Mage Talents

[RedRagToAnOrc]

I just bought WoW. Kill me.

But in all seriousness, I just rolled a mage on Daggerspine and I'm about to start speccing, I was wondering if there are particular trees which are better for PvE or PvP - according to the Wiki (http://www.wowwiki.com/Mage_builds), Frost builds mostly appear to be PvP but I've seen a number of Frost Mages in high level PvE guilds.

If I'm going to be doing mostly PvE, is Frost the way to go or could I spec one of the other two - or go for a hybrid?

[Dayoh]

LOL, after all the times you ill-spoke of WoW to me.
I am dissapointed but one word of warning, it will become very boring and you will regret it, i and lots of mates have "suffered" that.

[EvilEggCracker]

Er, ignore the poster above me. I've been playing WoW for a while now - yet to get boring.

My main is a Mage and I he's currently specced Fire for PvE (I'm the typical 10/48/3 specc which is possibly the best raiding specc). Frost is the PvP specc right now, anyone who is serious about PvPing will specc Frost.

For high-level raiding many people specc Arcane (you need a hell of a ton Intellect though), but with the recent patch a few trinkets and the meta-gem required for Arcane to be effective was nerfed so it may not be so good anymore.

There are no effective hybrid speccs at the moment, however, with WotLK things may change.

[RedRagToAnOrc]

LOL, after all the times you ill-spoke of WoW to me.

Ah yes, but firstly, I intend to have my subscription paid for me (at least for a while) and secondly, I intend only to play it casually. Casually, but well.

EDIT: Put my first two into Frost, if Fire is the most effective PvE spec I'll look into reassigning them sooner rather than later. :)

[WarInSerbia]

I was thinking that fire is better,deals a lot of damage,frost bolts do moderate damage but slows them down,I dont realy know what other abilities the mage has,but I'l turn over to be a warlock.He has better critical for spells.

[EvilEggCracker]

I personally levelled up as Frost. When I say "PvE" I mean raiding and in group situations. Soloing, Frost is just as good as Fire for soloing (some would say better because of AoE levelling).

[ScottieIWU]

Raiding frost is a no-no barring this situation: You're fighting Al'ar. Otherwise, fire is the way to go as your dps in frost depends on debuffs and rooting the mob, which often bosses are immune to.

However, frost for levelling is pro. Once you hit lvl 30 you start seeing it pay off in dividends, and you'll start critting stuff like mad if you spec right. It also makes it better if anybody decides to screw with you for some world pvp while you level, you stand a decent chance of messing pretty much anybody up, assuming equal skill.

There's not much to say otherwise. Don't ever go 3 min mage (Arcane Power/Presence of Mind) because, well, you're worthless if that pyroblast + instants don't kill your target.

[xodkrm]

Go fire. It's much better than frost in every way until level 40, which then you can do what you want (people still argue its better fire past 40 to lvl).

[RedRagToAnOrc]

Yeah, after I said I'd gone Frost my brother seemed to think that was fine for levelling and I could just respec to Fire at 70. Sounds good.

[The_Maker]

From my Mage rolling, I sort of figured out the hard way that;
Fire is good for offensive players, and has nice crits but drains your mana like crazy.
Frost is good for defensive players, not as strong as fire but your mana won't disappear as fast.
Arcane is a good middle ground between the two, with the right speccing your mana will make even the Energizer bunny jealous, you just won't dish out as much bang for your buck.

The whole PVE vs PVP spec thing, I've seen it go both ways. I'd say it depends on the skill used with the spec trees more than the actual specs themselves.

Also, death2wrlcks.

[AzVortez]

I intend only to play it casually. Casually, but well.

yes, i can see how "casual" this all is, lol.
anyways, seeing as your a first timer, do you think WoW is worth paying for?

[xodkrm]

But why would you need devensive spells when you are fighting computer mobs?
If you were to drain your health faster than you use mana, then you would need defense.
But from what I've noticed I go OOM when my HP is at about 50% - which is pretty good. While I sit down to regain my mana, I also eat food and my hp is back to 100% before my mana fills up.

[Dayoh]

Er, ignore the poster above me. I've been playing WoW for a while now - yet to get boring.

What i said was an in-house joke, thx for holding urself above me.

[GenocideAlive]

Can everybody relax? Thanks.

I'd recommend Frost, RR. Going Fire is good for fast damage, but in pickles from accidental aggro, etc. you're boned with Fire. Frost has a lot of good "bail out" spells that slow Move, Attk, Root, etc. Respec later if you want to go with some nasty PvE stuff. But please believe, I've seen some Frost Mages deal some CRAZY damage CRAZY fast. I got a Gnome and I'm probably going 61 in Arcane, but he's only L6.

I got caught up in the Warlocks, who are stupid-good at everything.

Anyway, welcome. It's a fun game, sometimes. Plus, it kills time until SC.

[ScottieIWU]

The whole PVE vs PVP spec thing, I've seen it go both ways. I'd say it depends on the skill used with the spec trees more than the actual specs themselves.It may be possible that PvP specs are pretty flexible, but a mage raiding anything other than fire is going to be frowned upon by most serious raiding guilds. The main point I want to echo is that once you get to end-game content 90% of the frost mage's spellbook is useless against the bosses. You can't much expect to spam ice lance to any useful end when a boss can't be frozen in place by frost nova or frostbite.

If mana is an issue, you bring mana pots. If you're raiding you should have them anyway. If you're doing 5-man content or solo content but not PvPing, do what you want, since you're dealing more with trash in there anyway, and serious DPS isn't an issue on a boss in Mechanar.

[EvilEggCracker]

Er, going anything other than Frost will get you slaughtered in PvP. Frost is the only viable PvP Specc.

[ScottieIWU]

Most competitive arena mages are indeed frost, but there are ways in which frost is slowly getting evened out with the other specs. The biggest one is that mages are kind of a joke against hunters now, what with the dead zone nerf, etc.

[Anoiktos]

Basically, frost is better against anything that can be frozen/slowed, Fire against anything else, with the exception of (elemental immune) mobs. Players can be frozen/slowed. Frost is thus better in PVP, especially with the addition of its survivability spells.

I used to - before BC - love both frost/fire and full arcane specs, full arcane only after the BC talents went in but before the extra talent points, mainly for slow. (I always forget to use AP, and people just purge it anyway) Frost/fire was awesome because with shatter and ignite, you could streak huge DOTs on players or even groups of players with blastwave. Unfortunately, they nerfed frost nova and shatter because of ice lance, essentially making this strategy useless. (another case of "nerf a core ability because of a fringe spell")

[ScottieIWU]

(another case of "nerf a core ability because of a fringe spell")Ice lance is hardly a "fringe" spell now that half the ice mages in arenas spam ice lance for as long as a frost nova holds.

So nerfing it is definitely not a bad thing.

[RedRagToAnOrc]

yes, i can see how "casual" this all is, lol.
anyways, seeing as your a first timer, do you think WoW is worth paying for?

I know, it doesn't sound casual. I just want to play it well, regardless of how many hours a week I put in. :)

As for whether it's worth paying for, I've never thought it's worth paying for. But my brother will hopefully be paying for it until I get my student loan, so I don't have to worry about that much.

Thanks for all the opinions!

[Anoiktos]

Ice lance is hardly a "fringe" spell now that half the ice mages in arenas spam ice lance for as long as a frost nova holds.
That's not actually possible with the nerf they did - on average, a total of two ice lances is all a frost mage will get off, because with even mediocre +dmg, a single crit will break it. (and +50% crit means two hits is the maximum average until crit).

Nevertheless, it very firmly breaks any potential elemental builds had, reverting mage builds to the standard frost/fire with arcane and maybe the frost +hit talent.

That said, while I understand that ice lance is often used in PVP (and having played frost when it was still ridiculous, I know exactly the problem therein: frost nova + 3 ice lances should not be enough to kill a level 61 mob or a low-hp player), I feel that a nerf to ice lance was what was needed, not to frost nova - because frost nova is a spell mages get around level eight, and ice lance at sixty-four.

At the same time, your comment comes from a hunter, the class that just got their deadzone nerfed to near-oblivion. I've always had trouble killing hunters that I didn't get the jump on, between either scattershot to keep me out of the deadzone or a BM pet to keep me interrupted or a FD that cancels my spells. /shrug.

Anyhow, for the mana thing, in my experience, it's fairly difficult to run out of mana as a mage so long as you make your gems beforehand, have half-decent gear, and learn to use evocation. A couple mana pots won't hurt, and you can get them fairly cheaply nowadays or farm them from level 60+ humanoid mob grinding.

And that's as fire. Frost is even more mana-efficient, and Arcane, despite its absolutely terrifyingly bad efficiency, scales best with gear and has the largest mana pool and the most mana-regenning effects.

Of course, if you're going arcane, I will warn you Arcane Missiles is not for everyone. It's useless in PVP now that they nerfed the through-buildings-follow ability (which was the only thing that made it useful in PVP in the first place), and Arcane Blast drains mana like no one's business unless you twin it appropriately with another spell. (A trick I reccommend there: cast two AB, then cast another spell, then just as your debuff is about to run out, cast another two AB: if the debuff is gone when the spell finishes casting but there when you begin, you get both the shorter cast time and the low mana cost of a non-debuffed spell)

(thus the most mana-efficient builds tend to be frost/arcane, using AB to keep up an even higher mana efficiency while bolting, albeit at the cost of a bit of initial DPS.)

[ScottieIWU]

That's not actually possible with the nerf they did - on average, a total of two ice lances is all a frost mage will get off, because with even mediocre +dmg, a single crit will break it. (and +50% crit means two hits is the maximum average until crit).

Nevertheless, it very firmly breaks any potential elemental builds had, reverting mage builds to the standard frost/fire with arcane and maybe the frost +hit talent.

That said, while I understand that ice lance is often used in PVP (and having played frost when it was still ridiculous, I know exactly the problem therein: frost nova + 3 ice lances should not be enough to kill a level 61 mob or a low-hp player), I feel that a nerf to ice lance was what was needed, not to frost nova - because frost nova is a spell mages get around level eight, and ice lance at sixty-four.I don't know really what to say to that, other than basically my point is that in PvP ice lace is not a fringe spell, but is rather more significant. The choice to nerf frost nova instead of ice lance was probably mistaken, but frost nova by lvl 70 was kind of ridiculous as-is, and by nerfing frost nova they thus nerfed ice lance.

At the same time, your comment comes from a hunter, the class that just got their deadzone nerfed to near-oblivion. I've always had trouble killing hunters that I didn't get the jump on, between either scattershot to keep me out of the deadzone or a BM pet to keep me interrupted or a FD that cancels my spells. /shrug.While hunters did get significantly buffed, there is a rhyme and reason to every buff we got. Namely, hunters were USELESS in pvp prior to 2.3, simply because even in a solid CC-based marks spec or a burst-dmg BM spec, you were going to get focus-fired down and you brought almost nothing to the team otherwise. Mages bring sheep, priests mass dispel, pallies can bubble, warriors were MS, etc, except that hunters...did dps only.

Unless someone line of sighted you.

Or unless someone exploited your dead zone.

So, basically, every PvP tactic with hunters was "im going to run around like a bitch so you can't even get your 1.5 sec steady shot off while my rogue friend stunlocks you, or my mage keeps you rooted in your deadzone." Plus, dead zone was a huge PVE buff, as there are MANY bosses where having someone that has a dead zone/minimum range can mess up various strategies.

Anyway, mages have just been getting bad luck with the nerf stick lately, hunters are on the rise (read: just about baseline for pvp) and mages are slowly becoming less reliable. It's just a matter of time before they start nerfing someone else and buffing mages.

[GenocideAlive]

Hunters are a fun class, if I didn't play Warlock, I'd probably go Hunter.

Mages are a lot of fun, but honestly there's not too much they are supposed to be able to do besides DPS like fucking fiends. And I can't really see them crying about that, because I've watched 3v1s where a Mage got the jump on three wary guys and annihilated someone before their teammates could finally put the Mage down. I can't think of another class in the game that could have gotten away with that.

Warrior needs time to kill with a Stunlock, Rogue can't be seen by another class (esp not 3) or he's going to get his ass clamped, a Warlock would have to be COMPLETELY Dest specced and lucky on top of that, a Hunter would have been neutered on the spot, Shammy would have had a chance with a ton of lucky procs (not likely), Priest and Pally--haha, and a Druid simply doesn't DPS fast enough.

The clincher to this was that the guy was doing it over and over. We were at Halaa, three of us, and we were WAITING for him to respawn. He would respawn in some out of the way spot and be healing until I pointed him out to team and attacked (track humanoids). Then as soon as I attacked, he would jump up and DPS kill one of the other players. They would try to run, heal, w/e--but he always ended up killing them before me and the other guy got him. No easy feat, especially since I'm no pushover in eq or play.

Anyway, long story short, I hardly think Mages are in some sort of underpowered category.

[Anoiktos]

Anyway, mages have just been getting bad luck with the nerf stick lately, hunters are on the rise (read: just about baseline for pvp) and mages are slowly becoming less reliable. It's just a matter of time before they start nerfing someone else and buffing mages.
Mage positive thinkers have been saying that for.. Oh, about ten patches now. The last serious buff we got (during the BC talent addition) got nerfed during the very next patch. That's not to say it's all negative - I wouldn't trade my mage for any class in the world - but that's something I'll explain later.

I've watched 3v1s where a Mage got the jump on three wary guys and annihilated someone before their teammates could finally put the Mage down.
Yes, mages have an advantage when they get the jump, so long as their enemies have low hit points and no means of silence or disable. If they don't get the jump, however...

Rogue can't be seen by another class (esp not 3) or he's going to get his ass clamped
I've seen rogues take out everyone in a group one by one. Then again, my guildies are very good at being rogues, and I'm ridiculously suicidal as a mage. (HAY HEALER IS GETTING HIT, BURN IT No wait, now I'm kiting the boss.)

Now comes the 'later'. The reason I play Mage. Mages have no passive defense, no passive attack. They cannot autoattack, they have no armor. all of their survivability is reliant on timing, awareness, and reflexes. This makes them an exhilerating class to play, because when you get things just right, you can do awesome things, but when you don't, you faceplant faster than Wile E. Coyote. It is exactly this combo of risk/reward that makes paladins slow, priests, boring, hunters feel like autoshot (though I love the pets <3), and warlocks feel like walking tanks. When my blink runs me into a tree, or backwards into a pack of enemies, I'm dead. But then, I was dead anyway - best go out with a BANG. Or five. /dragonsbreathblastwavefrostnovaarcaneexplosion.

Of course, I'm not exactly PVP spec. ^^ If only frost got burning soul... /needs to get 2-piece aldor. (just came back to WOW after a long, long break)

[GenocideAlive]

Rogues that take out entire groups play pathetic PvPers, that's all there is to it.

A rogue that walks into a group of people should get Frost Nova'd, Faerie Fire'd, or AoE spelled with whatever is available. Getting kicked out of Stealth will then have the immediate effect of having his ass beaten like a poor boy. Rogues do extremely poorly in combat with more than one person and as a Druid, once Faerie Fire comes out, that's game for the Rogue.

I will admit that the Blood Elves' racials are absolutely retarded against mages. I don't deny that shitty players will die to good players over and over, but a good mage is neigh unstoppable in an all-out assault. And if you're combatting with a rogue, you should be prepared with the proper detection potions.

[Anoiktos]

And if you're combatting with a rogue, you should be prepared with the proper detection potions.
I'm a human fire-mage. /perception, sheep, pyro crit + ignite, fireball, fireblast, lay on the DOTs. My problem tends to be that I'm undergeared and I stopped playing frost shortly after I hit 70.

(I do love the water elemental, though. Makes me want to go back, especially as I'm a 36* shadowweave tailor, and that set's got a lot of STAM. Bah... I do so love ignite and burning soul, though. Once I get my two-piece tier 5...)

Also, just about any anti-stealth measure you can take is wiped by cloak of shadows/vanish. Faerie fire? Don't make them laugh.

An assassination rogue with shadowstep is like some kind of horrible nightmare where you get one or two-shotted, that's also immune to your spells, for a fire-mage.

Then again, you're a warlock. You'll see just how irritating CoS is. It puts warlocks at the greatest disadvantage of any class, as it kills all your DOTs and prevents you from fearing them for the duration while they stunlock you :P

[GenocideAlive]

Then again, you're a warlock. You'll see just how irritating CoS is. It puts warlocks at the greatest disadvantage of any class, as it kills all your DOTs and prevents you from fearing them for the duration while they stunlock you :P
I dunno, I don't find it irritating. I'm not one of those people that think they should be able to do X regardless of any build, any circumstances. I understand the metagame of Classes in WC--there are going to be some classes that will romp Affliction rather easily. If I switch to Demonology and whip out a Felguard, it will change the scenario. Additionally, if I go a Dest build, you and I will share similar problems.

If push comes to shove, I can always enslave a Doomguard and use Stomp on him. ;)