same at all levels.
Blast Wave
One of the most powerful instant cast spells available to mages due to its ability to hit multiple targets in its area of effect for a substantial amount of damage and dazing them for 6 seconds. This talent is popular in PvP where there are no aggro issues and because of its potential to critical against multiple targets simultaneously. Most builds that have gone this far into the Fire tree will often include this talent.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
1/1 Blast Wave
3/3 Critical Mass
1/2 Flame Throwing (Tier 2)
Tier 6:
Blazing Speed
This talent is most useful in PvP where it is almost certain you'll be hit by a melee and/or ranged attack. Moreover, it is likely that opponents will place some sort of movement impairing effect on you to control the fight; especially when fighting melee opponents. The chance to remove all such movement impairing effects is what makes this talent so attractive in PvP. The 50% increased movement speed is icing on the cake. A good choice for the PvP mage, but unlikely to see much use in PvE and is often sacrificed in favor of the next talent to be discussed...
Fire Power
A static 10% boost to all your fire damage is simply too good to pass up. As you level and gear up, this talent also scales with you. There really is no reason to skip this talent if you intend to continue deeper into the Fire tree. Not much else you can say about this talent. This one really is a no-brainer.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Fire Power
Tier 7:
Pyromaniac
I really like talents that give you more bang for your talent point buck. Not only does this talent boost your chance to critically hit with fire spells, but it decreases the mana cost of all your fire spells as well. This talent point 2-for-1 is a good choice for PvP and PvE fire mages alike.
Combustion
The question of whether to choose this 31 point Fire talent or its counterpart in the Arcane tree, Arcane Power, often comes up. Both talents have a 3 minute cooldown and both substantially increases the mage's damage output.
Although Combustion guarantees 3 fire spell criticals it still relies on your spell critical chance. There is always the chance that you will die before you get the full benefit of the talent. Whereas with Arcane Power you get a static 30% damage boost on demand plus the potential that your spells will critical while it is active. For this reason, I prefer Arcane Power over Combustion.
Of course, if you intend to go deeper into the Fire tree to get Dragon's Breath then you are only left with the choice of Combustion.
Molten Fury
While not a bad talent per se, the prerequisite of the target being below 20% health really hinders its practical applications. It is nice to have in PvP where it is important to kill your opponents before they can heal or run. The extra damage boost when they are near-death may make the difference between win or lose. In PvE, I can only see this talent make a noticeable difference during boss/raid encounters where 20% health is still a substantial amount of health points. Thus, you will reap the benefits of the 20% damage boost for a meaningful length of time. On regular monsters, you'll probably only get to cast a single spell before it dies.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
1/1 Combustion
3/3 Pyromaniac
+1 Flame Throwing (Tier 2)
Tier 8:
Empowered Fireball
The only talent at this tier, but a good one that further boosts the damage of a fire mage's primary "nuke" spell. An easy choice for the PvE mage, while those who are particularly interested in PvP may opt to go back and place 5 points into the Impact talent.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Empowered Fireball
Tier 9:
Dragon's Breath
The Fire tree's 41 point talent, while not amazing, is still a good one. Outside of solo play however, it does not have much use in PvE due to it's short range. In PvP, it is another tool for mages to gain the upper hand over opponents; dealing a solid amount of damage coupled with a 3 second disorient effect. I used it for several levels while leveling in Outland. While not without its uses, I was not particulalry sad to give it up when I respec'd Frost. In my opinion, it would be much more attractive if it did not share a cooldown with Cone of Cold
Edited, Apr 2nd 2007 5:35pm by echou
Edited, Apr 3rd 2007 10:15am by echou
Frost Tree
Tier 1:
Frost Warding
This talent is often skipped because it's not as good as its fellow tier 1 Frost talents. Furthermore, if and when you need some extra points in order to open the next tier, there are often much better alternatives than Frost Warding. It can still be used strategically in PvP much like Improved Fire Ward to anticipate and possibly reflect an enemy's frost spells but the situational use usually does not warrant the 2 talent points when there are much better alternatives.
Improved Frostbolt
Typically the first talent that will be picked up by mages who will be using Frost as their primary damage dealing tree. A simple and good choice for up-and-coming Frost mages. Again, it is a common mistake for new mages to pickup both Improved Frostbolt and Improved Fireball. It is best to decide which will be your main damage tree and take only one of the two.
It is important to point out that as of Patch 2.0.6 (1/23/2007) each rank of Improved Frostbolt reduces your spell coefficient (for the Frostbolt spell) by 2%. This means with full points, your Frostbolt spell will get 10% less bonus spell damage from gear when compared to an untalented Frostbolt cast at the regular 3 seconds. However, for most (if not all) mages the shorter casting time will still result in higher overall DPS despite the loss in bonus spell damage per Frostbolt cast.
Elemental Precision
The revamped version of this talent is even better than its predecessor; offering reduced mana cost on Frost and Fire spells in addition to the original lowered resistance on opponents. This is a particularly good talent once you reach end-game where you will often be facing monsters and bosses that are above level 70 with higher resistance to your spells. This talent is so good that it is not uncommon to see talent builds where the only points in the Frost tree are the 3 points put into Elemental Precision.
General Recommendation to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Improved Frostbolt
Tier 2:
Ice Shards
The wording of this talent is rather confusing. Regular spell criticals will do 150% of a non-critical hit. Many interpret this talent as making your spells critical for 250% normal damage. To my understanding, full points in this talent effectively boosts your Frost spell criticals to 200% of regular non-critical damage. (Please correct me if this is wrong). In either case, this is a staple talent in the Frost tree and the majority of Frost builds will have full points in it.
Frostbite
The benefit of this talent is two-fold. Firstly, it provides a 15% chance to root your target which is good in PvP and solo PvE because it keeps your target out of melee range longer. Secondly, it gives extra chances for you to benefit from the Shatter talent (discussed later).
There has been a recent change to Frost Nova (and I believe frozen targets in general) so that the frozen effect will break after the first spell critical. While this does decrease the power of the Frostbite and Shatter talents, it is my opinion that they are still important tools for Frost mages; especially in PvP.
It is important to note that this talent is a big "no-no" for Frost AoE grinding. For more details on what and how to do this, please refer to this guide by Leatherpatches.
For a list of Frost AoE grinding spots, please refer to this guide by Kamuii
And for an example talent progression used for Frost AoE grinding, please refer to my guide which was linked earlier.
Improved Frost Nova
Frost Nova is a very important part of a mage's spell ******* both in solo PvE and PvP, freezing targets in place while the mage gets out of melee range. It is also a mage's primary tool for exploiting the talent Shatter (discussed later) which also requires full points in Improved Frost Nova as a prerequisite. A shortened cooldown on Frost Nova is good for any non-instance encounters and is especially beneficial for PvP combat.
Permafrost
This is a good talent, but usually not powerful enough to be a priority for most Frost mages. It is however an important talent for Frost AoE grinding. Otherwise, most builds will only use this talent to meet the required points needed to open deeper tiers of Frost talents. The ability to further slow your enemies and keep them slowed for longer is a nice perk, but not necessary in my opinion.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Ice Shards
Tier 3:
Piercing Ice
A very good talent for mages who use Frost as their primary damage tree. For 3 talent points you get a static 6% damage boost to all your Frost spells. This scales at all levels so is good from the moment you get it to when you hit level 70. Another staple talent in the Frost tree.
Cold Snap
Another powerful talent in the third tier of the Frost tree. This talent allows you to immediately finish the cooldowns on all your Frost spells including Ice Block, Ice Barrier, and Water Elemental (all discussed later). This talent provides a huge boost in survivability both in PvE and PvP and potentially allow a mage to proc Shatter criticals 4 times in a row (Frost Nova --> Shatter --> Water Elemental's Freeze --> Shatter --> Cold Snap --> Frost Nova --> Shatter --> Freeze --> Shatter). You will rarely, if ever, see a Frost build without this talent.
Improved Blizzard
This talent is skipped by the majority of mages due to the limited usage of Blizzard in general PvE and PvP. However, it is a must-have talent for a Frost AoE grinding build. The chill effect on Blizzard is essential for any success in Frost AoE grinding.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
3/3 Piercing Ice
2/2 Improved Frost Nova
Note: The reason why I usually do not pickup Cold Snap at this point is because it is not very powerful until you get at least Ice Block.
Tier 4:
Arctic Reach
The extra range on Frostbolt and the larger radius on Frost Nova and Cone of Cold are nice to have in general, but is particularly important for PvP and raiding mages. For PvP, the extra range and radius makes it easier for you to hit your opponents and harder for them to reach you; every slight edge helps when it comes to PvP combat. In raiding, especially boss encounters, more range is always good because it keeps you that much farther from harm's way. While not a very powerful talent, mages will often put points in Arctic Reach to meet the required number of talent points when trying to open another tier of Frost talents.
Frost Channeling
An important talent for the PvE mage. Frost Channeling not only improves mana efficiency but, more importantly, reduces the threat generated by your Frost spells. This is a standard talent to pickup for mages who intend to do instances and raids using Frost as their primary damage tree. Even for those who never intend to set foot in an instance, this is a good talent to pickup to make your grind to level 70 more mana efficient; less down time means faster leveling. Once you've reached level 70, you can feel free to respec and drop it.
Shatter
One of the Frost mages most powerful talents, but as mentioned earlier, it has been recently nerfed in that frozen targets will break out of the freeze after the first spell critical. In effect, mages will enjoy the greatly increased spell critical chance granted by this talent only once per freeze. This is still a powerful talent nonetheless, but has lost much popularity of late. It is becoming quite common to see level 70 talent builds which forego Frostbite, Improved Frost Nova, and Shatter altogether; especially those which have the majority of their points in the other talent trees (e.g. 40/0/21 AP/Frost).
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
2/2 Arctic Reach
3/3 Frost Channeling
Tier 5:
Frozen Core
One of the weaker Frost talents in my opinion. The reduced damage taken will usually only be attractive to mages who engage in PvP regularly/exclusively. For the PvE mage who often serves the role of backline nuker, it is next to useless. Add to this that it only prevents Fire and Frost damage and well... you get one of the weaker talents in the Frost tree.
Ice Block
One of the defining talents of the Frost tree and one of the most powerful abilities at a Frost mage's disposal. Ice Block is one of the main reasons (if not the only reason) that most mages will either put at least 21 points into the Frost tree or none at all (with the exception of 3 points in Elemental Precision as noted earlier).
Ice Block not only protects the mage from all forms of damage, it also removes all DoT (damage over time) effects.
NOTE: To the best of mine, and Poldaran's memory, Ice Block also removes harmful effects such as Hamstring, Rogue poisons, Silence, and Mind Control
A powerful strategy is to summon the Water Elemental (discussed later) and then cast Ice Block. Thus allowing the mage to be immune from damage but still be able to control the actions of his Water Elemental to damage opponents using Waterbolt and to hold them in place using Freeze. Pair this with Cold Snap and you can repeat the whole strategy twice in one fight.
If caught off guard, Ice Block also serves as a way to buy time for a mage; allowing him/her to size up the situation and plan his/her next move. Mages new to this talent should note that you do not have to wait the entire duration of Ice Block; you can right-click its icon on your buff bar and cancel it anytime you want.
Improved Cone of Cold
This is a solid talent, directly boosting a mage's Cone of Cold damage. However this is usually chosen only by mages who intend to PvP because in PvE (outside of solo play) there are few opportunities to make efficient use of this spell. Mages who prefer Frost AoE grinding will often pickup this talent though because Cone of Cold is often used as part of the spell rotation when Frost AoE grinding.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
1/1 Ice Block
1/1 Cold Snap (Tier 3)
3/3 Elemental Precision (Tier 1)
Tier 6:
Ice Floes
A very nice 2-point talent, Ice Floes reduces the cooldowns of nearly all of a Frost mage's most powerful spells (with the exception of Water Elemental). This is a good choice for any mage who has at least 21 points invested in the Frost tree.
Winter's Chill
A staple talent for raiding Frost mages. Those who belong to a raiding guild, may have the luxury of saving themselves the 5 points if they know that there is one or more Frost mages in the guild whom they can rely on for applying the Winter's Chill effect in a raid. However, due to the lowered player cap on Burning Crusade raid encounters (10 and 25 man) it may be harder to rely on your peers compared to the old 40-man raids. Mages should keep this in mind when deciding whether or not to pass up this talent.
Winter's Chill is not very useful in PvP combat because ideally your opponent will be dead or near death by the time you get a full stack of 5 Winter's Chill effects on him/her. However, some have noted that this talent can help "bury" opponents in debuffs; making it harder for them to remove the debuffs you want to stay on them.
In my opinion, this talent seems to have been designed with raid encounters in mind.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
2/2 Ice Floes
3/3 Improved Cone of Cold (Tier 5)
Tier 7:
Ice Barrier
Unlike Mana Shield, Ice Barrier does not decrease your mana when absorbing damage. While protected by Ice Barrier the mage is free to cast spells without interruption. It also has a relatively short cooldown (30 seconds normally, 24 seconds with 2/2 Ice Floes). This is a great general-purpose talent in PvE solo and group play. In PvP, it will help you survive the initial strike from stealthed rogues and cat druids; giving you the opportunity to recover from a preemptive strike which would usually result in your death. In my opinion, this is one of the most useful abilities enjoyed exclusively by Frost mages.
Arctic Winds
In most cases, this talent will only be of benefit in PvP play because mages are usually not the target of PvE damage. Moreover, the talent does not directly reduce the damage taken by the mage; it simply increases the chance that an opponent will miss. In my opinion, this is one of the weaker talents in the Frost tree.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
1/1 Ice Barrier
4 points anywhere in Frost. I usually choose Shatter or Winter's Chill.
Tier 8:
Empowered Frostbolt
Like it's Fire counterpart, this is a very good talent. With full points your primary Frost nuke spell gets a 10% bonus from spell damage effects and a very nice 5% addtional chance to critical. This talent is definitely worth the 5 point investment.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Empowered Frostbolt
Tier 9:
Water Elemental
This is my personal favorite out of the three 41-point talents available to mages. The Water Elemental gives Frost mages a powerful tool to further increase their ability to control a fight as well as increasing their damage output. To top it off, the Water Elemental's cooldown is refreshed by the Cold Snap talent as well. As mentioned earlier, this provides for powerful strategies such as setting up 4 consecutive Shatters, and using the Water Elemental while encased in an Ice Block; making x/x/41+ talent builds popular amongst PvP mages and for soloing difficult PvE quests/encounters.
Edited, Apr 2nd 2007 5:36pm by echou
Edited, Apr 3rd 2007 10:21am by echou
Tier 1:
Frost Warding
This talent is often skipped because it's not as good as its fellow tier 1 Frost talents. Furthermore, if and when you need some extra points in order to open the next tier, there are often much better alternatives than Frost Warding. It can still be used strategically in PvP much like Improved Fire Ward to anticipate and possibly reflect an enemy's frost spells but the situational use usually does not warrant the 2 talent points when there are much better alternatives.
Improved Frostbolt
Typically the first talent that will be picked up by mages who will be using Frost as their primary damage dealing tree. A simple and good choice for up-and-coming Frost mages. Again, it is a common mistake for new mages to pickup both Improved Frostbolt and Improved Fireball. It is best to decide which will be your main damage tree and take only one of the two.
It is important to point out that as of Patch 2.0.6 (1/23/2007) each rank of Improved Frostbolt reduces your spell coefficient (for the Frostbolt spell) by 2%. This means with full points, your Frostbolt spell will get 10% less bonus spell damage from gear when compared to an untalented Frostbolt cast at the regular 3 seconds. However, for most (if not all) mages the shorter casting time will still result in higher overall DPS despite the loss in bonus spell damage per Frostbolt cast.
Elemental Precision
The revamped version of this talent is even better than its predecessor; offering reduced mana cost on Frost and Fire spells in addition to the original lowered resistance on opponents. This is a particularly good talent once you reach end-game where you will often be facing monsters and bosses that are above level 70 with higher resistance to your spells. This talent is so good that it is not uncommon to see talent builds where the only points in the Frost tree are the 3 points put into Elemental Precision.
General Recommendation to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Improved Frostbolt
Tier 2:
Ice Shards
The wording of this talent is rather confusing. Regular spell criticals will do 150% of a non-critical hit. Many interpret this talent as making your spells critical for 250% normal damage. To my understanding, full points in this talent effectively boosts your Frost spell criticals to 200% of regular non-critical damage. (Please correct me if this is wrong). In either case, this is a staple talent in the Frost tree and the majority of Frost builds will have full points in it.
Frostbite
The benefit of this talent is two-fold. Firstly, it provides a 15% chance to root your target which is good in PvP and solo PvE because it keeps your target out of melee range longer. Secondly, it gives extra chances for you to benefit from the Shatter talent (discussed later).
There has been a recent change to Frost Nova (and I believe frozen targets in general) so that the frozen effect will break after the first spell critical. While this does decrease the power of the Frostbite and Shatter talents, it is my opinion that they are still important tools for Frost mages; especially in PvP.
It is important to note that this talent is a big "no-no" for Frost AoE grinding. For more details on what and how to do this, please refer to this guide by Leatherpatches.
For a list of Frost AoE grinding spots, please refer to this guide by Kamuii
And for an example talent progression used for Frost AoE grinding, please refer to my guide which was linked earlier.
Improved Frost Nova
Frost Nova is a very important part of a mage's spell ******* both in solo PvE and PvP, freezing targets in place while the mage gets out of melee range. It is also a mage's primary tool for exploiting the talent Shatter (discussed later) which also requires full points in Improved Frost Nova as a prerequisite. A shortened cooldown on Frost Nova is good for any non-instance encounters and is especially beneficial for PvP combat.
Permafrost
This is a good talent, but usually not powerful enough to be a priority for most Frost mages. It is however an important talent for Frost AoE grinding. Otherwise, most builds will only use this talent to meet the required points needed to open deeper tiers of Frost talents. The ability to further slow your enemies and keep them slowed for longer is a nice perk, but not necessary in my opinion.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Ice Shards
Tier 3:
Piercing Ice
A very good talent for mages who use Frost as their primary damage tree. For 3 talent points you get a static 6% damage boost to all your Frost spells. This scales at all levels so is good from the moment you get it to when you hit level 70. Another staple talent in the Frost tree.
Cold Snap
Another powerful talent in the third tier of the Frost tree. This talent allows you to immediately finish the cooldowns on all your Frost spells including Ice Block, Ice Barrier, and Water Elemental (all discussed later). This talent provides a huge boost in survivability both in PvE and PvP and potentially allow a mage to proc Shatter criticals 4 times in a row (Frost Nova --> Shatter --> Water Elemental's Freeze --> Shatter --> Cold Snap --> Frost Nova --> Shatter --> Freeze --> Shatter). You will rarely, if ever, see a Frost build without this talent.
Improved Blizzard
This talent is skipped by the majority of mages due to the limited usage of Blizzard in general PvE and PvP. However, it is a must-have talent for a Frost AoE grinding build. The chill effect on Blizzard is essential for any success in Frost AoE grinding.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
3/3 Piercing Ice
2/2 Improved Frost Nova
Note: The reason why I usually do not pickup Cold Snap at this point is because it is not very powerful until you get at least Ice Block.
Tier 4:
Arctic Reach
The extra range on Frostbolt and the larger radius on Frost Nova and Cone of Cold are nice to have in general, but is particularly important for PvP and raiding mages. For PvP, the extra range and radius makes it easier for you to hit your opponents and harder for them to reach you; every slight edge helps when it comes to PvP combat. In raiding, especially boss encounters, more range is always good because it keeps you that much farther from harm's way. While not a very powerful talent, mages will often put points in Arctic Reach to meet the required number of talent points when trying to open another tier of Frost talents.
Frost Channeling
An important talent for the PvE mage. Frost Channeling not only improves mana efficiency but, more importantly, reduces the threat generated by your Frost spells. This is a standard talent to pickup for mages who intend to do instances and raids using Frost as their primary damage tree. Even for those who never intend to set foot in an instance, this is a good talent to pickup to make your grind to level 70 more mana efficient; less down time means faster leveling. Once you've reached level 70, you can feel free to respec and drop it.
Shatter
One of the Frost mages most powerful talents, but as mentioned earlier, it has been recently nerfed in that frozen targets will break out of the freeze after the first spell critical. In effect, mages will enjoy the greatly increased spell critical chance granted by this talent only once per freeze. This is still a powerful talent nonetheless, but has lost much popularity of late. It is becoming quite common to see level 70 talent builds which forego Frostbite, Improved Frost Nova, and Shatter altogether; especially those which have the majority of their points in the other talent trees (e.g. 40/0/21 AP/Frost).
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
2/2 Arctic Reach
3/3 Frost Channeling
Tier 5:
Frozen Core
One of the weaker Frost talents in my opinion. The reduced damage taken will usually only be attractive to mages who engage in PvP regularly/exclusively. For the PvE mage who often serves the role of backline nuker, it is next to useless. Add to this that it only prevents Fire and Frost damage and well... you get one of the weaker talents in the Frost tree.
Ice Block
One of the defining talents of the Frost tree and one of the most powerful abilities at a Frost mage's disposal. Ice Block is one of the main reasons (if not the only reason) that most mages will either put at least 21 points into the Frost tree or none at all (with the exception of 3 points in Elemental Precision as noted earlier).
Ice Block not only protects the mage from all forms of damage, it also removes all DoT (damage over time) effects.
NOTE: To the best of mine, and Poldaran's memory, Ice Block also removes harmful effects such as Hamstring, Rogue poisons, Silence, and Mind Control
A powerful strategy is to summon the Water Elemental (discussed later) and then cast Ice Block. Thus allowing the mage to be immune from damage but still be able to control the actions of his Water Elemental to damage opponents using Waterbolt and to hold them in place using Freeze. Pair this with Cold Snap and you can repeat the whole strategy twice in one fight.
If caught off guard, Ice Block also serves as a way to buy time for a mage; allowing him/her to size up the situation and plan his/her next move. Mages new to this talent should note that you do not have to wait the entire duration of Ice Block; you can right-click its icon on your buff bar and cancel it anytime you want.
Improved Cone of Cold
This is a solid talent, directly boosting a mage's Cone of Cold damage. However this is usually chosen only by mages who intend to PvP because in PvE (outside of solo play) there are few opportunities to make efficient use of this spell. Mages who prefer Frost AoE grinding will often pickup this talent though because Cone of Cold is often used as part of the spell rotation when Frost AoE grinding.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
1/1 Ice Block
1/1 Cold Snap (Tier 3)
3/3 Elemental Precision (Tier 1)
Tier 6:
Ice Floes
A very nice 2-point talent, Ice Floes reduces the cooldowns of nearly all of a Frost mage's most powerful spells (with the exception of Water Elemental). This is a good choice for any mage who has at least 21 points invested in the Frost tree.
Winter's Chill
A staple talent for raiding Frost mages. Those who belong to a raiding guild, may have the luxury of saving themselves the 5 points if they know that there is one or more Frost mages in the guild whom they can rely on for applying the Winter's Chill effect in a raid. However, due to the lowered player cap on Burning Crusade raid encounters (10 and 25 man) it may be harder to rely on your peers compared to the old 40-man raids. Mages should keep this in mind when deciding whether or not to pass up this talent.
Winter's Chill is not very useful in PvP combat because ideally your opponent will be dead or near death by the time you get a full stack of 5 Winter's Chill effects on him/her. However, some have noted that this talent can help "bury" opponents in debuffs; making it harder for them to remove the debuffs you want to stay on them.
In my opinion, this talent seems to have been designed with raid encounters in mind.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
2/2 Ice Floes
3/3 Improved Cone of Cold (Tier 5)
Tier 7:
Ice Barrier
Unlike Mana Shield, Ice Barrier does not decrease your mana when absorbing damage. While protected by Ice Barrier the mage is free to cast spells without interruption. It also has a relatively short cooldown (30 seconds normally, 24 seconds with 2/2 Ice Floes). This is a great general-purpose talent in PvE solo and group play. In PvP, it will help you survive the initial strike from stealthed rogues and cat druids; giving you the opportunity to recover from a preemptive strike which would usually result in your death. In my opinion, this is one of the most useful abilities enjoyed exclusively by Frost mages.
Arctic Winds
In most cases, this talent will only be of benefit in PvP play because mages are usually not the target of PvE damage. Moreover, the talent does not directly reduce the damage taken by the mage; it simply increases the chance that an opponent will miss. In my opinion, this is one of the weaker talents in the Frost tree.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
1/1 Ice Barrier
4 points anywhere in Frost. I usually choose Shatter or Winter's Chill.
Tier 8:
Empowered Frostbolt
Like it's Fire counterpart, this is a very good talent. With full points your primary Frost nuke spell gets a 10% bonus from spell damage effects and a very nice 5% addtional chance to critical. This talent is definitely worth the 5 point investment.
General Recommendations to Open Next Tier:
5/5 Empowered Frostbolt
Tier 9:
Water Elemental
This is my personal favorite out of the three 41-point talents available to mages. The Water Elemental gives Frost mages a powerful tool to further increase their ability to control a fight as well as increasing their damage output. To top it off, the Water Elemental's cooldown is refreshed by the Cold Snap talent as well. As mentioned earlier, this provides for powerful strategies such as setting up 4 consecutive Shatters, and using the Water Elemental while encased in an Ice Block; making x/x/41+ talent builds popular amongst PvP mages and for soloing difficult PvE quests/encounters.
Edited, Apr 2nd 2007 5:36pm by echou
Edited, Apr 3rd 2007 10:21am by echou
Nice start, I cannot wait for the next two trees. :P
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people
lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
Only thing I'd recommend you add is a note to Imp Fireball and Imp Frostbolt reminding folks of the reduction in damage you get from those spells now.
Otherwise, keep up the good work, Echou.
Otherwise, keep up the good work, Echou.
when this is finished, could we get it sticky please
Very nice!
Might want to be clearer about the damage boost here. 5/5 ice shards adds 100% of your crit bonus, 2/2 spell power adds another 50% of your crit bonus. This means crits do 225% of normal damage with ice shards + spell power, and 245% (after 4 seconds) with ignite + spell power.
Another minor nit: the tier 3 fire talent is called incinerate not incineration
Edited, Mar 26th 2007 6:27pm by Krane
Quote:
Spell Power
Another very good Arcane talent, even better than its brethren in the Frost tree -- Ice Shards -- because it boosts the spell critical damage of all your spells; not just Frost. When paired with Ice Shards your Frost spell criticals enjoy a whopping 150% damage boost. It's deep location in the Arcane tree makes it inaccessible to most but with the popularity of deep Arcane builds growing in both PvE and PvP, it isn't much of an issue. If you plan on continuing down the Arcane tree (many people stop at 31 points and just pickup Arcane Power) you should definitely put 2 points in this talent.
Another very good Arcane talent, even better than its brethren in the Frost tree -- Ice Shards -- because it boosts the spell critical damage of all your spells; not just Frost. When paired with Ice Shards your Frost spell criticals enjoy a whopping 150% damage boost. It's deep location in the Arcane tree makes it inaccessible to most but with the popularity of deep Arcane builds growing in both PvE and PvP, it isn't much of an issue. If you plan on continuing down the Arcane tree (many people stop at 31 points and just pickup Arcane Power) you should definitely put 2 points in this talent.
Might want to be clearer about the damage boost here. 5/5 ice shards adds 100% of your crit bonus, 2/2 spell power adds another 50% of your crit bonus. This means crits do 225% of normal damage with ice shards + spell power, and 245% (after 4 seconds) with ignite + spell power.
Another minor nit: the tier 3 fire talent is called incinerate not incineration
Edited, Mar 26th 2007 6:27pm by Krane
Note on arcane missle,
5/5 improved arcane missle is very good in PvP to use vs casters and especially healers, its THE interupting spell for mages. I use it prior to CS, so i see a paladin healing, i fire AM, then CS to cancel the school and then prceed to go to town.
Very, very usefull in PvP. It also lets you outnuke warlocks and (shadow)priests. Just pump em full arcane missles and watch em go down. Its how i win vs shadow priest, just pump em full of arc missles, garantueed win. Heck its handy to fire it anything thats trying to cast spells.
Note: after the 4th hit/interupt the you cant interupt a spell anymore, so casting more then 1 AM to interupt is unnecesary. Doesnt count for channeled spells ofc.
Edited, Mar 27th 2007 5:07am by Sjans
5/5 improved arcane missle is very good in PvP to use vs casters and especially healers, its THE interupting spell for mages. I use it prior to CS, so i see a paladin healing, i fire AM, then CS to cancel the school and then prceed to go to town.
Very, very usefull in PvP. It also lets you outnuke warlocks and (shadow)priests. Just pump em full arcane missles and watch em go down. Its how i win vs shadow priest, just pump em full of arc missles, garantueed win. Heck its handy to fire it anything thats trying to cast spells.
Note: after the 4th hit/interupt the you cant interupt a spell anymore, so casting more then 1 AM to interupt is unnecesary. Doesnt count for channeled spells ofc.
Edited, Mar 27th 2007 5:07am by Sjans
Krane wrote:
Very nice!
Might want to be clearer about the damage boost here. 5/5 ice shards adds 100% of your crit bonus, 2/2 spell power adds another 50% of your crit bonus. This means crits do 225% of normal damage with ice shards + spell power, and 245% (after 4 seconds) with ignite + spell power.
Another minor nit: the tier 3 fire talent is called incinerate not incineration
Edited, Mar 26th 2007 6:27pm by Krane
Quote:
Spell Power
Another very good Arcane talent, even better than its brethren in the Frost tree -- Ice Shards -- because it boosts the spell critical damage of all your spells; not just Frost. When paired with Ice Shards your Frost spell criticals enjoy a whopping 150% damage boost. It's deep location in the Arcane tree makes it inaccessible to most but with the popularity of deep Arcane builds growing in both PvE and PvP, it isn't much of an issue. If you plan on continuing down the Arcane tree (many people stop at 31 points and just pickup Arcane Power) you should definitely put 2 points in this talent.
Another very good Arcane talent, even better than its brethren in the Frost tree -- Ice Shards -- because it boosts the spell critical damage of all your spells; not just Frost. When paired with Ice Shards your Frost spell criticals enjoy a whopping 150% damage boost. It's deep location in the Arcane tree makes it inaccessible to most but with the popularity of deep Arcane builds growing in both PvE and PvP, it isn't much of an issue. If you plan on continuing down the Arcane tree (many people stop at 31 points and just pickup Arcane Power) you should definitely put 2 points in this talent.
Might want to be clearer about the damage boost here. 5/5 ice shards adds 100% of your crit bonus, 2/2 spell power adds another 50% of your crit bonus. This means crits do 225% of normal damage with ice shards + spell power, and 245% (after 4 seconds) with ignite + spell power.
Another minor nit: the tier 3 fire talent is called incinerate not incineration
Edited, Mar 26th 2007 6:27pm by Krane
Thank you for pointing out the mistake on Spell Power. I have corrected it.
"Incineration" was a semi-mistake on my part; Wowhead's talent calculator calls it Incineration but the official talent is Incinerate. Is has been corrected as well :D
Sjans wrote:
Note on arcane missle,
5/5 improved arcane missle is very good in PvP to use vs casters and especially healers, its THE interupting spell for mages. I use it prior to CS, so i see a paladin healing, i fire AM, then CS to cancel the school and then prceed to go to town.
Very, very usefull in PvP. It also lets you outnuke warlocks and (shadow)priests. Just pump em full arcane missles and watch em go down. Its how i win vs shadow priest, just pump em full of arc missles, garantueed win. Heck its handy to fire it anything thats trying to cast spells.
Note: after the 4th hit/interupt the you cant interupt a spell anymore, so casting more then 1 AM to interupt is unnecesary. Doesnt count for channeled spells ofc.
Edited, Mar 27th 2007 5:07am by Sjans
5/5 improved arcane missle is very good in PvP to use vs casters and especially healers, its THE interupting spell for mages. I use it prior to CS, so i see a paladin healing, i fire AM, then CS to cancel the school and then prceed to go to town.
Very, very usefull in PvP. It also lets you outnuke warlocks and (shadow)priests. Just pump em full arcane missles and watch em go down. Its how i win vs shadow priest, just pump em full of arc missles, garantueed win. Heck its handy to fire it anything thats trying to cast spells.
Note: after the 4th hit/interupt the you cant interupt a spell anymore, so casting more then 1 AM to interupt is unnecesary. Doesnt count for channeled spells ofc.
Edited, Mar 27th 2007 5:07am by Sjans
In my opinion, Counterspell is still the best spell interruption tool available to mages, with the strategic use of Arcane Missiles you pointed out coming in second. The advantage of Arcane Missiles is the extra range, but IIRC there is a delay before the first shot is fired in the channeling, so there is a chance that the opponent's spell won't be interrupted in time.
Thanks for this guide.
I just started my first mage (a alt), and this clarifies some things for me alot.
I just started my first mage (a alt), and this clarifies some things for me alot.
Thought I'd mention the numbers involved with ice floes.
Cone of Cold - 20secs to 16secs
Ice Block - 5mins to 4mins
Ice Barrier - 30secs to 24secs
Cold Snap - 8mins to 6min 24 secs
Just thought it might be useful, but it's late, I've never been specced ice floes and I'm doing these off the top of my head so someone (except Echou, who has done far too much work already) might want to confirm these.
Cone of Cold - 20secs to 16secs
Ice Block - 5mins to 4mins
Ice Barrier - 30secs to 24secs
Cold Snap - 8mins to 6min 24 secs
Just thought it might be useful, but it's late, I've never been specced ice floes and I'm doing these off the top of my head so someone (except Echou, who has done far too much work already) might want to confirm these.
Quote:
NOTE: Can someone confirm what other harmful effects (if any) it removes? e.g. Hamstring, Rogue poisons, etc.
All of em, iirc.
You can even ice block out of silence/mind control.
Scholar
40 posts
Just bumping...this thread realy deserves to be stiked.
Realy nice thread, congratz
Realy nice thread, congratz
The One and Only Poldaran wrote:
Only thing I'd recommend you add is a note to Imp Fireball and Imp Frostbolt reminding folks of the reduction in damage you get from those spells now.
Otherwise, keep up the good work, Echou.
Otherwise, keep up the good work, Echou.
Fixed. Thanks Poldaran.
rikeoliveira wrote:
Just bumping...this thread realy deserves to be stiked.
Realy nice thread, congratz
Realy nice thread, congratz
Thank you :D
I'm happy that you found this guide useful and hope that other will too. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, this forum has reached the maximum number of stickys allowed. Thus, this thread cannot get stickied. So I ask that anyone who found this thread helpful, please post a reply to bump it.
Thanks again.
3 posts
bump =)
very nice thread!
very nice thread!
Quote:
Winter's Chill
A staple talent for raiding Frost mages. However, those who belong to a raiding guild, may have the luxury of saving themselves the 5 points if they know that there is one or more Frost mages in the guild whom they can rely on for applying the Winter's Chill effect in a raid. This talent is not very useful in PvP combat because ideally your opponent will be dead or near death by the time you get a full stack of 5 Winter's Chill effects on him/her. In my opinion, this talent seems to have been designed with raid encounters in mind.
A staple talent for raiding Frost mages. However, those who belong to a raiding guild, may have the luxury of saving themselves the 5 points if they know that there is one or more Frost mages in the guild whom they can rely on for applying the Winter's Chill effect in a raid. This talent is not very useful in PvP combat because ideally your opponent will be dead or near death by the time you get a full stack of 5 Winter's Chill effects on him/her. In my opinion, this talent seems to have been designed with raid encounters in mind.
This seems to be true from the old 40 man raid perspective, but in BC, the raids are 10 and 25 man. With 25 man, maybe you will get a pair of mages, but in the 10 man, I often am the only mage.
Quote:
Blast Wave
One of the most powerful instant cast spells available to mages due to its ability to hit multiple targets in its area of effect for a substantial amount of damage. This talent is popular in PvP where there are no aggro issues and because of its potential to critical against multiple targets simultaneously. Most builds that have gone this far into the Fire tree will often include this talent.
One of the most powerful instant cast spells available to mages due to its ability to hit multiple targets in its area of effect for a substantial amount of damage. This talent is popular in PvP where there are no aggro issues and because of its potential to critical against multiple targets simultaneously. Most builds that have gone this far into the Fire tree will often include this talent.
I would add that it dazes the enemy as well.
Edited, Apr 3rd 2007 6:09am by ktangent
Bump
Really well done keep up the good work.
Really well done keep up the good work.
ktangent wrote:
Quote:
Winter's Chill...
This seems to be true from the old 40 man raid perspective, but in BC, the raids are 10 and 25 man. With 25 man, maybe you will get a pair of mages, but in the 10 man, I often am the only mage.
Quote:
Blast Wave...
I would add that it dazes the enemy as well.
Added comments regarding both. Thank you ktangent :D
Magic Absorption is really nice. I love it because I like to farm level 60 instances, where all mobs are gray to me, so that means I will resist 80% of their spells, which then gives me over 500 mana/resisted spell, since my mana pool is over 10k. That means I have unlimited mana if I'm fighting a group that has casters also.
Another awesome thread!
2 posts
Thank you for this tread... I've never played mage before so it's extremely useful to me...
1 post
Quote:
Spell Power
Another very good Arcane talent, even better than its brethren in the Frost tree -- Ice Shards -- because it boosts the spell critical damage of all your spells; not just Frost. When paired with...
Krane wrote:
5/5 ice shards adds 100% of your crit bonus, 2/2 spell power adds another 50% of your crit bonus. This means crits do 225% of normal damage with ice shards + spell power, and 245% (after 4 seconds) with ignite + spell power.
Another very good Arcane talent, even better than its brethren in the Frost tree -- Ice Shards -- because it boosts the spell critical damage of all your spells; not just Frost. When paired with...
Krane wrote:
5/5 ice shards adds 100% of your crit bonus, 2/2 spell power adds another 50% of your crit bonus. This means crits do 225% of normal damage with ice shards + spell power, and 245% (after 4 seconds) with ignite + spell power.
I understand the 225% of normal dmg with ice shards + spell power. Using the same logic, it seems to me that crits with ignite + spell power gives 215% (150% w/o talents + 40% with ignite + 25 % with spell power) of normal dmg.
What am I missing?
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