Mage guide for WoW Forever

The mage is the pure damage caster: cloth, mana, crowd control and the best utility in the game (portals, food and water, Polymorph). It does not heal, tank or own a pet, so everything it does is kill before things reach it and travel faster than anyone. In Forever, spell hit and spell crit are their own stats, separate from melee, and wands no longer gain spell power.

Arcane (damage)

In Classic, Arcane is more a utility and mana tree than a rotation: Arcane Power and Arcane Mind scale with intellect and total mana. It is the tree that gets the most out of intellect and mana per 5 seconds, and the least suited to solo leveling.

Fire (damage)

The crit tree: Ignite leaves a damage-over-time after every crit and Fire Power pushes it further. Forever adds Hot Streak and Wake of Fire, two new talents this build extends. Fire deals more damage in dungeons but suffers against fire-resistant mobs.

Frost (damage)

The control and survival tree: Frostbolt slows, Shatter turns frozen enemies into near-guaranteed crits and the ice armour keeps you alive. It is the leveling spec by definition and the one that holds up best in dungeons without a perfect tank.

The mage has four documented changes in build 1.60.1.70009, three of them in Fire. Hot Streak and Wake of Fire are talents that do not exist in Classic: the beta had them at 15 and 20 seconds and this build raises them to 20 and 30, so the window for chaining crits is more generous. The other side is Ignite, which in Classic applied damage modifiers twice (to the crit and to the periodic damage) and in Forever no longer does: Fire damage is more honest and slightly less explosive.

The general change is quality of life: Arcane Missiles checks line of sight once at the start of the channel instead of missile by missile, so a mob hiding behind a pillar no longer cuts your spell in half.

The changes that matter most for the mage are not on its list but among items: wands no longer gain spell power (back to Classic) and Wizard Oil returns to its Classic values (8, 16 and 24 spell damage). At level 20 the wand is still your finisher, but not your scaling. We also know a spell called Arcane Blast exists in the client because the Cooldown Manager cannot track it yet; the notes give no further details and we will not make them up.

Recommendation: Frost from 10 to 60. It is the tree that survives best without a pet or heals, spends the least mana per mob and fits dungeons best without depending on the tank. Fire deals more damage with gear and group buffs, but levels worse: every crit that does not land is mana lost and every mob that reaches you is a flask of water. Arcane, with the Forever data we have, remains a support tree for the other two.

Recommended talent order, broadly:

• From 10 to 20, the Frost talents that improve Frostbolt and slows. The 16-point milestone arrives around 25-26 and by then the tree has taken shape; if you would rather not think, Forever ships two class presets.
• Then everything that makes frozen enemies die before they touch you: Shatter and the control talents are your "armour".
• Spread into Fire or Arcane only from 40, and only if you play in a group. A reset costs 1 silver in the beta, so switching is cheap.

Pacing:

• No level scaling: the mage is the class that feels an orange mob the most: more resistance, more spell misses. Stay in yellow and move zones as soon as you see orange.
• Conjure water and food before every session: it is your only "resource" and in Forever the campsite sets up vendors and workbenches so you do not go back to town.
• Use the three one-hour campsite buffs before Shadowfang Keep and Blackfathom Deeps, your two level-20 dungeons with BiS pieces.
• Legacy Points: Well Rested, the example perk Blizzard has shown, gives more rested experience, which shows on a class that kills fast.

Spell power first (specific Fire or Frost damage is worth almost the same within its tree), then spell hit up to 16% against bosses and spell crit, which is worth more for Fire thanks to Ignite and Fire Power than for any other class. Intellect weighs more for Arcane because of Arcane Power and Arcane Mind; Frost takes a bit more stamina because it is the tree that goes into dungeons. Remember that in Forever spell hit and crit are their own stats: a piece with melee "hit" does nothing for you.

At level 20 all three mage trees equip the same set: five Tailoring pieces (new Forever recipes) and three from dungeons. The dungeon ones come from Blackfathom Deeps (Tree Bark Jacket and Ghamoo-ra's Bind, dropped by Ghamoo-ra) and Shadowfang Keep (Mindthrust Bracers). The remaining slots hold pieces with no known source in our database yet.

Higher up, the Scarlet Monastery is the dungeon with the most BiS pieces for the mage (four: Bloodmage Mantle, Necrotic Wand, Scorn's Focal Dagger and Scorn's Icy Choker), followed by Blackrock Depths with three and Blackfathom Deeps with two. The two new beta dungeons have no loot in our data yet. The list per level and slot is on the mage BiS page.

Forever's news is the orc mage, one of the six new combinations, and the Alliance Skyborne, who start on Zephras Isle and have two active and two passive racials not yet detailed; Horde Skyborne cannot be mages. The Alliance keeps humans and gnomes; the Horde keeps undead and trolls. Among the racials changed in this build, the gnomes' Eureka becomes a 10% discount on mana abilities for every class, a real saving for a caster. Otherwise, choose by faction and looks.

Tailoring + Enchanting is the mage's natural pairing and in Forever it has a new argument: five of the eight level-20 BiS pieces with a known source are Tailoring recipes, and Enchanting disenchants whatever you do not use. Neither needs gathering, so you lose no leveling time. With more than 600 new recipes and a passive bonus per profession, Forever's Tailoring gives more than Classic's.

If you want gold, Herbalism + Alchemy sells mana potions to the whole server. Cooking is barely needed (you conjure your food), but crafted food gives a small experience bonus. Each profession's leveling path is in the profession guides.

• Leveling as Fire for the damage. Level as Frost: control is your health. Switch to Fire from 40 if you play in a group.
• Hunting wands with spell power. They no longer gain it in Forever. Pick the wand by its DPS and school.
• Chaining Frostbolts without a slow. A slowed mob that never reaches you is free damage; a mob glued to you is a Frost Nova spent.
• Going without water. Always conjure a full stack before starting and another at the campsite.
• Fighting orange mobs. Without level scaling, resistance and spell misses climb fast. Yellow and green.
• Cutting Arcane Missiles for fear of line of sight. In Forever it is only checked when the channel starts.
• Skipping Shadowfang Keep and Blackfathom Deeps. They are your three level-20 dungeon BiS pieces and the two dungeons that teach you group play best.
• Confusing melee hit with spell hit. They are separate stats in Forever; read the tooltip.