Updated August 11

Hello Mages. In this week’s build, we’ve made many changes to Arcane as well as a few updates to the other specs to address recent concerns about talents and GCD usage.

General Mage Changes

• Mirror Images damage greatly reduced, Frostbolt added to all Mirror Images, and while your images are active, damage taken is reduced by 20%. Taking direct damage will cause one of your images to dissipate.
  • Developers’ notes: The goal is to push Mirror Images away from a DPS cooldown and give it a defensive component. Now, only taking direct damage will cause an image to dissipate and there is an ICD of 2 seconds to ensure at least a 6 second uptime when taking damage.
• Rune of Power has been reworked to cast at your location when you use one of either Combustion, Arcane Power, or Icy Veins, depending on your spec.
  • Developers’ notes: This change is aimed to help with the cast time and GCD utilization at the beginning of an encounter, while remaining viable in your opener as a high burst window.

Arcane

The following Arcane changes are focused on reducing ramp up time, as well as opening up more talent options based on the content you’re running.

• Arcane Power cooldown reduced to 2 minutes (was 3 minutes).
• Touch of the Magi now generates 4 Arcane Charges on cast.
• New Talent: Master of Time – Reduces the cooldown of Alter Time by 30 seconds. Alter Time resets the cooldown of Blink when you return to your original location.
• Alter Time has been moved to Level 24 for Arcane mages.
• Resonance damage per target hit with Arcane Barrage increased to 15% (was 10%).
• Charged Up removed.
  • Developers’ notes: Touch of the Magi will now generate 4 charges baseline. This opens up the Level 35 tier for more viable options that focus heavily on dealing AoE damage.
• New Level 35 Talent: Arcane Echo – Direct damage you deal to enemies affected by Touch of the Magi, causes an explosion that deals [0.15xSP] Arcane damage to 8 nearby enemies.
• Time Anomaly now grants Time Warp for 6 seconds.
  • Developers’ notes: A simple change, but this should make Time Anomaly feel more satisfying as a talent since gaining Time Warp is always a good thing, but gaining Arcane Charges isn’t something you’d always necessarily want.

Fire

Fire updates are centered around the change that saw Phoenix Flames baseline as the Ignite spread.

• Phoenix Flames damage increased and recharge time reduced, but no longer guarantees critical hits.
  • Developers’ notes: Phoenix Flames still interacts with Hot Streak, so it can benefit within the Combustion window, but outside of that, it will primarily function as a way to spread your Ignite.
• Alexstrasza’s Fury – Dragon’s Breath now also gains a 50% increased critical strike damage bonus.
• New talent: From the Ashes – Increases Mastery by 2% for each charge of Phoenix Flames off cooldown, and your direct-damage critical strikes reduce its cooldown by 1 second.

June 10

Mage

• Shimmer charge count increased to 2.
• Shimmer cooldown Increased to 25 seconds (was 20 seconds).
  • Developers’ notes: After listening to feedback and more playtesting, we are returning both charges of Shimmer at a slightly higher cooldown cost. Our goal with the change was to bring more it inline with the other talents on the row, but in doing so, Shimmer lost a lot of its identity. If the other talents on the tier continue to underperform, we’ll look at ways we can enhance them to be more attractive options while up against Shimmer.
• Focus Magic now also grants the caster 1% Intellect, stacking up to 8 times when their Focus Magic target critically strikes.
  • Developers’ notes: We’d like for Focus Magic to reward the caster a bit more for taking an ally friendly talent.
• Frost and Fire Ward removed from all specs.
  • Developers’ notes: Compared to some of the other abilities, these two landed a little flat and overlapped a bit too much with each of the Barriers.

Fire Specialization

• Alexstrasza’s Fury now also makes your next Pyroblast or Flamestrike deal 35% increased damage.
  • Developers’ notes: We’re looking to make this more competitive with the Flame On and the future Phoenix Flames replacement.

In this thread, we’re discussing Mage class changes coming in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.

Read more about initial class changes in the World of Warcraft blog.

This initial post will be updated periodically throughout the Shadowlands test. Please check back here for information about further updates to this class as they are made.

Thank you for your testing and feedback!

We want to make Ignite spread something the player has agency over, and first experimented with the past system of making Fire Blast spread it. However, because of the importance of using Fire Blast for Hot Streak very frequently, we’ve seen feedback that this creates a lot of tension and still makes it difficult to control when you and don’t want Ignite to spread.

In the next alpha build, we’re going to try letting Phoenix Flames fill this role, as a baseline spell for Fire Mages. This gives Phoenix Flames a unique function and identity as a core spell, as well as allowing for more choice over when to spread Ignite. If we continue with the change, we’ll look into a new talent to replace Phoenix Flames in upcoming builds.

Hello!

Thank you for all of your continued feedback on Mage changes in Shadowlands. Below, you’ll find the latest changes in the Alpha, which includes reverting Shimmer to 2 charges, further talent tuning, and the removal of the short lived Frost and Fire Ward.

There has a been a lot of great discussion in this thread and we hope to see it continue!

Mage

• Shimmer charge count increased to 2.
• Shimmer cooldown Increased to 25 seconds (was 20 seconds).
  • Developers’ notes: After listening to feedback and more playtesting, we are returning both charges of Shimmer at a slightly higher cooldown cost. Our goal with the change was to bring more it inline with the other talents on the row, but in doing so, Shimmer lost a lot of its identity. If the other talents on the tier continue to underperform, we’ll look at ways we can enhance them to be more attractive options while up against Shimmer.
• Focus Magic now also grants the caster 1% Intellect, stacking up to 8 times when their Focus Magic target critically strikes.
  • Developers’ notes: We’d like for Focus Magic to reward the caster a bit more for taking an ally friendly talent.
• Frost and Fire Ward removed from all specs.
  • Developers’ notes: Compared to some of the other abilities, these two landed a little flat and overlapped a bit too much with each of the Barriers.

Fire Specialization

• Alexstrasza’s Fury now also makes your next Pyroblast or Flamestrike deal 35% increased damage.
  • Developers’ notes: We’re looking to make this more competitive with the Flame On and the future Phoenix Flames replacement.

Hello Mages. In this week’s build, we’ve made many changes to Arcane as well as a few updates to the other specs to address recent concerns about talents and GCD usage.

General Mage Changes

• Mirror Images damage greatly reduced, Frostbolt added to all Mirror Images, and while your images are active, damage taken is reduced by 20%. Taking direct damage will cause one of your images to dissipate.
  • Developers’ notes: The goal is to push Mirror Images away from a DPS cooldown and give it a defensive component. Now, only taking direct damage will cause an image to dissipate and there is an ICD of 2 seconds to ensure at least a 6 second uptime when taking damage.
• Rune of Power has been reworked to cast at your location when you use one of either Combustion, Arcane Power, or Icy Veins, depending on your spec.
  • Developers’ notes: This change is aimed to help with the cast time and GCD utilization at the beginning of an encounter, while remaining viable in your opener as a high burst window.

Arcane

The following Arcane changes are focused on reducing ramp up time, as well as opening up more talent options based on the content you’re running.

• Arcane Power cooldown reduced to 2 minutes (was 3 minutes).
• Touch of the Magi now generates 4 Arcane Charges on cast.
• New Talent: Master of Time – Reduces the cooldown of Alter Time by 30 seconds. Alter Time resets the cooldown of Blink when you return to your original location.
• Alter Time has been moved to Level 24 for Arcane mages.
• Resonance damage per target hit with Arcane Barrage increased to 15% (was 10%).
• Charged Up removed.
  • Developers’ notes: Touch of the Magi will now generate 4 charges baseline. This opens up the Level 35 tier for more viable options that focus heavily on dealing AoE damage.
• New Level 35 Talent: Arcane Echo – Direct damage you deal to enemies affected by Touch of the Magi, causes an explosion that deals [0.15xSP] Arcane damage to 8 nearby enemies.
• Time Anomaly now grants Time Warp for 6 seconds.
  • Developers’ notes: A simple change, but this should make Time Anomaly feel more satisfying as a talent since gaining Time Warp is always a good thing, but gaining Arcane Charges isn’t something you’d always necessarily want.

Fire

Fire updates are centered around the change that saw Phoenix Flames baseline as the Ignite spread.

• Phoenix Flames damage increased and recharge time reduced, but no longer guarantees critical hits.
  • Developers’ notes: Phoenix Flames still interacts with Hot Streak, so it can benefit within the Combustion window, but outside of that, it will primarily function as a way to spread your Ignite.
• Alexstrasza’s Fury – Dragon’s Breath now also gains a 50% increased critical strike damage bonus.
• New talent: From the Ashes – Increases Mastery by 2% for each charge of Phoenix Flames off cooldown, and your direct-damage critical strikes reduce its cooldown by 1 second.

In this week’s Shadowlands build, Mirrors of Torment has been updated with new functionality that grants you Brain Freeze, Fire Blast cooldown reduction, or Mana when a mirror is consumed based on your spec.

Mirrors of Torment will also now proc from auto attacks, but can only occur once every 6 seconds.

The goal with these changes is to give Mirrors of Torment a little more consistent PvE throughput and not just being a niche PvP ability for those Mages looking to join the Venthyr.