Pretty sweet Arc/Frost PVE build for WOTLK

[CorvusER]

Waddup everyone! The great thing about the new talent trees in WOTLK is that the is lots of room for some interesting specs for both pve and pvp. ATM i use a arc/frost (40/0/21) build with almost 28% crit -- cap hit -- and little over 1.1k spell power. I do some pretty sweet dps with this spec (overall raid 1kdps -- raid bosses about 1.2kdps) and my threat is very manageable. With a chance to look into a new raid spec for my toon I have been messing around with different variations of arc/frost builds. Now the last 4 tiers of the arc tree have some fairly nice talents...and 1 that kinda blows. In WOTLK, for those who havent gotten a chance to look at any of the gear they have shown so far, blizz is putting alot of spirit on the gear. Which for anyone who rolls a mage and plans on speccin into Potent Spirit & Student of the Mind are really nice talents. But I'm not sure that you're ever going to get the full potential of those talents ( unless ur rockin T6 then maybe you'll have enough spirit to see the diff). Also Netherwind Presence is another great ability...if u spam arcane blast. From my understanding this ability, although only a 5% chance to proc, is going to be a HUGE threat builder and for anyone with atleast 1k spellpower its going to be a burden. The reason i believe this is because 1) most people dont pay attention to their omen or w/e threat meter they use because they are more worried about topping damager meters and 2) you don't get hardly anythreat reduction in the fire or frost talents (10% in fire and frost) where as you get 40% in the arcane tree. If this talent procs often enough you'll be hoping ur spamming arcane blast so you don't have to worry about threat and slowing down that dps. And to me Arcane Barrage just seems to be more of a pvp ability than pve. If a pvp arc/frost mage were specced into permafrost and had arc barrage all they would have to do is hit the player with a frostbolt and kite them around with arc barrage. Thats alot of instant burst dmg to be using in pve where as in pvp you want all the instant burst dmg you can get. So really the more I messed around with the new talents in the arc tree for WOTLK the more I realized that unless you're spamming arc blast or even an arc missles spec the last few tiers are useless. For those mages out there that are a arc/frost build atm and wanna produce more dps I belive I have that spec.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...50330125000000

This spec I feel is going to be more beneficial to arc/frost mages because of huge crit bonus. Especially on raid bosses, with 5 points in Winter's Chill, raid buffed any mage thats geared like mine is you're looking at atleast a 40% chance to crit after the full effect is on. PS and SOTM (unless you're rockin nothing but WOTLK gear, and even then) are not going to give you the crit% increase like Winter's Chill would and with AP + any dmg trinket that you might pop/proc with that chance to crit you are looking at full dps potential with this spec.

So if you look at this from a gear and spec standpoint...
Gear--
28% chance to crit
1.1k spellpower
cap hit rating

Spec--
150 critical strike dmg bonus of frost spells
10% increase to crit chance (winters chill)
Icey Veins
Arcane Power

...when a raid boss is at the 20% health stage (or the blow all cd's and burn this fool to the ground stage :P) you are going to see more dps output than any other spec in my opinion. I hope you guys let me know what you think...im curious too see who says what.

[Chimpzilla]

Looks like a solid spec. Really just going to have to wait to try it out though and compare it to the many other specs people might come up with in the final version.

[CorvusER]

Yea very true...plus there is always the chance that blizz can still change something once open beta starts.

[auren]

U would be much better off if you went 50/0/21 and got another mage to spec Winter's Chill.

[Karpalo]

got feeling firespecs will be the way to go. More utility with destro locks and its northrend in expansion after all, same as going molten core with firespec.
nevertheless frost will still remain to be the king of mages in arenas thats for sure.

[Terrormage]

I think this PvE build is a little better: http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...52330125200351

Your one lacks Magic absorption. Gaining back 5% of your total mana is very important. Currently raid buffed I have 13k mana and gain 650 back everytime I resist a spell. Which over time, really helps your DPS since you can spam AB more. With the huge resistance buff in the talent, I imagine more than just Arcane/Frost Mages will be getting it, not only for PvE, but for PvP as well.

I think you went too far into Frost for a PvE build. At the point you went to your gimping your damage. Since the objective as Arcane is to AB spam as much as possible, and cast Frostbolt as least as possible. Thus making lots of the talents you put into Frost useless. Such as Winter's Chill. You'd have to cast Frostbolt 5 times, and then cast it again sometime in 15 seconds to keep it up.

Also, you didn't grab the new Spirit talent, which gives you crit, and then down a tier, 10% more spirit.

Currently raid buffed I have 352 Mp5 While casting, and 500ish while not casting. That spirit talent is a huge buff, because it means we'll have more mana, of course, for more AB spamming!!

Also, Netherwing Presence is very nice. That would make 5% of your casts instant, making you do close to 5% more damage than normal. (Close because of the GCD.) Also Arcane Barrage is important because it's an instant ton of damage every 3 seconds.

I think Arcane is looking to be one of the best specs for PvE in WoTK. Fire looks ok, but only one talent there actually increases DPS, and that's Burnout. The others just depend on chance. (I.E 3 crits in a row, hitting 3+ targets)

And Frost on the other hand. Well, it gives Mages another reason to be in a raid, it helps with Raid utility, with none other than Winter's Grasp! 2% more hit rating for everything when the effect is applied. Also, it allows Frost Mages to do Shatter Combos on bosses. Totally sweet, which might make Frost a really good PVE spec as well.

You said "...when a raid boss is at the 20% health stage (or the blow all cd's and burn this fool to the ground stage Tongue) you are going to see more dps output than any other spec in my opinion. I hope you guys let me know what you think...im curious too see who says what."

Your DPS with trinkets and AP is gonna be the same if you do it at 20% or 100% because you don't have Molten Fury......

Anyway, that's what I think, your specs ok, but, needs to be improved. Feel free to suggest/comment on anything or the spec I chose. Cheers.

[Aetius]

Yea very true...plus there is always the chance that blizz can still change something once open beta starts.

Yeah perhaps blizz will go back and "polish" mages

[siempel]

If you're planning on using the traditional arcane blast/frost bolt rotation then http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...50330125200350 will be higher dps. Winter's chill can be leeched off other mages, and the crit/sprit/dps from potent spirit, student of the mind, and netherwind presence > winter's chill anyways.

For straight frostbolt spam, I'd probably go http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...40320120000000
Now before people freak out about me now having 5/5 empowered frostbolt in a frostbolt spamming build, I'm pretty sure that arcane power + spell power + arcane potency > empowered frostbolt. However, I don't have the theorycrafting to back that up (plus it would depend on your gear) and if it turned out to be wrong then I would switch those 5 points into empowered frostbolt. The 1 point leftover is put into empowered frostbolt because 1 point there is > 1 last point in arcane potency.

And because I know some people are going to yell about having shatter in a PVE build... it works in PVE right now due to winter's grasp causing the target to be considered frozen and thus susceptible to shatter.

Also, 5/5 winter's chill is an absolute waste of points. 4/5 is more than enough and 3/5 can adequately keep up the stack. It's the same as shadow priests' shadow weaving.

Cheers

[SharpXXShooter]

So you typed out that wall of text to say "I'm staying my exact same build and adding my 10 extra points to frost"

[Amandil]

Curious as to why Netherwind Pressense would be useful to the current arcane build. I'm assuming it will be a mix of Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage(ok really sucks not being able to say AB anymore), and then mixing in frostbolts(or fireballs, but still looks like frost will be better). The talent itself is one of the poorest dps talents in the mage trees, offering at best a 2.5-3% dmg boost with 5 points. The problem with arcane is that the only spell that will be affected is frostbolt. How anyone is going to time that after an arcane blast cast is beyond me.

Don't get me wrong, pretty good pvp talent if your going that deep into the tree, but I'm just not seeing its use for PvE dps.

[Loveulongtime]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...50330125000000

I want shields 8)

[Aeorred]

I think this PvE build is a little better: http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...52330125200351

etc.

While 2 seconds of blink and 4% damage reduction is better, the ability to stand 6 yards further back is better. Drop those two points and stick 'em in Arctic Reach. You wouldn't want to have to move to use frostbolt.

[Guran]

Whoop-ti-doo, the Math-man is here again

I made me a spreadsheet automaticly calculating the DPS and DPM of 14 different specs (and in the case of Arcane specs, different rotations).

With 1.2k spellpower, 25% base crit, 800 Int & 300 Spi (for ~2% crit from Potent Spirit)
Here is what I came up with:

Top 3 DPS Specs:
1) Arc/Frost ABa/FrB combo: 1653 DPS
2) Arc/Fire ABa/FiB combo: 1640 DPS
3) Elemental Frostfire build: 1567 DPS

Top 3 DPM Specs:
1) Elemental Frostfire build: 13,59 DPM
2) Either this or this Arcane/Fire build: resp. 10,85 and 10,43 DPM
3) Arcane FrB build: 10,29 DPM

Top 3 DPS*DPM:
1) The Frostfire Elemental Build: 21.292 D²PMS
2) Again either Fire/Arcane Builds from above: 16.365 and 15.977 D²PMS
3) The Arcane FrB build: 14.468 D²PMS
4) Good runner-up, the full Fire build: 14.121 D²PMS

I use the D²PMS (DPS*DPM) thingy to find a good balance between both stats.

Conclusion:
A build consisting of alternating Arcane Barrage and Frostbolt or Fireball is the best DPS. If you lack the mana, a Frostfire build seems better.
Note: I did consider both Scorch debuff and Winter's Chill available and both affecting Frostfire. (In case Frostfire does no Fire damage, it will receive 2% more damage from Arctic Chill instead of 15% from Scorch)
Although the Elemental build scores 5% less in DPS then the ArB/FrB combo, you gain 72% more mana-efficiency. Well worth it with, especially with the upcoming 500 haste potions also giving spell haste

[Terrormage]

While 2 seconds of blink and 4% damage reduction is better, the ability to stand 6 yards further back is better. Drop those two points and stick 'em in Arctic Reach. You wouldn't want to have to move to use frostbolt.

I see your point. However, both Arcane Blast and Frostbolt are a 30 yard range spell. So, to make either of them 36 yards is pointless since you only have 2 extra points at the end. One or the other would be 6 yards too short, forcing you to stand at the 30 yard line anyway.

4% less damage and Invis fading of 1 seconds is just what I'd prefer. You know what I'm talking about =P Progression raids and lots of wiping! This way you have a much better chance to escape.

[Terrormage]

Whoop-ti-doo, the Math-man is here again

I made me a spreadsheet automaticly calculating the DPS and DPM of 14 different specs (and in the case of Arcane specs, different rotations).

blah blah blah

Conclusion:
A build consisting of alternating Arcane Barrage and Frostbolt or Fireball is the best DPS. If you lack the mana, a Frostfire build seems better.
Note: I did consider both Scorch debuff and Winter's Chill available and both affecting Frostfire. (In case Frostfire does no Fire damage, it will receive 2% more damage from Arctic Chill instead of 15% from Scorch)
Although the Elemental build scores 5% less in DPS then the ArB/FrB combo, you gain 72% more mana-efficiency. Well worth it with, especially with the upcoming 500 haste potions also giving spell haste

Hey Mathman!!

Does your spreadsheet include two pieces of Tier 5? It may sound silly, but 20% more damage from Arcane Blast makes a huge difference these days, and I imagine at 80 it still will.

Sure, rotations will be different in WoTK, I can see less Arcane Blast thanks to Arcane Barrage perhaps, which may make it difficult to determine the DPS of a rotation currently, since, we kinda don't know what the best rotation may be. But, there will be Mages with two pieces of Tier 5 spamming AB as usual. :P

[Terrormage]

The Arcane talents for WoTK have been updated.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/.../talents2.html

If you were to go Arcane/Frost for AB spam, I'd go with this spec here:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000

Though if you have mana issues and rotation problems due to the faster Arcane Blast. I'd suggest something like:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000

Until you could gather enough +Haste/Mana to make it fit your rotation. Note that with the recent change, you might not need to cast Frostbolt much at all. 15% of the time it'll be Arcane Missiles, and every 3 seconds or so, Arcane Barrage. It may be, that you won't need to cast Frostbolt at all. Of course, Icy Veins is always nice to have.

[Guran]

Hey Mathman!!

Does your spreadsheet include two pieces of Tier 5? It may sound silly, but 20% more damage from Arcane Blast makes a huge difference these days, and I imagine at 80 it still will.

Sure, rotations will be different in WoTK, I can see less Arcane Blast thanks to Arcane Barrage perhaps, which may make it difficult to determine the DPS of a rotation currently, since, we kinda don't know what the best rotation may be. But, there will be Mages with two pieces of Tier 5 spamming AB as usual. :P

I don't include any Tier bonuses. I didn't include any pushback reductions or anything either, this is pure random-geared Dr. Boom testing put in figures.

But now the changed the Arcane talents I'm gonna have to see what effect it has on the builds :P

Edit:
Temporary build: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000
with Empowered Arcane Missiles rather then Frost Channeling if it's worth the mana.