WotLK Mage Builds

Cool builds dude, I’m going to bookmark this page for future reference, especially since I just started an undead mage on a PvP server.

About Zygor’s - you should add a note about how much time the automation features will save over an equally good PDF guide.

why u go 5 + improved frost bolt , if u are using frostfire bolt anyways, better to use those 5 stats somewhere else…

Hi Jason,
I have read into your comment and the reason we empower our Frostbolt so much is that since this is a PvP build you will want to make it do as much damage as possible along with using the least amount of mana possible to survive in areans and battlegrounds.

Frostfire - 14% base mana.
Frostbolt - 13% base mana.

This is the main reason behind this theory.

If you have any more questions please ask because I love talking about this.

-Visin

two things not addressed, glyphs, and level 80 hit rating requirements. Any thoughts? Arcane focus will not help ur pom pyro.

I found that the Frost PvE build was extremely powerful. Being 70, I swapped the Ignite points for Brainfreeze and Shattered Barrier. Getting off that extra free Fireball while running around is super. A build with a lot of potential.

That is great to hear! I use to be a frost Mage back in the day when I played my Mage a lot but then I switched to my Rogue and focused on her, but glad to hear you are owning with the builds, keep up the good work.

I am wondering why you only threw in a few specs here is a PVE spec I just threw together that is very viable and works good. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0qcz0hZ0Ec0RhIhVubhct

Ah shoot i messed up the link here is the correct one http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0ifz0IzxGzMxedZVcccob

Here is an alternate pvp build for those who want to do alot of burst dmg really fast, this spec really owns if you can time your spells correctly.http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=o0xVfzMhdxGuMtedfVc0o

11/10/50 is too complicated to play and leaves out good things in the frost tree. With 11/0/60 you can have a chill effect on your Blizzard allowing massive AOE crits, Brain Freeze for free fireballs, and Ice Barrier for not dying. I don’t believe the ten points in fire are worth the theoretical benefits. (Fill the tree out yourself, there is room for a little variation.)

And yes, AOE crits don’t affect bosses. But they affect boss adds, not to mention trash. Making a build to maximise single-target DPS was perhaps sensible in some BC encounters, but it was never as important as many said, and it is unlikely to fit all that well with Blizzard’s new raid design philosophy.

@ Alan
Thanks for the additional builds, after reviewing them they seem great and if you did not mind, I would like to add them to the list, giving proper credit of course.

@ Gerry
While I see your point in the /60 side of things, this is yet another viable build, but it was not exactly what I was looking for in things, I have used the /60 build and I was not so impressed, but with the 11/10/50 it addressed every issue I faced and more. Thanks for the input and while the /60 is still good, I just did not include it due to space and simplicity.

I do thank you all for your comments on this, and there is more to come. The WotLK Paladin Builds is being worked on right now and should be up today sometime.

-Visin

That has no effect on frostfire

well, hitting reply on a persons comment actually doesn’t reply to that comment the BOLT +’s in fireball and frostbolt do not effect frostfire bolt. if its a pvp frostfire bolt you dont use frostbolt

[...] WotLK Mage Builds WotLK Mage Builds Here are the top WoW Mage Builds… [...]

thanks to the in-game leveling guides. bet i’ll have more time leveling up and farming wow gold now!

….None of your guides helped me at all.. I found that full frost spec is better for raiding now. Fire lost alot with the expansion and frost gained alot well good luck and hope you guys get a good raiding build someday.

The frost spec shown makes no sense…..spend points in fire for ignite yet only spamming frostbolts?

Okay i need a spec for my soon to be 80 mage (79 atm) and i don’t see the point of putting 5/5 in ignate….? I guess the frostfire? but then you’d go into a frostfire spec for that, right? I just see not point if i was gonna be aoe without any fire at all : \

And wih tearcane spec why not 3/3 enpowered arcane missles? it gives 45% of ur spell power (at 3/3)added to your arcane missles and 15% to you arcane blast (15% at 3/3) with no mana added to the cost of the spell? anything? let me know plz.

Btw that was for the frost spec for ignite.

I cant believe nobody said anything before zzman. Empowered arcane missiles is one of the most important talents in the arcane tree, along with the 12% more dmg on snared targets (which counts thunderclap too) thing is, if you got this, you loose 10% crit, but still, you just need a fire mage to make up for that.
Btw, spell hit cap is 17% so unless you got 14% normally, or a draeni in raid and 13% hit, you need your points in the frost tree.

For arcane I go like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0Vcu0IzxGuMtedcZbIM0o
Yes, the slow is useless, but sometimes practical, other than that, I dont need 1% extra hit/mana, so I get more dmg on my blizzard instead. Using Mage Armor, glyph for that, arcane blast and arcane power.

For spamming fireball + scorch every 30 secs (which is now good again, at least with this spec and proper +dmg and hit)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0qcz0fZ0Ec0RhIhVubhct
Using glyph for fireball, molten armor and scorch
Mage in my guild who did 5k dps on patchwerk 25 with this… I did the same in my arcane spec, I just have worse gear and more skill ^^ (mage is my alt now)

I havent been frost for a long time, I cant seem to work up as much damage with it.

For frostfire bolt spec, which you havent mentioned at all, its all about crits, and I use this spec:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZfVc0RhIuVubhstbIccoc
You ask why blast wave and dragons breath? well, moar aoe!! and, nowhere else to put those 2 points. They are also good for kiting things around.
Glyph and rotation like for fireballs, just with frostfire glyph instead of fireball ofc. And, if you know you get heroism early, pop icy veins along with it, and any trinket that gives spellpower or a mana gem even. Mana isnt the problem here, so just use gems with 2 set T7 bonus for extra dps.

I think thats all… hope some people are cleared out a bit.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0Vcu0IzxGuMtedcZbGc0o

Best known arcane spec atm. I use on my mage thats freshly 80 with only 5 epic pieces of gear (others r blues). I put out 2.3k dps.

If anyone wants they r welcome to use this spec

Heh, yeah, same as I said…

Nice commenting. Thanks for the links, I will check them out pretty soon on my mage and comment back on how they are. Thanks again.

Btw, ZZman, what server do you play on and what is your character name?

-Visin

My main’s a prot paladin on Aerie peak (name is Zzman ofcourse lol) and my mage is Drakeedog (Aerie peak as well)

and sorry welanor : ( i didn’t look at the tree u linked till after posting mine : (

Heh, nps

Nice commenting, glad to see someone from the server reading Azeroth Now. heh.

I added both your toons in game on my main (Visin) so when I am not raiding we should have a chat in game.

-Visin

kk awesome i added u as well

I thought about something and found out this is a good spec for fire, http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZ0E0bRhIhVubhstbGcMRc
Basically gfor this one you spec into frost and not arcane, with frost you recude your hit raying needed and your mana cost of spells, Equals a longer fight for yourself, at a higher level of gear such as t.7.5 you’d go arcane i guess cause you wouldn’t need the hit rating lower but i think this one is better for fire till the 7.5 contents. Glyps to use would be

/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(”Shift-click this to place a link into a chat message: \124cffffffff\124Hitem:42739:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0\124h[Glyph of Fireball]\124h\124r”);

/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(”Shift-click this to place a link into a chat message: \124cffffffff\124Hitem:42751:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0\124h[Glyph of Molten Armor]\124h\124r”);

/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(”Shift-click this to place a link into a chat message: \124cffffffff\124Hitem:42747:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0\124h[Glyph of Improved Scorch]\124h\124r”);

this is the best way to ensure your dmg being high and hitcaped.

Let me know what you think.

-_- damn links never working…
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42747
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42739
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42751
these..

Yeah, the spec you linked for fire is good, but then, if you dont have gear for the one I linked, go for the frostfire spec I linked instead. The problem with this is, you miss the extra 6% dmg on fireball and 12% dmg on fireballs with snared/slowed targets so, frostfire will out dps this and be more mana efficient

But if you go arcane then you will lose the 3% less hit rating needed, the spec is for mana purposes (i mean there r 2 points left for maybe aoe spells r increase your frost dmg in the frost tree) but its for a freshly made 80 with low gear you know?

I myself have never tryed frostfire and wouldn’t know how it works till i do, but i’m going to hold off on that spec for abit till i get 25 naxx gear

Frostfire is for mana purposes Try the frostfire I linked, you get the same +hit and all you need is a lot of CRIT!! A frostfire bolt in that spec will crit at about 320% of a normal frostfire bolt hit! The thing that makes fireballs better than frostfire bolts is that with the arcane talents, you get a much higher base dmg and almost same crit dmg as frostfire bolts. If you don’t have that extra hit, either go for the arcane spec I linked, gives you up to 6% hit, or the frostfire which gives you 3% and loads of mana, frostfire bolts in that spec cost 372 mana to cast or something, its almost as low as frostbolt. With mana gems, you can spam frostfire bolts as much as you like even if you only got 12k mana Please try frostfire, you will see how well it works, especially for not having full naxx 25 gear.

Oh, forgot to mention… The gains you get in mana from lower cost in spells is vastly outnumbered by the 20% more mana regen and clearcasts in the arcane.

Well then i most def will try this frostfire you speak of and let you know how it works out for me. i will be like 2% short on hit rating but i will manage. ty

Omg… i tryed frostfire and only 1.7-1.9k dps… arcane was better for me

And thats with glyphs and all? Well, the only reason it should beat arcane is if you got mana problems keeping a proper cycle in arcane. And, it should beat fireballs until you can go fire/arcane. But yeah, arcane is the way to go for mages atm. Problem is, if all mages are arcane, you loose the 10% more spellcrit debuff on every boss :S

ehhh i tryed frostfire it just didn’t work, i don’ think i have enough crit for it ehh? lol my crit was only 25% UB

Lol, seems like you have been really unlucky with crits then ^^ you should have a base crit of maybe 20% then 9% extra from talents and 2% from glyph and 10% from scorch. Plus like 5% in raid, when you crit about 50% its really nice But still, if you arent bad, arcane will give you more dps

I’ve been playing my mage also as 57/3/11, but with my talent points distributed a little differently. My spec looks something more like

57/3/11.

My major glyphs are “of …molten armor, arcane power, and arcane blast.”

With my current gear (mostly heroic and 10 man drops with hero’s shoulders and valorous robes, gloves, legs) I average 4k and can hit 5.4k on boss fights with bl. I have no mana issues whatsoever, with mana gems and 2 minute evos getting me through super-haste-driven dps bursts. I *might* pop a pot or two through a whole Naxx clear.

But I’m getting kind of bored :/ I’d like to try a PvE deep frost spec for kicks and giggles but I don’t really understand the mechanics of the one (Visin) posted so if you could go into that a little I’d appreciate it. I have enough pieces with hit accumulated to justify switching back into a frost/fire/frostfire spec, but I’m not sure if the drop in spellpower and lack of crit would make me viable.

Aranii-Dentarg

Well, I’d say go for something like this if you really wanna do deep frost: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ocbV0zZfcZVIccosu0f0gfsx
All you do is spam frostbolt, cast fireball whenever instant cast procs and spam your water elemental whenever you can. Glyphs: Molten armor, water elemental and frostbolt. I’d rather have 3% more crit and longer lasting water elemental than 18% more dmg on critting fireballs whenever they proc…

Still, dont think you will find this viable for frost pve dmg, you really wont hit anything close to same dps. But try it out and say what you get

PS: dunno how you can keep up mana with molten armor, I do mana gems and evocations whenever I can too, but only barely manage to keep it up with mage armor ^^ oh well… At least on fights where I dont have to move and can just nuke… even got like 650 mp5 while casting ^^

Welanor-Talnivarr

Hey guys. great conversations to say the least. I have been looking through what you all are saying and everything looks great! I hope to make an updated version of this and most likely will come out when 3.1 is released.

I have a favor of you all. If you could help me out by “Digging this” it would help more than you would know.

An easy link to do this is listed below:

http://digg.com/pc_games/WotLK_Mage_Builds_Increase_your_DPS

You can click the “Digg” link and it will would help tremedously!

Thanks again,
Visin

Wel–

I never use mage armor and only have about 200 mp5 in combat (I’ve also not specced into “student of the mind”). I go usually go oom at least twice during boss fights, but smart use of my gems and evo timer allow me to pump out constant dps through a (total over boss fight) mana pool exceeding 70k and so much haste during bl the only thing holding me back is my own lag. I usually finish boss encounters with around 500 mana remaining.

I see no point in sacrificing extra crit for mana regen if it’s not needed. I know arcane isn’t nearly as crit-dependent as fire and frostfire specs but, with the 4 piece bonus adding 5% increased critical strike damage…well it’s an easy choice in my opinion.

As far as “student of the mind” goes, if I knew I’d be guaranteed improved divine spirit for every encounter I might go there for the spell power boost, but since I’m not I opted to increase my range to avoid auras like on Heigan, or give my remove curse that extra reach on Noth.

But who knows? When spirit-based mana regen is nerfed in 3.1 and mage armor gets a hefty boost perhaps I’ll switch over. We’ll see, I guess.

Yeah, of course, I couldnt agree anymore, I’d definitly go for both range and crit if I could, I just cant seem to keep up my mana, thats the only reason

I only use mage armor on Long boss fights like Fad Or Sapp or KT, but keeping mana as arcane is somewhat ez, i use my mana gem at 80% mana and mana pot if i’m at 20% without gem being off CD and after that i just use mana gem then evo if the fight needs it. i’d save evo as last resort, because the 6-8 secs you spend not dps’ing will really mess up your dmg on meters and your dps. As for range its not really usufull unless you don’t have anything else to put the points into, in raids there isn’t much you needa be far from so i’d spend them somewhere else

Zzman-

Slow and torment the weak are considerably less useful in boss fights than range, which I’ve already provided for 2 solid justifications. Greater range also means less running back and forth, which would add up to more missed arcane blast stacks in a boss fight than one evo timer.

And if you aren’t blowing up your mana to pump out the most damage possible (as the arcane playstyle and talents would suggest) then I can see why you wouldn’t use evocation. But, what’s the point in that?

I guess I just feel the 1.2k-1.6k dps lead I get on the rest of the raid during an early bloodlust paired up with icy veins, hyperspeed accelerators, and potion of speed (on top of 6% haste from talents alone?) gives me the luxury of spending 7 seconds to evocate and bring my mana pool back up after I’ve blasted through 24k in 10-15 seconds.

Arcane is about blowing stuff up as fast as your computer will allow, expending all of your mana to do so, and then filling it up to repeat (albeit in a slower, more mana efficient fashion until cooldowns are up again).

If you don’t agree that this is the playstyle Blizzard intended for a deep arcane spec, ask yourself why they’ve allowed the cooldown to be reduced to a deliciously cheap 2 minutes?

Best St. Patty wishes,
Aranii xoxo

I have always been deep fire, but would love to push 2k + damage in RAID and I do not believe I can do this with deep fire spec. I am very interested in Aranii 57/3/11 spec. If you do not mind me asking a noob question what is your spell rotation that u use to push 2.4k DPS? Thanks in advance and as a side not this site has been a ton of help so far and you posts.

No problem Razial. This will be a kind of lengthy post, so sorry for /wall of text.

Like I said, I do use molten armor with “glyph of molten armor” to up my crit because mana is seldom an issue for me. This goes for rapid trash aoe-pulls and boss fights. Just to reiterate, I also use “glyph of arcane power” and “glyph of arcane blast”.

My rotation is like Visin said in his initial post…just a pattern rotation. My single target rotation goes like this.

Arcane blast
Arcane blast
Arcane blast
Arcane missiles — IF barrage has proc’d during arc blast stacks
Arcane barrage — IF barrage has NOT proc’d, I hit this and then…

Arcane blast
Arcane blast
Arcane blast
Same deal. If barrage has proc’d go for missiles. If not, go for barrage.

Sometimes, missile barrage will proc when you hit your arcane barrage. When this happens, I go ahead and stack up three arcane blast buffs before I hit arcane missiles, as there is plenty of time to load up the extra damage.

In TBC, I used to worry about clearcasting procs and arcane potency and allow them to affect my rotation. I don’t worry about that anymore, because the extra crit is awesome for ANY of the spells in the rotation, as is the free mana cost considering they are so costly.

Lastly–fire blast. A great instant cast spell that will most likely crit if you put that 3 points into fire and throw on molten armor. I work it into my rotation whenever the cooldown is up…so whenever you feel comfortable hitting it go for it. I try to work it in every two full rotations so the cd is always up.

Make sure you pop your mana gem when you are down your first 2-4k mana, depending on whether or not you have tier and/or alch bonus. Smart management of your mana gems and evocation timer will allow you to pump out dps at full steam ahead without worrying about going oom halfway through and falling behind on the damage meters.

Go ahead and use icy veins and arcane power, even your triplets (mirror image) whenever the cooldowns are up. Even on trash. Just make sure you have have them available for BLOODLUST during boss fights. So, if you know bloodlust is going to pop early (like Patchwerk) don’t use them 2-3 minutes before engaging the boss.

Hope this helps, sorry it’s so long!

Oh a quick PS!

Since arcane blast is the only spell (aside from conjuring mana gems if you need a fast one in an emergency) that is eligible for “Presence of Mind” in this rotation…save yourself a good deal of mana and pop PoM on your THIRD arcane blast stack, as this one will be the most expensive. Remembering this simple task will really help in keeping you more mana efficient, and it saves casting time too!

Aranii thank you for all the great advice and help with the spell rotation. I am excited to respec and see how it effects my over all DPS. As I said with the deep fire spec and all but 2 items in T7 gear and Naxx purples I have been disappointed with the 1900′ish DPS. Thanks again.

Very great responses you all. I am glad to have such active members write up their own views on Mages like you have been doing.

Any questions at all just ask here and Ill do my best to help you all out.

Thanks,
Visin

So visin We should hit some heroics together on wednesday r thursday

We should. Just give me a shout when you wanna and I should be down for it. =D

But it will be fun. See ya in game.

lol…Why are all of the avatars now your face? Hahaha.

Edit:
(you know you like my face Arannii) heh just joking, but I believe it is fixed now anyways.

OMG. I do not know. (Working on a fix) Thanks for alerting me of the issue. I will get gravatar set back up for the layout and thanks for staying with me.

-Visin

roar!!

dang it visin your never available for heroics ehh? but anyways

My mage was tested on some heroic boss fights such as sarth and he’s averaging about 3k dps now Woot! well his highest so far but its good,

I play ages whit mage, and do different build for PvE, i not say its is best, but must i do huge damage and help also to raid. I’m in 10 man raid by DM 3-5 position. Its not best dps but raid need help also whit slow targets. my build are http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0bZZAI0Gofu0fdMfst

10/8/53 it was bad paste

just looked at your fire with arcane build… noticed that you have not put any points in torment the weak!!!! why skip out on 12% extra damage!!!! bosses are snared even if they don’t move slower, the debuff is still added to their table thus making the snare active 100% of the time since all tanks have at least one spell that snares in some way…

take one point away from arcane meditation and take the 2 spare ones and shove them into torment the weak and increase your dps bz 12%

In my 20’s, I thought haiku was bizarre. ,

When this house of cards falls so will the status quo politicians of our day. ,

The frost build is garbage. You go fire when you don’t have brain freeze?

And your missing big dps boosters

yea i tried theese rotations out and i have to say they suck…but the builds are good thumbs up

Eh, you might wanna notice that all this stuff was posted about 6 months ago = in patch 3.1 or something.
Mages changed vastly in that time, the rotations are rubbish because of that. They used to be like that, now its all different… go figure. New 4 stacks of AB is the shit, and you get the fast cast arcane missiles much more frequently now too. It was rare to get back then.
Doh?