This is probably a stupid question, but... of the epic honor reward items, do most people go for the Silk (itemized with spell crit) or the dreadweave (puts spellcrit points into stats and damage)?

Im using staff now and in s3 when the staff is going to get more spell penetration that I would see reasonable. Im taking 1h+off hand. Now that will drop the crit rating quite much.

This if just personal view but I reckon that crit isnt wasted even with the resilience. Bursting with fn fbolt lance combo will be whole lot more easier with 20% crit rating.

I'm still not sure what to pick up, dropping 46(?) crit rating by taking the 1h/OH over the staff is no joke. The hit differential isn't too hard to make up for, so who knows. I guess it'll probably come down to which graphic looks cooler.

Spell penetration. 35 of spell penetration is completely useless in my eyes. When the new vindicators ring will come you'll have 24 spell penetration from rings. Then asuming 17/0/44 you'll receive 10 more from talents. Now that 34 spell penetration combine the staff and 69. Now im honestly wondering where do you ever need that kind of amount of spell penetration? MH+OH will be more dmg more hit more resilience and the downside will be less crit and spell penetration.

I know some spell pene would be okish but since you cannot really pack loads of frost resistance in arenas its more or less useless to pick that stat up. Even as staves look cooler than daggers...

It almost completely removes the frost resist of a felhunter demo lock. Unless they have a druid.

Paladin frost aura , frost resistance totem , demo lock with fel out.
and in lesser effect - mage with ice armour , druid buff.

Not really, Rank 1 FB is very useful in 2v2, even useful for Warlock pets to help your healer get a moment of drinking with low mana cost for yourself (when they don't resist). Being able to snare from a safe position in 3v3 is also very useful. I run a druid/lock/mage 3v3 and I use it a LOT, since mana is so important in that makeup. It allows me to snare and immediately pull LOS.

I guess I was thinking of 5v5 admittedly. I don't doubt it has stronger functionality in 3v3/2v2 (though 2v2 numbers wouldn't imply any kind of mage dominance).

I have never seen a mage with dreadweave.

Veteran's Dreadweave Belt
128 Armor
+45 Stamina
+30 Intellect

+31 Resilience
+36 Spell Damage

Veteran's Silk Belt
128 Armor
+39 Stamina
+27 Intellect

+27 Spell Critical
+26 Resillience
+32 Spell Damage

So there are the stats. Looking at them you gain and loose:

+6 Stamina | +60 Hit Points |
+3 Intelllect | +45 Mana |
-27 Spell Critical | Apprx 1.5% crit |
+4 Spell Damage
+5 Resillience
(Decrease chance enemy will score a critical hit on you by 0.126%)
(Reduce damage taken from critical strikes by 0.253%)
(Reduce damage taken from perriodic damage by 0.126%)

So you gain 18 points spread among your stats at the cost of 27 points in Spell Crit, and the above listed are the gains. It really just comes down to what you personally want. For some people that little extra stamina and resillience is more important then just over 1% chance to crit. Don't feel out of place if you think the Dreadweave looks more appealing, I've seen more then a few Mages rock the lock loots.

I'm confused at people posting anything other than 17/0/44 for arena... there really isn't anything else viable at high levels of play for mages. Looking at the numbers over at geekboys.org, over 50% of 1900+ mages are 17/0/44, with the next closest spec being 10/48/3, which is almost certainly the armory picking up PvE respecs.

Spec aside, a gear question:
For a mage just hitting 70 now, which pieces of gear (honor and arena) would you recommend to pick up first and why? In other words, what are the highest priorities?

So far I can think of:
1. PvP Trinket
2. Season 2 Ring (since it'll be worn with the Season 3 ring)
3. Season 2 Neck, Season 2 Cape (minor upgrades in Season 3
4. Season 3 Bracers
5. Season 1 Arena Weapon for Honor
6. Season 1 Arena Gloves (for the bonus)

What else would you recommend, and why? Also, are there any 'close' PvE-obtainable items I should look into?

Warlocks

I don't feel that any more needs to be said on the value of spell penetration, really.

Never use honor to buy anything that could be gotten with arena points, is my best advice. It hurts a lot in the long run. But most people hate honor farming, so eh. Make sure you can get the new S3 gloves immediately, the bonus is very very much better, and try to get 4 pieces of arena gear as soon as possible (in season 3).

17/0/44 is not my build of choice for pvp. I'd rather get impact for suped-up molten armor, dump the rest into frost, and just give up on killing druids.

As far as PvE items, you can badge grind for the 60 badge cloak, the 41 badge trinket (I favor this over the admittedly yet untried 75 badge, 30k honor life giving gem trinket)., the 20 badge wand (good pvp stats with a blue gem slot). I would consider the cloak and trinket to be "best available" for their slot.

On the topic of the 75 badge LGG trinket, I don't think it's very necessary for mages in common situations. You're always going to want your faction trinket to start with, and we just don't tank enough in normal arena play to make that extra life at the cost of 75 badges worthwhile. The Icon or the new ZA trinket will give more utility and burst with the on use abilities.

And Vontre, do you really think the glove bonus is that good? I just bought the s2 gloves and I'll be sad if I need to get s3 right off the bat (even though I only bought these to keep from wasting points, and I'll have the points back on Tuesday, so I won't be too sad )

50% pushback resist on polymorph? Yes I do.

I have to agree. I really can't explain the popularity of 17/0/44. 17 points is a stiff price to pay for what I view as a crutch talent. People get laughed at for going 61 points into Frost, but the truth is it's hard to find bad talents in the Frost tree. Everything prior to Imp. CS in Arcane is filler or has some equivalent in Frost.

Like you said, if you look closely there are several top-tier arena mages with deep Frost/Impact variants. Molten Armor with Impact is far superior to Frostbite and Ice Armor against melee opponents. Against everyone else it's a toss up. If you're crippled/hamstrung you're still in melee range for a second or two after a frostbite proc, and often that's all they need. The snare on Ice Armor is often redundant with your other snares. I haven't experienced DR with Impact but in theory you could switch at that point. The other 12 points buys you some extra survivability and/or efficiency in Frost.

If you're speced for dueling I can understand. For arena, I rely on my partner to make up for my deficiency with druids and priests. Unless you're playing mage/healer in 2s, but that's generally a doomed makeup these days.

Just in case you haven't seen it yet:

From Kalgath

It's a deliberate change. We initially felt like it was too quick at 30s and decided to test it out at 45s, but after playing with it for a while we felt like it opened mages to focus fire a little too much so we decided to keep it at 30s. It's worth pointing out that making changes like this and later un-doing them is not at all uncommon, it's just most of you generally don't see that process in action since it often happens before the patch even gets to the PTR.

Since I'm here, I'll also make a small pre-emptive strike against the incoming "what about other mage concerns!" replies I'm about to get and say the following.

Two things we'll be making improvements to in the near future (although these aren't likely to make it in on time for 2.3) are having iceblock be trainable (to make sure all mages have it as a tool for pve encounters and to open up other trees as being more viable options for pvp), and to-be-finalized improvements to mana issues in longer fights.

We do plan to buff mana gems, although I don't see that as a "fix", just an improvement that needs to be made regardless.

The mana is the actuall problem , not the ice block itself , to compete we need ~4k mana gems + much better mana regen or way to get mana outside the 8s_stand_still_and_get_interrupted_evocation (i didnt say life tap but you got me :P)

If i had way to get more mana midfight while i move i would play fire without problem , or elementalist.
But once the game goes to "lets see who will mana burn/outlast" ... mage class loses directly.
If they correct the mana gain in a reasonable amounts ... eh wild dreams.

Just make evocation work like mage invisibility. If anyone does damage to you while the buff/debuff is ticking mana for you then it goes away. You can run around los and be fine. That or have it work like innervate (being dispellable).

In my opinion as a rogue and mage, if they do make IB trainable, cold snap needs to swap places with where Ice Block was in the Frost tree. I was never really sure why Snap was so low in the tree in the first place, spend 11 in frost so you can snap frost nova or cone of cold? Giving all mages ice block would be a great game change, giving all pvp mages snap+block for only 11 points investment in frost is out of hand. Unless they decide to go back to a longer hypothermia debuff.

Perhaps they've just realized that no matter it's placement in the tree, Iceblock was needed for mage survivabilty in PvP. Much like CloS is for rogues. While I agree Cold Snap -might- be to low in the tree now, it's certainly not powerful enough to justify a 21 point talent.

Well the power of Snap clearly increases the more you invest into Frost. It's an 11 point talent now, which gives you a reset on Frost Nova and Cone of Cold. 10 more points gets you 2 Ice blocks, 2 quick novas and the useless 2 CoC. 10 more points and you get Ice Barrier, while not often used to turn the tides of battle, a good Frost Mage will use Nova and Barrier in succession while trying to put themselves in an offensive position, so nova-barrier then the eventual ice block to snap gives you another barrier, which is quite nice. And 10 more points gets you the pet, which is the huge offensive boom for Frost Mages combined with cold snap, particularly when not being focused.

So taking Ice Block out of the equation, you throw off many of the other frost talents as arguably the strongest combination of snap+talent is Cold Snap+Ice block, followed closely by Snap+Elemental. 21 point talents for most generally are generally pretty damn strong, for a mage to have 2 8 second full immunities and a 41 point non frost talent (or heavy investment in Arc/Fire for other key talents) I think 21 points is a balanced investment.