Mage Class Overview

In Classic, traditionally it was possible to play Mage as Human, Gnome, Troll or Undead. The new playable races are Skyborne (Alliance) and Orc (Horde). Sadly, the infamous Dwarf (aka 'Dorf') Mage with long, scraggy hair and a beard worthy of the name 'Merlin's beard' is not a thing this time around, but maybe the gods at Blizzard development will show mercy to this decades old community desire in the future.

Humans are very likely the kings in PvP, with Will to Survive and Perception. However for PvE, the decision is not so easy. Humans with swords get a reliable 2% critical strike chance via Sword Specialization, which is presumably the best damage increase in an overall Patchwerk scenario (standing still and nuking one target).

• Human — Humans have Will to Survive, which removes Stun effects, and Perception, allowing them to detect stealthed enemies for 20 seconds. Their Sword Specialization grants a 2% increase to spell and ability critical strike chance when wielding a sword, which is a big permanent damage increase if wielding swords, while The Human Spirit provides a passive 5% bonus to their Spirit stat.
• Gnome — Gnomes have Escape Artist, which grants brief immunity to Roots and Snares, which can be useful both in PvE and PvP. Eureka, which reduces the cost and increases damage or healing by 10% on their next 3 abilities is the new big damage cooldown. Their Expansive Mind provides a passive 5% bonus to Mana, Rage, and Energy, while Engineering Specialization makes their engineering devices more reliable.
• Skyborne — Skyborne can use Walk on Air, which allows them to glide downward through the air for 10 seconds, and Read Ley Line, which activates a ley line to grant 100% increased Health and Mana regeneration. Wind Blessed passively increases their melee, ranged, and spellcasting Haste by 1%, while Elemental Insight provides a passive 5% damage bonus against Elementals.

Trolls and Orcs are likely to be tied in their PvE performance, as Berserking is basically a 10% damage increase through haste for 10 seconds and Blood Fury is only a 10% Spell Power increase (not spell damage!), but for 15 seconds. However, Beast Slaying should give Trolls a slight edge over Orcs, as enemies in raids and dungeons are often beasts.

• Troll — Trolls can activate Berserking to increase their attack and cast speed by 10% for 10 seconds. Their Rapid Regeneration ability restores 50% of their maximum Health over time, while their passive Regeneration allows 10% of their health regeneration to continue even during combat. Additionally, Beast Slaying grants them a 5% damage bonus against Beast-type enemies.
• Orc — Orcs can activate Blood Fury to gain a 10% boost to both Attack Power and Spell Power for 15 seconds. They possess Shatter Curse, which grants immunity to Curses and Banes while reducing magical damage taken for 8 seconds. Their Axe Specialization provides a 1% increase to spell and ability critical strike chance when wielding an axe, which is irrelevant for Mages, as they cannot wield Axes. The Orcs' natural Hardiness reduces the duration of stuns by 20%, which is very good for PvP and sometimes also useful in PvE.
• Undead — The Undead posses Will of the Forsaken, which removes Charm, Fear, and Sleep effects (though it no longer provides immunity). They can use Cannibalize to regenerate 35% of their Health and Mana by consuming corpses — previously in classic only restoring health. Their Underwater Breathing allows them to hold their breath 300% longer than other races, and Touch of the Grave gives their attacks a chance to drain health from enemies. Most of these racial traits are more useful in PvP. Touch of the Grave has a 5% chance to restore 5% of your maximum health. When you read this, it sounds great, but when you do the math, it is pretty minor: 5% of 2000 HP are 100 HP, and if it happens 5% of the time, an average attack will restore you 5% of those said 100 HP (5 HP per attack on average).

Listed below are the current Spell/Talent changes we know for Mage. This list will be updated further as soon as new information is available.

• Arcane Focus — Now gives 5% hit chance to Arcane Spells, down from 10% in Classic.
• Improved Channeling — 100% pushback protection for Arcane Missiles, 70% for Arcane Blast. Replaces Improved Arcane Missiles from Classic.
• Arcane Subtlety — Reduces the target's magical resistance to all your spells by 16 and threat caused by Arcane spells by 30%, up from 10 resistance reduction and down from 40% threat reduction.
• Magic Absorption — Provides 10 resistance (unchanged) to magical spells and restores 2% of your total mana (down from 5% in Classic) if you fully resist a spell
• Arcane Resilience — Now requires two talent points instead of one.
• Arcane Geometry — Increases the range of your Arcane Spells by 6 yards.
• Arcane Impact — 6% crit chance to all your arcane spells. Previously Improved Arcane Explosion only affected Arcane Explosion.
• Arcane Blast — The main damage spell of the Arcane spec. Stacks up to 4 times, lasts 8 seconds or until any other spell is cast. Each stack increases the damage of all other spells by 10% and the damage of Arcane Blast by 175%.
• Arcane Shielding — Decreases Mana Shield's mana lost per point of damage taken by 34% (up from 20% from old Improved Mana Shield talent) and gives Mage Armor 50% higher resistance.
• Arcane Meditation — Allows 50% of your Mana Regeneration to continue while casting (up from 15% from the old talent).
• Missile Barrage — The secondary Arcane spec damage spell. Gives Arcane Blast a 40% chance, and Fireball, Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt a 20% chance to reduce the mana cost of Arcane Missiles by 100% and to make the missiles fire every 0.5 seconds.
• Arcane Mind — Increases intellect by 10%, but now also adds a 100% critical strike damage bonus to Arcane Spells (previously it did not).

• Wake of Fire — Reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast by 2 seconds and killing a non-trivial target increases the critical strike chance of your next Fire Blast cast within 20 seconds by 50%. This can be used to proc Hot Streak. Replaces Improved Fire Blast and Incinerate talent.
• Incineration — Increases the critical strike chance of Fire Blast., Ice Lance., Arcane Blast., and Scorch. by 6%.
• Improved Fireball — Now also affects Frostfire Bolt.
• Pyroblast — Damage increased slightly.
• Hot Streak — Non-periodic critical strikes with Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, Fire Blast and Scorch grant a Hot Streak that lasts 15 seconds and stacks up to 3 times. Each stack of Hot Streak reduces the cast time of Pyroblast by 25% (down to 4.5/3/1.5 seconds). Hot streak is consumed upon casting a Pyroblast.
• Blast Wave — Damage increased slightly.
• Frostfire Bolt — Hurls a bolt of Frostfire on an enemy, causing damage, slowing their movement speed, and causing Frostfire damage over 9 seconds. The spell will do Frost or Fire damage based on which spell school your target has lower resistance to.

• Elemental Precision — now gives 5% hit to Frost and Fire spells - down from 6% in WoW Classic.
• Ice Lance — Instant cast that low Frost damage to a non-frozen enemy target, but 300% increased damage to a frozen enemy target.
• Improved Blizzard — Adds a chill effect to Blizzard that lowers the target's movement speed by 45% for 1.5 seconds (down from 65% and 2 seconds in WoW Classic).
• Shatter — Now provides the 50% more critical hit chance to frozen targets with only 3 talent points (down from 5) and removed the dependence on the Improved Frost Nova talent.
• Fingers of Frost — Gives chill effects a 30% chance to grant the Fingers of Frost effect, which lasts 15 seconds and treats your next spell as if the target were frozen.
• Winter's Chill — Now only benefits Frostbolt and Ice Lance (previously benefited all Frost spells capable of dealing critical hits).
• Frostfire Bolt —

This spec saw huge improvements. Whilst being unplayble in WoW Classic, the additions of Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles a the Missile Barrage talent make this spec a lot more likely to be played and perform well. The changes to Arcane Meditation and Arcane Mind are also big and provide a lot more mana and regeneration to make the spec playble.

The addition of Hot Streak and how it interacts with Pyroblast will make Fire deal more damage for sure and retain it's Vanilla flavour. Frostfire Bolt might be able to outperform Fireball, because of the mixture of Frost and Fire talents and due to the lack of Fireball scaling talents that were present in Wrath of the Lich King, which basically gave Fireball an edge over Frostfire Bolt in Wrath of the Lich King. Apart from that the Fire spec still does what it did in Vanilla/Classic WoW: Provide solid and constant big damage numbers. Wake of Fire will give the Fire spec improved mobility.

Frost is retains it's original flavour of the crowd control, PvP and farm spec, but it gets improved by the Ice Lance spell and Fingers of Frost talents, making the spec more flexible and more mobile.