Spec for World PvP and BGs?

So I'm a mostly PvE player,
and while I know that Frost is generally considered the best Arena spec for mages, I'm not that interested in doing arenas as of the moment.

I do wonder which spec would be best for World PvP and BGs, however, assuming limited (little-to-no) PvP gear.
I presume Frost would do quite well at the former due to slows, but would it, say, be better to just go with fire in BGs for more burst?

On a side note, also wondering if it's worth it to build a Relentless set for just these activities.

Thank you in advance!

I play almost exclusively BGs as arcane mage. It is very fun and with good gear (I am bis) you can dish out some pretty insane numbers. Fire can be fun too but is a lot more squishy.

But with no pvp gear I'd say go arcane!

isn't fire better at full BiS/endgame?

Frost -- best for 1v1, duels, arena. Not so great in bgs and chaotic battles.

Fire - powerful aoes, nice burst also on single target, rely a lot of crit and rng.

Arcane - best for burst down single target, but the squisher one vs meeles.

Overall I would say fire is better for wpvp and bgs

I have been a PvE player and a big BG/WPvP player since the inception of this server and i can assure you that arcane is the way to go, ESPECIALLY if you play BGs as a premade party.

You get a consistent nuke without any cds that will put any healer on his toes. Once you pop those cds, healers can just stop trying. Always top off every missiles proc with a barrage + fire blast.

You get an insane spammable slow with no diminishing returns, so you can laugh as a druid/shaman just keeps switching forms as you just press that one button over and over untill he just stops running away. PLUS with the TTW talent your slow will guarantee you a 12% bonus damage on every target so apply slow whenever you switch onto a target.

Despite peoplae vouching for fire, the reality is that fire wont hold up like arcane will versus any organised/good enemy team. Fire will get you big numbers popping every now and then but periodically and guess what? Most of those crits will just be healed up and will just be a useless number on the damage charts which wont impact the game. The peer pressure and bursting that arcane has constantly will make you able to burst down healers and pressure the enemies when its needed. Im not even gonna start on how useful PoM into a Polymorph is for any situation, be it offensive or defensive. Instant invisibility with talents is also a VERY useful addition which can be used in so many different ways to escape, or sneak up onto someone, sneak past, avoid damage, and so on...

I have all the pve sets for each spec and build and a pvp set and i still go full glass cannon arcane into BGs with my friends. 1500 haste is something to fear especially when backed up by a good party healer.

The only healer that is able to withstand your CD burst is a paladin, and only with a bubble. With BiS or near BiS PvE gear, CDs popped and a missile proc, you can down any healer within one global cooldown without even spellstealing them or interrupting them at all. Tested this thoroughly versus many great bis pvp healers.

Playing this build will make you care about your positioning, awareness, perypheral vision and target priority. You will have to practice how to use every one of your defensive spells to its maximum potential, and make you think about defensive ways of utilizing your offensive spells, as you will literally be a oneshot for many heavily geared people. But with enough time, experience, a group of friends, and this toolkit at your disposal, you become a lethal weapon (and the number one focused person once they realize who is deleting them xD), and a great addition to every BG.

Now go my child and nuke those bladestorming warriors trough their measly triple pocket heals and laugh as their healers keep sweating at their keyboards asking themselves what on Azeroth was that? An orbital laser cannon?

By Tricks, from <POKEMONS> of the Icecrown realm.


*tips fedora*

Edit: Sorry for making this reply into an almost something of a guide. If you wish to talk to me or ask any questions, feel free to whisper me if you find me online, I'd love to chat with anyone who is interested in deepening their understanding of their class. Cheers!

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Originally Posted by svinjotaur

I have been a PvE player and a big BG/WPvP player since the inception of this server and i can assure you that arcane is the way to go, ESPECIALLY if you play BGs as a premade party

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Depends on the BG I'd say. In 40 man BGs fire is probably the best spec in the game.

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Originally Posted by svinjotaur

Fire will get you big numbers popping every now and then but periodically and guess what? Most of those crits will just be healed up and will just be a useless number on the damage charts which wont impact the game.

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When you spam LB in a large scale fight you get literally a Hot streak proc on each GCD and that makes you able to spam instant pyros on a single target and kill it in a matter of seconds.

Also fire is the safer spec, especially when you are full pve geared. You have only instant spells which you can cast on max range and in case you get attacked you have plenty of abilities to escape from your opponent.

Playing arcane in full pve gear puts you in a dangerous position. You have less range than fire, no escape beside blink and you have to hardcast. Beeing closer to the opponents plus the fact that you need to stay still in order to deal dmg means that you get more frequently attacked than a fire mage and with zero resilience and barely any escapes you'll die in a matter of seconds.

I would disagree, plus the biggest known Aleterac Valley damage dealer on the server is an arcane mage. Fire is still very much cucked by the fact that he has a chance to pop insta pyros EVERY GCD. Every GCD is not really enough when youre facing good healers.

If you pop a big pyro crit, that damage will be healed back onto 100% usually before your next one comes in. Defensivelly, as arcane you have blink, instant poly and instant invis, which is very much enough to deal with any situation, of course accompanied by the usual frost nova, cone of cold, ice block and your spammable slow.

Hard casting aint really a problem with 1500 haste and good awareness and positioning. And of course all I have said was usually based around playing in a premade 3-5 man group with a dedicated healer. In that case you hardly ever die when you get used to it...

I'm not talking about BGs where you're stomping the opposition, I'm talking about BGs when the enemy is equally deadly. I havent died more than 2-3 times 90% of the times I was in such a BG with a dedicated healer and peeler :) I cant remember the name of the arc mage i was reffering to in the beggining but he is known for pulling off like 10-20 million damage done in Alterac Valleys alongside two dedicated pocket healers :)

My point is that one pyro aint enough to kill an enemy (geared enemy), and the one gcd between two possible pyros is enough for the enemy to be fully healed again. Arcane on the other hand just has a steady stream of nonstop pounding damage every 0.3 seconds, with missiles critting for 5k each and barrage critting over 10k sometimes on well geared enemies.

Hard casting isnt really a problem once you know how to position yourself in such a way that it is impossible for the enemy to get to you. It is very easy with a 3-5 man organised premade groups. I have played both specs in both PvE and PvP. Played PvE fire in BGs, played The usual PvP fire build, even the infamous PoM Pyro build. The "dangerous position" which youre talking about is just a case when youre starting to play and gettting used to it. After a while, with practice I started feeling even more safer than if I wore PvP gear, as the pure damage I had helped me survive more. Never forget that pure damage is sometimes the best defence, as a dead enemy cant kill you :) I've had many instances when I 1v1 bursted down a warrior down in BGs before he could even half my HP. As a meme said once: "Death is the best CC!"

Nothing really compares to arcane imho. This is just my opinion, and you have all the privilege to have your own. I'm just speaking from over 10 years of experience in this expansion. Cheers! :)

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Originally Posted by svinjotaur

I'm talking about BGs when the enemy is equally deadly. I havent died more than 2-3 times 90% of the times I was in such a BG with a dedicated healer and peeler :)

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You have 0 resilience, a blink and a iceblock with 5 min CD. Any dedicated opponent team will focus and kill you before your healer has even time to heal.

Fire mage has in addition sprint, disarm, dragons breath and blast wave. These are 4 more defensives than a arc mage has and that does make a HUGE difference when you are running around with 0 resilience.

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Originally Posted by svinjotaur

the biggest known Aleterac Valley damage dealer on the server is an arcane mage.

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A BiS PvE geared fire mage has enough haste to spam LB and pyros on a 1sec GCD and enough crit rating to make pretty much each LB explosion a guaranteed hot streak.
There is no way that a arc mage who has ZERO aoe dmg can beat a equal geared fire mage in a 40 man BG.
The arc mage is able to deal more dmg in 10-15 man BGs if the Fire mage doesn't get enough hot streak procs but not in a 40 man BG.

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Originally Posted by svinjotaur

My point is that one pyro aint enough to kill an enemy (geared enemy), and the one gcd between two possible pyros is enough for the enemy to be fully healed again. Arcane on the other hand just has a steady stream of nonstop pounding damage every 0.3 seconds, with missiles critting for 5k each and barrage critting over 10k sometimes on well geared enemies.

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Spaming pyros on a 1 sec GCD does even more single target dmg than AM+AB.
In addition to that the pyros can be dished out while moving and thus, keeping a safe distance to the opponent.
Thats the crazy thing about Fire. You can kill single targets in 3-4 seconds while moving around.

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Originally Posted by mier

Spaming pyros on a 1 sec GCD does even more single target dmg than AM+AB.
In addition to that the pyros can be dished out while moving and thus, keeping a safe distance to the opponent.
Thats the crazy thing about Fire. You can kill single targets in 3-4 seconds while moving around.

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Not if they are getting good heals. I've played all the specs to death in BGs. Arcane mage does way more damage within 1 GCD than a fire mage can even dream about, and that is what makes the difference. What is a pyro that can crit like uhm... max 10k on a bis geared enemy with resilience gonna do? nothing really. And it will most likely be healed before the next pyro even hits. doing a fire blast between aint gonna help that either really...

And about the survivability... Yeah, it is obvious that fire has more survivability, its just that you dont need it at all if you have a good healer and a good melee peeler in your premade group. If you run with a lets say... Holy paladin and arms warrior, or Holy paladin and Ret pala. They can litterally just heal/shield your way out of most situations, and the peeler can get the scum off of you. And if they cant, then you have the defensives which are really enough to get away, avoid getting killed and continue doing what you do imho... I've queued solo many times and had literally no problems at all unless its an organized turtling premade against you which really is nothing you can do about when queuing solo.

I have played allt he possible specs and talent/gear builds troughout the years in BGs, and fire just doesnt do enough consistant damage compared to arcane. Plus AM can fire trough walls and NOLoS if you activate it before the enemy LoSes you. You cannot really focus targets with fire all the time cause to "nuke" you have to reset LB on others all the time so you can proc so that just adds more time off-target. Fire can be FUN and GOOD, I'm not deying that and I never will. And it is a great spec. It jsut sadly doesnt cut it in terms of focused fire damage dealing in BGs most of the time. Its VERY much RNG based, and it just gets worse in smaller BGs which are the actual FUN ones so yeah... I love fire to death, but I must give the crown to ARC. Just my opinion. We can agree to disagree in the end. :)

Sure. When you have a premade that is build around your full PvE geared arc mage then you have a better chance to survive but even then you might get globaled before anybody has even time to react.

Out of all mage abilities pyro does the most dmg in a GCD. As long as you get each sec a hot streak proc fire is able to dish out the highest single target dmg in a short time frame. For expl 3 pyros in a 3sec time frame deal more dmg than AB+AM in a 3sec time frame.
It might sound unrealistic to rely on getting 3 hot streak procs in a row but in fact it's quite easy to accomplish that in 40 man BGs. Especially in BiS PvE gear because in this case LB has over 65% crit chance.

I use pyro on focus target and spam LB on the selected targets so I don't have any targeting issues when the hot streak procs are kicking in. With that method the focus target usually dies in 3-4 sec once the LBs start to detonate.

That is true but I have to point out the fact that you forgot to account for spell dodging and the time the spell takes to hit your target. Pyro can be dodged easily or blocked by a defensive/utility spell while its comming. Plus, there is the other time needed for your next pyro to reach the target, while arcane jsut keeps pounding sustained damage, AND to be frank, My 4x stack arcane blasts can probably do more dps in a global than pyros can, as they have no spell travel and are almost invisible and crit for nearly the same amount. Its all about getting used to hardcasting and the playstyle around it :) A lot of the times you can stay under the radar and nuke peoples socks of with just hardcasting 4 stack AB's.

With fire your target can los you between your pyros, while it cant los you when youre casting AM. That is why fire is reaaaly inconsistent, as those scenarios happen very often. Using the AM LoS mechanic makes you able to sustain pressure and kill your enemies even when they go and LoS you. And like I've said, you can get AM to crit tons with each tick which just makes it more sustainable, and an ability that you can count on and play around with in many ways. Even non-porcced AM can easiliy kill people when they go to LoS and stay alive wether its walls, hills or platforms. And also tbh AM has some weird kind of "Rubber band" range mechanic, where the range for it is somewhat greatly increased when you start casting, so it will continue to cast even though your enemy has walked out of your initial range that was required to cast the spell. I just feel that for me, the arcane kit is superior and more stable.

And I dont really design my premade around myself i just make sure that we have a healer that is great at saving anyone, be it me or anyone else, and most of the time ill go for holy pala for its strong singletarget heals and "oh ****" button saves. And of course if i want to go super dirty, i take a hpal and a restodruid with me and i dont ever need to even worry about dying and can hardcast everyone into their impending demise :) In the end it is all about personal preference and opinion, and what I've said is based on my own 10 year experience of playing all specs/builds in both PvP and PvE.

There might be some who would find fire suiting their playstile and expectations, and some others like me who can adapt, improvise and overcome the limitations which arcane gives you and use the very unique and interesting spell kit it has to its maximum potential, and find it actually more consistant and sustainable than fire. In my experience i've just been too cucked by RNG and LoS as fire that it just got to a point where I wasnt having fun anymore, and arcane completely changed that because it honestly isnt only about AM procs, it is the pure base damage that AB does once you stack it that makes it crazy consistent and powerful.

I just hope that anyone who is interested in playing BGs with PvE gear finds both our rants useful and makes a build that they really enjoy playing!

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Originally Posted by svinjotaur

I just hope that anyone who is interested in playing BGs with PvE gear finds both our rants useful and makes a build that they really enjoy playing!

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Yep. Both specs are entertaining. That's for sure. ;-)

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Originally Posted by svinjotaur

Playing this build will make you care about your positioning, awareness, perypheral vision and target priority. You will have to practice how to use every one of your defensive spells to its maximum potential, and make you think about defensive ways of utilizing your offensive spells, as you will literally be a oneshot for many heavily geared people. But with enough time, experience, a group of friends, and this toolkit at your disposal, you become a lethal weapon (and the number one focused person once they realize who is deleting them xD), and a great addition to every BG.

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This is the base of pvp, nothing to do with your spe or whatever.
Futhermore it's work only because you have your personnal healer everytime behind you that mean you are bad. The only think i see, it's only how powerfull healer are. Btw any hunter 'll love you in bg.
To make an arcan mage useless is really easy, because you have to cast arcan so any cs in your face = no blink = all pala, war really happy, so you have to waste your iceblock. So war have just to wait the end of ib, if you blink > charge bs and your dead. If an arcan mage don't cast and spam instant, = no problem because that mean 0 burst.

And spamming living bomb is one of the worst thing in pvp. You break all cc.

But that only happen when people have knowledge, and coordination, so not on bg and most of arena.


Frost spe = more control, less damage than other spe (control is the key in many fight)
fire spe = more damage, still enought control but less survavibility (warning some of your control spell need to be close to your target)
elemental spe = this spe is all about damage, really hight burst you can 3 shoots people but 0 survavibility that mean you also get 3 shoots
arcane spe = same damage as fire (if fire crit), a bit more survivability than elemental, good vs caster due to talent (and good burst only because less resistance to this type of magic.)

Try by yourself find what you like.

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Originally Posted by phrias

And spamming living bomb is one of the worst thing in pvp. You break all cc.

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Who cares about CC in BGs and especially in 40 man BGs?

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Originally Posted by phrias

But that only happen when people have knowledge, and coordination, so not on bg and most of arena.

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^ This