Super Mega Awesome Mage Guide

So, just to elevate the level of discourse a bit, presenting.... the Super Mega Awesome Mage Guide. This is mainly going to be poking around at the talents and maybe a few critical builds.



Table of Contents (click to jump to the appropriate section)
1. Spells
2. Talents
3. Builds
4. Advanced
5. References



Spells

Fire
Fire is a mage's single-target DPS king.

Fireball - For the most of your career, unless you're exclusively Frost, this spell will be the meat of your DPS. It is the standard for mana efficiency and damage efficiency, and the damage over time component is useful against enemy rogues. However, this spell has a key weaknesses that you'll encounter as you progress; its cast time. Even with talents, the cast time is a monstrously slow 3 seconds. In PvE, this doesn't mean much except against huge numbers of nonelite mobs in instances (when by the time Fireball finishes casting your target is dead). In PvP, though, trying to cast anything this long in a 1 v 1 or small group encounter is tantamount to suicide.

Fireblast - I lied. This is actually the cornerstone of a Fire Mage's DPS. In fact, it's probably the cornerstone of any build. Instant damage every 8 seconds (up to every 6.5 seconds with talents). Useful in almost every single situation; in fact, the only situation in which you wouldn't use it is if you're up against fire immune monsters. Every build has a use for Fireblast; not only is it a huge DPS booster in PvE and a way to catch runners, it is also a core PvP spell, especially with certain talents.

Scorch - The most versatile nuke. While you may first question its usefulness when you first see it up for grabs (deals less DPS than a Fireball), it has many strengths that aren't immediately apparent. First, it is the most mana-efficient fire spell (except for extreme cases of Flamestrike). This means that in long instance fights, Scorch is sometimes a much better choice of chain casting than Fireball. (For example, if you find yourself running out of mana halfway into the fight from chain casting Fireballs, if you had been chain casting Scorch, not only would you be lasting a lot longer, you'd also end up doing much more damage and DPS in the end simply by outlasting Fireball.) Second, it is a very quick spell. 1.5 seconds is *fast*. And the usefulness of this speed is not just limited to PvP. Even with the Burning Soul talent, drawing aggro means the cast times of your fire spells will skyrocket with each hit you incur from enemies; a 1.5 second cast time means less exposure to enemy hits, which in turn means that you can finish dramatically faster than a 3 second Fireball while being pummeled by enemies, which in turn may mean you can outDPS a Fireball when taking a beating. Third, it is highly synergestic to talents. With Incinerate and Improved Scorch, Scorch can be one of your most crucial spells to use. Fourth, unlike Fireball, Scorch doesn't send out a projectile. In mass PvP, this is a boon; enemy players won't have an immediate way of determining your location by tracing back the trail of your fireball, and the explosion of a Scorch tends to draw less attention then that of a Fireball. In all, a very good spell and well worth your money (if you're fire spec-ing).

Flamestrike - You may think "gwah?" What is the role of Flamestrike? Blizzard is more mana efficient, and Arcane Explosion (with talents) deals more DPS. Flamestrike has two roles and importances, depending on the environment. In PvP, Flamestrike may in fact be the best Area of Effect spell at your disposal, especially with talents. Arcane Explosion tends to put you in suicide mode, and Blizzard requires channeling aka being a sitting duck for anyone who wants to get a free shot at you. Flamestrike gives you a spell that's much more mana efficient than Arcane Explosion that also is much safer to use. A 3-second cast versus an 8-second channel means you have fire-and-forget mobility. Being able to cast it from a range means you won't become an immediate target from charging into the fray spamming Arcane Explosion. In PvE, Flamestrike is a useful spell to use when you're not up against swarms of nonelite mobs; spamming Arcane Explosion against a group of elites is a surefire way to run out of mana fast and spend a lot of time being acquainted with a wand, not to mention draw a lot of aggro. Instead, Flamestrike is better suited for use with a Clearcast (more on that later) or even just as a mid-combat spell when the tanks have put up some aggro. Because it's not a channeled spell, taking on aggro and taking hits won't impact the damage efficiency at all, unlike Blizzard, which, if not used carefully, results in a spell that channels for 3 seconds. Just, for the love of god, DON'T chaincast this spell. A huge portion of the damage is done in the damage over time component, which does NOT stack upon itself with multiple castings. NOTE: Against 3 or more targets, Flamestrike is more damage efficient than any other non-talent-only fire spell.

Pyroblast - A talent-only spell. It deals around 50% more total damage over Fireball, although this number decreases if you get lots of +damage gear, since +damage gear affect Pyroblast and Fireball equally. Its 6 second cast time is prohibitive, and its 60 second cool down prevents chain casting. In fact, the sole use of a Pyroblast is as an opener. Much of the damage is dealt over time, so it's no use if you do the Pyroblast just as an enemy is about to die. More often than not, there are many talent builds designed to exploit the massive amount of damage this spell can do, whether it is Arcane Power or Presence of Mind.

Blastwave - A talent-only spell. More damage efficient than Flamestrike, and more burst DPS damage than Arcane Explosion. Its 45 second cooldown limits it to essentially one cast per fight. A *very* versatile spell: this means you either have a burst spell to use in addition to Arcane Explosion, a fast finisher, or a heavily damaging snare.  It's a bit suicidal to use (running into a group of enemies), but, again, being an instant cast AoE *and* a snare is quite devastating.  Be warned, though, its large radius means it can easily break sheep in group PvP, which only results in you getting yelled at.  With proper use, though, Blastwave is easily one of the most powerful talent/spells you can pick up.

Combustion - A talent-only spell. Hmm... not *that* great. I mean, sure, it's great since you have a 100% chance of critting on your next fire spell (which can be devastating with Blastwave or Flamestrike or even Pyroblast), but this necessitates you maxing out Ignite to get full benefit out of it (which you should probably do anyway). However, it's just that Presence of Mind is so much better than Combustion (unless you're going for a Blast Wave build) that you'd rarely want to get this.  Keep in mind, too, that Combustion is going to be letting you do what already happens close to 20-25% of the time with end-game gear and a heavy fire build.


Frost
Frost deals much less DPS than Fire. In fact, it is probably on par with a pet-less Warlock in some cases. However, it makes up for this with control elements, mana efficiency, crit-burst capability, and an amazingly synergestic tree.

Frostbolt - The meat of any frost build. Even non-frost users should use the level 1 Frostbolt simply for a 1.5 second snare. This is the most mana-efficient single-target spell a mage has at his disposal (with talents).

Frost Nova - A *very* useful spell for a mage's survivability. There has been some argument as to whether higher ranks allow for a higher chance that the enemies won't break the snare when hit, but point is, with a crit-Frost build, having them remain snared after you do your burst Frost DPS is almost pointless, and in any group situation, the snare is going to be breaking regardless due to the pounding damage your other group members will be doing. Regardless, this spell is *essential* to the mage. This buys you up to 8 seconds to cast new spells or heal up, and for a frost build, is what gives you the meat of your burst DPS.
Note:  I can't exactly say yet, but it seems that the only reasons to use higher versions of this spell are for smaller resist rates and for better root-holding against damage.  Both of these are anecdotal and not easily testable, so decide for yourself.

Cone of Cold - If you're a dedicated frost build, Cone of Cold may replace Fireblast as the meat of your DPS, although it's highly dependent on talents. Even if you don't invest in the right talents, it's worth getting atleast rank one of this spell to get an instacast snare (albeit with a funky area of effect). Many frost builds rely on Frost Nova to freeze enemies, then a blast of Cone of Cold to deal most of its burst damage (allowing for certain frost talents that allow for increased critical strike chance against frozen targets).
Note:  With investment in +damage gear, Frostbolt becomes much better for Frost Nova-Shatters than Cone of Cold, simply because Frostbolt gets a *much* larger benefit from +damage since Cone of Cold is an Area of Effect attack.

Blizzard - Raw AoE power. It requires adept aggro management to last any decent amount of time, but if you can get the full 8 seconds off, Blizzard is the most mana efficient area of effect spell at your disposal. In fact, if you hit 3 mobs for a full 8 seconds and have the Frost Channeling talent (up to 15% reduction in forst spell mana cost), Blizzard becomes *the* most mana-efficient spell *period*. Even with just 2 targets for a full 8 seconds, you've already exceeded the mana efficiency of the vast majority of other spells (Scorch is around 1.8 damage/mana allowing for some talents, which is the best for Fire; Blizzard against 2 targets is around 2 damage/mana). However, if you're not careful with aggro, you'll end up getting hit, losing channel time, and Blizzard will become a very lackluster spell. The usefulness of Blizzard is highly dependent on the skill of caster. Oh yeah, with the right talents, Blizzard is also insanely good for PvP. Slowing a group of melee down to 25% their normal walk speed is sheer power.
REMEMBER: Hitting anything more than one target for the full 8 seconds makes Blizzard the most mana-efficient spell at your disposal with the exception of a Frostbolt (in which case you need to hit three targets to be more mana-efficient), although mana-efficiency drastically decreases if you get hit and lose cast time. In addition, whenever you're faced with multiple enemies, a full 8 second Blizzard is strictly more mana efficient than any other area of effect option.

Ice Block - A talent-only spell. And what a spell! AMAZING. You can use this no matter what crap you're in. Counterspelled? Curse of Agony-ed? Sheeped? Hit Ice Block and watch it all go away and become immune to anything for 10 seconds. Well, scratch that... immune to everything but healing. That's right. In a world of trouble in an instance? Pop Ice Block. Not only will you shift away aggro and be immune to damage for 10 seconds, you'll also give your healer a chance to heal you. The *only* thing that can stop an Ice Block is a very specific type of silence which actually causes all your spells to be on cooldown (like Kick or Improved Counterspell). Silence (which is a debuff) will not stop Ice Block from happening. Plus, it's dirt cheap to cast... in fact a joke. 15 mana? Come on!  Just be warned, Ice Block doesn't make you *lose* aggro, it only makes the monsters on you go to the next person on their hate list.  If no one else picks up aggro before Ice Block wears off, the monsters will just come back to you.

Cold Snap - A talent-only spell. The only frost spells with cooldowns are Ice Block, Ice Barrier, Cone of Cold, and Frost Nova. Cold Snap itself is on a really long cooldown, so it's a good OMG-I'M-GOING-TO-DIE spell. It's also ridiculously good for winning impossible odds in PvP encounters. The most popular ForTheWin(tm) sequence is Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Cold Snap, Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Arcane Explosion, Arcane Explosion, Arcane Explosion... until everything is dead.

Ice Barrier - A talent-only spell. Kind of like a priest's Power Word: Shield except on a long cooldown. Good for winning impossible odds, especially in conjuction with Cold Snap.


Arcane
Arcane is mainly about utility. Its two offensive spells fill two very distinct spots in a mage's role.

Arcane Missiles - Almost useless without the requisite support talent to make this channeled spell uninterruptible. Its main role for much of the game is to give you something on which to use your Clearcasts. For high-level instances when Fire isn't useful and you can't freeze enemies to boost your Frost DPS, Arcane Missiles are actually your best DPS bet, even if it's not as mana efficient as Frost. For PvP, it can be a good way to deal solid damage against enemy casters, especially if you've had your main source of damage (like Fire) negated via countermagic/silencing or resistances.

Arcane Explosion - Oft cited as the best Mage spell EVAR. Sure damage efficiency may be the crapper (you need to hit three targets just to get around Fireball-with-talents efficiency), but for sheer DPS, you can't beat Arcane Explosion-with-talents. Even against a single target, you outDPS anything (however mana inefficient it is).

Dampen/Amplify Magic - I mention these despite them not being damage-based or talent-derived simply because they're very important to address. Dampen Magic should be cast on any casters or low-HP classes (probably Rogues); the loss in healing efficiency is made up for by the fact that they have little HP to heal anyway. In fact, this is such an important case that it's basically good to always keep this up on casters. Amplify Magic should be put on Tanks; with rare exception most instances are melee/physical heavy in terms of damage recieved, so the extra exposure to spellcasting is more than cancelled out by the increased healing efficiency.

Presence of Mind - A talent-only spell. Probably the most powerful spell in the mage's arsenal. Incredibly versatile and incredibly powerful. You can instacast some burst damage, whether it be a Fireball, Pyroblast, or even a Flamestrike. Or, you can instacast something to shift the battle position, like a Polymorph or a Frostbolt (for snaring). You can't get both Combustion and Presence of Mind, and unless your build depends on Combustion to shine, Presence of Mind is much greater than Combustion.

Arcane Power - A talent-only spell. It's interesting to note that this spell is almost entirely useless in PvE. It doesn't change your mana efficiency at all, just simply lets you frontload more of your damage (and draw more aggro). So, for any reasonable fight, you just go out of mana 35% faster and have to sit around longer, which means your DPS will essentially average out to be the same. This spell's pure purpose is to fight PvP battles. For 15 seconds you can frontload 35% more damage. Sure, if the battle had gone on for 20 seconds you would be out of mana and screwed, but you're dealing so much of your damage at the start that the burst DPS is enough to kill most enemy players, especially when combined with Pyroblast.



Talents
In general, the Mage's tree are so well-designed that there are hardly any bad choices, just difficult ones.

Fire Tree

Improved Fireball - When maxed out (5 levels), reduces cast time of Fireball by .5 seconds. May not sound like much, but that's a 16.67% increase in chain-casting DPS. Powerful for PvE, but 3 seconds is still too slow for PvP, so it really depends on your build.

Impact - When maxed out (5 levels), gives your fire spells a 10% chance to stun the target for 2 seconds. This is best used with fast casting spells, ie Scorch, to give the most number of times possible to proc Impact. Powerful for PvP, but it's only really useful for PvE if you're Scorch heavy. If you are, though, it shines (stuns interrupt enemy casting and prevent damage from being dealt).

Ignite - When maxed out (5 levels), an additional 40% of your Fire spells' critical hit damage is dealt over 4 seconds. Note that since this is 40% based off your critical damage and not your normal damage, it's actually a 60% increase off your normal damage. *Every* fire build should have this talent. Many fire talents are geared around crit chances, and this maximizes the long term DPS benefit you can get out of those talents.

Improved Fireblast - When maxed out (5 levels), reduces your Fireblast cooldown to 6.5 seconds. Unless you're really having to scrimp, this is a powerful talent that is almost required. Being able to spam Fireblast that much more is crucial, and in addition to increasing your overall DPS, will also prove to be useful when you need to get that last Fireblast in against a player or a running mob.

Flame Throwing - When maxed out (2 levels), gives an extra 6 yards to the max range of all your Fire spells.  A PvE intensive build can benefit from having a 41 yard Fireball, which puts the mage safely out of reach of many enemy area of effect spells. Otherwise, though, it's a very marginal benefit for PvE.  However, it does recieve special notice for some Battlegrounds situations.  Having that extra range means being able to nuke people from afar without them being able to respond very effectively.  A 36 yard Flamestrike is also very effective, and a 26 yard Fireblast is very powerful.

Incinerate - When maxed out (2 levels), gives your Scorch and Fireblast spells +4% chance to crit. Unless you have good reason not to, this is very important, even if you never use Scorch. With Ignite, 4% chance to crit translates into +4.4% damage over the long run, which is very nice to have even for just Fireblast.

Pyroblast - Gives you rank one of Pyroblast and lets you learn future ranks. Requires 5 levels of Improved Fireball. This talent is highly dependent on your build. Some people swear by it, others see it as useless. All depends on what you want to accomplish.

Improved Flamestrike - When maxed out (3 levels), gives your Flamestrike +15% chance to crit. This is good mainly for PvP AoE builds, or for ridiculously fire-intensive ones. This is a prerequisite for Blast Wave, so it might be worth investing just for that.

Burning Soul - When maxed out (3 levels), gives you a 65% chance of avoiding interruption when casting Fire Spells. This is actually a way to significantly increase DPS as well as PvP viability. When you get pummeled, so too does your DPS. Not anymore. Being able to avoid interruption when being hit means your spells will go off that much faster. Also, even with a short 1.5 second casting time for Scorch, getting it delayed even by a second or two can be fatal in PvP, so this is also good for that purpose.  Just be warned that this is more of a solo/small group PvP talent and not very good for larger scale Battlegrounds skirmishes.

Improved Scorch - When maxed out (5 levels), will give your Scorch spell a 100% chance to afflict the enemy with Fire Vulnerability, a debuff which increases Fire damage dealt to it by 2%; this debuff lasts 15 seconds and can stack up to 5 times. Interestingly, this is a very good PvE ability.  The more you Scorch an enemy, the closer and closer the damage bonus gets to a full 10%.  That extra 10% is huge for long battles (such as in Molten Core).  In fact, I attribute my ability to top DPS charts in Molten Core with Fire to this talent.  For PvP, this is more effective in solo/small group situations.  In Battlegrounds, you hit and enemy maybe twice, and someone else tends to do atleast a third of the damage, so for five talent points you get maybe an extra 80 damage per fight.

Improved Fire Ward - When maxed out (2 levels), your Fire Ward reflects 35% of damage absorbed. Truly a gimp talent; there are far better ways to spend 2 talent points in a tree such as this.

Critical Mass - When maxed out (3 levels), your Fire spells have +6% chance to crit. This belongs in any serious Fire build. Period.

Blast Wave - Gives you rank one of Blast Wave and allows for you to learn future ranks. The merits of Blast Wave are discussed above; if it's something you want, go ahead and get it, but you need to have a build that centers around it.

Fire Power - When maxed out (5 levels), your fire spells will deal +10% damage. If you're this far into the talent tree and don't get this, you need to have your head examined. Mandatory for any fire build.

Combustion - Gives you Combustion. Think long and hard about it. You can't have both Presence of Mind and Combustion, and Presence of Mind is ultimately the much stronger spell for most Fire builds.


Frost Tree

Improved Frostbolt - When maxed out (5 levels), reduces the cast time of Frostbolt by .5 seconds. Again, may not sound like much, but this is a 20% increase in chain-casting DPS. Since virtually all Frost builds use Frostbolt as their end-all weapon, this is mandatory if you're going down this tree.

Permafrost - When maxed out (5 levels), increases the chill time of your Frost spells by 3 seconds. Much less powerful than Improved Frostbolt, and heavily nerfed through patches. Most of the time you'll be chain-casting your spells, so the enemy will always be chilled anyway, and this talent doesn't help out Frost Nova. In addition, thanks to changes to Improved Blizzard, you don't need Permafrost anymore to make sure the enemies stay chilled throughout the entire duration of Blizzard. Its main use now is so that you have more running time after a Cone of Cold or so that you can keep enemies snared just a wee bit longer with Blizzard, but it's no longer as good as it used to be.

Ice Shards - When maxed out (5 levels), your Frost critical strikes do +100% damage. Part of the EssentialFrostTrio(tm). If you're seriously considering Frost in any way, even as just a minor, you need this. While not as powerful as Ignite (which gives you 60% more damage on your crits), Ice Shards is still a necessity for a Frost build's DPS. NOTE: Unlike in any other part of the game, the +100% does NOT stack with your existing critical damage for +150% total. It instead is a multiplier, so with this talent, your critical strikes do double damage instead of 50% more damage.

Winter's Chill - When maxed out (3 levels), further increases movement slowing effects by 10%. This is a great ability, but not essential. It couples well with Cone of Cold and Improved Blizzard; reducing movement speed from 50% and 35% to 40% and 25%, respectively, is massive, and has a far greater impact than reducing Frostbolt's 60% or Ice Armor's 70%. If you don't plan on heavily using Improved Blizzard, you can probably skip over this, if you need to.

Improved Frost Nova - When maxed out (2 levels), reduces the cooldown of your Frost Nova spell by 4 seconds. Doesn't sound like much, eh? However, when you realize that a huge portion of a typical Frost build comes from hitting frozen creatures (as you'll soon see), reducing the Frost Nova cooldown (which is your most direct way of freezing creatures) becomes essential. Plus, it's also a prerequisite for another part of the EssentialFrostTrio(tm).

Piercing Ice - When maxed out (3 levels), increases the damage your Frost spells do by 6%. This is actually nonessential unless you're doing an all-out or heavily invested Frost build. Most of your big numbers will be coming from critical hits, and if you're just seeking to improve your mana efficiency, Frost Channeling does that better. This can be, at best, frosting, but never the actual cake.

Cold Snap - Gives you Cold Snap. Get this. Period. It's just that good.

Improved Blizzard - When maxed out (3 levels), adds a chill effect to your Blizzard; each wave of Blizzard chills enemies for 1.5 seconds and reduces their movement speed to 35%. The strength of this talent rests on your build and your skill. It procs Frostbite, which is a double-edged sword. In many cases, in instances, this movement slowing ability is what you need to make sure enemies take the full 8 second damage when you start pulling aggro away from the tanks. For PvP, slowing melee down to 35% (25% with Winter's Chill) is truly devastating, although it requires some dangerous channeling.

Arctic Reach - When maxed out (2 levels), increases the range of your Frostbolt by 20% and the area of effect of your Frost Nova and Cone of Cold by 20%. The range increase for your Frostbolt isn't *that* great, although it's more useful than the Fire version of this talent, since the extra range means you can keep an enemy snared for that much longer. What's better is the Area of Effect increase. While still not that great, it's nice filler for a full Frost build.

Frost Channeling - When maxed out (3 levels), reduces the mana cost of your Frost spells by 15%. Simply an amazing talent! With this talent and Mage Armor, you'll be able to fling Frost spells all day, and Blizzard will become the most mana-efficient spell you have at your disposal for almost any multiple-target situation.

Shatter - When maxed out (5 levels), your critical strike chance against frozen targets with your Frost spells is +50%. Requires 2 levels in Improved Frost Nova. Part of the EssentialFrostTrio(tm) and incredibly powerful. If you don't think this is good, just try, one day, go out into Dun Morogh, train a few monsters together, then Frost Nova->Cone of Cold them. Watch the damage numbers fly.

Improved Frost Ward - Your Frost Ward restores 50% of Frost damage absorbed to your mana. This is in fact a worse talent than Improved Fire Ward, if that was possible. Frost damage is rarer than Fire, making this talent all that more situational.

Ice Block - Gives you Ice Block. This shouldn't even require thinking. Get it.

Improved Cone of Cold - When maxed out (3 levels), increases the damage of your Cone of Cold by 35%. Almost mandatory for all non-Improved Blizzard Frost builds, and even then you're giving up a lot of burst DPS by not taking this.

Frostbite - When maxed out (5 levels), gives your chill effects a 15% chance to freeze the target for 5 seconds. The final part of the EssentialFrostTrio(tm), although you can kinda do without it. Frost Nova will freeze enemies at will for you, but this will allow you to re-freeze enemies with a Frostbolt, Cone of Cold, or even your Ice Armor, giving you essentially a free crit every few freezes. Improved Blizzard will also benefit from this, but it's a double-edged sword. This will actually end up splitting enemies apart, making it harder for them to cluster (since not all will freeze, and if they do, not at the same time), so you may have to do without this if you like Improved Blizzard, although with proper targeting you can minimize this downside.

Ice Barrier - Gives you Ice Barrier. Unlike Combustion, it's not an almost entirely foregone conclusion. For PvP, Ice Barrier can be very powerful, if not as versatile as Presence of Mind, and this is a life saver for PvE, though not as much as Ice Block. It's worth the point, and you'll probably be able to sleep easily if you get this.


Arcane Tree

Arcane Subtlety - When maxed out (3 levels), reduces the threat generated by your Arcane spells by 40%. This is purely a PvE skill, and if you plan on only doing PvE, then this may be worth considering. However, this only affects your Arcane spells, and if you're spamming Arcane Explosion, you're going to get aggro no matter what, unless there's a concerted effort involving this and Blessing of Salvation (30% less threat). As for Arcane Missiles, with any decent tank, you won't have to worry about Arcane Missiles stealing aggro.
Note:  Arcane Subtletly becomes much more useful in far end-game instances, namely Blackwing Lair.  Also, if you don't have Blessing of Salvation (ie you're Horde, you punk), this can still be useful in places like Molten Core.

Arcane Focus - When maxed out (5 levels), reduces the chance an enemy can resist your Arcane spells by 10%. Almost useless in 99% of PvE since you shouldn't be fighting monsters high enough above you to resist your spells consistently. However, if you plan on doing Molten Core or future high-end raid instances in which you're fighting 63's and 62's with regularity, this translates into a significant ability to deal damage, since you'll either be flinging Frostbolts or Arcane Missiles (if you're fire specced), since the current high-end raids feature Fire resistance on a widespread basis. As for PvP, this can be both highly useful or absolutely useless.  Three points (6%) will take care of any possibility for a player to resist your Counterspells and Polymorphs, and a full five points (10%) will require any player to heavily stock up on Arcane Resistance to defend against your spells.  Then again, most battleground victories/losses don't matter *that* much on whether a given Polymorph or Counterspell worked.  Then again... if only you had gotten that sheep off... 

Improved Arcane Missiles - When maxed out (5 levels), gives you a 100% chance to avoid interruption when channeling Arcane Missiles. A very useful ability, since without it, your Arcane Missiles has the high risk of being almost useless upon a single hit. In fact, with this talent, you can be pummeled and still maintain a high DPS since you'll be able to get off uninterrupted damage.

Wand Specialization - When maxed out (5 levels), increase the damage you deal with wands by 25%. So, this is almost worthless. The only time you'll ever be using a wand is when you're out of mana. This may be useful for a Priest who can wand while regenerating mana after healing like mad, but this, in all honesty, is a waste of good talent space for a Mage.

Arcane Concentration - When maxed out (5 levels), gives you a 10% chance of entering a Clearcast state when using a damage spell; this state lasts for 15 seconds and reduces the mana cost of your next damage spell by 100%. At first glance, it may seem that this effectively means you're reducing the mana cost of your spells by 10%. You're wrong. It's much greater than that. When Clearcast procs, you should use a high-mana, high-damage spell, such as Blizzard, Arcane Missiles, or Flamestrike. This will let you get off huge amounts of damage for free, and works very well with cheap fast spells like Scorch or Improved Frostbolt, to get Clearcast to proc as many times per minute as possible. A *very* useful talent.

Improved Dampen Magic - When maxed out (2 levels), increases the effect of your Dampen Magic by 50%. Not that bad of a talent, but not that great either. At best filler. If this were for Amplify Magic, it'd be alot better, but as it stands, Dampen Magic is much more situationally beneficial than Amplify Magic.

Improved Arcane Explosion - When maxed out (5 levels), reduces the cast time of Arcane Explosion by 1.5 seconds, making it instant cast. This is *the* talent of the tree. For instances, most players will expect you to have this, because it's just that good. 

Evocation - Gives you Evocation, which can be used once every 10 minutes to give you 1500% normal mana regeneration for 8 seconds (channeled). This is also ridiculously good. You can live without it if you're a strong Frost build (due to huge mana efficiency), but otherwise, you'll find many cases in which you'll run out of mana in a boss fight or a brutal mob fight and need a quick refresher.

Improved Mana Shield - When maxed out (2 levels), improves Mana Shield efficiency such that you lose 1.6 mana per 1 damage instead of 2 mana per 1 damage. Like Improved Dampen Magic, it ain't bad, but it ain't that great either. It's good filler, though.
NOTE: If you remember the old Improved Mana Shield, this new one is actually a buff, not a nerf, if you compute the math.

Improved Counterspell - When maxed out (2 levels), gives your Counterspell a 100% chance of silencing the target for 4 seconds. Ridiculously good for PvP encounters against enemy spellcasters. For PvE, not that spectacular, so if you never plan on doing too much PvP, you can probably pass this one up.

Arcane Meditation - When maxed out (5 levels), allows for 15% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting. Requires 1 level in Evocation. A moderately good talent. Combined with good spirit and Mage Armor you can get some ridiculously high mana efficiency out of your spell (total of 45% normal mana regeneration during combat). Even without Mage Armor, this increases your spell efficiency, although it's nothing to write home about.

Presence of Mind - Gives you Presence of Mind. In my opinion, this is what makes the mage. Being able to instant cast anything with a cooldown less than 10 seconds every 3 minutes is ridiculously powerful. It can be a Pyroblast/Fireball to finish a player, it can be a Polymorph to save your hide, it can be a Frostbolt to catch a fleeing enemy, it can be a Flamestrike to get some fast AoE damage, whatever. Ridiculously good and worth the prerequisite 20 points in the Arcane Tree to get.  I personally swear by it.

Arcane Mind - When maxed out (4 levels), increases your maximum mana by 8%. Requires 1 level in Evocation. Depending on your spirit and intelligence, Arcane Mind may be inferior to Arcane Meditation or vice versa. In general, if you're casting lots of fast or instant-cast spells, Arcane Mind is better. If you spend more time channeling spells or casting slower spells, Arcane Meditation is better.

Arcane Instability - When maxed out (3 levels), gives you +3% to crit and +3% to damage with all spells. Requires 1 level in Presence of Mind. In general, if you're Fire specced or Frost specced, their respective critical-related talents (Ignite, Critical Mass, Incinerate or Ice Shards, Shatter for Fire and Frost Trees, respectively) are a better choice. In addition, the +3% to crit translates into +1.5% to long-term damage ignoring Ignite and Ice Shards, so you're effectively getting +4.5% damage to all spells (ignoring Ignite and Ice Shards). A highly overrated talent, but still good.

Arcane Power - Gives you Arcane Power. Requiers 3 levels in Arcane Instability. The merits of Arcane Power are discussed previously. Decide accordingly.



Builds

First, before I start, there's a "standard" for mages known as the 18 Arc. This is widely considered to be a very effective component of many builds and is almost expected. You don't have to use it, but many of the most common builds rely on it, so for simplicity's sake, here it is:

18 Arc
5 - Improved Arcane Missiles
5 - Arcane Concentration
5 - Improved Arcane Explosion
1 - Evocation
2 - Improved Counterspell

This gives you great burst damage potential (Improved AE), endurance (Arcane Concentration, Evocation), and all-around durability (Improved Arcane Missiles, ICS). Many high-level groups will expect you to have this build in instances. If you don't have atleast Improved AE, make sure you have some good Area of Effect alternative or prepare to be blacklisted.


Cookie-cutter Builds
These are the builds that have proven to be effective and are widely popular. In order of popularity, they are 33 Fire/18 Arc, 30 Fire/21 Arc, 31 Arc/20 Fire, 31 Frost/20 Arc, 31 Arc/20 Frost.

33 Fire/18 Arc
5 - Improved Fireball
5 - Ignite
2 - Flame Throwing
5 - Improved Fireblast
2 - Incinerate
3 - Improved Flamestrike
1 - Pyroblast
3 - Critical Mass
1 - Blast Wave
5 - Fire Power
1 - Combustion

Standard 18 Arc

This build lets you hit on the many strong points of Fire, as well as giving you three powerful Area of Effect options and the ability to do some ridiculous damage with Combustion. This build has lost a lot of popularity in recent times due to a growing assessment that Presence of Mind is, in fact, better than Combustion, but is still one of the hugest PvE builds. Still, a Combusted Blast Wave is nothing to sneeze at.

31 Fire/20 Arc
A variant of the previous build that puts the 2 points of Flame Throwing into ICS in the Arcane Tree.

30 Fire/21 Arc
5 - Improved Fireball
5 - Ignite
5 - Improved Fireblast
2 - Flame Throwing
3 - Burning Soul
3 - Critical Mass
2 - Incinerate
5 - Fire Power

Standard 18 Arc
2 - Improved Mana Shield
1 - Presence of Mind

A build growing in popularity due to its use of Presence of Mind over Combustion.

31 Arc/20 Fire
Standard 18 Arc
2 - Improved Mana Shield
1 - Presence of Mind
4 - Arcane Mind
3 - Arcane Instability
2 - Improved Mana Shield
1 - Arcane Power

5 - Improved Fireball
5 - Ignite
5 - Improved Fireblast
1 - Pyroblast
2 - Incinerate
2 - Flame Throwing

A build growing in popular ever since the ArcaneMFury videos, this is built basically around Arcane Power, Presence of Mind, Pyroblast for the win. It has the potential to absolutely devastate but is highly dependent on cooldown abilities to work.

31 Frost/20 Arc
5 - Improved Frostbolt
5 - Ice Shards
2 - Improved Frost Nova
1 - Cold Snap
3 - Frost Channeling
5 - Shatter
1 - Ice Block
3 - Improved Cone of Cold
5 - Frostbite
1 - Ice Barrier

Standard 18 Arc
2 - Improved Mana Shield

This gives you the standard Frost build. The meat of your damage will be dealt by taking advantage of frozen targets via Frostbite and Frost Nova and hitting them with Cone of Colds or Frostbolts, depending on how many enemies you're up against. You're efficient and you can outrun enemies.

31 Arc/20 Frost
Standard 18 Arc
2 - Improved Mana Shield
1 - Presence of Mind
4 - Arcane Mind
3 - Arcane Instability
2 - Improved Mana Shield
1 - Arcane Power

5 - Improved Frostbolt
3 - Winter's Chill
2 - Improved Frost Nova
3 - Piercing Ice
1 - Cold Snap
3 - Improved Blizzard
3 - Frost Channeling

A much less common build than the other cookie-cutters, with plenty of room for variation. This, unlike the other Frost build, depends on Blizzard for its damage and efficiency, though it still performs well with Frostbolts. VARIATION: Arcane Power doesn't mesh too well with 20 Frost, since 20 Frost has poor burst potential, which is what Arcane Power helps amplify. Instead, consider dropping Arcane Power for Ice Block for a 30 Arc/21 Frost build. You lose very little and gain quite a lot.


Specialized Builds

Full Frost (46 Frost/5 Arc)
5 - Improved Frostbolt
4 - Permafrost
5 - Ice Shards
3 - Winter's Chill
2 - Improved Frost Nova
3 - Piercing Ice
1 - Cold Snap
3 - Improved Blizzard
2 - Arctic Reach
3 - Frost Channeling
5 - Shatter
1 - Ice Block
3 - Improved Cone of Cold
5 - Frostbite
1 - Ice Barrier

5 - Improved Arcane Missiles

Of all the other trees, the Frost Tree is the most synergestic and well-designed. The power level grows exponentially as you get more talents. You miss out on alot of goodies from the 18 Arc, but you get amazing versatility, survivability, and mana efficiency. Not to mention being secure in the knowledge that you have a very unique build. You not only get the burst damage of the 31 Frost/20 Arc build, but the mana efficiency of the Blizzard aspect of the 31 Arc/20 Frost. The Improved Arcane Missiles is in there for good measure (and since Improved Frost Ward is still a waste of talent points in a Full Frost build).

Partial Frost (Experimental) (40 Frost/11 Arc)
5 - Improved Frostbolt
5 - Ice Shards
3 - Winter's Chill
2 - Improved Frost Nova
3 - Piercing Ice
1 - Cold Snap
3 - Improved Blizzard
3 - Frost Channeling
5 - Shatter
1 - Ice Block
3 - Improved Cone of Cold
5 - Frostbite
1 - Ice Barrier

5 - Improved Arcane Missiles
5 - Clearcasting
1 - Evocation

This is a plan that I've developed recently as I was doing a thought experiment on the PvP viability of the Full Frost build. Ombreggiata has vowed to test this out in a Frost Mage she plans on creating, so we'll get to see if practice follows theory. Basically, one of the weaknesses of the Full Frost Build is the lack of mana versatility. While some people swear they can live without Evocation in PvE, Evocation is a ridiculously powerful PvP skill. If you get caught off guard with little mana, you can polymorph and Evocation yourself up to full health. If you and your party members are making a push in a BG, you can Evocation yourself up to full mana and be ready for the next fight. Moreover, Clearcasting will give you even more ridiculous mana efficiency for PvE. You already have the most insanely efficient nuke in the game (Frostbolt with Frost Channeling and Piercing Ice), but now you can also have a 10% chance per Frostbolt of getting a free Arcane Missiles. For epically long fights, this will stretch your mana *hugely* without having to resorting to a Paladin with Judgement of Wisdom on the enemy.

Scorch aka Sorrow Hill Build (23 Fire/28 Arc)
5 - Impact
5 - Ignite
5 - Improved Fireblast
2 - Incinerate
3 - Burning Soul
3 - Critical Mass

Standard 18 Arc
2 - Improved Mana Shield
1 - Presence of Mind
4 - Arcane Mind
3 - Arcane Instability

Popularized by the Sorrow Hill videos (played by Otherguy), this is a Scorch build that relies on critical hit. Very versatile and nimble, effective for PvP. Burning Soul ensures that your Scorches go off quickly, while Presence of Mind can let you get off a Fireball finisher. 

Avexis's Build (30 Fire/21 Arc)
5 - Impact
5 - Ignite 
5 - Improved Fireblast
2 - Incinerate 
3 - Improved Flamestrike
1 - Blastwave
1 - Flamethrowing
3 - Critical Mass
5 - Fire Power

Standard 18 Arc
2 - Improved Mana Shield
1 - Presence of Mind

This used to be an Improved Scorch build, but I've recently shifted away as Blastwave is much better for PvP than Improved Scorch.  This is really a variation on the 33/18 or even the standard 30/21 Fire/Arc build.  This build is really geared towards Battlegrounds conflicts, but can hold its own against 1 v 1 conflicts, although because I've dropped Burning Soul, it has a greater reliance on Arcane Missiles (to avoid interruption) than before.

Uncookie Cutter Frost (Experimental) (30 Frost/21 Arc)
5 - Improved Frostbolt
5 - Ice Shards
2 - Improved Frost Nova
3 - Piercing Ice
5 - Shatter
1 - Cold Snap
1 - Ice Block
3 - Cone of Cold
5 - Frostbite

Standard 18 Arc
2 - Improved Dampen Magic
1 - Presence of Mind

This is a slight variation on the cookie cutter frost that I've come up with.  It needs a bit of testing, but it's based on my experiences in PvP.  I replaced Winter's Chill with Piercing Ice, because the difference between 60% and 50% and 50% and 40% is not *as* significant as many people warrant (although for Improved Blizzard, Winter's Chill is invaluable).  An extra 6% may not sound like much, but consider if it had said "+6% chance to crit" and it sounds a lot better, no?  Same average result.  Instead of getting Ice Barrier (which in my experience is too defensive a PvP ability), this build gets Presence of Mind.  I honestly can't comprehend any mage PvP build that doesn't use PoM.  Sure, you lose out on the extra life of Ice Barrier, but you gain a lot more offensive versatility.

Elemental Mage (28 Frost/23 Fire)
5 - Improved Frostbolt
5 - Ice Shards
3 - Winter's Chill
2 - Improved Frost Nova
3 - Improved Blizzard
1 - Cold Snap
5 - Shatter
1 - Ice Block
3 - Cone of Cold

5 - Impact
5 - Ignite
5 - Improved Fireblast
2 - Incinerate
3 - Improved Flamestrike
2 - Burning Soul
1 - Blastwave

The elemental mage concept came about because some people were getting tired of being "forced" to do the Standard Arc 18 and thus be an X/Arc build in some shape or form. They argued that the mage's strong talent trees made many builds possible and that the lost efficiency and power of the Standard Arc 18 could be made up by greater elemental diversity. There are many such varations on non-arcane aka Elemental Mage concepts, but this one is geared towards PvP. You have very little mana efficiency, but you have fast Fireblasts, the devastating Shatter combo (Cone of Cold or Frostbolt), devastating AoE for Battlegrounds fun (Flamestrike, Blastwave, and Improved Blizzard), and the always handy Ice Block. Plus, due to your strength in AoE, you still have PvE instance viability, and Improved Frostbolt/Fireblast gives you the single-target PvE dps mages need. However, this build is annoyingly hard to strengthen via gear since you can't just get +Fire or +Frost gear... you need both! Even though many end-game items are +all spell damage, some (like the Alterac Valley awards) still separate between Fire and Frost. To remedy this, you probably want to just opt for crit gear, which (thanks to Ignite and Ice Shards) is actually somewhat effective for this build.



Advanced
Here, I'll discuss several more advanced topics concerning magery. +Damage Gear, Critical Hit %, Mage Armor, and Spell Efficiency.

+Damage Gear
Note:  If you see any discrepencies in the numbers here and the numbers you see elsewhere, you probably want to trust my numbers; I've ran lots and lots of tests on how +Damage Gear works with mages.

First off, regardless of whether it says "+x damage" or "up to x damage", the math is identical, just poor consistency in wording. The exact bonus a given spell will get from +damage gear depends on its cast time. A spell gets x * (y/3.5) bonus to its damage, where x is the damage bonus and y is the cast time, up to a maximum of 3.5 seconds. If y is less 1.5 seconds, y is equal to 1.5.  (Note:  Many guides will say otherwise, but I've ran tests and the smallest time-multiplier, even for spells like Fireblast and Cone of Cold, is 1.5.)  Note that the spell's cast time for y is pre-talents, so Improved Fireball (3 seconds) still counts as 3.5 for y, and Improved Frostbolt (2.5 seconds) still counts as 3 for y. If the spell is channeled, then in most cases, x is simply spread out over the entire duration of the spell (so each blast of Arcane Missiles will get a bonus of x/5 with +x arcane gear).  In addition, if you have talents that increase damage done by a spell, spells, or a school of spells by a percentage, that percentage is also applied to the +damage bonus to that spell.  So, if you have Fire Power (+10% Fire damage), any Fire spell you cast will have its +damage bonus also increased by 10%.  This results in wierd quirks, such as the fact that Improved Frostbolt with Piercing Ice will eventually do more DPS than a full-talent Scorch, given enough +damage gear.
NOTE:  Area of Effect spells, spells that provide "Drain" effects (such as a Warlock's Drain Life), and those with pre-talent extra effects (such as Frostbolt's snare, but not like Fireball's Damage-over-Time) get less benefit than normal spells, probably because Area of Effect spells are designed to hit many targets at once and Drain spells accomplish both healing and damage.  Area of Effect spells recieve a .30 coefficient multiplier to the normal +damage bonus to their base damage, Drain spells appear to get half, and extra effect spells get a .95 coefficient multiplier.  So that means Cone of Cold would have a .30 * .95 coefficient multiplier to damage.

That being said, most people simply discard +damage gear since +damage gear is rarely coupled with +stat bonuses. However, this is sheer foolishness. The reason why +damage gear doesn't seem to stack with decent +stat bonus is because +damage itself gives you effective stat bonuses! What? Simple: if you kill x% faster, you've taken less damage. Makes sense, right? The enemy's dead faster and has had less chance to damage you. By virtue of taking less damage, it's as if you had more HP to begin with. Similarly, if your spell does x% more damage without costing more mana, you've used up less mana. By using less mana, it's as if you had more mana to begin with. In fact, the exact equation for how much extra life and mana you have by virtue of killing x% faster is 1/(1-x)%. So for example, if you kill 5% faster, then you have effectively increased your life and mana by 1/(1-.05) = 1.0526 or 5.26%. In addition, spirit still fully recovers you in the same amount of time as before since you haven't actually increased your life and mana, so you've effectively increased your spirit by the same amount.

Let's take a more applicable example. Let's say you're a level 60 who does nothing but cast Scorch all day long. And you come across some Gloves of Fiery Wrath which do +20 Fire damage. +20 Fire damage translates into 20 * 1.5/3.5 = +8.57 Fire damage to Scorch. The highest level scorch does, on average, 254 damage. +8.57 translates into 8.57/254 = 3.37% increased damage. By killing 3.37% faster, you gain 1/(1-.0337) = 1.0348 or 3.48% extra HP and Mana. Now, let's say you have 3000 HP, 4500 Mana, and 150 Spirit. That +20 Fire damage or +3.48% damage translates into 104 extra HP or +10 Stamina, 156 extra mana or +10 Intelligence, and +5 Spirit. And that's just off a random green item! (I rounded down the effective stat increases for a specific reason - because you're not *actually* increasing your intelligence, you're not actually increasing your crit chance, so I had to discount that from the result.)

Of course, reality is much more complex then that, and you'll be casting other spells than just Scorch, each which get varying % increase benefits from +damage gear. Your mileage will vary depending on what you cast. For example, the first model I used on my calculator to calculate damage increase of a given +damage item uses the following equation:

(Fireball_Percent_Increase * .03 + Scorch_Percent_Increase * .7275 + Fireblast_Percent_Increase * .2425) * .93 + Arcane_Missile_Percent_Increase * .07) = Final_Percent_Increase
 
That is, of my fire spells, Fireball is only used 3% of the time by my calculations, Scorch is used 72.75% of the time, and Fireblast 24.25% of the time (translating into 3 Scorches per 1 Fireblast). So I weight those values to get an average damage increase, given the varying damage increase benefits for each spell (Fireblast generally gets the worst % increase in damage thanks to being a high-damage instant-cast). Then, roughly for every 12 or so Fire spells I get 1 Arcane Missile shot (with Clearcast I theoretically get 1 Arcane Missile for free every 10 Fire spells, although in practice, many times I hit the enemy with a Fireblast just as Clearcast procs from a Scorch, so I account for that), so I use a Fire spell 93% of the time and an Arcane spell 7% of the time, so I weight accordingly. This gives me the final damage% increase, from which I can use to calculate my effective increase in Stamina, Intelligence, and Spirit.

I'll probably put up an Excel spreadsheet at some point with the most common scenarios (such as chain casting Frostbolts) so that all you have to do is input the +damage value and it'll spit out the appropriate damage% increase. Feel free to calculate your own equations and situations. For example, a typical PvE Fire build may cast a succession of 2 Improved Fireballs, a Fireblast, and an Arcane Missile when Clearcast procs, so the equation would be:

(Fireball_Percent_Increase * .6667 + Fireblast_Percent_Increase * .3333) * .916 + Arcane_Missiles_Percent_Increase * .084 = Final_Percent_Increase

Just for reference sake, the actual, updated (and much more accurate model) I now use for my own mage is:

( (Scorch_Percent_Increase * .63 + Fireblast_Percent_Increase * .33 + Fireball_Percent_Increase * .04) * .92 + Arcane_Missiles_Percent_Increase * .08) + Arcane_Explosion_Percent_Increase * .04 + Cone_of_Cold_Percent_Increase * .015 + Blizzard_Percent_Increase * .005 + Flamestrike_Percent_Increase * .02


Critical Hit %
There is much undo hubbub over spell crit%. While good, it is highly overrated. Why? Without any talents, a +1% to critical chance with spells translates in the long run to +.5% dps. Sounds pretty pathetic, right? "But wait, oh great Avexis! I can crit lots of times for upwards of 1000 damage with my Fireball!" Critical hits play towards a human weakness to have selective memory, or to remember only the extremes. You'll remember all the times you see an explosive critical hit, but the hundreds of times that your spells went off normally will slip away from you mind. "But wait! Even then, +crit gear is great for PvP when all that matters is burst damage!" Yes, maybe. But for every battle that involves you getting bajillions of critical hits with spells, you'll get enough battles where things go mundanely or poorly to cancel it out and bring your long-term results towards the average expected from +crit gear.

That being said, depending on your talents, this 1% crit ~ .5% damage relation can vary. With Ignite, you're dealing an additional 60% damage on a crit, so the relation becomes 1% crit ~ 1.1% damage with Fire spells. With Ice Shards, you double your crit bonus (+50% damage), so 1% crit ~ 1% damage with Ice spells. Arcane spells don't get any helpful bonuses. Keeping this in mind, Incinerate (with Ignite) translates into +4.4% damage with Scorch and Fireblast. Critical Mass translates into +6.6% damage with Fire spells. Improved Flamestrike translates into +16.5% damage with the initial Flamestrike damage. Shatter (with Ice Shards) translates into +50% damage with Frost spells against frozen targets. And Arcane Instability (coupled with Ignite and Ice Shards) can give you +6.3% to Fire damage, +6% to Frost damage, but a measly +4.5% to Arcane damage. Thus, you'll note that, for example, Fire Power (+10% Fire) is superior in the long run to Arcane Instability + Ignite (+6.3% Fire).

With Talents, Crits *can* be useful in short term measures.  In battlegrounds skirmishes, having a streak of good crits can be amazingly influential for the course of a Warsong Gulch or Arathi Basin game.  Regardless, stocking up on crits at the expense of +damage simply means you have astoundingly low crit damage.

However, something regarding critical hits that *does* bear important mention is...


Double Ignites
When you're first starting off in the Fire Tree, it won't happen too much, but as you crit% increases, you'll be able to get two or more crits in a row, each tirggering an Ignite.  However, Ignite acts very specially when it comes to stacking with itself.  Intuitively, you'd think Ignite would stack in one of two different ways: a) the second Ignite overwrites the original or b) both Ignites function correctly, although they briefly overlap in damage.

Wrong.

Instead, if a second Ignite happens while an Ignite is already in place, the four second-timer on the Ignite resets and the two different Ignite damages *stack*.  For clarification, let's use an example.  You crit an enemy for 1000 damage.  As a result, the enemy gets hit with an Ignite debuff which will deal 40% or 400 damage over 4 seconds.  However, you crit the enemy again 2 seconds later with another 1000 damage crit.  Now, the Ignite timer is reset and is now going to do 800 damage over 4 seconds.  That means that instead of doing the 800 total damage that should've happened from two independent 1000 damage crits, Ignite is now doing 1200 damage due to the way it stacks.

This can start becoming ridiculous when you hit three times in a row.  A crit Fireball followed by a crit Scorch and a crit Fireblast can give you an Ignite debuff that deals more damage per second than you yourself and lasts for upwards of 8 seconds.  Thus, when you have Ignite and are considering crit gear, it behooves you to add a bonus factor to double+ ignite procs.  However, this is difficult to quantify on a marginal level.  The best way to evaluate is to use an infinite discount series, something like:

multiIgnite% = crit*crit + crit*crit*(crit*.9) + crit*crit*(crit*.9)*(crit*.9*.9) + crit*crit*(crit*.9)*(crit*.9*.9)*(crit*.9^3) + ...

You'll notice that I use .9 as a discount factor on the third and proceeding chances to crit.  This is because beyond two spells, the 4 second window you have of proccing another Ignite becomes harder and harder to make since you'll probably be moving around, being hit, etc.  Also, this is a particularly harsh infinite discount series since I assume that with each Ignite proc you only have chance to hit another Ignite proc.  This is because in PvP, even with intensive short casts like Scorch and Fireblast, due to constant mobility and other actions going on, you generally will have only one shot of getting another Ignite proc. 

Anyway, in this case, if you're total crit% chance is 15% or .15, your chance of a fire hit beginning a chain of multiple Ignite procs would be .15*.15 + .15*.15*.15*.9 + ... = 2.6%.  However, unlike straight up crit gear increases, a change in crit% does not yield a linear increase in this multiIgnite%.  Nevertheless, the marginal change in multiIgnite% due to each increase in crit% is so minimal that you can assume a linear relationship.  In fact, in the given discount equation, every 1% of crit% corresponds roughly to a .34% increased multiIgnite%.

A more polished discount equation is here, for an intensive Scorch build:

multiIgnite% = 1.5crit%^2 + 1.5crit%^2*(crit%*.9) + 1.5crit%^2*(crit%*.9)*(crit%*.9^2) + ...

I added the 1.5 coefficient because, on average, with intensive Scorch and Fireblast useage, you'll be able to hit the enemy with 1.5 fire spells in the 4-second Ignite window.  With a minimal assortment of crit gear, a combination of Incinerate, and Critical Mass, you could have a base crit rate for Scorch and Fireblast of 15%, which translates to about a 3.9% chance per spellcast of starting a multiIgnite chain.  The marginal increase per 1% of crit gear is not linear, but from 15% crit gear, each increase of 1% is around a .5% increase to multiIgnite%.  How this translates into DPS increase is almost too erratic to determine.  Maybe someone better at math can do it for me.


Mage Armor
Mage Armor is still hotly debated in terms of usefulness, especially when it was first announced. Two camps immediately formed - those who hated it, and those who praised it as amazing. I was in the latter camp, and it seems time as proven our camp to be correct. 30% mana regeneration while casting, first of all, sounds great in theory. In practice, this means about 400 extra mana over a long battle. In theory, this was because most people had abandoned Spirit prior to Mage Armor. In practice, though, this means an extra spell. And in theory, this means greater effective mana. What regeneration during casting actually does is effectively reduce the mana cost of your spells. For example, if you cast a 2 second cast spell that costs 100 mana and you regenerate 10 mana per second with Mage Armor, that spell effectively cost you only 80 mana. Thus, you've reduced the mana cost by 20%, and if you chain cast it, you effectively increase your mana pool by 1/(1-.2) = 1.25 or 25%. Thus, what Mage Armor actually allows you to do is translate your Spirit stat into effective mana pool increases. And, since you're not actually increasing your mana pool, your Spirit still recovers your Mana Pool (during downtime) at the same rate, so you effectively increase your Spirit in doing so.

I have an Excel spreadsheet that's hosted by worldofwar.net which will let you punch in a Spirit value and give you how effectively you increase your mana pool and decrease the cost of your spells (all spells are assumed to be at highest rank possible for a level 60, and it is assumed that you have Improved Fireball/Frostbolt). Simply click here to download it.


Spell Efficiency
I've mentioned throughout the course of this guide about spell efficiency, or damage/mana efficiency. While the mage is about DPS and is an AoE king, his main emphasis should be doing as much DPS for as long amount of time. You can use incredibly inefficient spells to deal ridiculous amounts of damage, but your DPS will average out when you find yourself out of mana and the battle still going on. Here, I'll just list out some threshold points of efficiency. The following talents are assumed for cross-spell-school analysis: Fire Power (+10% Fire damage), Frost Channeling (-15% mana cost), Improved Cone of Cold (+35% Cone of Cold damage)

Fire spells in order of damage efficiency
Pyroblast (approx 2.67 damage/mana)
Scorch (approx 1.84 damage/mana)
Fireball (approx 1.78 damage/mana)
Fireblast (approx 1.51 damage/mana)
Blastwave (approx 1.01 damage/mana)
Flamestrike (approx .79 damage/mana)

Frost spells in order of damage efficiency
Frostbolt (approx 2.01 damage/mana)
Blizzard (approx 1.0016 damage/mana)
Cone of Cold (approx 1.0015 damage/mana)

Arcane spells in order of damage efficiency
Arcane Missiles (approx 1.61 damage/mana)
Arcane Explosion (approx .64 damage/mana)

Using the previous list, you can see that, for example, a Flamestrike is inefficient to use unless you're hitting atleast 3 targets at once. Or that anytime you could use an area of effect spell effectively, Blizzard can do it better. However, don't simply choose spells for mana efficiency. It is an optimization/balancing problem between efficiency and dps. While it's not smart to go in with Arcane Explosion at every possible moment and run out of mana asap, it's also not smart to sit there spamming Blizzard all day when the party needs you to focus down your dps against a single, devastating enemy.

A more relevant way of comparing spells may be dps/mana, or damage per second per point of mana. I only list the spells that can be reasonably chain-cast for simplicity's sake, that is, Scorch, Fireball, Frostbolt, Arcane Missiles, Blizzard, and Arcane Explosion. All other spells have some prohibitive element (cooldown, mainly) that prevent DPS from being a useful measure. (For example, Pyroblast's DPS is terrible when you consider its 60 second cooldown, so its real measure of worth is burst DPS, the impact of which is much harder to quantify in a few short sentences.) The following talents are assumed (since otherwise you probably wouldn't chain cast them): Fire Power (+10% fire), Improved Fireball, Improved Frostbolt, Frost Channeling (-15% mana cost frost), and Improved Arcane Explosion.

DPS/Mana List
Scorch 1.2418
Fireball .6150
Frostbolt .8072
AMissiles .3227
Blizzard .1252
AExplosion .6487

So interestingly, to get the most DPS for your buck, Scorch is the way to go. Frost is right behind it, though it has greater long-term potential than Scorch (due to general damage efficiency), making them close contenders. Blizzard will give you shoddy DPS efficiency but great efficiency while Arcane Explosion seems to be the king, here, for more than 2 targets. I can't attest to the interpretation of DPS/Mana valuation, nor whether if it's indeed a valid tool of measurement. On the one hand it seems to be an intuitive way to determine how to maximize your DPS while lasting as long as possible, but several questions remain, such as under what conditions is DPS/Mana valid? Why are some results counter-intuitive (such as AMissiles's shoddy performance)? That is left for future debate and research.



References
This is where I link to videos and stuff that I've referenced throughout the guide.

ArcaneMFury2 - This video popularized the Arcane Power build (20 Fire/31 Arc).  The original no longer seems to be on warcraftmovies.com, but this is the superior anyhow (the original featured the mage killing lots of green-leveled alliance).

Sorrow Hill 4 - This video popularized the Scorch build.  This is also the best of the four that Otherguy created, including music, skill, and layout.  My favorite moment comes at the 8:04 mark.  Not only is Papa Roach's Getting Away with Murder perfect accompaniment, Otherguy fights a Hunter, Paladin, then the Hunter again all in nonstop succession in a battle that shows what amazing skill Otherguy has.  Sure, the guy behind ArcaneMFury2 may be able to kill things outrageously quickly, but he would not have been able to fend off this kind of battle.

Powerplay - This is my first pvp video.  It shows off my old Improved Scorch build and the power of +damage investment (also the importance of Polymorph).  Most of the fights take place in Battlegrounds, so it's less about smashing numbers but gaining influence.

Dessimus PvP - A recent video that I've fallen in love with, simply because I'm tired of the millions of Arcane Power (read: skilless) PvP builds out there.  This guy has a slight variation on my current Blastwave build and shows it off with great skill (and also shows off the power of engineering).

FIN