A couple of WoW questions

[Tuff]

Okay, obviously things have changed since I left, firstly I have no talents spent on my mage, and second wtf has evocation gone? . Is it a learnable spell now or something?

So okay here are the main questions...

Which is most useful for groups - fire or frost spec? Any mages happen to know any useful specs? Are the arcane spells worthwhile now? Because from what I'm seeing on the Blizz talent calculator, I'm thinking of going as a heavily frost specced mage - but will this hinder me in the outland section of the game (which is where my mage will be playing mostly)?

[feign]

evoc is trainable for all,

frost tends to be for safety, fire for massive crits.

[Tonster]

I've been playing my frost mage a bit in Outlands, and much as feign said, frost allows you to have control in both solo play and instances. In instances the lack of random massive fire crit damage makes pulling aggro from the tank a lot less frequent.

Fire mages can now nuke the living bejesus out of anything in seconds flat, even more so than before from what I've seen, but prepare to spend a lot of time on your bum.

The 41 point frost skill is a 45 second pet which does make a large difference in solo play. Fire get a cone of heat, as opposed to the cone of cold.

Yes evocation is now a standard spell, as is Instant Arcane Explosion.

IMO go full frost for control and longevity. Go mainly fire so you can laugh your arse off at your DPS but throw some Arcane points in there to try and offset mana depletion.

My frost build (about as simple as a build ever gets);
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=RZZVAGIsfxsiqt

Not actually specced for fire yet, only observed a few others. Fire is a bit more gear dependant IMO as you need + spell damage and +crit chance as that's what you live off. With frost you just wear them down slowly.

Of course Frost also gives you the only aggro losing move a mage can have. The new patch notes say mana shiled now protects from spell damage too which is nice.

There are 3 new books you can loot or buy as well, 1 is for water, I forget what the other two are but probably buff books.

[Tuff]

That's nearly the exact frost build I was looking at. I have a couple more questions... I'm looking to jump into battlefields again to get some pvp points (I really like pvp again now ), will frost still see me okay in there?

And now that talents have been reset, do you just get one free respec and then have to pay whatever you were due to pay before for a respec or is it respec and then start with low cost respecs building up to max price again? I assume it's one free respec and then max price again?

[Tonster]

A free respec simply removes all your talent point settings. If you respec it will be at the price it was due to be. Of note respecs over 10g now cost degrade over time, 5g per month. So a 50g respec will cost you 45g after a month.

[Tuff]

Okay. I'll have a play with the talent calculators tomorrow and see what I come up with cheers

[Tonster]

I'm looking to jump into battlefields again to get some pvp points (I really like pvp again now ), will frost still see me okay in there?

BTW I skipped that question deliberately as I have no idea. Most mages on my PvE realm seem to be frost when doing PvE, but that's not necessarily a good indication

I'd assume fire is better simply because you can kill faster and crit higher, but frost can kite like mad (frostbolt, nova, coc, pet (who also has frostbolt and nova)). I don't think a frost mage would want to face a warlock though

[/guesswork]

[Yocote]

I am going for something like http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0E00bZZVqGfRfxobot. That is: sacrifice some frost talents to get Improved Counterspell, which comes in quite handy in Pve and is extremely handy in Pvp. The improved counterspell talent gives your basic counterspell (which only of use when target is casting something) additionally a true silencing effect (only 4 seconds, but thats quite a lot). I lost track of the number of times that has saved my behind. I am not sure yet *where* exactly to sacrifice frost talents though - the linked build is one proposal.

As for pvp: I have both a highlevel frostmage and a highlevel firemage. Though I didn't really even take my fire mage into pvp situations (I play on a pve realm, so pvp means battlegrounds), I can quite safely state that a frost mage has much more survivability in pvp. A few reasons:

1) Ice barrier. For three reasons I think this is the crown of the frost talents: Effectively it adds a significant percentage to your hitpoints, it prevents all interruptions to spellcasting from damage (not interruptions from silencing effects, of course), and as a bonus: the 'extra hitpoints' from ice bariere are the first to go down, but can't be healed/don't need to be healed - your party's healer can spend his time healing others. These things combined mean that you are much less reliant on +STA gear than fire mages, and you can get +dmg gear instead.

2) Ice block. Not too useful in solo situations (except if those 10 seconds buy you the time to use another cooldown), but great in both party pve as well as party pvp. It allows your tank to regain aggro, or the other fella's on your side to dispose of whatever was bothering you in pvp.

3) Your bread and butter spell (frost bolt) also slows down your enemy, making it much easier to keep distance, and buying you time to get more damage delivered.

One subtlety: I noticed that the cooldown reduction provided by Ice Floes is really handy in hot fights. Not so much the cooldown on ice block or cold snap, but the cooldown on Ice Barrier means you can recast it every 24 seconds (instead of 30), which has meant the difference between to slay or to be slain for me quite frequently, both in pve and pvp.

I don't think a frost mage would want to face a warlock though

That depends. A warlock with his felhunter out basically means 'game over' - you get silenced, your Ice Barrier, Frost armor, Arcane Int, and Dampen magic get not only dispelled, but each dispel healls the felhunter. With other pets you stand a chance. Especially considering you can remove curses (from yourself)

[Tuff]

Cheers for the thoughts and the answers guys, I think I'll go frost at least this time because I know how to play it, and it's not only for pvp, I'll need to get myself to 70 at some point too!

Now all I have to do is work out how to spread out my profession's between my characters.

[Tonster]

Had a look at your build Yoco, I like the fact it has Improved Silence but personally I'd get it a different way. I'd take the points out of Arcane Focus as reducing resistance to Arcane spells has little or no use IMO as how many arcane spells do you actually have (especially as you don't get Improved Arcane Missiles as well)? I'd prefer to get Improved Arcane Missles 5/5, this also means taking 2 points out of Magic Absorbtion. As Frost is mana efficient anyway you may want to put 5 points into Magic Absorbtion instead of Arcane Concentration.

I would go with everything you said in Frost though

[Yocote]

I'd take the points out of Arcane Focus as reducing resistance to Arcane spells has little or no use IMO as how many arcane spells do you actually have (especially as you don't get Improved Arcane Missiles as well)? I'd prefer to get Improved Arcane Missles 5/5, this also means taking 2 points out of Magic Absorbtion.

That quite describes my build before the 2.0.1 respec, and makes quite a lot of sense when you don't have ice barrier yet. The reason I went for 0/5 arcane missiles is that the talent has no use as long as your ice barrier is up, which should be basically always (found that out in practice) ...

The points in arcane focus don't make much sense indeed, but you need to spend 5 points in the lowest layer, and 3/5 in missiles is not too sensible either.

I noticed that magic absorbtion, though not triggering too often, does trigger quite regularly against casters, and when it does, the mana refilling from it works very nice. Not to mention that I like the 10% resist all...

My fire/arcane mage has indeed 5/5 in missiles, and it makes much more sense in that build.

[JuriOs]

The points in arcane focus don't make much sense indeed, but you need to spend 5 points in the lowest layer, and 3/5 in missiles is not too sensible either.

Not true imo. The one spell you REALLY don't want resisted is .. sheep, which is of the arcane tree. AoE-ing is a lot easier when you don't get resists too.

[Yocote]

Not true imo. The one spell you REALLY don't want resisted is .. sheep, which is of the arcane tree. AoE-ing is a lot easier when you don't get resists too.

Good point indeed - makes me glad I did put those 3 points in arcane focus . Come to think of it - counterspell being resisted can end up quite messy too, another reason to spend those points in arcane focus instead of the missiles talent...

[Tonster]

Stop ganging up on me!

[Tuff]

Okay this is the build I'm thinking of...

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basic ... 5013201051

basically it's a bit of each, but I've swapped cone of cold for piercing ice. Mainly because I use cone of cold, and piercing ice all the way would be an extra 60 damage on a 1k crit, would it be worth it? I'm totally open minded on switching back, just seems better for me .

[Rihkama]

Piercing Ice adds 6% to damage calculated after the bonus spell damage from gear so it is quite good investment for the points.

Elemental Precision is great help, especially on PvE as mobs two levels higher will have base resist chance of 6% which the talent helps to negate. Level 70 instance bosses are all level 72 (same as Heroic versions of all dungeons). Raid bosses are considered three levels higher thus having base resist chance of 17%. Resist chance is always min. 1%.

Personally I'd move points away from Permafrost and Imp. Blizzard. Imp. Blizzard is very situational especially since you have Frostbite which makes aoe grinding with blizzard more or less impossible due unpredictable nature of Frostbite procs.