21 points in Arcane following the same pattern as in Arcane/Fire...
Only difference in the Fire tree is no more Incinerate (since you're getting Critical Mass anyway, and that gives you 4% more damage with 5/5 Fire Power).
Improved Flamestrike is a prerequisite to Blast Wave... but handy for AoEing... or for PoM+Flamestrike.
Blast Wave is a very mana efficient, high damage,
AoE fireball. It also has a 6 second Daze component to it (somewhat buggy last time I tested it, but I've since had mobs use it on me and had it work). Great in Combos or stacked with multiple Fire/Arcane Mages to take out zergs. Blast Wave, PoM+Flamestrike,
AE spam and the enemy is a world of hurt... Imagine that with 3 or 4 mages... Zergkiller?
Critical Mass is more crits. More crits are good.
Fire Power is 10% more damage all the time. Great in
PvE, good in
PvP too. Whether it's as good as Arcane Power and 8% more mana is up to you... and also whether the aforementioned fire protection potions are prevalent on your server.
Combustion (5 minute timer, next fire spell is guaranteed crit) is passed up in favor of PoM...
if you were focused on
PvE, I would recommend Combustion instead of PoM, but for
PvP being able to instant cast spells is worth far more than a guaranteed crit, in my opinion.
33 Frost/18 Arcane
The 'full' frost
mage. Trading up damage and instant casts for control... Excellent in group
PvP with a good supporting group. Fares poorly solo vs. casters/ranged, whilst completely destroying melee. Just as powerful as Arc/Fire, but in a completely different way with a very different playstyle.
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Arcane Talents (18 points)
# Improved Arcane Missiles - 5/5 points
Gives you a 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Arcane Missiles.
# Arcane Concentration - 5/5 points
Gives you a 10% chance of entering a Clearcasting state after any damage spell hits a target. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next damage spell by 100%.
# Evocation - 1/1 point
While channeling this spell, your mana regeneration is active and increased by 1500%. Lasts 8 seconds.
# Improved Arcane Explosion - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Arcane Explosion by 1.5 seconds.
# Improved Counterspell - 2/2 points
Gives your Counterspell a 100% chance to silence the target for 4 seconds.
Frost Talents (33 points)
# Improved Frostbolt - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Frostbolt spell by 0.5 seconds.
# Improved Frost Nova - 2/2 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Frost Nova spell by ?.
# Ice Shards - 5/5 points
Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Frost spells by 100%.
# Improved Blizzard - 3/3 points
Adds a chill effect to your Blizzard spell. This effect lowers the target's movement speed to 25% of normal. Lasts 8.50 seconds.
# Cold Snap - 1/1 point
When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown on all of your cold spells.
# Shatter - 5/5 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your frost spells against frozen targets by 50%.
# Frost Channeling - 3/3 points
Reduces the mana cost of your frost spells by 15%.
# Arctic Reach - 2/2 points
Increases the range of your Frostbolt spell and the radius of your Frost Nova and Cone of Cold spells by 20%.
# Ice Block - 1/1 point
You become encased in a block of ice, protecting you from all physical attacks and spells for 10 seconds, but during that time you cannot attack, move, or cast spells.
# Frostbite - 5/5 points
Gives your chill effects a 15% chance to freeze the target for 5 seconds.
# Ice Barrier - 1/1 point
Instantly shields you, absorbing 455 damage. Lasts 1 minute. While the shield holds, spells will not be interrupted.
Fire Talents (0 points)
# None
18 in Arcane as detailed in the Must Haves section.
Improved Frostbolt grants you a 2.5s cast time, increasing
dps and making it easier to snare targets. Far better than Permafrost, since you'll be casting Frostbolt all day long (get used to it, ice has lesser single target spell diversity than fire) and there's no need for a longer snare because you'll be continually reapplying the snare with Frostbolt.
Ice Shards gives you 100% frost crits, instead of merely 50%. Well-worth it, considering how other frost talents come into play. Frost is a tree that builds upon itself, as will be seen.
Improved Frost Nova is slightly more useful than it once was, but is only gotten because it is a prereq to Shatter.
Shatter raises your chance to crit on Frozen targets by 50%. Well worth it and central to solo Frost
Mage damage output. As for groups, frozen has a way of not lasting that long when other people are doing damage to the same target.
Improved Blizzard is a frost must-have. It lowers target speed to 25% of normal _and_ does damage and can proc Frostbite to hold them in place even longer. Excellent zerg control. Blizzard is a huge radius
AoE as well. Unfortunately I've never seen Blizzard crit, I've /bugged it, however.
Cold Snap lets you reset your cold spell cooldowns instantly. Good for when you need to reapply Ice Barrier or need to drop another Nova.
Frost Channeling is another Frost must-have. It makes the line so much more efficent. I'd pick this over 6% more damage (Piercing Ice) any day of the week.
Ice Block is your oh crap spell. Use it to become immune to everything except for a dispel for 15 seconds. Great for getting assist trains off you in
PvP or when you draw too much aggro in
PvE. Otherwise... it isn't that great. And yes, it can be dispelled.
Frostbite is a key talent in Frost line, giving all your ice spells (including the Chilled proc from your Ice Armor) a 15% chance to proc Frozen for 5 seconds. Excellent vs. melee. Also... consider this with shatter and you begin to see the stacking power of Frost. However, once again, Frostbite has a tendency to break prematurely when other people are hitting that same target.
Ice Barrier is a power word:shield for mages. Strange timer though, 1 minute duration, 2 minute cooldown. Also can be dispelled, making it somewhat bleh. However, it absorbs all damage, including magic... helps keep Frost Mages alive.
Arctic Reach is vital, because Frostbolt has a base range of 30 yd. With this talent you reach 36 yd, which is a little more tolerable (especially
if you're used to playing fire).
28 Arcane/23 Frost
A variant of Frost/Arcane, lessening dependence on Frost and opening up some of the goodies of Arcane. Shedding Frost Nova/Shatter (limited utility in groups since things are rarely frozen long) in exchange for Arcane Instability, Presence of Mind and Arcane Mind. This is my personal choice
if I choose to go Frost.
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Arcane Talents (28 points)
# Improved Arcane Missiles - 5/5 points
Gives you a 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Arcane Missiles.
# Arcane Concentration - 5/5 points
Gives you a 10% chance of entering a Clearcasting state after any damage spell hits a target. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next damage spell by 100%.
# Evocation - 1/1 point
While channeling this spell, your mana regeneration is active and increased by 1500%. Lasts 8 seconds.
# Improved Arcane Explosion - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Arcane Explosion by 1.5 seconds.
# Improved Counterspell - 2/2 points
Gives your Counterspell a 100% chance to silence the target for 4 seconds.
# Improved Mana Shield - 2/2 points
Increases the damage absorbed by your Mana Shield by 75%.
# Presence of Mind - 1/1 point
When activated, your next
Mage spell with a casting time less than 10 seconds becomes an instant cast spell.
# Arcane Mind - 4/4 points
Increases your maximum Mana by 8%.
# Arcane Instability - 3/3 points
Increases your spell damage and critical strike chance by 3%.
Frost Talents (23 points)
# Improved Frostbolt - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Frostbolt spell by 0.5 seconds.
# Ice Shards - 5/5 points
Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Frost spells by 100%.
# Cold Snap - 1/1 point
When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown on all of your cold spells.
# Improved Blizzard - 3/3 points
Adds a chill effect to your Blizzard spell. This effect lowers the target's movement speed to 25% of normal. Lasts 8.50 seconds.
PvE Talent Progression, Levels 10-50
End-game
PvP builds are great for level 60s, but of limited utility for a level 10
mage, freshly talented, whose main focus is getting levels. In that regard, I present what I believe to be an excellent
PvE talent progression. Remember, you can respec your talents for merely 1 gold (the first time, 5n gold for 1<n<10 after which it is always 50g to switch), making levelling up with one set of talents and then switching at high levels very practical.
Fire is simply better
dps and Frost's mana efficency doesn't kick in until high levels (even then, it still kills slower than Frost on net, based on my testing). Thus Fire is best for
PvE. Arcane's Presence of Mind and Arcane Power are of limited utility in
PvE, making deep focus in Fire a key to a successful
mage.
Without further ado, a
Mage PvE Talent progression for levels 10-50, listed in order:
Levels 10-14: Improved Fireball the best
dps increase you can get at this level, since your Rank 3 Fireball has a base 2.5s casting time, this lets you get them off at 2.0s each.
Levels 15-16: Flame Throwing is nice because range is convenient and lets you get in more fireballs when fighting mobs. Also, Ignite can be put off since your Intellect (and thus crit rate) is still pathetically low.
Levels 17-21: Ignite is a raw damage increase for when you crit.
Levels 22-26: Improved Arcane Missiles because it's time to build Arcane to get Instant Arcane Explosion for use in instances.
Levels 27-31: Arcane Concentration to get clearcasts.
Level 32: Evocation for mana regen once every 10 minutes... at this level it's going to be around 100% of your mana pool, which is very nice. Be warned, it starts fading away from there around level 40ish and at level 60 you can expect about 50% of your mana pool back from Evoc.
Level 33-37: Improved Arcane Explosion is very good for the instances you'll be doing at around this level and up -- Gnomeregan, Razorfen Downs, Uldaman, Temple and on up really appreciate it.
Level 38-39: Incinerate to make Scorch more useful in Instances, since you'll now be able to scorch for a clearcast to fire Arcane Missiles on.
Level 40: Pyroblast because it's the best place to drop a point in Fire and you might as well get it. It's really not that great... though it is slightly more mana efficent than Fireball but I haven't done tests to see whether that justifes the extra three seconds it takes to cast it as an opener vs. a
mob.
Level 41-45: Improved Scorch because Scorch is very much an
PvE Instance spell and this talent makes it all that much more mana efficient. Impact won't really do that much for you in instances and Blast Wave isn't worth the points in Flamestrike for its
PvE utility.
Level 46-48: Critical Mass for more critical strikes... damage increase.
At this point you can either respec to a partial implementation of your final
PvP spec and/or continue in Fire, dropping two points somewhere (Impact perhaps has the most utility) and building Fire Power for 10% more damage and Combustion for guaranteed criticals (handy with Flamestrike and Pyroblast).
<----------------schnapp---------------->
Gruss
Sir_Knut