The mage is pure ranged damage in three flavors: resource management for Arcane, procs and burst for Fire, instant finishers for Frost. The class is fragile, but it has the best mobility of any caster and portals for the whole group.
Specializations
| Spec | Role | Artifact | Stats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arcane | Ranged DPS | Aluneth | Intellect → mastery → crit → versatility → haste |
| Fire | Ranged DPS | Felo'melorn | Intellect → crit → versatility → mastery → haste |
| Frost | Ranged DPS | Ebonchill | Intellect → crit → versatility → haste → mastery |
The stat priority is a guideline for 7.3.5. The exact order depends on your talents and legendaries, so check the final result with a sim.
Arcane
- Everything revolves around mana: you build up Arcane Charges, ramp your damage, then dump it all and recover.
- Key buttons: Arcane Blast to build charges, Arcane Missiles on proc, Arcane Barrage as the dump.
- Watch your charges and your mana bar at the same time: at 4 charges Arcane Blast costs a fortune.
- Burst comes in windows under Arcane Power and Evocation — the rest of the time you are banking resources for the next window.
Fire
- The most explosive spec: the rotation is built on crits and procs, not on a fixed button order.
- Key buttons: Pyroblast during Combustion and on proc, Fire Blast for a guaranteed crit.
- Watch your Hot Streak: two crits in a row give you an instant Pyroblast, and you must never waste that proc.
- The spec depends directly on crit, so it plays unreliably at low item level and takes off sharply once your gear is good.
Frost
- The steadiest and most mobile spec: plenty of instant casts, and your damage barely drops when you have to run.
- Key buttons: Frostbolt as your bread and butter, Ice Lance on frozen targets, Frozen Orb on packs.
- Watch your Brain Freeze and Flurry procs: the Flurry → Ice Lance combo is where your damage really comes from.
- Icy Veins is your main cooldown — save it for phases where the boss is vulnerable.
Legendary items
- Mystic Kilt of the Rune Master — legs for Arcane: Arcane Barrage returns mana for every charge it spends.
- Marquee Bindings of the Sun King — bracers for Fire: a chance to empower your next hard-cast Pyroblast by 300%.
- Koralon's Burning Touch — belt for Fire: Scorch always crits and hits far harder on targets below 30% health.
- Shattered Fragments of Sindragosa — helm for Frost: every 15th cast of Frostbolt or Flurry calls down a Comet Storm.
- Magtheridon's Banished Bracers — bracers for Frost: Ice Lances empower one another up to 6 stacks.
Shard of the Exodar removes the Time Warp cooldown from you: in a raid that is a second burst buff for the whole group, if your raid leader does not mind.
Class Order Hall
The mage order hall is the Hall of the Guardian: you get there by a portal from Dalaran, and the hall itself sits apart from the world, so that Dalaran portal is the way in. Inside there is the artifact forge, the mission table, Artifact Power turn-ins and a whole wall of portals to locations all over the world.
Tips for newcomers
- Keep Ice Block and Counterspell on comfortable keybinds: a mechanic you failed to drop or a cast you failed to interrupt costs more than a couple of percent of damage.
- If you are starting from scratch, take Frost: it forgives movement and does not depend on stacked crit.
- Level one artifact all the way: on 7.3.5 Artifact Knowledge is so high that a second spec catches up in a single evening.