Wondering about my mage

[Xame]

My personal order of talenting a fire mage (having done it to 60 before the respec to frost). This is really all style so find your own and go with it. Remember to think about the instances/mobs you will face and when you need a given skill. Spec is 27/24/0

Improved Arcane Missiles (5) -> Impact (5) -> Ignite (5) -> Incinerate (2) -> Arcane Concentration (5) -> Evocation (1) -> Improved Arcane Explosion (5) -> Improved Counterspell (2) -> Improved Mana Shield (2) -> Presence of Mind (1) -> Improved Flamestrike (3) -> Improved Scorch (4) -> Improved Fire Ward (1) -> Blast Wave (1) -> Critical Mass (3) -> Arcane Focus (4) -> Arcane Instability (2)

Most of this is geared around the instance and things that you will encounter while leveling with a bit for PvP. You get IAE just in time for SM. The Flamestrike comes in when you get near maradon and the Arcane focus is when you head in to some higher end content where fire is resisted. With gearing at 60 I had a 25-30% chance to crit the scorch and fireblast, thus Ignite was cooking almost all the time (giving me very good steady dps for instance runs, NOT high aggro ripping brusts).

I personally am not a big fan of range or the really big opener. I favor more utility. I press fireblast everytime it is up and with its good crit rate in fire, is my main damage dealer (even in frost I press it alot), down side is you need to fight closer. Again this is very much a style thing. I view this build as IAM for low level power killing (required), building a good scorch and fireblast for day to day work, picking up IAE for when the 5 mans need it, then going for PoM for PvP fun, then getting more/better aoe in flamestrike and blast wave and finally getting Arcane focus for BRD etc where they have high resists to fire (about 50-70% of your fire damage is resisted away).

At 60 cap, I respec'ed to frost (18/0/33) after a few months because of hating fire resists of much of this content. This has changed now with ZG, AQ and the 5 man'ing of Strat, Scholo, Brd for 1.10. But I'm sticking with frost because the itemization of +dmg is better at my current level of gearing. I really really miss PoM and Blast Wave, but the improved CoC + Ice Shards + Shatter + Frostbite put a huge smile on my face with all of my +dmg gear (the jaw dropping moments in frost mage videos). Without a huge pile of +dmg (> +100 dmg), frost is not as good, thus the "fire for leveling". Although I will agree, two frost mages working together at any level is just overpowering given how well the frost talents work together.