Talents Forever › Popular builds › Mage builds
2,808 of the 6,644 Mage builds with 41 or more points planned here (42%) lead in Frost, 2,146 in Fire and 1,690 in Arcane. Weighted by what people did with each build (made, viewed, opened by link, shared or saved), Fire has 41%, Frost 36% and Arcane 23%, the split the Mage calculator's spec bar shows. 45.3% of the Mage leveling orders people recorded lead in Frost. Every build below opens in the Mage calculator, and the Mage leveling order shows the order people place these points in. These are full 51-point level 60 builds, planned ahead of launch on 4 November 2026.
Counted on 7 Oct 2026, recounted a few times a day.
2,808 of the 6,644 Mage builds with 41 or more points (42%) lead in Frost; the most used is 0/0/51 (#5), going to Ice Barrier. Open it in the calculator.
2,146 of the 6,644 Mage builds with 41 or more points (32%) lead in Fire; the most used is 0/29/22 (#1), going to Fire Power. Open it in the calculator.
1,690 of the 6,644 Mage builds with 41 or more points (26%) lead in Arcane; the most used is 47/4/0 (#4), going to Arcane Power. Open it in the calculator.
Frostfire Bolt, from the trainer at level 40, counts as both Fire and Frost damage, so talents from both trees apply to it. The game files tie it to Fire Power, Critical Mass, Piercing Ice, Ice Shards and more; see what changed since Classic.
Builds within a few points of each other count as one family, shown by its most used member. The rows and the spec split come from the 6,644 Mage builds with 41 or more points planned here since the Oct 1 patch (build 70170), ranked by what people did with each family since then: a share or a save weighs 5, a link open 3, making the build 2 and a view 1. The shared, saved and opened counts run from 13 Sep, before the beta: a row's share is its family's shares, saves and link opens over every Mage build's (2,228 shares, 4,327 saves, 43,725 link opens since 13 Sep), so a row can hold a larger share than one ranked above it.
The Mage calculator's 45,641 builds and 21,327 with all 51 points count every Mage build made, shared, saved or opened here since 13 Sep, those today's trees no longer allow included; this list counts the 6,644 with 41 or more points that today's trees allow, since the Oct 1 patch (build 70170).
This is a count of what people plan on this site, not a tier list. When a beta build moves, adds, removes or renames a Mage talent or changes what it needs first, the count starts again from the day after that build and shows once 1,000 builds with 41 or more points are made on the new trees, as it did after the Oct 1 patch (build 70170).
Most taken: Elemental Precision 73% (Frost), Ice Shards 66% (Frost), Ignite 62% (Fire), Ice Lance 61% (Frost), Shatter 58% (Frost). Least taken: Improved Fire Ward 1% (Fire), Improved Flamestrike 8% (Fire), Arcane Shielding 9% (Arcane), Frost Warding 11% (Frost), Improved Cone of Cold 13% (Frost). Share of Mage builds with 41 or more points that have a point in the talent.
The beta cap rose to level 30 on 1 Oct, so 21 points. Between 1 and 6 Oct 2026, 237 people-days went to 21-point Mage builds set at level 30, and no build family has reached the floors yet (builds within four points count as one, and a family is shown once it has five or more people-days and its most-made build was made, shared or saved by at least two people on one day and three people-days in all).
No Frost 21-point build at level 30 has reached the floor yet (131 people-days in the window), though 45.3% of Mage leveling builds lead in Frost (26,829 of 59,160, 18 Sep to 6 Oct 2026). The Frost leveling order's first 21 points are Improved Frostbolt 5/5, Ice Shards 5/5, Frostbite 3/3, Improved Frost Nova 2/2, Ice Lance, Shatter 3/3, Ice Block and Permafrost 1/3. That is the path held most often at each step: 3,713 of 26,829 Frost builds hold its levels 10 to 19 and 574 of 8,588 hold its levels 20 to 29. Open it at level 30, or see the whole Frost leveling order.
Each spec's first 21 points, as the leveling orders place them: Frost 0/0/21, from 26,829 Frost orders; Arcane 21/0/0, from 16,312; Fire 0/21/0, from 16,019. Recorded 18 Sep to 6 Oct 2026; the Mage leveling order has every bracket.
Also for Mages: the leveling order, every talent in words, what changed since Classic, the abilities, new and changed, the races and their racials, questions answered from the data, and the Mage calculator. The most popular builds of every class.