World of Warcraft mage talents?

Question

I know that mage is a lot stronger than a warlock. My question is that wat talent trees do i need to build to become a awesome DPS killer, less mana taker, and does intense damage and doesnt get hurt a lot. And also tell me, did i make a good choice of a mage race? A Gnome? PLease help and thanks

Answer 1

Ok, to start off with, mage is only stronger than Warlock in certain specific ways. Warlock pets give the Warlock substantial firepower or their very own tank, and they rule the caster DPS race.

Mages are naturally nukes (possibly the best nukes in the game) and don't do DPS damage spectacularly. At high levels they don't have a lot of instant casts, but rather, high-damage spells that take a few seconds to get off.

As for your questions, DPS and intense damage (nuking) are usually pretty mutually exclusive. The best at each tend to not do the other well (i.e. Rouges are DPS, Warriors are nukes, neither does the other role well.) Build for one or the other, not both.

In PVP and PVE, the best way to avoid taking damage is to avoid attracting attention, but as far as talents go, many ice spells have slow or daze as part of the spell, if your opponent can't reach you they can't hurt you. Remember, nuke damage pulls agro like crazy, so get into a good working relationship with your tank. As far as PVP goes, be careful, mages are natural targets because you are both dangerous and vulnerable.

All the talent trees for mages have talents that reduce the cost of certain specific spells. Just choose a branch you like and stick with it, only put a few picks into the other branches or you won't be able to get the really good stuff at high levels of specialty.

As for race, gnomes are really good mages. You bonus to intelligence gives you more MP to work with, your race power is very useful (although significantly weaker than it used to be) and your small size makes you harder to target in PVP. Good choice!

Answer 2

Gnome is a great choice for a mage due to thier racial intellect bonus.

Mages can definitetly out dps a warlock for short periods of time and if you have a good tank that knows how to keep aggro on multiple mobs, the aoe done by mages definately out does aoe by any other class.

However balancing DPS with being mana efficiant is definately a challenge. The talents in the fire tree are best suited to do the best DPS, the talents in the arcane tree are the best for mana management, while the frost tree is the best for survival.

Equipment is another consideration, if you go into the arcane tree I recommend stacking lots of intellect gear to get the benifits of the build also spirit to take advantage of the regen while casting talent.
If you want ultimate DPS then you should stack on a ton of plus spell damage gear and go down the fire tree but you won't be able to last very long.

I would recommend trying out a warlock if you haven't already, although they don't have the impact a mage does, the DOT's they can cast on multiple mobs, and the life to mana conversion they have can allow them overtime to achieve better dps than a mage. Plus the ability to fear is a killer in PVP.

Answer 3

I have a lvl 69 mage and i find that the best combination is divided between arcane and frost, if set correctly it allows you to do an average 30,000 instant damage :P great for pvping and soloing bosses for quests.