Mage Basics. Part Three.

So now you've hit level 10. Yay! Congratulations! Head to the trainer, pick up your new spells and get ready for another way to customize your character. We're talking about talent points.

Every class has three trees. For mages, these trees are Arcane, Fire and Frost. You get a talent point for every level. Your talents get better as you put more points into them. You get more points by leveling? See? Easy. Those Blizzard folks are smart.

So what are our options at level 10 for our first talent point. This is a deeper question than it appears, because you might be stuck with it for a while. I'll break down the trees into some basic forms and talk about the first tier of talents.

Arcane.
The Arcane tree is generally regarded as a "utility" tree. It is designed to support the fire and/or frost trees in nearly any build. From improving your Intellect to giving you free spellcasts, putting points into the Arcane tree is a must for most mages in both PvE and PvP.


Arcane Subtlety. Reduces your target's resistance to all spells by 5 and reduces threat of Arcane spells by 20%.

Arcane Focus. Reduces the chance that the opponent can resist your Arcane spells by 20%

Improved Arcane Missiles. Gives you a 20% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Arcane Missiles.

Fire.
The Fire tree is a raw damage tree. Most of the talents are based around putting out lots of damage in a short period of time. In most PvE encounters, a fire- specced mage will out-DPS any other class in- game. You give up the extra survivability of the Frost tree in exchange for a much higher damage output.

Improved Fireball. Reduces the casting time of your Fireball spell by 0.1 seconds.

Impact. Gives your fire spells a 2% chance to stun the target for 2 seconds.

Frost.
The Frost tree is powerful in it's own right. You will not have the high burst damage a Fire mage will, but you will still put out significant amounts of ranged DPS on your own. Where the Frost tree really shines is increased survivability and enhanced AoE. This allows a Frost mage to shine in PvP encounters and utilize a tactic referred to as "AoE grinding" while leveling.

Frost Warding. Increases the armor and resistances given by your Frost Armor and Ice Armor by 15%. In addition, gives your Frost Ward a 10% chance to reflect Frost spells and effects while active.

Improved Frostbolt. Reduces the casting time of your Fireball spell by 0.1 seconds.

Elemental Precision. Reduces the mana cost and chance targets resist your Frost and Fire spells by 1%.