Mage abilities

Mage abilities come in three schools of magic: Arcane, Fire, and Frost, which are usually affected by their tree's respective talents. Mage spells are also usually delineated by their purpose: direct damage, area of effect damage, and utility. Mages are also the only class with the ability to teleport themselves or their group members to the variety of the capital cities.

The spells themselves can be classified quite easily by the school they are in. Most Fire spells will have the purpose of heavily damaging an opponent, while the majority of Frost spells are weaker, but usually with an inherent snare built in, which allows them a greater modicum of control. Arcane consists of many of the utility spells, while also supporting either of the other trees through the usage of talent trained abilities.

Talent Spells
Talent spells are spells or abilities that are acquired from spending talent points in a certain tree. For example Pyroblast is from the Fire tree while Ice Barrier is from the Frost tree.

Extra Spells
These spells are alternate versions of trainable spells, meaning they don't affect functionality, but they merely possess a different icon or other cosmetic change. They are learned through books or given as quest rewards.

Damage spells
The damaging spells a mage utilizes will work a little differently from mage to mmage, depending on specialization and talents. It is just as important to understand how spells can work together as to understand individual spells. Many spells may also serve more than one purpose; a damaging spell may often also act as a defensive one.

Single-target Damage

 * Frostbolt will deal frost-damage and place a snare on the target which allows for kiting. This makes Frostbolt a typical damage-spell which also protects the mage from harm. Both the damage and the snare can be improved via talents such as Shatter and Piercing Chill.
 * Fire Blast causes instant fire-damage. It can be very powerful with the talent Impact which spreads AoE effects such as Ignite (another talent) to nearby enemies. With Impact, Fire Blast will also create a brief stun which furthermore reduces an opponent's potential to harm the mage.
 * Fireball causes a good portion of fire-damage. To fire-mages, it will make out of much (possibly most) of the mage's total damage output.
 * Frostfire Bolt is a mix between Fireball and Frostbolt. It deals good damage, yields a DoT, and snares the target. Frost-mages will still prefer to use Frostbolt, but will often utilize Frostfire Bolt with the talent Brain Freeze. Most Fire-mages will also prefer to use Fireball, but may choose Frostfire Bolt as their primary damage-spell instead. Can be improved with Glyph of Frostfire which makes it similar to Fireball, and contributes from most talents in all trees.
 * Scorch is similar to Fireball, but spends less mana while causing less damage. It can be made completely "free" via the talent Improved Scorch which makes it an important part of a Fire-mage's rotation. The talent Firestarter will furthermore make Scorch an extremely useful spell as it can be cast while running. Combining the talents will make Scorch into a mobile, mana-free spell which is especially nifty for PvP-Mages.
 * Arcane Missiles is channeled over 5 seconds, with one wave of arcane-damage fired each second. It can be very powerful with the talent Missile Barrage. Arcane Missiles is only used by arcane-mages, both the fire-tree and the frost-tree includes talents which "removes" it from the mage's arsenal (Hot Streak and Brain Freeze).
 * Arcane Blast is another powerful arcane-spell which adds a buff to the caster that increases Arcane Blast's damage while also increasing it's mana cost, stacking up to 4 times. The talents Slow and will give it kiting-abilities similar to Frostbolt.
 * Pyroblast can be acquired by specializing in fire. It is basically a slow-casting, huge Fireball with a large DoT component. It is useful as a starting-spell and can become very powerful with the talents Hot Streak and Improved Hot Streak.
 * Deep Freeze can be acquired as a frost-talent. On "stunnable" targets it acts both defensive and offensive; while preventing the target from attacking it also allows for several Ice Lances (which are powerful against frozen targets). On targets that cannot be stunned it acts much like Fire Blast.
 * Combustion can be acquired as a fire-talent. "Copying" DoTs on the target, it can become a powerful DoT on its own. Spreading it with Fire Blast will make it even better.
 * Living Bomb can also be acquired as a fire-talent. While adding impressive DoT-damage, it can also be spread like Combustion.
 * Ice Lance deals rapid frost-damage. It it excellent against frozen targets, and will - as mentioned - team well with Deep Freeze.
 * Summon Water Elemental can be acquired by specializing in frost. The elemental it summons can use "Waterbolt" which acts similar to a Frostbolt (without the snare). Its "Freeze" spell can be used for defense.

Area of effect damage


This category of spells includes your AoE spells:
 * Arcane Explosion, an instant cast arcane point blank area of effect-spell which causes arcane-damage.
 * Blizzard, a channeled ground target area of effect spell which causes frost-damage. Will together with the talent Ice Shards allow for AoE-kiting which is superb for grinding or fighting groups of opponents in general.
 * Flamestrike, a ground target area of effect spell. Can be made instant-cast and thus "spammable" via the talent Improved Flamestrike. It does, however, consume large amounts of mana. Can be used to quickly generate crits to activate Impact which then can spread DoTs like Ignite and Living Bomb.
 * Blast Wave (another talent spell) is an instant cast, ground target area of effect fire-damage spell which dazes the enemy. While having a small kiting-potential, its perhaps true value lies in generating crits like Flamestrike.
 * Frost Nova, an point blank area of effect root which also inflicts a small amount of damage.
 * Cone of Cold will deal frost-damage to opponents in front of the Mage. The spell's real value lies in the snares.
 * Flame Orb does not exactly deal AoE damage, but randomly attacks enemies near it. The talent Fire Power will cause it to eventually explode, which does create AoE damage.
 * Ring of Frost does not directly damage affected targets, but will stun them.

Snares and roots



 * Frostbolt, as mentioned.
 * Frost Nova, also as mentioned.
 * Frost Armor gives the mage both an armor buff and a reactive debuff to enemies that hit the mage in melee, along with a small resistance to frost magic. Attackers are snared.
 * Slow can be acquired as an Arcane-talent. It causes a snare, reducing movement speed by 60% and also reduces casting speed ranged attack speed by 60% as well. Can be coupled with.
 * Blast Wave can, as mentioned, snare opponents for a few seconds. It can be improved with Glyph of Blast Wave.
 * Cone of Cold will, along with dealing some frost-damage, also snare opponents for 60% for 8sec. Improving it with Improved Cone of Cold will give it root-abilies which can be coupled with Ice Lance and Deep Freeze.
 * Summon Water Elemental can be acquired by specializing in Frost. The elemental it summons can use Waterbolt to attack enemies, and can protect the Mage simply by distracting enemies to attack itself instead. Its Freeze is a ground target area of effect spell similar to Frost Nova, and is extremely useful for hindering opponents in getting to the mage.
 * Dragon's Breath deals damage just like Cone of Cold. It provides neither snare nor root, but will disorientate targets for 3 seconds. It is very useful as it has no limit to how many targets it can affect at once.
 * Ring of Frost will create a circle which stuns enemies standing on it for several seconds. It is cast as a ground target area of effect. Notably, it can even refresh itself, should the target attempt to break free before the spell ends. It is often more powerful against melee attacks than ranged, as ranged ones can still attack from a distance if the Mage places the circle around him/herself.
 * Invisibility will turn the Mage invisible to all players and mobs not having any form of detection. Invisibility (game mechanic) is different from Stealth and allows the Mage is walk close to enemies without being seen. The spell can be improved with the talent Prismatic Cloak and Glyph of Invisibility.
 * Flame Orb can be made defensive with the talent Frostfire Orb. This causes it to snare nearby enemies, while damaging them at the same time.
 * Remove Curse - as the name implies, it removes curses. Useful against Warlocks and several PvE-encounters such as Lord Godfrey.
 * Counterspell is a highly useful spell to prevent spellcasters from causing you harm. Improving it with the talent Improved Counterspell will give it a silence effect which makes it even better, and a must in PvE. Counterspell is also very useful in many PvE-encounters to prevent bosses or the like from executing dangerous abilities.

Crowd control



 * Polymorph allows the Mage to turn a Humanoid, Beast or Critter into a sheep, pig, turtle, penguin, monkey or black cat (depending on the spell and glyph used) for a certain amount of time.
 * All other spells providing roots, snares, stuns, and disorients (described above) can also be used as crowd control.

Damage absorption

 * Mana Shield allows the Mage to absorb physical and magical damage taken at the cost of mana, at a 2:1 rate (50 damage = 100 mana). A talent can reduce the mana usage.
 * Mage Ward gives a brief and weak shield against fire-, frost- and arcane-damage. It can be improved with Molten Shields, which again are improved by Blazing Speed. Combined, they will allow for kiting as the Mage will occasionally run faster than normal.
 * Ice Barrier can be acquired via Frost-talents. It's an instant cast shield that protects you from all damage types up to a limit or 1 minute, whichever comes first. It has a short cooldown (30 seconds). It can be improved with the talents Shattered Barrier, which makes it similar to Frost Nova, and Reactive Barrier. It can also be improved with Glyph of Ice Barrier.
 * Mage Armor provides resistance to all types of magic (except from Holy damage, as there is no such resistance in the game). It also increases the Mage's mana regeneraton.
 * Ice Block will make the Mage invulerable to all melee attacks and nearly all spells. It can still be dispelled with the Priest's Mass Dispel and the Warrior's Shattering Throw. Beside from that, it is one of the best protection-spells in the game. Part of its value lies in how it forces opponents to attack other players (or the Mage's water elemental) and how it can wipe threat.

Utility spells



 * Slow Fall - a "defensive" spell of sorts - protects against falling damage, requires a Light Feather to use. Can be improved with Glyph of Slow Fall which removes the feather requirement.
 * Spellsteal can be used both offensively and defensively. By stealing a buff which increases an opponents damage you will both decrease that opponent's damage while increasing your own.
 * Time Warp is a simple spell which increases the attacking and casting speed for both the Mage and his party and/or raid. Simple, but extremely powerful. After being affected by Time Warp, the Mage cannot be so for 10min afterwards. Shares debuff with the Shaman's Heroism / Bloodlust.
 * Evocation is a channeled spell which restores the Mage's mana. It is very useful, and can become a healing spell with Glyph of Evocation. Naturally, this makes it a great defensive spell.
 * Mirror Image creates several weak copies of the Mage. They deal mediocre - but useful - damage. Similar to the water elemental, they provide great defense, especially against mobs. If a Mage uses Mirror Image after a mob has begun to attack or run towards him/her, the mob will attempt to slay the copies first.
 * Molten Armor is like Spellsteal both a defensive and offensive spell. It is more of the latter though, and the preferred armor-spell in PvE.

Intellect buffs

 * Arcane Brilliance is the main buff provided by the Mage to the group. The extra intellect increases mana pool, spell power and spell critical chance.
 * Dalaran Brilliance works exactly like Arcane Brilliance, and is only meant to be somewhat fancier.

Conjuration



 * Conjure Mana Gem gives you a stone that acts as a free mana potion on a separate cooldown from your other potions. These stones cannot be shared.
 * Conjure Refreshment can also be used for restoring health and mana, and is an important preparation for reducing downtime for a solo mage or an entire raid.
 * Ritual of Refreshment works pretty much like Conjure Refreshment, and it just made to save time. It requires two Arcane Powder to cast.

Self

 * Teleport:  can be used both for transport and escape.
 * Blink is a small portal-spell often nifty in PvP.

Portals

 * Portal:  creates portals that can be clicked to instantly move your group to a friendly city.

Mage/Spell