Due to some computer issues, I'm just getting online for the first time since 1.11. I just realized I hadn't fully decided on my spec. I was wondering what other Frost Mages speccing only for PvE (perhaps with a bit of knowledge of Naxxramas) decided on.

Where do you go from here?
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...52003102301051

Is it worth going down to Arcane Med.? Or are some of the Frost filler talents going to have some PvE utility? Or perhaps even pick up 10 Fire for a decked-out Fireball that can leech off of others' Imp. Scorch?

I am very much not a mage but I would get 5/5 Absorption, Resilience, 3/3 Med and put one point in Imp Blizzard so it snares at least a little.

Yeah, I think it comes down to weighing the fact that Med is probably the mathematically best DPS contributor against the bits of fun that you occasionally derive from cool Frost stuff.

This is what I did:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...50003102301051

If I had my wish list I would have done a 31fire/20arcane build but with what I have frost is just better.

I'm debating between getting full Magic Absorption and getting Magic Attunement. Dampen and Amp have been greatly increased in power and Magic Attunement has a correspondingly stronger effect than Imp. Dampen Magic did.

Due to the preponderance of physical damage in the game, it's almost always better to have Amp. Magic on a tank as opposed to Dampen or nothing at all because 90/135 extra damage is peanuts compared to, say, a 4000 damage Shadowflame and the dps increase is more than negated by the 180/270 extra healing you get per heal. There are some exceptions, like Chromaggus, but by and large, this is the case.

The question therefore is, "Will getting 4 extra resist and gaining 2% more of my max mana regenned on a full resist outweigh the benefit of being able to give a tank an extra 90 hp per heal from a souped up Amp. Magic?"

I strongly suspect that the answer should be "no" for at least one member of the raid group ;-). Just wondering if it should be me.

Oh, I think Attunement is a nice benefit to a raid. I figured it would be covered by the PoM specs though, and people going heavy Elemental shouldn't bother.

I got some very very positive comments about Magic Attunements from my healers. I popped it on everyone on a semi-pug AQ20 for Rajaxx. General Andorov's battle aura normally heals for 200/tick, but was instead hitting for 425! Cant argue with that. As for frost damage, I have yet to try Nax, but

http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?Rf0EbofkhZVA0cofz

Remains the king of raid damage... in my guild at least.

My problem with the 28 / 23 builds (and I was one ofr a looong time), is that it really doesn't offer anything other than a pumped out frostbolt.

It was a great build in MC - but in BWL and AQ40, I think the 3% more damage and 3% more crit from Arcane Instability doesn't compare well to the added power of improved snares, Ice Barrier etc. Ice Barrier really is an amazing talent now in my opinion - it's just adding 850 hitpoints on to your mages.

I'm more of a mind now to have builds which can do a bit more than just frostbolt - because content seems to be heading that way. Also, of course, the 28/23 build is only king of damage if you can leach Winters Chill off someone. If no-one has Winters Chill in your raid, your better off speccing that to increase damage rather than 28/23.

I like it for the consistency it provides. Other mages have spec'd Winters Chill etc, so im by no means gimped, but the magic attunement makes the mage somewhat more interesting within encounters, because of more buff options. Arcane is really a utility tree now. A few loose talents to get to others, but opens up more options than just damage.

Problem is, getting to PoM is so asstastic now and Elementalist is so good that I think any PvE focused guild is going to have a hard time finding too many PoM Mages anymore. Arcane became a very conflicted tree in 1.11; you have to load up on PvE focused talents to get the best PvP talents, so a lot of Mages have decided that PoM is no longer worth it. And after spec'ing pure PvP Elementalist with my Mage, I have to say that they're right.

I know you already spec'd last night, but if you're considering a respec here's my suggestion:

http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?Rf0Ab0cZZVA0ssfzVo

Improving your Blizzard will benefit the raid much more than you having Frostbite. And again, I think you're going to be hard pressed to find many Mages going as deep into Arcane as you, so you might as well pick up Attunement. God forbid you have to buff the raid for once!!! :P

I'm going with this 31 frost/20 arcane spec, which is a pure PvE build.

Magic Attunement and Winter's Chill both seem very worthwhile - but of course not everyone should pick them. I dislike +hit% since it caps so easily against anything but level 63 mobs (and mages tend to spend half the bossfights killing lower level adds anyhow - making this extremely situational) but 1 point to raise the cap from 99% to 100% should be worthwhile for most builds and I mostly just raised it to 2 because I had a point to spare.

Iceblock is probably the best PvE talent in any of the trees and an obvious pick. Ice barrier is also very worthwhile in PvE - particularly after the great buff it received in 1.11.
Arcane Resilience doesn't deserve the bashing it's getting on the forums; it's a nice talent though by no means one of the strongest. Arcane Meditation is convenient against twins, C'thun and Ouro where it is a very significant help but in most encounters it isn't needed and it can in any case be made up for by spamming cheap, low quality mana potions since mages have excellent mana endurance by default.

I've had to give up shatter which bothers me in PvE and small groups but it's worthwhile in raids where the loss is quite minor. The build also has a lack of snares but that's no particular loss for me at the moment, as I haven't done Nefarian for months. It might be worth a respec if facing encounters where snares are of great use. In that case, I expect arcane meditation and second point in elemental focus are the first 4 points I'd relocate.

I see a lot of people trying out elementalist builds but I don't see much use in giving up arcane. Mostly you cannot use both frost and fire at the same time, whereas arcane is nice at supporting either tree and and you are viable in every school of damage even without talents in it. So I'd rather just focus in either frost or fire with arcane as support and stick to that school primarily. It's not as versatile but I can always respec to fire/arcane if frost turns out to be gimped against some boss encounter in Naxxramas - which I doubt though, since it appears Blizzard has left that style of instance design.

What would you give up for 5/5 absorption though? You wouldn't get it maxed without either giving up points of arcane concentration (only 1 if you don't have magic attunement though), improved counterspell or ice barrier.

Personally, I love clearcasting and wouldn't make that trade. Improved counterspell is a requirement for anyone who isn't 100% PvE and I even find it very convenient at C'thun.

I Think Elementalist builds are pure PvP to be honest. If you do the maths, full frost & full fire work out to both be better at dealing damage - and there's no fight in the game where you change from frost to fire mid fight, which is Elementalists strengths.

Plus, Clearcasting is one of the most important talents any mage can have for raiding - Arawethions sheet shows that.

Elementalist might seem cool, but when exactly would you be using it's strengths - and where would you be able to get away with its major weakness. (Clearcasting).

Well, the point I was making was that Arawethion/Hamlet is relying on the more PvP inclined Mages to get Attunement because they're going for PoM, which is in fact no longer a good line of thinking because the more PvP inclined Mages are going Elementalist or not far enough into Arcane to get Attunement.

And yes, Clearcasting is an amazing talent. 1.11 is the first time I've ever not had it on my Mage in well over a year of play, and the difference is huge. You really can't understand how good it is until you don't have it anymore.

As others have pointed out, Arcane Concentration is an incredibly versatile talent. I'd rather prioritize that over Absorption. Once you're out of mana, you can still spam rank 1 frostbolt or AE and proc clearcasts so you can lay down a blizzard or the like. I agree that meditation is an impressive talent but I won't be going to Naxx before Sunday so I can't really judge how important it is there.

Edit: Of course, I can't judge how many opportunities one would get to absorp in naxx. If there are many fights with constant AoE effects, that could tip the balance somewhat.

Here's what I went with yesterday:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?Rf0E0ocZZiA0ckfzVo

After 1 raid, I'm happy with the choice of Frost Warding. It makes Ice Armor a viable choice in lieu of Mage armor much more often. When I think it will be important (often in trash situations and the like), I can sneak myself into a Devo group and get over 3k armor.

The new Ice Barrier is very, very good.

It is my favorite 31 point talent. Short cooldown is great for a class that needs help with survival.

I agree WRT 28/23/0. I find it hard to believe that POM once every 3 minutes and 3%Damage/3% crit can be worth more than Imp Blizzard, Shatter, Winter's Chill, Ice Barrier, Imp CoC, etc.

Were I raiding with my mage, I'd probably go for a 12/0/39 build like such: http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?RbxVZZViGcsftho

Seems to get all the little "tricks" of frost (With the exception of Winter's Chill, which so many mages have in my guild that it'd be almost wasteful to get as well), without giving up any of the cool little tricks in Arcane.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?o0xEb0cZZVi0csfzVo

Pure frost raiding build. Gives you all the raiding talents, none of the pvp talents, all the damage talents and absorb talents except arcane instability, lets you get ice barrier and winters chill and improved blizzard.

Actually, I was pretty surprised to learn that a lot of raid mobs are succeptable to it. The only major problem is that you have to shell out a lot of talent points to get Shatter, and some people feel that its amazing power in some situations is overshadowed by the fact that more raid mobs are immune to frostbite than are succeptable.

Hmm, I noticed that I ran oom pretty quickly while dpsing anub'arakh in Naxx. I lost 6% regen while casting since 1.10 (I had 2/5) but I gained 3/3 master of elements so I thought that would cover it.

I'm not very good at the spirit mechanics, so can anyone tell me how much those 15% from meditation will regen over say a 3 minute chaincasting period with 270ish spirit ? Or provide a formula. I did some crazy maths based on the combat mechanics thread here, and the result was 80 mana every 2 seconds while casting. That's certainly bullshit, so can any skilled math pro help me out?

Spirit mana regen outside of FSR is (13 + spirit/4) per tick for mages. So, with 270 spirit, your spirit-based regen while not casting would be 80.5 mana a tick. Meditation would give 15% of that in the FSR, so, while casting, you'd get 0.15*80.5 ~= 12 mana every 2 seconds. So, in 3 minutes, you'd get 1080 mana, give or take.

If you're a PvE minded guild with a team of mages that are interested in working together, all depending on how useful ice barrier is and all, you should consider going for Arcane Concentration + Master of Elements for maximum efficiency. Of course you would need a few mages to get Winter's Chill, but the combo could definitely be interesting.

Anyways, the build could be quite interesting.