Respeccing my mage

Not changing trees, just the focus.

I'm quitting Improved Arcane Explosion, for one. As sweet as it is, it's really not neccesary nor good for my health; fact is that it draws a ton of aggro to me, and I'm ill-equipped to deal with it; in cases where I survive, I usually would also survive dealing with them one at a time. Also, as I wasn't using my frost spells much cause they sucked, I started just going down the arcane tree toward that kick at the very bottom, but I've found that the frost tallents make the frost spells more usefull and that the arcane tallents are for the most part crap. Really, the only reason to stay in arcane is for the you're-insane-if-you-non-challantly-ignore-it evocation and the 10%-less-mana-usage-overall Arcane Concentration. The rest of the tree is full of too much bullshit to be worth working your way down to the +35% DPS spell at the bottom.

My new build (immediate):
Improved Arcane Missles 5
Arcane Concentration 5
Evocation 1
Improved Frostbolt 5
Ice Shards 4
Improved Frost Nova 2
Improved Blizzard 3
Frost Chanelling 3
Shatter 3
Ice Block
As I level, I will get the following:
43 Shatter 4
44 Shatter 5
45 Ice Shards 5
46 Frostbite 1
47 Frostbite 2
48 Frostbite 3
49 Frostbite 4
50 Frostbite 5
51 Ice Barrier
52 Improved Cone of Cold 1
53 Improved Cone of Cold 2
54 Improved Cone of Cold 3
55 Piercing Ice 1
56 Piercing Ice 2
57 Piercing Ice 3
58 Winter's Chill 1
59 Winter's Chill 2
60 Winter's Chill 3

So, as soon as I respec, I will have both the awesome Evocation and the awesome Ice Block (Removes ALL bad status effects except Res Sickness and can be ended early), and my frost spells will be a lot more usefull then I will soon be doing Frost Nova+Cone of Cold for a 50% chance of a sweet critical and be well on my way to my own personal Power Word: Shield (Ice Barrier)

Before I respec, I'm going to test out a rumor that just one point in arcane meditation elliminates the 5 second mana regen timer; if this is so, then I'll probably get Improved Arcane Explosion 4 (to get the prereq) and Arcane Meditation 1 after Ice Barrier, cutting out the last 5 tallents in my current plan; the last 6 are really just minor tweaks anyway.

I fought ONE mage in PvP who used ice block. We laughed for a while, then killed him.

The only problem I see with this is that you're using frost. Frost gives you more control vs. melee opponents, but there are things that can prevent it from becoming effective at all....Free action potions for one.

I'm going fire/arcane. For my final talent I'm deciding between Presence of Mind (next spell with a cast time < 10 seconds becomes instant cast), or combustion (next fire spell is a guaranteeed critical). So far I'm loving fire, and have no problems with any melee chars I've fought. You should give it a shot.

Where does Free Action say it helps against chill effects? If I slow you to 10% movement speed, a Free Action Potion won't do shit. Ice Block is for getting out of DoT, Fear, Disease, etc. If you actually wait the full time on it, you're stupid.

It makes you immune to stun and root effects, and I think snare as well (cold is considered a snare I believe)

I'm not talking about freeze, I'm talking about chill. In any case, as Surge will tell, in PvP groups, my blizzard now owns; all enemies slowed to 35% of normal movement=everyone is easy targets for my friends.

In large PvP, as long as everyone is attacking me (which they usually are) then the blizzard is amazing. I don't even have to shock anyone, since they can barely move.

WW that build is going to be raped by other mages that go full arcane/fire.

Yeah, but he stands a higher chance against meleers, which are what I seem to run into most frequently, not sure about him. I constantly have rogues, warriors, pallys, and even druids (rarely) trying to jump me. For the most part I can win, but it's usually a close fight as fire/arcane.

WW that build is going to be raped by other mages that go full arcane/fire.

And then that mage will be promptly raped by one of WW's brethren. Not sure how your guild does it but we look out for eachother on Illidan.