Elementally my dear. (Mages for Dummies)

[Lochart]

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.

[Lochart]

STATS, ENCHANTMENTS, GEMS

Mage Stats

Mages are nice because with minor variation, like rogues or hunters, they all are after the same basic stat increases regardless of spec.

Most basic stats to strive for are intellect and spirit. Stamina is always nice for survivability, but is supplementary to your dps, because in situations where you’ll be taking damage, the healer will know to watch out for you ahead of time. And unlike warlocks who can convert life to mana, a mage’s only use for life is not dying.
Beyond the “basic 5” you also need spell hit rating, spell damage, spell crit rating. These are things that can’t be maxed out, so just keep aiming higher and higher. Mages need spell crit whereas warlocks with all their non-critable dots do not (unless you spec destruction, but that’s another story), but all the rest is the same.
The only other thing to be on the lookout for is spell haste rating. Explained more in detail below, this increases your casting speed, and since patch 2.4 can decrease GLOBAL cooldown on spells to 1 second (default is 1.5). Which means if you really strive for it, you can become a virtual machine gun of your chosen spell. Warlocks of course don’t need this too badly because they have a lot of instant cast spells.

As with warlocks, there is only one “magic” number:

Spell Hit Rating - You need 202 spell hit to minimize spell misses. This is mildly more important for mages than warlocks because warlocks can use health to get more mana and their spells are instant, so they only lose the global cooldown in casting time. Mages on the other hand are done when they hit 0 mana unless they have evocation available, and their spells take 1-6 seconds to cast, so a miss can mean losing a lot of dps.

As mentioned, all other stats have no cap on them, so the more you have the better you’ll be. Regardless of spec (with some wiggle room) the basic outline of non-basic stat importance is

Spell damage, spell crit/spell hit, spell haste

In brief the reasons are as follows

Damage: Your role in groups and raids will be polymorph and dps. Polymorph is either on or off. If your dps is low, the group would be better off with a different player. The mage is a class that is actually EXPECTED to die because they manage to steal aggro from the tank. It happens. Get your damage up and get used to it.

Crit/Hit: Hit is important as mentioned above. Crit is great for burst dps, particularly when you are in charge of aoeing a group and will have all the aggro anyway, but also for monstrous hits that allow (well managed) mages to outperform any other class in the game as far as dps is concerned. So, while you should be shooting for 202 spell hit, a bit of crit rating here and there certainly won’t hurt your performance in the long run. But, for the true PVE’er, hit is the more important stat of the two.

Spell haste: The idea of speeding up spell casting is a good one. Picking up a piece of gear that has some on it won’t hurt you. However, explained below are the mechanics of spell haste and how they actually affect you. With that in mind, you’ll see why it made the bottom of the list of mage stats to shoot for.

Speed = 1 + (Spell Haste Rating/1570)

New Casting Time = Base Casting Time / (1 + (Spell Haste Rating/1570))

So, for example, let’s say you get 30 spell haste rating, and your frostbolt takes 3 seconds to cast. Then your new casting time including spell haste will be 3/(1+(30/1570) = about 2.75. So 30 spell haste lowers your casting time by a quarter of a second.
For an extreme example, let’s look at how much spell haste rating you would need to cut your 3 second casting time in half.

Spell haste = 1570 * ((base cast time/new cast time) – 1))

Spell haste = 1570 * ((3/1.5) – 1) = 1570 spell haste

By comparison, how about reducing 3 second to 2 seconds

Spell haste = 1570 * ((2/1.5) – 1) = 525 spell haste

On an aside, channeled spells are also affected by spell haste: the time spent channeling the spell decreases but the damage remains the same. Another way to think of it is while your damage per tic doesn’t go up, the frequency of the tics goes up, resulting in an increase in dps. You can use the above formulas to figure out how long the channels will last in the same way as a normally cast spell, if you’re interested in doing so.

The point here is that to reduce your casting time by a significant amount, you really have to have a LOT of it. Now, couple that with the idea that most individual items increase spell haste by 30-40, and almost all of THOSE are available from Black Temple. This means that if you’re wearing 12 items (everything except trinkets) with 30 haste you’ll end up with spell haste of 360, which is still not enough to reduce a 3 second cast time to 2 seconds. It is worth noting that to reduce Pyroblast casting time from 6 to 5 seconds only requires 314 spell haste. But because the spells mages use all the time (fireball, frostbolt, ice lance, scorch, and channeled spells) hover around 3 seconds, using 3 seconds is more illustrative of how much haste you need to affect things significantly.

In sum, because you need so much spell haste to change your casting time enough to notice, it’s worth picking up if you can get an item that helps you, but it’s probably more worth your time to shoot for the other mentioned stats.

The other normal caster stat which doesn't really matter is spell penetration. This reduces the target's resistance to your spells by 1 for each point of spell penetration. However, resistance cannot be reduced below 0, and the always important 3 level difference comes into play. Raid bosses, at lvl 73, have an automatic 15 minimum resistance to a lvl 70 caster's spells. Because you can't lower resistance below 0 (or 15 for lvl 73 bosses) there is no real reason to strive for this stat.


ENCHANTMENTS
Because a large number of mages find enchanting to be the most viable profession, I've listed where to obtain each of the enchantments listed so if you're pursuing them yourself, you know where to look.

Head - Glyph of Power gives 22 spell damage and 14 spell hit
Available from the Sha'tar at Honored

Shoulder - Aldor/Scryer chant, depending on which way you go.
Aldor honored: 15 spell damage
Aldor exalted: 18 spell damage, 10 spell crit
Scryer honored: 13 spell crit
Scryer exalted: 15 spell crit, 12 spell damage

Back - Subtlety -2% threat
Obtained from Honor Hold QM at Exalted reputation

Chest - Several options here.
Exceptional Stats: +6 to all stats
Obtained from Honor Hold QM at Revered reputation
Major Mana: +100 mana
Taught by enchanting trainers
Restore Mana Prime: +6 mp5
Taught by enchanting trainers
Major Spirit: +15 spirit
Taught by enchanting trainers

Wrist - Several options here as well
Spellpower/Superior Healing: These two enchantments give +15 and +10 spell damage to hand respectively, but the Healing enchant is so much easier to obtain as well as being so much cheaper that for most people it's worth losing 5 spell damage to save some cash. But in the interest of being thorough
Spellpower: +15 spell damage
BoP drop off Bloodmaul Geomancers in BEM
Superior Healing: +30 healing, +10 spell damage
Obtained from Honor Hold QM at Friendly reputation
Major Intellect: +12 Int
Taught by enchanting trainers
Superior Spirit: +9 Spirit
BoE world drop, check the AH

Hands - Several worth considering
Major Spellpower: +20 Spell damage
Obtained from Keepers of Time QM at Honored reputation
Spell Strike: +15 Spell hit
Obtained from Cenarion Expedition QM at Revered reputation
Blasting: +10 Spell crit
Taught by enchanting trainers

Belt - No enchants available

Legs - Thread patch, made by tailors, available on AH
Runic Spellthread: +35 spell damage, +20 stamina
Mystic Spellthread: +25 spell damage, +15 stamina

Feet - Some variety, but not a lot especially useful to mages directly
Fortitude: +12 stamina
BoP off Ethereal Priests in Mana Tombs instance
Spirit: +5 spirit
World drop, check AH
Vitality: 4 hp5 and 4mp5
World drop, check AH

Ring (Enchanters only)
Spellpower: +12 spell damage (to each ring, +24 total)
Obtained from Keepers of Time QM at Honored reputation

Weapon - Many cool things here depending on spec, availablity, and how much you want to spend
Major Spellpower: +40 spell damage
BoP drop off Bash'ir Spell Thieves in BEM
Major Intellect: +30 intellect
BoP drop off Sunfury Researchers in Netherstorm
Sunfire: +50 damage to fire and arcane spells. Best choice for fire/arcane mages
BoP drop off Shade of Aran in Karazhan (raid)
Soulfrost: +50 damage to frost and shadow spells. Best choice for frost mages
BoP drop off Illhoof in Karazhan (raid)
Spellsurge: 15% chance on spellcast to restore 100 mana over 10 seconds to all party members. Cannot proc more than once every 50 seconds. Interesting choice, but regarded as better for a healer class. Something to think about if you're into experimentation
World drop, check the AH


GEMS

RED
Spell damage – In my opinion (because for the most part socket bonuses aren’t worth pursuing) this is really the only gem worth considering unless you’re trying to do something like get to 202 spell hit rating, or maintain a certain spell crit rating. Mages are dps… the more the better, and this gem facilitates that function more than any other.

YELLOW
Intellect – Intellect is nice; it increases your mana pool and your spell crit rating. And since patch 2.4 your intellect also increases your spirit based mana regeneration as well, making it more important than ever.

Spell hit – Since 202 is the only magic number for mages, it’s good to shoot for spell hit at some point. While it’s not the most important stat, if you find yourself constantly pulling aggro off the tank because your dps is too high and you’re looking for an easy way to reign yourself in without just not casting during battle, swap in some spell hit gems to increase your hit rating.

Spell crit – Really more useful in pvp, but mages (fire mages in particular) love crits, and in some areas where aggro doesn’t matter (Curator, the Shade, aoeing) high crit is great for added burst dps. Not something to be shunned, but I would opt for spell damage rather than spell crit.

BLUE
As a whole, I don’t think blue gems are too useful for mages. If you have a blue socket you’re better off sticking in more spell damage, spell hit, or intellect. Or, if you’re dead set on pursuing a socket bonus and need something to put in a blue socket, go for a multicolored gem (purple or green) which will still provide some of the red or yellow bonuses like spell damage, int, spell hit, or spell crit. However, for the sake of thoroughness, here are the useful blue gems.

Spirit – mana regen is good, and with Mage Armor allowing you to let regen continue during casting (and battle) spirit based mana regeneration is good, especially now that it’s boosted by intellect.

Mp5 – Straight up mana regen boosts. But the effects are so small versus your casting costs, this is like spell haste in that it’s not really worth stacking, particularly since you have mana potions and evocation to get mana back far more quickly. Just for example, the highest rank fireball costs 425 mana. Let’s say you have a whopping 15 mp5 (that’s 4-5 blue gem slots) Let’s also say that the average raid boss fight lasts 5 minutes (regular bosses are of course less) So your mp5 mana regeneration over 5 minutes would be:

15 * (60/5) * 5 = 900 mana, enough to cast 2 extra fireballs

And again, a boss battle lasting 5 minutes means that if you evocate once, your cooldown won’t even allow you to use it twice, so you can take 8 seconds and regen ALL your mana, or get 15 back in the same time frame from gem bonuses.

However, there is an important mana regen fact to keep in mind, known generally as the “5 second rule”. If you cast a spell (any spell), spirit based mana regeneration is suspended for 5 seconds afterwards, meaning you’ll ONLY be regenerating mana based on mp5 effects. So, for boss fights when you’ll be casting constantly, and a 5 second lull could spell doom, mp5 mana regeneration IS far more useful than spirit based mana regeneration.
Example: fireball casts for 3 seconds, and for 5 seconds afterward you get no mana regeneration from spirit. But with mp5, you’ll get 15 mana back in the same time (using our above example). Now assume you’re casting 4 fireballs in a row, and 0 mana regen versus 45 from mp5 regeneration seems pretty good. Of course Mage Armor can help mitigate the 5 second rule by allowing you 30% mana regen even during casting and combat, so you’ll have to determine which method of mana regen works best for you: mp5, spirit, or evocation.

META
Several mage options here
Destructive Skyfire Diamond - 14 spell crit and 1% spell reflect
Mystical Skyfire Diamond - chance on spellcast next cast is 50% cast time
Insightful Earthstorm Diamond - 12 int and chance to restore (300) mana on spellcast
Chaotic Skyfire Diamond - 12 spell crit, +3% spell crit damage
Ember Skyfire Diamond - 12 spell damage, +2% intellect

I leave it to you to pick your poison based on availability and personal preference. The weapon of choice for raiding is Insightful Earthstorm Diamond. It restores 300 per proc and procs quite often. The other most viable options (in my opinion) are Chaotic Skyfire and Ember Skyfire. It all depends on how your mana management is going. If you always have a way to get more, just pile on the dps. If you could use the extra mana boost from casting, be Insightful.