WotLK Classic Arcane Mage Spell Summary
On this page, we present you with all spells and procs that you need to understand as a Arcane Mage in WotLK Classic.
Buffs
Arcane Mages offer a variety of useful buffs for themselves and the group they play in. These buffs can be used to increase stats, damage and healing taken, Critical Strike chance, and Mana regeneration. Other buffs decrease spell damage and healing taken. The Armor buffs are only castable on the Mage, while the other buffs listed below can be cast on any group member.
Arcane Intellect — Increases Intellect on the target.
Can be improved with
Glyph of Arcane Intellect.
Arcane Brilliance — Increases Intellect of everyone in
the target's group. Requires one
Arcane Powder to be cast and
Tome of Arcane Brilliance 3 to be learned.
Dampen Magic — Buffs the target to decrease magic damage
and healing taken. Can be enhanced by 50% with Arcane talents. Very niche
use.
Amplify Magic — Buffs the target to increase magic
damage and healing taken. Can be enhanced by 50% with Arcane talents. Useful
on players that take Physical damage only or almost exclusively Physical
damage. A very strong situational spell.
Molten Armor — 35% (or 55% with the
Glyph of Molten Armor) of your Spirit will be converted into Critical
Strike Rating. Deals 170 Fire damage per hit to melee attackers,
decreases the chance to be critically hit by 5%. Can be enhanced with Fire
talents to affect ranged and spell attacks as well.
Mage Armor — Increases magic resistance by 40 and allows
50% of the Mage's Mana regeneration to continue while casting. Can be
enhanced by
Arcane Shielding (50%) and
Glyph of Mage Armor (20%)
Ice Armor — Increases the Mage's Armor by 930 and Frost
resistance by 40 and slows enemy melee attackers. Can be enhanced by
Frost Warding (50%) and
Glyph of Ice Armor (50%).
Focus Magic — is a powerful buff to be cast on a friendly
target. It
increases their Critical Strike chance with spells by 3%. If they score a
critical strike, your Critical Strike chance is also increased by 3% for
10 seconds.
Utility and Crowd Control Abilities
Mages are sought after for their crowd-controlling abilities, such as
Polymorphing enemies and Frost-exclusive slowing and freezing
effects. Further, they supply their group and themselves with fresh water and
food and open portals to all major cities of each faction. Mages can also
remove curses from allies and magic from enemies.
Polymorph — With this spell, humanoids, critters and
beasts can be turned into a sheep for a certain amount of time. This effect
can end before its maximum time has passed. Through the
Fragmented Magic quest and the
Tome of Polymorph: Turtle book,
enemies can also be turned into a pig or a turtle, which is of course a very
nice cosmetic upgrade.
Glyph of the Penguin can transforms your Polymorph
targets into a penguin.
Glyph of Polymorph removes damage-over-time
effects from your Polymorph target, which could otherwise break Polymorph.
Conjure Refreshment —
Conjured Mana Strudels, usable by
friendly players, restoring health and Mana. Conjured items disappear from the
inventory after logging out for 15 minutes or more. This spell can be learned
from Mage trainers.
Ritual of Refreshment — Creates a portal two friendly
players need to click in order to make a table appear. Costs 5
Arcane Powder. Each player can take up to 80
Conjured Mana Strudels from this table. Conjured items disappear from
the inventory after logging out for 15 minutes or longer.
Conjure Mana Gem — A Mage can create different types of Mana
gems, which can be used in combat to restore Mana. The highest rank of
this spell restores most Mana. Mana Gems are unique; conjuring the highest
rank does not allow you to conjure lower ranks of it. Does not disappear when
logging out. Has 3 charges. Can be improved with
Glyph of Mana Gem.
Teleport Spells: Every Mage can teleport to their faction's major cities,
to Shattrath, or to Dalaran at the cost of one Rune of Teleportation.
Portal Spells: These spells are used to open portals to each faction's
major cities, to Shattrath, and to Dalaran that the whole group can use. Costs 1
Rune of Portals.
Invisibility — The Mage fades out for 3 seconds and
becomes invisible after that time. Each second before becoming invisible,
the threat against all enemies is reduced. Any damage taken or action
from the Mage cancels the spell. This can be used as a threat dump, to leave
combat, or to sneak by enemies. Can be improved with talents and
Glyph of Invisibility.
Evocation — A channeled spell that restores 60% of
your Mana during 8 seconds. Haste effects make the channeling faster and
damage taken while channeling reduces the Mana restored. Has a base cooldown
of 4 minutes, can be reduced to 2 minutes with talents. Another small tip
is that the Tier 3 2-set bonus (Frostfire Regalia) reduces the cooldown of
Evocation by a minute. With this in mind, you can swap to the 2 pieces, wait
for a second (the bonus needs a bit to activate), Evocate, and swap back to
your normal gear. Be sure to only use this strategy out of combat, as you
can only switch back to your normal gear out of combat and Tier 3 is terrible
to wear during an encounter.
Spellsteal — Sometimes enemies have beneficial magical
buffs you can steal with this ability. Stolen buffs last on you for two minutes.
Some bosses require one Mage to steal a
magical buff from an enemy, in order to be able to tank it.
Range can be improved with talents.
Counterspell — This spell is used to interrupt enemy
casting and to prevent any spell of the interrupted spell school from being
cast for 8 seconds. Can be improved with talents.
Blink — Teleports the Mage 20 yards forward. This
ability can
be used to reposition during fights and save some running time, flee from
enemies, break snaring effects, or to prevent fall damage by Blinking shortly
before reaching the ground. Can be improved with talents and
Glyph of Blink.
Slow Fall — At the cost of one
Light Feather
(0 with
Glyph of Slow Fall), Mages can
reduce their and allies' falling speed for 30 seconds. This can be used to
survive falling down, or to move to locations normally unreachable, by jumping
from a higher ledge to a lower position. Can be cast before mounting and it
will persist while mounted.
Remove Curse — Removes a Curse from a friendly
target.
Glyph of Remove Curse makes the decursed target immune to Curses
for 4 seconds.
Slow — Exclusively available to Arcane Mages, reduces the
target's movement speed and time between ranged attacks by 60%. This ability
also increases the casting time of the target by 30% and the time between
their ranged attacks by 60%. Lasts 15 seconds, only one target at a time can
be affected by this spell.
Presence of Mind — Makes your next Mage spell with a cast time
of less than 10 seconds an instant spell. This can be used to instantly
Polymorph enemies, or to make a damage spell instant.
Further, PoM also triggers
Arcane Potency (see below!).
Channeled spells do not consume the instant-
cast effect of this spell, so you can use the Critical Strike chance, such as for
Blizzard and following it up with an instant cast
Flamestrike.
Frost Nova — Freezes enemies 8 yards around the Mage for
8 seconds.
Improved Blizzard — This talent can be used to control
groups of enemies by slowing their movement speed. It is a utility spell, if
it is required to buy time before mobs reach the group or the Mage.
Offensive Abilities
Arcane Mages use different offensive abilities than Fire or Frost Mages. Some of these abilities are required for rotations or need to be used with special attention. To learn more about the rotation and how these abilities synergize, read the Arcane Mage Rotations page.
Arcane Blast — Your main source of damage. Arcane Blast,
also referred to as "AB" gives you
a stacking debuff. Each stack increases the Mana cost of Arcane Blast by 175%
and increases the damage of all Arcane spells by 15%. It stacks up to four
times and will make your Arcane Blast cost too much Mana to be sustainable. The
debuff drops after 6 seconds, when you cast another Arcane spell, or when you
Ice Block. Through the
Missile Barrage talent your Arcane Blast
has a 40% chance to halve the cast time (the tooltip is
misleading) of your next
Arcane Missiles and make them cost no Mana,
which is most important for the Arcane Mage DPS rotation.
Can be improved with talents and
Glyph of Arcane Blast.
Arcane Missiles — The combo spell for Arcane Mages. Launches
Arcane Missiles at your enemy. When
Arcane Blast or
Arcane Barrage proc
Missile Barrage, the cast time of Arcane Missiles
is halved. The recommended way to use this spell is when you have 4 stacks of
the Arcane Blast debuff and a Missile Barrage proc, or when you have cast 6
Arcane Blasts without a Missile Barrage proc. After a Missile Barrage proc
from Arcane Barrage, it is recommended to first build up 4 stacks of the Arcane
Blast debuff (if possible) and only then use Arcane Missiles.
Can be improved with talents and
Glyph of Arcane Missiles.
Arcane Barrage and
Fire Blast — Will be cast
while
moving or to finish off an enemy with a last cast. Fire Blast has no travel
time. Abar has a 3-seconds cooldown, so when moving or finishing mobs, the
optimal rotation to use these spells would be
Arcane Barrage ->
Fire Blast ->
Arcane Barrage. Can be improved with
Glyph of Arcane Barrage.
Blizzard — Is a very strong AoE spell in the typical
Arcane Spec, but should only be used on static enemies.
Flamestrike — Rank 9 and Rank 8 can be cast in between
Blizzards on static enemies and if they live long enough to survive
the full rotation. A rotation of Flamestrike 9 -> Flamestrike 8 ->
Blizzard deals very high AoE damage and should be used if it is
exercisable.
Arcane Explosion — The main AoE spell when a fight
is not stationary (when mobs are being kited by the tank).
Generates very low threat with the
Arcane Subtlety talent.
Can be improved with talents and
Glyph of Arcane Explosion.
Cone of Cold — A frontal cone AoE ability that does high
damage and slows enemies, but due to the frontal cone shape it is easy to
miss enemies, so
Arcane Explosion is safer to use (hits more enemies).
Presence of Mind — Makes your next Mage spell with a less
than 10-second casting time an instant spell. This spell can be used to make
a damage spell instant or to extend the Arcane Blast debuff.
Cooldowns
Arcane Power — Increases the damage of your spells by 20%,
but they cost 20% more Mana to cast. Lasts 15 seconds and has a 2-minute
cooldown. Can be used together with
Icy Veins or
Bloodlust/
Heroism. Preferably used with
Arcane Blast and
Missile Barrage
Arcane Missiles.
Can be improved with talents and
Glyph of Arcane Power.
Icy Veins — Increases your casting speed by 20% for
20 seconds. During the duration of Icy Veins, your spells are no longer subject
to spell pushback. Preferably used with
Arcane Blast.
Can be improved with talents and
Glyph of Icy Veins.
Mirror Image — Should be used for additional damage, as the Mirror
Images attack your enemy and do additional damage, or to disappear from the threat
list while doing heavy burst (AoE) damage. Mirror images benefit from
Bloodlust/
Heroism if cast beforehand and only attack if an enemy is
nearby and you are already in combat with them.
Can be improved with
Glyph of Mirror Image.
Defensive Abilities
Every Mage spec has good defensive capabilities. They can absorb damage from different sources and even become immune to damage.
Mana Shield,
Frost Ward and
Fire Ward — absorb
damage and can be useful in some PvE situations.
Ice Block — Puts the Mage in an Ice Block for 10 seconds,
making them immune to almost all attacks and spells. Some boss
abilities can penetrate the Ice Block immunity and Priests can dispel Ice Block
with
Mass Dispel. This ability can also be used to protect the
caster from fall damage. After using Ice Block, you get the Hypothermia
debuff that prevents you from using Ice Block again for 30 seconds.
Can be improved with talents and
Glyph of Ice Block.
Changelog
- 06 Jan. 2023: Added more detailed info about Mirror Images.
- 14 Sep. 2022: Page added.
This guide has been written by Wrdlbrmpft aka Arcanaenus, playing Mage since 2008. He is usually found in the Mage Discord, where you may also ask him questions his guides do not answer.
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