40/18/3 or 40/0/21Follow

Well, your first build would be built towards more of a constant spell dmg build based on fire spells according to the fact that you aren't deeply specced into fire. The build gives you less choice as to when to PVP and when to PVE since most of it results in the amount of intellect, and pretty much spelldmg that you have. But let's say that you wanna go pure PVE with it.

Sure, you've left out the crits from the fire tree (crit mass, pyromaniac and combustion) and the specific + fire dmg talents like fire power, playing with fire and molten fury. I'm gonna make an argument here and say that you're sacrificing ALOT of dmg and burst dmg for mind mastery and spell power.

No calculations involved, it'd seem that going into mind mastery and spellpower would benefit more overall. But since you've spent no talent points in terms of improving your frost spell tree nor arcane missiles and such, the 2 end tier arcane talents that you've chosen to take arent exactly that much beneficial. So, let's try something here.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oi0Vc0cZxgM0fzI0eRt

You'll probably wanna argue that:

1. There's no points in elemental precision: less spell hit & mana cost
2. No more imp. CS and PoM, AP, etc.

Well, the thing with fire spells is that, even when resisted, they do partial damage. But with that increment in fire spelldmg from the talents that you had just gone through, that gap is immediately refilled. And with the decrease in mana cost of spells? Well, that's filled again with pyromaniac.

As for imp. CS. PoM and AP, they're really just PVP talents. Sure, AP and PoM will give you burst damage in raiding, but does it increase your DPM? No, not by a longshot. Combustion will give you much better options in terms of burst dmg. And imp. CS is really just for PVP, if you're thinking about serious raiding, there's no point for that given that you know how to time your CS's.

The rest of the talent points lost, well, Spell power, mind mastery, arcane pot. and arcane instability again are all filled by the numerous talents which will increase your DPS dramatically. Yes, you will lose that 50% crit dmg increment. But you will have a greater (9% crit chance as opposed to that 3% from arcane insta, not counting combustion) chance to crit in the end. Not to mention, that spellpower that you get from mind mastery, which normally would rarely add up to over 200, and I mean like on epic, t6 mages. Inturn, you get spellpower bonuses from talents like imp. fireball, playing with fire, firepower and molten fury. That's quite alot of stacked dmg on that fireball.

Oh and, I do know that I left blastwave out, but feel free to take it and drop something.

Now, as for your second build, I can see that you're speccing towards full, dedicated raiding as you've even ignored shatter. Yes, your frost spells will benefit from your arcane tree talents and your mana pool would likely last alot longer, given that you dont blow AP all the time.

Ice barrier is a great way to mitigate dmg (especially with the recent changes, making it susceptible to spell dmg. But getting it would sacrifice alot of spell dmg talents from the arcane tree.

So once again, we go into the argument of: which will benefit you more? deep arcane or deep frost? Well, from your build, we lose arctic winds, imp. frostbolt and winter's chill for + spelldmg. That winter's chill would benefit you alot if other members of your raid consists of frost mages. The problem is, you'll be sacrificing that sweet 50% crit bonus, which, with shatter, can give some pretty amazing results.

So the bottom line is, if you dont have alot of spell crit, I dont suggest you to follow that latter build, since most of your DPS will come from shatter + spell power's crit bonus, and without winter's chill and imp. frost bolt, that wont happen as often. But the fire build may drain you out pretty quickly. But if you're going pure raiding, it shouldn't be a problem for you to get +int gear , and it's not like that evocation, gems, pots and dark runes wont come in handy.

There is no difference in the damage loss of 3% total resist from binary and non-binary spells. And +hit is easily the biggest boost to damage of any possible damage increases until you reach the hit cap).



Empowered fireball is a less powerful talent at early gear levels than Mind Mastery. Overall, the Arcane/Fire type builds tend to be much stronger at early gear levels due to the initial strength given by the same talents you knock. Those talents just don't scale well and tend to be less useful as other talents begin to surpass them. Right about when your gear is passing mid/late Kara.



Actually, thanks to the recent changes to spirit, a mage specced into his second build should be able to blow AP every single time it's up. The regen is that good. Whether threat put out by the tank will allow him to do so is another matter entirely.



Almost completely useless in raids.



This is certainly a valid point. Deep frost is great when the rest of your mages are Arcane/Frost.




Imp CS is certainly a PvP talent, but with the new spirit regen, AP is now a very useful addition to a raid build if you're already that deep in the arcane tree. AP + Icy Veins yields a lot of power(though I must admit, I'm no longer sure if you can still use them at the same time, though I think so).

For now, I'd say the Arcane/Frost. Unless you have several other mages in guild with that that you run with already. Then go deep frost.

A bit after you've cleared Kara and are mostly Kara geared, though, you might consider the cookie cutter Deep fire/Icy Veins build. I'm using it if you'd like to see it(Armory Poldaran on Dalaran...the point in Impact can go anywhere you want).

You can. Put that on with a nice damage trinket and if you're a troll, berserking, you're a gatling mage.