Elementalist

BackgroundMages, the most common of arcanists, are found all over Azeroth. They focus on magic that creates and that changes things, most often with the purpose of damaging their enemies and boosting the power of their allies.WoWRPG 59 Such beings can obtain a familiar, which is a normal animal that gains new powers and becomes a magical beast when summoned to service by a mage,WoWRPG 59 while others choose to become focused mages.APG 17 Mages also understand the workings of arcane energy so well that they can counter most magic with great effectiveness. An adept mage who has dedication to and natural predilection for one of the schools of specialization becomes more entrenched. At this point the mage chooses either evocation or transmutation as a preferred school, and casts spells from his/her chosen school. The mages of the Kirin Tor first mastered the arts of casting spells using the elements of ice and fire. Mages are also known for being able to summon elementals, usually water elementals, but can also summon air, earth and fire elementals as well.WoWRPG 59,60

The first known mages on Azeroth were night elves, who lived on the shores of the Well of Eternity and wielded its powers.

Origins Early Kaldorei civilization was defined by direct manipulation of magic drawn from the Well of Eternity to create and sustain their society. The constant use of the well attracted attention from Sargeras and the Burning Legion, and their coming resulted in a massive war known as the War of the Ancients. The war had grave consequences, for even though the combined might of Azeroth's mortal races were victorious, the continent of Kalimdor was shattered, and a swirling, raging miasma of seastorms flowed into the vacant area where the Well of Eternity used to reside. This Great Sundering caused the Well's waters to be permeated into the atmosphere and spread magic all over the world.

This event convinced the majority of night elves to reject arcane magic and embrace Malfurion Stormrage's call for druidism. Many of the Highborne refused this lifestyle, and left in self-imposed exile to Lordaeron where they eventually founded their kingdom of Quel'Thalas and became the High Elves. When their kingdom came under siege by the trolls of Zul'Aman the high elves agreed to teach one hundred humans the arts of magic in exchange for military aid from the human nation of Arathor. From these two races, the arcane arts have spread to various races all over Azeroth.

DalaranOnce students of the Conjurers of Azeroth, this new order of Mages had been forced to discover untapped magical forces to command in their war against the ruthless orcs. Although masters of their arts, the Conjurers who fell during the First War were unprepared for the rigors of warfare. Determined to avoid a similar fate, the Mages began to undertake a regimen equally demanding on body and soul, thus dedicating themselves to the command of more aggressive and destructive magiks. Whether in their sanctum at the Violet Citadel in Dalaran or on the many battlefields of Lordaeron, the Mages are resolute in their efforts to defend the people.W2Man 47

The most powerful mages of the Eastern Kingdoms were perhaps the Archmagi of Dalaran, until the city was destroyed by Archimonde during the Second Invasion of the Burning Legion. Without Dalaran and thus without a centralized, ruling body of mages, exploration into the arcane arts has largely been experimental and an individualistic endeavor, as the old regulations and standardized teaching methods espoused by the Kirin Tor — for the most part — do not apply any longer. There is much more emphasis between the master-apprentice relationship than there is to a student-curriculum relationship. There have been both benefits and drawbacks to this. With a general nonexistence of rules the arcane arts have enjoyed a great degree of advancement during the events of World of Warcraft. However, without the authority of the Kirin Tor to fear, the number of warlocks has grown disturbingly high. Many are former mages, and most live openly and declare their study into the forbidden arts publicly.[citation needed]

RacesMain article: Mage races The Mage class can be played by the following races:

Alliance

Gnomes Humans Draenei Horde

Undead Trolls Blood Elves Weapons, Gear, and Armor See also: Mage sets When first created, a mage is only able to wield staves and wands; one can later learn how to use daggers and one-handed swords from weapon masters in Stormwind, Darnassus and the Exodar for the Alliance, Undercity and Silvermoon for the Horde. Wands go in the ranged slot and have the autoshoot ability, and do not require any form of ammunition. A mage can only wear cloth armor.

Magi typically should seek items that have spell damage for their specific school of magic: Fire, Frost, or Arcane (items of "Fiery," "Frozen," or "Arcane Wrath") to help maximize damage. Intellect is a major stat that players should attempt to gear for, since mana is required for all spells. Spell hit and Spell crit are useful as players move towards the endgame. Spirit is also useful in endgame raiding, but situationally; typically it's more useful for Arcane magi as it scales with intellect, giving more mana regen per point of spirit the higher the player's intellect is. Combine the unusually high amount of intellect an Arcane mage is likely to have, and the 60% of mana regen an Arcane mage can have (through talents and mage armor). This will help greatly in endgame raiding for mana management.

Spells Main article: Mage spells A female Blood Elf mage in magister's gear with the Staff of the Shadow Flame.Mages have a wide variety of spells which fall in to three schools of magic: Arcane, Fire or Frost. Fire and Frost are elemental schools, and most spells in these schools do damage. Arcane is the school of pure mana energy, and while it has a few damage-dealing spells it does boast a large amount of utility spells.

Fire spells are primarily damage-dealing spells, including direct single-target damage and area of effect (AoE) damage. With Fire comes other side-effects such as damage over time, and for fire-specializing mages, stun, disorient and daze effects. Fire spells typically have a higher damage output potential than Frost or Arcane spells, and accordingly higher threat. Fire's stun, disorient and daze effects also typically have both a lower proc rate and duration than Frost's snare as well, in order to balance the higher damage.

Frost spells are primarily single-target and area of effect damage-dealing spells, but with more emphasis on chilling effects. Nearly every frost spell has a chill or freeze effect that fully or partially immobilizes an enemy. This includes freezing it in place (called a root) or slowing its movement speed (called a snare). Frost specialized mages can further improve these chilling effects and increase frost damage output to respectable levels. Frost spells help the mage use kiting as a combat tactic.

Arcane spells are primarily utility spells, though there are several useful direct-damage arcane spells, including the very useful area of effect spell Arcane Explosion. Arcane spells allow the mage to remove curses, provide crowd control, absorb damage, teleport himself or others to major capital cities, Slow Fall, Counterspell, buff players' intellect stat, save mana for later use in the form of mana gems, conjure food and water for himself or others, and perform many other useful roles that give the mage class its perks.

Of these three, as far as direct damage is concerned, Fire is better suited to instances or group PvE, where the Mage is more likely to have a tank in front of them and can simply focus on dealing damage without worrying as much about being hit. Frost is likely to be better for most other scenarios, including soloing and PvP, because although Frost's damage is lower, its slowing and snare effects are the only thing a Mage has to compensate for their lack of durability. The Arcane school is situational, as there aren't as many direct damage Arcane spells as there are fire or frost. The use of Arcane spells can thus be mixed with either Frost or Fire.

Talents Main article: Mage talents Mage talents are split into 3 categories which mirror their 3 main spell types. Descriptions of the roles of mages who specialize in each talent tree are shown in parentheses.

Arcane (Arcane mage) Fire (Fire mage) Frost (Frost mage) Talent builders can be found at Official Blizzard site, Wowhead, ThottBot, WoW Den's Talent Calculator, WoW Vault, WorldofWar.se, Merciless.

Many mages with a math background have studied the mathematical "best" talents and builds for different roles; theorycrafting as it is called. For more information on these details, see Mage theorycraft.

Endgame expectations A human mage in art.In a group or raid environment, mages are usually tasked with ranged DPS, AoE, Counterspell, Spellsteal, Crowd Control and finally Ritual of Refreshment.

With the introduction of patch 1.11, mages enjoyed a high degree of flexibility in the end game. Previous to patch 1.11, it was expected that most mages would spend at least 11 talent points in the Arcane tree for Evocation, as it is a quite powerful mana-regenerative spell. It was given free without the use of talent points. New changes to all three trees also made investing points into both the Fire and the Frost trees much more viable. This still holds true with the release of Burning Crusade. It should be mentioned that a build predominantly using the Fire tree will contribute greater DPS; those using a predominantly Frost tree will contribute a fair amount of control.

The endgame mage also acts as a utility class, providing drink, food, buffs and portals. When it comes to providing drink and food, mages are by some considered equal to "vending machines" due to their unique ability to create food and drink out of thin air and provide them with no cost except mana and time. Refreshments Tables may also be created at level 70 at the cost of two arcane powder. However, some mages feel that this is not their primary role and therefore refuse to give away merchandise free to people he or she doesn’t know. It is usually expected that the mage provides his party or raid with food and drink for free.

PvP PvP-wise, mages are considered "glass cannons" - a design philosophy which gives mages generous burst damage at the cost of, generally, low health and armor values. Aided by talents such as Presence of Mind and Arcane Power, they are one of the classes with the potential for dealing out the greatest amount of damage in the shortest amount of time. In group PvP, mages will stay back and focus on crowd control with Polymorph and pick off targets from range. Depending on the Battleground and the situation, mages typically AoE to prevent node captures or nuke flag carriers as fast as possible. In solo PvP, a skilled Frost mage is a formidable opponent, but the word "skilled," needs to be emphasized.

Wrath of the Lich King Changes Frost & Fire Mages are getting a Frostfire bolt dealing Frost-Fire damage to make elementalists more viable. [1] The increase from talents for Frostfire bolt will scale higher than Frostbolt and Firebolt.

Frostfire Bolt 3 sec cast - 530 mana Launches a bolt of frostfire at the enemy causing 722 to 838 fire damage, slowing movement speed by 40% and causing an additional 90 fire damage over 9 sec. If the target is more vulnerable to frost damage this spell will cause frost instead of fire damage. [2]

Mage Armor Mage Armor is changing to shorten the duration of magical effects afflicting the mage by 50% to encourage it's use.

Balance Mages will see an increase of damage to compete with Warlocks in raiding. This also prevents issues of Mages being less desirable with other other classes receiving new crowd control abilities.