Can an Orc be a Mage in Forever?

Yes, per the press coverage of Blizzard's briefing: the announcement trailer shows an Orc Mage. Blizzard's own posts have not listed it yet, so the pairing is sourced to Game Informer and PC Gamer until they do.

Can a Skyborne be a Mage?

Only an Alliance-aligned one. Blizzard's recap says Alliance-aligned Skyborne pursue the arcane legacy of their ancestors and gain access to the Mage class; Horde-aligned Skyborne get Shaman instead.

Is Frost still the raiding spec?

In Classic, mostly: the first raids are full of fire-immune enemies, so Frost carries Molten Core and Blackwing Lair and Fire takes over later. Forever's raids start on December 9 with Barrow Deeps and Hyjal Summit, and which spec they favour is unknown until then.

Mage in World of Warcraft: Forever

The short answer

The Mage is Classic’s ranged damage benchmark: cloth, mana, Frostbolt or Fireball, and the utility every group wants, from Polymorph to conjured water to a portal home. Forever adds the Orc and the Alliance-aligned Skyborne, who Blizzard says “pursue the arcane legacy of their ancestors and gain access to the Mage class” Confirmed Blizzard. Everything below describes the class as Classic shipped it; the beta opens September 17, and this page changes as we play.

Roles: Damage
Style: Ranged
Races: 6 · 2 new in Forever

Who can play it

Alliance
- Human
- Gnome
Horde
- Undead
- Troll
- Orc new one of the six new combinations in Blizzard’s Deep Dive recap; shown in the announcement trailer. Blizzard — Deep Dive panel recap · Game Informer · PC Gamer
Skyborne
- Skyborne new (Alliance-aligned only) Alliance-aligned Skyborne only. Blizzard — What’s Next panel recap · Wowhead — Skyborne First Look

Classic's pairings per Wowhead — Classic races database and Warcraft Wiki — Playable race , checked 2026-09-13; Blizzard has not restated them for Forever and has not published the full list of additions. Pairings marked new are the ones Blizzard or its trailer has shown. Filter all nine classes in the class picker .

How it plays

Frost, Fire, Arcane. Frostbolt slows and Frost Nova roots, which makes Frost the safe spec in the open world and the working one in the first raids; Fire is the higher ceiling once enemies stop resisting it; Arcane supports both.
Polymorph. The crowd control every dungeon plans around: one enemy becomes a sheep until hit.
Conjured food and water. Free between fights, and the reason a Mage never drinks from a vendor or waits for a group’s mana.
Portals and teleports. Teleports to the capitals from level 20, portals for the whole party from 40. Worth a tip in every city.
Area damage. Blizzard, Arcane Explosion and Flamestrike make the Mage the class that clears a room, and the class that farms one.

Leveling

Frost. Frostbolt, Frost Nova, back away, repeat, with conjured water so the downtime is short. A Mage is fragile and dies to a bad pull, and fast anyway because almost nothing reaches it. Evocation at 20 and the first teleport are the two milestones.

What Forever changes

Alliance-aligned Skyborne “pursue the arcane legacy of their ancestors and gain access to the Mage class.”

Confirmed Blizzard — What’s Next panel recap

Blizzard’s Deep Dive recap names six new race and class combinations: Gnome Priest, Human Hunter, Dwarf Shaman, Orc Mage, Troll Warlock and Undead Paladin, “with more planned for future updates.”

Confirmed Blizzard — Deep Dive panel recap
Talent trees keep Classic’s structure: the same number of rows, milestone talents at 11, 21 and 31 points, and a new 16-point milestone. Some talents are unchanged from patch 1.12, some adjusted, and key class buffs (Divine Spirit, Blessing of Kings, Improved Mark of the Wild) are now baseline. Each race gets two active and two passive racial abilities, reworked to be stronger and more distinct.

Confirmed Blizzard — Deep Dive panel recap
Combat keeps Classic’s pace: an ordinary creature takes a solo player “roughly 10–15 seconds to defeat,” crowd control still matters in dungeons, and damage dealers still respect threat. Spell, melee and ranged hit chance are combined into one stat, as are the three crit chances. Paladins are the first class detailed; “more class and race details are planned through future videos and articles.”

Confirmed Blizzard — Deep Dive panel recap
Blizzard: class identity “remains central,” with “new abilities, new race and class combinations, and updates designed to preserve the feel of the original game.” The updates “focus on talents and abilities you notice, meaningful trade-offs, and reasons to value what each class brings.”

Confirmed Blizzard — What’s Next panel recap
The Battle.net Shop describes “updated class design” and “an expanded list of race and class options, including Dwarf Shaman and Forsaken Paladin.”

Confirmed Battle.net Shop — product page

What we will check in the beta

The Orc Mage: its trainer, its starting spells and whether Orgrimmar gained a Mage quarter.
The Alliance-aligned Skyborne Mage and what it starts with on Zephras Isle.
Any new abilities or talent changes in Arcane, Fire and Frost, against the Classic baseline.
Whether the new zones and dungeons resist Fire the way Molten Core does.
Teleports and portals: whether the new places get destinations.