WoW forums.. (& also a mage talent question :) ).

Can't seem to login & post on the WoW-EU forums :| .. if I login it just comes up as anom? & won't let me post.. strange.

Anyway I was trying to ask :

"
I've read quite a few guides on the talent builds for mages etc. and eventually decided on the talents that suited my play style best..

I'm currently lvl40 and have spent:

Arcane Talents (16 points)

# Arcane Focus - 5/5 points
# Arcane Concentration - 5/5 points
# Improved Arcane Explosion - 5/5 points
# Evocation - 1/1 point

Fire Talents (15 points)

# Impact - 5/5 points
# Ignite - 5/5 points
# Incinerate - 2/2 points
# Burning Soul - 3/3 points


The trouble is; once I have Improved Scorch I can get Critical Mass .. hence spending 23 points in fire talents
Now to get Fire Power (and thus finally Combustion) I need 25 points spent in the Fire tree :| ..

What should I spend the other two points on? I was thinking perharps 2/3 on improved flamestrike? (for 10% more crit chance.. seems ok)..
Or perharps sacrafice the two points I was saving for improved mana shield to get 3/3 imp flamestrike & blastwave.. (I've just thought of this now and it's seeming like a good idea..)

The other arcane spell I plan to get is imp. counter spell.

Or have I completely gone for a rubbish tree? :)
"

Thought somebody here might be able to help me out :)

Cheers.

I don't under stand where your going with your talent points. To get combustion you need to use 31 points in fire. Plus you haven't used any points on Improved Fireball(reduce casting time) or Flame Throwing (extended distance) which i found damn useful. And no Pyro blast :eek: Pyro Blast + Combustion is awesome.

Personnally i never used any points in Arcane until i had combustion. And improved Arcane explosion is just a waste of talent points (imho) Evocation is useful, but i never used it till i reached lvl60. When your doing high level instances you have to deal with large mobs, so running out of mana mid fight happens a lot. During normal questing i never had this problem and used water/food all the time. At lvl 40 its a tad wasteful of a talent point.

My current Talent build (fire)

Improved Fireball 5/5
Impact 5/5
Ignite 2/5
Flame Throwing 2/2
Burning Soul 3/3
Pyroblast 1/1
Incinerate 2/2
Improved Fireward 2/2
Critical Mass 3/3
Firepower 5/5
Combustion 1/1

Arcane

Arcane Focus 5/5
improved Arcane Missiles 5/5
Wand Specialization 2/5 I use my wand a lot.
Arcane Concentration 5/5
Evocation 1/1
Improved Counterspell 2/2

My reasoning with the fireball is 0.5 is hardly anything & I tend to use scorch pretty much all of the time (stacking up to the +10% makes it pretty good too.. also likely to get clearcast from it and then I'll use a higher mana cost spell, such as arcane mis. or something). Pyroblast with its huge cooldown + long cast I also didn't see the point of, doesn't suit my playstyle either I think.
Evocation has saved my life a number of times so I think it has come in very useful :) (especially when somebody tries to gank me when I've ran out of mana).

I used to have flamethrowing (I've reset); but only found it useful in the early levels.. as I said I don't use fireball very often & found myself not actually using the extra distance often when I did.

As for improved arcane explosion; well IAE is a must have! I can do 20-25k exp/hr with it (14-18 mobs at once) & also is great for weakening/killing groups of horde that jump me all the time.

Pyroblast is used as the opening salvo. Does a greater amount of damage, plus when stacked with Combustion (100% Crit) its normally a good start. (Unless the buggers resist). I've never used Pyroblast during a fight nor would i ever.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Starburn

The trouble is; once I have Improved Scorch I can get Critical Mass .. hence spending 23 points in fire talents
Now to get Fire Power (and thus finally Combustion) I need 25 points spent in the Fire tree

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As i said in my first post, i don't understand where your going with your talent points. Fair enough on the Improved Arcane Explosion. But your not going to get Combustion without spending 31 points, which means specialising in fire, so i'm interested in where your going to spend the extra points.

Ok heres the whole (lvl60) tree I thought of after figuring I needed the extra points in fire.. then decided to drop the two points from mana shield and just finish off the imp. flamestrike & get blastwave.

I'm thinking it seems ok.

Arcane Talents (18 points)

Arcane Focus - 5/5 points
Arcane Concentration - 5/5 points
Improved Arcane Explosion - 5/5 points
Evocation - 1/1 point
Improved Counterspell - 2/2 points


Fire Talents (32 points)

Impact - 5/5 points
Ignite - 5/5 points
Improved Flamestrike - 3/3 points
Burning Soul - 3/3 points
Incinerate - 2/2 points
Improved Scorch - 5/5 points
Critical Mass - 3/3 points
Fire Power - 5/5 points
Combustion - 1/1 point


As for pyroblast again; well that would mean >10mins between fights & I also rarely get attacked by one person at a time.. as I said I'm thinking it seems to suit my playstyle I pretty much never solo (my housemates play WoW) & I use AoE a fair bit..

i would say that arcane and fire are great for PVE but for instances ... frost all the way, baby, especially in molten core :)

I consider Pyro useless without POM. For a combustion build I'd leave it out.
Flame throwing rocks. It affects all fire spells, and the boost on scorch and fire blast is very very useful. I'd drop burning soul for it if I were you.
Improved mana shield is pretty much useless, if you want to burn more points in arcane.
Improved counterspell is a good choice, definitely keep that.

BTW the build above you only have 50 points spent - you get 51. Planning to pick up blastwave with the spare?

Improved mana shield isn't bad in WSG - though I guess if you're getting ganked you're getting ganked

Ive gotta choose a proper build still, got kinda a mix of all atm

Imp mana shield doesn't really do anything useful is the problem. It's no real gain over normal mana shield, the saving is so minimal it's irrelevant. What is nice is the PvP gloves which give 285 extra absorb on mana shield.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Butcher

I consider Pyro useless without POM. For a combustion build I'd leave it out.
Flame throwing rocks. It affects all fire spells, and the boost on scorch and fire blast is very very useful. I'd drop burning soul for it if I were you.
Improved mana shield is pretty much useless, if you want to burn more points in arcane.
Improved counterspell is a good choice, definitely keep that.

BTW the build above you only have 50 points spent - you get 51. Planning to pick up blastwave with the spare?

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yes :)
Like I said I didn't notice the extra distance with flame throwing (not unless I was attacking first so could keep on the edge of the distance).. as for burning soul I couldn't live without it.. I don't get all these people saying it's useless because a good mage keeps his distance - thats practically impossible I always get agro on me esp. when taking on groups of mobs..
and in PVP it stops spellcasters & melee (when they eventually reach you) interrupting your spells all the time?
Once frost nova is on it's cooldown period - how do you stay away? :/

edit: unless I drop imp. flamestrike and blastwave; go for flamethrowing - then it gives me two points left over for something else random :)
Not sure if I'd use imp. flamestrike/blastwave much (don't tend to use flamestrike atm.. more IAE/Blizzard for some reason).

How to stay away:
Frost nova (obviously)
Blink
Frostbolt
Cone of cold
Ice Armour

Why not use burning soul:
If a melee is on you, you're dead so fast the lack of interrupts is irrelevant. You need to get away from them straight away, not stand there trying to cast a fireball.
If a caster is on you then spamming instants and counterspelling them are going to be more effective than trying to nuke through their attacks.
For mobs, generally you'll only be attacking multiple mobs with AE, and they're pretty much all instant (IAE, blastwave, CoC). Single mobs can be killed fast enough that a single nova is sufficient.

I haven't found once a melee is on me that I'm dead /that/ fast.. the lack of interrupts helps (and I use scorch over fireball).. as for spamming instants - what instants? fireblast with it's cool down I can't exactly spam... counterspelling also cooldown..
I agree with attacking multiple mobs; but single mobs a single nova is rarely sufficient for me.. they tend to break it on the first hit.. so then they approach & the burning soul comes in handy for spamming scorch... (with impact means they get stunned fairly often too)..

Maybe I'm looking at it all wrong I know :/ but it's the way I've played until lvl41 up to now lol...

Melee becomes much more dangerous at level 60 - you'll have about 3000-4000 hp...

Warriors can hit for 1k+ with mortal strike, while also getting auto-attacks. It doesn't take many of them and you're face down. You can't afford to be up close to a warrior.
Rogues in melee will quickly build combo points, which you really don't want - a 5 point eviscerate can easily crit for 1500+. Also, if you stand next to a rogue casting they're likely to kick you which is basically counterspell. Goodbye entire fire line for 6 seconds.

By spamming instants I mean using all your different instas in turn. I generally only cast at other casters if they're a sheep or counterspelled. The rest of the time you're going to be better off rushing them and offloading all your different instants. Don't forget IAE is spammable for when the others are on cooldown.
Typical attack is along the lines of frostbolt/fireball while they're sheeped. Maybe a second if you think you can get away with it. Run at the other caster, counterspell, pom+pyro/fireball/frostbolt, fire blast, cone of cold, IAE to finish.

If you're going to cast anything while being attacked, it'll be scorch. And scorch is fast enough that interrupts aren't a large issue.

As for mobs, you should definitely be able to take them down with a single nova. It's a good idea to get plenty of distance after nova, I go for about 20 yards (basically run till fireblast goes red), that's enough to get off a couple nukes even after nova breaks. In a tight spot you can always blink for yet more range casting.

Hmm some good points..
It'll be a while until I can reset (again) though.. only got 20s after buying my mount lol :) and this reset will cost me 10g :|.. considering:
Impact/Ignite/Imp. Fireblast/Imp. Scorch/Incinerate/Crit Mass/Firepower/Combustion/Flame throwing

Tho I think my currently build will be ok for some time.. I like it.. alls I have to choose between is imp flamestrike + blastwave or flamethrowing with two points spare for something else (who knows.. maybe 2/5 on something).