Mage build advice sought

[dawnstrider]

I leveled up as a frost build the whole way. However, I also have a level 48 fire mage who has leveled purely as fire. That being said, I have some experience with both approaches.

The pros for a Frost build are:
1. control and survivability via kiting
2. AoE grinding with improved blizzard
3. practice kiting so you are a master by 70
4. Fun crits with Shatter and Ice Shards

The pros for a fire build are:
1. you do more damage, faster and therefore kill stuff faster.
2. you don't kite (much) so you kill stuff faster.
3. Your fire spells typically gain ranks before your frost spells do, so you kill stuff faster.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend leveling as an arcane mage during the early phase of your career because most of the really good arcane talents are deep in the tree and won't give you much benefit at lower levels.

However, you can still kill things fairly quickly with a frost build. I've included links to a fire and frost build.

Defacto Raiding Fire Build

Deep Frost Build This is the build I currently use. However, this doesn't show you which talents to pick early on, so let me outline the order I would place talents for a deep frost build.

5/5 Improved Frostbolt
2/2 Improved Frostnova
3/3 Permafrost
3/3 Piercing Ice
2/5 Ice Shards
5/5 Shatter
5/5 Ice Shards (note that we waited to finish out ice shards till we'd maxed out shatter)
3/3 Frost Channeling
3/3 Frostbite or Improved blizzard if you want to AoE
(don't get both initially as frostbite makes aoeing with blizzard more complicated till
you know what you're doing)
1/1 Ice Block
1/1 Ice Barrier
5/5 Arctic Winds
1/1 Cold Snap
3/3 Improved Blizzard (or frostbite if you got blizzard early)
1/1 Water Elemental
5/5 Empowered Frostbolt

This should get you to level 60 and you can fill in the rest to taste on your way to 70

The water elemental is very handy when doing aoe blizzard grinding I recommend you start by gathering the mobs up, trapping them with FN then summoning your water elemental as you run away from the mobs, then cast blizzard and use your water elementals FN to retrap them the moment the break free then cast your second blizzard. When using blizzard with the frostbite talent, make sure you place the second blizzard just in front of the guy closest to you. Any mob that was rooted by frostbite will break out and run back in the blizzard and be reslowed.

EDIT: Also, if you get into frost aoeing it may be wise to pick up 3/3 Improved Cone of Cold early

EDIT 2: regardless of what you do, get good gear. Any gear with +spell damage will go a long away (available primarily through tailoring and Jewel crafting at low levels)

[Selby]

I did Fire and Arcane all the way to 60 and raided there for a while. It is great for soloing and just killing everything quickly. More mana, more damage, more free spells (via clearcasting, etc). The biggest problem is if you aren't the one doing the killing (like in raids and instances) or get more than 2 monsters on you, it becomes very problematic. How the battle began was important. If I got jumped or picked up an add-on, it could end badly. Having the extra mana was good, but I still required a decent amount of health to take the beatings I was getting. If I started out the fight on my terms, monsters died VERY quickly. The biggest issue in groups was either sitting around not doing anything except tossing in the occasional support spell like Silence and Arcane Missiles or you end up taking 1-2 hits and going down for the count on the big monsters (this was more a problem in raids than anything else). I could still solo like no other for hours on end without having to run back to town for supplies, so it was a very effective method of play for me. I re-spec'd to Frost and Arcane when TBC came out and it has served me well, although I don't kill as fast as I used to. I do have better crowd control though, so that is a bonus.

I'm currently leveling another mage through Frost and some Arcane (only for CC and Silence). It's been interesting so far, I don't kill anywhere near as fast as I used to but I can take on more monsters. It seems to be personal preference. I don't see any reason to go too deeply into the Arcane tree. Slow doesn't seem to me to be that worthwhile, I just haven't encountered any situations where I thought "gee, wish I had that." The high end Arcane skills are useful and I enjoyed them, but I'm not going to build a mage that way this time to find out. I'd spec the Arcane ones I wanted while putting most of my points into either Frost or Fire depending on how I wanted to play. Just expect to re-spec a few times throughout your career ;-)

[Taelas]

Just expect to re-spec a few times throughout your career ;-)

One of my favorite pasttimes on my mage. Respeccing.:D

[Watto44]

One of my favorite pasttimes on my mage. Respeccing.:D

Hehe, for sure. I couldn't even guess how much gold I've spent just moving a couple of talent points around.:)

An option you might want to consider is going frost for twenty points to pick up shatter and then pumping fire. A nice nova+fireball+fire blast kills things very quickly. Additionally, cold snap is very useful when an add (or two) sneaks up on you, and frostbite is handy for rank1 frostbolt kiting. (Elite mobs and whatnot.) Of course, the big downside of this build is its mana inefficiency. However, it's definately a fun build and something to consider. Another downside to this build is that it will be garbage for instancing, given that it's build around shatter and most bosses are immune to freeze effects.

0/10/20 (level 39): http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=kZxxZVVr0o0x
I picked up ice shards and frostbite here because you'll be using a lot of frost based spells to get to this level. You're fire will still be a little weak at this point, so it's probably worth having them, but obviously elemental precision and permafrost (for that frostbolt kiting) are options.

0/21/20 (level 50): http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=kZxgR0bczZVVr0o0x
I skipped on impact and chose master of elements over imp. scorch here. IMO impact isn't going to help as much with this build as with an arc/fire build. Imp. scorch is great and is definately worth thinking about if you're going to be running instances, but I chose MoE to help with the mana situation.

0/31/20 (level 60): http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=kZxgG0bcc0xoZVVr0o0x
I chose not to grab pyro or blastwave here, and went full fire power over grabbing blazing speed, but again that's personal preference. I feel that blastwave is far too mana inefficient for grinding and having cold snap in frost will get you out of most sticky situations that arise as you're grinding. (That's assuming you're on a PvE server and adds are your biggest worry.)

The last 10 points should be fairly self explanitory, with room to pick up various bits and bobs that I've missed on the way up or go deeper into fire.

As I said earlier, this build is not as good for grinding as arc./fire. You simply don't have the mana efficiency. Although master of elements helps, it's no substitute for clear casting and arcane meditation. What this build is good for is blowing things up. Getting shatter procs on both fireball and fire blast is a lot of fun and worth experiencing for at least a little while on your mage.:D

[LavCat]

One of my favorite pasttimes on my mage. Respeccing. :D

Other than my Shaman, none of my characters has ever paid for a respec. We just wait for Blizzard to wipe the talents and pick up a respec for free!

[mandydax]

Click on Shimoyake in my sig for my armory profile. I've always been frost and I love the synergy of the talents. It's great for soloing and the damage and roots and snares are great for instancing if you ever do them (runners don't get far ~_^). Also, if you're up for something fun and interesting, this build works well for AoE grinding.:lol: