Mage Question

[Grancall]

Oh man, after surfing these forums for a good while, I expect various hard fruits and rocks to be thrown at me for this, but, given the changes in TBC and the recent patches, can anyone recommend a good mage build for leveling?

I've read many a build guide, but am not sure if changes in TBC and newer patches make those guides a bit outdated. It seemed to with other classes. Let me at least help out with what I'm looking for:

Basically what I'm looking for is the best damage I can get, with good survivability and nice "oh crap!" counters. The best damage I'm aware is the fire tree, survivability I would assume is down to picking gear with good Stamina and Intel. And the "Oh crap!" tools seem to be a couple of layers down in the frost tree.

I also wouldn't mind an AOE or two, and since I'd like to survive, it seems like frost AOE may be the way to go. Which brings me to this, besides leveling slower (hopefully not THAT much slower), is there any other reason to not do frost while leveling? I really don't mind seeing my damage numbers stay within the stratosphere if I can survive better and get a better handle on CC.

The only PVP I'll be doing will be after the WSG levels, and then not a lot. I pretty much suck at PVP so I'll just hop in from time to time for a break. I'm really only after PVE/Instance speccing.

I hope you guys will suffer through 1 more "OMG what do I use?" build thread long enough to give me some advice, I really do appreciate it. Thanks:smiley:

[Chemm]

Oh crap counters -> Frost spec

Best Dmg -> Fire Spec

Pvp -> Either can be used very well

wtf spec -> Arcane ( channel those Arcane missles )

[piscene]

The mods just wiped all build guides, and changed the process for re-submitting them, so all the guides should be up to date with TBC and most of the latest patches.

[grendon]

For leveling > Frost spec
For PvP > Fire Spec

I wouldn't suggest arcane spec for either.

[GIXXERDK]

I'm a straight fire mage. Lvl 42.

I can kill enemies up to lvl 45. Just last night I took out a whole group of lvl 25-30 hordes. You just have to know what your doing.

[milqueman]

I started fire spec and leveled to 60, very good DPS.

Then I started over and went all Frost, just to see. When I was 29 I took out a 31 elite solo. So a frost spec can do damage and survive.

I've never went Arcane, but might in the future just to see what it can do.

Before TBC came out, I was specced for a while fire/frost, I found this was good for all around but not uber powerful in either. I had Pyroblast/ignite in fire and Imp FB/Shatter/Ice shards in frost. This might actually work for you in leveling, then you can respec later when you settle on what your'e going to be doing at the end game.

just my 2 copper.

[Twoflower]

come to the mage forum and let s discuss it there :)

anyway :

best damage = fire
survivability = frost

do you wanna wtfpwn and get wtfpwned, or do you wanna wtfpwn safer, but slower ?

[Grancall]

Hey guys, sorry I got back so late, was away from home. Anyway, from what I'm hearing, Fire is the place to be for absolute destruction, and frost is where it's at with pretty good damage and the chance to live through it. I like the way Twoflower put it, do I wanna wtfpwn and die or wtfpwn and live, lol. The answer to that would a resounding yes, I want to wtfpwn and live to brag about it ;-)

Anyway, sure, I'll make a quick post over in the mage forum. Thanks for the answers :-)