Mage

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For the manga, see World of Warcraft: Mage.
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The mage is a damage-dealing spell-caster that specializes in burst damage and area of effect spells. Their primary role in a group at lower levels is damage dealing and crowd control through the use of [Polymorph], temporarily changing humanoids and beasts into harmless critters. At end-game levels, mages' damage is supplemented with [Counterspell], [Remove Curse], and [Spellsteal]. Mages' utility spells also include conjuring food and drink and the ability to [Teleport: X] to major cities and open Portals for party members. In PvP, mages deal ranged damage while using snare effects and [Polymorph] to control enemy players.

As a spell-caster, a mage's primary stat is intellect, which directly increases the mage's spell power, mana pool and spell critical strike chance. Secondary stats that mages should wear on their gear for include hit rating (until reaching the hit cap), critical strike rating, haste rating and mastery rating. Stamina also benefits mages, but should not be focused on at the expense of other stats unless gearing for PvP. Spirit is of no use to mages at all after Patch 4.0.1 and should be avoided in all cases. Agility, strength and the other secondary stats should likewise be avoided.

Contents

Lore

An elderly mage from the Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness manual.

Mages, the most common of arcanists, are found all over Azeroth. They focus on magic that creates and that changes things, most often with the purpose of damaging their enemies and boosting the power of their allies.[1] Such beings can obtain a familiar, which is a normal animal that gains new powers and becomes a magical beast when summoned to service by a mage,[1] while others choose to become focused mages.[2] Mages also understand the workings of arcane energy so well that they can counter most magic with great effectiveness. An adept mage who has dedication to and natural predilection for one of the schools of specialization becomes more entrenched. At this point the mage chooses either evocation or transmutation as a preferred school, and casts spells from his chosen school. The mages of the Kirin Tor first mastered the arts of casting spells using the elements of ice and fire. Mages are also known for being able to summon elementals, usually water elementals, but can also summon air, earth and fire elementals as well.[3] The greatest mortal mage ever to live is the Naga Queen Azshara, who still lives. In fact, she may no longer be mortal.[4]

The first known mages on Azeroth were elves, before the breaking of the Well of Eternity and the Exile of the High Elves, who lived on the shores of the Well of Eternity and wielded its powers.

Origins

A blood elf mage.

Early kaldorei civilization was defined by direct manipulation of magic drawn from the Well of Eternity to create and sustain their society. The constant use of the well attracted attention from Sargeras and the Burning Legion, and their coming resulted in a massive war known as the War of the Ancients. The war had grave consequences, for even though the combined might of Azeroth's mortal races were victorious, the continent of Kalimdor was shattered, and a swirling, raging miasma of sea storms flowed into the vacant area where the Well of Eternity used to reside. This Great Sundering caused the Well's waters to be permeated into the atmosphere and spread magic all over the world.

This event convinced the majority of night elves to reject arcane magic and embrace Malfurion Stormrage's call for druidism. Many of the Highborne refused this lifestyle, and left in self-imposed exile to Lordaeron where they eventually founded their kingdom of Quel'Thalas and became the high elves. When their kingdom came under siege by the trolls of Zul'Aman the high elves agreed to teach one hundred humans the arts of magic in exchange for military aid from the human nation of Arathor. From these two races, the arcane arts have spread to various races all over Azeroth.

Dalaran

A human mage concept art.

Once students of the Conjurers of Azeroth, this new order of mages had been forced to discover untapped magical forces to command in their war against the ruthless orcs. Although masters of their arts, the Conjurers who fell during the First War were unprepared for the rigors of warfare. Determined to avoid a similar fate, the mages began to undertake a regimen equally demanding on body and soul, thus dedicating themselves to the command of more aggressive and destructive magic. Whether in their sanctum at the Violet Citadel in Dalaran or on the many battlefields of Lordaeron, the mages are resolute in their efforts to defend the people.[5]

The most powerful mages of the Eastern Kingdoms were perhaps the Archmagi of Dalaran. The city was transported to Northrend when the mages believed they were in danger. It now hovers in the skies over Crystalsong forest and is ruled by the Kirin Tor. The Kirin Tor are quick to recognize fellow mages as allies where outsiders must do more to prove themselves.

Notable mages

Alliance Alliance

Horde Horde

Other

Races

Kallipssa, a draenei mage.
Ruby Gemsparkle, a gnome mage.
Karina of Silvermoon, another blood elf mage.
Zi'mo the Empowered, a troll mage.
Exaura the Cryptkeeper, a forsaken mage.
Main article: Mage races

The mage class can be played by the following races:

Race Strength Agility Stamina Intellect Spirit Armor Health Mana
Alliance DraeneiDraenei Draenei TBC 21 17 20 23 24 34 52 165
Alliance DwarfDwarf Dwarf Cataclysm 22 16 23 22 21 33 62 150
Alliance GnomeGnome Gnome 15 22 20 27 22 44 52 225
Alliance HumanHuman Human 20 20 20 23 22 40 52 165
Alliance Night elfNight elf Night elf Cataclysm 17 25 19 23 22  ?  ?  ?
Alliance WorgenWorgen Worgen Cataclysm 23 22 20 19 21  ?  ?  ?
Alliance/Horde PandarenPandaren Pandaren MoP 20 18 21 22 24 37 113 50
Horde Blood elfBlood elf Blood elf TBC 17 22 20 26 20 44 52 210
Horde ForsakenForsaken Forsaken 19 18 20 21 27 36 52 135
Horde GoblinGoblin Goblin Cataclysm 17 22 20 26 20  ?  ?  ?
Horde OrcOrc Orc Cataclysm 23 17 22 20 25 24 62 120
Horde TrollTroll Troll 21 22 20 19 23 44 52 119

Mage Beneficial Racial Abilities:

AllianceDraenei

AllianceDwarf

  • [Stoneform] is a minor defence trait which can be used in PvP and PvE.

AllianceGnome

  • [Expansive Mind] is one of the most important mage beneficial racial abilities as it increases mana by 5%. Note that it increases mana pool but not Intellect, spell power or spell critical.
  • [Escape Artist] removes snares and speed reduction effects. Usable to PvP and certain PvE encounters. (Note: does not remove stun effects).

AllianceHuman

  • [Every Man for Himself] is another beneficial trait enabling players to remove all incapacitating effects on the character (Slow, stun, fear, immobilize effects)
  • [Diplomacy] grants a 10% extra reputation gains for every faction.

AllianceNight Elf

  • [Quickness] mainly useful in PvP, gives a slight advantage over receiving damage.
  • [Shadowmeld] acts as a minor and temporal focus distraction from PvE encounters. However, player is still vulnerable (in contrast with [Ice Block]), does not reduce threat (unlike [Invisibility] but it removes Combat status (similar to [Vanish]).

AllianceWorgen

HordeBlood Elf

  • [Arcane Torrent] has similarities with [Counterspell] and restores a percentage of mana. Due to its limit in AoE range, it has limited use in Boss PvE encounters and is half effective on PvP.

HordeGoblin

HordeOrc

  • [Blood Fury] gives an increase in spell power whenever activated.
  • [Hardiness] a reduction in the total time of stun effects.

HordeTauren

  • Mages are not available for the Tauren race.

HordeTroll

  • [Berserking] has similar effects to [Time Warp], has 10 seconds duration, 3 minutes cooldown but the most important is that unlike [Bloodlust] does not place a 10 minutes debuff thus making it an extremely beneficial racial ability.
  • [Regeneration] is useful as an additional health regeneration effect, especially beneficial on long encounters.
  • [Da Voodoo Shuffle] has use in both PvE and PvP.

HordeUndead

  • [Will of the Forsaken] is usable in all cases in PvP and PvE when losing control of character (does not include slow or immobilize effects)

The above list includes only the abilities that interact directly with the mage abilities, playstyle and needs over specific situations. Other traits are available and are usable as to what a player wishes to do with the character.

Gear

See also: Mage sets

A mage is able to wield staves, wands, daggers, one-handed swords, and can use items with the slot "Held in Off-hand" if using a dagger or one-handed sword in the main hand. Wands go in the ranged slot and will continue to shoot once manually started. A mage can only wear cloth armor.

Mages gear primarily for intellect (which increases spell power, critical strike chance and mana pool) and hit rating to reach the hit cap. Other ratings like crit, haste and mastery are next in importance. Reaching the hit cap (+17% for PvE, +4% for PvP) is important, but not at the expense of intellect. Reforge weaker ratings stats like crit,haste or mastery instead.

As of 4.0.1, spell power mostly no longer appears on gear, with the notable exception of caster weapons, so the lack of raw spell power on a mage's gear is not a sign for alarm. Additionally, spirit confers no mana regeneration to mages and should be avoided in all cases. In-combat mana regeneration is provided by abilities, including [Mage Armor], [Evocation], [Conjure Mana Gem], talents, such as [Arcane Concentration] or [Master of Elements], and the use of low-mana casting cycles (such as [Scorch] for fire mages or heavy use of [Arcane Missiles] for arcane mages).

Spells

A female blood elf mage in Magister's Regalia, wielding the  [Staff of the Shadow Flame].
Main article: Mage abilities

Mages have a wide variety of spells which fall in to three schools of magic: arcane, fire and frost. All spell schools include damage spells. Arcane includes some crowd control and utility, and most Frost spells provide a movement-slow effect supplementing their damage.

Fire spells are primarily damage-dealing spells, including direct single-target damage and area of effect damage. Many Fire spells include damage over time effects. Fire mages trust heavily on RNG in raid situations to proc [Hot Streak].

Frost spells are primarily single-target and area of effect damage-dealing spells, but with more emphasis on chilling effects. Nearly every frost spell has a chill or freeze effect that fully or partially immobilizes an enemy. This includes freezing it in place (called a root) or slowing its movement speed (called a snare). Frost specialized mages can further improve these chilling effects and increase frost damage output to respectable levels. Frost spells help the mage use kiting as a combat tactic.

Arcane spells include single-target damage spells and utility. Arcane spells allow the mage to remove curses, provide crowd control, absorb damage, [Teleport: X] himself or others to major capital cities, [Slow Fall], [Counterspell], buff players' spell power and mana pools, save mana for later use in the form of mana gems, conjure food for himself or others, and provide many other conveniences.

Arcane and Fire are the trees currently best suited to raid damage. Frost's snare effects and [Ice Barrier] make it the best leveling and PvP tree. Fire and Arcane specs lack the control and survival abilities crucial to leveling and PvP.

Specializations

Main article: Mage talents

Mage talents are split into 3 trees which mirror their 3 main spell types. Mages can choose to specialize in one of these trees, gaining access to the corresponding tree of talents, as well as unique abilities and bonuses.

Arcane

Spell holy magicalsentry.png

Arcane mages' damage focuses on [Arcane Blast] and [Arcane Missiles]. Arcane can provide the greatest potential damage output mages can offer. The Arcane tree includes [Slow], a powerful instant single-target slowing effect, and [Arcane Barrage], an instant-damage ranged attack. Arcane mages can provide substantial burst damage with [Arcane Power] and [Presence of Mind]. Leveling as an arcane mage was once very difficult, but since Patch 4.0.1 the signature arcane spells ( [Arcane Barrage], [Arcane Missiles], and [Arcane Blast]) are learned much earlier thus making it more feasible.

Fire

Spell fire firebolt02.png

Fire mages' damage output is oriented around [Living Bomb] and [Hot Streak]. Living Bomb is an instant cast damage-over-time effect. Hot Streak is a triggered effect: whenever a Fire mage deals two critical strikes in a row, their next [Pyroblast] spell is instant. Fire is currently behind Arcane in single-target damage, but [Living Bomb] makes Fire vastly superior to Arcane in AoE situations. Fights in which players are forced to move frequently can also benefit Fire mages, as [Living Bomb] and [Hot Streak]-enabled instant Pyroblasts can fill the movement time which Arcane mages can only use for [Arcane Barrage], [Fire Blast] and [Ice Lance] which is especially poor damage against bosses. The Fire talent tree provides few survival tools. This has historically made the fire tree a good choice for high-end raiders who seek to maximize damage output, but poor in PvP due to Arena's survival requirements.

Frost

Spell frost frostbolt02.png

Frost mages specialize in crowd control and snaring foes with their various chills, allowing for powerful kiting, and providing good AoE capability. It is the most mana-efficient spec. Frost also has very high survivability, making Frost a very popular PvP tree. Frost's AoE makes it the spec best suited to five-player dungeons. However, it is far behind fire and arcane in terms of DPS. Frost is most effective in PvP, as Frost mages can learn [Ice Barrier] to protect themselves from damage and [Deep Freeze] to supplement their snare effects with a stun. Frost mages also learn [Summon Water Elemental], gaining a pet which has a Freeze ability similar to [Frost Nova].

Common builds (pre-cataclysm)

Goblin fire mage art
"Chillhands" Spigotgulp, another gnome mage.

Prior to Patch 4.0.1, which pretty much removed talent-hybridization (the act of mixing different trees), three major hybrid-builds existed for mages. While it is no longer possible to create these builds, the information about them is still listed here for historical purposes.

Frost & Fire:

  • A mage with talent-points spent both in fire and frost was often called an "elemental mage" / "elementalist". After Wrath of the Lich King was released, a mage with such a build was also usually aiming to specifically empower his/her [Frostfire Bolt], becoming a "Frostfire Mage" (sometimes abbreviated to FFB mage). The changed mechanics in 4.0.1 forced Frostfire Bolt (and [Flame Orb]) to be either fire-based or frost-based.

Arcane & Fire:

  • A mage with points both in fire and arcane was often referred to as a "three-minute mage" because this kind of mage often based its damage on combining the fire-talent spell [Pyroblast], which takes long time to cast yet provides powerful damage, with the arcane-talent-spells [Presence of Mind] and [Arcane Power] to create a instant-cast, long-ranged, high-damage spell. As the two arcane-spells both had a three minute cooldown, one would say the mage "functioned" (most likely in a humorous context) only every three minutes. Patch 3.0.9 Caused Arcane Power and Presence of Mind to share cooldown, which somewhat ruined the three-minute mage. Still, with the talent [Arcane Flows] which was introduced in Patch 3.0.2, the cooldown of both Arcane Power and Presence of Mind was reduced to two minutes, changing the original three-minute mage into a "Two-minute mage". This spec was championed during The Burning Crusade by the mage Pigvomit [1]. Patch 4.0.1 made it impossible for a Mage to obtain both Pyroblast and Presence of Mind within the same build. Additionally, it also changed Pyroblast to be received by choosing Fire as the main spec and [Presence of Mind] to be an Arcane talent spell on tier 3.

Arcane & Frost:

  • A mage with points both in arcane and frost was sometimes called a "Arcane Shatter" mage. The name derived from a combination of the arcane-talent [Arcane Barrage] and the frost-talent [Shatter]. This talent specialization was popularized by the success of Abni, who obtained Gladiator titles for several seasons using this spec. After 4.0.1 it is still possible to place a few talents in Frost after choosing Arcane or vice versa, but mixing the two trees doesn't make much of a difference compared to placing all points in one tree.

Stats

This is a list of the Mage's primary stats for level 85 raiding in order of importance according to latest theorycrafting.

Arcane Fire Frost
1) Intellect 1) Intellect 1) Intellect
2) Hit 2) Spell Power 2) Hit
3) Spell Power 3) Hit 3) Spell Power
4) Mastery 4) Haste 4) Crit
5) Haste 5) Crit 5) Haste
6) Crit 6) Mastery 6) Mastery

Note that Hit above 17% (1742 rating) is worthless. Crit cannot go higher than 97.9% because of crit suppression versus bosses. Haste reaches a cap when the spellcast reaches the minimum cast time of the GCD, 1 second.

Endgame expectations

A human mage in art.

In a group or raid environment, mages are usually tasked with ranged DPS, AoE, [Counterspell], [Spellsteal], crowd control and finally providing food.

With the introduction of patch 1.11, mages enjoyed a high degree of flexibility in the endgame. Previous to patch 1.11, it was expected that most mages would spend at least 11 talent points in the arcane tree for [Evocation], as it is a quite powerful mana-regenerative spell. It was given free without the use of talent points. New changes to all three trees also made investing points into both the fire and the frost trees much more viable. This still holds true with the release of Burning CrusadeBurning Crusade. It should be mentioned that a build predominantly using the fire tree will usually contribute greater DPS in multiple-target encounters; those using a predominantly arcane tree will usually contribute greater DPS in single-target encounters; and finally, those using a predominantly frost tree will contribute a fair amount of control.

The endgame mage also acts as a utility class, providing drink, food, buffs and portals. Originally, when it came to providing drink and food, mages were by some considered equal to "vending machines" due to their unique ability to create food and drink and provide them with no cost except mana and time. In WotLK Wrath of the Lich King, Refreshment Tables may also be created at level 80 at the cost of five  [Arcane Powder]; the table lasts for three minutes or 50 charges of  [Conjured Mana Strudel], whichever comes first. It is expected that a mage provides his party or raid with food and drink for free. A second (or third) table can sometimes be called for while mustering players at the beginning of a raid if the first expires before everyone has received their strudel.

PvP

PvP-wise, mages are considered "glass cannons" - a design philosophy which gives mages generous burst damage at the cost of generally low health and armor values. Aided by talents such as [Presence of Mind] and [Arcane Power], they are one of the classes with the potential for dealing out the greatest amount of damage in the shortest amount of time. In group PvP, mages will stay back and focus on crowd control with [Polymorph] and pick off targets from range. Depending on the Battleground and the situation, mages typically AoE to prevent node captures or nuke flag carriers as fast as possible. In solo PvP, a skilled frost mage is a formidable opponent. Fire mages are in PVP well known for their burst damage, and arcane mages are known as venerable supporters.

Videos

Cataclysm Class Changes by TGN on YouTube
DPS Rundown: Mage by TGN on YouTube
Arcane Fire Frost

Trivia

  • Dr. Bill Lee, a re-occurring character from the TV Series 'Stargate SG-1' and 'Stargate Atlantis,' states that he plays a mage, and makes multiple references to the game, including Elwynn Forest. While his character's race is not explicitly stated, it's assumed from that statement that he plays a human.

See also

Game mechanics:

Lore:

References

  1. ^ a b World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game, 59
  2. ^ Alliance Player's Guide, 17
  3. ^ World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game, 59, 60
  4. ^ Dark Factions, 34
  5. ^ Warcraft II manual, 47

External links

World of Warcraft Community Site World of Warcraft Community Site WoW mage discussion
World of Warcraft Community Site World of Warcraft Community Site Mage class FAQ guide
External link L2DPS A Guide to Mage DPS
External link Icy Veins Arcane, Fire, and Frost Mage Raiding Guides (Cataclysm)


Other sites
External link Mage Rage A WoW Mage community focused on PvP and some PvE content
WowInsider WowInsider Arcane Brilliance — Mage weekly feature at WoW Insider
WowInsider WowInsider Mage guides at WoW Insider
External link StratFu Video and Strategy Guide for playing Arcane since the 3.0.8 patch
External link Mage Builds Popular and top WoW mage builds list for Arcane, Frost and Fire Mage
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