- Author: Amery
- Date: July 8, 2022
- Updated: August 7, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
Besides your gear and talents, there are 3 additional ways you as a player can increase your character’s power: gems, enchants, and consumables, which make your character significantly more powerful when combined correctly.
Many guilds and raid groups may not invite you at all if you don’t have the correct gems, enchants and consumables — but worry not, this guide will help you avoid that problem!
This gem will be your strongest option for the meta slot by a long shot.
Raw spell power gems will be your best option for gems in any socket, and particularly so in Red sockets. After you have activated your meta gem by socketing 2 Blue gems into your gear (as explained in the Blue section below), you will want to socket these gems into every other socket — unless there’s a useful socket bonus you could activate with a Yellow gem, as explained in the Yellow section below.
These gems are weaker than pure spell power gems. However, occasionally you may have an item with a Yellow socket that has a powerful socket bonus, such as +spell power, +haste or +crit. In those cases, you can socket one of the gems listed above.
If you’re under the hit cap (as explained in the Stat Priority section), you can use some Spell Power + Hit gems (Veiled Monarch Topaz / Veiled Ametrine) instead. These will be slightly stronger than pure spell power gems while you’re under the hit cap, but you generally don’t want to cap with gems.
You need 2 Blue gems in order to activate your Meta gem, and these gems are your best option. As much as possible, socket them into Blue sockets, so you activate their socket bonuses as well.
Ignore all other blue sockets, socketing red gems into them instead.
Enchants
This is your only viable option for this slot.
If you don’t quite have the Kirin Tor reputation necessary to buy it yet, you can temporarily use Arcanum of Dominance (purchased with 40 Stone Keeper’s Shard from Wintergrasp).
Players with the Inscription profession should use their profession-exclusive Master’s Inscription of the Storm enchant here, while everyone else uses Greater Inscription of the Storm.
If you don’t quite have the The Sons of Hodir reputation necessary to buy it yet, you can temporarily use Inscription of Dominance (purchased with 30 Stone Keeper’s Shard from Wintergrasp).
Players with the Tailoring profession should use their profession-exclusive Lightweave Embroidery enchant here, while everyone else uses Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed.
Players with the Engineering profession who do not have Tailoring can use Springy Arachnoweave instead. It is a good bit better than the default enchant, though for us Mages the slow fall effect isn’t useful, as we have a Slow Fall of our own!
This is your strongest option for this slot. If you’re slightly too low on gold, you can use the TBC-era Enchant Chest – Major Spirit enchant instead, which is a good bit cheaper without being significantly weaker.
Players with the Leatherworking profession should use their profession-exclusive Fur Lining – Spell Power enchant here, while everyone else uses Enchant Bracers – Superior Spellpower.
Additionally, players with the Blacksmithing profession should use Socket Bracer to add an extra socket to their bracers. It stacks with enchants.
Players with the Engineering profession should use their profession-exclusive Hyperspeed Accelerators enchant here, while everyone else uses Enchant Gloves – Exceptional Spellpower.
If you’re slightly shy off meeting your hit cap (explained in the Stat Priority section), you can use the Enchant Gloves – Precision enchants instead. This is more of a last resort, however — do not rely on this enchant for your hit cap.
Additionally, players with the Blacksmithing profession should use Socket Gloves to add an extra socket to their gloves. It stacks with enchants.
This is your only option for this slot.
This is your best option for this slot.
If you’re strapped for cash, you could use the more budget-friendly Shining Spellthread instead.
Players with the Engineering profession should use their profession-exclusive Nitro Boosts enchant here, while everyone else uses Enchant Boots – Icewalker.
However, the DPS increase of Enchant Boots – Icewalker isn’t particularly large, so you could also elect to use Enchant Boots – Tuskarr’s Vitality for some extra movement speed, which can occasionally save your life if you’re not an Engineer and thus lack access to Nitro Boosts.
Players with the Enchanting profession should use their profession-exclusive Enchant Ring – Assault enchant here. There are no other options.
If you have a staff, use Enchant Staff – Greater Spellpower. If you don’t, use the Enchant Weapon – Mighty Spellpower enchant instead.
Enchant Weapon – Black Magic is another powerful enchant you could use, giving you a random +250 haste rating proc that lasts 10 seconds. However, there are fights where you can’t really take advantage of this proc, so the pure spell power enchants will generally be slightly more consistent. This enchant is by no means bad however, it won’t disappoint you if you decide to give it a go — and we’d even recommend using it in Phases 1 & 2.
Consumables
The Flask of the Frost Wyrm is the strongest option for the flask / elixir slot.
If flasks are very expensive on your server, you could instead use a combination of the Spellpower Elixir and the Elixir of Mighty Mageblood. Note that these are significantly weaker than the flask, and they don’t persist through death, so if you’re wiping a lot in your raid, the flask may end up being cheaper anyway.
Mages have it easy with buff food — we can use a Fish Feast prepared by any Cook in the raid to gain the maximum amount of spell power possible. If your raid doesn’t have any cooks, or if you’d rather be cool and independent, you could use Firecracker Salmon instead — it confers the exact same benefit.
If you aren’t hit capped, you can also use the Snapper Extreme food in order to reach your cap. This is only a last resort however — do not rely on them for your cap.
The Potion of Wild Magic is our strongest potion. You will want to use it right before the fight starts — known as “pre-potting” — and then again when your cooldowns are ready again.
This obscure little consumable from the TBC era is a Fire Mage staple, offering us +80 Fire spell power, which is almost as much as 4 extra gems! Herbalists can farm it in Zangarmarsh and the Slave Pens dungeon.
If your raid has no Discipline Priest capable of giving you the Prayer of Spirit buff, you will want to use a Scroll of Spirit VIII, as it provides a decent chunk of bonus damage for you.
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