What are the thoughts of a Fire/Frost mage? Is it worth it to keep some of the damage of fire and crowd control of frost in exchange for the mana saving that is arcane? I'm only level 28 but I do play on a PvP server, and I think this could be a powerful although uncommon way to go. Thanks.

The beauty of the arcane tree is that most of it affects all spells, whereas fire and frost both affect only their particular type of spells. So I think spreading your points between two different trees that only help one type of your spells will end up weakening you. On the other hand, anythying is worth trying once.

Well, if you want damage and the control of frost, there are 2 viable ways of action.

1) You could be the standard frost mage, and spec all your gear in +spell damage (I currently have +213 dmg, and rising). You'll have very low health (I have 2600) but you can raise that number by 800 with Ice Barrier, and by 800 again if you use Cold Snap.

2) You can take frost all the way to frostbite and ice block, and get Presence of Mind from the arcane tree. You'll be loosing the +1600 health of the double Ice Barrier, but meh, can't have it all

Thank you both very much for the fast replies. How would this build work in your opinions?

Fire Talents (27 points)
Impact - 5/5 points
Ignite - 5/5 points
Improved Fireblast - 5/5 points
Incinerate - 2/2 points
Improved Flamestrike - 3/3 points
Blastwave - 1/1 point
Critical Mass - 3/3 points
Improved Scorch - 1/5 points
Fire Power - 3/5 points

Frost Talents (24 points)
Permafrost - 5/5 points
Improved Frost Nova - 2/2 points
Winter's Chill - 3/3 points
Cold Snap - 1/1 point
Improved Blizzard - 3/3 points
Piercing Ice - 3/3 points
Arctic Reach - 2/2 points
Frost Channeling - 1/1 points
Ice Block - 1/1 point
Improved Cone of Cold - 3/3 points

I'm still a long way off form level 60, but the mage can be built so many different ways. I'm sure I will be spending gold changing specs as I learn the class lol.

I think the question that needs to be asked before you can really evaluate that talent spec is, how do you expect combat to go? What spells do you plan to cast, and when? From that, what benefit will your talent build give to those spells, versus what another build would contribute?
This is one of the reasons there are so many good talent specs out there. For example, that build would probably be great for pvp... you use fire when you want to kill someone quick, and frost to slow down a runner, etc. PVP makes you face many different combat situations.
For myself, most of the time I'm in Blackwing Lair or Molten Core, and there I'm pressing '2' for Frostbolt repeatedly, and doing little to nothing else. Therefore whatever can give me the most benefit on repeated frostbolt casts is what spec most benefits my playstyle.
If you don't plan on pvping much, but plan on using the frost for actual instanced crowd control, how do you plan on working that and when do you plan on using fire spells? In that case, someone practiced with endgame frost based crowd control could give their input. (I can't, I stick to polymorph for crowd control and just blast down most everything else)
Anyway, an idea of how you plan to play, what spells you plan to use, and how you expect a typical fight to progress would lend a lot to this discussion.

Good questions, not sure I have all the answers yet due to my level, but the way I understand the trees are Fire=damage, Frost=defense & control, Arcane=mana saving and fast casting. I know these are pretty broad generalities, but I was thinking about a build that was both good at end gaming and PvP, maybe not great at one or the other.

The thing is that frost is also EFFICIENT damage. A good frost/arcane build can sit casting frostbolts long after you've run out of mana in a fire/frost or fire/arcane build, resulting in more damage over the long run.

What do you prefer as a good leveling up frost build that will be successful in both regular play and pvp?

Arcane Talents (18 points)

# Improved Arcane Missiles - 5/5 points
Gives you a 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Arcane Missiles.

# Arcane Concentration - 5/5 points
Gives you a 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%.

# Evocation - 1/1 point
While channeling this spell, your mana regeneration is active and increased by 1500%. Lasts 8 seconds.

# Improved Arcane Explosion - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Arcane Explosion by 1.5 seconds.

# Improved Counterspell - 2/2 points
Gives your Counterspell a 100% chance to silence the target for 4 seconds.

Frost Talents (33 points)

# Improved Frostbolt - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Frostbolt spell by 0.5 seconds.

# Improved Frost Nova - 2/2 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Frost Nova spell by 4 seconds.

# Ice Shards - 3/5 points
Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Frost spells by 60%.

# Cold Snap - 1/1 point
When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown on all of your frost spells.

# Piercing Ice - 2/3 points
Increases the damage done by your frost spells by 4%.

# Improved Blizzard - 3/3 points
Adds a chill effect to your Blizzard spell. This effect lowers the target's movement speed to 35% of normal. Lasts 1.50 seconds.

# Arctic Reach - 2/2 points
Increases the range of your Frostbolt spell and the radius of your Frost Nova and Cone of Cold spells by 20%.

# Frost Channeling - 3/3 points
Reduces the mana cost of your frost spells by 15%.

# Shatter - 5/5 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your frost spells against frozen targets by 50%.

# Ice Block - 1/1 point
You become encased in a block of ice, protecting you from all physical attacks and spells for 10 seconds, but during that time you cannot attack, move, or cast spells.

# Frostbite - 5/5 points
Gives your chill effects a 15% chance to freeze the target for 5 seconds.

# Ice Barrier - 1/1 point
Instantly shields you, absorbing 455 damage. Lasts 1 minute. While the shield holds, spells will not be interrupted.

Level 40: 549 damage absorbed
Level 52: 678 damage absorbed
Level 58: 818 damage absorbed

Fire Talents (0 points)

# None

This has a number of benefits for both regular play and pvp.
First, you have the Ice shards/Shatter/Frostbite combo which is extremely destructive in both PVP and PVE, since you've got a 50% chance for a crit on any frost nova'd player/mob, as well as a 15% chance for any nuke to freeze your target, then a 50% chance of a crit on that frozen target.
You also get instant arcane explosion and evocation from the arcane tree, giving you a great AE tool for enclosed group pvp or many ae-required encounters in instanced dungeons. Evocation I consider the best talent available, since its a free full bar of mana in emergencies.
Taking the frost tree all the way to ice barrier gives you a great shield against incoming attacks when you're low on health. The reason this ability is so great is that it protects from spells, which mana shield does not do. Its sure to come in handy in pvp, especially flag carrying.

Something to consider though is this isn't an exceptional leveling build since a good deal of its power relies on frostbite.
For leveling, I'd probably go higher damage, something fire, like this:
Arcane Talents (16 points)

# Improved Arcane Missiles - 5/5 points
Gives you a 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Arcane Missiles.

# Arcane Concentration - 5/5 points
Gives you a 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%.

# Evocation - 1/1 point
While channeling this spell, your mana regeneration is active and increased by 1500%. Lasts 8 seconds.

# Improved Arcane Explosion - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Arcane Explosion by 1.5 seconds.

Frost Talents (0 points)

# None

Fire Talents (25 points)

# Improved Fireball - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Fireball by 0.5 seconds.

# Impact - 5/5 points
Gives your fire spells a 10% chance to stun the taget for 2 seconds.

# Flame Throwing - 2/2 points
Increases the range of your fire spells by 6 yards.

# Ignite - 5/5 points
Your critical strikes from fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 40% of your spell's damage over 4 seconds.

# Improved Fire Blast - 4/5 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Blast spell by 1.3 seconds.

# Burning Soul - 3/3 points
Gives your fire spells a 65% chance to not lose casting time when you take damage.

# Pyroblast - 1/1 point
Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 148 to 195 fire damage and an additional 56 damage over 12 seconds.

Level 24: 180 to 236 damage, 72 over 12 seconds
Level 30: 255 to 327 damage, 96 over 12 seconds
Level 36: 329 to 419 damage, 124 over 12 seconds
Level 42: 407 to 515 damage, 156 over 12 seconds
Level 54: 600 to 750 damage, 228 over 12 seconds
Level 60: 716 to 890 damage, 268 over 12 seconds

Note that this build is up to level 50, and you can throw points around after that until you go frost.

[Edited by Revith at 2:50 PM on 8/26/2005]

Thank you very much. I played a wizard up to 70 in EQ and I must say i'm liking the mage very much. I'll be sure to frequent these boards and ask questions in the future.

The general concensous is that you do a Firebuild all the way to around 48-50 and then respecc to frost if you want to level fast. At low levels fire gives the best dps and burst available, but as you progress burst isn't mana efficient enough while leveling and at around 48-50 frost is the best build because of its high DPM (damage per mana). Less resting is always a boon with a mage :)

as for An elemental mage build, many mages that don't have access to MC/BWL/Onyxia are using this now. Simply put it's because of the major amount of fireresist items melee are stacking up on and the fact that in many pvp situations frost just hasn't got enough burst to do away with the trickier opponents like priests, shamans, paladins etc (again unless you have access to MC/BWL/Onyxia where massive amounts of +dmg gear will make you a killing machine with frost if you have the perceverance to get enough of the gear).

The build you suggested is close or similar to what most elemental mages I know of use, the extra AoE burst given by blastwave is a killer in BG's wher more than one opponents come at you at a time (the daze it gives is also very nice for an additional snare when your Frost nova is on cooldown).

Personally I still use my Arcane/frost build with PoM and feel that this is better than the classical 33/18 frost/arc build as PoM give you that much more burst and unpredictability.

just my 0.02$

I definately like PoM, and personally took arcane up to Instability but stopped short of Arcane Power so I could take Ice Block for survivability. But my build is very raid-based, since I rarely do anything pvp related.