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Mage builds

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This article is meant to list theorycrafted raiding builds, cookie-cutter PvP specs and other Mage standards/ideas for reference and new player guidance.

For help creating your own build and personalising the ones found here, take a look at our Mage talent analysis.


Contents

PvE

Solo leveling/farming

Leveling as a Frost Mage

Frost is far and wide considered the best Mage leveling tree due to four factors: its mana-efficiency, high survivability and control, and high burst damage.
A basic level 30 leveling build is as follows: Leveling Frost Your very first talent should always be Improved Frostbolt if Frost.
Check the Mage talent analysis to improve upon it when leveling further. Remember to always pick up 1-point talents such as Ice Barrier and Cold Snap when available.

Certain points of interest:

  • The Frost Mage's main spell is Frostbolt. It is your opener, your nuke, your chill. Learn to love it. Improved Frostbolt is a must-have to increase mobility when soloing.
  • Shatter is a necessary talent for optimal Frost leveling. Used with Frost Nova, you have a very high chance to critically strike your opponents. Fire Blasting mobs who are Frozen is a quick and mobile way to deal burst damage or finish them off.
  • Ice Shards increases damage done by Frost spell critical strikes, which is a good boost to Shatter's power. If you want higher raw damage while retaining Frost's control, you can always pick up Piercing Ice.
  • Frost Nova is your friend. Frost doesn't do as much damage as Fire and relies on keeping mobs away with chills and such tools, so talents like Arctic Reach and Ice Floes that increase their effectiveness are valuable.
  • Elemental Precision is not required, but it helps when soloing mobs of a higher level then yourself. It also reduces downtime slightly.
  • Frost Channeling improves mana-efficiency a great deal, making drinking between pulls less necessary.
  • Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost help increase burst damage, and changes the otherwise monotonous Frostbolt spamming.

If you play as a raider and a group player then this tree is suited for you.

Leveling as a Fire Mage

The Fire tree lacks the control and survivability of Frost, but has in exchange higher single-target damage and the ability to kill mobs faster one by one. It sacrifices mana-utility for higher power.
A basic Fire leveling build at 30 would be the following: Fire leveling
For further improvement when leveling, see the Mage talent analysis. Your very first talent should always be Improved Fireball if Fire.

Fire relies on critical strikes to maximize its damage, so taking talents such as Critical Mass and Pyromaniac is useful. Burnout and Ignite increase your crit damage by a lot, so it is imperative that you fill them out when possible. Always pick up 1-point talents (Combustion, Dragon's Breath) as soon as they become available. If you play with a glass cannon approach then this is probably for you.

Leveling as an Arcane Mage

The Arcane tree focuses on Mana conservation. It does not have the high damage of Frost or Fire but has higher control than even Frost. If you play a defensive, conservative style then this would probably suit you. This has a focus on grouping and is difficult to solo with because of it's low damage when compared to the other two trees.

5-mans and Soloing/Farming

This section deals with a less objective matter and is very subject to personal bias and custom builds.

  • 0/0/68 +3 Frost 5-mans/Solo build
    • High damage on trash due to not having to Scorch, high mana-efficiency allowing for chain-pulling on instances/farming, and high survivability through tools such as Deep Freeze and Ice Barrier. AoE is very good thanks to Improved Blizzard triggering Fingers of Frost, which in turn triggers Shatter. Instance boss encounters are short, favoring the high burst Frost can deliver through cooldown stacking of Water Elemental, Icy Veins and damage trinkets.
  • 0/45/18 Fire 70-80 Solo/5-man Build
    • This build is unconventional as it does not reach the 51 point talent at level 70. As well, it does not have the Improved Blizzard AoE tactics available (though I've found Northrend has few opportunities for it), nor Frost's survivability. What it does have is a combo that brings down just about anything, making single mob fights short and sweet. Open with an Frostfire Bolt (FFB; or use a Frostbolt if you are less than level 75 and haven't gotten FFB yet) and Scorch (or Fireball/FFB) until in melee range. Frost Nova the monster, step out of melee range, then cast FFB/(Fireball when < 75), chained with a Fireblast. If both crit from Shatter, you will then have an instant Pyroblast provided by Hot Streak. Almost any even level mob will then be dead, with maybe one more Scorch needed for good measure. If you do not get the required two crits, just use Dragon's Breath and FFB/Fireball it down.

Raiding

The builds listed here come from theorycrafting and are listed in this page. Editors might want to refrain from submitting untested user-created builds, encounter-specific builds or small modifications of the listed builds.

Raiding mages generally want high single target DPS and/or lots of AOE power. Depending on your gear, length of the fight, movement, trash clearing, and interruptions, there's no real "perfect" raiding build. These are the standard builds for each school and how casting works to maximize DPS.

For the sake of standardization, mostly only core talents are contained in the builds and extra talent points are available in some cases. This allows for customizing, which is encouraged when looking at different encounters with different mechanics or different personal preferences.

Frost

  • (18/0/53) Deep Frost & Torment the Weak (TTW)
    • This build uses DPS cooldowns for maximum benefit, which means as often as possible for boss fights with no "burn periods", but also means saving cooldowns for when the boss is vulnerable and DPS needs to increase. Blizzard has admitted that Frost is currently low on raid DPS and it remains that way even after a minor buff in patch 3.2. However, if raid survivability is a problem while learning an encounter, frost mages are more likely to stay alive, especially when the Ice Barrier talent is taken. Frost is extremely mana efficient, so it pays to get extra magic resistance from Magic Absorption at the cost of one point from Arcane Concentration. Avoid casting Fireballs during Fingers of Frost procs, which will potentially add 50% extra crit chance on the instant cast Fireball right after two Fingers of Frost frostbolts. Also, try to summon the water elemental just before Heroism/Bloodlust. The lowest value DPS talent points in this build are (in no particular order): Ice Floes, Student of the Mind and Spell Impact. The point in Ice Floes could be used for a second point in Improved Blizzard. Always keep one point in improved blizzard, so that Blizzard procs Fingers of Frost. This version of the build uses only three points in Arcane Concentration. For some fights, an extra 2% mana efficiency can be more useful than a point in Student of the Mind or Spell Impact, each of which is only worth a fraction of a percent in DPS.

Fire

  • (0/51/18 +2) Frostfire Bolt (FFB) build
    • This build is PvE-competitive because of the early Frost DPS talents and the powerful crit modifier it gives to Frostfire Bolt. This build is based on Frostfire Bolt, and is classified as Fire rather than Elementalist for its steep expenditure into the Fire tree, while the Frost investment is puny in comparison, making it in reality a Deep Fire build. The rotation in this tree is exactly like the one in the above Fireball build, except replacing Fireball with Frostfire Bolt and using Living Bomb at all times. Frostfire Bolt is highly mana-efficient and has been shown to compete excellently with the Fireball build above in terms of DPS. Although Frostfire Bolt normally hits for less than Fireball, it crits hit much harder due to the number of modifiers and talents which activate on a critical hit: Burnout, Ice Shards and Ignite, all of which are absolutely mandatory. Note that unlike Fireball/TTW, Combustion is absolutely mandatory because of this.

Arcane

  • (50/3/11 +7) Arcane/Frost
    • Only bare essential points are taken in this build, so as to provide the most customizable build possible. Certain talents have no objective effect on DPS, such as Magic Attunement, but are useful in other ways and a good investment of remaining points. Magic Attunement and Arcane Stability protect DPS in less measurable ways, for instance, by reducing spell pushback from certain encounter mechanics, and Arcane Barrage is a useful mobile DPS spell, if not the best stationary damage spell.
    • With changes in Patch 3.0.8, Arcane has once again become a viable spec for single-target DPS. Talents like Arcane Power make it far more flexible than Frostfire Bolt specs, as DPS can be raised and lowered at the cost of Mana efficiency, dependent on the situation. Your rotations should be Arcane Blast 1, 2 or 3 times, depending on the length of the fight and your MP5 and Arcane Missiles, after the Arcane Blasts, regardless of whether Missile Barrage procs or not. Use Presence of Mind at your own preference. At least 8 points are taken in Frost for Precision, providing a 289 hitcap for Arcane spells. Going deeper in Frost for Icy Veins and into Fire for Incineration increase overall DPS, though points can be spent otherwise to adjust for your own play style.

A good use for Icy Veins is to use it before casting your Evocation spell to avoid it being interupted or shortened by damage. Other uses for Icy Veins may work as well with adding haste to your casting of Arcane Missles and Arcane Blast to increase DPS at your leisure. If mana becomes intensive, the best rotation to save your mana for your Evocation cooldown would be 1 Arcane Blast followed by 1 Arcane Missles constantly. Depending on how much mana and time left on your Evocation or Mana Gem cooldowns during long boss fights, you may add in a few more Arcane Blasts or Arcane Barrages to your rotation. Keep in mind to always time your rotations to your cooldowns so that when you do run out of mana, you will have your Evocation/Mana Gems to use.

PvP

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Note that PvP playstyle is a very personal matter, and these builds exist merely to exemplify and direct new or learning players at solid standard starters.

Frost

  • (20/0/51) Frost + TTW
    • An Arena standard, this Frost build has not only the most survivability, but also has the most burst potential Frost can achieve through Deep Freeze and Brain Freeze, boosted by Torment the Weak. Improved Counterspell is also obtained, as are most utility Frost talents. It also includes Magic Absorption, Arcane Fortitude, and Magic Attunement for added defenses. With this, you can switch between Ice and Mage Armor as situations require. Some mages that group with other casters may prefer to drop a single point from Spell Impact to pick up Focus Magic. It is also advised to attain around 11% haste, to be able to get off the very lethal Deep Freeze + FB + IL + IL combo.
  • (28/0/43) Frost w/Prismatic Cloak
    • The 'Frismatic' build combines the survivability and utility of Frost with Prismatic Cloak and Presence of Mind.The Frost part of the build can be customized as necessary to obtain specific talents such as Permafrost.

Arcane

  • This spec is meant for those who have more experience with the arcane tree. You will rely more on your arcane spells, mostly not [pom + pyroblast] but more on [pom + arcane blast] its a spec that works well in PvP. Also great versus paladins. Keep in mind some people seem to not have noticed that impact is not only for fire. It works globally now.
  • This spec utilizes crit damage modifiers (similar to the Frostfire Bolt PvE spec above) but instead of using Fire as it's base, it optimizes the PvP power of Arcane. Uses the root and snare mechanics to minimize enemy mobility while using Shatter, Spell Power, and Torment the Weak to provide large crits. Great for high burst damage. Updated for 3.2 to incorporate Permafrost's new anti-healing effect.
  • Combines the power of the 3 minute mage spec, and adds impact for a stun, and world in flames for a better crit chance.


  • Very nice kiting spec with plenty of instant casts for mobility. Very powerful.

Fire

  • (17/54/0) Fire PvP
    • This is a cookie cutter fire PvP spec. It is very RNG dependend and has no main nuke. There are many tactics to playing this build. These include, Rapid scorches to proc a Hot Streak, using Dragons Breath to get off a Frostfire Bolt (damage + snare), following up with a Blastwave and Fire Blast, all while retaining use of instant casts such as a Nova/IL/CoC/Arcane Exlosion to proc impacts. Motlen armor works for proccing impact for both melee and ranged attacks. Frost and Fire Ward have a high chance to reflect Fire and Frost spells with minor glyphs for added effect. A PvP Fire mage is always on his toes adapting to different situations. It isn't as consistent as other tree's for PvP, but it can be entertaining and effective.
  • (0/53/18) Frostfire PvP
    • This is very similar to the above build with the exception that it adds the possibility for shatter combo's and Icy Veins within a fire spec. It adds slightly more survivability to melee classes through Ice Armor buffs and more snares. However, the lack of Imp. Counterspell, Magic Absorption, and Magic Attunement can make fighting other casters significantly more difficult. The point into Imp. Blizzard is simply to provide slightly more utility inside a battlegrounds environment by adding a snare/freeze to blizzard, this point may be removed if needed.

See also


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