Undead Mage

Forsaken racials

Will of the Forsaken · active

Removes Charm, Fear and Sleep; no longer an immunity Official. Shares a 45-sec cooldown with similar effects (wow.gg). Breaks the fears in Scarlet Monastery and Shadowfang Keep without a trinket.

Cannibalize · active

Eat a humanoid or undead corpse: 35% of your Health and Mana over 10 sec (7% every 2 sec) Official. The reason to be a Forsaken Mage: after a humanoid fight it replaces the drink, and the Scarlet Monastery wings are nothing but humanoids.

Underwater Breathing · passive

Breathe 300% longer underwater Official. Handy for the Drowned City coast and the Blood in the Streets swim of the Dalaran attunement.

Touch of the Grave · passive, new

5% chance on your hits to drain health, restoring up to 5% of your maximum health; the Oct 15 build gave it a 25-sec internal cooldown Official. No passive throughput: Undead, like Orc since Oct 26, brings utility rather than damage.

Oct 15 beta build, what matters for Arcane Official Arcane Blast now casts in 1.5 sec; each cast adds spell damage equal to 15% of your Intellect, up to 4 stacks, for 15 sec from the first cast (its base damage and coefficient were cut 40%) · Missile Barrage moved to the first row as a 2-point talent and Arcane Missiles hits can trigger it · Arcane Wrath is a new 16-point talent: a 3.5-sec nuke with Fireball-level base damage that adds spell power equal to 5% of your maximum mana, 6-sec cooldown · Frost Blast at level 24 · Presence of Mind is now consumed correctly. From the Oct 7 deep dive: Frostfire Bolt at 40, Comprehension (a Mage minor tradeskill that reads looted scrolls).

Oct 8 build Reported
Spells cast at ranks far below your level get less from spell damage and trigger talents such as Frostbite less often (Wowhead). Keep your Arcane Missiles and Arcane Blast ranks current while leveling; Rank 1 Frostbolt is only a slow.

Roleplay profile
In life he was an archivist of Lordaeron who copied spellbooks for other people and never cast from one. The Plague found him at his desk, and the Dark Lady's call woke him in Deathknell with every page he had ever copied still in his head. Now he finishes what he used to transcribe: Arcane, because it is the school of the library, and Frost when the dead need to be patient. He hoards knowledge the way the living hoard gold. Every scroll a creature drops gets read on the spot, every book found on the road goes to Owen Thadd in the Magic Quarter, and the Warband's bags, ledgers and enchantments are his to keep, which is why the others call him the banker. A tailor and enchanter by trade; an apothecary's neighbour by address.
Hooks: Deathknell and Brill, the Undercity's Magic Quarter and Apothecarium, the City of Dalaran dungeon and its library quests, the Comprehension scrolls. Forever is Classic-era: the Forsaken are Sylvanas's newly freed dead, allied to the Horde and trusted by few.

Key decisions

Spec analysis

Baseline (all Mages)

Changes

Frostfire Bolt at level 40 (Fire and Frost at once, uses your better spell damage and the target's lower resistance) · Frost Blast at level 24 (1.5 sec cast, 40% slow, scales with Frostbolt talents) · Mage Armor regenerates more mana · Magic Attunement is baseline Official.

Comprehension

A new Mage minor tradeskill from level 6: Comprehend Scroll reads scrolls that creatures drop for temporary buffs (Scroll of Imbue Frost, Scroll of Rat Familiar). Failing turns you into a sheep for a while (Warcraft Tavern).

Watch-outs

Downranking was nerfed on Oct 8: low-rank spells get less from spell damage Reported. Arcane Blast's base damage and coefficient were cut 40% on Oct 15 in exchange for the Intellect stacks, so Intellect matters more to Arcane than to the other specs Official.

Arcane (leveling and 60)

Kit

Arcane Blast (11 points) stacks spell damage from Intellect; Missile Barrage (now row 1) makes Arcane Missiles free and fast; Arcane Concentration gives Clearcasting; Presence of Mind (21) for an instant Arcane Blast; Arcane Mind adds Intellect; Arcane Wrath (16, new) is a slow Fireball-strength nuke that scales with your mana pool Official.

Rotation

Stand at max range. Open with a Rank 1 Frostbolt to slow, cast Arcane Blast two or three times or until Missile Barrage procs, then Arcane Missiles, then repeat. Wand low-health targets; do not spend Clearcasting while Missile Barrage is up Reported (Icy Veins, Mobalytics).

Milestones

Arcane Blast at 20, Missile Barrage at 25, Presence of Mind at 30, Arcane Power at 40 Reported (Icy Veins; Mobalytics' level-30 build is 21/0/0).

Stat priority

Spell Power > Intellect > Hit > Crit > Haste > Spirit Reported; Intellect is weighted higher than for Frost or Fire because of the Arcane Blast stacks.

Frost (second spec, control)

Why keep it

Frostbite, Frost Nova, Ice Lance and Fingers of Frost make Frost the safest spec for pulls that go wrong and for the arcane-immune mana devourers in City of Dalaran. From level 40 it can sit beside Arcane as the second specialization.

Kit

Ice Lance (11 points, 200% to frozen targets since Oct 15), Ice Block (16), Cold Snap (21), Fingers of Frost, Shatter (3 points), Winter's Chill (reworked around Cone of Cold).

Fire (not planned)

Kit

Heating Up (Blizzard's name for Hot Streak): crits cut Pyroblast's cast, up to 3 stacks; Fire Power redesigned to 3 points on Oct 15; Critical Mass to 5 points; Wake of Fire reverted to Improved Fire Blast.

Verdict

Strong on paper at 60 but no part of this character's plan; the Fire build stays on the Mage talent page.

Gear and extras

• Violet Sorcerer's Vestments Reported: a set from the City of Dalaran dungeon (levels 28–33); the 5-piece bonus summons an Arcane Elemental for about 20 seconds, a pet for a pet-less class (Icy Veins).
• Dalaran Sewer Key (about level 30) Confirmed: the same Horde attunement as the other two, with its chain in the Troll Shaman playbook. Its arcane-immune mana devourers need Frost spells (or the Frost second spec). After it, Horde can walk Dalaran: supplies, a Mage trainer, stables (Wowhead).
• Your own cloth: the new tailored sets are Silky, Frothing and Netherfroth (Frost damage) and Flame, Fiery and Netherflame (Fire damage); no Arcane-damage line is published, so plain spell-damage and Intellect cloth is the Arcane pick until one is. Enchanting adds a wand and a staff (Brilliant Wand; Glimmering, Radiant, Soul- and Dreamstaff).
• Library books Reported: books found in the world go to Owen Thadd in the Undercity Magic Quarter, with rewards at 10, 20 and 25 (Method). Warcraft Tavern links them to a Research tradeskill that makes a Bundle of Scrolls once an hour in a library.
• Riding Reported: Apprentice Riding at 40 costs 100 gold and Journeyman at 60 costs 1,000 gold; the full riding detail is in the Troll Shaman playbook.

Still unknown (launch will tell)

• Does Cannibalize keep its Classic 2-minute cooldown and corpse rules in Forever, and how much drinking does it save while leveling?
• Which of the new Forever quests sit in Tirisfal Glades and Silverpine, and does Deathknell get a camping starter quest like The Great Outdoors?
• Where do Missile Barrage (row 1 since Oct 15) and Arcane Wrath (16 points) sit in the client tree, and what else moved?
• What does a tested level-60 Arcane build look like, and does the Fire crit dip beat going deeper into utility?
• Tailoring and Enchanting past 225: the beta capped professions there, so no tested route exists.
• Skill levels and sources for the new cloth sets and Enchanting crafts (wands, staves, idols).
• Is an Arcane-damage tailored cloth line coming, or does Arcane wear general spell-damage cloth?

Where to next