It really depends on your makeup. I think most people are now speccing a 10/x/3 build for raiding, at least the mages from a lot of the top end guilds are doing that. Not sure if they've tested it to be the most damage, or what. But I can only imagine the firey goodness, combined with clearcasting and a shadowpriest
10/48/3 is the raiding build of choice, due to it's both high DPS and amazing DPM. Some fights seem to go back to "LOL MASSIVE FIRE RES" coming up, like A'lar in The Eye, so I would assume he's immune to fire. That being said, I can see some mages respeccing to a 33/0/28 build for frost-based raiding.
10/48/3 is the raiding build of choice, due to it's both high DPS and amazing DPM. Some fights seem to go back to "LOL MASSIVE FIRE RES" coming up, like A'lar in The Eye, so I would assume he's immune to fire. That being said, I can see some mages respeccing to a 33/0/28 build for frost-based raiding.
I hate posts like this, because then I'm forced to wonder if my all frost spec is gimped. I already pull aggro with it if I'm not careful, and I've got a monster of a tank.
When I was Fire spec I would spam my 5 Scrochs, then Fireball a few times, then some more Scorches, more Fireballs, repeat. I was a bore, so I went to the allmighty Arcane tree. Loads of fun I tells ya!
Personally I raid with 33/28/0, cos I have lots of +hit gear, the 3% extra isn't worth it.
As a scorch mage in raid, I never run out of mana, and my damage is nice as well. 45% mana regen and 20% mana back on crits = win.
Plus with 3/3 arcane instability, I get +6% to arcane blast for those pesky fire immune mobs. Sure its not as effective, buts its a hell of a lot better than using frostbolts.
Personally I'm a non-raiding 10/0/51 who was 0/0/51 when TBC hit. I love frost for the inevitible faction grinds the non-raider faces, and having Arcane Concentration back is most welcome.
Yeah, I was assuming that statment referred to 5 mans. I can easily see the gap between frost and fire really starting at the raid level, where you no longer get frost nova(as much)
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WulfDisciple of TzeentchThe Void... (New Jersey)Registered Userregular
edited March 2007
I find fire much more active than frost. But then with frost I could mostly just Frostbolt spam. Fire I hit five scorches, fireball a few times, dance into melee range, hit Dragons breath, maaaaaybe Blastwave, dance back out again and re-scorch to get the Debuff timer to reset and wind up a trinketed Pyroblast or two. Then if its still not dead, killing blow steal with Fireblast :P
10/48/3 is the raiding build of choice, due to it's both high DPS and amazing DPM. Some fights seem to go back to "LOL MASSIVE FIRE RES" coming up, like A'lar in The Eye, so I would assume he's immune to fire. That being said, I can see some mages respeccing to a 33/0/28 build for frost-based raiding.
I hate posts like this, because then I'm forced to wonder if my all frost spec is gimped. I already pull aggro with it if I'm not careful, and I've got a monster of a tank.
Hm.
Well, two things you have to take into consideration:
1.) With so many points in Frost, you've got a bunch of talents that don't do shit in a raid, like Imp. Frost Nova, Frostbite and Shatter.
2.) If you're already easily capable of pulling aggro from the tank, then you're doing more damage than is necessary and can afford to take more points out of Frost in exchange for utility like Clearcasting, or lose +damage on your gear in exchange for Int or mana regen.
It's about min/maxing. Every point spent in a talent that doesn't really help you in a raid could be better spent in one that does. That doesn't necessarily mean your spec is gimped, just that it's not ideal.
That tactic above has to be the worst idea to due in a raid. It's basically gg mana.
As for damage meters,we reset ours after every combat. You get a more accurate gauge as to his is doing what for each situation. You also have to remember that damage meters aren't always accurate, especially on fights where range and moving around happens frequently.
10/48/3 is the raiding build of choice, due to it's both high DPS and amazing DPM. Some fights seem to go back to "LOL MASSIVE FIRE RES" coming up, like A'lar in The Eye, so I would assume he's immune to fire. That being said, I can see some mages respeccing to a 33/0/28 build for frost-based raiding.
I hate posts like this, because then I'm forced to wonder if my all frost spec is gimped. I already pull aggro with it if I'm not careful, and I've got a monster of a tank.
Hm.
Well, two things you have to take into consideration:
1.) With so many points in Frost, you've got a bunch of talents that don't do shit in a raid, like Imp. Frost Nova, Frostbite and Shatter.
2.) If you're already easily capable of pulling aggro from the tank, then you're doing more damage than is necessary and can afford to take more points out of Frost in exchange for utility like Clearcasting, or lose +damage on your gear in exchange for Int or mana regen.
It's about min/maxing. Every point spent in a talent that doesn't really help you in a raid could be better spent in one that does. That doesn't necessarily mean your spec is gimped, just that it's not ideal.
Oh I hear you, but Karazhan is a 2 time a week venture, at best, whereas heroics are far more accomodating to the root / survivability that Frost provides. But I am definitely buying what you're selling here.
I put out some pretty decent damage with arcane/ frost, using AB as my primary nuke. It's great for when something needs to be burned down quick, and %40 threat reduction is nothing to sneeze at.
I still miss old- school rolling- ignite fire though
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So I have 2/3 of the spellfire set on my mage and the spellstrike leggings, and it's pretty sweet. I'm a bit concerned, though, that my unbuffed hp is sitting at around 5000 at the moment, about 7k in raids. What HP do you kharazan raiding types have unbuffed?
I'm sitting at about 5500 unbuffed. I think you can have a lower HP amount if you are spec'd for Ice Block to be honest. It also depends how confident you are in your healers.
Is that with enchants and gems and threads and all that other good stuff? I found that you can get easily another 400-500 hp if you go for the stamina stuff. Sometimes it's good just to get an extra set of gem socket pants and put stamina gems in them.
If you've got less than 8.5-9k health buffed you're asking to get one-shotted by the odd loose trash mob. Think about getting a set ready for heavy splash damage fights (ex. Shade of Aran), but keep your pure DPS set handy for most of the place.
Consider augmenting with sta buffs (Rumsey Rum, Well Fed) on said splash damage fights.
Just a completely random question, what's everyones armor sitting at? I'm at a whopping 875, which is something like 8.5% damage reduction. I remember at 60 I used to be getting 15-17% at least, we got nerfed boys.
All damage reduction from armor went down from 60-70. The formulas changed due to higher level, and if you compare your armor to your L60 stuff, most of it has less armor than the L60 stuff.
All damage reduction from armor went down from 60-70. The formulas changed due to higher level, and if you compare your armor to your L60 stuff, most of it has less armor than the L60 stuff.
Wow I guess they wanted you guys to be even more the glass cannon.
Yeah, when Blizzard said things about wanting PvP to last longer and be more strategic at 70 than at 60, they really meant they wanted the 3-shotting to become 2-shotting.
Level 35 mage here, lovin it. Such a wonderful change from my 70 shaman and 70 hunter. I have been playing since release and have a great understanding of many classes. If I have not played it to 60-70 I have definitely played a twink version to 19 or 29. The mage im working on now will be my next 70, what a freakin blast he is!
I’m curious about leveling specs. I am heavy into pvp so I go frost for obvious reasons. I am having a really hard time picking the right skills, so many good ones in the frost tree that its hard to decide. I’m at a cross roads now where I only have +60% to crit damage but 50% to crit chance when frozen. I also dropped a few points into improved nova and increased frost slowness/time. I don’t have any room in my build currently to get the other 2 points in crit damage or the flat 6% increase in all frost damage.
What did you guys rock for leveling up? Any good frost builds out that for maximum leveling goodness? Also can you guys give me some tips on how to play this badboy? I don’t ever use fireball or scorch or any of that stuff. I just roll out with frostbolts, COC, and the occasional arcane explosion, oh and of course fireblast. Seems to get the job done. At level 35 im at +50 to +70 frost damage depending on how much I want to sacrifice hp/mana wise. I’m looking forward to outlands gear, it will be nice to have HP/Mana/Dam all on one piece of gear.
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What did you guys rock for leveling up? Any good frost builds out that for maximum leveling goodness? Also can you guys give me some tips on how to play this badboy?
There aren't too many bad talents in the frost tree, but the most important talents are shatter, ice shards and frostbite. Some folks say zomg no to frostbite since it ruins aoe grinding, but in all honesty, I think I did aoe grinding en masse for all of three levels, 52-53 in WPL.
With >50% to crit on frozen targets, and with frostbite proccing all the damn time, it makes for some very smooth grinding. For when frostbsite doesn't proc, or you don't get a crit on a frozen mob, I'm a big fan of permafrost, where it's really easy to kite stuff around till frost nova cools down.
Yarr, frost spec, but seeing 5k fireball crits at 70 is also nice.
Imp Frostbolt, Frostbite, Imp FN, The crit damage increaser, and shatter are the first talents you need to get.
The secondary goodness ones are permafrost and the range increase, other than that just go with what looks good. What looks good in the frost tree is what's good in the frost tree, nothing really tricky in there.
Hello, I leveled nigh-full frost from the beginning (I started back when your first 11 points were Arcane for Evocation, period). Here's how I'd recommend speccing as you level up for a high-frost build, based on the assumption that your play time is primarily solo with periodic instance runs.
Points 1-5 = Improved Frostbolt. Nerf or no nerf, this is too good to pass up
Points 6-8 = Frostbite. More of a soloing talent than an instance/raiding talent but darn handy nonetheless.
Points 9-10 = Improved Frost nova. Not because it's terribly useful itself, but for the prereq.
Points 11-15 = Ice Shards. Yes, eventually you want Cold Snap. Right now Ice Shards is more valuable to you.
Points 16-20. Now, starting here you'll get some arguments, because eventually you want everything on Talent Tier 4 (Artic Reach, Shatter, Frost Channeling). Personally I'd take Artic Reach first, then 3 points of Shatter for now. Those six yards can be brutal...
Point 21 = Ice Block. Critical if you instance run, and more useful soloing than you might have thought (it removes many harmful conditions).
Point 22 = Cold Snap. Now you have a reason to take it...
Points 23-25 = Improved Cone of Cold OR Permafrost. You can make really good arguments both ways. I'd lean toward Improved Cone of Cold myself.
Points 26-27 = If you followed my advice from 16-20, take the last two points of Shatter now.
Points 28-30 = Frost Channeling. The efficiency is hard to argue with. Yes, frost is already pretty efficient but this talent plays to your strength. Frost is the tortise not the hare, if you'll forgive the analogy.
Point 31 = Ice Barrier. If you needed my advice here, you need more help than I can give you.
Points 32-33 = Ice Floe. While valuable, everything else is more critical until now.
Points 34-36 = Permafrost OR Improved Cone of Cold. The three points you will really wish you could have squeezed in earlier once you have them. Generally I prefer talents that apply to many frost spells over those that affect just one, but in my opinion Improved Cone of Cold is such a strong improvement it should go first.
Points 37-40. At this point, things begin varying greatly on play style and how often you instance run. Personally, I'd put the next 2 or 3 points into Improved Blizzard (depending on your view of that bit about Blizzard's snare overwriting Cone of Colds, a factor I personally say is highly overstated), and then the remaining 1 to 2 points into Piercing Ice as filler to...
Point 41. Water Elemental. While not *quite* the no-brainer that Ice Barrier is, it's probably the reason you're going high-frost anyway.
Once you have that, I'll add some general pointers on talents you may still be interested in
Artic Winds. I dunno, might be useful for PvP I guess...
Frozen Core. Oh look, it's an extra 6% damage reduction against the two schools we're already well protected against thanks to Fire/Frost Ward...
Elemental Precision. Not that great of a talent, really; every frost talent except the above two should take priority over it... But that +3% to-hit means you have only a 1% miss chance against same-leveled opponents so if you've got the points to spare go for it.
Frost Warding. Hey, I find myself using Ice Armor quite a bit for the Frostbite proc chance. If you've got 2 points burning a hole in your screen, why not? It's better than Artic Winds and Frozen Core.
Piercing Ice. Hey, I'll take extra damage to ALL frost spells over extra damage and crit to only one myself.
Empowered Frostbolt vs Winter's Chill. Personally I prefer benefits to all spells over benefits to one, even if its the one I'm using darn-near-constantly. If you raid, Winter's Chill takes an obvious lead. And hey, if you're going 61 Frost, take both!
Arcane Concentration. If you solo quite a bit, this can increase your already-noteworthy efficiency -- if you don't mind the 10 points in Arcane. I like it myself.
Tactics? Press 5 (Frostbolt). Repeat. Hit Fireblast whenever the mob is in range and the cooldown is up.
When you get high enough in level and Frostbite procs, press whatever key you've got Ice Lance mapped to. If you don't have to worry about adds, hit Frost Nova when the mob is close enough to you. Due to the way freeze effects break now, once you have Ice Lance get used to casting it quickly after a Frost Nova (so you can get double-crits against frozen mobs).
During the earlier levels, you should still bring Fireball into the mix. I stopped when I got Artic Reach myself. Against water-immune mobs, Scorch and (at higher levels) Arcane Blast are your friends.
Ice Floes, Imp Blizzard, etc over Arctic Winds (not Artic Winds) and Elemental Precision? Arctic Winds is godly, 5% less chance to be hit in 5 points by melee or ranged is fucking outstanding. Rogues and DW warriors would whiff like crazy unless they had great gear, and a hunter missing one shot in his rotation on you could easily save your ass. Frost Warding and Frozen core should never be taken, even if you have a couple extra points I'd put them into Arcane Subtlety before considering those two talents.
I was leveling with fire and doing fine up until I came into this thread and saw how everyone was talking about how good their orgasms were with frost.
So I respecced frost. It's about the same, least at level 23.
Posts
I raid with a shadow priest. I have to work damn hard to go below 80% mana. :P
It really depends on your makeup. I think most people are now speccing a 10/x/3 build for raiding, at least the mages from a lot of the top end guilds are doing that. Not sure if they've tested it to be the most damage, or what. But I can only imagine the firey goodness, combined with clearcasting and a shadowpriest
I hate posts like this, because then I'm forced to wonder if my all frost spec is gimped. I already pull aggro with it if I'm not careful, and I've got a monster of a tank.
Hm.
With the fire build he listed you basically just need to press fireball... and fireblast when you know it won't get you killed.
Ice Mages need to make full use of Ice Lance to keep up...
Well, I did when I was fire spec. I'm still pvp/arena spec.
As a scorch mage in raid, I never run out of mana, and my damage is nice as well. 45% mana regen and 20% mana back on crits = win.
Plus with 3/3 arcane instability, I get +6% to arcane blast for those pesky fire immune mobs. Sure its not as effective, buts its a hell of a lot better than using frostbolts.
And Ice Lance works like crap in raids.
Here's the damage meters from Karazhan tonight:
The top mage is fire, then a shadow priest, then me with frost.
Sure, he did more damage, but he also died due to pulling aggro about five times. :P
Well, two things you have to take into consideration:
1.) With so many points in Frost, you've got a bunch of talents that don't do shit in a raid, like Imp. Frost Nova, Frostbite and Shatter.
2.) If you're already easily capable of pulling aggro from the tank, then you're doing more damage than is necessary and can afford to take more points out of Frost in exchange for utility like Clearcasting, or lose +damage on your gear in exchange for Int or mana regen.
It's about min/maxing. Every point spent in a talent that doesn't really help you in a raid could be better spent in one that does. That doesn't necessarily mean your spec is gimped, just that it's not ideal.
As for damage meters,we reset ours after every combat. You get a more accurate gauge as to his is doing what for each situation. You also have to remember that damage meters aren't always accurate, especially on fights where range and moving around happens frequently.
Oh I hear you, but Karazhan is a 2 time a week venture, at best, whereas heroics are far more accomodating to the root / survivability that Frost provides. But I am definitely buying what you're selling here.
I still miss old- school rolling- ignite fire though
Is that with enchants and gems and threads and all that other good stuff? I found that you can get easily another 400-500 hp if you go for the stamina stuff. Sometimes it's good just to get an extra set of gem socket pants and put stamina gems in them.
Consider augmenting with sta buffs (Rumsey Rum, Well Fed) on said splash damage fights.
Wow I guess they wanted you guys to be even more the glass cannon.
Level 35 mage here, lovin it. Such a wonderful change from my 70 shaman and 70 hunter. I have been playing since release and have a great understanding of many classes. If I have not played it to 60-70 I have definitely played a twink version to 19 or 29. The mage im working on now will be my next 70, what a freakin blast he is!
I’m curious about leveling specs. I am heavy into pvp so I go frost for obvious reasons. I am having a really hard time picking the right skills, so many good ones in the frost tree that its hard to decide. I’m at a cross roads now where I only have +60% to crit damage but 50% to crit chance when frozen. I also dropped a few points into improved nova and increased frost slowness/time. I don’t have any room in my build currently to get the other 2 points in crit damage or the flat 6% increase in all frost damage.
What did you guys rock for leveling up? Any good frost builds out that for maximum leveling goodness? Also can you guys give me some tips on how to play this badboy? I don’t ever use fireball or scorch or any of that stuff. I just roll out with frostbolts, COC, and the occasional arcane explosion, oh and of course fireblast. Seems to get the job done. At level 35 im at +50 to +70 frost damage depending on how much I want to sacrifice hp/mana wise. I’m looking forward to outlands gear, it will be nice to have HP/Mana/Dam all on one piece of gear.
Level 22 mage, I'd like to know this stuff too.
With >50% to crit on frozen targets, and with frostbite proccing all the damn time, it makes for some very smooth grinding. For when frostbsite doesn't proc, or you don't get a crit on a frozen mob, I'm a big fan of permafrost, where it's really easy to kite stuff around till frost nova cools down.
Yarr,
In summary:
The secondary goodness ones are permafrost and the range increase, other than that just go with what looks good. What looks good in the frost tree is what's good in the frost tree, nothing really tricky in there.
It's a good raid talent. But for everything else... It's a toss up, unless you're going 0/0/FROST
Well, what was your absorption the moment you hit 60?
Once you have that, I'll add some general pointers on talents you may still be interested in
Tactics? Press 5 (Frostbolt). Repeat. Hit Fireblast whenever the mob is in range and the cooldown is up.
When you get high enough in level and Frostbite procs, press whatever key you've got Ice Lance mapped to. If you don't have to worry about adds, hit Frost Nova when the mob is close enough to you. Due to the way freeze effects break now, once you have Ice Lance get used to casting it quickly after a Frost Nova (so you can get double-crits against frozen mobs).
During the earlier levels, you should still bring Fireball into the mix. I stopped when I got Artic Reach myself. Against water-immune mobs, Scorch and (at higher levels) Arcane Blast are your friends.
I dunno, it just seemed more effective to me.
I was leveling with fire and doing fine up until I came into this thread and saw how everyone was talking about how good their orgasms were with frost.
So I respecced frost. It's about the same, least at level 23.
And all the cool kids go fire.
It'd be nice for new people if they gave some of the new spells to lower level people. Lower ranks of AB might make arcane a viable leveling spec.