World of Warcraft Mage Guide

The Mage class is great to play in the World of Warcraft. Spell casters as they are, they can deal tons of damage. They wield spells based on the Arcane, Fire and Frost elements. Some nice spells that Mages can cast are the Teleport and Portal spells. They can teleport themselves to all the major cities, and place Portals so others in their party or raid group can teleport to the major cities. This heavily reduces their travel time which is awesome while leveling and still great at level 80. Next to this they also have the Blink ability which decreases their time running because it teleports them 20 yards ahead on the map. This also comes in handy in fights when a Mage wants to take distance from his enemies.

Besides their ability to move fast they can also conjure water and food for themselves and others. This saves them a lot of gold because they are mana-users and otherwise would have to buy consumables at vendors. They can also conjure mana stones which can be used in battle to restore mana. These are even better than mana potions and they don’t share the same cooldown so one can use both. Because of these spells, a Mage is very welcome in parties and raids. They also have the ability to Polymorph (sheep) Humanoids & Beasts for one minute which is handy in parties, raids, and PvP situations.

Their main task of course is to deal a lot of damage, and they can. If you want to maximize your damage it is advised to have a look at some World of Warcraft Mage Guide where you can read which talent builds are great for different situations and which attack rotations to use.

The Mage has talent trees that only focus on a particular element. You can specialize in Frost, Fire or Arcane, or make a combination of these trees.

With the Frost talent tree you will empower your Frost spells. Your main damage spell will be the heavily Improved Frostbolt. If you follow this tree, which is also partially developed to give a bit more protection to the Mage, you will be able to learn spells like Icebarrier which is a protective shield, a Water Elemental that fights by your side, and Icy Veins which increasing your casting speed for a small amount of time. You will be able to do nice AoE damage by using a Frost Nova on mobs and then use Cone of Cold to deal a lot of damage with the Shatter effect.

The Fire talent tree is great for Mages that want to focus purely on damage. A lot of critical strike boosting talents can be found here and a lot of increases of the damage. Some new AoE spells can also be learned through this talent tree. The Pyroblast spell which can be learned through this tree is the highest damage spell that can be cast by any mage. It does however take a longer time to cast.

The Arcane talent tree improves your Arcane spells like Arcane Missiles and Arcane Explosion, but also gives you some new ones like Arcane Barrage and Arcane Blast. In the Arcane tree you will be able to take several mana preserving talents as well. This tree has more to offer though, you can cast an instant spell every 1,5 minute or so, improve your damage for 20 seconds, slow enemies for an amount of time and more.

The mana preserving and damage boosting abilities in the Arcane tree allow the Arcane tree to be combined with the Frost and Fire trees. My favorite at the moment is the Arcane Frost combination. You can take the entire Arcane tree down to Arcane Barrage which is a great spell, and take the good talents in the Frost tree up to Icy Veins. Like this you will gaine 150% (!) extra damage on your critical strikes. Then you can activate Icy Veins to increase your cast speed, and Arcane power to increase your damage by 20% to hand out some amazing damage.

An Arcane Fire build also has its advantages. It’s up to you to find out what works best for you. No matter how you put it though, the Mage is a wanted class for raids & parties, and is a fun class to play.