Best Mage Build?

lazlo

Have a level 62 (mainly) frost mage at the moment.

View him here

Spec-wise how is he for PVP and raiding?

This is my first char and I'm not sure about where to place the rest of my points. I'm thinkng about putting another two points into piercing ice and leaving frost as it is but perhaps re-evaluating the rest of my spec... maybe placing the other 17 points into fire or 10 in arcane and 7 in Fire.

Any advice or ideas on how to proceed?

Ivan

For pve/leveling, almost full frost is preferable.

Clearcasting is really great, dont get me wrong. But the one extra free spell is much less of an issue when you can stop after every couple of npcs and drink back to full.

Empowered frostbolt is almost a necessity, it is too much of a damage increase. Piercing Ice is very useful also, ice floes is another interesting talent as is permafrost.

Personally, I'd remove the points out of arcane, flesh out the frost tree some more and then go back for clearcasting if you really want to.

Clearcasting is really an instancing and/or end game talent that isnt 100% necessary for every build.

Frost channeling is an even greater damage per mana boost than clearcasting is and while both are nice, you have already skipped too many great frost talents for clearcasting

For pvp, end game at least, 17/0/44 or 1/5/55 are the cookie cutter frost (read arena) builds.

Binomate

It seems deep arcane is the way to go post T4 instances. Although you need a couple of Shadow Priests in your group to keep you going with mana returns, I've seen mages put out a sustained 1200+ dps with arcane blast.

Ivan

Arcane requires two pieces of T6 and a mana battery (read shadow priest) to become viable. Only, at that stage it is not only viable but the best mage spec. Sadly, few mages progress far enough to the promised land

TheDoc

ive played a numver of mages to high level and imo fire is the way for levelling to 60. Its the fastest way, you take down mobs faster, at the end of the day a mage is going to have to stop to drink at somestage so dont worry about downtime.

when you hit 58 and go outlands change to frost and youll get to 70 easy and at a fast pace.

If it counts for anything I'm a 48 mage
( http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=The+Sha%27tar&n=Malivere )
...and I'm full frost
I think I will stay that way, might do some arcane later on
as for levelling, once I put the effort in (I've a 28 priest as well atm) I go up quickly enough. can solo elite stuff etc thanks to all the freezing
but I'm way below 62, so maybe this doesnt help

lazlo

Ivan wrote:

Arcane requires two pieces of T6 and a mana battery (read shadow priest) to become viable. Only, at that stage it is not only viable but the best mage spec. Sadly, few mages progress far enough to the promised land

What are T6 and what is a mana battery? Why in your opinion do these boons render arcane as the best mage spec?

Fenix

T6 = Tier 6 Amour, and a mana battery as you refer to is just a different class (shadow priest) that will benefit the mage through sustaining his or her mana throughout the raid.

It's T5 mage amour that receives the damage boost to arcane blast and not tier 6, and I guess at this stage 2xT5 isn't really that hard to achieve with the likes of lootreaver and some of the lesser bosses in SSC.

While I’ve not tested it myself, I have seen some 2xT5 arcane mages in raids before and the damage output is significantly better than the cookie cutter raid fire mage (with similar gear). However this is about to change in my opinion with the introduction of 2.3 and the subsequent removal of the 10% coefficient tax from Improved Fireball and Improved Frostbolt.

I can see a lot of the T5 Arcane mages respecing back to fire when this change come about.

As regards your original question, it's really a matter of opinion/choice. I personally leveled my mage from 60 - 70 using a deep fire build, and found the heavy dmg output very useful both as a group dps and solo questing.

Once you hit 70, you need to decide if you want to continue with end game content through raiding, or if you'd prefer to PVP / Arena.

For PVP, there is really no build that comes near a heavy frost build with survivability the name of the game. If on the other hand you'd prefer to explore the PVE side, in my opinion you really cant go wrong with a 10/48/3 Fire build, that seems to be the standard these days.

Why in your opinion do these boons render arcane as the best mage spec?

The 2 piece set bonus on a mages T5 armor grant a 25%(i think) gain in damage to your Arcane Blast spell, with a clever spell rotation this build can produce scary dps, but is very mana draining, hence the need for the "mana battery"

Hope this helped and sorry for going on...

Faylum

I personally think that Full Fire is the best for everything you could encounter.
I've been Full Fire since i began the game and have never had a problem with anything. Also what ive noticed is that Frost mages and arcane mages, MOST (not all) have absaloutly no skillz at all. I mean frost mages are seen as the best spec, but ive not yet seen a dangerous frost mage, nor a skilled one either. Arcane mages are almost too easy to kill and imo both sh*t in PvP and PvE. But Arcane/Fire mages are damn annoying, in arena their not to hard. Just put 2 talen points in improved fire ward and u get a 20% chance to reflect shots if not you'll absorb most of the impact. Imo Full Fire mages own, they have little to no defensive abilities, unlike frost mages.
If you pick a Full Fire spec you will become a better player since it takes more work and skill to kill and stay alive! Heres my spec http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Outland&n=Faylum

BKtje

(Following is my pvp verdict )

I level'd my mage with full fire up to lvl 64 then switched to frost which i've stayed till just last week.

I've now tried a full arcane spec with a little fire, the 17/34/0 spec and of course the full frost spec (and frost spec with imp cs).


Out of them all, the frost with imp cs was probably the best but by no stretch was it the most fun. The most fun is definately 17/34/0. You got a silence, disorientate and a proc stun. You also have a daze.
That said if melee are on top of you your pretty much dead unless you get a lucky blazing speed proc.

Basically frost is probably the best solo PvP spec, arcane is probably a decent alternative arena spec but fire is great when your pvping in a small group.

All above are of course my own opinion only

(not to mention that fire is better for pve damage wise )

Fenix

PVP ... No comparison to frost, whatsoever

PVE ... I'd swear by 10/48/3 (Going arcane with 2xT5)

60 - 70 grind ... Full fire.

End.

Ivan

Frost is easily the best arena and duels spec...

Fire/arc or arc/fire is surely the best BG spec. Dragons breath is amazing in BG's and the longer range, stun, daze and some of the tools from the arcane tree is lethal in conjunction, but ultimately its all about play style and skill.

My mage:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Sou

Faylum

Just curious but is full arcane any good? im use to seeing arc/frost or arc/fire so im just wondering why i never see full arcane mages? I messed around on the wow forums with the arcane tree and im actually surprised that there is not alot of arcane mages on the server, seems like a good spec for PvE raids. Good mana regen, high amount of intellect and damage and silence could come in handy for clearing mobs and such. Has anyone here been a full arcane mage? if so is it worth a go, or do i need to get some good arcane gear? I got full spellfire and spellstrike gear, so might be enough to op the arcane missles.

Ivan

I leveled from 60 to 64 as full arcane. It was kinda painful, at least by comparison to the half a level I did as fire and the 5 and a half levels I did as frost.

It is rumoured to be the greatest PvE build for pure dps, but only in certain conditions. Read some of the earlier posts in this thread.

However with the de-nerfication of Improved Fireball/Frostbolt, 5% chance for instant cast Meta gem nerf (MSD or something) in 2.3, I believe 10/48/3 will take over as the new king of mage PvE dps.