alcaras
11-18-2004, 11:34 PM
Compiling this info from various posts I made on the Mages boards... which are gonna get nuked tonight, and I don't want to lose the information :)
Must Haves
You won't go far in PvE or PvP without these talents:
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 Arcane Missiles is the best choice for an initial five point investment in arcane, which is necessary to unlock the better parts of the tree. Arcane Missiles is best used off a clearcast or for chasing runners in PvP, since if you start the cast while they are in range, missiles will follow them for the duration of the five second cast time as long as they stay within 50 yards or so. I call 'em homing missiles.
Arcane Concentration provides you with a 10% chance of getting a clearcast of a damage spell. Very useful in both PvP and PvE. In PvE I tend to Scorch (a 1.5s cast time mana efficent direct damage spell) until I get a clearcast and then I will hit Arcane Missiles. In PvP, if you get a clearcast you can usually whore it out for a Blizzard, saving 1400 mana and getting 1216 damage for free (or more if you're frost).
Evocation is still worth it, though with its recently nerfed 10 minute timer (it used to be 5 back in stress test 1 days...) it is only really useful for emergencies. At level 60 it gives you back around 50-80% of your mana depending on how heavily you've invested in Spirit.
Improved Arcane Explosion is a must have for both PvP and PvE. This makes the spell instant cast, allowing you to cast it while moving and also never have to suffer with casting time delays from getting hit. You won't get groups in BRD and above without this spell. It's also great for taking out clumped groups of players in PvP.
Improved Counterspell is a PvP must have. Four seconds of silence is priceless, in addition to locking out an entire school of magic for 10 seconds. You can also use it offensively, before an enemy even starts casting, so that you block any instant spells. Note: Paladins can still divine shield through silence, so don't waste it on that.
Now that we've gotten the Must Haves out of the way, let's turn the various viable PvP and PvE builds available for mages. We'll first consider endgame builds and we'll look at a PvE build and progression at the end.
31 Arcane/20 Fire
The classic mage. Damage, damage, damage. Solo versatility and power. My personal choice.
Arcane Talents (31 points)
# Improved Arcane Missiles - 5/5 points
Gives you a 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Arcane Missiles.
# Arcane Focus - 2/5 points
Reduces the chance that the opponent can resist your arcane spells by 4%.
# 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%.
# Arcane Power - 1/1 point
When activated, your spells deal 35% more damage while costing 35% more mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 seconds.
Frost Talents (0 points)
# None
Fire Talents (20 points)
# Improved Fireball - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Fireball by 0.5 seconds.
# Impact - 5/5 points
Gives your fire spells a 10% chance to stun the taget for 2 seconds.
# Ignite - 5/5 points
Your critical strikes from fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 40% of your spell's damage over 4 seconds.
# Flame Throwing - 2/2 points
Increases the range of your fire spells by 6 yards.
# Incinerate - 2/2 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire Blast and Scorch spells by 4%.
# Pyroblast - 1/1 point
Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 148 to 195 fire damage and an additional 56 damage over 12 seconds.
Arcane Focus is just where I chose to dump points to get to 20 to unlock deeper parts of the tree. It's somewhat useful but not vital, in my experience.
Improved Mana Shield can be a life safer and can be the death of you at other times. Use with care, since it's a careful line between staying alive and running out of mana. I like Improved Mana Shield and a +int/sta equipment build for PvP, which lets me use mana shield for emergencies. It's much easier for mages to get back mana than hp (gems, evocation) so it is worth it to trade off mana for hp sometimes. That said, Mana Shield upgraded with talents absorbs 998 melee damage at the cost of 1996 mana... so be aware your mana pool will take a hit. I don't run around with mana shield on all the time, saving it for emergencies (usually when melee catches me by surprise). The talent itself isn't that great, but it is a good place to drop 2 points to unlock deeper parts of the tree and has more utility than just going to 4/5 in Arcane Focus.
Presence of Mind is on a three minute timer, meaning that once every three minutes any spell with less than 10 seconds casting time is instant (i.e. no instant teleports :P). This wonderful for PvP and is a must have for Arcane/Fire mix PvP builds. It isn't that useful in PvE.
Arcane Mind is 8% more mana. Can't go wrong with more mana, and it is worth the points... 8% more of a 6000 mana pool is 480 mana.
Arcane Instability is 3% more damage and 3% greater chance to crit on all damage spells. A wonderful talent, since it affects all your damage spells and not just one line. The 3% chance to crit is pretty big, since 100 int = 1% chance to crit.
Arcane Power is 35% more damage for 35% more mana for 15 seconds. Limited utility in PvE (mostly useful when AEing stuff that needs to die asap) but this ability is wonderful in Solo PvP. You can also use it effectively with instant AE vs. clusters of enemies... it's a great talent, probably the best top tier talent out of all the trees for PvP.
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Improved Fireball is 0.5 seconds off a 3.5 second spell, giving you 3.0 second fireballs and increasing your damge per second. It's a great investment at low levels and is probably the best first place to allocate talent points for Arcane/Fire builds. I am ambiguous on its utility in PvP since I tend to rely on instants and AoE in PvP, but its utility at low levels in PvE cannot be understated.
Impact is a 10% chance to proc a 2 second stun off of any fire damage spell. Insignificant you say? No, not at all. Two seconds is huge in PvP, and stuns interrupt casting... It's not so great in PvE but is a must-have for Arc/Fire mages in PvP.
Ignite is 40% more damage to your crits, but since your crits are already 50% more damage than a regular hit, Ignite in essence gives you 110% damage crits. Well-worth it.
Pyroblast has two uses. One, vs. a sheeped target when you can afford the 6 second wind-up time. Two, combined with PoM to nail enemies for instant damage. PvE wise it's a slightly more mana efficent opener, but the spell is a shade of its former self. Not a must-have, but a good place to drop a point.
Incinerate is a relatively new... 4% more crits on Fire Blast is great for PvP and 4% more crits on Scorch is handy for instancing in PvE. Fire Blast's enhanced crit rate makes this worth it in PvP, in my opinion.
Flame Throwing is more range. More range is good. 41 yds on Fireball and Pyroblast. Get it if you go Arc/Fire.
30 Fire/21 Arcane
Perhaps the most viable Fire mage. Choosing 10% more damage all the time at the cost of 8% more mana and Arcane Power's 35% more damage some of the time. More reliant on Fire, however, and thus more vulnerable to those dastardly Fire Protection Potions (http://www.thottbot.com/index.cgi?i=30756).
Arcane Talents (21 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.
Frost Talents (0 points)
# None
Fire Talents (30 points)
# Improved Fireball - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Fireball by 0.5 seconds.
# Impact - 5/5 points
Gives your fire spells a 10% chance to stun the taget for 2 seconds.
# Ignite - 5/5 points
Your critical strikes from fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 40% of your spell's damage over 4 seconds.
# Flame Throwing - 2/2 points
Increases the range of your fire spells by 6 yards.
# Pyroblast - 1/1 point
Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 148 to 195 fire damage and an additional 56 damage over 12 seconds.
# Improved Flamestrike - 3/3 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Flamestrike spell by 15%.
# Blast Wave - 1/1 point
A wave of flame radiates outward from the caster, damaging all enemies caught within the blast for 160 to 192 fire damage, and dazing them for 6 seconds.
# Critical Mass - 3/3 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your fire spells by 6%.
# Fire Power - 5/5 points
Increases the damage done by your fire spells by 10%.
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 fire spell. 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.
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 10 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.
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%.
# Improved Blizzard - 3/3 points
Adds a chill effect to your Blizzard spell. This effect lowers the target's movement speed to ? of normal. Lasts 8.50 seconds.
# Piercing Ice - 3/3 points
Increases the damage done by your frost spells by 6%.
# Cold Snap - 1/1 point
When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown on all of your cold spells.
# 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%.
# Frost Channeling - 3/3 points
Reduces the mana cost of your frost spells by 15%.
# 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.
Piercing Ice is a good place to drop three points for 6% more damage to frost. Frostbolt will still be your primary damage spell so you might as well make it more powerful :)
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, 5(n-1) 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).
Other Talents
And the other talents that I didn't mention in the process of my discussion above...
Arcane Subtlety allows you to reduce threat from offensive arcane spells by 20/30/40%. Not that great, since most of the time I've found myself to use arcane as a supplement in instancing (either Scorch or Frostbolt for clearcasted Arcane Missiles, or spam AEing, or fireball/fireblast for DPS) and thus this talent isn't that great. The only time I found myself using pure arcane was while AEing... and there's not much that the tank can do in the current aggro system to prevent you from getting aggro from most of the mobs when you AE, and a 40% threat reduction isn't going to make a difference there. This is a PvE only talent.
Wand Specialization is next to useless, since the only time I ever use wands is killing a mob that has a sliver of life left in PvE, or for killing totems. Wands are also a pain to use as source of dps because there's no autoshoot, you have to mash the button over and over again...
Improved Dampen Magic isn't worth the talent points considering the limited utility of the spell itself. I only use Dampen Magic when soloing vs. caster mobs or players, and even then it doesn't make that much of a difference. Since it reduces healing by twice as much as it reduces magical damage intake, I would never use it in a group. Not worth talent points to make a rarely used spell slightly better.
Arcane Meditation might be useful if it was 15% of your Mana regeneration while casting per talent point. But it's 15% for five talent points, which is too small to be noticeable... there are better places to drop 5 talent points in Arcane (e.g. get 8% more mana with Arcane Mind and get PoM).
Improved Fire Blast has its uses... but I don't think the talent point cost is worth it. Fire Blast is a great instacast spell that I use a lot of PvP but the talent will only reduce it by 1.5s (to a 6.5s cooldown :-/) which isn't worth five talent points in my opinion. You can conceivably drop a point or two in Improved Fire Blast if you wish, but even a point in Pyroblast has more utility than 0.5 seconds less cooldown. For PvE soloing, it's not that mana efficient though it is good to drop in between fireballs to up DPS. Maybe a point in this talent is worth it (0.5s for a point), but no more than that really.
Burning Soul is a great talent for people new to mages in PvE. It lets you cast your fire spell without spell casting time set backs while you're taking damage (65% of the time) which is nice for PvE. For PvP there are too many outright spell interrupts to make Burning Soul worth it. It's handy for PvE but not vital and if you learn to nova properly you can often kill mobs without getting hit at all. I weaned myself off this talent -- if I need to do damage output while getting hit in PvE with my nova and cone of cold timers down I'll use arcane missiles, which are 100% uninterruptable instead of just 65%.
Improved Fire Ward isn't worth it. I use Fire Ward in PvE vs. fire mobs and in PvP I try to have it up as often as possible to absorb any incoming damage from fire casters. The talent doesn't let it absorb more, it merely reflects part of the damage back to the original caster. Not really worth it, the applications are too few. I can't think of a situation where reflecting 35% of 300 absorption back on a caster would contribute to their downfall.
Combustion is a fine PvE talent. The timer is a bit longish, at five minutes, but it's handy for fighting tough mobs. It doesn't really stack that well with the rest of the fire tree since the fire tree increases your chance to crit, making combustion less necessary since you already have a higher chance to crit. That said, a Combusted Blast Wave is a very good thing... I just can't justify giving up PoM in Arcane to get Combustion for any fire build.
Permafrost has little point. If you're frost, you're going to be mostly casting frostbolt. Since you'll be casting frostbolt over and over again, you'll be continually reapplying the snare. Why then, would you want a talent that makes the snare last longer? It already lasts 9 seconds or so initially at level 60... more than enough time for you to get off another 2.5s cast time frostbolt to reapply the snare. I don't see the point of this talent.
Winter's Chill is too little for too much. Three talent points for a 10% extra movement speed reduction is overkill. Maybe this could be useful if you wanted a really nasty Blizzard snare (it would be a 15% speed snare or a 17.5% speed snare, depending on how Winter's Chill is calculated -- I believe it is a flat 10% extra speed decrease however, but haven't tested) but I'd rather just get Piercing Ice and do 6% more damage. 10% extra snare isn't going to let you slip in a fifth frostbolt before the mob gets to you either, so it isn't worth it there. Also with Shatter, you'd want to nova the mob after the third frostbolt so you can get a 50% chance to crit off the frozen... I would recommend against Winter's Chill.
Improved Frost Ward is a nice improvement to a spell almost never used. Very few mobs use frost magic... there aren't many frost mages out there... I never find myself casting Frost Ward. 50% of the damage of the max level Frost Ward would be 150 damage... meaning 150 extra mana, not even enough for a frostbolt. This talent isn't even worth a point's investment.
Improved Cone of Cold is 35% more damage on Cone of Cold for 3 talent points. I'm not a fan of Cone of Cold because it's an instant cone spell -- which, because it is an AoE of a sort (cone effect) has a high mana cost, making it inefficent for solo mobs. I only really use Cone of Cold for its 50% snare when fighting melee or to snare mobs when I'm AoEing them. I don't turn to Cone of Cold for AoE damage, preferring arcane explosion instead. However, the talent isn't bad and if you find yourself using and liking Cone of Cold it could be worth investing in it.
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Wow, that's a lot of text. I hope someone finds this post useful... feel free to comment with alternative builds, corrections to any mistakes or suggestions of any other mage talent tips.
Version History
2004.11.18: Initial post.
2004.11.18: Added in the full spec of Arcane/Frost (accidently had left parts out when copying pasting).
2004.11.19: Added a section ("Other Talents") about talents I didn't describe when talking about the various builds.
Must Haves
You won't go far in PvE or PvP without these talents:
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 Arcane Missiles is the best choice for an initial five point investment in arcane, which is necessary to unlock the better parts of the tree. Arcane Missiles is best used off a clearcast or for chasing runners in PvP, since if you start the cast while they are in range, missiles will follow them for the duration of the five second cast time as long as they stay within 50 yards or so. I call 'em homing missiles.
Arcane Concentration provides you with a 10% chance of getting a clearcast of a damage spell. Very useful in both PvP and PvE. In PvE I tend to Scorch (a 1.5s cast time mana efficent direct damage spell) until I get a clearcast and then I will hit Arcane Missiles. In PvP, if you get a clearcast you can usually whore it out for a Blizzard, saving 1400 mana and getting 1216 damage for free (or more if you're frost).
Evocation is still worth it, though with its recently nerfed 10 minute timer (it used to be 5 back in stress test 1 days...) it is only really useful for emergencies. At level 60 it gives you back around 50-80% of your mana depending on how heavily you've invested in Spirit.
Improved Arcane Explosion is a must have for both PvP and PvE. This makes the spell instant cast, allowing you to cast it while moving and also never have to suffer with casting time delays from getting hit. You won't get groups in BRD and above without this spell. It's also great for taking out clumped groups of players in PvP.
Improved Counterspell is a PvP must have. Four seconds of silence is priceless, in addition to locking out an entire school of magic for 10 seconds. You can also use it offensively, before an enemy even starts casting, so that you block any instant spells. Note: Paladins can still divine shield through silence, so don't waste it on that.
Now that we've gotten the Must Haves out of the way, let's turn the various viable PvP and PvE builds available for mages. We'll first consider endgame builds and we'll look at a PvE build and progression at the end.
31 Arcane/20 Fire
The classic mage. Damage, damage, damage. Solo versatility and power. My personal choice.
Arcane Talents (31 points)
# Improved Arcane Missiles - 5/5 points
Gives you a 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Arcane Missiles.
# Arcane Focus - 2/5 points
Reduces the chance that the opponent can resist your arcane spells by 4%.
# 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%.
# Arcane Power - 1/1 point
When activated, your spells deal 35% more damage while costing 35% more mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 seconds.
Frost Talents (0 points)
# None
Fire Talents (20 points)
# Improved Fireball - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Fireball by 0.5 seconds.
# Impact - 5/5 points
Gives your fire spells a 10% chance to stun the taget for 2 seconds.
# Ignite - 5/5 points
Your critical strikes from fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 40% of your spell's damage over 4 seconds.
# Flame Throwing - 2/2 points
Increases the range of your fire spells by 6 yards.
# Incinerate - 2/2 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire Blast and Scorch spells by 4%.
# Pyroblast - 1/1 point
Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 148 to 195 fire damage and an additional 56 damage over 12 seconds.
Arcane Focus is just where I chose to dump points to get to 20 to unlock deeper parts of the tree. It's somewhat useful but not vital, in my experience.
Improved Mana Shield can be a life safer and can be the death of you at other times. Use with care, since it's a careful line between staying alive and running out of mana. I like Improved Mana Shield and a +int/sta equipment build for PvP, which lets me use mana shield for emergencies. It's much easier for mages to get back mana than hp (gems, evocation) so it is worth it to trade off mana for hp sometimes. That said, Mana Shield upgraded with talents absorbs 998 melee damage at the cost of 1996 mana... so be aware your mana pool will take a hit. I don't run around with mana shield on all the time, saving it for emergencies (usually when melee catches me by surprise). The talent itself isn't that great, but it is a good place to drop 2 points to unlock deeper parts of the tree and has more utility than just going to 4/5 in Arcane Focus.
Presence of Mind is on a three minute timer, meaning that once every three minutes any spell with less than 10 seconds casting time is instant (i.e. no instant teleports :P). This wonderful for PvP and is a must have for Arcane/Fire mix PvP builds. It isn't that useful in PvE.
Arcane Mind is 8% more mana. Can't go wrong with more mana, and it is worth the points... 8% more of a 6000 mana pool is 480 mana.
Arcane Instability is 3% more damage and 3% greater chance to crit on all damage spells. A wonderful talent, since it affects all your damage spells and not just one line. The 3% chance to crit is pretty big, since 100 int = 1% chance to crit.
Arcane Power is 35% more damage for 35% more mana for 15 seconds. Limited utility in PvE (mostly useful when AEing stuff that needs to die asap) but this ability is wonderful in Solo PvP. You can also use it effectively with instant AE vs. clusters of enemies... it's a great talent, probably the best top tier talent out of all the trees for PvP.
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Improved Fireball is 0.5 seconds off a 3.5 second spell, giving you 3.0 second fireballs and increasing your damge per second. It's a great investment at low levels and is probably the best first place to allocate talent points for Arcane/Fire builds. I am ambiguous on its utility in PvP since I tend to rely on instants and AoE in PvP, but its utility at low levels in PvE cannot be understated.
Impact is a 10% chance to proc a 2 second stun off of any fire damage spell. Insignificant you say? No, not at all. Two seconds is huge in PvP, and stuns interrupt casting... It's not so great in PvE but is a must-have for Arc/Fire mages in PvP.
Ignite is 40% more damage to your crits, but since your crits are already 50% more damage than a regular hit, Ignite in essence gives you 110% damage crits. Well-worth it.
Pyroblast has two uses. One, vs. a sheeped target when you can afford the 6 second wind-up time. Two, combined with PoM to nail enemies for instant damage. PvE wise it's a slightly more mana efficent opener, but the spell is a shade of its former self. Not a must-have, but a good place to drop a point.
Incinerate is a relatively new... 4% more crits on Fire Blast is great for PvP and 4% more crits on Scorch is handy for instancing in PvE. Fire Blast's enhanced crit rate makes this worth it in PvP, in my opinion.
Flame Throwing is more range. More range is good. 41 yds on Fireball and Pyroblast. Get it if you go Arc/Fire.
30 Fire/21 Arcane
Perhaps the most viable Fire mage. Choosing 10% more damage all the time at the cost of 8% more mana and Arcane Power's 35% more damage some of the time. More reliant on Fire, however, and thus more vulnerable to those dastardly Fire Protection Potions (http://www.thottbot.com/index.cgi?i=30756).
Arcane Talents (21 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.
Frost Talents (0 points)
# None
Fire Talents (30 points)
# Improved Fireball - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Fireball by 0.5 seconds.
# Impact - 5/5 points
Gives your fire spells a 10% chance to stun the taget for 2 seconds.
# Ignite - 5/5 points
Your critical strikes from fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 40% of your spell's damage over 4 seconds.
# Flame Throwing - 2/2 points
Increases the range of your fire spells by 6 yards.
# Pyroblast - 1/1 point
Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 148 to 195 fire damage and an additional 56 damage over 12 seconds.
# Improved Flamestrike - 3/3 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Flamestrike spell by 15%.
# Blast Wave - 1/1 point
A wave of flame radiates outward from the caster, damaging all enemies caught within the blast for 160 to 192 fire damage, and dazing them for 6 seconds.
# Critical Mass - 3/3 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your fire spells by 6%.
# Fire Power - 5/5 points
Increases the damage done by your fire spells by 10%.
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 fire spell. 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.
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 10 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.
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%.
# Improved Blizzard - 3/3 points
Adds a chill effect to your Blizzard spell. This effect lowers the target's movement speed to ? of normal. Lasts 8.50 seconds.
# Piercing Ice - 3/3 points
Increases the damage done by your frost spells by 6%.
# Cold Snap - 1/1 point
When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown on all of your cold spells.
# 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%.
# Frost Channeling - 3/3 points
Reduces the mana cost of your frost spells by 15%.
# 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.
Piercing Ice is a good place to drop three points for 6% more damage to frost. Frostbolt will still be your primary damage spell so you might as well make it more powerful :)
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, 5(n-1) 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).
Other Talents
And the other talents that I didn't mention in the process of my discussion above...
Arcane Subtlety allows you to reduce threat from offensive arcane spells by 20/30/40%. Not that great, since most of the time I've found myself to use arcane as a supplement in instancing (either Scorch or Frostbolt for clearcasted Arcane Missiles, or spam AEing, or fireball/fireblast for DPS) and thus this talent isn't that great. The only time I found myself using pure arcane was while AEing... and there's not much that the tank can do in the current aggro system to prevent you from getting aggro from most of the mobs when you AE, and a 40% threat reduction isn't going to make a difference there. This is a PvE only talent.
Wand Specialization is next to useless, since the only time I ever use wands is killing a mob that has a sliver of life left in PvE, or for killing totems. Wands are also a pain to use as source of dps because there's no autoshoot, you have to mash the button over and over again...
Improved Dampen Magic isn't worth the talent points considering the limited utility of the spell itself. I only use Dampen Magic when soloing vs. caster mobs or players, and even then it doesn't make that much of a difference. Since it reduces healing by twice as much as it reduces magical damage intake, I would never use it in a group. Not worth talent points to make a rarely used spell slightly better.
Arcane Meditation might be useful if it was 15% of your Mana regeneration while casting per talent point. But it's 15% for five talent points, which is too small to be noticeable... there are better places to drop 5 talent points in Arcane (e.g. get 8% more mana with Arcane Mind and get PoM).
Improved Fire Blast has its uses... but I don't think the talent point cost is worth it. Fire Blast is a great instacast spell that I use a lot of PvP but the talent will only reduce it by 1.5s (to a 6.5s cooldown :-/) which isn't worth five talent points in my opinion. You can conceivably drop a point or two in Improved Fire Blast if you wish, but even a point in Pyroblast has more utility than 0.5 seconds less cooldown. For PvE soloing, it's not that mana efficient though it is good to drop in between fireballs to up DPS. Maybe a point in this talent is worth it (0.5s for a point), but no more than that really.
Burning Soul is a great talent for people new to mages in PvE. It lets you cast your fire spell without spell casting time set backs while you're taking damage (65% of the time) which is nice for PvE. For PvP there are too many outright spell interrupts to make Burning Soul worth it. It's handy for PvE but not vital and if you learn to nova properly you can often kill mobs without getting hit at all. I weaned myself off this talent -- if I need to do damage output while getting hit in PvE with my nova and cone of cold timers down I'll use arcane missiles, which are 100% uninterruptable instead of just 65%.
Improved Fire Ward isn't worth it. I use Fire Ward in PvE vs. fire mobs and in PvP I try to have it up as often as possible to absorb any incoming damage from fire casters. The talent doesn't let it absorb more, it merely reflects part of the damage back to the original caster. Not really worth it, the applications are too few. I can't think of a situation where reflecting 35% of 300 absorption back on a caster would contribute to their downfall.
Combustion is a fine PvE talent. The timer is a bit longish, at five minutes, but it's handy for fighting tough mobs. It doesn't really stack that well with the rest of the fire tree since the fire tree increases your chance to crit, making combustion less necessary since you already have a higher chance to crit. That said, a Combusted Blast Wave is a very good thing... I just can't justify giving up PoM in Arcane to get Combustion for any fire build.
Permafrost has little point. If you're frost, you're going to be mostly casting frostbolt. Since you'll be casting frostbolt over and over again, you'll be continually reapplying the snare. Why then, would you want a talent that makes the snare last longer? It already lasts 9 seconds or so initially at level 60... more than enough time for you to get off another 2.5s cast time frostbolt to reapply the snare. I don't see the point of this talent.
Winter's Chill is too little for too much. Three talent points for a 10% extra movement speed reduction is overkill. Maybe this could be useful if you wanted a really nasty Blizzard snare (it would be a 15% speed snare or a 17.5% speed snare, depending on how Winter's Chill is calculated -- I believe it is a flat 10% extra speed decrease however, but haven't tested) but I'd rather just get Piercing Ice and do 6% more damage. 10% extra snare isn't going to let you slip in a fifth frostbolt before the mob gets to you either, so it isn't worth it there. Also with Shatter, you'd want to nova the mob after the third frostbolt so you can get a 50% chance to crit off the frozen... I would recommend against Winter's Chill.
Improved Frost Ward is a nice improvement to a spell almost never used. Very few mobs use frost magic... there aren't many frost mages out there... I never find myself casting Frost Ward. 50% of the damage of the max level Frost Ward would be 150 damage... meaning 150 extra mana, not even enough for a frostbolt. This talent isn't even worth a point's investment.
Improved Cone of Cold is 35% more damage on Cone of Cold for 3 talent points. I'm not a fan of Cone of Cold because it's an instant cone spell -- which, because it is an AoE of a sort (cone effect) has a high mana cost, making it inefficent for solo mobs. I only really use Cone of Cold for its 50% snare when fighting melee or to snare mobs when I'm AoEing them. I don't turn to Cone of Cold for AoE damage, preferring arcane explosion instead. However, the talent isn't bad and if you find yourself using and liking Cone of Cold it could be worth investing in it.
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Wow, that's a lot of text. I hope someone finds this post useful... feel free to comment with alternative builds, corrections to any mistakes or suggestions of any other mage talent tips.
Version History
2004.11.18: Initial post.
2004.11.18: Added in the full spec of Arcane/Frost (accidently had left parts out when copying pasting).
2004.11.19: Added a section ("Other Talents") about talents I didn't describe when talking about the various builds.