Need a Mage Guide?

  • Killer Guilds- Has a good guide for how to play a mage.

    •  

    Need WOW Gold?

  • EpicToon - Very good place to purchase WOW gold. EpicToon is a large supplier of online game currency and currently has the good prices on gold.

    •  

    Links

     

    Mage Builds For 4.0.1 - 4.0.3a

     

    With the release of patch 4.0.1 there was massive changes to the talent trees of mages. The trees of all classes were completely restructured, less points given to put into trees, some new spells, a new glyph system, stats removed from the game and so forth.

     

    The 4.0.1 - 4.0.3a builds are level 80 builds before the release of Cataclysm. I am making these available for people that have not had the expansion release as some Blizzard area servers have not had the release of Cataclysm yet, such as China.

     

    If you are looking for current mage builds go to Cataclysm Mage Builds.

     

    Arcane Talent Builds (4.0.1 - 4.0.3a)

     

    31/2/3 (80) - 4.0.1 Arcane Mage Raid Build - Has all the major DPS skills plus some good cc abilities to help out in raids.

     

    31/2/3 (80) - 4.0.1 Arcane Mage With Pushback Protection - Has all the major DPS except piercing ICE but has a few other skills that can help make up damage.

     

    Arcane Mage Glyphs:

    Primary Mage Glyphs: Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Mage Armor
    Major Mage Glyphs:Slow, Arcane Power, Invisibility
    Minor Mage Glyphs: Slow Fall, Mirror Image, Any

     

    Rotation:

    Well rotation is a little different than most trees as arcane mages are highly dependant on evocation. There are 3 phases:

     

    The Burn Phase - The burn phase occurs when when evocation is available this is simply going all out blowing all your cool downs going from 100% mana to 40% mana.

    The Regen Phase - When you hit 40% mana pop evocation to get your mana back as close as possible to 100%.

    The Conserve Phase - When evocation is done you are in the conserve phase, this rotation is dependant on how good your gear is, most will be able to use a ABx4+ AM rotation but if your gear is too low you will not be able to cast as many AB's before AM, try to keep you mana between 85%-100%. Remember to take advantage of your clearcasting proc's. This phase will last till all of your cool downs are back, then you are ready for another burn phase.

     

    Fire Talent Builds (4.0.1 - 4.0.3a)

    Unlike a lot of the other trees for different classes mages actually have a lot of choices when it come to their builds with fire.

     

    3/32/1 (80) - Pushback Prot and Max DPS Build - This build is all dps and doesn't have some of the survivability talents such as cauterize or molten shards.

     

    0/36/0 (80) - Fire Mage Utility Build - This mage build has Cauterize and Molten Shields for increased utility but doesn't have pushback protection.

    This build loses some dps due to not spending points on Netherwind Presence and Piercing Ice.

     

    0/36/0 (80) - Fire Mage Pushback Prot and Utility Build - This build has utility and Pushback prot but to do this sacrifices more DPS than build above.

     

    Fire Mage Glyphs:

    Primary: Living Bomb, Pyroblast, Fireball, Frostfire(depending on how good this turns out to be)

    Major: Dragon's Breath

    Minor: Any

     

    Rotation Information:

    1-2 mobs: LB, Scorch, FB(until) proc then pyro

    3+ mobs: LBx3,BW, FS, FS, FS(or replace FS with Blizz that's up to you) also you can use Dragon's Breath for CC if groups turn on you.

     

    Frost Talent Builds (4.0.1 - 4.0.3a)

    5/0/31 (80) - Clearcasting Frost Mage Build

     

    3/1/32 (80) - Frost Mage Dps Spec

     

    0/5/31 (80) - Frost Mage Raid Spec - This spec has some pushback protection and some good dps.

     

    Stat Priorities:

    Hit to cap > Crit when below 33.33% > Mastery > Crit when above 33.33% > Haste