WotLK Classic Arcane Mage Spell Summary

Arcane Mages offer a variety of useful buffs for themselves and the group they play in. These buffs can be used to increase stats, damage and healing taken, Critical Strike chance, and Mana regeneration. Other buffs decrease spell damage and healing taken. The Armor buffs are only castable on the Mage, while the other buffs listed below can be cast on any group member.

Arcane Intellect — Increases Intellect on the target. Can be improved with Glyph of Arcane Intellect.

Arcane Brilliance — Increases Intellect of everyone in the target's group. Requires one Arcane Powder to be cast and Tome of Arcane Brilliance 3 to be learned.

Dampen Magic — Buffs the target to decrease magic damage and healing taken. Can be enhanced by 50% with Arcane talents. Very niche use.

Amplify Magic — Buffs the target to increase magic damage and healing taken. Can be enhanced by 50% with Arcane talents. Useful on players that take Physical damage only or almost exclusively Physical damage. A very strong situational spell.

Molten Armor — 35% (or 55% with the Glyph of Molten Armor) of your Spirit will be converted into Critical Strike Rating. Deals 170 Fire damage per hit to melee attackers, decreases the chance to be critically hit by 5%. Can be enhanced with Fire talents to affect ranged and spell attacks as well.

Mage Armor — Increases magic resistance by 40 and allows 50% of the Mage's Mana regeneration to continue while casting. Can be enhanced by Arcane Shielding (50%) and Glyph of Mage Armor (20%)

Ice Armor — Increases the Mage's Armor by 930 and Frost resistance by 40 and slows enemy melee attackers. Can be enhanced by Frost Warding (50%) and Glyph of Ice Armor (50%).

Focus Magic — is a powerful buff to be cast on a friendly target. It increases their Critical Strike chance with spells by 3%. If they score a critical strike, your Critical Strike chance is also increased by 3% for 10 seconds.

Mages are sought after for their crowd-controlling abilities, such as Polymorphing enemies and Frost-exclusive slowing and freezing effects. Further, they supply their group and themselves with fresh water and food and open portals to all major cities of each faction. Mages can also remove curses from allies and magic from enemies.

Polymorph — With this spell, humanoids, critters and beasts can be turned into a sheep for a certain amount of time. This effect can end before its maximum time has passed. Through the Fragmented Magic quest and the Tome of Polymorph: Turtle book, enemies can also be turned into a pig or a turtle, which is of course a very nice cosmetic upgrade. Glyph of the Penguin can transforms your Polymorph targets into a penguin. Glyph of Polymorph removes damage-over-time effects from your Polymorph target, which could otherwise break Polymorph.

Conjure Refreshment — Conjured Mana Strudels, usable by friendly players, restoring health and Mana. Conjured items disappear from the inventory after logging out for 15 minutes or more. This spell can be learned from Mage trainers.

Ritual of Refreshment — Creates a portal two friendly players need to click in order to make a table appear. Costs 5 Arcane Powder. Each player can take up to 80 Conjured Mana Strudels from this table. Conjured items disappear from the inventory after logging out for 15 minutes or longer.

Conjure Mana Gem — A Mage can create different types of Mana gems, which can be used in combat to restore Mana. The highest rank of this spell restores most Mana. Mana Gems are unique; conjuring the highest rank does not allow you to conjure lower ranks of it. Does not disappear when logging out. Has 3 charges. Can be improved with Glyph of Mana Gem.

Teleport Spells: Every Mage can teleport to their faction's major cities, to Shattrath, or to Dalaran at the cost of one Rune of Teleportation.

Portal Spells: These spells are used to open portals to each faction's major cities, to Shattrath, and to Dalaran that the whole group can use. Costs 1 Rune of Portals.

Invisibility — The Mage fades out for 3 seconds and becomes invisible after that time. Each second before becoming invisible, the threat against all enemies is reduced. Any damage taken or action from the Mage cancels the spell. This can be used as a threat dump, to leave combat, or to sneak by enemies. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Invisibility.

Evocation — A channeled spell that restores 60% of your Mana during 8 seconds. Haste effects make the channeling faster and damage taken while channeling reduces the Mana restored. Has a base cooldown of 4 minutes, can be reduced to 2 minutes with talents. Another small tip is that the Tier 3 2-set bonus (Frostfire Regalia) reduces the cooldown of Evocation by a minute. With this in mind, you can swap to the 2 pieces, wait for a second (the bonus needs a bit to activate), Evocate, and swap back to your normal gear. Be sure to only use this strategy out of combat, as you can only switch back to your normal gear out of combat and Tier 3 is terrible to wear during an encounter.

Spellsteal — Sometimes enemies have beneficial magical buffs you can steal with this ability. Stolen buffs last on you for two minutes. Some bosses require one Mage to steal a magical buff from an enemy, in order to be able to tank it. Range can be improved with talents.

Counterspell — This spell is used to interrupt enemy casting and to prevent any spell of the interrupted spell school from being cast for 8 seconds. Can be improved with talents.

Blink — Teleports the Mage 20 yards forward. This ability can be used to reposition during fights and save some running time, flee from enemies, break snaring effects, or to prevent fall damage by Blinking shortly before reaching the ground. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Blink.

Slow Fall — At the cost of one Light Feather (0 with Glyph of Slow Fall), Mages can reduce their and allies' falling speed for 30 seconds. This can be used to survive falling down, or to move to locations normally unreachable, by jumping from a higher ledge to a lower position. Can be cast before mounting and it will persist while mounted.

Remove Curse — Removes a Curse from a friendly target. Glyph of Remove Curse makes the decursed target immune to Curses for 4 seconds.

Slow — Exclusively available to Arcane Mages, reduces the target's movement speed and time between ranged attacks by 60%. This ability also increases the casting time of the target by 30% and the time between their ranged attacks by 60%. Lasts 15 seconds, only one target at a time can be affected by this spell.

Presence of Mind — Makes your next Mage spell with a cast time of less than 10 seconds an instant spell. This can be used to instantly Polymorph enemies, or to make a damage spell instant. Further, PoM also triggers Arcane Potency (see below!). Channeled spells do not consume the instant- cast effect of this spell, so you can use the Critical Strike chance, such as for Blizzard and following it up with an instant cast Flamestrike.

Frost Nova — Freezes enemies 8 yards around the Mage for 8 seconds.

Improved Blizzard — This talent can be used to control groups of enemies by slowing their movement speed. It is a utility spell, if it is required to buy time before mobs reach the group or the Mage.

Arcane Mages use different offensive abilities than Fire or Frost Mages. Some of these abilities are required for rotations or need to be used with special attention. To learn more about the rotation and how these abilities synergize, read the Arcane Mage Rotations page.

Arcane Blast — Your main source of damage. Arcane Blast, also referred to as "AB" gives you a stacking debuff. Each stack increases the Mana cost of Arcane Blast by 175% and increases the damage of all Arcane spells by 15%. It stacks up to four times and will make your Arcane Blast cost too much Mana to be sustainable. The debuff drops after 6 seconds, when you cast another Arcane spell, or when you Ice Block. Through the Missile Barrage talent your Arcane Blast has a 40% chance to halve the cast time (the tooltip is misleading) of your next Arcane Missiles and make them cost no Mana, which is most important for the Arcane Mage DPS rotation. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Arcane Blast.

Arcane Missiles — The combo spell for Arcane Mages. Launches Arcane Missiles at your enemy. When Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage proc Missile Barrage, the cast time of Arcane Missiles is halved. The recommended way to use this spell is when you have 4 stacks of the Arcane Blast debuff and a Missile Barrage proc, or when you have cast 6 Arcane Blasts without a Missile Barrage proc. After a Missile Barrage proc from Arcane Barrage, it is recommended to first build up 4 stacks of the Arcane Blast debuff (if possible) and only then use Arcane Missiles. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Arcane Missiles.

Arcane Barrage and Fire Blast — Will be cast while moving or to finish off an enemy with a last cast. Fire Blast has no travel time. Abar has a 3-seconds cooldown, so when moving or finishing mobs, the optimal rotation to use these spells would be Arcane Barrage -> Fire Blast -> Arcane Barrage. Can be improved with Glyph of Arcane Barrage.

Blizzard — Is a very strong AoE spell in the typical Arcane Spec, but should only be used on static enemies.

Flamestrike — Rank 9 and Rank 8 can be cast in between Blizzards on static enemies and if they live long enough to survive the full rotation. A rotation of Flamestrike 9 -> Flamestrike 8 -> Blizzard deals very high AoE damage and should be used if it is exercisable.

Arcane Explosion — The main AoE spell when a fight is not stationary (when mobs are being kited by the tank). Generates very low threat with the Arcane Subtlety talent. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Arcane Explosion.

Cone of Cold — A frontal cone AoE ability that does high damage and slows enemies, but due to the frontal cone shape it is easy to miss enemies, so Arcane Explosion is safer to use (hits more enemies).

Presence of Mind — Makes your next Mage spell with a less than 10-second casting time an instant spell. This spell can be used to make a damage spell instant or to extend the Arcane Blast debuff.

Arcane Power — Increases the damage of your spells by 20%, but they cost 20% more Mana to cast. Lasts 15 seconds and has a 2-minute cooldown. Can be used together with Icy Veins or Bloodlust/Heroism. Preferably used with Arcane Blast and Missile Barrage Arcane Missiles. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Arcane Power.

Icy Veins — Increases your casting speed by 20% for 20 seconds. During the duration of Icy Veins, your spells are no longer subject to spell pushback. Preferably used with Arcane Blast. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Icy Veins.

Mirror Image — Should be used for additional damage, as the Mirror Images attack your enemy and do additional damage, or to disappear from the threat list while doing heavy burst (AoE) damage. Mirror images benefit from Bloodlust/Heroism if cast beforehand and only attack if an enemy is nearby and you are already in combat with them. Can be improved with Glyph of Mirror Image.

Every Mage spec has good defensive capabilities. They can absorb damage from different sources and even become immune to damage.

Mana Shield, Frost Ward and Fire Ward — absorb damage and can be useful in some PvE situations.

Ice Block — Puts the Mage in an Ice Block for 10 seconds, making them immune to almost all attacks and spells. Some boss abilities can penetrate the Ice Block immunity and Priests can dispel Ice Block with Mass Dispel. This ability can also be used to protect the caster from fall damage. After using Ice Block, you get the Hypothermia debuff that prevents you from using Ice Block again for 30 seconds. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Ice Block.