I had a similar question, and while the threads above are very helpful, they're mainly for level 70s. I'm leveling my mage from 29 (where I had a downright ugly spec - I tried reading all of this at 4am, then respecced, and ended with the ******* stepchild of an aoe build and a pvp build) to 39, and was wondering how the experts here think
this'll work out.
My goals are good 1v1 shatter damage, frost snares/annoyances for groups large enough to cause problems, and reducing the impact of their resist gear/stats (I hate dem blood elves). I'll be going with a good premade group, so holding a group in place for the focused dps classes will be pretty effective.
Oh, and I was going to avoid maxing out improved frostbolt because of the damage nerf - do you know if it scales evenly with the reduction in time? Considering the FN nerf, It seems preferrable not to gimp 1v1 crits when the enemy is stuck frozen there anyways.
And thank you again for all of the work already done on the topic.