mage pvp build

[Skalathrax]

since it seems like noone is looking at the mage-discussion thread anymore, i'll have to create a new one

here is my copied post from the mage discussion thread:


as a resurrection of this topic, lets discuss some pvp builds
im not quite sure which to pick, but im not really interested in frost builds.
my mage is meant to be used in bg-pvp, but without fixed groups or alike
elemental:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/mage/talents.html?0000000000000000000000005502201232003 104000002031323010005010000000
im quite unhappy about the unspecced fireball, making it nearly impossible to cast anytime in direct combat, but when im not being attacked and the enemy far away. but tbh, in direct combat, one hasnt really got the chance to cast fireballs anyways..

alternative: improved fireball instead of impact?
arcane fire
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/mage/talents.html?2300550012200150330125105500000000000 000000000000000000000000000000

i just tried this spec out, not because i was convinced that it was the best but to try out the fun of toep, am, pomstuff
to my surprise, the "ground" damage of spells is way higher than suspected. i thought, id lose a lot of basic damage when having to renunciate on talents like firepower, but it seems like, the "intelligence -> spelldamage" and arcane instability almost make it up. (of course, the spelldamage on "full-fire specced" is still slightly higher, but only insignificantly.

still this toepetc. stuff isnt that superb and unless youre 1 vs 2/3+, you dont really need it anyways unless youre keen on overkilling people. but after you've done that, the 3 minutes cooldown gets quite annoying. "slow" is of course a real nice kiting ability and of nice use in WSG etc. but i could do without it. actually i use it most commonly when running away from people (oom, low hp, whatsoever). 480 mana is a bit too much to use it in every fight as standard-debuff imo

finally, the first build i had tryed out:
total firepower
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/mage/talents.html?0000000000000000000000005503201232003 125012512030300000000000000000

this turnt out quite effective, actually i had picked impr. fireball over impact but if i was to choose total-firespec again, id maybe do it this way. i had suspected to be the extreme version of a "glass cannon", dying immidiately when being focussed but frostbite and blazing speed in combination often saved my ass. damage was ofcourse nice, but tbh id have to ask: is a bug known about empowered fireball? i actually didnt really have the impression, it affected my base damage significantly.. ok i havent that much spell damage (about 380-400), but still i think thats enough to notice the effect of +15% or not. i heard that "critical mass" was buggy aswell and had no effect, but that this got hotfixxed already (or wasnt it?)

"playing with fire" seems like complete bullcrap to me. as a mage, i think the last thing i want is to lower my survivabilty, which is quite low anyways. perhaps this talent is meant for pve mages who dont have to fear damage as much or die instantly anyways if the broodlord gets to hit them or whatever, but concering pvp, i dont think, its worth it. mages damage output is very high already, having to sacrifice even more survivabilty for such a slight improvement in damage... nah
if it was +6% damage, but 3% taken increased, i had thought about it, but this way: nope thanks

so what do you think? whats your build?
if your build is meant for pvp and pve alike, please note it, for mines are pvp ONLY, i dont do ANY pve at all

[Blu]

The links are broken :x

[Skalathrax]

fixed

im tending towards elemental atm with total fire following. arcane fire.. meh :/

edit:
@ all those viewers but not-responders:
PLX DIE

[moskau]

i went 10/0/41 with the frost elemental. i was full fire at the beginning of the new patch but realizing i had no defenses only full fire power was very hard for me since i barely have a healer around. dragons breath is good for only a few classes as is blazing speed(i think its called). i went to frost for the pure survivability of outlasting those around me and my enemies. the frost elemental is pretty strong. it helps in alot of situations where i need the extra dps or have no mana and need a getaway from melee. i havent tried 41 arcane but i think i might once bc hits.

my 2 cents

[Athrun]

fixed

im tending towards elemental atm with total fire following. arcane fire.. meh :/

edit:
@ all those viewers but not-responders:
PLX DIE
Fool, it's a no-brainer, go elemental.
ps your elemental spec isn't really good (read: it sucks, which is why no-1 replies to it), and the original talent calculator sucks. You noticed it was offline for some, and on top of that it's slow. use wowhead.com instead nub.

[Skalathrax]

you know what really sucks? postings like yours with nearly none constructive criticism but lots of ..

[Athrun]

I gave you lots of constructive criticism, just not in a positive way.
But next time i'll leave you to your misery. NP!

[Skalathrax]

if this is supposed to sound impressive or dominant, it didn't work

[Benumbed]

I have been arcane since patch day and wouldnt trade it for any other spec.

[Athrun]

if this is supposed to sound impressive or dominant, it didn't work
No it's supposed to underline what i said since you couldn't destillate that yourself.

[Skalathrax]

@benumbed
arcane fire i suppose? how many points in arcane?

@ ahtrun
will you just po as long as you don't have anything useful to say? i was happier without responses

[ease]

i have tried 3 different specs so far. (i gave up raiding a few months ago)

0/41/10 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=RZxgRzbccRxRtV0hb
0/27/24 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=kZxgRzbccRZVVG000xs
41/10/10 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=kbxVcRbzLGuwoxx

41 fire was the first one and i tried and i recently just specced back to it, because i enjoyed it the most. dragon's breath is awesome. imo it gives you the most utility you can have atm. you can use it interrupt a heal or to get someone sheeped (if it doesn't crit). db => scorch => fireblast => blastwave is also a devastating combo, that can easily be pulled off.
i have really gotten used to using 1 sec rank 1 frostbolts to kite and permafrost DOES make a big difference for this. frostbite in combination with blazing speed makes melees (esp. fury warriors and rogues b/c of their high hit frequency) trivial, because it procs 24/7.

elemental was nice, but since it was the spec i have been using for so many months now (the only difference beeing 2 points from fire power now spent in blazing speed), i became bored too fast. that was the only flaw btw. the aoe burst dmg is great and makes setups like 1vs3 (melees and/or gimps) very easy.

the time i tried 41 arcane/10 fire i was mainly doing wsg. 6,5k pyros on the flag carrier are of course nice vs grps with 3 pallies and 2 druids that like to camp your flag at their graveyard, but other than that, its just too cheap imo. pressing one button to do so much dmg is just lame and i never felt like i accomplished anything great afterwards. impr. missles ist bleh imo. does quite good dmg, but 1) you have stand still 5 secs, 2) it costs a shitload of mana and 3) chances are high, that you will get locked and can't silence/sheep/cast your main dmg spells for 10 secs.

i am not sure how i will be speccing at 70, but its going to be either shatter/db oder blazing speed/ice barrier.

edit: 4200hp, 5853mana, +7crit, +4hit, +577dmg btw

[Athrun]

@benumbed
arcane fire i suppose? how many points in arcane?

@ >>> ATHRUN <<< >>> ATHRUN <<< >>> ATHRUN <<< >>> ATHRUN <<< ahtrun is for blacks

will you just po as long as you don't have anything useful to say? i was happier without responses
Too bad you don't see the usefulness
the post above this one re-affirms what i said before, elemental is a no-brainer. If it's too hard for you to understand (so far everything in this thread has been beyond your grasp so it's safe to assume this is again the case), I'll spell it out for you. Go elemental. If you even have a mage it should be obvious to you which talents you should take. I played my mage for a day or 10 and it's clear for me, so it should be for you as well. Now i have a fucking pneumonia so my mood wasn't exactly helpful, and it still isn't. I even think you should be shot for asking for advice like this because it means you're fucking retarded. But I'll do my best, Skalathrax. This is what I would do, as a pvp build
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=kZVgGzb00oZVVGhobxs

Looking at your post:

im not quite sure which to pick, but im not really interested in frost builds.
my mage is meant to be used in bg-pvp, but without fixed groups or alike I'll make one that you´ll like more. But you´ll gimp your class by not going frost.

You could either go full arcane. If you´re always playing vs Pugs then your slow will not likely be dispelled, if you're playing vs horde. But let's assume you're not always playing vs braindead showroom dolls but actual people. You don't want to go frost, so you want to go fire.

Now you DON'T WANT TO GO FROST, and there's not really anything in arcane (in a pvp aspect) to spend points in there in the early levels. Cuz you feel this way you can basically waste all your points in fire and take all the strong points in it. Your spells are mainly poly, CS, pyro, frost nova, blink, fireball, fireblast, blastwave and Dragon's breath.
You can basically lockdown all casterclasses with that much dmg and you got cs and DB to interrupt. If you play your class right you can outgun everyone, since you're a mage, a glass cannon. Fire only enhances this. (Oh this is the spec http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=kZEgGzb0IReRt)

Frost just makes it more interesting, and forces you to use a bit more skill because fire is just insane damage.

Hope this was useful enough for the mighty skalathrax

[Skalathrax]

wow, except for the insulting unneccesaries and repetitions, this was indeed helpful.
i once had a spec quite similar to your elemental one (just with a bit more focus on fire), but back then i was sad that quite a number of frost talents simply were nearly never of use and only helped in very special situations.
i expect the fire-thing to be more of an exaggeration, but especially "playing with fire" seems so suicidal to me..

only thing that really annoys me about the elemental bit is ofc the not-improved fireball, although i was expecting this and believe, its the better option to go for impact, but still.. this could get really annoying when its often just the kind of bg one sits back and casts fireballs like mad and doesnt really have the need to use anything else except fireblast perhaps
might gotta live with that

im horde btw


edit:
whops, forgot about ease
really sure you want to pick master of elements? i never had the impression it was really worth it

yeah i had gone arcana for wsg purposes aswell but as you say, the 1-button-megacrits-stuff wasn't that contenting as i had hoped for.
as for slow: i still find it nice to have, but one has to renounce so many things for it that after all i think, its not THAT good to surmount all those disapprovements :/

[Athrun]

MoE is just filler, but i didn't take it. When you've got talents in frost you never use fireball, always scorch only. You only use fireball when you're full fire or arc/fire, there's no point in taking imp fireball if you go elemental since frostbolts and instants will be your damage.

I thought this was common sense, but fire/frost means you get more survivability, get utility, lose damage and lose high damage/burst spells (imo) so ye if u want to do nice dmg in BG and you know you're gonna get killed anyway, go full fire. If you think you got some skills and think you can outlive anyone in BG, you're never focussed upon because you're not that famous in your battlegroup or people just don't bother or get what they should do, then by all means try it by going elemental and make it your challenge to kill without dying. If you go fire it's much more challenging tho, although the killing part is a lot easier.

There is a reaaaaaaaaaaaal easy way of deciding what to spec.
Do you have over +400 dmg without gimping your gear? Then go for full fire. If you have less, go fire/frost. The 400 number is just out of the air, no calculations done on it or anything.

What you say about frost is true btw, but those few situations are situations you otherwise wouldn't have a chance to win. Frost enables you to win at those rare times, fire/frost enables you to win vs everything. You just have to be a bit better at playing mage.

If you're horde don't take slow since then it will be dispelled a lot more than if you would have been alliance

If you're frost/fire you don't use fireball, just scorch and blastwave (besides the frost stuff). And an occasional pyro after a sheep.
Also if you're frost fire the only elemental spec to take is the one i pasted. I didn't make it because it's not the best possible one to take, for pvp, cuz it is the best you could have.

[Skalathrax]

ok, lots of questions, but ill try to answer most:
concerning the 400 dmg stuff:
i dont use addons, calculating it for me, but the current wow charthingy says, ive got around 450. i think, this is a bit untrue actually, cuz im arcane atm and ive got this talent, adding 25% of my intelligence as spelldmg or whatever and i bet, this is included in the 450 stuff already. my gear is mostly the rang 12-13 stuff with azure mageblade and some bwl stuff (girdle etc.)


concerning the stuff of being focussed alot:
well i dont know if its just me, but i get the impression that EVERY paladin charges me. theyll run through 3-4 horde guys attacking them and start smacking me. i simply dont understand why they do it, i think, i died once in my whole life in such a situation.. it just NEVER works out but they keep on doing it. so i actually do get focussed alot, but most times i manage to escape using insignia of the horde etc. pp.
so dying isnt THAT much of a problem (although im being focussed alot from my point of view). but 1 vs 1 situations vs warlocks are very very hard. as long as theyre not morons/demo, it gets quite impossible. i know that frost helps out alot (iceblock vs dc/1000 debuffs), but im not sure whether im really interested to gain survivability in just 1 situation where its crucial and lose utility in nearly every other situation.


nobody answered the empowered fireball stuff: is a bug known with this? or was it hotfixxed already? when i had it on the first day after the patch, it seemed to be not working