Mage

What changes for the mage in WoW Forever?

The mage in WoW Forever learns Frostfire Bolt at level 40, a spell that counts as both Fire and Frost, and Comprehension, a Mage-only minor tradeskill for deciphering scrolls. Arcane gets Arcane Blast and Missile Barrage, Frost gets Ice Lance and Fingers of Frost, Fire gets Heating Up, Cold Snap now has a 10-minute cooldown, and orcs can now be mages.

• Frostfire Bolt (level 40): a 3-second cast with upfront damage, a damage over time and a slow, using the higher of your Fire or Frost spell bonus and the lower of the target's two resistances.
• Comprehension is a Mage-only minor tradeskill: Comprehend Scroll, in the General tab of the spellbook, deciphers scrolls dropped by creatures.
• Arcane Blast (Arcane, 11 points): a 2.5-second cast that boosts your other spells and its own cost, stacking 4 times; in beta build 70532 it casts in 1.5 seconds and each stack gives 15% of your Intellect as spell damage, and Missile Barrage, the Arcane 16-point talent of Blizzard's article, sits in the first row with 2 ranks.
• Ice Lance (Frost, 11 points) deals 4 times its damage to frozen targets (3 times in beta build 70532), and Fingers of Frost is a new Frost talent.
• Heating Up (Fire) cuts Pyroblast's cast time by 25% per non-periodic crit, up to 3 times, down to 1.5 seconds.
• Cold Snap moves to 21 points in Frost with a 10-minute cooldown (it was 5), and Ignite becomes a per-mage debuff that mages no longer share.
• Anti-farming nerfs: Cone of Cold lasts less and the Improved Blizzard slow is capped at 40% (it was 65%), against gold farmers and boosters.
• Low-rank penalty: talents that trigger free effects proc less from much lower spell ranks; a rank 1 Frostbolt cast at level 60 has a 0% chance to trigger Frostbite (October 1 beta notes).

Talent calculatorEvery Mage ability by level, compared with ClassicAll the talent changesUpdated on October 16, 2026