Hi guys,

1. I’ve started with a research concerning a mage. I’ve seen a lot of builds, I watched Vurtne, Void and other mage videos…According what what I’ve seen, I’d say that the frost mage would be the right spec for me, on the other hand, I realised that some of the TOP mages switched later to PoM Pyro or elemental specs, they played with the blast wave etc.
Basically, I already know that I would have fun playing the frost mage in PvP, but I wouldn’t like to be “forced” to play the other specs later. My question is: Is it possible to play the frost mage through the entire Vanilla and stay the top tier class/spec or did the TOP mages change their spec, because frost simply wasn’t viable anymore so they had to switch to smth else? (I know that for other classes, some specs weren’t viable simply because there was no available gear for them etc.)

2. How was the frost mage against hunters and locks?

3. PVE: I found a lot of info, people mentioned that you basically had to go frost until AN and then fire. Does it mean that it would make 0 sense to go to Naxx as a frost mage or is it viable, but not as good as the fire build?

Thanks

Well played a hunter back in the day and I can say for question number 2. Stay in that “good” range.. the range where hunters can’t shoot their ranged weapon and can’t melee. If you stay in that range be prepared for a scatter and trap (ice block will be your best friend). Once you have it down or go against a hunter that has no clue what to do, you will have no problem. Poly the pet will help tremendously too. Just comes down to practice and how good the other player is!

Hey,

You can be a frost mage through the entire Vanilla and be a top tier class in PvP. Coupled with engineering, you're a basically a beast.
PoM Pyro is viable in group but you will have a hard time and your cds are down (obviously).
Elemental spec requires a good stuff but it can be a blast. Don't expect to do miracle in blue stuff tho.

As a mage you have the upper hand against hunters. You can really play with the dead zone.
However locks are kind of your nemesis. With CDs up, you can fight but it will require to use a lot of them, without, you'll have a very hard time.

As for PvE, forget about being frost in Naxx. You will be the very essence of uselessness. Past the fire resist boss, you have to be fire to be viable (and have a spot). The dps gap between frost and fire past is huge.

You CAN play frost if you want. After MC you will still have better DPS than most other specs, sorry hunters & druids. But if you want to be raiding at the highest level fire will be the best option.

Alrighty then,
1. This all depends on what your playstyle is. Frost has quite possibly the best control in Classic and can be split into various spec types. Remember this, Classic/vanilla do not have the same cookie-cutter specs that you see in the current version of WoW. Your exact playstyle can be forged through the talent tree in a variety of ways. Mages have it pretty good in that regard. You can be full frost or elemental with most of your point in frost or go for an aggressive arc/frost build. The good news is that all of them are viable all the way through vanilla for PvP because they all have specific strengths. You can build specs to specifically defeat rogues or locks or whatever. But again, it all boils down to how you play. Are you defensive or offensive when you play (elemental is a very aggressive spec)? When it comes to PvP there is no "best spec" for mages, it's all about what you enjoy the most because they are all good at making alliance dead. Use the talent calculator https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage to help theorycraft a spec that you think you might like compared to the vanilla PvP stars of old that you enjoy watching.
2. When fighting hunters it is imperative that you stay in the dead zone as mentioned by @Zurgan. Elementalist is great against hunters while in their dead zone because you have so many close range spells like https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=13021/blast-wave and https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=10161/cone-of-cold. Warlocks can be tricky. If you are Undead you will have less to worry about especially if you spec into Improved Counterspell which give you a 100% to silence. Timing those against fear will set you up for great success. Your greatest challenge will come against Soul Link warlocks that can seem to take an eternity to kill and in Classic/vanilla there is no Spellsteal so you will have to either sheep the lock and kill the pet or work a miracle (at least against a good lock) in order to prevent Sacrifice and the overall damage mitigation from Soul Link. Take the time to research your "enemy" classes in depth prior to launch and you will win more often than you will lose against these classes.
3. Try not to think of specs in terms of good or bad. Instead understand that Fire spec against mobs that have frost resistance is clearly better and vice versa for MC/BWL. Fire (with combustion) just flat out does more damage against mobs without Fire resistance. It can also be a lot of fun in PvP. You can 1 shot someone with a good https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=18809/pyroblast crit. It doesn't even need to kill them initially because the Ignite DoT will certainly finish them off.
Respecing is not the end of the world but it can be expensive. Try not to let this get you down because you will likely have a tremendous amount of fun playing the class before you ever have to worry about speccing for Naxx. Always keep in mind that speccing and PvP and other mechanics are not the same as retail WoW (there are too many variables to list here). Classic is a version of the game that was meant to make the game more about a personalized experience rather than optimizing for raids. It will be a whole lot easier to conceptualize all of the information you are getting once you start playing. Hope this helps!

Thanks all for the replies, really appreciate it!

I have a similar question! Sorry if I highjack your post but I think it's relevant. . .

I saw a deep-frost PvP spec that went into Fire to pick up Pyroblast, does this sound workable? I know that improved counterspell is huge, and there are a number of talents in the early arcane tree that help with survivability, but I really want the meme potential of Sheep+Pyro.

Let me know what you guys think!

deep frost with fire is the strongest build to 1v1 rogues (for ignite)
its not bad overall, its just imp cs is better.

pyroblast isn't really that great, ignite fireblast is. even on a pom pyro mage the opener is often fireball>pom pyro because cba waiting 6 seconds.

something like this https://www.bobo-talents.com/?c=mage&t= ... zcpRrgrhp9

wonderland wrote: ↑

4 years ago

something like this https://www.bobo-talents.com/?c=mage&t= ... zcpRrgrhp9

well I think arcane subtlety is better, but imp coc is certainly strong.
burning soul is extremely useless in this build

if it was me i would save a point on pyroblast too honestly.
ideally you have the hit gear to not need ele precision + the point from pyro and you can get 3/3 cone.
theres always little stuff u can change in the mage builds, like if u want imp blizz etc