WoW Mages!!

Lalanae · Post by **Lalanae** » February 1, 2005, 6:35 pm

wru?

But seriously, I have a Mage alt that is about lvl 22. Anyone have a higher level Mage who can give advice on talents? So far I've been dumping them all into Fire.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » February 1, 2005, 6:51 pm

Post by **Sylvus** » February 1, 2005, 7:35 pm

I know in beta that Kyou was using Ice or something and respecced to Arcane and loved it, and Arundel followed that lead after getting burnt out with one of the trees and swears by Arcane as well now.

The arcane explosion talent is great for AE, as well as... whatever other shit comes with it. Uninterruptable, fast-cast arcane missles and getting a free bar of mana every X minutes... go that way!

masteen · Post by **masteen** » February 1, 2005, 7:47 pm

I'm planning on taking mine down the arcane tree, with a little bit of ice for utility. Fire is great for single target damage, but only an arcane mage can AOE like MAD.

Lisandre · Post by **Lisandre** » February 1, 2005, 9:18 pm

This guy has a good write-up on mages. I followed the suggestions on his 4th post up til level 40, and it worked well for me.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... p=1#post23

Raistin · Post by **Raistin** » February 1, 2005, 10:51 pm

I went mostly Arcane and Fire. I was just pure fire speced till I hit 45 then decided to check out the otherside. Im going for the most mana regen/damage increase/crit increase/instant nukes. So far Ive been able to lvl faster solo when I didnt have a group.

Atm I have 22 points in arcane,17 in fire.

Improved Arcane Missiles Rank 5 Is pure Jesus Juice. You can do Missiles and not be intrupted unless bashed for slienced.

Arcane Concentration Rank 5 Gives 10% chance to cast your next spell 100% mana free.Goes off more like 60% of the time. Gives you a Clearcasting Icon that lasts for like 15 seconds to cast the next spell.

Improved Dampen Magic Rank 2 upped my dampen magic buff to 120.
Improved Arcane Explosion Rank 3 Reduces a 1.5 second spell down to .6 seconds. With 5 points you can make it Instant.

Evocation Rank 1 Clickly buff ,causes you do regen 1500% mana in 8 seconds. Repops every 15 mins

Improved Mana Shield Rank 2 Alllows my manasheild damage to take 75% more damage. Manasheild rank 4 absorbs 682 damage.

Arcane Meditation Rank 3 Regens 9% of your mana during comabt/spell casting.Its a ok ability, but nothing too outstanding when you have avrage Spirit. I guess if you had a shit ton of spirit itll be better.

Presence of Mind Rank 1 Gives a 3 min refresh click for the next spell to become Instant cast thats under 10 seconds.
Arcane Total: 22

Improved Fireball Rank 5 takes .5 seconds off of Fireball. Its pretty good to use after Pyroblast when you pull mobs.

Ignite Rank 5 Critical Strikes from Fire spells causes Ignite to activate. It puts a DoT on the NPC for 40% of the spell damage over 4 seconds. AKA If you Crit a fireball for 1000 damage, you will get 2 more DoT tics for 200 each time. Making the spell do a total of 1400, in otherwords increases your spell damage 40%

Pyroblast Rank 1 Best pulling spell IMO. 503-631 damage,6 second nuke with a dot for 186 damage over 12 seconds. Ive had crits with this up to 1200.

Improved Flamestrike Rank 3 Makes flamestrike's first nuke to crit 15% more,hardly use Flamestrike but you have to get this inorder to get BlastWave.

Burning Soul Rank 3 Gives your firespells 65% chance not to lose casting time when being hit. Very good.

Fire Total: 17

Right now, I want to finnish up Impact 3 in the Fire line. It causes your fire spells to have a 6% chance to stun the target for 2 seconds. Seems like it goes off more like 40%

After I get the 20 in Fire, I will Train BlastWave.277-329 damage Instant AE, with a 6 second daze.

With Fireblast 332-394, Cone of Cold 203-223, Presence of Mind+Pyroblast 503-632 damamge ,Blast Wave 277-329damage, and 1 Arcane Explosion . All instant spells, you will have delt 1968 damage all in like 4-5 seconds with full hits. Not counting if Pyroblast/Blast Waves dont critting and doing 40% more damage each.

As you can see, I went more for the instant,free nukes, free full mana, and spell damage increase. So far its payed off pretty well. When I get 60, i intend to try out full fire,ice, and arcane. And go from there after some PVP time and see what will work best for PVP.

Arundel Pajo · Post by **Arundel Pajo** » February 2, 2005, 4:14 am

Arcane for the win.

Arundel Pajo · Post by **Arundel Pajo** » February 2, 2005, 4:38 am

Heh, for real though.

I started off as frost, and respecced in my 40's to arcane...haven't looked back since.

Lemme see if I can list my essential talents.

IMPROVED ARCANE MISSILES - yeah... max this one out. Non-interruptable arcane missiles, so you channel them even when being beat on.

ARCANE SUBTLETY - people vastly underestimate the importance of having 40% less aggro generated by one of your most used spells vs bosses. The most common rebuttle to this talent is the tired old argument that "a smart mage should be able to manage his aggro without this help." Yes... you should know how to manage your aggro. That's not entirely what this spell is good for - they're missing the point. Think of this like concussion in EQ. Playing an offensive nuking class is kinda like walking a tightrope... think of your dps as being a line on a graph. Nuke too far below this line, and you may be safe but you're not fully utilizing your potential. Nuke above it, and draw aggro. The good caster will tread as closely to this line as he can. Spells that reduce aggro aren't there to save you and make you sloppy. They push that imaginary line up. You'll still tread as close to the line as you did before, but now you'll do more damage while doing so.

ARCANE FOCUS - (i think that's what it's called) Makes arcane missiles 10% less likely to be resisted. This is a godsend.

PRESENCE OF MIND - omg...nothing owns like this talent for pvp. Nothing. Activate this talent, and your next spell becomes instant. Hooray for instant pyroblasts and polymorphs!

IMPROVED ARCANE EXPLOSION - when filled, this talent makes your only pbaoe spell into an insta-cast spell, so you can spam it. Even better with clearcasting. In higher level instances, this is *the* aoe spell that people will want you to have. Yes, technically blizzard can do more damage (esp if frost specced), but you have to channel it...making Arc Exp be very handy....plus you can reposition yourself to get the best coverage, and there are ways to increase the damage, too.

ARCANE INSTABILITY - +3% chance to crit with spells. Now, this doesn't *sound* like much, but consider this: a +1% spell crit sword drops in Maraudon, each 100 int you have gives you +1% to spell crit, a trinket from the Onyxia key quest gives you +2% to spell crit, and an epic quest hat gives you +2%. It adds up. Right now, if wearing all my crit gear, I have 9% or more chance of getting a spell crit. That's not too shabby, especially when you consider that each missile in a volley of arcane missiles has its own chance to crit...and each target hit in an arcane explosion also has its own chance to crit.

ARCANE POWER - 35% more damage for 35% more mana for 15 secs. Now I hear a lot of mages dis this spell, but I kinda think they're all just stupid. Yes, ice barrier is a nice top talent in frost, but most mages seem to be all about the guaranteed fire spell crit on the top of the fire tree. Here's why arcane power blows that out of the water: versatility and speed.

People wrongly assume that this is a talent designed to up your damage. It's not. It's all about speed. Being in percentages, it does nothing to change a given spells damage to mana ratio - what it does do is convert your mana to damage *faster*. It also works on any damage spell rather than just fire. You want to know how people get the 2k+ crits with pyroblast? It's with this.

Another example: Let's say I'm in upper blackrock spire, and we're going to aoe the hatchery. I have 15-20 little drake hatchlings all screeching at me, and a priest pulling his hair out trying to keep me standing. A normal arcane explosion hits each of these drakes for something like 270ish per cast. I will use a whole mana bar on these. Now, if I activate arcane power, each cast hits each drake for 365+, and crits in the 550's. I eat that mana up faster, but there was no change in efficiency... the only real end result is a much happier priest, a much faster kill, and a greatly reduced chance of me needing a rez. I won't even get into the pvp uses for this talent.

The rest, in my opinion, is mostly icing. They're nice, but not essential. I also have points in improved counterspell, improved mana shield, arcane mind, clearcasting.....and i have enough in the fire tree to get me a pyroblast.

Morgrym · Post by **Morgrym** » February 2, 2005, 9:46 am

I am only 52 right now, and tend to solo mostly, with the occasional instance run with guild mates. So far, I have 35 points in the fire tree and the rest are and will be going into arcane to finish up IAE5. I don't bother with AE'ing mobs unless I jack something up and am forced to. Seems I can get just as many single kills done in the same ammount of time as someone doing the AE thing, and it fits my play style. When needed though, mostly in instance runs, Fire has some rather nasty AoE spells you can pump up with talents. Do whatever seems to fit you, I don't think there is a wrong way to build any character. That diversity is what helps make this game so wonderful.

Lisandre · Post by **Lisandre** » February 2, 2005, 4:47 pm

My mage is level 50 atm, and I have 26 pts in arcane and 15 in fire. I've been on the fence about going all the way up to Arcane Power. I like the idea of getting as much +crit% as I can, so I was leaning toward only going for the +3% of Arcane Instability, then working fire up to +6% with Critical Mass. Is Arcane Power good enough to give up Critical Mass?

Morgrym · Post by **Morgrym** » February 2, 2005, 5:14 pm

I can't tell you about the arcane side. But, with CM maxed, I tend to crit at least twice in a single solo fight. Combined with ignite, it gets pretty nasty. Combustion every 5 min giving you a 100% chance of critting your pyroblast and then a fireball crit right after that and you are looking at near 300pts of DoT damage per tick. That is a random thing but sure is a thing of beauty.

Cotto · Post by **Cotto** » February 3, 2005, 8:13 pm

Im a mage and this week I have been turning any undead into sheep, laughing at them, then running away.

P.S Blink owns

Arundel Pajo · Post by **Arundel Pajo** » February 4, 2005, 2:28 pm

Lisandre wrote:Is Arcane Power good enough to give up Critical Mass?

In my opinion, yes.

Brittney · Post by **Brittney** » February 7, 2005, 7:36 am

Fire mages own all your vaginas.

Lisandre · Post by **Lisandre** » February 25, 2005, 8:42 am

Got this from the Under Development page. It's supposed to go live next patch.

Mage - New Spell: Mage Armor allows mana regeneration to function while casting and increases resistance to all magic schools

Looks like spirit is finally gonna be useful for us!

Cotto · Post by **Cotto** » February 25, 2005, 1:36 pm

Im going Fire Mage all the way. So far no complaints. Ignite is fun, and Pyroblast just shits people up when you throw a meteror at them