The Mists of Pandaria Mage
August 25, 2012 in Mage, Mists of Pandaria
With Mists of Pandaria the talent system, as known in Cataclysm and earlier, has been flushed and replaced by a completely new system. Some of the old talents are dead, others have been rolled into the new talents and abilities. This will mean that your effectiveness will more due to your skills in using your abiltites rather than having the “best” talent build. Well, Ok, it was always that way, but now it’s more so.
Other changes:Â
- The ranged slot is gone. You can still use wands, just not equip them and your main weapon at the same time. On the other hand, it sounds like wands will be buffed.
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Contents
Mists of Pandaria Mage Talents
Any spec of mage can pick any one talent from any row, for six total talents at 90. Yes, this does mean that Frost Mages can have Living Bomb at 90. See the individual mage pages for actual builds. Talents can be changed, one at a time, just like glyphs. Click the talent you want to change, spend a dust/powder/tome, and pick the new talent. Or, your trainer can wipe the whole list for you (for a few gold pieces.)
This is now a build, those will be shown on the individual spec pages. This is just to give you a clear idea of what’s coming.
See below the image for talent descriptions.
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Mage Talent Descriptions.
As mentioned above, you can swap talents just like glyphs. Don’t like one? Play with another.
| Level 15
Casting |
Presence of Mind – Causes your next spell that has a cast time to be instant. | Scorch zaps the enemy for some damage and can be cast while moving. Nice for fishing for Pyroblast procs. | Ice Floes – Allows you to move while casting and channeling the next 2 Mage spells that have a base cast or channel time less than 4 sec. This spell may be cast while a cast time spell is in progress and is not on the global cooldown. |
| Level 30
Defense |
Temporal Shield – Envelops you briefly in a temporal shield and damage taken while shielded will be healed back over a few seconds. This spell is usable while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep. | Blazing Speed – Suppresses movement slowing effects and increases your movement speed for 1 sec. May only be activated after taking a melee or spell hit greater than 2% of your total health, or after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor. This spell may be cast while a cast time spell is in progress and is not on the global cooldown. | Ice Barrier – Instantly shields you, absorbing some damage and lasting for 1 min. While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be delayed by damage. |
| Level 45Control | Ring of Frost – Summons a Ring of Frost at the target location. Enemies entering the ring will become frozen. 10 yd radius. | Ice Ward – Places an Ice Ward on a friendly target. When an enemy strikes the target, all nearby enemies within will become frozen in place for a few seconds. | Frostjaw – Silences and freezes the target in place for a few seconds. Lasts half as long versus Player targets. |
| Level 60
Yikes! |
Greater Invisibility – Instantly makes the caster invisible, reducing all threat, and removing two damage over time effects. While invisible, you are untargetable by enemies. Lasts 20 sec. Invisibility is cancelled if you perform any actions. Damage taken is grealty reduced while invisible and for 3 sec after coming out of invisibility. | Cauterize – An attack which would otherwise kill you will instead bring you to 50% of your maximum health, and you will burn for 40% of your maximum health over the next 6 sec. | Cold Snap – When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown of your Ice Block, Frost Nova, and Cone of Cold spells. Instantly restores 30% of your health. This spell is usable while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep, and is not on the global cooldown. |
| Level 75
Bombs |
Nether Tempest – Places a DoT on the target which deals Arcane damage over several sec. Each time Nether Tempest deals damage, an additional 50% of that damage is also dealt to a random target within 10 yards. | Living Bomb – The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking Fire damage over several sec. When this effect ends, or the target dies, it explodes to deal additional Fire damage to up to 3 enemies within 10 yards. | Frost Bomb – Places a Frost Bomb on the target. After a few seconds the bomb explodes Frost damage to the primary target, and also some Frost damage to all other targets within 10 yds. All affected targets are greatly slowed for a brief time. |
| Level 90
Evocation |
Invocation – Reduces the cooldown of Evocation to 10 sec, but you passively regenerate 50% less mana. Completing an Evocation causes you to deal increased spell damage for 40 sec. | Rune of Power – Replaces Evocation. Places a Rune of Power on the ground for 1 min. While standing in your own Rune of Power, your mana regeneration is increased by 100% and your spell damage is increased by 15%. Only 2 Runes of Power can be placed at one time. | Incanter’s Ward- Places a magical ward on you, absorbing damage for 8 sec. Absorbed damage will restore a portion of your maximum mana. When this effect ends, you gain increased spell damage for 15 sec, based on the absorption used.Also passively increases spell damage by 6% and increases mana regeneration by 65%. This effect is deactivated while Incanter’s Ward is on cooldown. |
Mage Abilities
These abilities are shared by all mages. Some of the old (Cataclysm) talents and glyphs have been rolled into these abilities, such as Improved Counterspell, at level 70. Other Mage abilities, glyphs, and talents are dead. Also note that the levels at which some abilities are obtained has been changed.
Symbiosis is a new Druidic ability. You gain a Druidic ability and the Druid gets one of yours.  (see video for more info.) All Mages will get Healing Touch from the Druid and the Druid Guardian spec gets Frost Armor, Feral gets Frost Nova, Balance gets Mirror Images, and Restoration gets Ice Block
Healing Touch should be rather nice in PvP and even in PvE, when aggro comes your way.
Mage Abilities by Specialization
Each spec of Mage (and the same with all other classes) gets several unique abilities as they level. Frostfire bolt is the basic bolt, other attacks are for the individual specialties. At this time it looks like Fire will still value Crit, for the free Pyroblasts while the others will probably value Haste over Crit. But, we’ll see as time goes on.
| Arcane Blast | 10 | Pyroblast | 10 | Frostbolt | 7 |
| Arcane Charge | 10 | Fireball | 12 | Summon Water Elemental | 10 |
| Arcane Barrage | 12 | Inferno Blast | 24 | Fingers of Frost | 24 |
| Arcane Missiles | 24 | Critical Mass | 36 | Icy Veins | 36 |
| Slow | 36 | Dragon’s Breath | 62 | Frozen Orb | 62 |
| Arcane Power | 62 | Combustion | 77 | Brain Freeze | 77 |
| Mastery: Mana Adept | 80 | Mastery: Ignite | 80 | Mastery: Frostburn | 80 |
| Pyromaniac | 85 | ||||
| Create and spend arcane charges to build more power and to drive Arcane Barrage. | And there was much burnination. Crit happy. Chance for free Pyroblasts. Lots of Dots. | Chance for free spells, lots of freezing and slowing, more damage against frozen. | |||
Mage Glyphs
The prime glyphs, from Cataclysm, are now dead. Majors and Primes have been rolled into one category. In addition, the prime slot is also gone, so you will have six total glyphs at level 75. Three major and three minor. (One each at levels 25, 50, and 75.)
Majors cover all damage, cooldown, and other spell effect modifications.
Minor glyphs are now pretty much purely cosmetic, or teach minor stuff.
Hover over the links for descriptions. CD = CoolDown
Major Glyphs |
Minor Glyphs |
| Glyph of Frostfire Bolt - reduced cast time | Glyph of the Penguin – poly into penguin |
| Glyph of Remove Curse – increase damage | Glyph of Arcane Language – comprehend allies racial languages |
| Glyph of Arcane Power – increased duration and CD | Glyph of Illusion – look like someone else |
| Glyph of Water Elemental – improves elemental | Glyph of Mirror Image – cast appropriate to spec |
| Glyph of Slow – Arc. Blast now slows. | Glyph of Conjure Familiar – conjure a familar stone |
| Glyph of Deep Freeze – DF is off global CD | Glyph of the Monkey – poly into monkey |
| Glyph of Counterspell – improves CS | Glyph of Momentum – blink in the direction you’re moving |
| Glyph of Fire Blast – better detonations | Glyph of Crittermorph – poly critters |
| Glyph of Armors – reduces cast time, better armor | Glyph of the Porcupine – poly into porcupine |
| Glyph of Arcane Explosion – bigger radius | Glyph of Loose Mana – restores mana over a few seconds |
| Glyph of Blink – more distance | |
| Glyph of Evocation – restores health | |
| Glyph of Combustion – better damage, longer CD | |
| Glyph of Frost Nova – reduced CD | |
| Glyph of Ice Block – free Frost Nova | |
| Glyph of Ice Lance – hits additional target | |
| Glyph of Cone of Cold – more damage | |
| Glyph of Invisibility – faster movement | |
| Glyph of Mana Gem – better mana gem | |
| Glyph of Polymorph – removes DoTs | |
| Glyph of Icy Veins – more damage | |
| Glyph of Spellsteal – adds small heal |
Gems and Enchants
Enchants require iLevel 372 items, so you will be able to enchant your better gear with the new stuff. Gems require iLevel 417, so you will not be able to put those yummy new M of P gems into your heroic raid/PvP gear.
Here are the M of P gems, you’ll find these gems and the Cata gems on the individual mage pages.
Spell Penetration is being changed into PvP Power.
Red:
- Brilliant Serpent’s Eye (MoP): +320 Int, requires Jewelcrafting 550
- Brilliant Pandarian Garnet (MoP): +120 Int
Yellow:
- Smooth Serpent’s Eye (MoP:) +480 Crit, Self-Only Jewelcrafting 550
- Smooth Sunstone (MoP:) +240 Crit
- Quick Serpent’s Eye (MoP:) +480 Haste, Requires Jewelcrafting 550
- Quick Sunstone (MoP:) +240 Haste
- Fractured Serpent’s Eye (Mop:) 480 Mastery, self-only, Requires Jewelcrafting 550
- Fractured Sunstone (Mop:) +240 Mastery
- Mystic Sunstone (MoP): +240 Resilience
Blue:
- Perfect Stormy Lapis Lazuli (MoP:) +320 PvP Power
- Stormy River’s Heart (MoP:) +240 PvP power
Orange: Matches a Red or Yellow socket
- Reckless Sardonyx (MoP:) 100 Int & 200 Haste
- Reckless Vermilion Onyx (MoP:) 80 Int & 160 Haste
- Reckless Tiger Opal (MoP:) 60 Int & 120 Haste
- Artful Sardonyx (MoP:) +100 Int & +200 Mastery
- Artful Vermilion Onyx (MoP:) +80 Int & +160 Mastery
- Artful Tiger Opal (MoP:) +60 Int & +120 Mastery
- Potent Sardonyx (MoP:) +100 Int & +200 Crit
- Potent Vermilion Onyx (MoP:) +80 Int & +160 Crit
- Potent Tiger Opal (MoP:) +60 Int & +120 Crit
Meta:
- Burning Primal Diamond (MoP): +216 Int and Increased Crit damage.
Cogwheel: Cogwheels are loaded into sockets on Engie items, such as: Reinforced Bio-Optic Killshades and require you to maintain a 525 Engineeringskill.
- Quick Tinker’s Gear (MoP): +567 Haste
- Smooth Tinker’s Gear (MoP:) +567 Crit rating
- Fractured Tinker’s Gear (MoP:) +567 Mastery
Mage Enchants
Again, Cata enchants are shown on the spec pages. Min iLevel for the M of P enchants is 372. Upgrade your nice gear as soon as you can afford to do so.
Short on gold? If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Tycoon Addon can do about about fixing your poverty.
Main Hand/Two-Handed:
- Enchant Weapon – Jade Spirit (MoP): Sometimes increases Int by 1650, might increase Spirit by 750 if mana is low.
Off-Hand:
- Enchant Weapon – Jade Spirit (MoP): Sometimes increases Int by 1650, might increase Spirit by 750 if mana is low.
- Enchant Off-Hand – Major Intellect (MoP): +165 Int
Helm enchants are going away
Shoulders:
- Secret Crane Wing Inscription (MoP:) – 520 Int and 100 Crit rating.
Cloak:
- Enchant Cloak – Superior Intellect (MoP): +180 Int
- Lightweave Embroidery – attacks have chance to increase Int by 580 for 15 sec (2,000 in M of P,) requires tailoring 500
Chest:
- Enchant Chest – Glorious Stats (MoP): +80 to all stats
- PvP – Enchant Chest – Super Resilience (MoP): +200 Resilience
Bracers:
- Enchant Bracer – Super Intellect (MoP): +170 Int
- Socket Bracer – Pop in a gem, requires Blacksmithing 400
Gloves:
- Enchant Gloves – Greater Haste (MoP): +170-Haste
- Socket Gloves – Pop in a gem, requires Blacksmithing 400
Belt:
- Ebonsteel Belt Buckle: Gem slot for a nice Int gem
Leggings:
- Greater Pearlescent Spellthread (MoP): +285 Int and +165 Spirit
- Greater Cerulean Spellthread (MoP): +285 Int and +165 Crit
Boots:
- Enchant Boots – Greater Precison (MoP): +175 Hit rating
- Enchant Boots – Pandaren’s Step (MoP:) +140 Mastery, slight run speed increase.
Rings:
- Enchant Ring – Greater Intellect (MoP): +160 Int, Requires Enchanting 550
- Get to 90 ASAP, regardless of spec or current level
- Always updated for new patches
- You’ll never need to look at your quest log again.
- Get your cop here
There are some changes coming with 
. The Cataclysm talent system has been completely scrapped in favor of a newer, simpler one. Many of the old talents are dead and gone, as are some of the abilities. Others have changed a bit or become the new talents or abilities.
Take all your Cataclysm builds and chuck ‘em. Â They’are all dead and useless. Mists of Pandaria is revising everything. All classes will share a pool of abilities, as they always have, but each spec in each class will have a set of unique abilities that define that spec. These abilities will be learned from your trainer, as you level, just like any others.
