Arcane Mage Level 58 Boost Guide

The character boost offered by Blizzard allows you to boost one class of your choice to level 58. If you have never played that class before, it can be very hard to find your place in this new environment.

Therefore this guide will help you, covering the basics of playing Arcane Mage.

Arcane Mages were memed about for all of Classic. In TBC, this finally changes and Arcane Mages become one of the strongest DPS classes in the game. The only downside: Arcane Mages only really start to shine at level 70 and with proper Mana support. For leveling, it is a sub-optimal spec, but some lovers of the arcane arts might enjoy it.

The most important talents of this spec are Arcane Blast (available at level 64), Improved Arcane Missiles, Arcane Power, Slow, Mind Mastery, and Presence of Mind (POM).You will learn more about these spells and talents below in the abilities section.

As you level up, you will get more talent points, which you can spend into the Frost talent tree for the Improved Frostbolt, Improved Frost Nova, and Permafrost talents.

Up until level 64, your main rotation will be casting Arcane Missiles. Some enemies might try to interrupt you, so you have to Slow them or Frost Nova, to keep them away and cast more Arcane Missiles. The Improved Arcane Missiles talent prevents you from getting pushback from mob attacks while channeling. From level 64 on, you may also use Arcane Blast, which has high burst damage for high Mana cost, but beware that this spell has no pushback protection.

Whenever you can, use Arcane Power; coupling it with Presence of Mind lets instantly throw an Arcane Blast or a Frostbolt at the enemy.

If you ever struggle with Mana, add Frostbolts into your rotation.

• Arcane Intellect is a buff that increases your Intellect. It is generally considered useful, because Intellect increases your chance to score a critical strike and you will gain more Mana and Mana regeneration.
• Arcane Brilliance does the same as Arcane Intellect, but for the whole group you are in. This requires Arcane Powder to be cast, which you can buy from reagent vendors.

If your are fighting enemies on your own level or one level above you, the best offensive stats are as follows.

1. Spell Damage and Healing
2. Intellect
3. Spell Critical Strike Rating
4. Spell Haste Rating
5. Spell Hit Rating*

* you want to have 6% Hit Chance from gear for mobs 3 levels higher than you for your Arcane spells (so that, with the 10% you get from your tree, you will have the full 16% required). You can see exactly what your Hit Chance is in your character window by pressing "C" in game and looking in the "Spells" section. While leveling, Hit Rating is basically not very relevant; for bosses you want to be hit capped.

While leveling, the following stats are also useful, especially for Mana regeneration:

1. Spirit
2. Intellect
3. Mana per 5 seconds
4. Stamina

Arcane benefits a lot from Spirit and Intellect, so you do nothing wrong by having these stats on your gear!

If you are new to playing Mage, here is a list of core abilities and how to use them.

• Arcane Missiles is your main nuke spell versus one target while solo leveling, because it has a better damage per Mana ratio than Arcane Blast and has 100% pushback protection.
• Arcane Blast does the most damage, but is vulnerable to spell pushback and costs the most Mana. It should rather be used on tanked mobs and if you have a Shadow Priest in your group.
• Arcane Explosion is a very good AoE damage spell. With the two talent points in Arcane Subtlety in the Arcane talent tree, it generates less threat and you can cast it more safely without having to worry about pulling aggro from a tank in dungeons.
• Arcane Power makes your spells deal 30% more damage but also cost 30% more Mana, for 15 seconds. It is a very good spell for surgical nuking!
• Presence of Mind makes your next non-channeled cast an instant cast. It is useful if you want to finish off a mob with Frostbolt.
• Fireball is used when you are locked out from the Arcane spell school, which means when a mob silenced or interrupted your Arcane cast.
• Scorch is a bit Mana friendlier than Fireball, but it also deals slightly less damage.
• Fire Blast is your instant cast Fire spell. You can also use this while moving.
• Flamestrike is the Fire AoE spell every Mage can cast. It does direct damage to enemies in an area and leaves a DoT (damage over time) on the ground that burns enemies as well.
• Frostbolt is used when you are locked out from the Arcane spell school , which means when a mob silenced or interrupted your Arcane cast. Rank 1 of Frostbolt can also be used if you want to slow an enemy to avoid it reaching you.
• Frost Nova can be used to freeze your enemies in place for 8 seconds. Use rank 1 of this ability, as it does the same as the higher ranks, but costs less Mana.
• Ice Lance is a spell you will learn at level 66. Ice Lance can also be used while moving and does more damage to targets frozen by Frost Nova, so you can Frost Nova a low health enemy and Ice Lance it to finish it off.
• Cone of Cold is your a Frost AoE spell and it will deal damage to all mobs in a cone in front of you, like Dragon's Breath, and slow them for 8 seconds.
• Blizzard is your another Frost AoE damage spell. It does the least damage and should generally be avoided as an Arcane Mage.
• Spellsteal can be learned on your way to level 70 and steals one magical buff from an enemy with magical buffs. These buffs can be very good or very bad, so you have to steal it and read the tooltip of the buff in your buff bar. There are only a few buffs worth being stolen.
• Mage Armor is your preferred armor before the Burning Crusade launches. It allows 30% of your Mana regeneration to continue while you are casting. That does not sound like much, but is pretty decent over a long time.
• Molten Armor is introduced while leveling in TBC and adds 3% Critical Strike Chance to your abilities. If mobs hit you, they will get damaged slightly as well.

• Frost Nova can also be used defensively if you want to get away from enemy mobs. You typically Frost Nova them and Blink 20 yards away from enemies. However, Blink can also be used to move faster or to move towards enemies.
• Slow is a good choice if you need to delay somebody from reaching you while waiting for a Frost Nova cooldown. Another good use of this spell is to flee from enemies. Slow them and run!
• Mana Shield also absorbs incoming damage, but drains Mana per damage absorbed.
• Polymorph can be used to turn Critters, Beasts, and Humanoids into sheep, causing them to wander around for 50 seconds. Be aware that these mobs might not be sheeped for the full 50 seconds, as it can break at any time, with a higher chance towards the end of the duration.
• Counterspell will interrupt enemies casting spells either on you or your friends. You can use a macro with "/stopcasting" followed by "/cast Counterspell" (on a new line) to stop your current cast and instantly interrupt enemy casts.
• Ice Block will freeze you in a block of ice and make you immune to almost all damage in the game. Furthermore, it removes almost all negative effects, also called debuffs, on you. Be aware that Priests in TBC can dispel your Ice Block with their Mass Dispel ability.
• Frost Ward absorbs a certain amount of Frost damage. It is best used against mobs that deal Frost damage.
• Fire Ward absorbs a certain amount of Fire damage. It is best used against mobs that deal Fire damage.
• Ice Armor gives you additional armor points, which is useful against Physical hits from enemies; it also slows attackers.
• Cone of Cold can be used defensively to slow mobs in front of you for 8 seconds, before you run away from them. Rank 1 of this ability costs less Mana and serves the same purpose!
• Mage Armor is your preferred armor before the Burning Crusade launches. It allows 30% of your Mana regeneration to continue while you are casting. That does not sound like much, but is pretty decent over a long time.
• Molten Armor also increases the chance you will be critically hit by 5%. However, this is usually not considered, since Ice Armor just adds more survivability.
• Invisibility is also a spell introduced in TBC and can be used to get out of combat and run away from enemies, or to just sneak by enemies. It takes 5 seconds to become invisible and each second your threat level versus mobs is being decreased. After those 5 seconds, you will become invisible for 20 seconds and leave combat.
• Remove Lesser Curse is important if mobs curse you with deadly curses. You can decurse yourself or friendly targets.

• Evocation is your most loved Mana-restoring spell. It can be used every 8 minutes and restores 60% of your whole Mana over a 8 seconds channeling time. Use this as often as you can when you need Mana, as it will save you time!
• Amplify Magic increases the spell damage and healing taken by the friendly target you cast this on. This can be used when you want to increase healing on your tank who is tanking mobs that do not cast any damaging spells and do only physical damage.
• Dampen Magic is the opposite of Amplify Magic. It can be used to reduce spell damage taken from spells, but it also reduces healing taken. This can be useful if you are solo leveling or farming and mobs do a lot of magic damage.
• Slow Fall requires a Light Feather and can be cast on yourself to reduce your falling speed. If you fall from a high ledge and would die otherwise, this spell can save your life! But be aware that any damage taken by you will cancel the effect!
• Portals are made by Mages for their group members to teleport players to all your faction's major cities. They are taught by the Mage trainers and are very sought after! Creating a portal requires Rune of Portals to be cast, which you can buy from reagent vendors.
• Teleport works like Portals, but simply only teleports the casting Mage to one of their faction's major cities. Casting this requires Rune of Teleportation, which you can buy from reagent vendors.
• Conjure Mana Gem is also a spell used to create an item that restores Mana to you. You can conjure several different Mana gems in advance to restore Mana when needed. At level 68 you will learn to conjure a Mana Gem that has three charges, which restores more Mana than it takes to conjure. Use it often and wisely! Conjured items disappear after 15 minutes of being logged out.
• Conjure Water conjures water for yourself and your party and there are different ranks of this spell. The highest rank is learned from a book that drops in high level TBC dungeons. Conjured items disappear after 15 minutes of being logged out.
• Conjure Food conjures water for yourself and your party and there are different ranks of this spell. The highest rank is learned from a book that drops in high level TBC dungeons. Conjured items disappear after 15 minutes of being logged out.
• Ritual of Refreshment is a spell you can learn at level 70 from the Mage trainers, after you have learned your highest rank of Conjure Water and Conjure Food, which are both rare drop books from Outland dungeons. Conjured items disappear after 15 minutes of being logged out. This requires Arcane Powder to be cast, which you can buy from reagent vendors.