Elementalist ( game term ) An Elementalist is a Mage who spends most of his talent point s in the Fire and Frost trees , often spending no points at all in the Arcane tree . The name refers to the two elemental magic trees , whereas Arcane is seen as the school of pure mana energy . These specialisations almost always rely on the Frostfire Bolt spell for PvE damage . Elementalist specs were somewhat rare before Patch 1 . 11 , but new talent synergy and reduced reliance on key Arcane talents opened up the opportunity for more mages to drop the tree all together . History . Prior to Patch 1 . 11 , the Arcane tree had two key talents that were considered must - have by most mages : Improved Arcane Explosion , which reduced the cast time of Arcane Explosion from 1 . 5 seconds to instant , and Evocation , which required 10 points and which was also talent trained . These talents combined were considered to be a requirement for Mages , which meant that they needed to spend 16 points in the Arcane tree . The always popular Improved Counterspell was available for two more points , for a total of 18 Arcane for many mages . Early elementalists had to sacrifice these three very popular talents , but the benefit was superior defensive talents such as Ice Block from Frost , and offensive abilities such as Blast Wave from Fire . With the mage talent review in Patch 1 . 11 , several changes made elementalist builds more popular . Arcane Explosion was made instant cast without the need for talents , Evocation was made available from class trainers , and certain Frost and Fire talents were improved or added to affect more than one school of magic . For instance , Shatter was improved to increase critical strike chance for all spells , not just Frost . Talents Elemental Precision and Master of Elements were added in each tree that affect both Frost and Fire spells . In Patch 2 . 0 , Playing with Fire was added which affects all spell damage . These changes have reduced the reliance on the Arcane tree and have added synergy between the Frost and Fire trees that didn ' t exist before . After Frostfire Bolt . Even with all the aforementioned changes , Elementalists have never quite achieved a position of PvE competitiveness , in terms of damage dealing , when compared to either the Frost or Fire trees . That changed , however , with the introduction of Frostfire Bolt in Patch 3 . 0 . 2 . The Bolt , in essence , gains the benefits of both Frost and Fire damage talents ( with the exception of restricted ones like Improved Fireball or Empowered Frostbolt ) . Previously , Elementalist Mages would use Fireball in raid situations due to its naturally higher damage , seeing half of all their talent investment ( that in Frost ) go down the drain and being unable to compete with fully specced Fire Mages . Frostfire Bolt changed that . Now , Mages can benefit from Ice Shards and Ignite , for instance , simultaneously , which is a massive increase to their DPS . Frostfire Bolt ' s stated goal from Blizzard was to make Elemental viable in raids . This is not nearly accomplished yet , since elementalist overall damage is far behind the two raiding specs , Fire and Arcane . One main reason why elementalists deal so little damage is Torment the Weak . In raid situation , there is always some kind of snare on the boss , and this talent gives a whopping 12 % extra damage . It applies to Frostfire bolt , but elementalist mages just cannot afford to spend 20 talents on Acrane tree . Blizzard has many times indicated that the talent needs a Nerf , wich probably will arrive with Cataclysm . It can , in fact , rival Fireball - based specs in terms of single - target DPS when in an optimised specialisation ( see Mage builds ) .