The general consensus in 3.1 was that shoulders and legs from T7 with mostly pvp gear was the way to go since it increased haste and sp and the 2 piece bonus certainly didn't hurt. With the change to resilience (now reducing all damage) coupled with the change to empowered frostbolt (reduces cast time 0.1/0.2). I'm curious about what higher rated arena players are looking at for gear.

My personal arena experience is still very limited but I noticed with all gladiator gear my survivability, and the reduced cast time to frostbolt has definitely made a difference.

I'm not high rated but I've put a lot of research in to gearing my mage and toiled with Rawr and some conventional math to come up with what will allow me to put out the most damage when it matters and maximize resilience.

When gearing for pvp frost you want a minimum of 380 haste (mathematically it's ~350 minimum, but including latency you probably want 380.) Extra haste is really awesome because getting casts off is more important than not getting them off, and frost benefits much more from haste than it does from crit.

130 spell pen to counteract auras/totems/any other resists (140 for mages with arcane talent, but you can get away with not having 140 pen because almost no one specs it)

For hit 5% is the minimum you want, 10% the maximum. With 5-6% you hit almost everything all of the time.

Resilience is a pretty awesome stat now. It reduces your damage taken by a considerable amount.


My gear goal for the moment, which focuses on mostly easy to get pve pieces and then pvp gear:

PVE Stuff:

8/8.5 shoulders
8.5 gloves
Sash of Ancient Power (there is an upgrade from toc)
Sandals of Rash Temperment/Boots of Impetuous Ideals (boots of icy floes are better, but toc25/toc10)

PVP Stuff:

Furious Hat
Furious Chest
Titan Forged Wrists
Titan Forged Legs
Titan Forged Ring
Furious Ring (meh, could be etched signet of kirin tor easily, or frozen loop and then use furious shoes.)
Titanforged Rune of Audacity
Platinum disks (I use different ones depending on comp and what's popping up often)
Furious Gladiator's Pierching Touch
Furious Glad Haste staff (T1 because it is my first season playing and I had trouble finding a team)
Furious Glad haste cloak
Furious Glad haste neck

I have JC/Tailoring and I gemmed so that I get:

2266 SP
139 spell pen (130 target, although I like to gear closer to 140 in case I end up against an arcane or fire mage)
164 hit (6% target, no hit gems)
516 haste (a little lower than I like, but the resil is nice)
722 resil (no gems)

It's worth noting that hybrid spellpower/spell pen epic gems give you 1 extra spell power and 1 extra spell pen over gemming straight spell power and straight spell pen.

I rolled a mage and im lvl 77 atm, have my tailor made pvp set and 3 pieces gladiator on the bank what i cant figure out is what weapon i should aim for, before i get to arenas. at the moment i have exodar life staff gemmed with 60 resil. any input on weapons lvl 80 to start arenas pls.

Hey quick question I am running a 2v2 team with a Balance/resto druid in full furious and im a frost mage with 3/5 hateful and 1/5 deadly any suggestions because it seems against rogues we always get screwed over

When dealing with a rogue, in the 2v2 bracket playing as Druid/Mage, initially what you will want to do is keep abolish poison up on who ever you think the rogue will open on.

The next step is to peel the rogue off your partner, either via entangling roots, frost nova, sheep, cyclone or typhoon - obviously dependent on which class is free to cast.

Obviously this is all easier said then done becuase the rog(and his partner) will likely blow cooldowns to stay on target.

For the POM/FFB build (Mage builds - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft) is there any real point in taking Missile Barrage, especially if one won't be taking arcane empowerment or glyphing the spell (and perhaps also dropping Student of the Mind and Improved Blink for talents like Arcane Mind, Magic Absorption, Magic Attunement &c.)? Has anyone got experience with this build, who can comment on its viability and damage potential?

I think with arcane's upcoming changes deep arcane may be enjoy an even greater superiority, what with the proc chance of mbarr going up to 40% from arcane blast. The other problem I discern in the PoM/FFB build is that FFB is only useful when you can cast it as an instant - otherwise it is just too long a cast to be worth the while, will not benefit from Arcane Empowerment and it is quite vital that it be used on a frozen target; the benefit of getting in an additional (faster) arcane blast (that will stack) and using PoM for another one, followed by a possible mbarr proc might make the opportunity costs imposed by PoM/FFB too high. I've not used this build though so I'm just speculating at the moment.

If preparing for 3.2.2, you will find that haste has taken greater stat weight than it currently has for a standard 57/3/11 or 60/0/11 spec (see work done in "The Arcane Thread" in the mage forum). Even now, haste is strongly favored if your playstyle includes casting arcane blast. Crit is generally less favored unless you rely heavily on instant casts (ABar, Fire Blast, PoM/FFB, Ice Lance). I currently use 725 haste in my arena set because I use arcane blast in my normal casting sequences.

Due to both the increased effect of resilience and arcane's relatively poor stat weighting of crit, I suggest purchasing the Relentless haste pieces. It has been suggested at AJ and other places that arcane mages may consider using 2T9 + 2 Relentless + WG pants for better stat weighting over 4/5 or 5/5 Relentless.

With > 700 haste, you can achieve ~1.4 sec arcane blasts when under Icy Veins + (hand accelerators if engineer or WG haste-on-use trinket). If you are trying to pull off a kill in that sequence, the consequences of executing an AB3-MBAM-ABar in under 7 seconds can be devastating when paired with other burst classes (rogue/destro lock/elemental shaman).

The World of Warcraft Armory
getting 800 points a week(sitting on 700 after buying haste OH this week) and having issues deciding on priority of my purchases. started pushing rating halfway through last season so don't have much furious lieing around bar my old staff.
Main issue i'm having is deciding the wieght i place on the stat spellpenetration(130 is my aim to cover shaman, paladin and mages) I don't currently have penewand(35 pene) and feel perhaps saving for rel chest/fur shlders(3s arn't quite good enough for 2k yet) could be better stat gains.
Issue is i'm sitting on 100 pene, Was thinking of removing some gems and going down to 75(covers druids, and uses up worthless blue spots) pene and then buying pene OH(67 pene) & haste OH, subbing in peneOH for teams that have mage/shaman/paladin.

Did the math on all the loses gains depending on which item i purchase and i'm still not sure, i don't feel the 30 pene i'm missing is game breaking, I don't get resisted but there is slight dmg lose.

As you can probally tell i'm quite confused, i'm considering regemming as i update my gear. most of the gems i cut out will become +12sp+10haste. so any ideas on item purchase order would be good

Druid won't get sapped(treeform), so most likely you'll be sap target theres 2 options to avoid this either get into combat(icelance) or invis and stand near your druid wait for the rogue to open then frostnova->deepfreeze->cone of cold->poly and peel off your druid. IF your the target most likely they open with garrot, let your barrier shatter and root them try get a quick deepfreeze in when this happens, most rogues will trinket now your frostnova. this is followed by cloak or vanish(always block the cloak of shadows) if its a vanish try blizzard/ae them out.
The idea with rogues is survivie the cooldowns and then kill them once cloak and vanish are gone you win.
urge double post didnt know how to quote in an existing comment

Not entirely sure who you're fighting, since the only Mages I've faced so far in Arenas are deep arcane or deep frost, and the greater majority have the talent. That said, not too many Mages think to switch to Mage Armor instead of Molten Armor in a caster-heavy fight, so you probably CAN get away with it. Hell, I'm still working on my own reflexes of doing it.

With the resilience and gear changes, gearing does change a little. For slots other than cape and neck, haste had to come from Wintergrasp gear, which loses feasibility as your rating increases. Now that the amount of haste on gear and the availability of haste/resilience gear is boosted your given targets are certainly what to aim for. Because of the crit reduction available to foes through resilience and our Shatter talent, Frost Mages have all the more reason to focus on Haste over crit. Strictly speaking, your opponent won't have the same ability to devalue your haste as they do your crit. In terms of gemming, I definitely focus on Spellpower, Haste, and SPen/Stamina, although enchanting is pretty mindless (spell-power out the wazoo, Tuskaar's, Stats to chest). As others have mentioned, that seems to be the new road for Arcane as well, making gear advice similar if not identical.

The problem I'm finding is actually the issue of haste vs spellpower instead of worrying about crit. Obviously, solid overal damage throughput matters in Arena, but both Frost and Arcane take advantage of procs, trinkets, and Icy Veins to create a solid burst period. Timing these can make or break a match. So what I'm worried about is what are the best options in the trinket slots? What I've been using and has worked very well at pre-1500s are the Spellpower version of the CC-break trink and the Platinum disks of Sorcery. With Relentless Medallions, Battlemasters, and the haste WG available, where are we getting the most bang for our buck? Does it depend on our current gear level and haste level, or should we just go: "New Medallion, Cooldown-trinket X, end of story"?

My own experience so far has yielded the result that this depends more on your team composition than actual gear because of how long you can expect a burn window to be open and the casting time you can count on exploiting from it. Just with the difference between having played with a Disc and Ret in 3s, a Ret in 2s, and now another Frost Mage in 2s, tweaking your amount of haste is the difference between kill-shot before heal and cursing about 1/10th of a second.

i would of really said the Glyph of Polymorph, but thats depending if your running with a rogue, or sumone who leaves dots/poisons/any type of damage over time effect, but and agen i could be wrong but thats just what i would assume.

So being this i would run Glyph of Polymorph, Glyph of ice barrier, Glyph of Evocation, so i could either decide poly or sumthing else to your advantage like icelance glyph or something along those lines, theres a few different options to pick from, i guess its what suites your playing style the most.

So I made a team with another frost mage (I am frost too) our spec is frost/arcane with toument the week and improved counterspell.
We lost some couple of matches so we tryed other way to win: We tryed to pull all our cd's, he deep freezes and the he is dead :P

But I was wondering shoud we keep play like that? Like pull all our cd's and nuke one target. Because we're with 1350 rating, not as hard as 1500+ I guess.

Thanks for the help =)

Ice Lance is not a pvp glyph, do you see why?

I'd run Glyph of Evocate, Glyph of Ice Barrier, and Glyph of Polymorph/Icy Veins. Like they said before, Polymorph is usually best for if you're running with a rogue or other DoTer... I like Icy Veins for the fact that it becomes useful in World PvP and BG PvP a lot more. I play a human, so I already have Every Man For Himself, but I never turn down a little more help with getting away from melee.

For Deep Frost, I almost can't see running without Evocation and Ice Barrier glyphs. The third option would depend on team composition, but solid choices are Polymorph, Icy Veins, Mana Gem (if you find you need a small mana boost but are otherwise over or under manaed). The thing about the Water Elemental is that now it's changing on us...we can have a perma pet on a long cooldown OR we can have freezes. I'm personally leaning towards keeping the freezes, because the extra Frozen/AoE shots really do matter.

Deep Freeze is only usable on a frozen target, so you can't hit an off target unless you have them frozen already. I think you might be better off just using Winters Chill for your crit debuff, while I think that the additional 3% crit is probably nice, the survivability afforded to you by Frozen Core seems better.

thanks for suggestions, i may taken frozen core into consideration,
Well i have winter's chill in the equation if you checked the link, other opinions on the 6% from frozen core?

also: Are you sure you couldn't use deep freeze on target of choice after proccing Fingers of Frost? Fingers of frost reads "...which treats your next 2 spellcasts as if the target were frozen."

Posting to confirm that as long as you have the FoF buff, you can use it on a target that is not currently frozen. How else would you ever be able to use it on raid bosses? You can also use deep freeze the same way you would for a shatter combo, spamming it before your second frostbolt so that you get the crit bonus on frostbolt as well as the stun.

I am a rogue with a froost mage as my partner not that it matters much but my partner refuses to use polymorph in pvp is there any obvious reason not to use it and I'm just missing it or is it something he should spam

you need to find a new partner if he's refusing to use one of the best CC in pvp.

Iam having Focus Deepfreeze, however i rarely use it (cause anythign else having ready). Its something u use when u are going for a kill, and have nothing left like counter or sheep is on DR. Going for a Deepfreeze on your killtarget should be the common way. However iam pretty sure top mages focus deepfreeze rarely too.