Whether you’re a solo player for whom raid guides are too overwhelming, or you’re simply considering a toe dip into the conjured water pond, we’ve got your back! Here’s a simple mage guide explaining specializations (specs), and abilities. We can’t survive out in the world on mana strudel alone!

Note: This guide assumes you have some working knowledge of talent point selection, talent builds, and overall game play.

Mage Guide – Overview

Mages are cloth-wearing, ranged damage dealers with three specializations: fire, frost, and arcane. Choosing one spec doesn’t mean you miss out on the fun of the others, though! Depending on your talent build, you may select a few fire or frost spells as an arcane mage or vice versa.

Strategy
Deal a high amount of damage while mitigating your damage received. This is accomplished by using your specialization’s shields, interrupting enemy spells, crowd control (Polymorph), and keeping distance between you and the enemy. Mages are pros at slowing or stopping the enemies, then using Blink or Shimmer to keep out of melee range. In an emergency, they can become invisible, which drops them out of combat to get away.

Resource Management
Regardless of which spec you choose, mana is your primary “energy” source. Each spell has a baseline of damage it does, a set time it takes to cast, and how much mana you expend by releasing it. Optimizing your gear and collecting item enhancements or consumables (food, potions, flasks, etc.) can improve your damage, speed up cast times, and increase your mana pool..

Specializations (TL;DR Versions)

• Arcane mages generate Arcane Charges by using Arcane Blast and Arcane Explosion. The number of Arcane Charges active at once (up to four) will impact how much damage you do by using the rest of your arsenal. Open with Touch of the Magi, cast Arcane Missiles when Clearcasting is up, dump your charges with Arcane Barrage, and start the rotation over.
  • Arcane mages can expect to cycle between periods of high burst damage, where they use cooldowns and burn down enemies, and recovery periods, where they regain their mana to repeat the cycle.
    • Abilities such as Evocation, Mana Gems, and potions can help regain mana.
• Fire mages use Fireball and Fire Blast to trigger Hot Streak procs, removing the long cast time of their powerful Pyroblast spell. Living Bomb, Flamestrike, and Blast Wave are all great AoE options, especially when used with the frost ability Frost Nova.
  • Additional information coming soon™ – I still need time to get familiar with spec changes for Dragonflight.
• Frost mages are experts at slowing or even completely stopping enemy movement. Ice Lance and Frostbolt are your primary spells until Fingers of Frost procs, at which point Ice Lance does even more damage. Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Frozen Orb, and Blizzard are your AoE spells to freeze enemies in place and slow them down as you deal damage.
  • Summon a Water Elemental to fight alongside you, slowing enemies and casting damage spells. They can sometimes take the attention off their mage, allowing you to perform a rotation of your cooldowns to deal damage.

Mage Utility

We may be squishy, but damn, we’re useful. Whether you’re playing solo or in a group, don’t forget about these important abilities:

• Arcane Intellect: Make your friends smarter! Increases the intellect of yourself and your party by 5%.
• Conjure Refreshments: Creates unlimited consumable that regens health and mana bars.
• Teleport/Portals: Teleports you and/or other players to a major city.
• Time Warp: Increases haste by 30% for all party/raid members. Coordinate with Bloodlust/Heroism.
• Remove Curse: Removes curses from friendly targets.
• Ice Block: Self-preservation. Brrrr. Encases you in a block of ice, preventing movement but protecting you from all attacks and damage.

Mage Guide Resources and Addons

Coming soon!