Hello everyone and welcome to my mage guide. In this guide I will cover everything from selecting a race, to the best professions and builds. To allow you to gain a deeper insight into this I will furthermore also display the various talents, how they work and how they interact with each other. In the later parts of the guide I will delve deeper into the mage class uncovering our stat priority and Best in Slot list.

The guide will conclude with some useful macros, addons and tips and tricks beneficial to you and your mage.I have reserved the top comment slot in which you can track the progress and updates of the guide. Please leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions for improvement. I try my best to answer within 24-hours. Arcane Subtlety.

Guide Intro - Mage Guide: An easy-to-read, intuitive guide for maximizing your gameplay as a DPS Arcane Mage in end-game PvE of Retail WoW. Always up-to-date with the latest patch! World of Warcraft (8.3).

Effect: Reduces your target's resistance to all your spells by 5/10 and all of your Arcane spells cause 20/40% less threat. Relevance: Viable filler for reaching further into the Arcane Tree.Arcane Focus. Effect: Reduces the chance that the opponent can resist your Arcane spells by 2/4/6/8/10%. Relevance: For a frost mage this talent is almost entirely useless as the only arcane spell we will ever use is Arcane Explosion, which in itself is a rarity in raids and dungeons.

It is, however, still superior to Improved Arcane Missiles.Improved Arcane Missiles. Effect: Gives you a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Arcane Missiles. Relevance: Arcane Missiles is not a great damaging spell and will as a result rarely be used. Skip this entirely.Wand Specialization. Effect: Increases your damage with Wands by 13/25%. Relevance: Your wand should always be your very last resort and it is therefore unwise to spend talent points in something that is ideally never used.Magic Absorption. Effect: When you resist a spell, you regain 1/2/3/4/5% of your max.

Mana and increases all resistances by 2/4/6/8/10. Relevance: Some extra mana regeneration never hurts. This is a viable filler to reach further into the Arcane Tree.Arcane Concentration.

Effect: Gives you a 2/4/6/8/10% chance of entering a Clearcasting state after any damage spell hits a target. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next damage spell by 100%. Relevance: Again, mana efficiency. This spell can be hugely beneficial during AoE farming, but will also save you some mana over the duration of a fight, as well as being cheesed by purposely using mana heavy spells during a proc.Magic Attunement.

Effect: Increases the effect of your Amplify Magic and Dampen Magic spells by 25/50%. Relevance: This talent is best used in solo PvP scenarios as it lowers magic damage taken as well as adding a layer that needs to be dispelled.

But serves as a decent filler for the PvE scene. From time to time it will serve it's purpose in dungeons and raids as you can improve your tanks healing taken or diminish the magical damage taken. Frost Warding. Effect: Increases the armor and resistances given by your Frost Armor and Ice Armor spells by 15/30%.

Update: Layout changed and added pictures for an enhanced user experience.Update: NEW section added: TalentsUpdate: NEW section added: PvE BuildsUpdate: NEW section added: Selecting a RaceUpdate: NEW section added: ProfessionsUpdate: NEW section added: EnchantsUpdate: Updated for patch 1.5Update: NEW section added: MacrosUpdate: NEW section added: ConsumablesUpdate: Updated for patch 1.6Update: Updated for patch 1.7. Some notes:The Crystalline Threaded Cape doesn't exist on Elysium, it was added in the AQ patch as a reward from the. I'd normally link to allakhazam/db.vanillagaming/etc but they all seem buggy in regards to the Sack of Spoils items and don't list them, which is odd.The Band of the Penitent gives physical crit, not spell crit.There are typos on where Gordok's Handwraps and Riptide Shoes are obtained.And finally, this is just small nitpicking, but you could also add the alliance versions to Champion's Silk Shoulderpads (Lieutenant Commander's Silk Spaulders), Blood Guard's Silk Footwraps (Knight-Lieutenant's Silk Boots) and Eye of Orgrimmar (Songstone of Ironforge).Other than that, good work.

Some notes:The Crystalline Threaded Cape doesn't exist on Elysium, it was added in the AQ patch as a reward from the. Hey Kolmar here again, thanks for taking my feedback from my last post. I'd like to add one extra thing, and that's on the subject of Spell Crit vs Spell Power. I might be wrong on this so feel free to correct me, but as far as I understand from Sheepstick's on the old Nostalrius forums, you can calculate how much spell damage you gain on average from a single spell crit with this formula:1% of average frostbolt damage / frostbolt's co-efficient. = how much damage 1% crit adds to each frostboltSo lets say I do an average of 850 damage per frostbolt.

1% of 850 = 8,58,5 / 0.814 = 10,4This means that 1% spell crit will add roughly 10,4 spell damage to each frostbolt on average. So an item that would give me +15 spell damage would benefit me more in the long run than 1% crit.The reason I bring this up is that you seem to favor spell crit a lot more than spell damage on your list, which isn't what most people recommend from what I've heard.

But again, I could be wrong on this since I'm no expert on the game mechanics, so if you or somebody else could explain this topic in more detail, that would be appreciated.For those that don't know, a spell co-efficient means how much spellpower that the spell makes use of. For example, you can't stack 400 spellpower and then start spamming 430 damage rank 1 frostbolts, as that would be pretty broken. So instead a rank 1 frostbolt only uses 40.71% of the spellpower that you have currently have, 400.

40.71% = 162.84, so combined it does about 190 damage per bolt. Same thing with rank 10 frostbolts, it uses 81.4% of your spellpower. You can find more info about that (though you unfortunately require a twinstar account to access the thread). Hey Kolmar here again, thanks for taking my feedback from my last post. I'd like to add one extra thing, and that's on the subject of Spell Crit vs Spell Power. I might be wrong on this so feel free to correct me, but as far as I understand from Sheepstick's on the old Nostalrius forums, you can calculate how much spell damage you gain on average from a single spell crit with this formula:1% of average frostbolt damage / frostbolt's co-efficient.

= how much damage 1% crit adds to each frostboltSo lets say I do an average of 850 damage per frostbolt. 1% of 850 = 8,58,5 / 0.814 = 10,4This means that 1% spell crit will add roughly 10,4 spell damage to each frostbolt on average. So an item that would give me +15 spell damage would benefit me more in the long run than 1% crit.The reason I bring this up is that you seem to favor spell crit a lot more than spell damage on your list, which isn't what most people recommend from what I've heard. But again, I could be wrong on this since I'm no expert on the game mechanics, so if you or somebody else could explain this topic in more detail, that would be appreciated.For those that don't know, a spell co-efficient means how much spellpower that the spell makes use of.

For example, you can't stack 400 spellpower and then start spamming 430 damage rank 1 frostbolts, as that would be pretty broken. So instead a rank 1 frostbolt only uses 40.71% of the spellpower that you have currently have, 400. 40.71% = 162.84, so combined it does about 190 damage per bolt.

Same thing with rank 10 frostbolts, it uses 81.4% of your spellpower. You can find more info about that (though you unfortunately require a twinstar account to access the thread)The spell damage / critical strike chance ratio differs in gear level, in other words, the more spell damage you have, the more critical strike chance becomes worth, thus there's no short cut in determining which is better. I have however found a spreadsheet for calculating it based on ones current gear, so I will calculate the BIS and return back with which item is superior of the above mentioned proposals. Dragonskin Cowl is the best helmet at the moment.Amplifying Cloak is slightly better than Heliotrope Cloak.Oddly Magical Belt is slightly better than Clutch of Andros.You will need PvP Rank 7 to get the cloth gloves and boots, which give you a two set bonus making them the best.The critical bonus from Band of the Pentiant ONLY applies to melee. Items that give spell crit are only those thay specifically say so.Based on this I decided to confirm it my putting your proposals through a spreadsheet, and you are correct. However, the shoulders + boots would be the BIS option taking PvP items into account, but given that rank 8 is a lot 'harder' to achieve than rank 7 I understand your argument.

I have altered the list accordingly. Why the hell are you missing Arcane Power in your second talent spec?Think of Arcane Power as nitro for a car, it will improve your performance temporary but burn out your engine. At the entry gear level for a raid, being close to pre-raid bis, we will most certainly oom ourselves before the end of the encounter, as such I do not find it worth taking as we would have to pass up the 2nd rank of Arctic Reach and our only viable survivability of the spec: Iceblock. Python io module. That's 'why the hell' I'm missing Arcane Power.

At later gear levels it will surely be worth taking, but not for the people this guide is catering to. If you have some constructive feedback I'd be happy to hear it.I have no idea what these people are talking about by calling the guide garbage, you've done outstanding work so far. I just see some minor mistakes/typos here and there, which are:1.

The second version of your Arcane-Frost spec with Arcane Power should be listed as '31 / 0 / 20' rather than '30 / 0 / 20', as Arcane Power is the 31st talent point.2. The alliance version of the rank 7 gloves are the Knight-Lieutenant's Silk Gloves, not the Knight-Lieutenant's Silk Handwraps, the handwraps get added later on in patch 1.11 to replace the gloves.3. Some of your archived allakhazam links don't work because nobody saved them in the past, such as the Knight-Lieutenant's Silk Boots or Riptide Shoes for example. I have no idea what these people are talking about by calling the guide garbage, you've done outstanding work so far. I just see some minor mistakes/typos here and there, which are:1. The second version of your Arcane-Frost spec with Arcane Power should be listed as '31 / 0 / 20' rather than '30 / 0 / 20', as Arcane Power is the 31st talent point.2.

The alliance version of the rank 7 gloves are the Knight-Lieutenant's Silk Gloves, not the Knight-Lieutenant's Silk Handwraps, the handwraps get added later on in patch 1.11 to replace the gloves.3. Some of your archived allakhazam links don't work because nobody saved them in the past, such as the Knight-Lieutenant's Silk Boots or Riptide Shoes for example.Once again, thank you for the positive feedback, Kolmar. I have now corrected the mentioned mistakes. I will correct the broken links and find appropriate alternatives as soon as possible.

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