Mage talents

As with the other original classes, at level 10 a mage can begin spending talent points in order to gain and improve abilities. Mage talents underwent a significant review for patch 1.11, with additional modifications in 2.0.1 and 3.0.2.

Below, each talent has a quoted description of the talent, which was taken from the game. The differences between the various levels of each talent are quoted in brackets. For example, "Reduces the chance that the opponent can resist your Arcane spells by {2/4/6/8/10}%" to describe the 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 point variations of the talent.

Prerequisites are listed for all talents that have them.

All tier N talents require that you spend 5(N-1) talent points in their tree as a prerequisite. For example, to get a Tier 2 Arcane talent, you must first have spent at least 5 points on other Arcane talents, Tier 3 requires 10 points, etc.

Arcane
Manipulates arcane energies, playing with the very fabric of time and space.

Choosing this tree instantly gives you:
 * Arcane Barrage
 * Arcane Specialization
 * Mana Adept (Mastery)

Fire
Ignites enemies with balls of fire and the breath of dragons.

Choosing this tree instantly gives you:
 * Pyroblast
 * Fire Specialization
 * Flashburn (Mastery)

Frost
Freezes enemies in their tracks and shatters them with Frost magic.

Choosing this tree instantly gives you:
 * Summon Water Elemental
 * Frost Specialization
 * Frostburn (Mastery)

Deprecated talents
These talents were used prior to patch 4.0.1, but has since then been either moved, removed, or replaced.

Notable talents



 * Arcane Concentration gives you a chance to enter a Clearcasting state, improving your mana efficiency by about 10%. When you proc Clearcasting, take the opportunity to cast a mana expensive spell.
 * Pyroblast is the highest single target damage spell available, but is limited by its long casting time.
 * Ice Shards, Frostbite and Shatter are the holy trinity of Shatter/critical hit Frost mage build, giving you a 50% bonus to crit a frozen target. They can now all be maxed with only 20 points in Frost. Also, Shatter now affects all your spells, not just Frost spells, giving additional flexibility to Shatter builds.
 * Ice Block is a very situational ability with a number of uses. As of patch 2.3.2 Ice Block is trainable to any mage at the level of 30. See main article for details: Ice Block.
 * The tier 7 Frost talent Ice Barrier is potentially much more efficient than Mana Shield. In Patch 1.11 its cooldown was reduced to 30 seconds, making it much more useful. Its functionality and mana efficiency are similar to a self-cast version of a priest's Power Word: Shield.