"A talented Mage will have a good talent build," a wise Mage once said. I honestly don’t know if that’s really a saying but the words are true. Talents define your character no matter what class you are. Your talent build will determine your spell rotation (the order in which you cast spells) and works with your gear to determine your performance. So having a first-rate talent build is quintessential no matter what you do.

Building a Good Talent Build for a Mage

There are literally hundreds of builds you can use that are probably viable in some form or another and even premade builds may never truly fit your playstyle. So that’s why it’s important to know a few basics about crafting your own builds.

The first thing to realize is that many talents work together to create some interesting and downright powerful combos. A simple example is that talents that increase both your critical strike chance and your critical strike damage are a win/win combo. Others work with certain abilities to mold your spell rotation (the order in which you cast your spells) to get the most bang for your mana buck. In the business world you might call this synergizing your talents.
The second thing to realize is that some talents are just downright useless. Things have advanced in the modern times to where most talents have a point or purpose, but that doesn’t mean that all talents are good in every build. So be sure to read over every talent properly and use your points very wisely.

Talent Schools

Just like every class there are a total of three talent schools (but you probably know them as trees). The three schools are Arcane, Fire, and Frost. That’s basically the weird, the hot, and the cold (but not the good, the bad, and the ugly). Arcane is kind of a weird mix of utility and DPS (that’s damage per second or WoW slang for just damage). Fire is all about maximum frontloaded DPS while ignoring burst damage and utility. Frost gives you utility, the single highest AoE DPS, and very high mana efficiency. There aren’t a lot of tricky complications or highly niche trees here.

Arcane
Arcane Build

• Focus Magic: Focus magic is a raid ability that lets you put a buff on someone else to give them a 3% additional chance to crit with spells and will give you an additional 3% chance to crit with your spells whenever they crit. The buff lasts for 30 minutes. A neat trick is that you can cast the buff on another Mage and they can cast it on you. When either Mage crits then the other Mage would have a 6% chance to crit. This is a talent you can get without sacrifice much in the other lines as well.
• Presence of Mind: This is a talent that has been a staple of Mage talent builds for ages. Basically this talent makes any spell with under a 10 second cast time instant. This means that spells like Pryoblast can be casted instantly. This has endless possibilities in PvP and PvE.
• Arcane Power: Gives you 30% more damage for 15 seconds (increasing mana cost by 30% at the same time). This gives you a massive damage boost and can be combo’d with Presence of Mind to make a truly powerful combo.
• Arcane Barrage: This talent is an instant cast high damage ability that is really useful for to deal a lot of damage fast. With a low cooldown and enough mana regeneration you can use this ability often.

Talents to Avoid

• Arcane Fortitude: Armor isn’t very useful for a Mage and even 150% of your Intellect in armor isn’t going to add a ton. Focus more on offense than defense as a Mage.
• Magic Absorption: 80 resist is tempting but the game isn’t all about resists anymore. You don’t really need to worry about defense.
• Improved Blink: While it might be useful in getting around quicker it can also kill you quickly in a raid. If you’re big on PvP and use Blink a ton then maybe, but again more damage will equal more survivability in most instances.

Key Arcane Talents
Talent		Notes
	Focus Magic Increases the target’s chance to critically hit with spells by 3%. When the target critically hits, the caster’s chance to critical hit with spells is increased by 3% for 10 sec. Cannot be cast on self.	A really great raid buff. For 25-man raids you should have at least one Mage with this talent.
	Presence of Mind When activated, your next Mage spell with a casting time less than 10 sec becomes an instant cast spell.	Use with spells that take a long time to cast like Pyroblast. A great opener and can be used to really surprise players in PvP.
	Arcane Instability Increases your spell damage and critical strike chance by 3%. (At rank 3)	A passive 3% to crit with spells that can stack with other talents in other schools. There is no reason to not get this if you’re going that deep.
	Arcane Power When activated, your spells deal 30% more damage while costing 30% more mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 sec.	30% more damage may not seem like a lot but at high levels, it can add up to a ton. Can be combo’d with Presence of Mind to deliver a really powerful instant cast spell.
	Arcane Flows Reduces the cooldown on your Presence of Mind, Arcane Power and Invisibility spells by 60 secs and the cooldown of your Evocation spell by 2 min.	If you’re this far into Arcane then you need this ability. It makes Presence of Mind and Arcane Power have a 2 minute cooldown which means a lot in raids.
	Missile Barrage Gives your Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage, Fireball, Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt spells a 20% chance to reduce the channeled duration of the next Arcane Missiles spell by 2.5 secs and missiles will fire every .5 secs.	Required for a proper rotation. It will make your Arcane Missile ability actually do a ton of damage.
	Arcane Barrage Launches several missiles at the enemy target, causing 936 to 1144 Arcane damage.	The main damage ability in the Arcane tree. While it does cost 16% of your mana it does a lot of damage for an instant cast spell.

• Pyroblast: Pyroblast is a stronger version of Fireball with a longer cast time. It’s a great solo ability that will take out a good portion of an enemy's health before it notices you attacking. In raid situations and in PvP it is less desirable unless combo’d with Presence of Mind.
• Critical Mass: Will give you a 6% additional chance to crit with Fire spells. There isn’t much reason to not get this for PvP or PvE.
• Combustion: Gives you a 10% chance to critical strike buff and an additional 10% every time you fail to get a critical strike on an enemy with a Fire spell until you get 3 crits. This ability will give you a massive temporary boost to damage every 3 minutes and you should always have it up as much as possible.

Fire Talents to Avoid

• Burning Determination: It’s great to become immune to Silence or Interruption but these aren’t very common unless you’re in the arena. If you’re in the arena then by all means go for it, but outside the arena you’re not going to find a lot of it.
• Dragon’s Breath: A great solo ability and good in PvP, but many Mages prefer to skip it for raiding. Even in PvP the effect isn’t all that great for 31% of your mana.
• Impact: Again, an ability that has some use in PvP (it procs off of Molten Shields) but lacks everywhere else. While leveling up look into it but anywhere else is just a waste.

Key Fire Talents
Talent		Notes
	Pyroblast Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 1190-1510 (at level 77) Fire damage and an additional 452 (at level 77) Fire damage over 12 sec.	The solo ability for Fire Mages, this will take a large chunk of health out of any enemy before it gets to you. In PvP it can be combo’d with Presence of Mind to give you an extremely powerful nuke. Not much use for it in raiding though.
	Critical Mass Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire spells by 6%.	There is no point in going Fire without this talent. 6% passive critical strike chance is insane and will really add that umph to your Fire spells.
	Combustion When activated, this spell causes each of your Fire damage spell hits to increase your critical strike chance with Fire damage spells by 10%. This effect lasts until you have caused 3 critical strikes with Fire spells.	This ability will massively increase your DPS when using Fire spells by giving you 3 almost free crits. Have this up whenever possible.
	Improved Scorch Your damaging Scorch spells have a 100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to spell damage, increasing spell critical strike chance against that target by 2% and lasts 30 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.	At rank 3 this ability will give you a 2% additional chance to crit per debuff (up to 10% at 5 debuffs) everytime you cast Scorch. Why isn’t this in my top abilities? Well it’s only useful for long fights where you have the time to cast Scorch 5 times every 30 seconds. In raiding you’ll need this, unless someone is using Winter’s Chill (they don’t stack) or if another Mage is going to keep Scorch up.
	Burnout Increases your spell critical damage bonus with all Fire spells by 50% but your spell criticals cost an additional 5% of the spell's cost.	Little to no reason to get this on your way to Living Bomb. A massive damage increase at a small mana cost. 50% additional critical strike damage will really push those numbers high.
	Living Bomb The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking 612 Fire damage over 12 sec. After 12 sec or when the spell is dispelled, the target explodes dealing 336 to 337 Fire damage to all enemies within 10 yards and knocking all targets up in the air. This spell can only affect one target at a time. Rank 2: 543 Mana, 1024 Fire Damage/12 sec, 563 to 564 Fire Damage explosion. Rank 3: 980 Mana, 1380 Fire Damage/12 sec, 759 Fire Damage explosion.	A high damage HoT with an explosion proc that is insane in PvP and a great damage boost in PvE. No reason not to get this one.

• Icy Veins: An ability with a 20 second duration that increases casting speed by 20% and removes the pushback effect from damaging attacks. This will give you 20 seconds of massive DPS allowing your spells to fire off really fast and will prevent damage from interrupting you. This is great if you have multiple enemies hitting you and you need to get a Polymorph off or just as a way to increase your DPS.
• Winter’s Chill: Gives a debuff to all enemies hit with Frost spells to increase everyone’s chance to critical strike them with spells by 2% and stacks up to 5 times (for a total of 10%). That’s a 10% passive chance to increase your critical strike chance by 10%! This ability works on all Frost spells unlike Improved Scorch (even if they share the same effect) and doesn’t stack with Improved Scorch either. This doesn’t work for just you either making this a desirable talent no matter what.
• Summon Water Elemental: Summons a Water Elemental for 45 seconds (or a full minute with further talents). It does a good deal of DPS and can be a lifesaver in solo situations. In a raid situation, it provides additional DPS. In PvP, its “Freeze” ability can apply the Freeze debuff on enemies while you cast a Frostbolt to take advantage of the Shatter talent.

Frost Talents to Avoid

• Improved Cone of Cold: Cone of Cold damage is negligible so increasing it by 60% isn’t really that great.

That’s about it. Most Frost talents are excellent. There isn’t much to avoid here.

Key Frost Talents
Talent		Notes
	Icy Veins Hastens your spellcasting, increasing spell casting speed by 20% and gives you 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting. Lasts 20 sec.	20% increased cast speed can dramatically increase our DPS and when combo’d with various trinkets and buffs, you can really do some serious damage.
	Frost Channeling Reduces the mana cost of all spells by 10% and reduces the threat caused by your Frost spells by 10%.	Less mana and threat is really good in raid scenarios and even solo once you have your Ice Elemental pet.
	Winter's Chill Gives your Frost damage spells a 100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance Arcane, Fire and Frost Spells will critically hit the target by 2% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.	At rank 3 this is much like Improved Scorch but works for all Frost spells. As you spam Frostbolt you’ll see the debuffs stacking and will never see them come off unless dispelled.
	Arctic Winds Increases all Frost damage you cause by 5% and reduces the chance melee and ranged attacks will hit you by 5%.	If you’re solo, raiding, or in PvP there is no reason at all to deny yourself 5% additional damage and 5% dodge all in one talent.
	Summon Water Elemental Summon a Water Elemental to fight for the caster for 45 sec.	The Water Elemental with Improved Water Elemental will last for a full minute and can place “Freeze” status on various enemies.