Mage Class Guide — Class Guides · WoW Forever

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: 5
Version: WoW Forever

How the mage plays

Mages in WoW Forever gain Arcane Blast, Arcane Wrath, Ice Lance, Frostfire Bolt and Fingers of Frost, so all three trees play differently from Classic. Master of Elements and Ice Block are talents, not trained spells.

Polymorph, Frost Nova, Counterspell and Blink still give mages the best control and escapes, and conjured food and water, Portals and Teleports still save time and gold.

Mana is still the limit: Evocation and mana gems refill it, and Arcane's new spells turn a large mana pool into damage.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

The best area damage and control.
Three distinct, modernised specs.
Conjured food and water, Portals and Teleports.

Weaknesses

Cloth armour and low health.
Mana-hungry.
High threat.

Specializations

The specs compared

Each spec rated from 1 to 5 at what it does in WoW Forever. 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.

Rating	Arcane	Fire	Frost
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 · 1 build
Fire damage and crits: Ignite, Combustion and stronger fire spells.
Top talent:Combustion
Fire guide
Frost
Damage · 3 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.
Arcane values Intellect more than the other trees: Arcane Blast and Arcane Wrath scale with it.
A staff, or a dagger or sword with an off-hand; a wand.

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

What WoW Forever changed

Against Classic Era, the mage in WoW Forever has these changes. New spells: 6. Changed spells: 24. Spells no longer trained: 1. Talents that Classic Era doesn't have: 11. Each spec guide lists its own. The spell list shows every change.