Mage Stat Priorities

Hello guys, I'm here today to show you the stat priorities for all types of mage's, they are the same no matter what.(Note this will be for PvE, if it goes well, I will do one for PvP)

Intellect is your stat that you want most of(will go into more detail below)

Hit Rating to 17%(This will make it so you will never miss, as well, there are people that are saying, if you're not hit capped, they take away a bit of damage) you want to reforge/gem into hit if you are under hit cap, after that, reforge into mastery

Mastery: This increases base damage by up to 12%, and additional 1.5% for each point(note this is for unspent mana, it will help you with your burn phase peak damage, and your conservation phase) For fire, it will increase perodic damage tics(a lot of your damage) and frost it increases damage done to frozen/chilled targets.


Critical Strike: You want to take this over haste everytime, with arcane, you want to conserve as much mana as possible, which means you don't want haste, haste=spending mana faster.

Now to go into more detail about gemming/enchanting/reforging

okay, for your meta gem, you always want 54 Int+3% to crit damage.
second, for every red slot, you want +40 int.
Now this is where things get complicated.
The socket bonus is what will dictate your gems(outside of red) for instance, if the socket bonus is +10 int, you want that socket bonus because it's more spell power, and ammo. so if it's a red+yellow, you're going to want to use a +40 int. and a +20 int. +20 mastery(orange gem) but if the socket bonus is +10 haste, you will just want to put a +40 int gem into it, regardless of whether it's a red socket or not.

But as well, regardless of all of that, you want to make sure you're at your 17% hit cap, so you want to enchant, gem and reforge into that, enchant and reforge into it first. If you are stuck after that, break your sockets with +40 hit(blue gem).

Reforge into hit, until you are capped, and then reforge everything into mastery, if for instance it's Mastery 192, Haste 192, you want to reforge that haste into crit.

Enchant all your gear after you are hit capped into the stat priorities listed above.

for your waist, you want your ebonsteel belt buckle, it will give you a free 40 int.

for your pants, i can't remember the name, but it give syou 85 int. 80 stam

you want to use the hyjal helm enchant(requires honored)

I will update for the shoulder enchant, but it's a faction/enchanting(you have to be 525 on your toon) bonus


This is all basically the same for pvp, but you want to be hit capped to I think it's 5% and use the same stat priorities, but you can use haste because sometimes you want your hard casts to be fast and blow up a target faster


Let me know what you think,
Terry.

Update, for arcane critical strike rating is more valuable than mastery!
EDIT: as well for fire, there is a soft cap for haste you want to work towards 12.5% it will give you an extra living bomb tick.

I still prefer to have a decent amount of haste because it had saved my ass so many times. Whereas if I was casting much slower I know I would not have survived. So haste really isn't all that bad. As long as you have the basic knowledge of Int > all you should be fine because the rest is based on personal preference and how you play and rotate your spells.

once again that's for Pvp, not PvE, these are stat priorities for raiding.