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The Mage's talent trees are versatile enough to allow you to do a bit of everything with any build: PvE, PvP, solo grind, focus fire or AoE. However, if you truly want to excell in one of these fields, you'll have to go with a specific tree. Fire is very useful for burst damage and high DPS on single targets. Frost is great for AoE grinding if you chose the right talents and for end-game raids. Arcane excells as a support tree for either fire or frost, or if you go deep in arcane, you'll find that it's a very good PVP build.

The frost tree can be split up into two kinds of talents: talents that are good for single-target leveling and talents that are good for AoE leveling. This build is based on AoE, so we'll skip the single-target ones in frost. You can add points to them later if you think they're useful, or go in the arcane or fire trees for supporting talents.

Levels 10-14: Improved Frostbolt 5/5

Levels 15-16: Improved Frost Nova 2/2

Levels 17-19: Permafrost 3/3

Level 20: Cold Snap 1/1

Levels 21-23: Improved Blizzard 3/3

Level 24: Elemental Precision 1/3

Levels 25-26: Arctic Reach 2/2

Levels 27-29: Frost Channeling 3/3

Level 30: Ice Block 1/1

Levels 31-33: Improved Cone of Cold 3/3

Level 34: Elemental Precision 2/3

Levels 35-36: Ice Floes 2/2

Level 37: Elemental Precision 3/3

Levels 38-39: Piercing Ice 2/3

Level 40: Ice Barrier 1/1

Level 41: Piercing Ice 3/3

Levels 42-46: Arctic Winds 5/5

Levels 47-49: Empowered Frostbolt 3/5

Level 50: Summon Water Elemental 1/1

As you can see, we took all the nice AoE frost talents and skipped the ones that give you +crit chance or increase your crit damage, since they're more useful in single-target leveling builds (remember, Blizzard doesn't crit). You also need to avoid Frostbite, since it ruins your entire AoE grinding routine: frost nova mobs -> blink out of danger -> blizzard -> blizzard -> cone of cold -> frost nova -> blizzard -> blizzard etc. With frostbite, you won't be able to control all the mobs into one spot and one will slip, hitting you and interrupting your Blizzard, so it's a big no no.

As for the other points, you could put them into Arcane to get Arcane Subtelty 2/2 and Arcane Concentration 5/5. If you can miss out on the Water Elemental, you could try speccing for Blast Wave in the fire tree, which will help your AoE damage, but you will lose the control bonus that the water elemental provides. Here's how the build could look like: Frost Mage AoE Leveling Build

This Frost build, unlike the AoE one, will focus on single-target Frostbolting enemies, so we'll take the talents that give you higher crit or damage. We can also take a few talents that were restricted for the AoE build because they would screw up with the AoE grinding techique (Frostbite for example). However, AoE is still possible with this build, but it requires more attention and it's not as efficient (you can't AoE as many mobs at the same time).

Levels 10-14: Improved Frostbolt 5/5

Levels 15-16: Improved Frost Nova 2/2

Levels 17-19: Frostbite 3/3

Level 20: Cold Snap 1/1

Levels 21-23: Piercing Ice 3/3

Level 24: Ice Shards 1/5

Levels 25-29: Shatter 5/5

Levels 30-31: Arctic Reach 2/2

Level 32: Ice Block 1/1

Levels 33-34: Ice Shards 3/5

Levels 35-39: Winter's Chill 5/5

Level 40: Ice Barrier 1/1

Levels 41-42: Ice Shards 5/5

Levels 43-44: Ice Floes 2/2

Levels 45-49: Empowered Frostbolt 5/5

Level 50: Summon Water Elemental 1/1

Once you're on top of the Frost tree, you could go back and take Elemental Precision and combine it with Arcane Subtelty for less resists, or go for a full Frost tree, taking Permafrost, Frost Channeling, Improved Cone of Cold and Arctic Winds. Here's the build at level 69: Frost Mage non-AoE Leveling Build

This fire build is based on getting as much spell damage and spell critical chance/damage beneath your fire spells. It's also an ok build for AoEing once youget Combustion and later on Dragon's breath, but its strenght lies in single-targeting your enemies down. One of the biggest problem with this spec is its mana consumption and inefficiency, so be prepared for longer downtimes (but then again you're killing mobs faster, so it balances things out).

Levels 10-14 : Improve Fireball 5/5
Levels 15-16 : Flame Throwing 2/2
Levels 17-19 : Ignite 3/5
Level 20 : Pyroblast 1/1
Levels 21-22 : Ignite 5/5
Levels 23-24 : Burning Soul 2/2
Levels 25-29 : Impact 5/5
Level 30 : Blast Wave 1/1
Levels 31-33 : Critical Mass 3/3
Level 34 : Improve Fire Blast 1/3
Levels 35-39 : Fire Power 5/5
Level 40 : Combustion 1/1
Levels 41-43 : Pyromaniac 3/3
Levels 44-45 : Molten Fury 2/2
Levels 46-47 : Improve Fire Blast 3/3
Levels 48-49 : Incinerate 2/2
Level 50 : Dragon Breath 1/1

Levels 51-55: Empowered Fireball 5/5

The reason you should take Empowered Fireball at level 51 or even later, is that you won't have that much spell damage gear on, until around levels 55-60. Some fire mages prefer to take Master of Elements for the mana regeneration, or Elemental Precision for the reduced resist chance on fire and frost spells, while others combine Elemental Precision with Arcane Subtelty for even less chance to resist. The build at level 63: Fire Mage Leveling Build

World of Warcraft Mage - Level 70 Builds

(10 Arcane / 48 Fire / 3 Frost)   This build is all about high DPS during raids and it's based around the Scorch debuff that gives the mob you're hitting fire vulnerability. Just do Scorch x 5 to get the full power of the debuff, then spam Firebolt (with Fireblasts in between when available) until the debuff is still on (and repeat the Scorching when it's out).   Like all fire builds that require you to spam, it is rather mana efficient, but Master of Elements + high crit gear will keep you in the fight. The build: Fire Mage Scorch PVE Spec

(10 Arcane / 51 Frost)   This deep Frost spec is second best for PVE DPS, right after the fire nuker one. However, it offers more survivability and mana efficiency so it's worth considering.   The 10 points in Arcane give you some mana efficiency as well, in the form of less resists and the free Clearcasting Frostbolt. You will also be able to hold your head up high in grinding and PVP, so this build is a little bit of everything for everyone: Deep Frost/Arcane Mage PVE Build

(40 Arcane / 21 Frost)   One of the good things about the Arcane tree for PVE is that its 41 talent, Slow, is almost useless in Raids (highly situational anyway) and is more of a PVP talent. This way you can take the good 21 talent in another tree, such as Ice Block in Frost.   High Int gear, combined with the Arcane Mind Mastery will boost your DPS a lot. Getting Shatter is situational and would be good for raid mobs, but raid bosses are usually immune to Freeze effects. Build: Arcane/Frost Mage PVE Spec

(17 Arcane / 44 Frost)   This PVP spec is based around getting two crucial talents in solo and group PVP: Improved Counterspell in Arcane and Water Elemental in Frost.   Combined with some good crowd controlling talents and high crits, this is one of the best PVP specs you'll be able to pick from. Here's how the build looks like: Frost/Arcane Mage PVP Spec

(17 Arcane / 44 Fire)   The main talents you'll be aiming for with this deep fire build are Dragon's Breath from your main talent tree and Improved Counterspell from your support Arcane tree. This is an awesome combination in PVP, however it requires a bit more focus than the Frost/Arcane spec mentioned above.   Since it's quite reliant on getting the first shot and doing your Pyro uninterupted, this is better played in solo PVP or 2v2 arenas than 3v3, 5v5 Arenas or Battlegrounds: Fire/Arcane Mage PVP Spec

(43 Arcane / 18 Fire)   This is a pure PVP Arcane spec that aims for Slow and Mind Mastery in the dominating talent tree (you'd better learn to use Slow properly if you want this spec to be effective btw) and Pyroblast in the support Fire tree.   This build can allow you to get single-targets down fast with Arcane Power and Presence of Mind + Pyro, but if the first two are on a cooldown...use that slow spell to run away :). Here's the build: Arcane/Fire Mage PVP Spec