Contents
Specs
For each of the specs below, I provide a link to the talent allocation, a brief description of the spec, and preferred item stats (these are the stats you will want to look for, on gear, if you choose that spec), which are listed in order from most to least important.
Fire PVE (dungeons): 10/38/3
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#of0VZEgMzfcut0h
This spec is excellent for DPS in 5-man dungeons, once you have some decent level 55+ dungeon blues (do not try this in greens!). It’s very mana-efficient, and gives you great damage output. (You will need to watch your threat with this spec!) This spec also works quite well in the 20-man raids (AQ20 and ZG).
Preferred item stats
- spell crit
- spell damage
Fire PVE (raiding): 17/31/3
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#oi0Vc0bZxgM0fcht0h
An alternative Fire PVE spec. It has all the same benefits (and drawbacks!) of the spec above, but loses Impact (stun proc), Pyroblast, and Blast Wave, and instead goes further into the Arcane tree to get Improved Counterspell (to make your CS also silence the target). This spec is excellent for the 20-man raids (AQ20 and ZG).
Preferred item stats
- spell hit
- spell crit
- spell damage
Frost PVE/solo: 10/0/41
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#of0VZZVAGIsftoo
This is probably the best mage spec for leveling, farming (including AoE farming), soloing, and early 5-mans. (This is the spec to use if you want to impress people in 5-mans with the cool tricks you can pull off!) You get excellent survivability and control with this spec, great AoE damage, but mediocre single-target damage and mana-efficiency. (Do not bring this spec to a raid unless there’s another Frost mage providing Winter’s Chill!)
Preferred item stats
- spell damage
Frost PVE (raiding): 17/0/34
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#oi0Vc0bZZVAMcofzAo
This is the Frost raiding spec. While still decent for all the things that the Frost PVE/solo spec is, it’s not nearly as great for those purposes; but it is much better for raid DPS (due to the Winter’s Chill debuff). This is the spec to choose if you want to go to Molten Core.
Preferred item stats
- spell hit
- spell damage
Arcane/Frost (raiding): 31/0/20
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#oi0VcofquZVA0c0r
If you are fairly well geared, and you have another Frost mage (one who is specced 17/0/34) in the raid to provide the Winter’s Chill debuff, you can choose this spec for high raid DPS. This spec is good for Molten Core and beyond, and has greater mana efficiency, and considerably higher DPS, than the Frost raiding spec. (Note: once you have enough spell hit from gear, you should move 1 point from Elemental Precision into Frost Channeling.)
Preferred item stats
- spell hit
- spell damage
Talent details
Here you will find comments on each talent of the talents that goes into the specs listed above, and any caveats, warnings, important details to know, weird mechanics, etc.
Fire
- Improved Fireball [tier 1]
- Improves DPS by reducing Fireball cast time. Always take this talent if you spec Fire.
- Impact [tier 1]
- While this is primarily a PVP talent, it’s also good enough to include in the 5-man Fire PVE spec.
- Ignite [tier 2]
- This talent is the heart of a Fire mage’s DPS. Never, ever skip it. Note that this talent effectively causes your Fire spell critical hits to do 210% normal damage. (That’s 150% of base damage for the crit itself, plus 60% of base damage over 4 seconds. Why 60%—doesn’t the talent tooltip say 40%? Yes, but that’s 40% of the 150% damage that the critical hit does—which is equal to 60% of the base [non-crit] spell’s damage.)
- Flame Throwing [tier 2]
- This important talent increases your Fire spell ranges by 6 yards, which very often allows you to outrange boss AoE effects such as blast waves, fears, mass debuffs, and other nasty things—thus saving your healers’ mana, and possibly saving your life!
- Incinerate [tier 3]
- Spell critical hit chance is great for Fire mages, since its effects are amplified by Ignite; and you’ll be casting both Scorch and Fire Blast often.
- Pyroblast [tier 3]
- This talent is not amazing by itself, but it’s a good choice as filler, to open up lower tiers (and it also opens up Blast Wave).
- Burning Soul [tier 3]
- Never skip this talent when speccing for PVE! Without it, you will always be threat capped!
- Improved Scorch [tier 4]
- Technically, only one mage in a raid needs to have this talent (as it inflicts a debuff which then applies to every mage’s fire damage against a mob), but as it is common to be the only Fire mage in a group or raid, as well as to be DPSing a mob which no other mage is attacking, this talent remains a good choice for all Fire mages.
- Master of Elements [tier 4]
- This spell is both a major reason for the Fire spec’s excellent mana efficiency, and a major reason why spell crit chance is so vitally important for Fire mages.
- Critical Mass [tier 5]
- Again, spell crit chance is incredibly important, so this is an amazing talent.
- Blast Wave [tier 5]
- Like Arcane Explosion, only it benefits from your Fire talents, it slows mobs, and it does a lot of damage. What’s not to like? If you ever need to AoE, this talent is good.
- Fire Power [tier 6]
- A straight-up increase to your damage. Never skip this talent. (Note that along with Critical Mass and Combustion, Fire Power’s importance for a Fire mage’s DPS, and its location deep in the talent tree, is the reason why an Arcane/Fire build cannot work well.)
- Combustion [tier 7]
- This talent is very powerful, but also tricky to use properly. See below for a detailed discussion.
