Mage guide

What Forever changed

• Arcane Blast is a new 11-point Arcane talent. It is a 1.5 s cast. Each cast gives you 15% of your Intellect as extra spell damage and raises its own cost by 175%, up to 4 stacks for 15 s from the first one. Missile Barrage (row 1, 2 points) makes Arcane Missiles fast and free.
• Heating Up is the new 16-point Fire talent: each Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, Fire Blast or Scorch crit takes 25% off your next Pyroblast's cast, up to 75%. Fire Blast now always adds a stack too (two on a crit). Pyroblast is never instant.
• Ice Lance (11-point Frost talent) does 200% more damage to Frozen targets, and Fingers of Frost lets your next one or two spells treat the target as Frozen.
• Frostfire Bolt is trained at 40: Frost and Fire damage against the lower resistance, with a 40% slow. Teleport: Dalaran comes at 50, for Alliance races only in the client. A new Frost Blast spell at 24 does the same job as a rank 1 Frostbolt: a slow, with talents that help Frostbolt.
• Comprehension is a Mage-only skill from level 6: Comprehend Scroll deciphers dropped scrolls into imbues, familiars and buffs, and Study makes a bundle of them once an hour in a library.
• Winter's Chill no longer adds crit: your Frostbolt, Frost Blast and Fingers of Frost Ice Lances put it on the target to boost your next Cone of Cold. Improved Scorch still helps only your own Fire damage. Neither can be resisted once its spell lands.
• Arcane Brilliance covers the whole raid, and Arcane Intellect lasts 1 hour. Remove Lesser Curse also removes Warlock Banes.
• Arcane Meditation keeps 50% of your mana regeneration while casting (was 15%), and Mage Armor 50% (was 30%).
• Cone of Cold slows 40% for 6 seconds (was 50% for 8), and Improved Blizzard tops out at 40% (was 65%): Blizzard cut Frost kiting on purpose to stop gold bots.
• Combustion lasts 3 crits. Ignite no longer double-dips on damage bonuses. Base damage is lower on most spells, while low ranks gained spell-power scaling.

Every spell, new and changed ones marked, by spec: Arcane, Fire, Frost.

Strengths

• No hybrid tax: Blizzard tunes pure classes about 5% above hybrid damage specs.
• Group utility nobody else has all of: Polymorph, Counterspell, curse and Bane removal, Arcane Brilliance for the raid, conjured food and water, portals.
• Safe solo play: Frost Nova, Blink, Ice Block, slows, and Ice Lance damage on the move.
• Arcane is the most-changed spec and sits at the top of early (low-reliability) tier lists. Arcane Meditation makes in-combat mana real.
• Comprehension scrolls add weapon imbues, Intellect familiars and a Mage-only sword, the Coldflame Saber.

Gaps you plan around

• Mana. Mages still drink more than anyone while levelling, and Arcane Blast's cost climbs 175% a stack.
• No more raid debuffs. Winter's Chill and Improved Scorch are personal, so a Mage no longer raises other casters' damage.
• Weaker AoE farming: Cone of Cold and Blizzard slows were cut on purpose, and tanks hold only 3–5 mobs.
• Crowded role: possibly the most-created beta class (16% in an unverified census), and every Mage competes with Priests and Warlocks for cloth.
• Short on buttons: Blizzard says the Mage has fewer moment-to-moment buttons than it wants and is looking at more for every spec.