Gaming
 

Mage talent analysis

From WoWWiki

This page is meant to provide some advice to Mage players seeking to make their own talent builds and examine the value of specific Mage talents.
It presents views on the usefulness of talents in solo leveling/farming, raiding, and PvP.
A comprehensive list of established talent builds can be found at Mage builds.

A full talent list can be found here.

Contents

Arcane

The Arcane tree has an emphasis in Utility talents, such as mana restoration mechanics (Arcane Meditation, Arcane Concentration) and resilience talents (Prismatic Cloak, Arcane Fortitude), and gives buffs to spells of all schools, not just its own, in contrast with the other trees (Spell Power, Arcane Instability). It provides high mobility and burst damage in both PvE and PvP settings through talents such as Presence of Mind, Missile Barrage and the powerful Arcane Barrage.

Notes on cross-specialising with Arcane from other trees

  • Raid-optimized Frost mages follow the same path as Fire.

Arcane Subtlety Arcane Subtlety

2 points: Reduces the chance your helpful spells and damage over time effects will be dispelled by 15/30% and reduces the threat caused by your Arcane spells by 20/40%.

  • Largest Threat decrease you can get on any magic school. Mages aren't a defensive or support class nor a DoT heavy class.
    • Solo Utility: Threat doesn't matter in solo and the dispel resist doesn't really make a difference.
    • Raid Utility: If you plan on going further down the Arcane tree this is a must have. And the tanks will be happy about the aggro reduction.
    • PvP Utility: Somewhat useful. Mages have self-buffs like Ice Barrier and Arcane Power that are worth protecting, but the only real DoT is Living Bomb. There is nothing better for Frost and Fire at the tier, so they'll likely take it on the way to Torment the Weak.
  • Bottom Line: All specs should take it for PvP, since there's nothing better at the tier if you're not Arcane. For PvE, all Arcanists should have it.

Arcane Focus Arcane Focus

3 points: Increases your chance to hit and reduces the mana cost of your Arcane spells by 1/2/3%

  • A bigger chance to hit with Arcane is useful for all specs because of such spells as Polymorph and Counterspell.
    • Solo Utility: Useful for dealing with higher-level mobs and reducing downtime, but not worth trumping other interesting stuff for.
    • Raid Utility: If you already took Arcane Subtlety you should spend your next three points here. To reach Arcane Concentration from another tree, the two are your best bet.
    • PvP Utility: You'll end up taking it as there's nothing better in the tier.
  • Bottom Line: This is a Raid talent, as are most +Hit skills.

Arcane Stability Arcane Stability

5 points: Decreases pushback to Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles by 20/40/60/80/100%.

  • These are the only spells that can get a 100% Pushback resistance. By having a Paladin with Concentration Aura in the raid (possibly even Improved), you can just get a couple of points and get the full effect.
    • Solo Utility: Well, it's a great skill for leveling and important if you choose AM as you main spell. At higher levels of soloing, though, the Arcane Mage has many tools with which to avoid getting hit.
    • Raid Utility: Helps against bosses with AOE effects, indirectly being a DPS increase. Casted spells comprise the entirety of the Arcane rotation, so a few points are always worthwhile.
    • PvP Utility: Protects your Arcane Blasts from pushback, and you'll be casting them when you can to buff Arcane Barrage occasionally, but not to the point you want to use up 5 valuable points.
  • Bottom Line: Interesting for all Arcane mages.

Arcane Fortitude Arcane Fortitude

3 points: Increases your armor by an amount equal to 50/100/150% of your Intellect.

  • With full Brutal Gladiator's Regalia on, a Mage will have around 2100 armor and around 200 intellect from gear plus around 200 from both base intellect (which varies with race) and Arcane Intellect. The resulting 600 additional armor is equivalent to 4% damage mitigation (according to Armor), which only works for Physical damage. This continues at level 80 where armor loses value and mages gain intellect proportionately.
    • Solo Utility: Mages generally shouldn't get hit when soloing. Even if they do, this is very insignificant.
    • Raid Utility: Useless. You'll be one-shot regardless, as most bosses often hit you for far more than your average health pool and/or do magic damage AoEs.
    • PvP Utility: Armor is not the Mage's means of mitigating damage, and it only mitigates melee and Hunter damage. 4%, in comparison to other possibilities, is very poor. Points can be better spent in talents that increase survivability and PvP ability through indirect means such as Frostbite and Magic Absorption.
  • Bottom Line: Don't take it unless there's nowhere better to spend points in. It is almost exclusively a PvP talent.

Magic Absorption Magic Absorption

2 points: Increases all resistances by .5/1 per level and causes all spells you fully resist to restore 1/2% of your total mana. 1 sec cooldown.

  • That is 80 innate resistance to all schools at 80, for a mere two points. According to the formula at Resistance, this is equivalent to a 15% magic damage reduction at 80.
    • Solo Utility: Not terribly useful. But good filler, as caster mob damage is usually unavoidable.
    • Raid Utility: If you use it as raiding filler, it's a few less pieces of resistance equipment to obtain, meaning room for more DPS equipment. It will not be used in an optimized DPS spec, though.
    • PvP Utility: Terrific. All specs should sink a few points in Arcane for this as it is a great survivability buff against spellcasters, normally hard to kite or counter for a Mage. Also, this gives a chance for hit-or-miss spells (those that cannot be partially resisted, such as DoTs) to fully miss and restores mana when they do.
  • Bottom Line: Great anti-caster boost in PvP. Still interesting otherwise.

Arcane Concentration Arcane Concentration

5 points: Gives you a 2/4/6/8/10% 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%.

  • By allowing 10% of all spells to be free, it essentially extends one's mana pool by 10%.
    • Solo Utility: Helps reduce downtime. When Arcane Potency is also available, this talent increases your chance to critically strike.
    • Raid Utility: Very useful as it increases mana-efficiency a great deal while increasing DPS when coupled with Arcane Potency. If going for Focus Magic from another tree, be sure to pick this up.
    • PvP Utility: Useful when coupled with Arcane Potency for extra (highly controllable) crits.
  • Bottom Line: All Arcanists should take this. Other trees' raiders will find it nice as well.

Magic Attunement Magic Attunement

2 points: Increases the range of your Arcane spells by 3/6 yards and the effect of your Amplify Magic and Dampen Magic spells by 25/50%

  • Situational.
    • Solo Utility: Gives you breathing room. Also, Dampen is something you should keep up when fighting spellcaster mobs.
    • Raid Utility: Your points can be generally spent elsewhere as Arcane, but Amplify Magic is highly useful in raids in fights with no magic damage, and this talent boosts it and the amount of spell power it gives to your healers. Useful filler.
    • PvP Utility: Same as solo utility. Breathing room and control is what Arenas are all about.
  • Bottom Line: Situational and up to personal taste in all cases, this talent has interesting utility.

Spell Impact Spell Impact

3 points: Increases the damage of your Arcane Explosion, Arcane Blast, Blast Wave, Fire Blast, Scorch, Fireball, Ice Lance and Cone of Cold spells by an additional 2/4/6%.

  • That's a lot of spells. Shame the most useful ones are only obtainable later.
    • Solo Utility: Terribly boring. If you don't like a lot of variety and don't use AE and CoC a lot, you'll never feel this until Ice Lance and Arcane Blast come along.
    • Raid Utility: Essential. Arcane Blast is one of your primary spells and you'll be rotating it with Arcane Missiles for single-target DPS. Fire Mages who are serious about raiding need this as well.
    • PvP Utility: None of those spells is used too frequently in the light of Arcane Barrage, but it's not bad as filler.
  • Bottom Line: Arcane and Fire raiders need it. Fire raiders will be going all the way up to Arcane Meditation while picking up this and Focus Magic. Situational and up to personal taste in other cases.

Student of the Mind Student of the Mind

3 points: Increases your total spirit by 4/7/10%.

  • Possibly the least exciting talent in all of WoW.
    • Solo Utility: Worthless. Doesn't help you in combat and has a puny effect on downtime. Your points are better spent elsewhere.
    • Raid Utility: Not as bad as it once was, since Spirit now affects DPS through Molten Armor, but at best a talent you only want when all other DPS options are already filled, and even then only for a marginal DPS increase.
    • PvP Utility: Your points are better spent elsewhere. Even for filler. Spirit for Mages just isn't very much worth it, especially in PvP where gear has little of it and Mages cannot afford to wear Molten Armor.
  • Bottom Line: A very boring talent most people will skip unless they're heavily into DPS optimization.

Focus Magic Focus Magic

1 point: Teaches you Focus Magic. It increases the target's chance to critically hit with all spells by 3%. When the target critically hits the caster's chance to critically hit with spells is increased by 3% for 10 sec.

  • For just one point, this talent is very much worth it. Note it cannot be cast on self and only procs on spell crits. Target and caster need to be within 100 yards of each other for the effect to work.
    • Solo Utility: You'll be alone most/all of the time, so it's a pretty pointless spell. But at one point, is it too much to ask?
    • Raid Utility: Very useful. The 3% crit bonus to yourself can be up close to 100% of the time if you cast it on the right person. And come on, you're helping the raid as a whole.
    • PvP Utility: 3% chance to crit to a fellow spellcaster is cool. Also serves as dispel buffer.
  • Bottom Line: Too cheap and useful to pass. Take it and spread some love.

Arcane Shielding Arcane Shielding

2 point: Decreases the mana lost per point of damage taken when Mana Shield is active by 17/33% and increases the resistances granted by Mage Armor by 25/50%.

  • Makes Mana Shield a 1:1 mana to damage tradeoff. It's a very good boost to its efficiency.
    • Solo Utility: Reasonably nice a survivability bonus.
    • Raid Utility: Useless. You won't be using Mana Shield. And resistances aren't why you use Mage Armor.
    • PvP Utility: Mana Shield remains a panic button you use only when you NEED to survive no matter the cost, but at a reasonable cost now. Resistances are always nice.
  • Bottom Line: Raiders can better spend the points. Everyone who gets their hands dirty and takes damage will find it useful.

Improved Counterspell Improved Counterspell

2 points: Gives your Counterspell a 100% chance to silence the target for 2/4 sec.

  • Gives you the power of using Counterspell proactively, not just reactively.
    • Solo Utility: You're better off just timing your interrupts than spending two points in not having to.
    • Raid Utility: Useless. Raid mobs cannot be silenced, and Counterspell is only ever used reactively in a raid environment.
    • PvP Utility: Essential. As either Arcane or Frost, this is a tool with which to tie up your opponents so you can burst them down while they're defenceless.
  • Bottom Line: PvP Mages of all specs will love having this. Everyone else shouldn't bother.

Arcane Meditation Arcane Meditation

3 points: Allows 17/33/50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting.

  • This talent, Mage Armor or Pyromaniac can be combined additively for a total 100% in-combat mana regeneration. Only two of those at a time, though, since in-combat regen caps at 100%.
    • Solo Utility: You won't have a lot of spirit or enough time in combat to make it worthwhile.
    • Raid Utility: Critical for sustaining more mana-intensive Arcane rotations. Raises your DPM a good bit, and it's possible to partially take it as a Fire Mage going for Torment the Weak.
    • PvP Utility: Not crucial for the same reasons as Solo Utility.
  • Bottom Line: Raiders will put it to good use, while soloers just don't need it so much.

Torment the Weak Torment the Weak

3 points: Your Frostbolt, Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage abilities deal 4/8/12% more damage to Snared targets.

  • Adds injury to insult. Works not only with chills such as Frostbolt's, Slow, but also combat slows like Frost Fever, Judgments of the Just and Thunder Clap, meaning its useful in PvE as well.
    • Solo Utility: As Arcane, good after you get Slow. As Frost, you can't spare the points leveling. If farming/questing at 80, however, it is a massive damage boost for both specs.
    • Raid Utility: Essential. All tanks have some form of attack speed reducing debuff that triggers this, so any tanked mob will get the 12% extra damage. This talent is necessary for raid viability for all mage specs except Frostfire.
    • PvP Utility: Arcane and Frost want it. 12% increase to their main spells Arcane Barrage (used with Slow) and Frostbolt.
  • Bottom Line: All PvE Mages who are not Frostfire need this talent for raid viability, and it's an obvious PvP choice. PvP Frosties will even sink 20 points into Arcane for this, Improved Counterspell and Magic Absorption.

Improved Blink Improved Blink

2 points: Reduces the mana cost of Blink by 25/50% and for 4 sec after casting your chance to be hit by all attacks and spells is reduced by 15/30%.

  • Makes Blink even more powerful an escape spell. Definitely a PvP-oriented talent.
    • Solo Utility: Blink is mainly used to gain distance from melee mobs, so they wouldn't be able to hit you anyway. Its use is to escape from caster mobs and real bad situations, which isn't terribly worthy of two points.
    • Raid Utility: Useless. You shouldn't be getting hit in raids, and there are superior talents to pick at this tier.
    • PvP Utility: Useful. Melee enemies often have distance closers such as Intercept and Death Grip, and this serves as a counter (albeit an unreliable one) to getting back in range. Also useful against caster enemies.
  • Bottom Line: A PvP talent if there's ever been one. It's of little use elsewhere.

Presence of Mind Presence of Mind

1 point: Grants you the Presence of Mind ability. When it is activated, your next Mage spell with a casting time less than 10 sec becomes an instant cast spell.

  • Pretty much anything, from Polymorph to Pyroblast, instant.
    • Solo Utility: Invaluable. Throwing a Fireball instantly in a critical situation can turn the tables to your advantage.
    • Raid Utility: You need to take the talent to take far superior DPS increases after it. At 1 point, it's also pretty nice utility to keep around.
    • PvP Utility: Invaluable. If you spec into Pyroblast, you get the ability to throw a huge ball of fire every so often at your enemies instantly (see Three-Minute Mage), and if not you can just use Fireball for comparable firepower. Insta-Polymorph is useful as well.
  • Bottom Line: Everyone should take it. At 1 point, it's a bargain.

Arcane Mind Arcane Mind

5 points: Increases your total Intellect by 3/6/9/12/15%.

  • More intellect means more mana, which means more spells. It also affects mana regeneration. Intellect also adds spell crit, but three times less than straight crit rating, which makes it highly inefficient for that purpose. A Mage in the very highest end raid gear would be hard-pressed to get 1% crit chance out of this fully maxed talent.
    • Solo Utility: Useful. Means more time fighting between drinks and less time drinking.
    • Raid Utility: Increases DPS indirectly through Mind Mastery. Ultimately filler, but very useful for regeneration through normal means or Replenishment.
    • PvP Utility: Also useful as Arcane spells are usually mana-intensive. Means more mana, which means more spells and less downtime. Also means you can keep up Mana Shield for a little longer in bad situations.
  • Bottom Line: Useful to all. Regeneration and mana are essential to the Arcane mage.

Prismatic Cloak Prismatic Cloak

3 points: Reduces all damage taken by 2/4/6% and reduces the fade time of your Invisibility spell by 1/2/3 sec.

  • Taking this talent at max rank makes the Invisibility effect trigger instantly. The damage reduction effect is just icing in comparison.
    • Solo Utility: Useful. Gives you a panic button to end the fight instantly whenever you need to.
    • Raid Utility: Turns Invisibility into an instant aggro dump, but it's not very recommendable as Arcane raiding builds have better places to spend points in that directly increase DPS.
    • PvP Utility: Gives you the chance to flee whatever enemy you're fighting and return to your team. Very valuable in all forms of PvP, including outdoor fights when you're cornered and outnumbered.
  • Bottom Line: Useful talent altogether.

Arcane Instability Arcane Instability

3 points: Increases your spell damage and critical strike chance by 1/2/3% .

  • A DPS talent if there was ever one. Prerequisite for Arcane Power.
    • Solo Utility: Makes you hit harder. You'll take it to get Arcane Power.
    • Raid Utility: Almost mandatory, as it increases DPS very well for just three points. It enables taking Arcane Power, which you want for raiding.
    • PvP Utility: Makes you hit harder. You need to take it in order to obtain Arcane Power, a powerful burst tool.
  • Bottom Line: Necessary for all Arcane builds.

Arcane Potency Arcane Potency

2 points: Increases the critical strike chance of your next damaging spell by 15/30% after gaining Clearcasting or Presence of Mind.

  • If you have Arcane Concentration fully maxed, this effect triggers on 10% of all your spells, and is highly controllable.
    • Solo Utility: If you take Arcane Concentration, it makes you crit much more often.
    • Raid Utility: Increases DPS if you take Arcane Concentration as well, which most Arcane raiding builds do for its mana-efficiency.
    • PvP Utility: If you take Arcane Concentration, it makes you crit more often. Also makes that PoM Fireball or Pyroblast much more likely to crit and take a ton of enemy HP.
  • Bottom Line: Useful in combination with Presence of Mind, but even more so combined with Arcane Concentration, which happens more often.

Arcane Empowerment Arcane Empowerment

3 points: Increases the damage of your Arcane Missiles spell by an amount equal to 15/30/45% of your spell power and the damage of your Arcane Blast by 3/6/9% of your spell power.

  • Directly adds the listed percentage to the spell power coefficient of those spells.
    • Solo Utility: As an Arcane leveler, other talents around it have higher relative worth. At higher levels, you're likely to use more of Arcane Barrage, Slow and other instants (such as Fire Blast) for your main spells and use Arcane Blast situationally, so this isn't terribly useful, but is a valid pick.
    • Raid Utility: Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles are your main DPS spells in a raid situation, so this directly boosts DPS. It is a must-have.
    • PvP Utility: Not too useful as you'll be using mostly only instants (Fire Blast, Arcane Barrage), and will never see the benefits of this talent unless you spec into Missile Barrage. Even then, it's a marginal damage increase, but a damage increase nonetheless.
  • Bottom Line: Primarily a raiding talent, but anyone who uses Arcane Missiles/Blast will want it.

Arcane Power Arcane Power

1 point: Grants you the Arcane Power ability. When activated, your spells deal 20% more damage while costing 20% more mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 sec.

  • By increasing both damage and mana cost proportionately, the DPM ratio is unaltered. It triggers a 10-second cooldown on PoM, but the two can still technically be used together.
    • Solo Utility: Helpful when soloing a particularly hard pull or elite mob, for just one point.
    • Raid Utility: A DPS increase is a DPS increase. Stack with damage trinkets and other buffs for maximum performance.
    • PvP Utility: Coupled with PoM and Arcane Barrage, a strong burst enhancer that helps open a window to kill an opponent or to finish them off.
  • Bottom Line: Everyone should take it. It's a universal damage boost at a reasonable cost.

Incanter's Absorption Incanter's Absorption

3 points: When you absorb damage your spell damage is increased by 5/10/15% of the amount absorbed for 10 sec. Total spell damage increase cannot exceed 5% of your health.

  • This ability places a buff on you every time you absorb damage. There can be more than one buff at once.
    • Solo Utility: Not too useful. Mana Shield is your only defence when soloing, it's a rather desperate move at that.
    • Raid Utility: Very situational. Can be used for filler for those situations when you have Power Word: Shield or Hand of Protection on you.
    • PvP Utility: Mana Shield burns through mana very quickly, so you won't have too much chance to make this be worthwhile.
  • Bottom Line: Very situational and generally up to personal taste.

Arcane Flows Arcane Flows

2 points: Reduces the cooldown of your Presence of Mind, Arcane Power and Invisibility spells by 15/30% and reduces the cooldown of Evocation by 1/2 minutes.

  • Reduces AP and PoM's cooldowns to 1.4 minutes, that of Invis to 2.1 minutes and that of Evocation to 2 minutes.
    • Solo Utility: Definitely useful, as it both reduces downtime tremendously and makes panic buttons and powerful moves available when you need them.
    • Raid Utility: Very strong talent. 2-minute Evocations are mandatory for maintaining Arcane's more mana-intensive burn rotations, and this also indirectly increasing DPS by making damage cooldowns more stackable and available sooner.
    • PvP Utility: Definitely useful, as glyphed Evocation is both a powerful heal and mana-restoring tool, and this makes panic buttons and powerful moves available when you need them.
  • Bottom Line: The Evocation cooldown reduction is powerful. It speeds up leveling, sustains DPS rotations and heals coupled with Glyph of Evocation. Smaller cooldowns = easier cooldown stacking and more DPS overall.

Mind Mastery Mind Mastery

5 points: Increases spell damage by up to 3/6/9/12/15% of your intellect.

  • Gives Mages the melee class treatment - that white stats actually increase DPS directly.
    • Solo Utility: Not very powerful or useful on its own. Best used as filler, but consider other options.
    • Raid Utility: Not very powerful, as there are other superior scaling stats available elsewhere.
    • PvP Utility: Not very powerful or useful on its own. There are better survivability talents to be picked up elsewhere.
  • Bottom Line: Not a very worthwhile talent.

Slow Slow

1 point: Grants you the Slow ability. Reduces target's movement speed by 60%, increases the time between ranged attacks by 60% and increases casting time by 30%. Lasts 15 sec. Slow can only affect one target at a time.

  • More effective than most of the Frost tree's chills. It has all in one, movement speed, casting speed and attack speed slowing.
    • Solo Utility: Very useful. With this and Polymorph, you can easily pull three or more mobs without too much trouble.
    • Raid Utility: Useless. Most raid mobs (including bosses) cannot be snared the Slow debuff.
    • PvP Utility: Slows your enemies to a crawl, giving you the opportunity to burst them at range. Slows casting, making casters much less powerful and susceptible to interruption. And best of all, it's 200% spammable and effective on all classes.
  • Bottom Line: PvPing Arcanists will find it amazing if also specced into Torment the Weak, too. Very powerful when dealing with mobs/players face-to-face.

Missile Barrage Missile Barrage

5 points: Gives your Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage, Fireball, Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt spells a 20% chance to reduce the channeled duration of the next Arcane Missiles spell by 2.5 secs and missiles will fire every .5 secs.

  • When it procs, doubles DPS for Arcane Missiles which temporarily makes it the highest DPS spell for Deep Arcane mages.
    • Solo Utility: Useful if you also have Arcane Stability to prevent interruption while channeling and Arcane Empowerment for icing on the cake. You're likely to use Arcane Barrage, Slow and other instants (such as Arcane Explosion) for your main spells and use Arcane Missiles when this talent procs.
    • Raid Utility: Increases DPS when taken together with Arcane Empowerment, which is very common in Arcane raiding builds. Not very useful otherwise, as your nuke spells will be Fireball/Arcane Barrage.
    • PvP Utility: Not too useful as you'll be using mostly only instants (Fire Blast, Arcane Barrage), where Arcane Missiles will get interrupted by various special attacks like Pummel and Kick.
  • Bottom Line: Primarily a raiding talent, but anyone who uses Arcane Missiles will want it.

Netherwind Presence Netherwind Presence

3 points: Increases your spell haste by 6%.

  • Increases DPS for all spells, not just Arcane. The 6% spell haste increase is roughly equal to having an extra 196 haste rating[1] on one's gear at level 80.
    • Solo Utility: Makes you hit faster. Nice filler to get to Arcane Barrage.
    • Raid Utility: Increases DPS very well for just three points.
    • PvP Utility: In PvP burst damage is preferred, but an increase in DPS is nice nonetheless. Haste also reduces your global cooldown, but does nothing to your Arcane Barrage cooldown.
  • Bottom Line: Good for all Arcane builds. Can be skipped in favor of other filler in PvP, but Haste is a valuable PvP Mage stat.

Spell Power Spell Power

2 points: Increases critical strike damage bonus of all spells by 50%.

  • Spell critical strike bonus is normally 50% of base spell damage, so 2 ranks in this talent makes that 75% bonus damage in case of a crit.
    • Solo Utility: Increases crits for just two points. Adds burst and is the best filler to get to Arcane Barrage.
    • Raid Utility: Good for 2 points, and improves scaling. This talent becomes better if combined with (relevant) talents that increase critical chance like Incineration, World in Flames and Improved Scorch in the Fire tree. Focus Magic by a fellow mage, Arcane Instability and Arcane Potency you're already likely to have.
    • PvP Utility: Essential, adds burst damage.
  • Bottom Line: Good for all Arcane builds, especially PvP.

Arcane Barrage Arcane Barrage

1 point: Grants you the Arcane Barrage ability. It launches several missiles at the enemy target, causing X to Y Arcane damage.

  • Instant cast on a three second cooldown. This talent is essential for Arcane PvP.
  • It possesses the spell power coefficient of a 2.5-second cast spell, meaning it has better scaling than any regular instant spell and is capable of providing decent sustained damage on the move.
    • Solo Utility: It and Slow coupled allow you to kite mobs endlessly without ever stopping. It is also a \high damage spell.
    • Raid Utility: Not essential. It does increase Arcane's mobile damage potential, but is no longer a part of standard Arcane PvE rotations. It only costs a measly point, though.
    • PvP Utility: It is an instant cast, high damage nuke on a short cooldown. Arcane's PvP viability hangs on this single talent. Best used with Slow and Torment the Weak.
  • Bottom Line: This talent is what makes Arcane a real tree in PvP. The practical uses for a short cooldown instant are endless, and it is a good mobility tool for PvE. If you can spare the point, it's just ever so fun to have.

Fire

Fire spells are traditionally harder-hitting and burstier in nature, resulting in higher sustained single-target damage. The Fire tree reflects this with its focus on DPS talents such as Critical Mass and Pyromaniac, and while it has good survival abilities (Blast Wave, for instance), they are not as significant as the other trees' abilities, turning the Mage into the proverbial glass cannon: kill fast and die fast.

Notes on cross-specialising with Fire from other trees

  • Some raid-optimized Arcane Mages will put 18 points into Fire to obtain both Ignite and Improved Scorch, for something like this.
    • This kind of specializing is not optimal, though, and a Frost investment is more recommendable for DPS.

Improved Fire Blast Improved Fire Blast

2 points: Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Blast spell by 1/2 sec.

  • Fire Blast is the PvP Fire Mage's most useful spell.
    • Solo Utility: If you're a Fire Mage, Fire Blast is highly useful for soloing and this is worth the points.
    • Raid Utility: Can be safely skipped as Fire Blast is not part of any serious raid rotation due to its high mana consumption.
    • PvP Utility: Essential for higher burst damage.
  • Bottom Line: A must for PvP and soloing fire Mages. Raiders generally leave it behind.

Incineration Incineration

3 points: Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire Blast, Arcane Blast, Scorch and Cone of Cold spells by 2/4/6%.

  • Spell crit % talents are so boring.
    • Solo Utility: Your points are better spent elsewhere.
    • Raid Utility: It can technically be a DPS increase (as you might be Scorching for the debuff), but one so minor its points are better spent in more powerful talents.
    • PvP Utility: Fire Blast and Scorch are your primary spells in PvP, this is good.
  • Bottom Line: Good for PvP Fire Mages, but try to get talents with more tangible benefits first. Everyone else shouldn't bother.

Improved Fireball Improved Fireball

5 points: Reduces the casting time of your Fireball spell by 0.5 sec.

  • A faster casting time means more damage a second and less of a chance for spell pushback. A must for fire Mages.
    • Solo Utility: If you're a fire Mage take it. Gives you breathing room and helps you squeeze in some more Fireballs as they get to you.
    • Raid Utility: More DPS. More mobility. Take it.
    • PvP Utility: Good for PvP because of reduced pushback.
  • Bottom Line: A must for fire Mages. Good in every situation.

Ignite Ignite

5 points: Your critical strikes from Fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 8/16/24/32/40% of your spell's damage over 4 sec.

  • This will make your fire criticals also apply a DoT to the target.
    • Solo Utility: Take it. It's the Fire Mage version of Ice Shards. Don't let the percentage fool you, it does good damage.
    • Raid Utility: Take it if you're Fire looking to maximize DPS. This a landmark talent for Fire, plain mandatory.
    • PvP Ulility: Take it. Criticals are essential to PvP and this talent adds critical damage.
  • Bottom Line: A must for Fire Mages. Good in every situation.

Burning Determination Burning Determination

2 points: When Interrupted or Silenced you have a 50%/100% chance to become immune to both effects for 10 sec.

  • Interrupts and silences are frequent in PvP. This does not apply to pushback.
    • Solo Utility: Too few mobs silence/interrupt to warrant the points spent.
    • Raid Utility: Same as solo, only more pointless.
    • PvP Utility: Useful against silencing/interrupting foes.
  • Bottom Line: Good for PvP Fire Mages. Don't take it otherwise.

World in Flames World in Flames

3 points: Increases the critical strike chance of your Flamestrike, Pyroblast, Blast Wave, Dragon's Breath, Living Bomb, Blizzard and Arcane Explosion spells by 2/4/6%.

  • Similar to Incineration, only with better spells.
    • Solo Utility: Points are better spent elsewhere.
    • Raid Utility: Decent DPS increase on AoE trash pulls and a direct DPS increase when coupled with Hot Streak. It is not of great value, however, and is a good place to remove points from if you need survivability/utility.
    • PvP Utility: As Fire, you'll use the spells it enhances all the time.
  • Bottom Line: Solo Fire Mages won't feel the difference too often. PvP Mages and raiders should only take it if they can't better use the points elsewhere or as filler.

Flame Throwing Flame Throwing

2 points: Increases the range of all Fire spells except Frostfire Bolt by 3/6 yards.

  • Helps you start off from far far away with your Pyroblast. What did poor old Frostfire Bolt do?
    • Solo Utility: Gives you breathing room for casting that extra Fireball.
    • Raid Utility: Helps in fights where you need to maintain max distance or move frequently. It is ultimately a filler talent, but a useful choice. See Burning Soul for an alternative.
    • PvP Utility: Breathing room is what Arenas are all about. Also good for sniping targets at Battlegrounds.
  • Bottom Line: Nice talent overall, just not a DPS increase in raids.

Impact Impact

2 points: Gives your damaging spells a 4/7/10% chance to cause the next Fire Blast you cast to stun the target for 2 sec.

  • Does not work with Glyph of Fire Blast.
    • Solo Utility: Fire Blast will often be used for burst rather than this - but if you can make do without it, you get a tool in this. The stun is rather short, though.
    • Raid Utility: Useless. Most raid mobs are immune to stuns.
    • PvP Utility: Doubtful. The PvP Mage will often use Fire Blast for burst on cooldown, meaning this won't be very effective as an on-demand stun. It also is very short and shares diminishing returns with other controlled stuns of longer duration (like a Rogue's, the Mage's favored Arena partner), so care must be taken.
  • Bottom Line: Not a choice you make without a little thought. Other talents near it are useful in soloing, and it has odd PvP implications.

Pyroblast Pyroblast

1 point: Grants you the Pyroblast ability. Using it hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes X Fire damage and an additional Y Fire damage over 12 sec.

  • Very high direct damage spell, and very mana-efficient. Not spammable due to its long cast time.
    • Solo Utility: Useful as a powerful opener at long range.
    • Raid Utility: Must have. You'll be using it with Hot Streak.
    • PvP Utility: Must have. You'll be using it with Hot Streak and Fiery Payback. And maybe PoM.
  • Bottom Line: Iconic Fire spell. Useful for all Fire Mages and those Arcane Mages looking for the right spell to go with Presence of Mind.

Burning Soul Burning Soul

2 points: Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Fire spells by 35%/70% and reduces the threat caused by your Fire spells by 5%/10%.

  • Useful in all aspects of the game, and cheap too.
    • Solo Utility: Helps when mobs are pummeling at you.
    • Raid Utility: Threat reductions effectively increase your dps threshold before pulling aggro. Also good for bosses with AoEs. It is ultimately a filler talent, but a useful choice. See Flame Throwing for an alternative.
    • PvP Utility: Invaluable as Fire to keep your spells from being pushed back too much.
  • Bottom Line: Everyone can use it.

Improved Scorch Improved Scorch

3 points: Your Scorch spells have a 33/66/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to spell damage, increasing spell critical strike chance against that target by 2% and lasts 30 sec. Stacks up to 5 times. Also gives you 1/2/3% additional critical strike chance.

  • Helps everyone, not just you. Any raid can benefit from this. Does not stack with the Winter's Chill effect, which is exactly the same.
  • For clarification, the 3% effect is passive, that is, you do not need to keep up the debuff to gain it.
    • Solo Utility: You won't be using Scorch and if you did the crit bonus wouldn't compensate as mobs don't live long.
    • Raid Utility: The debuff itself is very strong in any raid with more casters than just yourself, and even if it's already present from a Frost Mage or Shadowbolt-based Warlock, the DPS gain from the crit % alone justifies taking it.
    • PvP Utility: Your main nuke in PvP is most likely Scorch due to its short cast time. This both gives you 5% additional crit if you hit often enough and serves as dispel buffer.
  • Bottom Line: This talent is one that no raider can justify skipping, and PvPers can find good use for it too.

Molten Shields Molten Shields

3 points: Causes your Fire Ward and Frost Ward spells to have a 15/30% chance to reflect the warded spell while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.

  • No longer stuns your enemies at range when coupled with Impact. It can trigger the effect, though.
    • Solo Utility: Mostly a poor talent choice compared to other talents around it.
    • Raid Utility: Not much use for a raiding mage. Your points are better spent elsewhere.
    • PvP Utility: Reflecting the spell of an enemy Warlock or Mage can mean the difference between an arena win or loss, but keep in mind it's a very small chance. With Impact nerfed, this talent is of considerably reduced worth.
  • Bottom Line: Points can generally be better used elsewhere.

Master of Elements Master of Elements

3 points: Your spell criticals will refund 10/20/30% of their base mana cost.

  • Compensates and surpasses the effects of Burnout.
    • Solo Utility: Fire Mages have a naturally high crit chance, and this helps reduce downtime.
    • Raid Utility: Fire Mages have a naturally high crit chance, and this improves mana efficiency greatly.
    • PvP Utility: With the advent of resilience, you won't have much use for it.
  • Bottom Line: PvE Mages, be them raiders or soloers, can put this to good use. PvP, not so much.

Playing with Fire Playing with Fire

3 points: Increases all spell damage caused by 1/2/3% and all spell damage taken by 1/2/3%.

  • The classic glass cannon talent. Kill fast and die fast - the Mage class' original concept.
    • Solo Utility: Provided you are careful and avoid damage, you'll kill things harder and faster.
    • Raid Utility: Increases DPS by a good margin. You'd be one-shot by a raid mob regardless of his talent.
    • PvP Utility: Fire mages are already squishy, you don't need the damage enough to justify the drawback.
  • Bottom Line: PvE Mages, be them raiders or soloers, can put this to good use. Too risky for high-end PvP such as arenas.
  • Note: When dumping filler points, two points in Molten Fury go farther toward a quicker kill time than three in Playing With Fire. Given a fixed rate of 1 DPS and enemy health of 100, maxed-out Molten Fury achieves a kill-time of 96.26s, whereas the latter's lags behind a bit at 97.087s. The discrepancy grows larger the longer the engagement. Both talents are somewhat mandatory in PvE, though, and such situations are very rare.

Critical Mass Critical Mass

3 points: Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire spells by 2/4/6%.

  • Fire Mage damage is highly reliant on crits.
    • Solo Utility: You need it in order to pick up Combustion and Dragon's Breath, so pick it up.
    • Raid Utility: Necessary for Combustion and works well with Fire's powerful crits.
    • PvP Utility: Helps negate some of the effect of resilience. You need it in order to pick up Dragon's Breath, which is a strong PvP tool.
  • Bottom Line: All Fire mages benefit from extra crit, and you need this talent in order to go for other useful ones.

Blast Wave Blast Wave

1 point: Grants you the Blast Wave spell. It creates a wave of flame that radiates outward from the caster, damaging all enemies caught within the blast for X to Y Fire damage, knocking them back and Dazing them for 6 sec.

  • The Fire mage's answer to Frost Nova. Not only does this knock your foes back, it dazes them as they return.
    • Solo Utility: Invaluable for tough situations when you have to get them away and run.
    • Raid Utility: The knockback is inconvenient to the point this spell is often banned in raids. However, it can be removed through a glyph.
    • PvP Utility: Invaluable to keep melee away from you as they should be in PvP. Also useful to interrupt enemy spellcasting from up close.
  • Bottom Line: Fire Mages who PvP and solo and have to get their hands dirty close to the enemy need this tool.

Blazing Speed Blazing Speed

2 points: Gives you a 5/10% chance when hit by a melee or ranged attack to increase your movement speed by 50% and dispel all movement impairing effects. This effect lasts 8 sec.

  • Works while stunned, freeing you ahead of time if getting hit and giving you a fighting chance.
    • Solo Utility: Helps you get away from a bad pull and reposition for a second try. Helps a lot when escaping when coupled with Mana Shield.
    • Raid Utility: You'll die before this will have the chance to proc in most cases. In exceptional fights with (physical) damage to the whole raid, it's a boost to mobility.
    • PvP Utility: Critical. Helps you get away from melee very effectively and frees you from stunlocks by enemy Rogues.
  • Bottom Line: Fire Mages who PvP and solo and have to get their hands dirty close to the enemy can use it. Has situational use in raids, but is not something a streamlined DPS build picks up.

Fire Power Fire Power

5 points: Increases the damage done by your Fire spells by 2/4/6/8/10%.

  • 10% damage to most/all the spells you'll use. Very appealing.
    • Solo Utility: Simply put, you kill faster and more efficiently.
    • Raid Utility: 10% of your DPS packed into a single talent. Critical for competitive DPS.
    • PvP Utility: More power for your spells. Helps you kill stuff, which is basically the point of PvP.
  • Bottom Line: Damage is the Fire mage's game. This talent is a must for all builds.

Pyromaniac Pyromaniac

3 points: Increases chance to critically hit by 1/2/3% and allows 17/33/50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting.

  • Familiar to Playing with Fire, this talent further enhances your fire spells with increased burst damage and mana efficiency instead.
    • Solo Utility: Slightly reduces downtime and adds some DPS. Nice talent to have, but not essential.
    • Raid Utility: Mana efficiency is valuable, while the crits add to DPS. For 3 points that is a fair buy.
    • PvP Utility: The extra criticals strikes are quite useful in PvP, but it's not a terribly objective talent and other choices might be more noticeable.
  • Bottom Line: Reasonably useful for both PvE Mages and PvP Mages, with a preference for Raid mages.

Combustion Combustion

1 point: Grants you the Combustion spell. When activated, this spell increases your critical strikes with Fire spells by 50%, and causes each Fire damage spell you cast to increase your critical strike chance with Fire damage spells by 10%. This effect lasts until you have caused 3 non-periodic critical strikes with Fire spells.

  • Mathematically guarantees three Fire critical strikes within the next 13 casts, a rough 25% crit chance boost for its duration.
    • Solo Utility: Critical damage is always good. At one point, it's worth taking.
    • Raid Utility: Essential. Now that glyphed Living Bomb periodic crits no longer consume the critical charges, Combustion raises Fire and Frostfire critical multipliers to game-breaking heights. Very useful as a DPS increase cooldown, something Fire is notoriously short of.
    • PvP Utility: More crits are (much) more damage. Resilience will just delay them. You need this talent for Dragon's Breath as well.
  • Bottom Line: A useful tool that every Fire mage should have.

Molten Fury Molten Fury

2 points: Increases damage of all spells against targets with less than 35% health by 12%.

  • Useful for Boss fights and elites, where you will be able to get enough hits in at 12% increased DPS. This talent also helps when the AoE spell Blizzard is used, where the relatively low damage per hit causes a gradual decrease in mob health to and suddenly accelerates their death below 35%. In the optimal case this causes a 4% increase in kill speed for 2 points (12% * (35/100)).
    • Solo Utility: Useful combined with Blizzard, not so useful otherwise.
    • Raid Utility: "The last 35% of a raid boss fight can be the most critical, with low mana and dead players. By the 35% mark, aggro is firmly established and DPS classes are free to unload, making the effective DPS increase much more valuable." quoted from Molten Fury, nothing to add.
    • PvP Utility: Can make the difference, but basically just increases DPS. Less stellar than in PvE Raid.
  • Bottom Line: No Fire Raid Mage would want to be without this gem, marginally useful otherwise.

Fiery Payback Fiery Payback

2 points: When below 35% health all damage taken is reduced by 20% and your Pyroblast spell's cast time is reduced by 3.5 secs while the cooldown is increased by 5 secs. In addition, melee and ranged attacks made against you have a 5/10% chance to disarm your attacker's main hand and ranged weapons.

  • The Pyroblast effect may be tied to the low health, but the disarm chance is always active. Makes Pyroblast a 1.5 sec cast spell and gives it a 5 sec cooldown to prevent abuse where the Mage would intentionally stay below 35% health. Unfortunately this depends on the mage getting his health below 35%, usually by taking damage, which is not something a Mage should do.
    • Solo Utility: Very situational at a tier where other talents are too good to pass up. Put spare points in it later if you like.
    • Raid Utility: If you get hit to below 35% in a raid instance, next hit you're usually dead. The amount of micro required to remotely pull this would require DPS loss, and is not worth it.
    • PvP Utility: One of the few Fire Mage defensive talents. It can also disarm Hunters. Keep in mind certain non-weapon based attacks (like a Death Knight's Icy Touch) are still available while disarmed.
  • Bottom Line: One of very few Fire PvP talents, it hardly justifies PvPing Fire but is one of the best choices in the tree for it.

Empowered Fire Empowered Fire

3 points: Increases the damage of your Fireball and Frostfire Bolt spells by an amount equal to 15% of your spell power.

  • Improves the staple spell for Fire mages and the Jesusbolt as well.
    • Solo Utility: Useful if spell power is sufficiently high. Increases overall damage output.
    • Raid Utility: Mandatory for competitiveness for Fireball and Frostfire builds. Directly increases the effect of gear on DPS.
    • PvP Utility: Less useful than in PvE, and neither Fireball or Frostfire Bolt are frequently used spells in serious PvP.
  • Bottom Line: A good DPS increase for PvE Mages that rely heavily on Fireball or Frostfire.

Firestarter Firestarter

2 points: Your damaging Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath spells have a 100% chance to make your next Flamestrike spell instant cast. Lasts 10 seconds.

  • An instant Flamestrike after every Blast Wave (knocks back enemies) or Dragon's Breath. Flamestrike is pretty useless as a spell, but instant spells always have some value. Assuming only the initial damage will hit, it is not very mana efficient. Dazed as well as Disoriented targets will wander outside the Flamestrike area.
    • Solo Utility: Up to personal preference. Gives some utility when leveling.
    • Raid Utility: Not recommended, wastes points better used elsewhere for unnecessary utility.
    • PvP Utility: Another instant spell to cast on your opponents, after you use Blast Wave to knock back opponents.
  • Bottom Line: An extra instant to throw in PvP and while leveling. Not useful when dealing with single-target.

Dragon's Breath Dragon's Breath

1 point: Grants you the Dragon's Breath spell. When cast, targets in a cone in front of the caster take X Fire damage and are disoriented for 3 sec. Any direct damaging attack will revive targets. Turns off your attack when used.

  • The Fire mage's answer to Cone of Cold. Targets of this spell receive reasonably good damage and are unable to act for the duration of the disorient effect.
    • Solo Utility: Invaluable for tough situations when you have to get them away and run.
    • Raid Utility: It's extra AoE if you can spare the point. Usually you can.
    • PvP Utility: Invaluable to keep melee away from you as they should be in PvP.
  • Bottom Line: Just like Blast Wave, anyone who can get in close quarters combat should take it. Only this one is also good for raiders.

Hot Streak Hot Streak

3 points: Any time you score 2 non-periodic spell criticals in a row using Fireball, Fire Blast, Scorch, Living Bomb or Frostfire Bolt, you have a 100% chance the next Pyroblast spell cast within 10 seconds will be instant cast.

  • This Pyroblast is powerful and instant, increasing DPS. Two critical strikes in a row are only likely if you spec and equip enough critical strike chance. For Fire Mages this is usually not a problem, as the entire tree has a focus on critical chance talents.
    • Solo Utility: With sufficient critical rating, it adds mobility and burst to Fire.
    • Raid Utility: Increases overall DPS, and adds variety in the spell rotation to boot.
    • PvP Utility: Instant casts are always useful in PvP, and Pyroblast is no exception. Used intelligently with Combustion, it can provide on-demand burst.
  • Bottom Line: A must for all Fire mages, this talent adds DPS, burst and mobility.

Burnout Burnout

Rank 5 Increases your spell critical damage bonus with all spells by 50% but your spell criticals cost an additional 5% of the spell's cost.

  • Gives +75% instead of +50% bonus damage on critical strikes with spells, with a slight increase in mana cost. Quite expensive talent point cost when compared to Arcane's Spell Power, but the synergy with Ignite is impressive: Ignite provides an extra 40% of total spell damage (175%), meaning +70%, totalling +145% instead of the normal +50%, for 10 talent points. The mana cost can be reversed to a net gain by Master of Elements.
    • Solo Utility: Increases burst damage and overall DPS. A good pick.
    • Raid Utility: Increases overall DPS and is essential for competitiveness for Frostfire raid builds.
    • PvP Utility: Burst damage is valuable in PvP, and worth the investment.
  • Bottom Line: An excellent talent combined with Ignite.

Living Bomb Living Bomb

1 point: Grants you the Living Bomb spell. The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking X Fire damage over 12 sec. After 12 sec or when the spell is dispelled, the target explodes dealing Y Fire damage to all enemies within 10 yards.

  • A high-damage and efficient Damage over Time spell. The only non-AoE DoT spell available to Mages.
    • Solo Utility: Fire soloing is based around taking out opponents fast, so this won't have enough time to tick too much damage.
    • Raid Utility: Keeping it up on a boss target increases single-target DPS by around 10%. That is one of the highest DPS increases in the Fire tree, for a single point.
    • PvP Utility: Very useful, as it allows the Fire mage to deal mobile DPS, whereas Fire mages usually have to stand and cast Scorches and Fireballs. The side effect AoE is also useful in case it gets dispelled. Now that it is no longer restricted to one target, this talent also makes fire PvP endlessly amusing in crowded battlegrounds like Isle of Conquest.
  • Bottom Line: Every endgame Fire Mage should pick it up, but it's not terribly useful when leveling or farming.

Frost

The Frost tree has an emphasis in control and survivability talents such as Permafrost and Ice Barrier. It sacrifices some of its single-target DPS in exchange for powerful snares, the highest Mage AoE damage and higher mana-efficiency than other trees that makes it excel in fights that include multiple adds or are longer than average. Its control and longevity earned it the crown of most recognized PvP Mage tree.

Notes on cross-specialising with Frost from other trees

  • Raid-optimized Frostfire Bolt specialisations will place most points in Fire and invest 18 points into Frost for low-tier DPS talents, resulting in this. All talents in there are mandatory but Frostbite for maximum DPS, but Ice Floes can also be safely dropped as its DPS impact is minimal.

Frostbite Frostbite

3 points: Gives your Chill effects a {5/10/15}% chance to freeze the target for 5 sec.

  • Freezes targets in place. This + Ice Lance = Profit.
    • Solo Utility: Makes it much easier to keep your distance and reduce the damage taken.
    • Raid Utility: Not useful - most raid mobs can't be frozen. Fingers of Frost covers all of its uses better and makes it redundant and bothersome.
    • PvP Utility: Must have. Allows you to get away from melee that hits you as it procs from Ice Armor.
  • Bottom Line: Handy for leveling or PvP - leave it out for raiding.

Improved Frostbolt Improved Frostbolt

5 points: Reduces the casting time of your Frostbolt spell by {0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5} sec.

  • Faster casting = more damage in all circumstances.
    • Solo Utility: Get it. Frostbolt is your strongest spell as Frost.
    • Raid Utility: Get it. Frostbolt is your main nuke as Frost.
    • PvP Utility: Get it. Frostbolt is your best friend as Frost with its chill, high damage and procs.
  • Bottom Line: If you are going to use Frostbolt at all, get this talent. Most people start here.

Ice Floes Ice Floes

3 points: Reduces the cooldown of your Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Block and Icy Veins spells by 7/14/20%.

  • Very handy utility talent.
    • Solo Utility: Makes it much easier to keep your distance and reduce the damage taken.
    • Raid Utility: While the Icy Veins effect IS a DPS increase, it is not far too large. If you need utility such as Permafrost, you can remove points from here, but remember it is utility per se.
    • PvP Utility: Frost Nova and Ice Block are key for reducing damage taken. This talent gives you your most precious cooldowns faster.
  • Bottom Line: Acceptable in all situations.

Ice Shards Ice Shards

3 points: Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Frost spells by 33/66/100%.

  • This talent makes your critical strikes hit for twice as much as normal hits. Taking it talent significantly increases the benefit of +crit gear.
    • Solo Utility: Valuable. As a frost leveler/farmer, you will be critting a lot due to Shatter and this will boost your damage a great deal.
    • Raid Utility: Critical for maximizing your damage output as Frost. Critical for raid viability as Elemental.
    • PvP Utility: Critical strike damage is essential to make the best out of Shatter Combos.
  • Bottom Line: All Frost mages should have it. It is also essential that Frostfire mages take it.

Ice Shards Frost Warding

2 points: Increases the armor and resistances given by your Frost Armor and Ice Armor spells by 25/50%. In addition, gives your Frost Ward and Fire Ward a 15/30% chance to negate the warded damage spell and restore mana equal to the damage caused.

  • Armor increase is negligible, but the absorption is interesting.
    • Solo Utility: Random and situational. Your points are better spent elsewhere.
    • Raid Utility: Far too random and situational. Your points are better spent elsewhere.
    • PvP Utility: If you believe in luck-based procs, this is useful.
  • Bottom Line: Use with caution and only for PvP.

Precision Precision

3 points: Reduces the mana cost and chance that the enemy can resist your spells by {1/2/3}%.

  • For new players, this doesn't seem that special, but it increases hit rating, which is critical for raiding. This talent allows you to do more damage against enemies that are a higher level than you are. It works with spells of all three schools.
    • Solo Utility: Helps when tackling mobs of higher levels and reduces downtime minimally, but your points might be better spent elsewhere.
    • Raid Utility: Critical. Taking this talent means you only need +152 spell hit on your gear to be able to hit level 73 raid bosses 100% of the time. Good for Frostfire Bolt builds and Arcane builds diving for Icy Veins.
    • PvP Utility: Not critical. Take the talents with more tangible benefits first, though this reduces the possibility of that critical Counterspell not landing.
  • Bottom Line: If you're raiding Frost, you need this. Arcane raiders would do very good by picking this up in the way to Icy Veins. PvP players should skip it. Not worth sinking 8 points for as Fire, as you can gem for spell hit but not for the DPS increase other talents provide.

Permafrost Permafrost

3 points: Increases the duration of your Chill effects by 1/2/3 sec and reduces the target's speed by an additional 4/7/10%.

  • The Frost tree is most notable for its powerful chill effects. This talent boosts them very well.
    • Solo Utility: Helps a whole lot. Snared mobs take longer to get to you, and give you a chance to run.
    • Raid Utility: Borderline useless. Most raid mobs are immune to snare effects.
    • PvP Utility: Essential. Chills provide the Frost Mage's control and survivability in PvP.
  • Bottom Line: If you're PvPing Frost, you need this. Raiding players should skip it.

Piercing Ice Piercing Ice

3 points: Increases the damage done by your Frost spells by 2/4/6%.

  • Boring, but effective.
    • Solo Utility: There are more useful talents early in the tree. But it does add a fair amount of damage per point.
    • Raid Utility: Essential for Frost and Frostfire builds.
    • PvP Utility: Damage is always nice, but there are more useful talents around this.
  • Bottom Line: If you're a raider, this is a must. Not bad elsewhere but take the talents with more tangible benefits first.

Icy Veins Icy Veins

1 point: Grants you the Icy Veins ability. It hastens your spellcasting, increasing spell casting speed by 20% and gives you 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting for 20 seconds.

  • Costs a single point and is affected by Cold Snap. Haste is useful in both PvE and PvP.
    • Solo Utility: Helps a whole lot to provide some extra power and to kill elites.
    • Raid Utility: Increases your DPS very much when coupled with other damage cooldowns.
    • PvP Utility: Very useful. Haste is very valuable in PvP, and pushback immunity is just godly.
  • Bottom Line: You need this if you're a serious Frost Mage of any kind.

Improved Blizzard Improved Blizzard

3 points: Adds a chill effect to your Blizzard spell. This effect lowers the target's movement speed by 25/40/50%. Lasts 1.5 sec.

  • This chill's power is unsurpassed at maximum rank. Combined with Permafrost and Chilled to the Bone, it's a whopping 70% crawl.
    • Solo Utility: Helps a whole lot when AoE grinding. Snared mobs take longer to get to you, and give you a chance to run.
    • Raid Utility: Putting one point allows it to trigger Fingers of Frost, making its critical strike rate skyrocket. This makes it perhaps the most powerful AoE spell in the game.
    • PvP Utility: Casting Blizzard in PvP is risky and expensive. Use only in crowded BGs like Alterac Valley.
  • Bottom Line: Useful for all kinds of people, up to personal taste.

Arctic Reach Arctic Reach

2 points: Increases the range of your Frostbolt, Blizzard, Ice Lance and Deep Freeze spells and the radius of your Frost Nova and Cone of Cold spells by 10/20%.

  • Frost damage spells usually have far more side effects/utility than other trees', making this somewhat more valuable than Magic Attunement or Flame Throwing.
    • Solo Utility: Very useful. Helps you keep your distance even as you cast short-range Frost Novas and Cone of Cold.
    • Raid Utility: Filler, as it doesn't increase DPS. Still, always good to keep some distance.
    • PvP Utility: Priceless. Helps you defend against melee more effectively by increasing your escape tools' range. More range on Frostbolt and Ice Lance is also good to keep distance from foes.
  • Bottom Line: Good talent overall, very much worth taking if you use Frost Nova and CoC frequently. Not critical otherwise.

Frost Channeling Frost Channeling

3 points: Reduces the mana cost of all spells by 4/7/10% and reduces the threat caused by your Frost spells by 4/7/10%.

  • While the threat reduction applies only to Frost spells, the mana cost reduction applies to all spells. This spell essentially extends one's mana pool by 10% by decreasing mana used.
    • Solo Utility: Frost is rather mana-efficient already, and threat is a non-issue in solo. Not critical.
    • Raid Utility: Contributes a great deal to mana-efficiency. Useful talent to take to access the higher up damage talents.
    • PvP Utility: Non-critical. Only really contributes the mana-efficiency, which is up to personal taste. Useful in Arena situations, as they offer little room for mana regeneration.
  • Bottom Line: Useful in situations where mana is a factor, such as raids and some parts of PvP.

Shatter Shatter

3 points: Increases the critical strike chance of all your spells against frozen targets by 17/33/50%.

  • Practically ensures spells cast at frozen targets will crit. The effects of Frostbite, Frost Nova, Fingers of Frost and Deep Freeze count towards this bonus.
    • Solo Utility: This talent is perhaps the main reason why most mages favor farming and leveling as Frost. Combined with Frostbite and Frost Nova, you will be critting mobs a lot. Highly useful and recommendable.
    • Raid Utility: While raid mobs can't be frozen by conventional means, Fingers of Frost circumvents that by merely treating them as frozen when it procs. Combining both talents results in a DPS increase by increasing Frostbolt's crit rate. And DPS is what raiding is all about.
    • PvP Utility: Frost Mage burst relies on this talent. A Frost mage's many freezing effects combined with this talent make him both a very strong and very resilient foe. This talent is a must.
  • Bottom Line: Critical for Frost mages of all sorts. Not taking it often means being ignorant of one's own class.

Cold Snap Cold Snap

1 point: Grants you the Cold Snap ability. When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown on all of your Frost spells.

  • Everything from Icy Veins to Summon Water Elemental to Ice Block, reloaded. Essentially gives you a second chance.
    • Solo Utility: Serves the ever useful panic button function. For one point, you just can't pass it. Also, you'll need to take it in order to take Ice Barrier.
    • Raid Utility: Resets your damage cooldowns Icy Veins and Summon Water Elemental. You need this in order to compete with the other DPS.
    • PvP Utility: Frost Mage survivability is reliant on this talent. It resets all your defensive cooldowns and gives you a fighting chance against a tough foe or provides you burst damage when you need it most.
  • Bottom Line: No one should pass it. It can be either a great deal of offensive power or a full arsenal of defensive abilities.

Improved Cone of Cold Improved Cone of Cold

3 points: Increases the damage dealt by your Cone of Cold spell by 15/25/35%.

  • With the downranking change, the damage from Cone of Cold will actually have to matter and this might just be useful.
    • Solo Utility: Good when AoE grinding to maximise damage output, but better left out when engaging one or few mobs at once, as there are better utility talents such as Permafrost.
    • Raid Utility: Rather pointless, as you'll be almost exclusively using talented Blizzard for AoE and Improved Blizzard would be a better talent to spend points in.
    • PvP Utility: Ultimately filler to reach more useful talents, and up to personal taste and whether one uses CoC a lot.
  • Bottom Line: Situational and up to special cases.

Frozen Core Frozen Core

3 points: Reduces the damage taken from all spells by 2/4/6%.

  • No longer limited to Frost and Fire damage, this makes those pesky unsnareable casters hit for a bit less.
    • Solo Utility: Solo mobs are rarely casters, and you have Counterspell for them. Ultimately, the mage game is avoiding damage rather than mitigating it.
    • Raid Utility: The percentage is far too low to make a difference in resistance encounters or AoE damage. Your points are better spent elsewhere.
    • PvP Utility: Not far too useful, as mages have such meaningful anti-caster abilities as Magic Absorption and Mage Armor, and the percentage is rather low.
  • Bottom Line: A subpar talent overall.

Cold as Ice Cold as Ice

2 points: Reduces the cooldown of your Cold Snap, Ice Barrier and Summon Water Elemental spells by 10/20%.

  • Makes those long cooldowns available sooner. For specific durations see Cold as Ice.
    • Solo Utility: Makes your panic buttons available sooner and increases Ice Barrier uptime, and the Frost Mage's strength is his resourcefulness.
    • Raid Utility: Increases Water Elemental uptime, having a direct impact on DPS. Also marginally useful for increasing survivability when Ice Barrier is necessary, but not by a lot.
    • PvP Utility: Useful for allowing cooldowns to possibly be used twice in an Arena match or Battleground. Ice Barrier uptime has a direct impact on survivability as well.
  • Bottom Line: Useful in all aspects of the game.

Winter's Chill Winter's Chill

3 points: Gives your Frost damage spells a 33/66/100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance spells will critically hit the target by 1% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times. Also gives your Frostbolt spell 1/2/3% additional critical strike chance.

  • Simply by casting spells, you increase your whole party or raid's DPS. Does not stack with the Improved Scorch effect, which is exactly the same.
  • For clarification, the 3% effect is passive, that is, you do not need to keep up the debuff to gain it.
    • Solo Utility: Mobs won't live long enough for it to count very much, but it doesn't change your playstyle in any way so you can take it for good filler, if you need to.
    • Raid Utility: Simply essential. Increases your own and your raid's DPS by such a large amount it is considered mandatory for PvE Frosties (rare as they might be). You lose nothing by speccing into it, as Frostbolt will apply it. Do not cast Ice Lance to stack it at the beginning of the fight, as your DPS/DPM will be too low to compensate.
    • PvP Utility: Serves as dispel buffer and is applied by Ice Lance, which you will be casting a lot, so it will have a near-100% uptime. Good talent overall.
  • Bottom Line: Essential for raiding Frost Mages. Useful, if situational, for other types of spec.

Shattered Barrier Shattered Barrier

2 points: Gives your Ice Barrier spell a 100% chance to freeze all enemies within 10 yds for 8 seconds when it is destroyed.

  • Turns Ice Barrier into an offensive ability in addition to its defensive capabilities when used right, to force Shatters. Improves Ice Barrier's control function by making sure enemies not immune to Freeze effects are frozen once it ends.
    • Solo Utility: Extra control is useful when doing many mobs or mixed pulls with casters you can't avoid. It doesn't do extra damage but can trigger a combination with Shatter. A must-have for Frost AoE grinding.
    • Raid Utility: A DPS-optimized Frost build won't have the points to spare. Raid mobs tend to be immune to freezes.
    • PvP Utility: Useful. It does require your enemy to break the Ice Barrier in melee range to get frozen in turn, or that they use a DoT ability while in range. The first rank of Ice Barrier is destroyed faster, obviously. Shatter then increases burst damage, but smart PvP opponents will adapt and break your Ice Barrier from range.
  • Bottom Line: A nice gimmick for soloing and PvP Frosties. Raiders won't find a use for this.

Ice Barrier Ice Barrier

1 point: Grants you the Ice Barrier ability. Instantly shields you, absorbing X damage. Lasts 60 sec. While the shield holds, spells will not be interrupted.

  • Far more efficient than Mana Shield. Ice Barrier receives 80% of your spell power as extra protection too, at no extra cost.
    • Solo Utility: Extra survivability on a short 30 sec cooldown. Very useful when doing many mobs or mixed pulls with casters you can't avoid. A must-have.
    • Raid Utility: A DPS-optimized Frost build won't have the point to spare. A more flexible one can take this and gain survivability for learning encounters and exceptional bosses.
    • PvP Utility: Very useful. Damage absorption is always useful in PvP. Can also be used to force a freeze effect for a Shatter combo when coupled with Shattered Barrier, both a survivability AND burst boost against melee such as Rogues coming at you from Stealth.
  • Bottom Line: A powerful and defining talent of the Frost tree. All soloing and PvP Frosties want it. Raiders can leave it behind for Focus Magic.

Arctic Winds Arctic Winds

5 points: Increases all Frost damage you cause by 5% and reduces the chance melee and ranged attacks will hit you by 5%.

  • A simple DPS increase with some protection.
    • Solo Utility: There are more useful talents in the tree, but DPS is always nice as filler.
    • Raid Utility: Essential for Frost builds.
    • PvP Utility: Damage is always nice, but there are more useful talents around this.
  • Bottom Line: If you're a raider, this is a must. Not bad elsewhere but take the talents with more tangible benefits first.

Empowered Frostbolt Empowered Frostbolt

2 points: Increases the damage of your Frostbolt spell by an amount equal to 5/10% of your spell power and reduces the cast time by .1/.2 seconds.

  • An excellent bonus to your main spell, what could be better?
    • Solo Utility: Get it. Frostbolt is your strongest spell as Frost.
    • Raid Utility: Get it. Stronger Frostbolt is your main nuke as Frost.
    • PvP Utility: Get it. Faster Frostbolt is your best friend as Frost with its chill, high damage and procs.
  • Bottom Line: If you are this far into the tree, you are using Frostbolt, so get this talent. It is most effective at later levels when spell power is higher.

Fingers of Frost Fingers of Frost

2 points: Gives your Chill effects a 15% chance to grant you the Fingers of Frost effect, which treats your next 2 spells cast as if the target were Frozen. Lasts 15 seconds.

  • Designed to work with Shatter and chill effects which are basically all Snares in the Frost tree. Has the same effect as Frostbite, without actually freezing the enemies in place and giving you the freedom to cast your next 2 high damage spells on different targets as well.
    • Solo Utility: Provides extra crits against targets immune to Freeze effects, which you probably don't want to solo in the first place. Redundant with Frostbite, which does root enemies. The solo mage must consider trading the root effect and 1 potential crit (which breaks root) on most mobs for no root and 2 potential crits on all mobs.
    • Raid Utility: Replaces Frostbite, keeping up DPS with fewer talent points. Since it's a self-buff it also works on Raid bosses.
    • PvP Utility: When it procs this self-buff increases crits, which is useful in PvP, since opponents will usually try to get out of chill effects (snares) or freezes (roots) pretty fast. It also provides an opportunity to use Deep Freeze creatively.
  • Bottom Line: Good replacement for Frostbite in a respec, though Solo Frost Mages may reconsider.

Brain Freeze Brain Freeze

3 points: Your Frost damage spells have a 15% chance to cause your next Fireball spell to be instant cast and cost no mana.

  • A free fireball every 20 frost spells per talent point spent, on average.
    • Solo Utility: This talent does reduce downtime a little, but its real value lies on the mobility aspect it provides. Consider the alternative talent Improved Water Elemental in point placement order, though.
    • Raid Utility: An unspecced instant Fireball is slightly higher in DPS compared to a maxed Frostbolt, so essentially this talent increases mana-efficiency, which the Frost Mage doesn't really need.
    • PvP Utility: An instant spell has its value, and Frost Mages tired of getting their Water Elemental destroyed or banished too quickly may be better off with this talent.
  • Bottom Line: A marginal talent late in the Frost tree for 3 points, some may find it useful for PvP. It is worth remembering that at sufficient gear levels it actually becomes a DPS loss.

Summon Water Elemental Summon Water Elemental

1 point: Grants you the Summon Water Elemental ability. Summons a Water Elemental to fight for the caster for 45 sec.

  • The elemental is capable of dealing a high amount of damage and freezing opponents at range, both of which are abilities with a myriad of uses in PvP and PvE.
    • Solo Utility: Another very strong panic button. Freezes all opponents from far away and adds to your damage.
    • Raid Utility: Critical DPS increase. Water Elemental management (not letting him die) is crucial to achieving optimal Frost DPS, and he can often account for 10% of the Frost Mage's total single-target damage. He also inherits hit rating from the Mage.
    • PvP Utility: Frost Mages are highly reliant on this talent. Not only does it give the power of Shattering at range, but also adds to damage done.
  • Bottom Line: No one should pass it. It can be either a great deal of offensive power or a powerful defensive ability.

Enduring Winter Enduring Winter

3 points: Increases the duration of your Summon Water Elemental spell by 5/10/15 sec and your Frostbolt spell has a 33/66/100X% chance to grant the Replenishment effect to up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.25% of their maximum mana per second for 15 sec.

  • Excellent boost for both you and your Water Elemental, where the extra 15 seconds potentially means 1,33 times as much damage dealt by it. The Replenishment effect the talent provides is nearly mandatory for raids, and in the lack of a better option a properly specced Frost Mage is apt to provide it, increasing your raid value.
    • Solo Utility: Adds to your damage and provides regen for PUGs.
    • Raid Utility: Critical DPS increase and raid mana regen. Water Elemental management (basically, not letting him die) is crucial to achieving optimal Frost DPS, and he can often account for over 10% of the Frost Mage's total single-target damage. He also inherits hit rating from the Mage.
    • PvP Utility: If it survives and you keep the enemies' attention on you, this allows the Elemental the time and mana to cast a third ranged Freeze, allowing for extra burst. The greatest use of this talent, though, is the Replenishment effect's capacity to increase the Mage's mana-efficiency over long Arena fights. In the Arena, Frost Mage PvP is centered on creating opportunities to cast Frostbolt for burst damage, and if you can guarantee good Replenishment uptime the effect can restore well over half the Mage's mana over 5 minutes, for instance. This minimizes drinking time.
  • Bottom Line: Excellent boost for PvE Water Elementals, and brings Frost just that closer to being raid-friendly. Excellent talent all-around in PvP as well. A very good pick.

Chilled to the Bone Chilled to the Bone

5 points: Increases the damage caused by your Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt and Ice Lance spells by 5% and reduces the movement speed of all chilled targets by an additional 10%.

  • The Frost tree is most notable for its powerful chill effects. This talent boosts both the snare and DPS, adding to Permafrost for a 70% slowing Cone of Cold or an 85% slowing max Improved Blizzard. Not bad!
    • Solo Utility: Additional utility and damage. Snared mobs take longer to get to you, and give you a chance to run.
    • Raid Utility: Increases to DPS are useful even if most raid mobs are immune to snare effects.
    • PvP Utility: Essential. Chills provide the Frost Mage's control and survivability in PvP.
  • Bottom Line: If you're PvPing Frost, you need this. Raiding players take this for the extra DPS. A must-have for Frost AoE grinding for maxing out the snare.

Deep Freeze Deep Freeze

1 point: Grants you the Deep Freeze ability. Stuns the target for 5 sec. Only usable on Frozen targets.

  • Instantly stuns enemies and counts as a Freeze effect. Can force Shatters on enemies when coupled with Fingers of Frost, but keep in mind it does no damage of its own.
    • Solo Utility: Rather weak when dealing with a single target as you're better off just damaging them. When pulling multiple mobs, though, it can be used to increase Shatterable time on more than one Frozen target.
    • Raid Utility: Sorry Frost mages, but your 51-pointer is useless in raiding. Most raid mobs are immune to stuns (or Freezes, for that matter).
    • PvP Utility: Forces burst onto a defenceless enemy. Interrupts spell casts and stops melee in place when used with Fingers of Frost. Gives you amazing control and extends Shatter combos beyond a single Frost Nova. This talent is very useful.
  • Bottom Line: Raid mages have no use for it. PvP mages will love it. Solo mages can spare the point to get a nice tool.

References

  1. ^ Combat ratings at 80 by Whitetooth
v • d • e
Playable classes
Classes
Death knight Death knight · Druid Druid · Hunter Hunter · Mage Mage · Paladin Paladin · Priest Priest · Rogue Rogue · Shaman Shaman · Warlock Warlock · Warrior Warrior
Mage
Mage category
Retrieved from "http://www.wowwiki.com/Mage_talent_analysis"