Need Mage Spec Advice

[moemxuans]

Rather than posting on the regular forums and suffer backlash and idiot comments I figured the Wor mage community could help me out. To keep it short and sweet, what is a good leveling spec and PvE spec at 80. I leveled fire pre 70 went frost for PvP and fire again for PvE at 70 but now I am somewhat turned off from fire because of lolbomb.

Is frost viable for leveling and PvE (raiding) now as well as PvP?

Any thoughts or ideas would be nice. A mage wasn't my first char but its what I'm playing now; so I really haven't been able to judge things on my own, rather seek advice from people that have played them for years.

Hope this wasn't asked 1,000,000 times already :O

[Brachamul]

lolbomb's always better than lolbarrage to be honest :)

[moemxuans]

Err let me clarify. NO ARCANE. So basically this dwindles down to a fire vs frost thread... dammit.

To clarify a step further, frost, yes or no to leveling well and doing raid dps.

[Eulo]

I'll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about mages. However, I have heard that elementalist builds are performing very, very well. So you may also want to consider respeccing to an elemental build when you reach 75 and train Frostfire Bolt :)

If anything gets me to level a mage, it will probably be that spell.

[weenietot]

I did not participate in the beta but I plan on going full frost to 80 unless as mentioned, frostfire bolt delivers. The survivability is nice for soloing and with the water elem glyph, you'll have your elem out all the time. I also hate the prospect of lolbomb as well.

I leveled to 70 fire, raided fire and then raided frost for the past 2 months and liked it very much.

[Nucrus]

Afaik the elementalist build was only "really" good when pretty much every talent in fire and frost affected frostfire bolt, meaning you could double dip.

They have since cut down the number of talents affecting it from each tree and so it's not as good as it was :(


Personally I'm going to be leveling as fire, no particular reason I've just always loved fire and hated frost. May go arcane later during leveling if ganking becomes a problem (instant invis ftw)

[Hinalover]

I did not participate in the beta but I plan on going full frost to 80 unless as mentioned, frostfire bolt delivers. The survivability is nice for soloing and with the water elem glyph, you'll have your elem out all the time. I also hate the prospect of lolbomb as well.

I leveled to 70 fire, raided fire and then raided frost for the past 2 months and liked it very much.

I like the 3.0 Frost spec, but I'm going to level Fire. I have to agree that I leveled to 70 as Fire and loved it. I don't care if I cannot AOE grind it. I prefer single target dps

[glassdirigible]

It depends what level you are. Leveling 1-70 I by far had the most fun as frost.
If you have any desire to enjoy playing your mage don't touch arcane until 64.

Once you get arcane blast and arcane barrage is fun to play, but not nearly as fast or efficient as frost.

And, yes, frost is viable (but not fun) for PvE as well as PvP and leveling. Fire and arcane are both fun in PvE but arcane's damage lags behind.

[Powerpal]

I like the 3.0 Frost spec, but I'm going to level Fire. I have to agree that I leveled to 70 as Fire and loved it. I don't care if I cannot AOE grind it. I prefer single target dps

It's not like you can't aoe-grind as fire, you've got lots of lovely spells to help you :D Frost Nova -> Blast Wave -> Dragon's Breath, and maybe throw in a lolbomb in there somewhere :P

[Shinerx]

hope my answer would be a good tip for your leveling @ wotlk.
i personally prefer to use frost build rather than fire or arcane. Before the last patch i used frost-arcane (40-0-21) and this was really good one, especially with 2x tier5 items. But now i think this build is a little bit slowed and no more efficiend because of the arcane blast nerf.

so... answering your question: Just try full frost.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZZVIcIsfu0fzgfst

i did this one just to show which talents more efficient to take.
So,
1. full frost best build in solo lvling (slowing mobs, loads of crits on frozen targets)
2. "- Frost is not pve build" - crap it is, improved blizzard kicks ass on aoe packs, slowing mobs + doing crazy dps since now it can crit.
You can do 2x(Elemental+Icy Veins) on bosses using coldsnap. For example i did 2180dps on Hallazi in Zul'aman with this build using this rotation. 1500+dps is really easy to make with this build and t5+ gear. So basiccly this build rocks in pve.

This is my opinion that it is a best decision to take while lvling.
so Just Try It.

[Awelyn]

Personally, I have always preferred fire over frost for raiding. I'm pretty much a crit whore and the new fire talents and glyphs basically play right into that. I am thinking something along the lines of http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0Vck0fZ0E0bRhuuVubust as my raiding build for 25 mans. For 10 mans, I'll likely lean more toward a frost heavy arc/frost build with the water elemental glyph and the molten armor crit glyph.

Looking back at it...depending on the truth to the claim that arcane mages can keep slow up on the boss, I might drop torment of the weak in favor of picking up world in flames.

Doing some basic math here. Between Talents, glyphs (imp fireball and imp molten armor), and self buffs (focus magic/imp scorch) you can get up to around 29% crit on fireball and 35% on pyroblast, assuming focus magic is proc'd...thats without any gear/intel whatsoever factored into the equation.

[zevo]

Fire is the high end DPS build for raiding mages. Without a doubt.
I currently raid with: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZ0EcbRhuhVubhcxVbc0o
I'll average 1300-1500 dps on overrall damage (trash included) with up to 2K dps on boss fights. Not just tank and spank fights like hallazi either. You'll notice I have no points in the AOE portion of the talent tree. Thats for obvious reasons I'm sure you can understand if you're an end game mage (Granted it would be nice to have them on hyjal trash, but with Blizzard crits and a good raid make up it really isn't necessary.) Blizzard and arcane explosion are plenty of DPS when you're backed by warlocks and other mages in your guild.

As far leveling in WOTLK goes I'm going to reorganize my spec to a fire build more conducive to burst AOE dps:

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

This build has the massive DPS of fire with some of the CC perks of frost. You'll be able to solo quests with high burst damage. You can slow mobs with frost then burn them the fuck down with your amped up fire tree. When I go into an instance I'll still be able to dominate the meters with instant pyroblast and improved scorch as well.

As I level I'll most likely sharpen up the spec by putting points in Burnout and filling up my frost tree so I can get Icy Veins.

But hey, its up to you.

At 80, dependent on the raid encounters I'll probably ditch blast wave and dragon's breath for more single target dps.

[slayme]

Did 2,5k dps on solorian the other day as full frost with my mostly tier 5 gear - nice for pve atm
If you level with mage armor up and mostly just using frostbolt you'll never go oom weaving in mana gems and evo if needed, so I think its good for leveling too ( nice dps and survivability with not much downtime is pure win)
I dont know about frostfire how good that will be but frost is nice and clearly winner in soloing Imo

[zevo]

Yeah but keep in mind Solarian is a stationary single target DPS fight with AOE damage to 15 non elite adds(dm chetz). Unless you get Wrath you'll be standing in one spot casting without having to move. A grandmother could do 2.5K dps on solarian

[NaWaN]

Well tbh i think it seems how you gonna lvl up. If you think of lvling trough quests i would say frost is maybe the best specc.
If you think you rather lvl by doing lots of instances i would say fire is the best.

I personnal will specc fire, just because arcane after 3.0 doesnt do the same amount of DPS like fire and frost ... well dont like frost cause it always remind me of PVP and i dont like PVP aswell.

I think the different between frost <--> fire will not be that hard like pre-TBC for lvling, so just take the specc you know the best and like the most.

Fire ftw ;)

[longchance]

First off, the best spec for anything is whatever you have the most fun with imo. That being said I think frost is ideal for levelling and adequate for raiding but not in the elite dps echelon usually. There is nothing more fun than pulling one or eight mobs and having them never get close enough to breathe on you. Fire has long been the end game mage spec but apparently a frostfire build of 0/53/18 is the high end spec allowing for 350% crits and all the goodies fire has to offer. My own preferences have always leaned toward the frosty but the new fire talents are buckets of fun and I still don't get arcane at all.

[NaWaN]

K i also have a question but dont wanne start new topic.

My question goes to the hardcore raid mages:

1) what 2 specces you gonna use ? Im gonna try a single person DPS build and a full AOE build. But just wanne hear what you guys gonna do, just curious ;)

2) what endgame PVE raid specc are you gonna use ? I made a few speccs that i think gonna be good but i really dont know what will be the best.
Focus magic ? Icy veins ? ...

these builds i made:

- Frost Fire build - 0 / 53 / 18 (Dunno if this still gonna be a good PVE build as they said at start of beta) (http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage=23050300123033310531203013512033030310030000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000)

- Fire with Icy veins and arcane concentration - 10 / 50 / 11 (http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0VZcEcbRhIhVubhcZMhf0o)

- Arcane Fire - 18 / 51 / 0 (http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0qcz0hZ0Ec0RhIhVubhct)

- Fire with few points in arcane and frost (http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0VMzZcEcbRhIhVubhcZMhc)

[Cumasi]

I agree about the whole "Play the spec you like" aspect....however for optimal performance there are certain things you need to consider when choosing a spec:

1) CRIT IS KING - This goes for almost all raid specs out there. It is probably the first stat you want to look at when deciding where to go. Optimally you want 30% on average (After buffing, armors, and the like).

2) FFB is very mana efficent when compared to your standard Raid Fire build, but does less damage overall due to the nature of the spells you are casting. Therefore a FFB raiding build needs more crit than either Fire or Frost. Through experimentation I've found that around 35% is best. The reasons being are for the usual suspects (Ignite, Hot Streak, ect,.), except you want it to crit a bit more often than a similar fire build. That way you can keep your DPS up.

P.S. - I really wouldn't look at my spec for advice, imho. I do not have the gear to properly raid in FFB mode, but its OH SO PRETTY to look at and is much more interesting to me for daily grinding. When I do raid, I will raid frost until I have the gear to support a full fire build.

[13litzkreig]

Ok in simple:

Frost == just starting out raid, not hit capped and still in blues/heroic gear

FFB == What most mages use for raiding, it is a high damage spec and and some fights blow every other class away. Once you get hit capped (or close to hit capped) and get a decent amount of crit or haste.

Arcane == Proven to be the highest damage dealing spec of any class (at least pre 3.0.9) However it is very mana intensive and needs about 2 - 3 druids innervating to keep it going. Same gear requirements as FFB and make sure there are no other Arcane mages in group/raid, it will cut your DPS.

And before anyone says "OMG HASTE SUCKS GET CRIT" haste is about equal to crit for FFB mage and i currently top damage with 500 haste and 21% crit.

[Amoriarola]

Ok in simple:

Frost == just starting out raid, not hit capped and still in blues/heroic gear

FFB == What most mages use for raiding, it is a high damage spec and and some fights blow every other class away. Once you get hit capped (or close to hit capped) and get a decent amount of crit or haste.

Arcane == Proven to be the highest damage dealing spec of any class (at least pre 3.0.9) However it is very mana intensive and needs about 2 - 3 druids innervating to keep it going. Same gear requirements as FFB and make sure there are no other Arcane mages in group/raid, it will cut your DPS.

And before anyone says "OMG HASTE SUCKS GET CRIT" haste is about equal to crit for FFB mage and i currently top damage with 500 haste and 21% crit.

once again you are proving how little you know the mage class... let alone the arcane spec. idk how you play but arcane is not mana intensive at all. what is with you saying you need all these druids innervating you to keep up on mana?

and how on earth would having another arcane mage cut your dps? i think you should just stop giving advice... because you have no clue what youre talking about.