Mage Build

[WayAbvPar]

I liked it a lot as a fire mage, but so far (in my one whole playsession!), frost feels a bit more mana efficient, so I don't quite feel the urgency for Clearcasting. I very well might head down that route later on though if things at the bottom of the frost tree don't float my boat.

[Nebu]

I agree with you.  Frost is so mana effecient that you really don't feel the need for it like I did with fire spec.  Then again, my experience was much more limited than most of the vets here.  I should bow out and leave them to carry on with the discussion. 

[Morat20]

I liked it a lot as a fire mage, but so far (in my one whole playsession!), frost feels a bit more mana efficient, so I don't quite feel the urgency for Clearcasting. I very well might head down that route later on though if things at the bottom of the frost tree don't float my boat.

I specced clearcasting for a very long time, and then realized I couldn't find 10 points in Frost I was willing to give up for it. So I dropped it in the 2.0 respec. I also don't have much threat problems with full frost -- not in the "yank it off a tank" sense.

[Venkman]

I've been Arc/Fire and Frost/Arc, and I like em both for different reasons:

• Frost- Oh crap moments, mana efficient, general survivability. Safe soloing. Good in groups to erase hate tree, slow runners, etc.
• Arc/Fire- Things die fast. Way fast. Safe soloing. Good in groups with Slow (I took that one at 61), insta-kill runners, but requires being careful. It's very VERY easy to pull aggro with the post 2.0 talents in BC zones. Oh crap easily handled with Arcane Power, the general ++ goodness of crits and +DMG, and particularly if a Clearcast comes up.
  
  

All in all, after 18 months as Arc/Fire and 3 as Frost/Arc, I'm back as Arc/Fire. For me, I just like the big ass numbers. Insta-cast 3,200+ Pyroblasts with crappy gear ftw (6 tier 1 pieces, the rest already replaced by green quest crap and drops in HFP and Zand). That Illidar trinket from BC (which only requires you be awake to get) plus Arcane Power is this spec's oh crap addresser. Heck, I've used just one of those and spammed Scorch to do crazy damage.

And pre-BC, Arc/Fire for PvP insta-death, and that was when I purposely was trying to not be the 3-minute Mage. But that was at a time before Resiliency, before the dark times, before the empire. No idea how things'll play out at 70. I hear +1000 damage is not terribly difficult to come by at that point, but everyone else makes tradeoffs between their special brand of output versus anti-crit stuff.

I'm only 62.5 though so no idea how long I'll be 3-shotting things.

[Jayce]

So, having dinged 26 last night, I'm at a crossroads (not THE crossroads).

I now have Cone of Cold, and according to teh intarnets, this means I can effectively blizzard aoe grind.  So the question is, do I keep my single target pwnage fire build, or change to an AOE grind build?  It is my intention to grind either way.

Do any current or former mages here have any insight on the effectiveness/difficulty of solo aoe grinding vs single pulls?

[MournelitheCalix]

Mage is one of those few classes where you can spec anything and still come out fairly strong.  I specced arcane through levels 1 - 60.  I found it to be a very effective and efficient build.  I also found that skills like arcane missiles had a tendency to crit a lot in consecutive strikes and as a result it seemed a lot more mana efficient then say Fire. 

I went all the way up the arcane tree and honestly, I haven't ever regretted it.  I know I haven't given you much advice here, but I think that is because the bottom line with mages is that you play and spec them to your personality.  If you want an all out frontal assault, then I would highly encourage you to be a fire mage.  If you want to implement more strategy, then I would recommend that you look into being a frost mage.  If on the other hand you want utility and efficiency then I would highly recommend you take a look at arcane and see what it has to offer you.

Morat I never saw that bug while leveling nor have I seen it through level 65.
They did finally fix that bug where you'd fire Arcane Missiles and your toon would assume the "I'm blasting you with Arcane Missiles" stance, and the channeling bar would come up, and the mana would drain -- but no arcane missiles, no damage, no NOTHING -- right?

I haven't seen it happen in a long time, but I recall it being a bug for a very long time -- and oddly situational. (It seemed to happen in certain zones more than others. Once it happened, it'd keep happening until you logged....).

[Chenghiz]

AOE grinding is not really good for XP unless you're really good. One screw-up can earn you a trip back to your corpse pretty quickly.

[bhodi]

AoE grinding isn't really recommended without a buddy. The margins are so tight, one screwup and you're behind solo grinding. I found it wasn't worth it. Standard fire/arcane spec, fireball fireball nova backup fireball fireball scorch or fire blast is the way to go. When your PoM is up, open with pyroblast instead. Abuse the hell out of evocate. Buy some +fire damage potions, they are cheap.

Levels 37-40, make sure you grind in the badlands with the rock elementals, the same ones you do to get the nifty stopwatch. They give a crazy amount of gold and you can easily afford your mount at 40 if you grind from 37-40 on them.

[Jobu]

Despite the danger or inefficiency of it, I find AOE grinding to be a lot of fun. It gets less dangerous in your mid 30s when you have a good stack of talents and int/stam that help a lot. The biggest problem you might have in your 20s is running out of mana before they all die. It's almost a mage rite of passage to practice your grouping and AOEing at the pirate camp in Tanaris. Whatever you do, don't get frostbite if you go for that route, that will screw your pulls up like nothing else.

[Yoshimaru]

Once you get up into the mid 50's a fun spec to try is Elemental, Fire/Ice... Once you get up higher you get the survivability of Ice with Ice block plus shatter, and you can also have Pyroblast and Blastwave for some nice burst damage. Nothing gives me more pleasure than running into a group of allies, Frost novaeing, and seeing the screen like up with 1k+ CoC crits followed by a blastwave and then the kamikaze AE...

[Zetor]

Yeah, one of my guildies swears by an elemental spec, something like this. Not optimal for grinding, but has a lot of versatility in pve/pvp, and frost nova + crit blast wave is a beautiful thing.


-- Z.

[Jayce]

Thanks for the info, guys.  As much as I'd like to try out a frost AOE grinding build, the 5g with a possibility of not being able to pull it off dissuaded me.  Maybe I'll think about it in my mid 30s or early 40s.

[Venkman]

Good plan. AOEing doesn't really seem to pay off until well into the 30s anyway. Ya just don't have the HPs nor mana for it unless you're twinked with stuff you probably can't afford because you're worried about 5g :)

[Tairnyn]

Ice Barrier and Cold Snap (for that extra emergency Frost Nova) will make AoE much more feasible. Throw in the talents for extra slow from frost effects and it just becomes a matter of keeping everything bunched up when the nova freeze effect breaks on only a few of the mobs. With enough twitch skills you can Blink through the pack and spin 180 to pull the stragglers back into line. The CoC/Shatter combo with extra slow talents not only does monster damage it also slows the enemy, allowing you to literally walk backwards and chain Arcane Explosion to finish off the stragglers.

As a bonus, the slow effects often will effect mobs that are otherwise unable to be CCed, making a Frost Mage a valuable kiter in tough dungeon situations.

[WayAbvPar]

Ice Barrier and Cold Snap

Just picked these up the past 2 levels and it has done WONDERS for my survivability both solo and in groups.

[Venkman]

Ice Barrier alone extended my time as a Frosty by a month. Awesome spell. I really miss it back as Arc/Fire. But then I'm crit'ing fire stuff like crazy with the BC gear so stuff is dead before it gets to me. Maybe I'll switch back to Frost for a bit once I've got my flying mount. 50g respecs ftl. I gotta learn to do an xfer to PTR to test stuff.

And as to an Elementalist Build, given the amount of +DMG/+Crit I'm falling all over in BC, I'd not bother with Combustion and take Ice Barrier instead. Something like this build. Could swap out for Ice Floes though. I may try this some year.

[Morat20]

Ice Barrier alone extended my time as a Frosty by a month. Awesome spell. I really miss it back as Arc/Fire. But then I'm crit'ing fire stuff like crazy with the BC gear so stuff is dead before it gets to me. Maybe I'll switch back to Frost for a bit once I've got my flying mount. 50g respecs ftl. I gotta learn to do an xfer to PTR to test stuff.

And as to an Elementalist Build, given the amount of +DMG/+Crit I'm falling all over in BC, I'd not bother with Combustion and take Ice Barrier instead. Something like this build. Could swap out for Ice Floes though. I may try this some year.

Hold off respeccing -- respec prices decay over time. Or they should.

[WayAbvPar]

I don't see any builds that reflect my current pace for mage- at level 44 I have 34 points in frost, with another 5-8 points already spent in my mind. Am I totally crazy, or will this have some usefulness? I can probably add some Arcane or Fire after level 52 or so...

[Driakos]

I don't see any builds that reflect my current pace for mage- at level 44 I have 34 points in frost, with another 5-8 points already spent in my mind. Am I totally crazy, or will this have some usefulness? I can probably add some Arcane or Fire after level 52 or so...

It's really easy to spend all of your points in frost.  It is just a great tree.  There are a couple of mages in my guild who are full frost.

[Jayce]

OK, so now I'm 43, (game) minutes away from 44.

I've been fire this whole time, and I'm rather addicted to the front-loaded damage.  I can approach 1k crits with no special gear ... in fact it's decidedly NON-special.

I'm curious about trying frost and everyone here seems to swear by it.   Can anyone offer some good pointers for working with a frost build?

With fire, I typically pull with fireball or pyroblast, follow up with a fireball and a scorch if there's time, nova, strafe away, fireball/scorch until dead.  If I get some unlucky resists, sometimes I have to sub in some fire blasts, but that's more mana inefficient.  If the nova is resisted, I can CoC and blink away, which gives me enough time for a fireball or two.

Also with a higher level or elite mob, I often have to dump everything I have, sometimes including blast wave, but I can handle them.

What is the best sequence for single or multi target frost work?  I have read that with crits, it can approach fire damage but also have a lot of utility.  Is that true?  And do I need frostbite to realize that?  Frostbite seems to be the fulcrum between single target damage and AOE.

[Typhon]

this is all my opinion, of course.  This is not an AE build, which I think at level 44 is premature (chain killing oj mobs is at least as efficient as hitting multiple green, and much less risky).

non-elite, single target --> (ice barrier optional) frostbolt X 3, frost nova, take a step back, frostbolt, CoC.  pretty much they are dead at this point.  At any point if they were ice shackled, they died earlier.

elite, single target --> ice barrier, frostbolt X 3, frost nova, blink, frost bolt X 3, frost nova.  depending how much health they have left you either just CoC + fireblast or you get more distance and frostbolt some more

At level 44 (34 talent points) Talent build should definitely be all ice.  Build should include Ice Barrier and Frostbite.  Debatable whether you should go with Winter's Chill or Elemental Precision and Permafrost.  On average Winter's Chill will kill faster, but Permafrost will give you more time to move away (by foot, which blink gives you anyway).

If you plan to hit orange mobs frequently, I'd go with Elemental Precision and Permafrost.

[trias_e]

My favorite way to go for leveling (more accurately, grinding for cash) the mage is elementalist.  MoE and shatter= one fast super efficient mage.  Not to mention elementalists are excellent at AEing, if that's your cup of tea (which it occasionally was for me).

I never played post 60 though, and havent played since the expansion came out, so maybe things change.

[Driakos]

I've been Fire since the expansion, and I love it.  I've only got 2 in Arcane, and 3 in Frost for the spell penetration.  The rest of my points are in the fire tree.  No need to kite, most things die before they get to me.  I was worried about not having Ice Block/Barrier in 5mans, but with paladins horde-side now, and Blessing of Salvation, plus Invisibility, aggro is not really a problem.

Downside are bosses with high fire resist.  Ignite is my bread and butter, and if I can't keep it rolling, I don't feel as useful.

It is fun watching the numbers fly.

[Jayce]

I'm thinking of a build like this:

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

I went with winter's chill, because I barely ever fight orange mobs.

Frost channeling looks really nice at 5/5, as it lowers your overall mana usage by 15%.  That's substantial.

If I were to switch to an AOE build, I'd drop frostbite and pick up improved blizzard, but that will come later, if at all.

[Modern Angel]

I've been Fire since the expansion, and I love it.  I've only got 2 in Arcane, and 3 in Frost for the spell penetration.  The rest of my points are in the fire tree.  No need to kite, most things die before they get to me.  I was worried about not having Ice Block/Barrier in 5mans, but with paladins horde-side now, and Blessing of Salvation, plus Invisibility, aggro is not really a problem.

Downside are bosses with high fire resist.  Ignite is my bread and butter, and if I can't keep it rolling, I don't feel as useful.

It is fun watching the numbers fly.

It only rolls twice now if that's any consolation.

Once I worked up an arcane blast rotation I got really comfortable with it in raids. A bit difficult in non-group situations due to having no front load damage 9at least with an AB/Imp Scorch build) but the dps was phenomenal and aggro free. Was a very longtime deep fire mage, though, from the first talent point.

Then I switched to shaman because somebody needs to be one.

[Driakos]

It only rolls twice now if that's any consolation.

When did this change?  Did I miss a nerf in the last patch?  I had ignite ticking for over 1.4k recently.  With molten armor on, I almost like it when they hit me (soloing) because it refreshes the ignite, and has a chance to cause an impact. 

[Modern Angel]

It's been like that since the 2.0 patch. You get two rolls and each mage has his own stack. I've no doubt you've gotten a 1400 ignite tick before it wore off but it won't keep going indefinitely. Basically just pretend that your crits do 40% more damage (like a normal, boring crit talent) and you pretty much have it in one.

[Yoshimaru]

So, I specced Deep frost from Elemental for Arenas/Kara and I must say I underestimated it. Paticuarly in 5v5, I can survive much longer + WE is awesome for controlling and CCing those pesky warriors and rogues, not to mention to added ice lance (pew pew) crits.

[Zetor]

Yeah, deep frost is the ultimate 'survival' build. Still, my guildie mages swear by arcane/frost at the moment (frost down to shatter+iceblock, no idea what they get in arcane other than the usual POM + AP stuff). It provides very respectable dps from two different schools in pve, and pretty good survivability + burst in pvp. Then again, I'm a dirty warlock, and the most I know about mages is how they run around in circles while feared and 4 dots ticking away-- cough, sorry, got carried away again. :p


-- Z.

[Calantus]

The annoying thing about fighting mages as a warlock is they blink off and die too far away for you to enjoy the animation in full. They need to fix that.