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Mage Class Guide — Class Guides · WoW Classic

A cloth-wearing caster who deals Arcane, Fire and Frost damage from range, controls enemies with Polymorph and frost spells, and conjures food, water and portals.

Roles
Damage
Specializations
3
Popular builds
7
Version
WoW Classic

How the mage plays

Mages are ranged casters with the best area damage and control in Classic: Polymorph removes an enemy from the fight, Frost Nova roots a pack, Blink escapes, and Blizzard, Arcane Explosion and Flamestrike kill whole groups.

Mages conjure their own food and water and open Portals and Teleports, so they spend little on supplies and are welcome in every group. Their weakness is cloth armour and low health: positioning and crowd control keep a mage alive.

In raids mages choose by content: Frost for Molten Core, where many enemies are immune to fire, and Fire later, when big crits and Ignite take over.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

  • The best area damage in Classic, for dungeons and for AoE leveling.
  • Polymorph, Frost Nova, Counterspell and Blink: excellent control and escapes.
  • Conjured food and water, Portals and Teleports.
  • Ice Block (Frost) saves you from almost anything.

Weaknesses

  • Cloth armour and low health.
  • Mana runs out in long fights.
  • Fire immunity in Molten Core holds Fire mages back early.

Specializations

The specs compared

Each spec rated from 1 to 5 at what it does in WoW Classic. Single and several targets mean damage for damage specs, healing for healers and threat for tanks; a spec's own guide names its ratings for its role.

RatingArcaneFireFrost
Single target
Several targets
Survivability
Utility
Solo and leveling
Ease of play
  • Arcane

    Damage · 1 build

    Mana, crit and burst: Arcane Concentration, Arcane Power and the arcane spells.

    Top talent:Arcane Power

    Arcane guide
  • Fire

    Damage · 2 builds

    Fire damage and crits: Ignite, Combustion and stronger fire spells.

    Top talent:Combustion

    Fire guide
  • Frost

    Damage · 4 builds

    Chills, freezes and Frostbolt: the safest mage tree to solo and level with, and the tree of AoE leveling.

    Top talent:Ice Barrier

    Frost guide

Gear

  • Cloth with spell damage, crit, hit and Intellect.
  • A dagger or one-handed sword with an off-hand, or a staff; a wand for finishing targets.
  • Spell hit is worth 16% against raid bosses, less any from Elemental Precision.

Each spec guide ranks its stats and says what to look for on its gear.

More for the mage