Rogue Leveling Talent Builds

The number one question that I get from people has always been and will now even moreso be, “What is the best build…”

It’s a viable question. My biggest advice is for you to pick a good build and stick with it. Don’t try to be an innovator. Let someone else blaze the trail for you. I have spoken to THOUSANDS of rogues (I’m not joking) who have taken a standard tested build and made gigantic changes to them. A sprinkle of this and a sprinkle of that to cater to your gameplay, fine, but don’t put together some wild build and then ask someone later if it’s any good. I’m not saying this because I’m irritated with any factor of this because I simply am not. I’m just trying to save you folks some time and gold. Others have blazed the trail for you. Enjoy the game and benefit from that knowledge.

You’re going to want to test all of the new skills and talents. Try to refrain from doing so. You’re going to get pounded out there and will want to respec to minimize this. Just try to be better at the build you have unless it’s horribly flawed. If you don’t know whether or not your build is horribly flawed, then it probably is.

Before I get into builds, let’s cover talents that are good and bad for leveling.

First off, I don’t like most of the survivability talents. Reduced chance of being stunned, feared, extra HP, chance to resist spells, all have their applications. Grinding isn’t one of them. I might have some of this stuff in my builds but only because there are no better options. I don’t like MoD except for daggers where I kind of have to get it for improved ambush. But even then Camouflage has served me much better in my grind. Improved ambush is an excellent talent to max out. Open with big crits and end it fast. Also, if you are a dagger rogue, remorseless attacks is your best friend. While I don’t really need it to get a lot of ambush crits, it guarantees it and keeps me driven to move from mob to mob.

Also note that these builds might change at the last minute before BC comes out as they are constantly changing things.

Combat Swords
At 60:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhxboxZGoEd0Vzx0uo

To 70:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=wheboxZGoEd0Vzx0Got

I actually did a Mace version of this because my maces are a lot better than my swords. Claws are fine too; just stay away from combat daggers. It’s great for raids but rough for grinding. Save daggers for SF/Mutilate.

I warn you, you will take a lot of damage with this build. You will open with CS, get 2 SS’s in, will have 4 combo points, the mob will no longer be stunned and you will take a pretty heavy beating for 6 seconds while you wait for enough energy to gouge or continue on doing damage.

Use this build aggressively. Every two minutes you should be fighting two mobs at once with blade flurry. Every 5 minutes you should be fighting 3 mobs at once using blade flurry and adrenaline rush at the same time. Just be careful when pulling multiples, BF and AR are amazing but they don’t make you Superman. The combo should be CS, evasion, AR, BF, SS, SnD, spam SS.

This build feels slow and clunky when you’re not using BF or AR. Those of you who used a heavy subtlety build to grind to 60 will especially feel this way. CS seems to last a split second because of its energy cost. You find yourself waiting and waiting while you just do white damage and wait that seemingly loooooong 4 seconds to do another SS. My advice is to muscle up and just pump it out. You’re going to take damage. Just bandage once every 5-6 fights if you have to and trust the fact that this is probably the best DPS leveling build.

Mutilate
At 60:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=iGxboxxsizVoGZV

To 70:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=iGxboxxsidVoGZV0xc

This build isn’t for everyone but for me it was the hands down best solo grinding build possible. Mutilate is fantastic for grinding if you are comfortable with daggers. I don’t know if I’m killing faster than I did with a combat build but I certainly had more fun with it. It’s very efficient. I take very little damage and the mobs drop fast. Here’s a common combo: Ambush, wait, gouge, wait, KS, mutilate, mutilate, evisc. I know that’s a lot of waiting, but those pauses are also followed up with some monster hits. With improved ambush and remorseless attacks you are pretty much guaranteed a crit opener. When you ambush and gouge you will almost always have 3 combo points. If you put smart pauses in after ambush and after gouge, you will have a full energy bar when dropping that KS.

Note with these mutilate builds that I made some changes to what you probably had in your pre-BC mutilate build. First off, I have instant poisons maxed out. This isn’t absolutely necessary but getting your target poisoned early is important for efficiency.

Yes, I have improved SS in this build. It’s not a must, but it’s nice to have when both your gouge and kidney shot miss/dodge/parry/block. It doesn’t happen often, so there’s no crime in spending your points elsewhere.

Some people like to grind with mutilate by opening with cheap shot. This is perfectly fine. I’m a bigger fan of the big ambush crits. Both are pretty equally effective.

Avoid using fast daggers. Core Hound Tooth is a bad mutilate weapon. It’s better than nothing, but try to use slow daggers with high max damage. Other than that, don’t worry about what gear is best for mutlate.

Most important: ALWAYS have crippling poison on your MH. Mutilate does fantastic damage against poisoned mobs. Against non-poisoned mobs, it’s terrible.

Hemo

At 60:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ihxboxZhZxMeohhRoxo

To 70:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ihxboxZhZxMeohhRsxkt

I don’t like this build. I even less like posting it in my guide. I tested it thoroughly and I know some of you will go with a hemo build no matter what anyone says, so this is what I consider a good hemo grinding build.

The reason I don’t like hemo is that it doesn’t do very good damage. I have a ton of AP and I used Misplaced Servo Arm to test it. Against ogres my level I had to do 3 full combos to finish them in some cases. I felt like I was hitting every mob I fought with a pillow and Servo is a better hemo weapon than anything I saw before 70.

The plus side is control. You can do almost two full combos before you get hit once: CS, hemo, gouge, wait, KS, hemo, hemo, hemo hemo, gouge, evisc. Unfortunately, that won’t finish most mobs your level and you’re still going to take a lot of damage.

If you decide to go this route, load up on the attack power. A lot of gear that you will get from quests will give you a ton, so that will help if you didn’t come in with good gear.

Build that I Didn’t Include

I stayed away from a Shadowstep build. I used this to grind extremely low level mobs from 69 to 70 and did really well with it, but against mobs my level I got crushed. I also stayed away from hybrid builds where you switch from swords to daggers as appropriate. Why torture yourself with weapon swap delays? I also tested and did not like combat Hemo and Seal Fate swords. SF swords seemed interesting but your crit is going to drop as you level, so it just didn’t proc that extra point enough. Combat hemo wasn’t as good as I had expected. Adrenaline Rush is so good for leveling and you don’t get lethality maxed until level 68. Plus you don’t get Deadliness or Sinister Calling.

Priest Leveling Talent Builds

Talents:

This the section I think I should start on first. There are some basic things most leveling priests should know, in my opinion.

1. You can heal as a shadowpriest, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, I stayed shadow from 10-70 and I can heal every instance up to shadow labs(the easiest 70 instance) and maybe 1-2 others as a shadowpriest with meager healing gear I have picked up here and there.

2. You will level fastest as a shadowpriest. This is a fact, I’m not saying you can’t level efficiently as a holy/disc priest or that shadow owns/holy/disc sucks, but the simple fact remains that you WILL level faster as a shadowpriest than any other specc(unless you mess it up badly). There are certain talents that make this the ultimate soloing specc for priests, including 4 spells that increase your spelldmg(as a shadow priest), 1 that increases you regeneration and 1 that decreases the cost of certain shadow spells.

3. There are certain talents that will differ, person to person, no matter, really. These include(but are not limited to) pvp/pve aimed talents(for example Imp. PS, Shadow Affinity).

4. Holy/disc is a very fun build and I recommend everyone try it if they can be arsed to spend the time/money respeccing and trying it out. That said, I’ll get right down to business.

To begin with I’m gonna show you how my specc looked when I hit 70 and explain it a bit to you:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=rVMhzhZfzZxGMdMtRhtVo

Now, going through my build when I hit lvl 70 I was up for optimum grinding but also ready for instances and PvP, which was what I was aiming at, you can easily modify this to suit you, if you want.

The main path to follow is:

• 10-14 Wand Specialization
• 15-19: Spirit tap
• 20-21: Improved SW:P
• 22-24: Optional, I’d choose Blackout, probably at this point. Though Healing Focus is definitely a viable option.
• 25: Mind Flay
• 26-27: Improved Mind Blast
• 28-29: Can get Imp. PS if you like PvP or another point in Blackout/1(only one) other point in Imp. MB
• 30-34: Shadow Weaving
• 35-37: Focused Mind
• 38-39: VE+1 point in Imp. VE
• 40: Respecc time: Respecc something like this:
  http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=rZZxGMdzxoht
• 41-44: This is where it gets a bit optional, I recommend getting the rest of your points in shadow for Misery(don’t get Shadow Power/Shadow Resilience), but some people will want Wand Specialization right away(and even Healing Focus, if you like healing).
• 45-49: Misery if you went with my recommendation about clearing shadow, otherwise I recommend using this to get to Misery.
• 50: Vampiric Touch
• 51-52: This is where I decided I should get Healing Focus, because I’m on a PvP server with a low population of healers(useful in both), but you can wait with this until you hit 60 if you like(but I recommend having it in Outland instances if you plan on healing at all).
• 53-57: Wand Specialization
• 58-62: PW: S+PW: F, doesn’t really matter which comes first though I do recommend PW: S first.
• 63-65: Meditation
• 66: Inner Focus
• 67+: Nothing really good for killing mobs and staying alive now, you can get Imp. Renew, which is a good spell in alot of situations, as I did, or you can get something else, like Imp. Mana Burn/Imp. Inner Fire, max out Blackout, just something you like, really(Shadow Focus might actually be a good idea as it is not rare that your mobs resist spells anymore here in Outlands, especially in instances).

Discipline

Wand Specialization, this is a very underrated talent, it does wonders, really, especially with my later comment on killing mobs.
Imp. PW: F, Imp. PW: S, these are really just fillers, do not mistake me here, though, they are great talents, that extra 30% of your stamina buff and those 15% from your Fortitude can really save lives(be that yours or your members’). PW: S is also great to have when you’re killing a heavy dps mob and you’re close to loosing your shield before you finish of that cast.
Meditation, this is an awesome skill, combine this with lots of spirit and you have your mp5 almost set. This will keep you going and going and going and going and going.
Inner Focus, some people say this is a situational skill, don’t be fooled, it often is, but it is use in the direst of situations, such as when you go oom at exactly the wrong time when healing, or just need that little extra mana to finish that mob off before he kills you. But what it was most useful for me was when I was soloing, oh yes, use this every 3 minutes the CD is off, use it on the spell that costs most mana of the spells you’re casting and you have a couple of seconds longer out of FSR and a free spell.

Holy

Healing focus and Imp. Renew, those spells were useful to me in two places, 1) PvP(both world and BG), but if you don’t do PvP then this does not mean you should skip them, I recommend taking at least Healing Focus as this spell is most useful when healing groups and you will want if you plan on healing in instances. Renew is more optional, I like it because it allows me to cast a renew on people(including me) and know it’ll do alot. It does. I found I healed alot(and I mean alot) in Outland instances with only renew.
Spell warding, last point I used, just something.

Shadow

Spirit tap, one of the best spells you will EVER get, this is a must for any shadowpriest. 200% mana regen when OOC and 100% when in combat(more with Meditation). This is the reason spirit is important when grinding as shadow. This simply makes you regen faster with spirit, gold.
Shadow Affinity, I wanted to realistically be able to dps in instances, I can’t say I did alot of it, my server doesn’t have alot of available tanks/healers so I was mostly healing, but it was great when dps-ing in a group, it’s required in my opinion if you want to dps in groups; shadow priests get alot of threat with certain spells.
Imp. SW: P, this is really good, increases the dmg your SW: P does by quite a bit. It’s not always useful but in PvP, on hard solo mobs and in instances this really shines through.
Imp. PS, “Why?” you might ask, well, I’m on a PvP server and I like to PvP, this is completely optional(I recommend you get Blackout or Shadow Focus for high levels if you don’t want this).
Imp. Mind Blast, well this is, obviously, one of your main spells, it does alot of dmg(and is high threat in instances), but wtf? It’s on 8 second CD! Well, you can decrease that, and alot of people do(me included), “But why only 2 points?” Soom people ask me, “Wouldn’t 5 be better?” The answer is yes, in some cases, such as some PvP situations and perhaps heavy dmg-ing in certain places, but overall? No, this is not worth spending 5 points in, why? Let me explain, if you have reaced lvl 50(just an assumption here) you should have a setup something like this, you pull with VT(dot that returns you mana but takes time to cast, this should always be used to pull), SW: P if you think this will be a hard mob and even VE if it’s especially hard. Then there’s MB time, hit once(1.5 seconds), MF, MF, MB time, this will result in 6.5 seconds in total. If you had the full points it would be 5.5 CD. That is MB, MF… Then what? Wait for a second? “Hey there” you might say, “you only put 2 points in it, that means 7 second CD”, well true, but lets face it, your timing is not gonna be 100% accurate, I consider mine to be pretty good and yet most of the time it had no impact on me, and there were certain points I would rather have than this. It happened sometimes that I had to hit the button twice(with no time between, really), but this was rather rare and it’s not like it matters in most situations. I latter respecced and put 3 points in it for exact timing in raids/high level dungeons but that was just to be certain, and more often than not I find my CD is done 0.5 seconds before I finish casting.
Mind Flay, this will be one of your main spells, it’s channeled so it can be good to keep your shield up some times. Unless you manage to pull with two Mind Flays and the mob still not hitting you. This may not scale well as a spell in high levels due to it having a slowing effect, but this spell is still one of your most valued spells. When you’re in shadowform and your MB is on CD you’re not gonna dot again or go out of shadowform to Smite. You’re gonna Mind Flay, as simple as that. Your options are limited as a shadowpriest but if you figure them right they’re good.
Shadow Reach, some people say this is only a PvP talent, I beg to differ, I couldn’t live without this talent, it actually makes some pulls and places that would be hell otherwise, a child’s play. And when you’re in the position to MF twice without getting hit this will usually be the spell that enables you that. Also allowing you up to 2 spells before the target actually comes in range of Mind Flay(which has a rather short range).
Shadow Weaving, this didn’t appeal to me at first, I thought “Only 3 percent” which it was at the time “and stacks five times? How can that be good? Only 15% more dmg.” It’s good, it gives you alot more dmg, dots will love this spell, so will warlocks if you happen to group with them while dpsing. It also increases your wand damage if you have a wand with shadow dmg(highly recommended as a shadowpriest).
Vampiric Embrace and Imp. VE, love this spell, it’s great, if you need to heal while soloing just cast this on a mob(instant cast, 52 mana) and then keep on dps-ing you’ll get your hp back in no time, also, everyone loves this in groups, half the reason they take shadowpriests with them.
Silence, pure PvP 95% of the time, it’s good in PvP, has a couple of uses in solo but not many, you can skip this for Shadow Focus/Blackout if you wish.
Focused Mind, makes 2 of your most used spells cost less mana, hell yeah! This is great if you don’t wanna be oom all the time.
Darkness, increases your dmg by 10%(face it, you’re not gonna be smiting so yes, it really is always 10%). One of the best talents you’ll be getting.
Shadowform, if you go shadow(which I highly recommend) take this at 40. This is the talent that shadow priests are known for and makes them really worth it. The 15% less physical dmg taken is good but the 15% more dmg you do is simply amazing.
Misery, similar to Shadow Weaving but 5% less and is instant(not stacking), this is good. Does not however make the target get more wand dmg but instead your mage/shaman/destro lock/balance druid/paladin will get the buff too.
Vampiric Touch, the first time I saw this I went “Wtf? Only 5% mana and 600 dmg?” this is good, when you’re fighting mobs with 9k hp(later on) solo you will think how you love getting 400 of that mana back(yes I know, not enough for the spell) + the extra dmg. This is good and will continue to be good, your mobs drop faster and you get some mana too, even though it costs a bit too. Pull with this.

Now I’m gonna explain to you some popular talents I didn’t pick and some disputed ones I did:

Unbreakable Will: This is most use in PvP and Wand Specialization far outweighs it in my opinion. True, there are some mobs in instances that Fear etc. But if we take Fear for an example they will go for the one that wasn’t feared almost all of the times and this can lead to you lying dead on the floor as often as you able to heal/dps more that particular fight.
Blackout: This spell is not something you rely on. You can spend your talent points on better things in alot of cases, unless it’s PvP you are going for, in PvP this is just gold, but outside this doesn’t happen often enough/at the right times for it to be justifiable for other talents. I had this but it simply did not procc that often when soloing for me to keep it for other(better, imo) talents. If I went heavy pvp, though, this would be one of the first talents I’d pick.
Shadow Affinity: Obviously this is only good if you group so if you don’t plan on doing that then don’t bother. This is a requirement, though, if you dps in a group.
Shadow Focus: I considered getting this after I hit Outlands and started getting resisted quite alot more, but the fact is that it’s pretty rare and tbh it isn’t that big of a deal before 70.
Imp. Mind Blast: Explained that earlier but for people’s sake that are to lazy to scroll up: Imp. Mind Blast, well this is, obviously, one of your main spells, it does alot of dmg(and is high threat in instances), but wtf? It’s on 8 second CD! Well, you can decrease that, and alot of people do(me included), “But why only 2 points?” Soom people ask me, “Wouldn’t 5 be better?” The answer is yes, in some cases, such as some PvP situations and perhaps heavy dmg-ing in certain places, but overall? No, this is not worth spending 5 points in, why? Let me explain, if you have reaced lvl 50(just an assumption here) you should have a setup something like this, you pull with VT(dot that returns you mana but takes time to cast, this should always be used to pull), SW: P if you think this will be a hard mob and even VE if it’s especially hard. Then there’s MB time, hit once(1.5 seconds), MF, MF, MB time, this will result in 6.5 seconds in total. If you had the full points it would be 5.5 CD. That is MB, MF… Then what? Wait for a second? “Hey there” you might say, “you only put 2 points in it, that means 7 second CD”, well true, but lets face it, your timing is not gonna be 100% accurate, I consider mine to be pretty good and yet most of the time it had no impact on me, and there were certain points I would rather have than this. It happened sometimes that I had to hit the button twice(with no time between, really), but this was rather rare and it’s not like it matters in most situations. I latter respecced and put 3 points in it for exact timing in raids/high level dungeons but that was just to be certain, and more often than not I find my CD is done 0.5 seconds before I finish casting.
Imp. Fade: Pretty useless, if you’re in the position that you need to use fade twice within a 30 seconds then either A) your tank is sucking, B) you’re sucking.
Shadow Reach: This is not purely PvP people, I love pulling farther than I could usually do, makes some quests/grind places just worth doing.
Shadow Power: There is only one spell you can use that crits in a normal rotation(if you’re shadow), and that’s Mind Blast. Why get +15% for one spell that is cast 1-2 times most roations? Most of the times this is just an overkill and an aweful waste of 5 talent points. If you’re going full PvP then be my guest, get this and put 5 points into Imp. Mind Blast, but until then it’s pretty useless.

Now, I realise that there are alot of people whom this build won’t suite. And I respect that, shadow takes some time getting used to, some people love healing(though that is perfectly possible even with shadow) and others like to be different/test other things out.

Paladin Leveling Talent Builds

1. Leveling as Retribution

Once upon a time the way to level a paladin was Protection, pull 10 mobs at once and let them die off damage reflection, however times are changing, and due to the recent buff to low level quest XP, Retribution is once again a contender for a good leveling spec, and leveling as Retribution also lets you master the talent tree and play styles various facets in nice easy chunks. The following section will break down the leveling process gear and talent wise into sections of 10 levels (since that is how many levels between each key talent point) with main sections of 1-40 (pre-plate) 40-60 (pre-Outlands) and 60-70 (pre-raid/Arena).

1.1 The Basics

Leveling a Retribution paladin requires a few basic rules to be followed which make it go OHHH… so much faster, they are these. Firstly, use Blessing of Wisdom on yourself, it cuts your downtime considerably, especially at lower levels, always carry water on you, and drink when your mana drops below 20%ish (getting caught short can be painful in more ways than one), level First Aid - this alone saves you a lot of mana that could be used for smiting something with holy Vengeance and finally, if permitted by the group, roll on healing gear not needed by healers - it may be useful if you are required to main/off heal in instances, which up to about level 40 is about doable with no points in Holy - doing this allows you more freedom to get into groups, you could fill a DPS or a Healer role. Make sure your party knows you are Retribution before starting else they may get upset if you start needing DPS loot as well.

1.2 Level 1-40

The first ten levels of this are pretty boring, Seal of Righteousness and Auto Attack the whole way, with Blessing of Wisdom to keep your mana up and either Devotion or Retribution Aura depending if you want a bit more survivability or a bit more damage dealt, then comes level 10, and your first step on the path… to Retribution!

1.3 Level 1-40 Talents

From level 10 you should start by investing in Benediction, as you are using Blessing of Wisdom to keep your mana up taking Improved Blessing of Might is pretty useless, besides it being a lackluster talent at low ranks of Blessing of Might anyway. At level 15 your first true choice of talents really starts, you have the option for 2/2 Improved Judgement (20% more Judgements, but also using 20% more mana) personally I take this talent, as its an easy boost to early DPS. The other 3 points are yours to chose, taking 3/3 Improved Judgement of the Crusader looks tempting, but soloing you rarely have time to judge Seal of the Crusader anyway, and in groups at this level the damage increase will be negligible at best. Taking 3/5 Deflection basically gives you a 3% damage reduction and slight DPS increase vs all melee mobs you fight solo (an awful lot in the levels to come, and at this point in time is probably a better bet. At level 19 you should have a talent tree something like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZZVbh

At level 20 you get the ultimate double edged sword, Seal of Command. At low level this spell will have you feeling invincible one moment, and very much dead the next, however despite its shortfalls, it is the only DPS Seal for Retribution (Horde and Alliance) before level 64. Your next 4 talent points will want to get thrown into Conviction for the bonus critical strike, and to later unlock Vengeance. Once you have 5/5 Conviction you need 4 more points for Sanctity Aura, I suggest 3/3 Pursuit of Justice and 1/3 Crusade, this may seem odd, but the reason for this is that you do an awful lot of running before you get your mount, running 15% faster can make a massive boost to your leveling time, especially when a lot of FedEx quests are involved. The 3% spell avoidance is also nice, coupled with 3/5 Deflection gives you basically a 3% passive damage reduction (yes I know ranged isn’t affected but lets not be pedantic). By level 29 you should be looking at a spec similar to this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZZVbhthz

You are now level 30 and you finally get a decent aura! Stick that point in Sanctity Aura now and get its pew pew time! From this point I would suggest 3/3 Two-Handed Specialization and 1/2 Improved Sanctity Aura to get you to 35, since Improved Sanctity Aura affects all your attacks, and Crusade only affects them against certain creature types. For your final 5 talents before level 40, max out Vengeance get ready for the next phase of your Retribution crusade! At level 39 this spec should be what you are aiming for:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZZVbhthzuq

1.4 Level 40-60

At level 40 things change somewhat, for a start all your armor suddenly became obsolete, and secondly you now have a mount. Now since Pursuit of Justice affects your mount speed having your horsey doesn’t mean you should give this talent up, in fact it makes keeping the talent even more useful. But anyway, on to the talents.

1.5 Level 40-60 Talents

Your level 40 talent will most likely be Repentance, simply because its a useful tool for catching escaping monsters, or an extra spell interrupt, so assuming you’ve put a point in that, where to go now? Firstly I’d put 3/3 into Sanctified Seals, for the extra 3% critical strike it provides. and then a further 1 point in Improved Sanctity Aura to max it out. Now the next 5 points are interesting choices, if you group a lot and feel you are always drawing too much aggro, then you should consider 5/5 Fanaticism, however if you solo more, or feel your damage is lacking I suggest investing two more points in Crusade, and then putting the last three into Sanctified Judgement, this will improve your mana longevity immensely when soloing. So at level 49 you will be looking at a build similar to either this (for Fanaticism) or this (without Fanaticism).
With Fanaticism- http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZZVbhthzuicox

Without Fanaticism- http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZZVbhthcuiIo

At level 50 the fun really begins, because you just learned CRUSADER STRIKE! This extra attack is a massive increase to your damage, and if you didn’t spec Fanaticism before, you probably will need to now, especially with the lack of tank specced tanks at lower levels. Now the interesting question, where to spec now? You can of course invest the next nine talents in Retribution, but for PvE that would, frankly, be a waste. Now might however be an excellent time to respec to something more group oriented with the level 50 instances in grasp and Outlands within sight, so with that in mind I suggest for level 55 to be specced something similar to this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZZVf0thcuiIot

Note that you now have the group utility of Improved Seal of the Crusader - a tangible boost now everyone will be specced deep enough into their DPS trees to gain buffs from crits, and you also have mana regen and threat reduction, to aid with grouping. And for level 60 to be specced with the last five talents in Divine Strength:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sxZZVf0thcuiIot

1.6 Leveling in Outlands

Now you are in Outlands the real fun begins, you have to start stacking more and more of the now "primary" stats to keep up with other DPS classes in instances, and this becomes increasingly hard as the next section explains.

1.7 Gear in Outlands

Once you reach Outlands the way gear is distributed shifts heavily, once only end-dungeon bosses dropped the pimp loot, now a lot of it comes from quest chains, many not requiring instances at all. If you have still got level 50ish blue gear you will find yourself quickly gearing up as you quest around Hellfire Peninsula and Zangramarsh. With the 2.4 buff to Retribution loot in Outland there are many good green/blue dungeon and quest rewards with a healthy mix of Strength, Intellect, Stamina and even MP5 (a rare commodity pre-TBC) I won’t list specific gears to take like I did earlier, just follow the guidelines below and your own instincts as to what gear you need now ;-). An excellent source for comparing DPS gear is http://www.maxdps.com/paladin/dps.php which lists all the current items in game in order of how much they willl improve your DPS based on what seal you use and what talents you have.

1.8 The last 10 Talents

Now that you’ve basically got all the talents you need for Retribution PvE DPS to cruise you to level 70, the time has come to decide where you want to do with the last 10. There are two options which reflect your own playing style, the first is to place all 10 into Protection, wasting 5 points on one of the first two useless talents for Precision and Guardians Favor in Tier 2, or even just Precision, with two extra points in Retribution this will maximize your PvE DPS and give you the best chance you can to compete for DPS.

The other option is to spec the last 10 points into Holy (5/5 Spiritual Focus, 3/3 Healing Light, and 2/2 Improved Lay on Hands or Unyielding Faith) this allowing you to heal in instances quite well (assuming you’ve collected gear for it) and with the spell damage stacked on early paladin gear also gives you good self healing to keep yourself going if the shit hits the fan while grinding. For more about level 70 specs see the later sections.

Mage Leveling Talent Builds

I. Leveling Builds:

1-70 is a long way to go and most players are worried about the fact they could make wrong choices that would slow their leveling : this feeling is of course totally natural. But dont worry here, tou cant really do any big mistake, provided you choose a way and stick to it. The main different ways to level your mage have been perfectly balanced by Blizzard.

The first question coming here again and again is : should I go for frost or fire to level my mage? The answer is simple: both are fine. It’s two different playstyles and I would rather advise you to try both of them, as soon as you feel the opportunity for a respec.

Knowing your mage deeply costs many and many respecs and nothing is better than "your own" experience as a true guide and master to follow.

Fire is about high sustained dps on a single target (before you get Blast Wave and Dragon Breath two excellent aoe skills). Frost is more about control and huge dps on frozen targets. You kill faster with fire, but you run out of mana a bit faster too. You have a bit more mana efficiency and more control against one or several mobs with frost, but you’re more dependant on your nova/shatter for killing them, and on your cooldowns for survival.

If as a mage you like to burst your damages very fast on your ennemies, trying to get them down the fastest you can at all costs, then Fire is made for you. If on the contrary you enjoy controlling your ennemies, freezing them, slowing them, and to have a few defense and survival tricks at hand, then you should go frost. Remember that you wont be able to fully enjoy the fire or frost way before level 40-50, when you finally get enough points to take the main talents in each tree. Some will still ask here: but which one is best? Which one will I prefer to play? There I can only answer: only you may know. Fire/frost is really a personnal choice and noone can say, but you, which way should be yours as a mage. I’d rather advise you to choose one at the beginning following your intuition, stick with it until the level 40, then go for a respec and see by yourself which one you prefer to level your character.

The second question here is : should I go for a AoE grinding build or not? If you want to do alot of AoE grinding then you need mainly to go frost and take the suitable talents. However this guide is not meant to be a AoE grinding guide, and I will redirect you to AoE grinding excellent guide (first sticky on this forum). I’ll just mention later the talents you need as a frost AoE Frost mage. Notice that many mage builds may work well for AoE and not only the pure frost way (Elemental ones with shatter, or even fire mages using Flamestrike for example). But the pure AoE grinding from level 40+ is mostly done with Improved Blizzard and Cone of Cold.

I’ll give here five examples of leveling builds, if you want to go : 1. fire, 2.a frost, 2.b frost aoe, 3. elemental, 4. Arcane. Leveling with arcane is a bit more tricky to my mind, but if this is really your choice and your dream tree, then go for it. Remember : nothing is impossible for a mage !

Those talent builds are intended for pure solo pve/questing. Pvp is meant to be balanced (*cough*) only at level 70, so if pvp is your choice I can just advise you to grind to level 70 faster as you can.

1. Fire leveling talent build

I’ll give here just an example of talent picking order until the level 50. After the level 50 you can refer to the level 70 builds in this same guide, and should start to think which one you’re going to play. That will mainly answer to the question about what talents to pick between levels 50 and 70.

Lvl 10-14 : Improve Fireball 5/5
Lvl 15-16 : Flame Throwing 2/2
Lvl 17-19 : Ignite 3/5
Lvl 20 : Pyroblast 1/1
Lvl 21-22 : Ignite 5/5
Lvl 23-24 : Burning Soul 2/2
Lvl 25-29 : Impact 5/5
Lvl 30 : Blast Wave 1/1
Lvl 31-33 : Critical Mass 3/3
Lvl 34 : Improve Fire Blast 1/3
Lvl 35-39 : Fire Power 5/5
Lvl 40 : Combustion 1/1
Lvl 41-43 : Pyromaniac 3/3
Lvl 44-45 : Molten Fury 2/2
No there is no need to take Empowered Fireball as your +sd gear should not be that high.
Lvl 46-47 : Improve Fire Blast 3/3
Lvl 48-49 : Incinerate 2/2
Lvl 50 : Dragon Breath 1/1!

Congratulations you got one of the best mage fire talent/skill in whole game, that’s an achievement you deserve to enjoy! You just need to get used to it as its range is not huge and it doesnt scale with Flame Throwing. For pve it will always be easier to Dragon Breath a pack of mobs on you to distract them, in pvp you need to work on the positionning and the range. Before that you will probably cast several Dragon Breaths in the air.

At level 50 your fire tree should look like this one:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZEgGzb0coeRz

Of course there are many alternatives to the way i just described. You can choose to skip Impact to get Master of Elements for more mana efficiency if you bother sitting alot (actually leveling a mage is about sitting alot so…). Improve Fireblast is very good to be put at max soon if you occasionnally do some pvp or use it alot in pve. But I like Impact and even in pve it has many procs that brings the whole process a bit more fun.

2. Frost leveling talent build

2.A non-aoe frost leveling

Lvl 10-14 : Improve Frostbolt 5/5
Lvl 15-19 : Ice Shards 5/5
Lvl 20-22 : Frostbite 3/3
Lvl 23-24 : Improved Frost Nova 2/2
Lvl 25-29 : Shatter 5/5. Done!

This one will make your whole frost leveling faster and funnier ! 5/5
(As an alternative some ppl even advise to go fire before being level 27-29, then respec to get shatter and going full frost. To my mind that’s not really necessary, but it’s up to you)

Lvl 30 : Ice Block 1/1 (a good life savier)
Lvl 31 : Cold Snap 1/1 (a second life saving chance, variant : you can get this one higher if you think you dont need it yet).
Lvl 32-33 : Artic Reach 2/2
Lvl 34-36 : Piercing Ice 3/3
Lvl 37-39 : Frost Channeling 3/3
Lvl 40 : Ice Barrier 1/1
Lvl 41-42 : Ice Floes 2/2
Lvl 43-45 : Improve Cone of Cold 3/3
Lvl 46-48 : Permafrost 3/3
Lvl 49 : Elemental Precision 1/3 (variant : you can take Elemental Precision to 3 and Permafrost to 1, as you prefer. Permafrost gives you a good kiting tool, mobs will reach you later. On the other hand Elemental Precision avoids you "annoying" resists)
Lvl 50 : Summon Water Elemental 1/1! Congratulations!

At level 50 your frost tree should look like this one:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZEgGzb0coeRz

2.B Frost aoe grinding talent build

For more details about aoe grinding, refer to Grinding Guide:

http://www.wowgoldwiki.com/horde-leveling-guides/wow-grinding-guide.html

I’ll give just an example of build that can be suitable for aoe grinding. The build is intended mainly for blizzard and coc aoeing. AoE grinding usually starts at level 40

Lvl 10-14 : Improve Frostbolt 5/5
Lvl 15-19 : Ice Shard 5/5
Lvl 20-22 : Permafrost 3/3
Lvl 23-24 : Improved Frost Nova 2/2
Lvl 25-29 : Shatter 5/5
Lvl 30-31 : Ice Block 1/1 Cold Snap 1/1 (very good for aoe, but as the cd is 5/10 mins or 4/8 mins with Ice Floes, you cant rely on it at each pull)
Lvl 32-33 : Artic Reach 2/2 (this one is fundamental)
Lvl 34-36 : Improved Blizzard 3/3 (this one is fundamental too)
Lvl 37-39 : Improved Cone of Cold 3/3 (a must also)
Lvl 40 : Ice Barrier 1/1 , congratulations you’re ready to start AoE kiting-grinding :)

At level 40 your build should look just like this one:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZZVVMhsbxs0o

Then you can keep on by taking Piercing Ice 3/3, Ice Floes 2/2, Frost Channeling 3/3… Just skip Frostbite which is very bad for AoE kiting as it will make some mobs frozen while others keep on running after you.

3. Elemental leveling talent build

The underlying idea is to get shatter as soon as possible then go in the fire tree. During your pve, you alternate between fire and frost spells to kill your opponents with the most suitable spells, according to each situation, having huge bursts of damage against your frozen targets. That’s a very good alternative to the previous 2 builds. To try it, is to love it. Only drawback : when you’re level 30 you have to forget some excellent frost things that come at hand to start to work on the fire tree again from the beginning. That’s a bit frustrating, and probably the main reason why people prefer to go either pure frost or pure fire. But if you can endure this relative "pain", you’ll love the elemental way to level your mage.

Recently Frost Nova has been nerfed to avoid Ice Lance crit spams on a frozen target. This nerf was mainly intended to level 70 pvp mages but unfortunately it has also unfairly nerfed level 1-65 mages who only struggle to level their character (Ice Lance is a level 66 talent). What has changed : before you could score several crits on a frozen target. Not always but sometime, nova would break at the very first damage, and sometime it would last long as 3 crits or maybe more. Now nova will likely break at your first crit. So the elemental way to level a mage is much less interesting as before : elemental remains a level 70 way to specialize your mage for pvp experienced players. I’ll just let it in the guide as a possibility.

Lvl 10-14 : Improved Frost Bolt 5/5
Lvl 15-19 : Ice Shards 5/5
Lvl 20-22 : Frostbite 3/3
Lvl 23-24 : Improved Frost Nova 2/2
Lvl 25-29 : Shatter 5/5

Now you have one alternative according you decide to go fire directly or you prefer to take Ice Block 1/1 and delay your fire leveling by one point (or 2 points if you want also Cold Snap 1/1). No good or bad choice here, just a matter of what you prefer. Assuming you wanna get Dragon Breath at 70 and go to a classic 0/41/20 Elemental Build without any respec I’ll describe here only the first way to proceed.

Lvl 30-34 : Improved Fireball 5/5 (Impact 5/5 is another very good way to go here, depends on what you prefer)
Lvl 35-39 : Ignite 5/5
Lvl 40-41 : Flame Throwing 2/2
Lvl 42 : Pyroblast 1/1 (not so useful for that build, but still nice to have in case)
Lvl 43-44 : Burning Soul 2/2
Lvl 45-47 : Improved Scorch 3/3
Llv 48-49 : Improve Fire Blast 2/3
Lvl 50 : Blast Wave 1/1
Lvl 51-53 : Critical Mass 3/3
Lvl 54 : Improve Fire Blast 3/3
Lvl 55-59 : Fire Power 5/5
Lvl 60 : Combustion 1/1

At level 60 your fire and frost trees should look like this:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZxghzf0coxoZVVG000x

Then you’ll go through Pyromaniac, Molten Core, Impact… all your way to level 70. Consult the 0/41/20 Elemental talent build for more informations (the only difference being that pvp elementalists dont take Improved Fireball).

But whatever happens that should end with :
Lvl 70 : Dragon Breath 1/1! Congratulations!

Hunter Leveling Talent Builds

Listed below are various viable talent builds, mainly to give players who aren’t sure what talent build is right for them, an idea on where to put their points. Since everyone has their own playing style, and most talents are fairly balanced out now, there are no 100% correct builds but some may be slightly better than others.

Note that the talent builds and comments are made with the lvl 70 cap in mind and the latest 2.0.6 patch. I will keep the old talent builds as a reference for those without TBC.

— Solo / Leveling —

When it comes to leveling and questing, you will be playing solo a lot of the time. For this I can only recommend the BM tree. Your pet can be a great tank, add a good amount of damage, are very gear-independent and make grinding very mana-efficient, decreasing downtime in between fights considerably. On top of that, they are fun and obedient companions to have with you on your journeys, and improving them by talents will let you kill enemies while leveling faster than any other build!

PvE Solo / Leveling build (1-60) - 43/5/3
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cV0GzgxRizAoVZ0h

Mainly improving your pet, this will make leveling and questing solo a lot faster. If you’re wondering what pet to get, it doesn’t really matter since they are all similar, but some are slightly better than others. Just make sure you take pets you like, since you’ll be spending a lot of time with them! Boars/bears are good to start off with since they are quite tough and eat pretty much everything (except gnomes). The boar charge & gore ability is quite nice too. Later on you might want to get a high damage pet like a cat to make grinding faster.

I’ll give some advice on in what order you might want to spend your talent points while you are leveling:

• Lvl 10-14: BM: Endurance Training 5/5
• Lvl 15-17: BM: Thick Hide 3/3
• Lvl 18-19: BM: Improved Revive Pet 2/2
• Lvl 20: BM: Bestial Swiftness 1/1
• Lvl 21-25: BM: Unleashed Fury 5/5
• Lvl 26: BM: Improved Mend Pet 1/2
• Lvl 27-29: BM: Ferocity 3/5
• Lvl 30: BM: Intimidation 1/1
• Lvl 31-32: BM: Ferocity 5/5
• Lvl 33-34: BM: Bestial Discipline 2/2
• Lvl 35-37: BM: Frenzy 3/5
• Lvl 38-39: BM: Animal Handler 2/2
• Lvl 40: BM: Bestial Wrath 1/1
• Lvl 41-43: BM: Catlike Reflexes 3/3
• Lvl 44: BM: Frenzy 4/5
• Lvl 46-49: BM: Serpent’s Swiftness 5/5
• Lvl 50: BM: The Beast Within 1/1
• Lvl 51: BM: Frenzy 5/5
• Lvl 52-56: MM: Lethal Shots 5/5
• Lvl 57-59: Surv: Hawk Eye 3/3
• Lvl 60: BM: Improved Mend Pet 2/2

PvE Solo / Leveling build (60-70) - 48/13/0

Starts at lvl 60 with:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cVbhztgRizVoVx

• Lvl 61-62: MM: Go for the Throat 2/2
• Lvl 63: MM: Aimed Shot 1/1
• Lvl 64-66: BM: Catlike Reflexes 3/3
• Lvl 67-69: BM: Ferocious Inspiration 3/3
• Lvl 70: BM: Improved Revive Pet 1/2

Ends at lvl 70 with:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cVbuztgRiuAoVxbo

Note that the build is mainly BM and starts with a different spec than the lvl 1-60 build ended, so you may have to respec.

A viable build, regardless of gear. I find Spirit Bond a nice HP regen for the player (while solo) so even if you occasionaly take a hit you won’t need to worry about your HP, as it will regenerate even in combat. Aimed Shot won’t be needed much at all, but it can be a great opening shot (like after you trapped someone that tried to gank you or in instances combined with the Misdirection ability). Hawk Eye is always nice to have, but it does not contribute as well to solo or instance play as Ferocious Inspiration.