Classes

Mage

Magi are wizards of immense knowledge and skill. Their obvious physical frailty is deceptive, for they can call upon the cosmic energies of the Twisting Nether. Rarely do magi engage in melee combat. Instead, they prefer to attack from a distance, hurling powerful bolts of frost and flame at their unsuspecting enemies.

Mage abilities Mage Talent Calculator

Resource: Mana
Specializations: Arcane · Fire · Frost
Races: 6

What's changed in WoW Forever

A summary of Blizzard's Class Deep Dive articles. They were published during the beta, so numbers and talents may differ in the live game.

Mages are about choosing the right spell for the moment. Arcane empowers follow-up casts, Fire rewards critical strikes and timing, and Frost keeps its control strengths while gaining links to the other schools.[1]

Mage as the developers describe it

Mages are among the most powerful and resourceful damage dealers, with the strongest and most varied ranged area damage of any class. But they're extremely fragile and die easily if caught in melee.

Baseline abilities

Frostfire Bolt is learned at level 40. It counts as both a Fire and a Frost spell, so most talents for either school also apply to it.
Frostfire Bolt has a 3-second cast, deals large upfront damage, and applies a debuff with damage over time and a movement slow.
Comprehension is a new Mage-only minor tradeskill: read and decipher scrolls dropped by creatures for various benefits.
Mage Armor's mana regeneration bonus from Spirit is increased.
The Arcane talent Magic Attunement is now baseline.

Arcane talents

Arcane Blast (11-point gold medal): a new spell with a 2.5-second cast. Each stack increases the damage of your other Mage spells and raises its own mana cost.
Missile Barrage (16-point gold medal): Arcane Blast, Fireball, Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt can make your next Arcane Missiles channel twice as fast and cost no mana.
Arcane Mind now increases Intellect instead of maximum mana, and also increases the critical strike damage bonus of Arcane spells.
Talents that trigger a free effect, like Arcane Concentration, trigger less often from spells of a much lower rank.

Fire talents

Heating Up (new row 4 talent): critical strikes with Fireball and similar spells reduce the cast time of your next Pyroblast by 25%, stacking up to 3 times.
Ignite is now a separate debuff for each Mage, which fixes problems with threat and damage attribution.
Incineration moves up to row 1 and also increases the critical strike chance of Ice Lance and Arcane Blast.
Improved Fireball now also reduces the cast time of Frostfire Bolt.

Frost talents

Ice Lance (11-point gold medal): an instant spell whose damage is increased by 300% against Frozen targets.
Ice Block is now the 16-point gold medal and Cold Snap the 21-point one. Cold Snap's cooldown is increased to 10 minutes.
Fingers of Frost (new row 5 talent): Chill effects can grant charges that make your spells treat the target as if it were Frozen.
Improved Blizzard now slows by at most 40% instead of 65%, to cut down on AoE farming.

For all classes

Talents start at level 10 and keep the familiar tree structure: one-point milestone talents at 11, 21 and 31 points, now joined by a new 16-point milestone.[2][3][1][4][5]
Key class buffs that used to come from talents, such as Blessing of Kings and Improved Mark of the Wild, are now baseline for their classes.[3][5]
To change talents, including Legacy talents, visit a class trainer in a major city. Dual Specialization becomes available at level 40.[2][3][1][4][5]
These summaries are based on articles published during the beta, so numbers and talents may differ in the live game. This site's talent calculator uses the official live data.[2][3][1][4][5]

Specializations and key talents

For each tree, the talents you actively use (talents with a use effect) and the final-row talent. See the full trees in the talent calculator.

Arcane

18 talents · up to 45 points

Arcane BlastRow 3
Blasts the target with energy, dealing 179 to 175 Arcane damage. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, you gain 12% of your Intellect as Spell Damage and the mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by 100%. Effect stacks up to 4 times and lasts 18 sec from time of initial application.
Arcane WrathRow 4
Launches a projectile of pure Arcane energy at the enemy target, causing 422 to 458 Arcane damage. This spell gains additional Spell Damage equal to 5% of your maximum Mana.
Presence of MindRow 5
When activated, your next Mage spell with a casting time less than 10 sec becomes an instant cast spell.
Arcane PowerRow 7
For the next 15 sec, your spells deal 30% more damage while costing 30% more mana to cast.

See the full Arcane tree

Fire

17 talents · up to 46 points

PyroblastRow 3
Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 405 to 456 Fire damage and an additional 236 Fire damage over 12 sec.
Blast WaveRow 5
A wave of flame radiates outward from the caster, damaging all enemies caught within the blast for 192 to 230 Fire damage, and Dazing them for 50% reduced movement speed for 6 sec.
CombustionRow 7
When activated, this spell causes each of your Fire damage spell hits to increase your critical strike chance with Fire damage spells by 10%. This effect lasts until you have caused 3 non-periodic critical strikes with Fire spells.

See the full Fire tree

Frost

18 talents · up to 48 points

Ice LanceRow 3
Deals 28 to 33 Frost damage to an enemy target. Deals 300% increased damage to Frozen targets.
Ice BlockRow 4
You become encased in a block of ice, protecting you from all physical attacks and spells for 10 sec, but during that time you cannot attack, move, or cast spells.
Cold SnapRow 5
Finishes the remaining cooldown on all your other Frost spells.
Ice BarrierRow 7
Shield yourself, absorbing 480 damage and increasing your Frost damage by 15% for 1 min. While shielded, your Frost damage is increased by an additional 5% and you do not lose casting time when you take damage.