The following talent guides and build recommendations were prepared by two experienced players who are dedicated to their mage characters. The following paragraphs reflect our opinions and recommendations based on our personal experience. This is a starting point on a road to understanding the mysterious mage class.

Arcane Talent Tree, by Jayne (Mug’Thol Server):

Ah, the Arcane tree. Not only is it home to one of the most frequently-complained about talents in the game, but it’s also the bread and butter of most mages. The Arcane tree doesn’t provide the mage with the raw firepower of the Fire tree, nor the increased survivability of the Frost tree. However, the versatility and options it grants are solid reasons why it is considered by many—if not all—mages to be an essential part of any build.

Tier 1: (0 Talent Points Required)
Arcane Subtlety (0/3) – Reduces the threat generated by your offensive Arcane spells by 20%/30%/40%.
Arcane Focus (0/5) – Reduces the chance that your opponent can resist your Arcane spells by 2/4/6/8/10%
Improved Arcane Missiles (0/5) – Gives you a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage when channeling Arcane Missiles.

The first tier of the Arcane Tree offers several options straight off the bat. There are three talents in the tree: Arcane Subtlety (3 points), Arcane Focus (5 points), and Improved Arcane Missiles (5 points). Any of these can be fairly useful and effective (though the effectiveness of Subtlety is very limited and situational). However, at the moment, you’re just looking for 5 points to put into this tier to get to tier 2. If you consider yourself more of a PVP mage, Arcane Focus at max rank will reduce the chance for your enemy to resist your Arcane spells by 10%. That means a 10% increased chance for spells like Polymorph and Counterspell to land, which can sometimes mean the difference between a living mage and a mage with an axe in his face.

IAM, too, can be nice in PVP. As a channeled spell, it will cast instantly and continue to cast for a while. It’s nice for finishing off runners (when a longer cast like Frostbolt or Fireball will fail due to range by the end). Being able to deliver consistent damage even when a rogue, warrior, or hunter pet is chewing you up, is handy to have in PVP. Arcane Subtlety, again, has limited usefulness. Unless you’re a raiding mage, and a Horde one at that, I’d recommend passing this talent by. However, when a Horde guild is first learning the encounters in Blackwing Lair, it’s almost invaluable to have. Since the Horde doesn’t have the advantage of Blessing of Salvation, in the aggro-sensitive fights that are ever present in BWL, any reduction of aggro can be a lifesaver. However, if you don’t plan to be raiding BWL (or further) anytime soon, or are Alliance, you can safely ignore this talent.

Tier 2: (5 Talent Points Required)
Wand Specialization (0/5): Increases your damage with wands by 5/10/15/20/25%
Arcane Concentration (0/5): Gives you a 2/4/6/8/10% chance to enter a Clearcasting state after any damage spell hits a target. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next damage spell by 100%.

Tier 2 is less open-ended than tier 1 for mages. Though wands can be nice when you’re A: out of mana, or B: trying to do damage without generating much aggro in an instance, 25% is really not worth wasting 5 talent points on. By comparison, having a 10% chance for a nice free spellcast is great, especially in longer fights that you’ll find on raids. A mage without mana is a practically useless mage (ironically, except for wands), but this talent will increase the staying power of your mana pool by a considerable amount.

Tier 3: (10 Talent Points Required)
Improved Dampen Magic (0/2): Increases the effect of your Dampen Magic spell by 25/50%.
Improved Arcane Explosion (0/5): Reduces the casting time of your Arcane Explosion spell by 0.3/0.6/0.9/1.2/1.5 seconds.
Evocation (0/1): While channeling this spell, your mana regeneration is active and increased by 1500%. Lasts 8 seconds. Instant, 10 minute cooldown.

Tier 3 is where the fun truly begins for mages. Again, to be brutally honest, Imp. Dampen Magic is a waste of talent points. Dampen Magic by itself is a nice afterthought buff to have for PVP, but is fairly useless otherwise, and the talent doesn’t make it that much better. The other two talents in this tier, however, are absolutely golden. Imp. Arcane Explosion is absolutely crucial for almost every mage build. We are the best class for AoE solely because of this talented spell. This will make your Arcane Explosion instant-cast, allowing you to move while casting and giving you a direct damage AoE to anyone around you. This is absolutely essential.

Almost as essential is the 11-point ability, Evocation. If you’ve burned your mana through AoE on a tough pull already, but there are still enemies to kill, Evocating will restore a good 60-80% of your mana, allowing you to do your mage thing for much longer. This effectively doubles your mana pool once every 10 minutes. Its applications in PVP exist (in a long fight, no opportunity to drink, you can get your mana back to still be useful in combat) but are much less manifold than its wondrous PVE potential.

Tier 4: (15 Talent Points Required)
Improved Mana Shield (0/2): Decreases the mana lost per point of damage taken when Mana Shield is active by 10/20%.
Improved Counterspell (0/2): Gives your Counterspell a 50/100% chance to silence the target for 4 seconds.
Arcane Meditation (0/5): Allows 3/6/9/12/15% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting. Requires 1 point in Evocation.

Tier 4 isn’t as staggeringly useful as its predecessor, yet still has some nice abilities. Imp Counterspell is also considered an essential staple by most of the mage community – locking down that druid’s healing for just 4 more seconds might give you the needed time to burn him down fast before he’s back in the game. Improved Mana Shield isn’t quite as nice as it’s earlier version, which increased the damage absorbed by Mana Shield, but is still a passable talent and something to put points into if you don’t have enough to reach talents further down in the tree.

Arcane Meditation is fairly useless, to be honest. If you’re not an endgame raiding mage, don’t bother—and even then, it’s only really useful in long, chain nuking fights that you’ll find in Molten Core. In Blackwing Lair, many of the fights require mages to duck in and out of Line of Sight, which means we’ll get natural mana regeneration. This does stack with Mage Armor for a total of 30% regeneration while casting, but, you have much better options.

Tier 5: (20 Talent Points Required)
Presence of Mind (0/1): When activated, your next mage spell with a casting time less than 10 sec. becomes an instant cast spell. Instant cast, 3 minute cooldown.
Arcane Mind (0/4): Increases your maximum mana by 2/4/6/8%.

Tier 5 is another great row for mages. Presence of Mind, the 21-point talent, can be extremely effective both in PVE and PVP. If the enemy warlock’s next cast will kill you, but your next cast will do the same, it’s a great instant desperation attack, or for instantly polymorphing an ambushing foe or additional monster. Using PoM on flame strike gives you an instant-cast, targetable AoE—for a desperate prevention of a flag cap in AV/AB. It’s very useful, even though using Arcane Explosion with PoM active will consume it (even though Arcane Explosion can be talented to instant cast, the game still sees it as a casting time spell).

Arcane Mind is a much more direct application than Arcane Meditation. If you’re going to put more than 21 points into the Arcane tree, you really ought to have this. More mana is never a bad thing.

Tier 6: (25 Talent Points Required)
Arcane Instability (0/3): Increases your spell damage and critical strike chance by 1/2/3%. Requires 1 point in Presence of Mind.

The lone talent in the 6th tier is also a very nice one. While not the massive damage increase granted by its counterpart in the Fire tree, it boosts both your damage and your crit percentage. A solid talent and one that really should not be passed up, even if you could.

Tier 7: (30 Talent Points Required)
Arcane Power (0/1): When activated, your spells deal 35% more damage while costing 35% more mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 sec. Instant cast, requires 3 points in Arcane Instability and 1 point in Presence of Mind.

Here you go, one of the most complained-about abilities by other classes in the game. Combined with the Berserking buff found in Battlegrounds (or the Fury of the Frostwolf/Stormpike Salvation equivalent in Alterac Valley), your damage output is temporarily increased by 65%, which is more than an untalented critical strike. Combined with the spell increase granted by the Zandalarian Hero Charm or the Talisman of Ephemeral Power, this is the ability that leads to those nifty 3000+ crits that people whine about on the forums. Best used in PVP, as any usage of this in PVE combined with chain-casting will likely get the monster pissed off at the mage beyond the tank’s ability to hold aggro. However, it can be nice for “full burn” type events (i.e. Main Tank down, Chromaggus at 1%, burn this SOB to the ground before he kills all of us).

For 15 seconds, you are a damage god. After that, well, you’re less divine for another 3 minutes. Is it worth the trade off? Well, that one’s up to you.

As far as the Arcane tree as a whole goes, there are 18 points that are considered essential by almost every mage. 5 Points in a combination of Arcane Focus/Imp Arcane Missiles, 5 points in Arcane Concentration, 1 point in Evocation, 5 points in Improved Arcane Explosion, and 2 points into Improved Counterspell. You will rarely see a mage build without these at the bare minimum.

If you’re going Frost, you can get by with just these 18 points. Ice Barrier can be nice, and there are other talents in Frost to dump 33 points into. However, if you’re going Fire, Combustion isn’t nearly as good as the versatile Presence of Mind, so you might as well go at least 21 into Arcane.

Frost Talent Tree, by Tagge (Mug’Thol Server)

For every mage out there you will find a different opinion on the effectiveness of the Frost tree versus the Fire and Arcane trees. There are countless builds plastered over every mage related forum. As with many aspects of World of Warcraft, the extent to which you delve into the Frost tree will be determined by the role you wish to play in the PvE or PvP arena. I hope to impart my experience with the Frost tree so that you can have a well thought out overview of how to initially spend your talent points.

With due respect to the exclusive Frost – Fire “Elementalist” fans, I find that a minimum of 11 talent points should be spent in the Arcane tree to be truly effective in PvP and PvE encounters. From personal raid experience, I believe the Clearcasting and Evocation talents are absolutely necessary talents in the endgame. This means that at least 11 points should be spent in the Arcane tree, just enough to get Evocation. If you wanted additional PvP flexibility, you could spend an additional 5 talent points in Instant Arcane Explosion and 2 talent points in Counterspell.

With the above in mind let me break down the Frost talents by Tier. I will progress in a linear fashion, walking you through point distribution as the points become available. I will discuss the talents and their effectiveness at the end of each Tier as well as make my recommendation as to where they should be spent.

Frost - Tier 1 (0 Talent Points Required)
Improved Frostbolt(0/5) - Reduces the casting time of your Frostbolt spell by 0.1 – 0.5 seconds.
Permafrost (0/5) - Increases the duration of your Chill effects by 1-3 seconds.

You will have 20 to 40 points to spend in the Frost talent tree depending upon the number of points spent in the Arcane tree. The first 5 points can be effectively spent in Improved Frostbolt, thereby unlocking Tier 2. Permafrost is a complimentary talent which may be useful if you have extra points later on. 5/5 points in Improved Frostbolt will shave off ½ a second on your Frostbolt casts. Tier 2 is now unlocked after spending 5 talent points.

Frost - Tier 2 (5 Talent Points Required)
Ice Shards (0/5) - Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Frost spells by 20% per point.
Winter's Chill (0/3) - Increases the power of your Chill effects by slowing the target's movement by an additional 4%-12%.
Improved Frost Nova (0/2) - Reduces the cooldown of your Frost Nova spell by 2 - 4 seconds.

The next level has some very helpful talents, but many only be used if you have the extra talent points to spend later. At this time we only have to spend 5 points to open up the next tree. I recommend putting 5 talent points into Ice Shards since it directly relates to the maximum damage done and it will effectively double the damage you do when a critical strike hits. Tier 3 is now unlocked.

Frost - Tier 3 (10 Talent Points Required)
Piercing Ice (0/3) - Increases the damage done by your Frost spells by 2%.
Cold Snap (0/1) - When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown on all of your Frost spells.
Improved Blizzard (0/3) - Adds a chill effect to your Blizzard spell. This effect lowers the target's movement speed to 70%-30% of normal. Lasts 1.50 sec. (unless improved by Permafrost)

My next few points have always gone into Piercing Ice. The 3 talent points spent there will increase all Frost damage by 6%. For solo gameplay this is the best route as it increases your overall damage. I also spend 1 talent point in Cold Snap, the cooldown wiping can come in very handy in both PvE and PvP situations. The remaining point is best put in Frost Nova.

For a Frost Control build you would be better served to put 3 points into Improved Blizzard, Coldsnap and 1 point in Improved Frost Nova, Permafrost or Winter’s Chill. Such builds may be required by your guild for Nefarian and other AOE encounters where slowing and freezing massive numbers of NPCs is necessary. Now Tier 4 is unlocked.

Frost - Tier 4 (15 Talent Points Required)
Arctic Reach (0/2) - Increases the range of your Frostbolt spell and the radius of your Frost Nova and Cone of Cold spells by 10%.
Frost Channeling (0/3) Reduces the mana cost of your frost spells by 5%-15%.
Shatter (0/5) - Increases the critical strike chance of your Frost spells against frozen targets by 10%.
Improved Frost Ward (0/1) - 50% of the damage absorbed by your Frost Ward is to your mana.

Without hesitation I would throw 2 points in Arctic Reach and 3 points in Frost Channeling for all Frost builds. The range and mana conservation is invaluable. This unlocks the Tier 5 should you wish to explore deeper into the Frost tree and forgo the 31 point Arcane Power / Frost build.

For end-game raiding the 31 point Arcane Power / Frost build is very effective, efficient and downright fun for all encounters leading up to the BWL Nefarian encounter. However, the Nefarian encounter can make very good use of the crowd control talents of a properly talented Frost Mage so expect that a few mages will be asked to re-spec into 3/3 Blizzard, Permafrost and perhaps Winter’s Chill.

If you choose to go deeper into the Frost talent tree, read on Apprentice.

Frost - Tier 5 (20 Talent Points Required)
Ice Block (0/1) - You become encased in a block of ice, protecting you from all physical attacks and spells for 10 sec, but during that time you cannot attack, move or cast spells.
Improved Cone of Cold (0/3) - Increases the damage dealt by your Cone of Cold spell by 15%.

Out of the two Tier 5 talents the most effective and useful one is Ice Block. Since you have chosen to forgo the Arcane Power / Frost build by putting 21 points in Frost, where you go from here is very much open. Ice Block is instrumental in keeping mages up in high end raiding instances. The time you are invulnerable is just enough time for your healers to cast a quick heal and to shield you. It is also enough time for other classes to gain aggro if you were unfortunate enough to pull it.

For the solo build I would put 1 last point in Improved Frost Nova, 1 point in Ice Block and 3 points in Improved Cone of Cold. You’ll need to fill out the Improved Frost Nova talent to unlock Shatter and the Improved Cone of Cold will work in concert with Shatter as you spend your final points.

For a purely Ice Control build I recommend 1 point in Ice Block. The remaining 4 talent points I recommend putting into the lower level control talents, 1 last talent point in Improved Frost Nova and 3 talent points in Winter’s Chill. Tier 6 is unlocked.

Frost - Tier 6: (25 Talent Points Required)
Frostbite (0/5) - Gives your Chill effects a 3% chance to freeze the target for 5 sec.

At this point if you have 18 points in Arcane you will have 8 points left to spend.

For the solo build I would put 4 points into Shatter at this time. Shatter is very useful for close up AOE damage as it increases the critical strike potential for “frozen” targets. This means all your frozen NPCs will be subject to the Shatter effect when you use your Improved Cone of Cold blast. When used in conjunction with Cold Snap, a mage could hit innumerable frozen targets with two consecutive critical strikes, with each hit capable of 1000+ damage.

The final point which would unlock Tier 7 would be best put in Permafrost or Blizzard. Permafrost would be a good choice for increasing your chill effects by one second or Blizzard for increased movement reduction.

For an Ice Control build I recommend at least 1 point in Permafrost and you can divide the remaining 6 between Permafrost and Frostbite. I recommend 5 points in Permafrost over Frostbite because the Frostbite freezing effect could cause for uneven AOE kiting. Save the final point for Tier 7.

Frost - Tier 7: (30 Talent Points Required)
Ice Barrier (0/1) – Instantly shields you, and at the highest rank it will absorb up to 818 damage. Lasts 1 min. While the shield holds, spells will not be interrupted.

Place a point here when the tree unlocks. You’ll either have a few points left or none.

For the solo build 18 Arcane, 33 Frost, you will have 2 points left. You could realistically put those points anywhere. Depending upon where you want a little extra Frost versatility.

Fire Talent Tree, by Jayne (Mug’Thul Server)

The Fire tree is an anomaly. For a while, it was considered to be quite easily the strongest tree for a Mage. However, as more people started raiding Molten Core, the increased presence of Fire Resistance on everyday gear became a problem. The previously powerful fire spells would get resisted much more often. And so, people turned to Frost, if not for raiding, to avoid the effects of the growing sea of FR gear. However, lately it appears that more and more Mages at endgame have been returning to the Fire spec for various reasons.

Whatever those reasons may be, it can’t be denied that FR gear notwithstanding, the Fire tree is a very powerful tree. It doesn’t have the trickery and versatility of the Arcane tree, nor does it provide the mana efficiency and survivability of the Frost tree. The Fire tree is about damage. Lots of damage. While the Frost tree provides survivability through slowing effects, chills, roots, and the lovely Iceblock, Fire provides survivability through making the other guy very, very, dead.

There are two styles one can approach the Fire tree with—a Scorch build and a Fireball/Pyro build. Both have their advantages.

A Scorch build is more suited for PVE. While most Fire mages won’t use their actual fire spells for the most part in MC/BWL (due to “Resist” or “Immune” being the words of the day), Fire spells are perfectly viable in ZG, AQ20/40, and any of the Level 60 dungeons. The reason Frost tends to be a common raiding spec for Mages is because of its mana efficiency. A Mage without mana is a useless Mage, and Frost extends that mana pool significantly. Chain casting Fireball will leave you burned out (quite literally) very quickly. Scorch, however, is a very mana-efficient spell. Not only is the spell itself very efficient, its rapid casting speed means more chances to proc Clearcast (assuming you’re also Arcane spec), which is a free Fireball or Arcane Missiles, whichever is your wont. In addition to which, when it crits, it will still do respectable damage—but not the massive Pyro/Fireball crits that make monsters decide that they should go chew on your cloth-wearing behind for a bit.

That being said, lets take a look at the tree itself.

Tier 1: (0 Talent Points Required)
Improved Fireball (0/5): Reduces the casting time of your Fireball spell by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 sec.
Impact (0/5): Gives your Fire spells a 2/4/6/8/10% chance to stun the target for 2 sec.

Tier 1 of the Fire tree is pretty solid. Improved Fireball is a requirement for Pyroblast, so if you want that you need to put points into it. Also, reducing the cast time from an excruciatingly long 3.5 seconds to a more reasonable 3 seconds is quite nice. Impact is also a good talent to have. 10% to stun is nothing shabby, especially with Scorch builds that machinegun-cast. Impact is also one of the few defensive options in the Fire tree—though relying on a proc for your defense is never a great idea. Still, it’s a nice talent to have, and most Fire builds incorporate it to some degree. Fairly useless in raiding PVE (except for the Battleguard Sartura fight where it’s not too shabby), but really nice in PVP.

Tier 2: (5 Talent Points Required)
Ignite (0/5): Your critical strikes from Fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 8/16/24/32/40% of your spell’s damage over 4 sec.
Improved Fire Blast (0/5): Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Blast spell by 0.5/0.8/1/1.2/1.5 sec.
Flame Throwing (0/2): Increases the range of your Fire spells by 6 yards.

Tier 2 has two great options and one average one. Ignite is wonderful, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Fire build without it. The counterpart to the Frost tree’s Ice Shards talent, it boosts the normal 150% damage on spell crits to be in line with the normal 200% damage that melee attacks get. In the end, with 5/5 Ignite, your spells will do 210% of the damage as opposed to 200% on Frost spells with Ice Shards, only it’s a DoT (1000 damage base, 1500 crit. 40% of 1500 is 600, which gives us 2100 in total). It’s absolutely essential to have.

Imp. Fireblast is pretty lousy, though. All in all, you get 1.5 seconds off your Fireblast. That—although nice—is not worth the 5 talent points it takes to get there. Some builds put just 1 point into it for the initial .5 seconds off the cooldown in order to satisfy requirements for higher tiers, but putting all 5 into it is a waste.

Flame Throwing is also nice. 36 yard Scorch and 41 yard Fireball are great in PVP, and in big mobile fights like those in AQ. While there are some builds that don’t have it, I consider it fairly important to have.

Tier 3: (10 Talent Points Required)
Incinerate (0/2): Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire Blast and Scorch spells by 2/4%.
Pyroblast (0/1): Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 716 to 890 Fire damage and an additional 268 Fire damage over 12 sec. 1 minute cooldown, requires 5 points in Improved Fireball.
Improved Flamestrike (0/3): Increases the critical strike chance of your Flamestrike spell by 5/10/15%.

The third tier of the Fire tree is pretty good. For Scorch builds, an extra 4% crit for only 2 talent points is lovely, though it’s probably not the best use of your talent points if you’re a Fireball/Pyro mage. Speaking of Pyroblast, it’s directly to the right of Incinerate. Pyroblast is what gives the Mage the BIG crits for Fire spells. The 12 second dot is nice for fighting rogues as well, though the actual damage is fairly negligible. However, due to its 6 second cast, it’s fairly worthless unless you’re planning to go 21 points in Arcane for Presence of Mind. In a PVP situation, standing still for 6 seconds is just asking for death (or worse, a Counterspell/Kick/Spell Lock). And in PVE, those big crits will make mobs go “RAWR MAGE KILL.” Still, it’s a powerful spell.

Improved Flamestrike is a mixed blessing. While 15% crit is certainly nothing to scoff at, Flamestrike really isn’t one of our most commonly used spells. Sure, it’s nice to PoM Flamestrike around a group of Horde/Alliance capping a flag in AB/AV and see all the nice pretty big crits pop up, but that’s a very specific situation. However, it is a prerequisite for the amazing Blastwave, so this talent is worth picking up. However, if you’re only going 20 points into Fire, you can’t get Blastwave anyway, so this talent is pretty useless to you.

Burning Soul is another mixed blessing. In PVE you shouldn’t be getting hit, so it’s pretty pointless. In PVP, if you’re getting hit it’s usually a very bad thing, so you have more important things to deal with. It is nice when fighting hunters and other spellcasters, but since it’s not even a 100% chance to avoid interruption, there are better options.

Tier 4: (15 Talent Points Required)
Improved Scorch (0/5): Your Scorch spells have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Fire damage. This vulnerability increases the Fire damage dealt to your target by 2% and lasts 15 sec. Stacks up to 4 times.
Improved Fire Ward (0/2): Causes your Fire Ward to reflect 20/35% of the Fire damage absorbed back to the caster.

Tier 4 of the mage tree is, all things considered, fairly weak. Improved Scorch is only useful for Scorch builds, and even then it’s iffy. In PVP it’s rare to get all 5 Fire Vulnerabilities down on a target. When you do, that’s an extra 10% damage which is pretty sweet, but it rarely happens. This is more for PVE, as it enhances all the fire damage of the other mages and warlocks in your group and you’re almost assured to get all the 5 Vulnerabilities down.

Improved Fire Ward is completely useless. If it reflected 35% of the damage taken while Fire Ward was active, it might be better, but it’s all the damage absorbed. Considering the maximum rank of Fire Ward absorbs just shy of 600 damage, it’s a waste of two talent points.

All things considered, it’s good that the lower tiers have so many good talents, because Tier 4 is pretty weak.

Tier 5: (20 Talent Points Required)
Critical Mass (0/3): Increases the critical strike chance of your fire spells by 2/4/6%.
Blast Wave (0/1): A wave of flame radiates outward from the caster, damaging all enemies caught within the blast for 462 to 544 Fire damage, and dazing them for 6 sec. 45 sec cooldown, requires 3 points in Improved Flamestrike.

Tier 5 is nice, very nice.The 6% crit from Critical Mass is lovely, and would be worth taking even if it weren’t a requirement for the Tier 6 and Tier 7 talents. Blast Wave, too, is phenomenal. Not only is it a powerful, instant AoE, it’s great for snares and temporary crowd control. The Blastwave daze is the only snare effect that you cannot trinkett, shapeshift, or Blessing of Freedom out of. That makes it great for running the flag (or slowing the opponent’s carrier) in Warsong Gulch. And an instant 500 damage is nothing to sneeze at.

Tier 6: (25 Talent Points Required)
Fire Power (0/5): Increases the damage done by your fire spells by 2/4/6/8/10%. Requires 3 points in Critical Mass.

The sole talent in the 6th tier, Fire power, is nice. If paired with Improved Scorch and a Warlock with Curse of Elements, it’s pretty much a constant Arcane Power. It’s very nice to have.

Tier 7: (30 Talent Points Required)
Combustion (0/1): When activated, this spell gives your next Fire damage spell a 100% critical strike chance. 5 minute cooldown, requires 5 points in Fire Power.

When looking at Combustion, we can’t just figure in the talent itself. After all, an auto-crit Pyroblast or Blastwave is really nothing to sneeze at. Sometimes the Fire mage lives or dies by that one crucial crit. However, in taking Combustion, let’s look at what you’d have to give up.

By taking Combustion, you deny yourself either the extremely versatile Presence of Mind in the Arcane tree, or (for all you hippie elementalist Mages out there) the invaluable Iceblock. As said before, Pyroblast is useless without PoM—and an automatic crit means nothing if you can’t get the spell off. And Iceblock is just too useful as a debuff cleanser or temporary “Oh crap!” button. Both of the alternatives are far superior to Combustion, so I really can’t recommend taking this on any circumstances.

In the end, the Fire tree is a powerful, fun talent tree with lots of different options. Some of the more popular builds are 31/20 Arcane/Fire (Arcane Power + PoM + Pyroblast = pain), or 21/30 Arcane/Fire (taking PoM, because it’s much better than Combustion). There are some mages who swear by 0/30/21 (Fire/Frost) builds, but with the current state of Mage talents, giving up Evocation/Improved Arcane Explosion/Improved Counterspell/Clearcast is simply too much of a price to pay for most Mages.