Mage Class Guide — Class Guides · WoW Burning Crusade
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 Burning Crusade
How the mage plays
Mages in The Burning Crusade keep the best area damage and control, and gain Spellsteal (take a buff from an enemy), Invisibility, Ice Lance and Molten Armor. All three specs are good raid choices now.
Mana is still a constraint: Evocation, mana gems and potions refill it, and Arcane in particular lives and dies by mana management.
Polymorph remains the best crowd control in dungeons, and Blink and Ice Block keep you alive.
Strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
- The best area damage and control.
- Spellsteal and Counterspell against casters.
- Conjured food and water, Portals and Teleports.
- Every spec is a good raid choice.
Weaknesses
- Cloth armour and low health.
- Mana runs out in long fights.
- High threat.
Specializations
The specs compared
Each spec rated from 1 to 5 at what it does in WoW Burning Crusade. 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.
ArcaneDamage · 2 builds
Mana, crit and burst: Arcane Concentration, Arcane Power and the arcane spells.
Top talent:
Arcane guide
Slow
FireDamage · 2 builds
Fire damage and crits: Ignite, Combustion and stronger fire spells.
Top talent:
Fire guide
Dragon's Breath
FrostDamage · 3 builds
Chills, freezes and Frostbolt: the safest mage tree to solo and level with, and the tree of AoE leveling.
Top talent:
Frost guide
Summon Water Elemental
Gear
- Cloth with spell damage, hit, crit and haste.
- Spell hit to 16% (202 rating) against raid bosses, less any from talents.
- Tailoring's sets (Spellfire, Frozen Shadoweave, Spellstrike) are strong pre-raid gear.
Each spec guide ranks its stats and says what to look for on its gear.