Post by Lochart on Jun 8, 2008 10:19:14 GMT -5
Talent specs
The mage perhaps more than any other class has enormous leeway in talent specs. Pure fire, pure frost, pure arcane (rare), fire/frost, fire/arcane. And within these general categories are small tweaks depending on play style. For the sake of brevity, I have only covered a frost spec (for control) and a fire/arcane spec (for massive dps). Know that there are many variations and my suggestions are merely that. As usual, I list all talents, and the reasons for or against taking a particular one.
FROST
Fire (8 points)
5/5 Improved Fireball
3/3 Improved Fire Blast
Frost (53 points)
5/5 Improved Frostbolt
3/3 Elemental Precision
5/5 Ice Shards
2/2 Improved Frost Nova
3/3 Permafrost
3/3 Piercing Ice
1/1 Icy Veins
3/3 Improved Blizzard
2/2 Arctic Reach
3/3 Frost Channeling
1/1 Cold Snap
3/3 Improved Cone of Cold
2/2 Ice Floes
5/5 Winter's Chill
1/1 Ice Barrier
5/5 Arctic Winds
5/5 Empowered Frostbolt
1/1 Summon Water Elemental
Frost Warding – Mages don’t have a lot of armor, and increases frost resistance has little effect in most places in the game. Similarly, reflecting frost spells will come up so infrequently that these 2 points are better spent elsewhere. Skip this.
Imp. Frostbolt – The mainstay of your frost arsenal until you get ice lance. Casting it faster is a good thing. Must have.
Elemental Precision – Mages live on mana. Reducing mana costs enable you to cast more and do more damage. Lowering resistance is just a bonus. Another must have.
Ice Shards – While frost isn’t primarily a damage dealing tree, mages are a damage class, so the more you can pile on the better. And 100% ore damage from crits is a good thing. Take this.
Frostbite – Up to a 15% chance to freeze chilled targets. This sounds great, but one thing about it bothers me. If you’re kiting 8 mobs around with blizzard taking them down, then 3 of them freeze because of frostbite but the other 5 keep coming, you’ve effectively split up your mobs into 2 groups, and have lost the element of control you had over them. Further, since 15% is relatively low, you will never be able to depend on the freeze effect to kick in and save you. If you can’t rely on it, I see no reason to put it in play in the first place. This has far more viability in pvp when someone will always be coming for you, but freezing a target or two might let others kill them faster. I’d skip this for PvE play.
Imp. Frost Nova – Again, the things any mage wants to do are decrease casting time, decrease mana costs of spells, and reduce cooldowns. This does the latter for another frost mainstay. Get this.
Permafrost – Here we have the first major boost to control a frost mage gets. It enables you to slow your enemies to a slower crawl for a longer time. Essential as you build deeper into frost.
Piercing Ice – Frostbolt is good. Increasing damage is good. Take this.
Icy Veins – One of THE reasons to get into the frost tree. Everything is faster and can’t be interrupted for 20 seconds. You must get this spell.
Imp. Blizzard – Adds the chill effect to your blizzard which Permafrost will enhance considerably. Blizzard will become your weapon of choice for aoeing down 5-10 mobs at a time, so the slower the mobs move, the more damage you can deal to them with Blizzard.
Arctic Reach – Generally speaking, any talent that increases range of anything is good. Hunters have Eagle Eye, warlocks have Grim Reach, and mages have both Arctic Reach for frost and Flame Throwing for fire. Take this.
Frost Channeling – Again, mana reduction is the goal of any mage. The threat reduction is useful in groups as well. Essential.
Shatter – Without Frostbite, there’s no reason to waste 5 points here. And see Frostbite for the reason you shouldn’t bother with it.
Frozen Core – With the basic Fire and Frost Wards, your damage from fire and frost spells should already be pretty low. Reducing it by another 6% is not worth 3 points.
Cold Snap – Cooldown reducing ability. Extremely useful.
Imp. Cone of Cold – More damage is good where you can get it on the frost tree, especially on a spell that has a chill effect and will be affected by Permafrost.
Ice Floes – A major cooldown reducing ability. Get this.
Winter’s Chill – A nice way to boost your damage as a frost mage. Used in combination with Ice Shards, your crit percentage and resulting damage can get up quite high. And you can boost another mage’s damage output in groups or raids with multiple mages as well. Take this one.
Ice Barrier – A wonderful damage shield in case you actually get hit. Spells are uninterruptible while the shield holds, and unlike mana shield, there is no down side to Ice Barrier. A no brainer to take this deep in the frost tree.
Arctic Winds – Another damage increaser, which is good. And as a secondary bonus, gives you a 5% change to avoid every incoming attack. There is no reason not to take this.
Empowered Frostbolt – More damage and critical strike for a frost staple. Another no brainer.
Water Elemental – Useful source of additional damage, and comes with its own frost nova (and waterbolt). And hey, who doesn’t love having a minion to boss around?
That leaves you with 8 points to fill in. You could just take Frostbite and Shatter, which leaves you fully frost and gives you additional chances for damage. Because I don’t like relying on it, as stated, I opted for a touch of fire.
Imp. Fireball – Decrease casting time. Useful.
Imp. Fire Blast – Decrease the cooldown on an instant cast spell. Useful as a killing blow if a nearly dead mob is getting a little too close for comfort.
You could also opt for a few arcane points, or distribute the 8 in fire differently. Again, there are many options for mage specs, and it comes down to play style. Experiment and enjoy!
FIRE/ARCANE
There are several variations on the fire arcane build as well. The traditional one is 10/48/3 but even within that, there is variation. Feel free to experiment, here is my build of choice.
Arcane (10)
Imp. Arcane Missiles – avoiding interruption is a good thing, as it allows you to get the most bang for your buck. While you may not use arcane missiles all that often, in a fight where you know you’re going to get hit, having at least one spell that will NEVER be interrupted is a good thing, you can dish out damage while taking a mild beating.
Arcane Concentration – The point of having 10 points in Arcane. A free spell 10% of the time (on average). This can save you loads of mana over the course of a boss fight, and is essential to raiding where you’re guaranteed to need more mana than you have.
Frost (3)
Elemental Precision – Dip into the frost tree to reduce all fire spells mana costs by 3%. Totally worth it.
Fire (48)
Imp. Fireball – Reducing casting time is good, remember?
Impact – Some love this, I’m not a fan. 10% is too small a percentage to be relied on to save you if you need it, and for 5 points I think there are better things to invest in. Others love it, take it and try it out if you like, but I would skip this.
Ignite – Fire is all about dps, so adding dots that give your spells a 40% damage boost is a good thing.
Flame Throwing – Again, range is good.
Imp. Fire Blast – Reducing cooldowns = more dps more frequently
Incineration – 2 spells you use all the time get a 4% crit chance boost. I only didn’t take this because I needed points elsewhere. If you have the points to spare, put some here.
Imp. Flamestrike – Compared to the above, giving 1 spell a 15% crit chance seemed wiser, particularly for an aoe spell that affects more than one target.
Pyroblast – useful for a giant damage opener, or on bosses with vulnerability like Curator. The casting time is a drawback, but even if you don't' use it that often, it leads to Blast Wave, another useful aoe spell to add to your arsenal of destruction.
Burning Soul – If you solo, this is useful because you can avoid spell interruption. If you group, this is useful to reduce your threat from fire spells (and occasionally to avoid spell interruption). Either way, take this talent.
Imp. Scorch – Allows your fire spells to eventually do 15% more damage for nothing. No reason not to have this talent.
Molten Shields – The spell reflection like Frost Ward, is useless in most scenarios. The bonus of ranged and spell attacks triggering Molten Armor is minimally useful. 75 damage is weak, and lowering the chance of being critically hit by 5% is not enough of a bonus alone to invest 2 talent points in. Remember that in most cases where you’ll be the center of aggro for aoeing purposes, the mobs attacking you will be melee anyway, so the normal Molten Armor effect will still work.
Master of Elements – Getting mana BACK from spells is almost as good as getting free spell casts. Essential for the serious fire mage.
Playing with Fire – Here’s another iffy one. On the one hand you shouldn’t be getting hit by spell damage all that often. But on the other, mages aren’t exactly a stamina powerhouse, and adding dps to a spell that hits you for 1/3 of your total health may not be a good idea. I skipped it despite the damage increase, but you may want to test it out and see how it affects you.
Critical Mass – ALL fire spells get 6% more crit chance. And it leads to two more fire spells in the tree. Take this.
Blast Wave – Instant cast aoe fire spell for one talent point… Duh.
Blazing Speed – A PvP talent if ever there were one. You shouldn’t be getting hit often enough in pve for this to matter, and even without it you still have the ol’ frost nova + blink to stay at range. Skip this.
Fire Power – ALL fire spells do 10% more damage… Duh.
Pyromaniac – ALL fire spells have 3% more crit chance AND cost 3% less mana…
Combustion – Increase crit chance by 10%. Use in combination with your heavy hitters like Pyroblast and Fireball to maximize dps, and remember that your critical strikes will refund 30% of the spell cost. Further, remember that the spell lasts until you’ve caused 3 critical hits with fire spells. It has a one minute CD which doesn’t start until the effect expires, so don’t think you can cast it before combat and cast it again one minute later regardless of how many crits you’ve fired off. Just something to be aware of.
Molten Fury – Damage of ALL spells increased by 20% on targets with less than 20% health. This is important for aoeing because your arcane explosion will be more effective. It also means that at the bitter end of boss battles, your dps will go up considerably in the last few seconds, making you a power player in the final stages.
Empowered Fireball – This talent answers the question, “Could my fireball possibly get any more awesome?” Yes, and it does more damage to boot.
Dragon’s Breath – Arguably a PvP talent because disorienting targets in raids is either impossible (bosses are immune) or useless (damage breaks the effect and when aoeing, they’ll be taking damage constantly) so if you’re pressed for talents, you would probably be ok skipping this. On the other hand it’s another fire spell, it’s an instant cast, and it’s an aoe cone. For one point, it has a lot going for it. I’d take it.
So that’s one way to do a 10/48/3 build. There are numerous others, and I encourage you to experiment and find what works for you. But hopefully this provides a starting point.
The mage perhaps more than any other class has enormous leeway in talent specs. Pure fire, pure frost, pure arcane (rare), fire/frost, fire/arcane. And within these general categories are small tweaks depending on play style. For the sake of brevity, I have only covered a frost spec (for control) and a fire/arcane spec (for massive dps). Know that there are many variations and my suggestions are merely that. As usual, I list all talents, and the reasons for or against taking a particular one.
FROST
Fire (8 points)
5/5 Improved Fireball
3/3 Improved Fire Blast
Frost (53 points)
5/5 Improved Frostbolt
3/3 Elemental Precision
5/5 Ice Shards
2/2 Improved Frost Nova
3/3 Permafrost
3/3 Piercing Ice
1/1 Icy Veins
3/3 Improved Blizzard
2/2 Arctic Reach
3/3 Frost Channeling
1/1 Cold Snap
3/3 Improved Cone of Cold
2/2 Ice Floes
5/5 Winter's Chill
1/1 Ice Barrier
5/5 Arctic Winds
5/5 Empowered Frostbolt
1/1 Summon Water Elemental
Frost Warding – Mages don’t have a lot of armor, and increases frost resistance has little effect in most places in the game. Similarly, reflecting frost spells will come up so infrequently that these 2 points are better spent elsewhere. Skip this.
Imp. Frostbolt – The mainstay of your frost arsenal until you get ice lance. Casting it faster is a good thing. Must have.
Elemental Precision – Mages live on mana. Reducing mana costs enable you to cast more and do more damage. Lowering resistance is just a bonus. Another must have.
Ice Shards – While frost isn’t primarily a damage dealing tree, mages are a damage class, so the more you can pile on the better. And 100% ore damage from crits is a good thing. Take this.
Frostbite – Up to a 15% chance to freeze chilled targets. This sounds great, but one thing about it bothers me. If you’re kiting 8 mobs around with blizzard taking them down, then 3 of them freeze because of frostbite but the other 5 keep coming, you’ve effectively split up your mobs into 2 groups, and have lost the element of control you had over them. Further, since 15% is relatively low, you will never be able to depend on the freeze effect to kick in and save you. If you can’t rely on it, I see no reason to put it in play in the first place. This has far more viability in pvp when someone will always be coming for you, but freezing a target or two might let others kill them faster. I’d skip this for PvE play.
Imp. Frost Nova – Again, the things any mage wants to do are decrease casting time, decrease mana costs of spells, and reduce cooldowns. This does the latter for another frost mainstay. Get this.
Permafrost – Here we have the first major boost to control a frost mage gets. It enables you to slow your enemies to a slower crawl for a longer time. Essential as you build deeper into frost.
Piercing Ice – Frostbolt is good. Increasing damage is good. Take this.
Icy Veins – One of THE reasons to get into the frost tree. Everything is faster and can’t be interrupted for 20 seconds. You must get this spell.
Imp. Blizzard – Adds the chill effect to your blizzard which Permafrost will enhance considerably. Blizzard will become your weapon of choice for aoeing down 5-10 mobs at a time, so the slower the mobs move, the more damage you can deal to them with Blizzard.
Arctic Reach – Generally speaking, any talent that increases range of anything is good. Hunters have Eagle Eye, warlocks have Grim Reach, and mages have both Arctic Reach for frost and Flame Throwing for fire. Take this.
Frost Channeling – Again, mana reduction is the goal of any mage. The threat reduction is useful in groups as well. Essential.
Shatter – Without Frostbite, there’s no reason to waste 5 points here. And see Frostbite for the reason you shouldn’t bother with it.
Frozen Core – With the basic Fire and Frost Wards, your damage from fire and frost spells should already be pretty low. Reducing it by another 6% is not worth 3 points.
Cold Snap – Cooldown reducing ability. Extremely useful.
Imp. Cone of Cold – More damage is good where you can get it on the frost tree, especially on a spell that has a chill effect and will be affected by Permafrost.
Ice Floes – A major cooldown reducing ability. Get this.
Winter’s Chill – A nice way to boost your damage as a frost mage. Used in combination with Ice Shards, your crit percentage and resulting damage can get up quite high. And you can boost another mage’s damage output in groups or raids with multiple mages as well. Take this one.
Ice Barrier – A wonderful damage shield in case you actually get hit. Spells are uninterruptible while the shield holds, and unlike mana shield, there is no down side to Ice Barrier. A no brainer to take this deep in the frost tree.
Arctic Winds – Another damage increaser, which is good. And as a secondary bonus, gives you a 5% change to avoid every incoming attack. There is no reason not to take this.
Empowered Frostbolt – More damage and critical strike for a frost staple. Another no brainer.
Water Elemental – Useful source of additional damage, and comes with its own frost nova (and waterbolt). And hey, who doesn’t love having a minion to boss around?
That leaves you with 8 points to fill in. You could just take Frostbite and Shatter, which leaves you fully frost and gives you additional chances for damage. Because I don’t like relying on it, as stated, I opted for a touch of fire.
Imp. Fireball – Decrease casting time. Useful.
Imp. Fire Blast – Decrease the cooldown on an instant cast spell. Useful as a killing blow if a nearly dead mob is getting a little too close for comfort.
You could also opt for a few arcane points, or distribute the 8 in fire differently. Again, there are many options for mage specs, and it comes down to play style. Experiment and enjoy!
FIRE/ARCANE
There are several variations on the fire arcane build as well. The traditional one is 10/48/3 but even within that, there is variation. Feel free to experiment, here is my build of choice.
Arcane (10)
Imp. Arcane Missiles – avoiding interruption is a good thing, as it allows you to get the most bang for your buck. While you may not use arcane missiles all that often, in a fight where you know you’re going to get hit, having at least one spell that will NEVER be interrupted is a good thing, you can dish out damage while taking a mild beating.
Arcane Concentration – The point of having 10 points in Arcane. A free spell 10% of the time (on average). This can save you loads of mana over the course of a boss fight, and is essential to raiding where you’re guaranteed to need more mana than you have.
Frost (3)
Elemental Precision – Dip into the frost tree to reduce all fire spells mana costs by 3%. Totally worth it.
Fire (48)
Imp. Fireball – Reducing casting time is good, remember?
Impact – Some love this, I’m not a fan. 10% is too small a percentage to be relied on to save you if you need it, and for 5 points I think there are better things to invest in. Others love it, take it and try it out if you like, but I would skip this.
Ignite – Fire is all about dps, so adding dots that give your spells a 40% damage boost is a good thing.
Flame Throwing – Again, range is good.
Imp. Fire Blast – Reducing cooldowns = more dps more frequently
Incineration – 2 spells you use all the time get a 4% crit chance boost. I only didn’t take this because I needed points elsewhere. If you have the points to spare, put some here.
Imp. Flamestrike – Compared to the above, giving 1 spell a 15% crit chance seemed wiser, particularly for an aoe spell that affects more than one target.
Pyroblast – useful for a giant damage opener, or on bosses with vulnerability like Curator. The casting time is a drawback, but even if you don't' use it that often, it leads to Blast Wave, another useful aoe spell to add to your arsenal of destruction.
Burning Soul – If you solo, this is useful because you can avoid spell interruption. If you group, this is useful to reduce your threat from fire spells (and occasionally to avoid spell interruption). Either way, take this talent.
Imp. Scorch – Allows your fire spells to eventually do 15% more damage for nothing. No reason not to have this talent.
Molten Shields – The spell reflection like Frost Ward, is useless in most scenarios. The bonus of ranged and spell attacks triggering Molten Armor is minimally useful. 75 damage is weak, and lowering the chance of being critically hit by 5% is not enough of a bonus alone to invest 2 talent points in. Remember that in most cases where you’ll be the center of aggro for aoeing purposes, the mobs attacking you will be melee anyway, so the normal Molten Armor effect will still work.
Master of Elements – Getting mana BACK from spells is almost as good as getting free spell casts. Essential for the serious fire mage.
Playing with Fire – Here’s another iffy one. On the one hand you shouldn’t be getting hit by spell damage all that often. But on the other, mages aren’t exactly a stamina powerhouse, and adding dps to a spell that hits you for 1/3 of your total health may not be a good idea. I skipped it despite the damage increase, but you may want to test it out and see how it affects you.
Critical Mass – ALL fire spells get 6% more crit chance. And it leads to two more fire spells in the tree. Take this.
Blast Wave – Instant cast aoe fire spell for one talent point… Duh.
Blazing Speed – A PvP talent if ever there were one. You shouldn’t be getting hit often enough in pve for this to matter, and even without it you still have the ol’ frost nova + blink to stay at range. Skip this.
Fire Power – ALL fire spells do 10% more damage… Duh.
Pyromaniac – ALL fire spells have 3% more crit chance AND cost 3% less mana…
Combustion – Increase crit chance by 10%. Use in combination with your heavy hitters like Pyroblast and Fireball to maximize dps, and remember that your critical strikes will refund 30% of the spell cost. Further, remember that the spell lasts until you’ve caused 3 critical hits with fire spells. It has a one minute CD which doesn’t start until the effect expires, so don’t think you can cast it before combat and cast it again one minute later regardless of how many crits you’ve fired off. Just something to be aware of.
Molten Fury – Damage of ALL spells increased by 20% on targets with less than 20% health. This is important for aoeing because your arcane explosion will be more effective. It also means that at the bitter end of boss battles, your dps will go up considerably in the last few seconds, making you a power player in the final stages.
Empowered Fireball – This talent answers the question, “Could my fireball possibly get any more awesome?” Yes, and it does more damage to boot.
Dragon’s Breath – Arguably a PvP talent because disorienting targets in raids is either impossible (bosses are immune) or useless (damage breaks the effect and when aoeing, they’ll be taking damage constantly) so if you’re pressed for talents, you would probably be ok skipping this. On the other hand it’s another fire spell, it’s an instant cast, and it’s an aoe cone. For one point, it has a lot going for it. I’d take it.
So that’s one way to do a 10/48/3 build. There are numerous others, and I encourage you to experiment and find what works for you. But hopefully this provides a starting point.