1.
Arcane Mage Spell Summary
If you are new to Arcane, it is recommended you read this before proceeding!In this section, we will discuss what abilities you have, what they are used forwithin the specialization, and how they interact with important cooldowns. Ifyou have played this spec before or have already achieved a level of comfortplaying this spec in a practical environment, it is recommended you skip thissection and move on to the rest of the guide.
Keep in mind, some spells might be much easier to use via macros or aremore easily used in combination with other spells. Visit the macro page below toget a good idea of such macros.
Arcane Mage Macros Page
2.
Unlocking Abilities
Note that this page simply lists all the different abilities, assumingyou are at max level. If you are leveling, check out our dedicated MageLeveling page, which has detailed information on when you unlock all of theseabilities.
Mage Leveling Guide
3.
Main Resources of Arcane Mage
Mana and Arcane Charges are your primary resources, andinteract with each other in a fashion unique to Arcane.
Arcane Charges are generated by Arcane Blast and
Arcane Explosion, and by some talented spells. They go to a maximumof 4 and increase the Mana cost of Arcane Blast by 100% per stack.They also increase the damage of Arcane Blast and
Arcane Barrage by apercentage dictated by your current Mastery value.
Mana is the main resource of Arcane Mages. With the above information inmind, managing your Mana can be a challenging task. On one hand, casting spellswhile at 4 Arcane Charges allows you to do maximum damage. Theconsequence of this is that you will quickly chew through your Mana bar,leaving you with no option but to stand there and wait for your Mana to slowlyregenerate. This relationship between Mana and Arcane Chargesforms the central theme of the Arcane specialization and will be discussed atlength later in the guide.
4.
Baseline Abilities for Arcane Mage
These abilities are available no matter what talents you chose and form thebread and butter of this specialization.
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
![]() | AB | This is your main filler and nuke and generates 1Arcane Charge when cast. This spell has a low Mana cost when youhave no Arcane Charges, but can make your Mana bar disappear inonly a handful of casts at 4 Arcane Charges. It has no travel time,which makes it great for instantly applying damage or finishing off animportant add. |
![]() | Abarr | Although technically a talent, Arcane Barrage is the very firstnode and required to pick. It is an instant-cast spell that clears your ArcaneCharges and makes your Arcane Blast cheaper to cast again. This ability is usedas a reset button to help you maintain a stable Mana pool. You can generatecharges with ![]() ![]() |
![]() | AM | Although technically a talent, Arcane Missiles is the second nodeand required to pick. It is a channeled spell that deals more damage thenArcane Blast. It can be cast at any time, but in practice is only used incombination with the ![]() ![]() |
![]() | AE | Arcane Explosion is an instant cast spell which is your primary AoEability that generates 1 Arcane Charge if you hit any amount of targets withit. Unlike Arcane Blast, the Mana cost and damage of Arcane Explosion does notgo up with the number of Arcane Charges. Unlike practically all other ArcaneMage spells, Arcane Explosion, requires you to be near the targets you wantto hit, potentially putting you closer to danger. |
![]() | CC | The only rotational proc Arcane has. This procallows you to cast ![]() ![]() |
![]() | Invis | Invisibility is a utility spell that makes you invisible over 3seconds. It can be very useful to skip certain enemies in a dungeon or openworld content. Additionally, it also completely drops your aggro over 3seconds, which can be useful when you are at risk of getting aggro onenemies. |
![]() | - | Blink is an instant cast spell that immediately travels you 20yards forward, breaking any stuns and roots you might be affected by. Thisiconic Mage spell is a very strong mobility spell that helps with gettingaround the battlefield. |
![]() | CS | Counterspell is an instant-cast spell that is not on the globalcooldown, which, when cast, will interrupt your target's spell cast and alsolocking them out of casting any spells of the same school as the interruptedspell for 6 seconds. If you cast this on a target that is not casting, it willhave no effect. |
![]() | TW/BL | Time Warp is an instant cast spell that is not on the global cooldown,which increases Haste by 30% for 40 seconds for all party andraid members within 100 yards. This ability debuffs everyone with a debuff thatprevents the possibility of benefiting from Time Warp, ![]() ![]() |
![]() | AI | Arcane Intellect buffs the entire raid, giving them more Intellect.Mages are the only class that gives this buff, so most raids will want at least1 Mage to ensure the raid has this buff. |
![]() | Poly | Polymorph, one of the most iconic Mage spells in the game, turnsyour target into a critter that cannot do anything while at the same timehealing them. This spell does no damage. Instead, it heals your target, so itis not used in any DPS rotations. However, it is a very useful spell used veryactively in PvP and sometimes in PvE content to reduce the number of enemiesyou are fighting at the same time. There are different collectibles tochange the appearance of your Polymorphed target, but as a baseline, your targetturns into a sheep. |
![]() | Cone/CoC | Cone of Cold is an instant-cast spell that slows enemies in front ofyou. It is generally not used as a damage spell but purely as a controlspell. |
![]() | Table/Food | Conjure Refreshment is a utility spell that generates food for you.If you are in a group, instead of directly creating food, it instead creates atable that you and your party or raid members can click to gain food instead.This food will regenerate health and mana out of combat while eating it, but itdoes not provide any combat buffs like some other types of food. |
![]() | - | Slow Fall is an instant-cast spell that, as the name suggests, makesyou fall more slowly, avoiding any fall damage. You can also use this on otherplayers to reduce their falling speed and fall damage. This is primarily usedto save yourself from dying when falling from high places and in some nichePvP situations. |
![]() | FB/IB | Fire Blast (often abbreviated IB due to its old name, "Inferno Blast")is an instant-cast spell that does a tiny bit of damage.It is generally not used as part of any DPS rotation, but it has some nicheuses, like tagging enemies quickly or stopping an enemy in PvP from eatingfood. |
![]() | - | Frost Nova is an instant-cast spell that does a bit of damage totargets around you, freezing them in the process. This freeze effect stops themfrom moving but not from using any spells or abilities. The freeze effect canalso break from damage, both yours or anyone else's damage. This spell isusually not used in a DPS rotation, but it is often used for its crowd controleffects in PvP or open-world content. |
![]() | - | Frostbolt is a spell that does a bit of damage and slows thetarget. It is generally not used in a DPS rotation. There are other ways toslow enemies that do not require casting that are often preferred, but it issometimes used in niche situations in PvP. |
![]() | - | Portal is a spell that opens up a portal to a specific destination.There are multiple variants of this spell that open up Portals to most of thebig cities in World of Warcraft. Anyone in your party or raid group can takethis portal to quickly travel around the world. |
![]() | TP | Teleport is a lot like ![]() |
To learn how to use these abilities together in your rotation, read therotation part of our guide below.
Arcane Mage Rotation Page
5.
Class Tree Active Abilities for Arcane Mage
In this section, we will go over all the active abilities in the Mage generaltalent tree. Active abilities are abilities you can press yourself.
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
![]() | Barrier | Prismatic Barrier is an instant-cast spell that provides you ashield that absorbs damage before your health pool. Additionally, while theshield is up, it also reduces the Magic damage you take by 15% and reduces theduration of harmful Magic effects by 25%. This is an incredibly strongdefensive tool, and proper usage of this will increase your survivabilitygreatly. |
![]() | Block/IB | Makes you completely immune to all damage, and removed (almost) all debuffsfrom you. You are unable to do anything while in an Ice Block, but you can cancelit by pressing it a second time. |
![]() | - | Spellsteal is a utility spell that steals one beneficial effectfrom your target and applies it to yourself for a maximum of 2 minutes. Thereare many powerful effects in all types of content that can be stolen with thisspell, which can greatly boost your damage or survivability. |
![]() | - | Remove Curse can be used to remove Curses from your raid orparty. |
![]() | MI | Mirror Image spawns 3 copies nearby which will attack your enemies.While you have at least one copy alive, you will take 20% less damage. Anydirect damage will you take will cause one of the copies to be removed. Thesecopies can not be controlled, but they do have a health bar and can die.Although the copies do some damage, it is primarily a defensive ability, as thedamage they do is very low. The copies will also take aggro before you, whichallows you to survive significantly longer in solo content. |
![]() | AT | Alter Time can be used as both a defensive and a mobility tool. Tenseconds after casting this ability, or after pressing it a second time, youwill be returned to your location and health from when you cast it. One commonusage is to activate it right before a big hit and then re-activating it afterthe big hit to immediately heal back to full health. |
![]() | - | Mass Polymorph is an AoE version of ![]() |
![]() | - | Slow is an instant cast spell that slows your target by 50%. It canbe active on multiple enemies at the same time. It is a very effective tool forkiting enemies. |
![]() | Ring/RoF | Ring of Frost allows you to spawn a relatively big Ring of Frost in atargeted location that will incapacitate enemies for 10 seconds. Only enemiesin the actual outer section of the circle, get incapacitated. Any damage willbreak the incapacitation effect. |
![]() | - | Ice Nova is an instant cast spell that freezes your target andtargets around it for 2 seconds. Although it does do some damage, it isgenerally not used for the damage aspect, as the damage is not high enough tomake it worth casting just for damage. Unlike the freeze from![]() |
![]() | - | Shimmer replaces ![]() |
![]() | IF | Ice Floes while placed in the same node as ![]() ![]() |
![]() | BW | Blast Wave is an instant cast spell that does a bit of damage, butmore importantly, it knocks all enemies close to you away from you and slows themby 70%. It is generally not used as a DPS ability but used only for its crowdcontrol effects. The knockback will also interrupt enemies that arecasting. |
![]() | GI | Greater Invisibility is a very strong defensive ability. This canhelp your healers out in a lot of situations when high damage is incoming. Italso removes some debuffs and often stops any type of targeted ability fromhitting you. It replaces ![]() |
![]() | DB | Dragon's Breath is another short-range instant cast crowd controlspell. It will disorient all enemies in front of you for 4 seconds when cast,canceled by damage. It is often used as a way to interrupt targets in front ofyou, or to give you time to cast something else while the enemies aredisoriented. |
![]() | SP | Shifting Power is a channeled AoE ability. While channeling, it willdo decent damage to enemies around you while also decreasing the cooldown ofall your spells by 12 seconds. The cooldown reduction is very significant foryour shorter cooldown spells, but not very significant for your longer cooldownspells. |
![]() | - | Displacement is another instant-cast mobility spell that teleportsyou back to the location you last used ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Applies ![]() |
![]() | - | Makes you and all your party or raid members invisible for 12 seconds.The invisibility breaks when any ability or item is used and does not work ifapplied when already in combat. ![]() |
6.
Class Tree Passive abilities for Arcane Mage
In this section, we will go over all the passive abilities in the Magegeneral talent tree. Passive abilities are abilities you cannot pressyourself, but instead apply some effect to other abilities.
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
![]() | - | Overflowing Energy boosts the damage of your critical strikes by10%. Additionally, it will increase your chance to critically strike by 2%every time you fail to crit, stacking up to 5 times (10%). Whenever you crit,the bonus chance resets to 0%. |
![]() | IF | Incanter's Flow increases your damage by 4-20%, cycling every 10seconds. |
![]() | - | Winter's Protection reduces the cooldown of ![]() |
![]() | - | Tempest Barrier gives you an absorb shield worth 3% (per talentpoint, max 2 points) of your maximum health any time you use ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Incantation of Swiftness gives you 40% (per talent point, max 2points) increased movement speed after casting ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Arcane Warding reduces all magic damage you take by 2%. (per talentpoint, max 2 points) |
![]() | - | Cryo Freeze heals you for 40/80% of your maximum health while inside![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Reduplication reduces your ![]() |
![]() | - | Reabsorption heals you for 5% of your maximum health whenever oneof your ![]() |
![]() | - | Quick Witted reduces your ![]() |
![]() | - | Master of Time reduces the cooldown of ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Diverted Energy causes your ![]() |
![]() | - | Mass Slow makes it so that your ![]() |
![]() | - | Improved Frost Nova increases the duration of ![]() |
![]() | - | Rigid Ice allows the freeze from ![]() |
![]() | - | Increases your Critical Strike chance by 2%. |
![]() | - | Increases your Haste by 2%. |
![]() | VD | Reduces the cooldown of ![]() |
![]() | - | Causes ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Increases the snare effects of all your snares by anadditional 5/10%. This works for all snares, not just Frost spells. |
![]() | - | Reduces the cooldown of ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Increases your movement speed by 5% (per talentpoint, max 2 points) after you ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Gives ![]() |
![]() | - | Reduces the cooldown of your crowd controlabilities by 1 second any time you cast ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Causes your ![]() |
![]() | - | Causes your ![]() |
![]() | TA | Gives you a chance to randomly proc![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | While you have ![]() ![]() |
7.
Spec Tree Active Abilities for Arcane Mage
In this section, we will go over all the active abilities in the Arcanetalent tree. Active abilities are abilities you can press yourself.
Arcane Barrage and
Arcane Missiles are technically talents,but they are the first 2 nodes and required to pick, so they are describedunder the base abilities section.
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
![]() | AO | Shoots an Arcane Orb forward (depending on how you arefacing), giving you one Arcane Charge when cast, and another for each targetstruck. |
![]() | AS/Surge | This is Arcane's biggest DPS cooldown. It consumes all Mana,and deals very high damage based on the Mana consumed by your target and allenemies nearby your target. (reduced beyond 5 targets) Additionally, itincreases your Mana regeneration by 425% and Spell Damage by 35% for 15 secondsafter casting it. The 35% bonus damage is also applied to Arcane Surge damageitself. The increased Mana regeneration is enough to bring you back to full Manathroughout the buff, if you were to cast no other abilities. |
![]() | AF (sometimes) | Summons a Familiar that does a bit of damage to yourtarget, and increases your maximum Mana by 10% for 1 hour. The Familiar spawnedis not like a normal pet, as it cannot take damage, nor can it die. |
![]() | PoM | Causes your next 2 ![]() |
![]() | NT | An instant cast spell that puts a damage-over-time(DoT) effect on your target for 12 seconds. The DoT damage will hit yourprimary target and enemies near your target. For every Arcane Charge activewhen casting Nether Tempest, it will do 60% more damage. Although it has nocooldown, it can only be applied to 1 target. |
![]() | ToTM | A relatively short cooldown spell that whenapplied to your target will accumulate 20% of the damage done to the target for10 seconds, after which it explodes for the total damage accumulated to theprimary target, and reduced damage to nearby targets. Additionally, it alsogenerates 4 Arcane Charges, allowing to immediately go into high burst windowswithout first needing to build up Arcane charges. |
![]() | SN | A 25-second crowd control ability that knocks yourtarget (if it is an enemy target) and surrounding enemies into the air. Thiscan be used both on enemy and friendly targets but will only knock up enemytargets, and does double damage to the primary target. Although this abilitydoes damage, the damage is very lackluster and is primarily used for its crowdcontrol effect. |
![]() | Evo | Not a direct damage cooldown, strictly speaking,but it does restore 100% of your Mana bar. As noted, Mana is damage forArcane Mages, so this ability ends up having a high DPS value. Generally,Evocation will be used when you are out of Mana at the tail end of a burstwindow, but with certain talents, the exact usage of Evocation can change. |
![]() | - | Generates a ![]() |
![]() | RS | Does some initial damage and applies a DoT that doesdamage over 10 seconds. More importantly, it causes your direct damage spells todo10% increased damage, stacking every time you hit the target with a directspell, up to 40%. After reaching 4 stacks, the effect ends. |
8.
Spec Tree Passive Abilities for Arcane Mage
In this section, we will go over all the passive abilities in the Arcanetalent tree. Passive abilities are abilities you cannot press yourself, butinstead apply some effect to other abilities.
Ability | Abbreviation | Description/Effect |
---|---|---|
![]() | - | Gives you a 50% chance to get an additional ArcaneCharge when ![]() |
![]() | - | Makes your ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Increases your Haste by 2% for 12 seconds any time youconsume an Arcane Charge, stacking up to 5 times. |
![]() | - | Increases the damage of Arcane Missiles by10% per talent point, up to 2 points. |
![]() | - | Increases the damage of ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Increases the damage of your next 2![]() ![]() |
![]() | Ro3/RoT | Causes your next ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Gives ![]() |
![]() | Reso | Makes ![]() |
![]() | - | Makes your ![]() |
![]() | - | Allows you to cast ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Makes ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Makes it so that after standing still for 10 seconds, youwill be able to cast any spell while moving for 4 seconds. If you have the![]() |
![]() | - | Makes ![]() |
![]() | - | Makes ![]() |
![]() | - | Causes ![]() |
![]() | - | Allows you to stack ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Adds a lot of kiting capability toArcane by increasing your movement speed by 50% and slowing your enemies by 50%for 5 seconds when you hit ![]() |
![]() | EN | Increases your Arcane Damage while above 70% Mana by6%, while increasing your Mana Regen while below 70% Mana by 20%. |
![]() | Echo | Causes your ![]() ![]() |
![]() | Abomb/Bombardment | Will increase the damage of![]() |
![]() | - | increases the chance of![]() |
![]() | SS | Causes ![]() |
![]() | - | Causes your Arcane charges to further increase the Mastery Effectivenessof Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage by 20% per talent point (max 2). |
![]() | - | Causes ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Makes it so that you get 2 ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Makes your ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() | - | Causes damage you deal to the target with![]() |
![]() | Harmony | Causes your ![]() ![]() |
For more information on when to pick the above-described talented abilities,and their relative strength, see our talent page.
Arcane Mage Talents Page
9.
Changelog
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6. and fixed some typos and updated some abbreviations.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated all spells and talents for the Arcane Mage rework of 10.1.5
- 01 May 2023: Updated some descriptions to be more clear and cleaned up some duplicate spells.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 30 Nov. 2022: Updated Temporal Warp description for changed time warp functionality.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
Show more
Show less