Finetuning my Frost respec

[Skandranon]

(power 18 snipped)
# Arcane Meditation - 4/5 points
Allows 12% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.

Doesn't stack with Mage Armor and frequently just stops working out of the blue. Points here are not good investments until Blizzard fixes the acknowledged bugs with this talent.

# Arcane Power - 1/1 point
When activated, your spells deal 35% more damage while costing 35% more mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 seconds.

Arcane Power is a bit of a strange talent in the PvE raiding endgame. It's more a PvP/elite quest tool prior to 60 and outside of raids, as it just enhances DPS and not DPM. If you don't plan on raiding much, but do intend to do a lot of PvP, Arcane Power can be a good choice. It's also somewhat handy in PvE, but you obviously don't need it to solo nonelites or to complete 5-man instances.

For a number of raid encounters, especially in MC but also to a certain extent in ZG, you need mana efficiency until your equipment gets better. Especially if you're doing ZG before gearing up in MC. It was the reason I respecced Rylea to Frost: I was just tired of going OOM halfway through fights because my primary attack was Missiles. Frostbolt's efficiency means that at the point when you're OOM (because you will be before you're kitted out in epics) you'll have done more damage. Arcane Power doesn't change this: it doesn't hurt, but it also doesn't help. I suppose there's a marginal improvement to going OOM earlier so you can start wanding earlier.

On the other hand, once you've reached enough mana that you aren't going to run out, Arcane Power can become very useful again. As your equipment improves, you'll find that you're ending engagements with more and more blue left in the tank. It only makes sense to use AP to use some of that up and finish bosses faster.

Looks good on paper, but I'm wondering whether the points into Shatter are worth anything when you don't put points into Frostbite as well. As I understand it, without Frostbite, the only way to freeze targets would be with Frost Nova. And we all know how long one of those lasts. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to pull off a Frostbolt before a mob gets loose again.

Max shatter can be useful without frostbite, but only two points is definitely not worth it. Keep in mind that even with frostbite, you don't see the proc that often, so shatter will almost always be powering crits off a frost nova. However, here you're investing four points, two of which are going into a fairly useless prereq, for a relatively small crit chance increase.

If you're intending to do some end-game raiding, it would be a good idea to pick up Frost Channelling. I stand by my original assessment that it's useless from 1-59 and in non-raid stuff in 60; you simply don't fight anything that takes long enough for Frost Channelling to make a difference. But in MC especially, when frostbolt is the only thing you'll be casting most fights, Channelling makes a difference. Each point in there translates to 5% more mana. And unlike Arcane Mind, which is 2% more *max* mana per point, the cost reduction is essentially a buff to all mana - your mana pots, mana gems and evocation are giving you effectively 5% more mana per point in Channelling.

However, I'm wondering whether Presence of Mind will be all that useful in a Frost build, given that Frost Bolt is the only thing with a casting time. Always seen PoM as something you pair with Pyroblast.

Maybe drop PoM for Ice Barrier, and turn it into a 31 Frost/20 Arcane build instead?
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Presence of Mind still remains interesting in a Frost build, though mostly for PvP. You can chain it with Fireball (yes, in a Frost build) for a mini PoM Pyro or with Polymorph for various reasons (one of which is the Majordomo Executus fight). It's less useful, but ice barrier is not all that useful either.