World of Warcraft: Forever Class Deep Dives — Mage and Shaman

Mage: Building Around the Right Spell at the Right Time

Across the Mage toolkit, the updates are aimed at making each spell school feel more active in moment-to-moment decisions. Arcane gains new ways to set up and empower follow-up casts, Fire continues to reward critical strikes and timing, and Frost holds onto its control-focused strengths while gaining new interactions that help it connect with the rest of the class.

Baseline Abilities

• Comprehension: This new Mage-specific minor tradeskill allow Mages to read and decipher scrolls dropped by creatures in the world. Various benefits are provided by these that players will discover in their adventures.
  • Comprehend Scroll: This is the specific ability used to attempt Comprehension, found in the General tab of the spellbook.
• Cone of Cold: Duration decreased. This is part of a general fix to reduce the ability of gold farmers and experience boosters to kite large numbers of creatures while generating large amounts of gold and experience via repetitive low-risk gameplay mechanics.
• Frostfire Bolt: New spell learned at level 40. This spell is considered both a Fire spell and a Frost spell. Most talents that benefit either of those schools of damage also benefit Frostfire Bolt. With a 3 second cast time, Frostfire Bolt deals large upfront damage like Fireball, and also applies a debuff that includes both damage over time and a movement speed Slow. Frostfire Bolt always uses the higher of the Mage's spell damage bonuses to Fire or Frost damage and uses the lower of the target's resistances to Fire or Frost damage.
  The intent of this spell is to make builds that include both Frost and Fire talents have a spell that benefits from them both, opening many new Mage talent builds. For example, one hybrid build is to take both the Ignite and Ice Shards talents, so that the Mage's Frostfire Bolt deals 200% damage on critical strikes and then deals another 40% of that as Ignite damage, for a total of 280% damage on critical strikes.
• Mage Armor: Mana regeneration bonus from Spirit increased.

Talents

Arcane

• Wand Specialization: Now only requires 2 talent points for same benefit.
• Arcane Focus: (Redesigned.) Now grants increased chance to hit with Arcane spells.
• Improved Channeling: (Formerly Improved Arcane Missiles.) Now also grants Arcane Blast protection against spellcasting interruption from taking damage.
• Arcane Subtlety: (Moved from row 1 down to row 2. Resistance ignoring effect a little stronger, and threat reduction to Arcane spells a little weaker.
• Magic Absorption: Now has a 1 second cooldown on triggering the effect to prevent some abuses.
• Arcane Concentration: The chance for the talent to be triggered by a spellcast is now reduced when a Mage casts spells of a significantly lower rank. This adjustment is due to the abuse of this talent by gold farmers to "fish" for procs with low mana cost low rank spells in the past. We have applied this same type of reduction to multiple talents across many classes, but this was the best place for us to explain why. Players should expect any similar talents that trigger a free effect to have the same penalty applied to low rank spells.
• Arcane Resilience: Moved from row 3 up to row 2. No longer a gold medal talent. Now 2 talent points for the same effect.
• Arcane Geometry: New row 3 talent. Increases the range of Arcane spells.
• Arcane Impact: (Formerly Improved Arcane Explosion.) Now increases the critical strike chance of all Arcane spells.
• Arcane Blast: (New 11-point gold medal talent. New spell.) This version of Arcane Blast is a redesign of the one known from early World of Warcraft expansions. It deals immediate damage with a 2.5 second cast, and then increases the damage done by all other Mage spells and increases its own Mana cost. These increases stack up to 4 times and last 8 seconds or until any other spell is cast. Older versions of Arcane Blast encouraged Mages to only cast that one spell. This new version encourages Mages to make use of other spells in their toolkit after increasing their damage by building an Arcane Blast stack.
• Arcane Shielding: (Formerly Improved Mana Shield.) Mana cost reduction to Mana Shield increased, and now also increases resistances granted by Mage Armor.
• Improved Counterspell: (Slight redesign.) Having only 1 point in this talent now grants a shorter duration Silence all the time, instead of a 50% chance of any Silence at all.
• Arcane Meditation: Mana regeneration from Spirit while casting increased. Now has Arcane Concentration as a pre-requisite.
• Missile Barrage: New 16-point gold medal talent. This talent grants a chance for Arcane Blast, Fireball, Frostbolt, and Frostfire Bolt spells to cause your next Arcane Missiles to channel twice as fast and cost no Mana. This chance is doubled for Arcane Blast.
• Arcane Mind: (Redesigned.) Now increases Intellect instead of maximum Mana. Now also increases the critical strike damage bonus of Arcane Spells. No longer has Arcane Resilience as a pre-requisite talent.
• Arcane Instability: No longer has Presence of Mind as a pre-requisite.
• Arcane Power: Now has Presence of Mind as a pre-requisite.

Talents Moved to Baseline: Magic Attunement (now baseline).

Fire

• Wake of Fire: (Formerly Improved Fire Blast.) Moved from row 2 up to row 1 Reduces the cooldown on Fire Blast by even more, and each time you kill a non-trivial target your next Fire Blast gains a large increase to critical strike chance.
• Incineration: (Formerly Incinerate.) Moved from row 3 up to row 1. Now increases the critical strike chance of Ice Lance and Arcane Blast, in addition to Fire Blast and Scorch.
• Improved Fireball: Now also reduces the cast time of Frostfire Bolt.
• Ignite: This talent now provides a unique debuff per Mage caster, rather than the Classic Era behavior where all Mages in an encounter shared a single Ignite debuff. This solves some problems with threat and damage attribution. In addition, improvements have been made to make sure that damage is not lost when critical strikes are timed too closely together, just as was done in Season of Discovery.
• Impact: This is another example of a talent where casting low rank spells now decreases the chance to trigger the effect.
• Burning Soul: Now requires 3 talent points for the same effect.
• Improved Scorch: The debuff caused by Improved Scorch now benefits only the casting Mage.
• Heating Up: This new row 4 talent requires Pyroblast as a pre-requisite. Non-periodic critical strikes with Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, Fire Blast, and Scorch grant a 25% reduction to the cast time of your next Pyroblast, stacking up to 3 times. With 3 stacks, this reduces the cast time of Pyroblast to 1.5 seconds, and is Forever's variation on the ideas found in the Hot Streak talent that existed in early World of Warcraft expansions.
• Blast Wave: No longer requires Pyroblast as a pre-requisite.

Removed talents: None.

Frost

• Elemental Precision: Now increases the chance to hit with Fire and Frost spells instead of reducing the target's chance to resist.
• Permafrost: (Minor redesign.) Instead of increasing the duration of all Chill effects by 1/2/3 seconds, it now increases their duration by 11/22/33%. This prevents it from excessively increasing the duration of Improved Blizzard.
• Frost Channeling: Moved from row 4 up to row 3.
• Ice Lance: New 11-point gold medal talent. Instant cast. Deals low damage, but damage increased by 300% when the target is Frozen (or treated as Frozen by Fingers of Frost).
• Improved Blizzard: Movement speed Slow effect reduced in magnitude. Now maxes out at a 40% Slow instead of 65%. This change was made to reduce the power of Frost Mages to AoE (Area of Effect) farm instances, which was widely used by gold farmers and boosters to disrupt the economy of the game.
• Ice Block: Moved from row 5 up to row 4 and is now the 16-point gold medal talent.
• Shatter: No longer has Improved Frost Nova as a pre-requisite.
• Cold Snap: Moved from row 3 down to row 5, and is now the 21 point gold medal talent. Cooldown increased to 10 minutes up from 5 minutes.
• Fingers of Frost: (New row 5 talent.) Pre-requisite of Ice Lance. Give your Chill effects a chance to grant 1/2 charges of Fingers of Frost. Fingers of Frost causes your spell casts to treat the target as if it were Frozen.
• Winter's Chill: Now only benefits the casting Mage. Critical strike chance now only increased on Frostbolt and Ice Lance.

Removed talents: None.

Mages remain one of the most powerful and resourceful damage dealing classes in World of Warcraft. They possess one of the best crowd control abilities with Polymorph in their toolkit. They are masters of ranged area damage which is stronger and more varied than any other class. However, they are extremely fragile and die easily if caught in melee combat. Mages can answer that weakness by deciding which type of magic they specialize in. Arcane to manipulate and consume Mana for more damage. Fire to produce devastatingly heavy hits and critical damage. Or Frost to grant levels of combat control still unrivaled by any other class. Mages will always be useful to a raid or party for their unique buffs, ability to supply food and water, amazing control abilities, and, of course, strong ranged single-target and area of effect damage dealing.

Shaman: Commanding Totems in the Flow of Combat

The Shaman update puts more of the class's power into active decisions made during an encounter. Totems can be summoned, tracked, dismissed, and repositioned with greater control, while weapon imbues and new talent paths give Elemental Combat, Enhancement, and Restoration more ways to contribute without interrupting the pace of play.

Baseline Abilities

• Totems:
  • All totems now have a 1.0 second global cooldown, down from 1.5 seconds.
  • All totems that provide persistent buffs have their duration increased to 5 minutes from 2 minutes. Shorter duration totems are unaffected by this change.
  • Totems now have a tracking UI showing which totems are active and their remaining duration. It can also be used to instantly unsummon a totem by right clicking on the UI.
  • Resistance Totems now provide their resistance bonus to the entire raid group.
• Weapon Imbues: All weapon imbues (Frostbrand Weapon, Flametongue Weapon, Windfury Weapon) have their duration increased to 60 minutes from 5 minutes. In addition, they can now be active at the same time as temporary weapon enchantments like Sharpening Stones, Weight Stones, and Wizard Oil.
• Fire Nova: Fire Nova Totem has been removed and replaced with a new Fire Nova spell. With Fire Nova, you cause an eruption of Fire damage at the location of your current Fire Totem. Now you can place a Fire Totem and trigger AoE damage at that Totem's location multiple times, instead of needing to place the Fire Nova Totem every time.
• Windfury Totem: No longer a weapon enchantment, and now a party-wide buff. Shaman cannot benefit from this totem if they have Windfury Weapon on their weapon. Parties cannot benefit from this totem at the same time as Grace of Air or Flametongue Totem.
• Flametongue Totem: No longer a weapon enchantment, and now a party-wide buff. Shaman cannot benefit from this totem if they have Flametongue Weapon on their weapon. Parties cannot benefit from this totem at the same time as Windfury Totem.
• Tranquil Air Totem: Removed.
• Totemic Projection: This new ability learned at level 22 allows you to teleport all your totems to a new location within 30 yards. 1 minute cooldown. Costs 25% of base mana.
• Totemic Recall: This new ability learned at level 20 instantly destroys all your totems and returns 25% of their Mana cost. Note there is a bug in beta currently that Mana is not being refunded.
• Call of the Elements: Learning this ability at level 20 unlocks the totem bar User Interface (UI). You can pre-program a set of 4 totems, one of each element, and Call of the Elements will summon all 4 after a 3 second cast. This costs Mana equal to the sum of the Mana cost of all 4 totems.
• Call of the Spirits: Learned at level 30, this ability allows you to pre-program a second set of 4 totems.
• Call of the Ancestors: Learned at level 40, this ability allows you to pre-program a third set of 4 totems.
• Lightning Bolt: Cast time of ranks 4 and up of this spell changed from 3 seconds to 2.5 seconds. Its spell power coefficient was also reduced to match.
• Chain Lightning: Cast time of all ranks of this spell changed from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds. Its spell power coefficient was also reduced to match.

Talents

Elemental Combat

• Convection: Now also reduces the Mana cost of Lava Burst.
• Concussion: No longer applies to Frost Shock or Flame Shock.
• Reverberation: Moved from row 3 up to row 2.
• Call of Flame: Now also increases the damage done by Flame Shock, Fire Nova, and Lava Burst.
• Elemental Devastation: Moved from row 4 up to row 2. This talent is intended primarily as a reason to entice Enhancement Shaman into spending points on Elemental talents, and so was made more accessible.
• Elemental Focus: Chance to trigger reduced when casting low rank spells.
• Elemental Alacrity: (Formerly Lightning Mastery.) Moved from row 6 up to row 3. Now requires only 3 points for maximum rank and reduces the cast time of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning by only 0.5 seconds at max rank but also reduces the cast time of Lava Burst. This talent was both very deep in the tree previously, making it unavailable to Shaman leveling up, and was twice as strong as similar talents with other classes, causing a spell power scaling problem. To account for this, its potency was reduced and it was moved much earlier in the tree.
• Improved Fire Nova: (Formerly Improved Fire Totems. Redesigned.) Now increases Fire Nova's damage and reduces its cooldown.
• Eye of the Storm: (Redesigned.) This talent now grants resistance against spell pushback from damage while casting Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Lava Burst. Formerly it was only effective after being hit with a critical strike. This talent was previously only really useful in PvP. It is now useful broadly in the game.
• Call of Thunder: Moved from the row 3 down to row 4, and now has Elemental Alacrity as a pre-requisite. This talent is now the 16-point gold medal talent, granting 3% increased critical strike chance to Lighting Bolt and Chain Lightning.
• Elemental Reach: Now also increases the range of Fire Nova and Lava Burst by up to 6 yards and increases the range of Flame Shock by up to 15 yards.
• Lighting Overload: This new row 5 talent grants a chance for every cast of Lightning Bolt or Chain Lighting to instantly cast a second copy of that spell at no Mana cost but for half damage and no threat.
• Earthbound: This new 21-point gold medal talent causes Earthbind Totem to instantly immobilize nearby targets for 5 seconds when cast.
• Elemental Fury: Moved from row 5 down to row 6 and requires Call of Thunder as a pre-requisite.
• Lava Burst: This new 31-point gold medal talent grants the Lava Burst spell. This 2.5 second cast spell deals Fire damage to a target, increased by 20% if the target is afflicted by your Flame Shock. 10 second cooldown.

Removed talents: None.

Enhancement

• Earth's Grasp: Moved from Elemental to row 1 of Enhancement.
• Thundering Strikes: Moved from row 2 up to row 1. Now increases critical strike chance of all spells and attacks instead of only weapon attacks.
• Ancestral Knowledge: Now increases Intellect instead of maximum Mana.
• Mental Dexterity: (New row 2 talent.) Increases your Attack Power by a percentage of your Intellect.
• Improved Ghost Wolf: (Improved. ) Rank 1 now makes Ghost Wolf useable indoors while reducing its cast time by 1 second, and Rank 2 now makes Ghost Wolf Instant.
• Elemental Weapons: Moved from row 5 up to row 3.
• Shamanistic Focus: New 11-point gold medal talent. Reduces the Mana cost of Shocks and Lightning Shield by a large percentage.
• Anticipation: Now grants twice as much Dodge chance.
• Toughness: No longer increases Armor. Now increases Stamina by a percentage.
• Flurry: Now increases attack speed by 5% per talent point up to 25% (down from 30%). Now requires Mental Dexterity as a pre-requisite, instead of Thundering Strikes.
• Stormstrike: Moved from the 31-point gold medal talent to the 16-point gold medal talent. Cooldown reduced from 20 seconds to 8 seconds. Now increases damage done by your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, or Earth Shock spell by 20%, instead of the next 2 Nature attacks from any attacker.
• Spirit Weapons: (Formerly Parry.) This 21-point talent now also reduces threat while you are not using Rockbiter Weapon, and increases threat while you are using Rockbiter Weapon. This talent will help Enhancement Shaman manage their threat now that their damage is competitive, while also retaining their unique ability to generate high threat and serve as a temporary tank in small group gameplay.
• Mental Quickness: (New row 5 talent.) Increases your spell damage and healing by a percentage of your Intellect.
• Improved Stomstrike: Requires Stormstrike as a pre-requisite. This new row 5 talent grants a chance for Stormstrike to activate Mana regeneration while casting spells, and a chance for Stormstrike's cooldown to reset each time you Dodge or Parry. This talent allows Enhancement Shamans to regenerate Mana from Spirit, and also to have more active Stormstrike usage when serving as a temporary tank.
• Maelstrom Weapon: This new row 6 talent grants a chance on every melee attack to stack charges of Maelstrom, reducing the cast time of Lightning Bolt. At sufficient ranks and charges, Lightning Bolt becomes instant.
• Rage of the Farseer: This new 31-point gold medal talent grants you a 3 minute cooldown that increases your attack speed by 30% for 25 seconds. We were inspired by the Heroism and Bloodlust abilities found in early World of Warcraft expansions but wanted to make it a personal cooldown for the Shaman instead of a raid or party wide event.

Talents Moved to Baseline: Shield Specialization, Enhancing Totems, Two-Handed Axes and Maces, Weapon Mastery, Improved Weapon Totems are all now baseline abilities.

Restoration

• Totemic Focus: Moved from row 2 up to row 1. Now also discounts Totemic Projection and totem Call spells.
• Mindfulness: (New row 2 talent.) Allows Shaman to regenerate Spirit while spellcasting. This is deliberately placed to make it more accessible for Elemental Shaman.
• Natural Grace: (Formerly Healing Grace.) Moved from row 3 up to row 2. Now reduces all threat from spells and moved up to earlier in the tree to make it more accessible to Elemental Shaman.
• Tidal Focus: Now also grants increased chance to hit with all spells and attacks.
• Improved Reincarnation: Now also increases maximum health by a percentage.
• Ancestral Healing: Moved to row 3 down from row 2.
• Healing Focus: Now only requires 3 talent points for full effect instead of 5.
• Water Shield: This new 11-point gold medal talent grants you a new Shield ability. Only one shield can be active at a time. The 3 globes on this shield grant you Mana when an attack hits you, or when one of your healing spells gains a critical result.
• Tidal Mastery: No longer affects Lightning spells.
• Restorative Totems: Bonus to Healing Stream Totem doubled.
• Mana Tide Totem: Now the 16-point gold medal talent instead of the 31-point gold medal talent.
• Healing Way: Redesigned. Increases amount healed by Healing Wave by a percentage.
• Riptide: (New 31-point gold medal talent.) Pre-requisite Healing Way. This new ability heals the target instantly and then periodically over 15 seconds. Increases the effectiveness of Chain Heal casts on targets with your Riptide by 25%. 6 second cooldown.

Shaman are masters of totems, and use those totems to buff, heal, and solve problems for any party or raid they join. While Shaman have gained new capabilities to move and summon many totems at once, their choice of totems and totem placement remains a critical skill differentiating experienced Shaman. They can be effective melee or spell damage dealers and healers of parties or raids, tapping into their unique chaining spells for damage or healing. They are among the sturdiest of classes, with the use of Mail armor and a Shield. They have a diverse toolkit of abilities to solve problems but lack an effective crowd control. Shaman will always be welcome in a group but also need those allies to make up for their own weaknesses in control and survivability.