WoW Classic Arcane Mage Leveling Talent Build from 1 to 60

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Your first talent unlocks at Level 10.

Your talents should roughly look like this, but keep in mind there are plenty of individual points that can be swapped around based on preference. For example, feel free to place a point into Cold Snap if you wish, we skip it due to the low impact of the talent in a build without Ice Block and Ice Barrier.

Begin by getting two points into Arcane Focus, so that your arcane spells are not often resisted against similar level enemies. Afterwards, maximize Improved Arcane Missiles and Wand Specialization, which will allow you to cast Arcane Missiles uninterrupted when enemies get close and finish them off with your Wand while regenerating Mana. Finally, get started on Arcane Concentration.

Grab Arcane Resilience for a survivability boost, maximize Improved Arcane Explosion to get your area of effect damage capabilities rolling and finish Arcane Concentration / start Arcane Meditation to improve your Mana management.

Presence of Mind will provide you with a versatile cooldown that makes your next spell instant cast. You can use with for burst, with Fireball, or for utility, with Polymorph, for example. Proceed by putting the final point into Arcane Meditation and grabbing both Arcane Mind and Arcane Instability to increase your Mana and damage potential, respectively.

Arcane Power will be your main DPS cooldown, allowing you to increase your damage (and Mana costs) significantly for a short period. Elemental Precision will be your first non-Arcane talent and grants you a damage boost with Frostbolt, which you will improve further with Improved Frostbolt and Ice Shards.

Begin by accumulating even more Frost damage with Ice Shards and Piercing Ice, followed by Frost Mana efficiency through Frost Channeling. Finish your build by using one point into Arctic Reach, and maximize Elemental Precision just in time for raiding!

1. Cast Arcane Intellect and Frost Armor if you miss their buffs.
2. Cast Arcane Intellect and Ice Armor if you miss their buffs.
3. Cast Arcane Intellect and Mage Armor if you miss their buffs.
4. Cast Fireball as your main attack.
5. Cast Fireball or Frostbolt (depending on which rank you have gotten more recently) as your main attack. Arcane Missiles is also a good option, especially if you are being hit, as it will not be interrupted once you maximize Improved Arcane Missiles. Frostbolt will be the preferred spell once you finish maximizing Improved Frostbolt.
6. Cast Frostbolt as your main attack.

Utility skills, such as Frost Nova, and AoE skills, such as Arcane Explosionshould be used to keep enemies away from you or finish off packs of enemies, as required.

Since you can make your own food and water with Conjure Food and Conjure Water,you will be able to more than make up the gold spent on these skills, by saving on vendor food and water. It is also possible to gain some gold on the side by selling your conjured supplies to other players.

While leveling, there are some class specific quests to complete, mostly for new gear, but also for the best water rank.

Leveling Information

Mage Quests

Check out how to gain access to powerful upgrades for your Mage by completing their class-specific questline!

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• At Level 1, as soon as you have the copper, buy Arcane Intellect. It provides a significant Intellect boost, that lasts for 30 minutes.
• At Level 4, buy Conjure Water and Frostbolt. Conjure Water allows you to create free water, to use while leveling up. Frostbolt deals strong damage and slows the target by 40%.
• At Level 6, buy Conjure Food. Conjure Food allows you to create free food, to use while leveling up.
• At Level 8, buy Polymorph, Arcane Missiles and Rank 2 Frostbolt. Polymorph allows you to take one enemy out of combat for 20 seconds, which is handy when dealing with multiple enemies. Keep in mind only one enemy can be polymorphed at a time. Arcane Missiles is a relatively weak spell for its Mana cost but because you are Arcane specced, you will gain some helpful talents for it early on.
• At Level 10, buy Rank 2 Frost Armor, Rank 2 Conjure Water and Frost Nova. Frost Nova freezes nearby enemies for 8 seconds, allowing you to regain distance on them, and to gain a damage bonus, through Shatter, when re-engaging.
• At Level 12, buy Rank 2 Conjure Food and Slow Fall. Slow Fall slows your falling speed, which is handy to avoid fall damage, enabling shortcuts that would lead to death, otherwise.
• At Level 14, buy Arcane Explosion, Rank 2 Arcane Intellect and Rank 3 Frostbolt. Arcane Explosion will be your main AoE spell with the spec, since it is instant you can also use it to finish off weakened enemies, but beware its high Mana cost.
• At Level 16, buy rank 2 Arcane Missiles.
• At Level 18, buy Remove Lesser Curse. Remove Lesser Curse is a niche, yet sometimes invaluable spell that will allow you to remove curse effects.
• At Level 20, buy Blink, Rank 3 Frost Armor, Rank 3 Conjure Water, Evocation and Rank 4 Frostbolt. At this level, you can also start to buy the teleport spells for each major city, such as Teleport: Stormwind (Alliance) or Teleport: Orgrimmar (Horde), at their respective portal trainers. Blink allows you to teleport forward every 15 seconds, which can be useful in a variety of situations. It also clears stun and root effects. Evocation rapidly regenerates your Mana over 8 seconds, with an 8-minute cooldown.
• At Level 22, buy Rank 2 Arcane Explosion and Rank 3 Conjure Food
• At Level 24, buy Counterspell and rank 3 Arcane Missiles. Counterspell instantly interrupts and prevents spells of the interrupted school from being cast for 10 seconds, with a 30-second cooldown. Very useful to disable caster enemies or in the occasional PvP situation.
• At Level 26, buy Rank 5 Frostbolt.
• At Level 28, buy Rank 3 Arcane Intellect and Conjure Mana Agate. Conjure Mana Agate is the first of four spells that create Mana Gems that you can use during combat to instantly replenish part of your Mana pool. These items share a 2-minute cooldown, and are consumed on use.
• At Level 30, buy Ice Armor, Rank 3 Arcane Explosion, Rank 4 Conjure Water and Teleport: Darnassus (Alliance) or Teleport: Thunder Bluff (Horde) at each respective city's portal trainers. Ice Armor is basically the same as Frost Armor with a little bit of Frost Resistance baked in.
• At Level 32, buy Rank 4 Conjure Food, rank 4 Arcane Missiles and Rank 6 Frostbolt.
• At Level 34, buy Mage Armor. Mage Armor allows 30% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting, and gives you some general magic resistance. Considering you should not be getting hit by enemy melee attacks, this will be more helpful than Frost Armor.
• At Level 38, buy Rank 4 Arcane Explosion, Conjure Mana Jade and Rank 7 Frostbolt.
• At Level 40, buy Rank 5 Conjure Water and rank 5 Arcane Missiles. At this level, you can also start to buy the portal spells for each major city, such as Portal: Stormwind (Alliance) or Portal: Orgrimmar (Horde), at their respective portal trainers.
• At Level 42, buy Rank 4 Arcane Intellect, Rank 5 Conjure Food.
• At Level 44, buy Rank 8 Frostbolt .
• At Level 46, buy Rank 5 Arcane Explosion and Rank 2 Ice Barrier.
• At Level 48, buy Conjure Mana Citrine and rank 6 Arcane Missiles.
• At Level 50, buy Rank 6 Conjure Water, Rank 9 Frostbolt and Portal: Darnassus (Alliance) or Portal: Thunder Bluff (Horde) at each respective city's portal trainers.
• At Level 52, buy Rank 6 Conjure Food and Rank 3 Ice Barrier.
• At Level 54, buy Rank 6 Arcane Explosion.
• At Level 56, buy Rank 5 Arcane Intellect, rank 7 Arcane Missiles and Rank 10 Frostbolt.
• At Level 58, buy Conjure Mana Ruby and Rank 4 Ice Barrier.

Endgame Information

Mage Guides

Finished Leveling? Check out the rest of our Mage Guide to learn how to maximize your gameplay!

Mage Endgame Guides

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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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