Mage Builds

[Zanchief]

I usually summon food and water for myself in Org before setting out on my daily adventure.

About 7 times in 10 I get a tell demanding food or water.

Fine.

So I summon a stack or two and hand it to them. Do I get a thank you? Sometimes.... but more often I get told, "more."


What the fuck.

More

[Maeya]

Yes Massah.

[xaoshaen]

I usually summon food and water for myself in Org before setting out on my daily adventure.

About 7 times in 10 I get a tell demanding food or water.

Fine.

So I summon a stack or two and hand it to them. Do I get a thank you? Sometimes.... but more often I get told, "more."


What the fuck.

If that happens, I hand them full stacks of Rank 1 food and Rank 1 water. Rarely do they ever notice the difference. Of course, Melgoth and I used to hand out Rank 1 water on instance runs, and the vast majority of the people made it through the entire instance without ever realizing what they were drinking. People's dependance on water is largely psychological until you start doing actual raiding or truly pushing the limits of a group.

[Maeya]

If that happens, I hand them full stacks of Rank 1 food and Rank 1 water

That sir... is a BRILLIANT idea!

If Ugz is on my character he usually replies, "10g" which shuts them up, but I like that idea so much more!

Thank you!

[Arlos]

31-33 Arcane + 18-20 fire is how I'm going with my twink mage, after a lot of consultation with mages I know about the viabilty of various specs. Basically, you want to go up through Arcane Power on the arcane tree, so that you can max out your DPS for short periods, so when you're doing a boss or something, you can really unload once the tank has aggro. Presence of Mind is a huge one as well, as it lets you have an insta-cast pyroblast, flame strike, polymorph, whatever if you should happen to realy really need it.

Fire is a good one to pair with Arcane, because most frost spells are already fast-casting or insta-cast already, so you don't get as much benefit from POM. The important ones to get in fire, if you're doing a build like this are: Impact 5, Improved Fireball 5, Ignite 5, & Pyroblast. Incinerate 2 and Flame Throwing 2 are also pretty useful.

Here's the spec I'm going with. The 2 points in Subtlety and the 2 points in Focus could be swapped around to other talents if you prefer other stuff. Subtlety doesn't help you at all when soloing, so if you're just going to solo, don't bother putting them there.

Arcane Talents (31 points)

# Improved Arcane Missiles - 5/5 points
Gives you a 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Arcane Missiles.

# Arcane Focus - 2/5 points
Reduces the chance that the opponent can resist your arcane spells by 4%.

# Arcane Subtlety - 2/3 points
Reduces the threat generated by your offensive arcane spells by 30%.

# Arcane Concentration - 5/5 points
Gives you a 10% chance of entering a Clearcasting state after any damage spell hits a target. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next damage spell by 100%.

# Evocation - 1/1 point
While channeling this spell, your mana regeneration is active and increased by 1500%. Lasts 8 seconds.

# Improved Arcane Explosion - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Arcane Explosion by 1.5 seconds.

# Improved Counterspell - 2/2 points
Gives your Counterspell a 100% chance to silence the target for 4 seconds.

# Arcane Mind - 4/4 points
Increases your maximum Mana by 8%.

# Presence of Mind - 1/1 point
When activated, your next Mage spell with a casting time less than 10 seconds becomes an instant cast spell.

# Arcane Instability - 3/3 points
Increases your spell damage and critical strike chance by 3%.

# Arcane Power - 1/1 point
When activated, your spells deal 35% more damage while costing 35% more mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 seconds.



Frost Talents (0 points)

# None


Fire Talents (20 points)

# Improved Fireball - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Fireball by 0.5 seconds.

# Impact - 5/5 points
Gives your fire spells a 10% chance to stun the taget for 2 seconds.

# Ignite - 5/5 points
Your critical strikes from fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 40% of your spell's damage over 4 seconds.

# Flame Throwing - 2/2 points
Increases the range of your fire spells by 6 yards.

# Pyroblast - 1/1 point
Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 148 to 195 fire damage and an additional 56 damage over 12 seconds.

Level 24: 180 to 236 damage, 72 over 12 seconds
Level 30: 255 to 327 damage, 96 over 12 seconds
Level 36: 329 to 419 damage, 124 over 12 seconds
Level 42: 407 to 515 damage, 156 over 12 seconds
Level 54: 600 to 750 damage, 228 over 12 seconds
Level 60: 716 to 890 damage, 268 over 12 seconds

# Incinerate - 2/2 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire Blast and Scorch spells by 4%.


-Arlos

[xaoshaen]

31-33 Arcane + 18-20 fire is how I'm going with my twink mage, after a lot of consultation with mages I know about the viabilty of various specs. Basically, you want to go up through Arcane Power on the arcane tree, so that you can max out your DPS for short periods, so when you're doing a boss or something, you can really unload once the tank has aggro. Presence of Mind is a huge one as well, as it lets you have an insta-cast pyroblast, flame strike, polymorph, whatever if you should happen to realy really need it.

Honestly, Arcane Power is primarily useful for PvP. Regardless of the build, a mage can empty their mana bar more quickly than a tank can build aggro if you really want to. You don't need Arcane Power to manadump in PvE. It is, however, a great PvP talent combined with Pyroblast and PoM. Overall, I'd rather have Blast Wave and Critical Mass than Arcane Power.

Fire is a good one to pair with Arcane, because most frost spells are already fast-casting or insta-cast already, so you don't get as much benefit from POM. The important ones to get in fire, if you're doing a build like this are: Impact 5, Improved Fireball 5, Ignite 5, & Pyroblast. Incinerate 2 and Flame Throwing 2 are also pretty useful.

The only talent in the Arcane tree that Fire Benefits from more than Frost is Presence of Mind, and Arcane Concentration is wonderful when paired with Frost Channelling. I'd still recommend pairing a heavy Arcane build with Fire, simply because it costs fewer talent points to obtain decent DPS than it would in the Frost Tree.

Please don't waste five points on Impact. Reducing your chance of being interrupted is much, much better than a ten percent chance of a two second stun. If you rely on fire spells as your primary damagers, you'll average about one stun every two fights. This is one second of stun per mob, hardly worthy of five talent points.

[Susvain]

Im frost and arcane

Arcane for evocation and instant arcane explosion

Rest in frost, it's better dps then fire

[Mop]

im not gunna read this thread but as a priest..

after you have summoned me ample water for the night, all mages should then log on their *twink* here and play that class - because im sick of shielding you fuckers, and having to heal you all the time when you get so much agro because you run in and ae 8 mobs before the warrrior has even attacked.

so MY mage build would be what ever gets the most water the fastest and then the rest of my points wouldbe put into a rogue, hunter, shaman ... how bout that?

[Mop]

*edit*

cept for domo you can help with that but only if we cant find 4 other mages.

[xaoshaen]

Im frost and arcane

Arcane for evocation and instant arcane explosion

Rest in frost, it's better dps then fire

A properly built fire mage can outdamage a frost mage whenever they feel like it.

[xaoshaen]

im not gunna read this thread but as a priest..

after you have summoned me ample water for the night, all mages should then log on their *twink* here and play that class - because im sick of shielding you fuckers, and having to heal you all the time when you get so much agro because you run in and ae 8 mobs before the warrrior has even attacked.

so MY mage build would be what ever gets the most water the fastest and then the rest of my points wouldbe put into a rogue, hunter, shaman ... how bout that?

Yeah, I hate it when people want to finish instances quickly. Fucking ingrates, expecting priests to do their jobs.

[Jazendar]

Im frost and arcane

Arcane for evocation and instant arcane explosion

Rest in frost, it's better dps then fire

A properly built fire mage can outdamage a frost mage whenever they feel like it.

dot dot dot

For one, frost isn't about damage. It's about crowd control...And it's awsome in pvp, frost nova + frostbolt + coc with crit spec is an instant 2k+ damage if you barely have any frost gear at all. Buddy in my guild with eph talisman, arcane power, and bers in wsg crits on frostbolts for 3.3k. Was funny, he insta killed a warlock as a sheep in ws, it died as a sheep lolz.

[xaoshaen]

dot dot dot

For one, frost isn't about damage. It's about crowd control...And it's awsome in pvp, frost nova + frostbolt + coc with crit spec is an instant 2k+ damage if you barely have any frost gear at all. Buddy in my guild with eph talisman, arcane power, and bers in wsg crits on frostbolts for 3.3k. Was funny, he insta killed a warlock as a sheep in ws, it died as a sheep lolz.

No question that the Frost line has significant advantages, raw damage just isn't one of them.

[Mop]

there is a difference between 'doing ones job' and mages over nuking causing priests to constantly use their mana black hole agro spells

[Harrison]

Just like wizards in EQ who were fucking worthless mana sinks on clerics.

I hate mages too

[xaoshaen]

there is a difference between 'doing ones job' and mages over nuking causing priests to constantly use their mana black hole agro spells

AEing is a mage's job. It draws aggro. Deal with it.

[numatu]

Makochan lives on.

[xaoshaen]

Makochan lives on.

Awww, don't be petty just because we've seen your inability to count. WoW is not EQ, and AEing is a much more viable strategy for a good group. If you're not going to use AE, you're usually better off taking a DPS class instead of a mage for an instance.

[Mop]

really - the good mages i know do fine and dont draw alot of agro.

guess that lvl 55 mage in brd last night aeing breaking stuns and what not was doing his job, i laughed when he died.


there are times to ae and times not to - if you dont know the diff, then you are the suck.

IE: Bugs in DM great time to ae, in strath some very good times to ae spiders in lbrs, wonderful time. Any raid where you dont have one healer for 3 groups of ppl hey go for it.

LEts say you are 4 man scholo and clearing and your only healer is MCing the way through some area's so we dont wipe and the warlocks die with causing any dmg - and you run in that room and ae - you suck or this mornign for example crying about no one doing a DM run for you - you get a group together- then not having anything for the fucking tribute run, you again suck

this is just a couple examples. THere are shitty players of every class in this game because you could accidently hit 60 in wow. But I keep seeing mages have a higher % of those people and im not sure why since every class can solo.

I was pissed when I made my first statement, but as mages go - most suck - the ones iknow are good I would go with anywhere - for those that I dont know I assume the suck, 99% of the time that aassumption seems to be true.


PS your job is DPS

[numatu]

Awww, don't be petty just because we've seen your inability to count. WoW is not EQ, and AEing is a much more viable strategy for a good group. If you're not going to use AE, you're usually better off taking a DPS class instead of a mage for an instance.

Awww, don't be petty just because we've seen your inability to fully research beforehand. My post wasn't directed at you. It was directed to Mop's first post.

[Mop]

I should note this as it does pertain to my oppinion on mages :


I hate raiding easy instances. Raiding scholo and strath is a joke. 5 man is 100 times more fun and I will most times pass on raids through strath or scholo unless im in the mood to be frustrated trying to get exalted with <Argent Dawn>

That being said - in a raid group mage ae > single mob dps and really my mana wont ever drop below 70% even if I am chain shielding a mage and healing 2 groups. (Last strath raid I went on - i didnt drop below 95% the entire time til we hit last guy)

in a 5man ,few times a four man, through these places mages just slow us down So you kill 2 seconds faster than had we had a rogue butwe now have to wait 20 seconds on your mana. There are exceptions but when we have to wait on a mages mana because he HAD to ae I find it annoying and tedious to constantly have to stop and wait on ONE person.

If I liked doing raid groups to these places I would probaly <3 more mages, since I don't most mages I find cant make thet adjustment to a raid to a 5 man.

Granted it is all just oppinion on what I like doing, and I am a spoiled by grouping with people I know are good on a very regular basis and I know they wont fuck up.

I also hate warriors that go flurry - have shitty gear and try and tank in places like LBRS, Strath, Scholo, ect - they are mana sponges

I hate Shamans that dont bring reagents

I hate having to ask for SS every 30 min on a raid in MC jesus is it that hard to look and see if it is up?

I hate shadow priests that complain they are oom all the time - then respec and deal with the less dmg ass hat.

I dislike people that think the glowing brightwood staff is the shit

I hate priests that think shield > heal. they are stupid and I laugh when they die alot.

I can go on all day, my point being my oppinion is based on the fact that I hate pick up raids that involve places you can 5 man really skews my oppinion on mages- and I am spoiled with the people I get to play with every day making my view even more jaded. I've seen what good mages can do, bad mages make every mage look that much worse

[xaoshaen]

I'm right with you on the unnecessary 10-man raids, Mop. I'd much rather do a five man group even if it takes a bit longer. That doesn't preclude a group from AEing their way through, though. I've been on both sides of the equation: as a shaman helping a priest keep a pair of mages alive and as half of the AEing pair of mages. It's perfectly possible to AE elites with a five man group, as long as everyone performs well. If we're just going to use the standard assist and kill method, I'd much rather have a good shadow priest, rogue or hunter than a mage. Lacking any reliable method of aggro reduction really hampers a mage's already mediocre single-target DPS.

[Maeya]

I hand them full stacks of Rank 1 food and Rank 1 water

I got a demand for food the other day from a farmer ("U give food.") and summoned 6 stacks of the level 15 food and gave it to him. He said 'thx' and ran off.

30 seconds later, "Fuck u!"

Laughed, and laughed, and laughed =) Thank you for such a simple, yet brilliant plan.

[calgone]

hehe i usually just give the farmers their 100 food because they wont vanish train you anymore and they ambush bomb people that try to gank you. not to mention all the tells saying "xie xie xie xie /kiss"