Mists of Pandaria Classic Arcane Mage Leveling

Arcane is a decent all-round leveling spec, mostly focused on dealing single-target damage. In dungeons with static tanked targets, it can unleash it's full single-target potential.

In Mists of Pandaria the talent system was changed significantly, making a huge impact on leveling. In the previous expansions, the leveling tree locked you into a path: Either single-target or AoE, either survival or glass-cannon style. The new talent system is much less complicated and makes choices easier. The available talents get more useful, the further you level up.

• Presence of Mind — allows you to instantly cast any spell of your choice once every 90 seconds.
• Blazing Speed — removes slowing effects and boosts your movement speed by 150 percent for 1.5 seconds, with a 25-second cooldown.
• Ice Floes — lets you cast spells while moving, with three charges that recharge every 20 seconds.

Since the arcane is a pretty static spec, Ice Floes is very useful for kiting/killing mobs without taking damage.

• Temporal Shield — reduces damage taken by 15 percent for 4 seconds and has a 25-second cooldown. While active, any damage you take is gradually healed over the next 6 seconds.
• Flameglow — provides a passive shield that absorbs a small amount of incoming damage.
• Ice Barrier — absorbs a set amount of damage, scaling with your Spell Power, and also prevents your spellcasting from being interrupted while active.

Temporal Shield can be a great way to restore your health after situations where you took a lot of damage. However, Ice Barrier is usually the talent of choice for leveling, as it also offers spell pushback protection. Flameglow can slightly reduce your downtime by just reducing your damage taken, but the other two options are more attractive for leveling.

• Ring of Frost — creates a 10-yard radius ring that lasts for 10 seconds. Any enemies that enter the ring are frozen for 10 seconds, up to a maximum of 10 targets.
• Ice Ward — causes all enemies within 10 yards of a friendly target to become frozen for 5 seconds when that target is hit.
• Frostjaw — both silences and freezes a single target in place for 8 seconds.

The talents available at level 45 are focused on crowd control. Your choice will depend on the specific leveling style: Ring of Frost is a good choice if you plan to AoE grind mobs. Frostjaw acts as an additional Counterspell + Frost Nova, with a 20-seconds cooldown, which is rather good for leveling. Ice Ward is not recommended, as the target needs to be hit first, before the Ward gets triggered.

• Greater Invisibility — is an enhanced version of Invisibility. It activates instantly and reduces incoming damage by 90 percent while Invisibility is active, as well as for 3 seconds after it ends.
• Cauterize — allows you to survive a fatal blow by restoring you to 50 percent of your maximum health. However, you will then take 40 percent of your maximum health as fire damage over the next 6 seconds.
• Cold Snap — immediately resets the cooldowns of Ice Block, Frost Nova, and Cone of Cold, and also heals you for 30 percent of your maximum health.

Cauterize can be very useful, if you want to have that extra survivability while leveling. Greater Invisibility can also be very good to flee from combat instantly. Cold Snap is your 3-minutes "oh sh*t"-button that can also be used offensively, but it's high cooldown of 3 minutes makes it very unattractive for leveling.

• Nether Tempest — applies a damage-over-time effect to a single target. With each tick, it also deals half that damage to a random enemy within 10 yards.
• Living Bomb — also deals damage over time to a target. When the effect ends, either by expiring or if the target dies, it explodes, damaging up to three nearby enemies within 10 yards. It can only be active on a maximum of three targets at once.
• Frost Bomb — inflicts delayed damage on a target, while also dealing half that damage to all nearby enemies within 10 yards. Additionally, affected enemies are slowed by 70 percent for 2 seconds.

All talents in this tier are very strong on their own, so you need to dynamically adjust them to the way you want to level. Living Bomb is best for single-target damage, or when fighting two to three targets that are spread out. Frost Bomb is ideal for groups of 5 or more enemies that are stacked. Nether Tempest is a versatile option suitable for all other situations.

You will find a detailed description of every spell in the Arcane Mage Spells section. The essential spells are listed by when you can learn them below:

• Frost Nova — Level 3
• Fire Blast — Level 5
• Blink — Level 7
• Counterspell — Level 8
• Arcane Blast — Level 10 (Arcane specific)
• Arcane Charge — Level 10 (Arcane specific)
• Arcane Barrage — Level 12 (Arcane specific)
• Polymorph — Level 14
• Teleport Spells — Level 17
• Arcane Explosion — Level 18
• Ice Lance — Level 22
• Arcane Missiles — Level 24 (Arcane specific)
• Ice Block — Level 26
• Cone of Cold — Level 28
• Remove Curse — Level 29
• Slow Fall — Level 32
• Molten Armor — Level 34
• Slow — Level 36 (Arcane specific)
• Conjure Refreshment — Level 38
• Evocation — Level 40
• Portals — Level 42
• Flamestrike — Level 44
• Conjure Mana Gem — Level 47
• Mirror Image — Level 49
• Blizzard — Level 52
• Frost Armor — Level 54
• Frostbolt — Level 55
• Invisibility — Level 56
• Arcane Brilliance — Level 58
• Frost Bomb — Level 60
• Nether Tempest — Level 60
• Arcane Power — Level 62 (Arcane specific)
• Spellsteal — Level 64
• Deep Freeze — Level 66
• Conjure Refreshment Table — Level 72
• Mage Armor — Level 80
• Mastery: Mana Adept — Level 80 (Arcane specific)
• Time Warp — Level 84
• Alter Time — Level 87

Which Major Glyphs you chose, is up to you and depends on your play style. Every Glyph has it's use and there is hardly something like a "best" glyph.

The Glyph of Cone of Cold increases the damage of Cone of Cold by 200 percent. This can be especially effective for quickly eliminating short-lived adds.

The Glyph of Arcane Power doubles both the cooldown and duration of Arcane Power, making it useful for nuking down high-health targets in group content.

The Glyph of Mana Gem increases the number of charges on your Mana Gem to 10, which is very good for leveling.

The Glyph of Slow causes Arcane Blast to automatically apply Slow to your target, but only if no other target is currently affected by your Slow. This is very useful for in solo play, as it takes enemies longer to approach you, which means you can cast uninterrupted for longer.

The Glyph of Cone of Cold increases the damage of Cone of Cold by 200 percent. This can be especially effective for quickly eliminating short-lived adds.

The Glyph of Arcane Explosion increases the radius of Arcane Explosion by 5 yards. It can be useful in AoE scenarios where enemies are spread out and not tightly stacked. Can be very useful for kiting groups of enemies and not taking damage.

The Glyph of Evocation adds a self-healing effect to Evocation. This is can help you recharge your health super quick in dangerous situations or simply to decrease downtime.

The Glyph of Ice Block automatically casts Frost Nova at no mana cost when Ice Block ends, granting you 3 seconds of immunity from all spells afterward. This can be very nice for AoE leveling.

The Glyph of Rapid Displacement gives Blink two charges, with a 15-second recharge between charges. This is a highly valuable glyph, as it effectively allows you to use Blink twice in quick succession, making fleeing from lost battles much easier. However, Blink no longer removes stuns and bonds while this glyph is active.

The Glyph of Momentum can be useful if you need to face your enemy, but are strafing sideways. The other minor glyphs mostly serve cosmetic purpose, which is why they are not mentioned in this leveling guide.

For information on the proper leveling rotation, which is equal to the optimal DPS rotation, check out our Arcane Mage Rotations Guide.

Congratulations on hitting Level 90 in Mists of Pandaria! Now that your leveling process is over, you can learn more about Level 90 Arcane Mage gameplay by reading our fully detailed guide below.