Magic Schools

Every spell and ability in the game belongs to one out of seven Magic schools, these are Arcane, Fire, Frost, Holy Nature, Physical, Shadow. Even utility and crowd control (CC) abilities have a Magic school. To find out what Magic school a damaging spell belongs to you can simply look at the tooltip and it displays what damage it deals. For example:

• Lightning Bolt deals Nature damage
• Shadow Bolt deals Shadow damage
• Frostbolt deals Frost damage

In modern World of Warcraft, Magic schools are primarily used to determine two things:

• How much damage amplification or reduction a spell receives.
• What Magic school is prevented following an interrupt such as Kick.

School Lockout

When a spell gets interrupted while being cast then the caster prevented from using that Magic school for X amount of seconds depending on the interrupt that was used.

For example, a Rogue interrupts Fireball with Kick resulting in a 3 second lockout of the Fire school. The Mage is still able to cast Frostbolt within the lockout period because it belongs to the Frost school.

If a Multi-school spell gets interrupted then the caster is prevented from using ALL Magic schools of the interrupted spell for X seconds.

For example, a Rogue interrupts Chaos Bolt with Kick resulting in a 3 second lockout to ALL Magic schools as Chaos is a combination of Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature, Shadow, Holy and Physical.

Damage Amplification

There are many different damage amplifications, some provided by Classes and other from boss mechanics. The most common ones are Chaos Brand and Mystic Touch. At a first glance these seem very basic but when you throw multi-school spells into the mix it gets interesting.

Multi-school damage abilities get to pick which type of damage it does on a target to do the most damage. Lets look at a few examples from a Paladin with Blades of Light talented:

• If the target has negative armor, Holystrike (Holy, Physical) deals physical damage because the target takes the most damage from it.
• If the target instead has increased armor above average amounts, the game calculates the spell as Holy damage.
• If the target has normal amounts of armor and is debuffed by Chaos Brand the spell is calculated as Holy damage cause it's increased by 5%.
• Multi-school also increases your scaling with buffs, everything Holystrike is increased by both Holy damage increases at the same as Physical damage increases. Because it counts as both at once.

Resistances

Although resistances played a big role in the earlier World of Warcraft expansions, they have almost completely disappeared from the game today, except for Racial passives.

• Draenei and Undead: Shadow Resistance
• Dwarf: Frost Resistance
• Night Elf and Tauren: Nature Resistance
• Gnome, Blood Elf and Nightborne: Arcane Resistance
• Lightforged Draenei: Holy Resistance
• Vulpera: Fire Resistance

While not a Magic school in the traditional sense, Physical abilities represent non-magical attacks. These include melee and ranged Physical attacks.

• Affected by Block, Parry, Dodge and Armor.
• Often amplified by Mystic Touch assuming you have a Monk in your group.
• Common spells:
  • Mortal Strike
  • Mutilate
  • Rising Sun Kick

• Arcane magic is often amplified by Chaos Brand assuming you have a Demon Hunter in your group.
• Common spells:
  • Arcane Blast
  • Polymorph

• Fire magic is often amplified by Chaos Brand assuming you have a Demon Hunter in your group.
• Common spells:
  • Fireball
  • Rain of Fire

• Frost magic is often amplified by Chaos Brand assuming you have a Demon Hunter in your group.
• Common spells:
  • Frostbolt
  • Frost Shock

• Holy magic is often amplified by Chaos Brand assuming you have a Demon Hunter in your group.
• Common spells:
  • Holy Fire
  • Flash Heal

• Nature magic is often amplified by Chaos Brand assuming you have a Demon Hunter in your group.
• Common spells:
  • Healing Touch
  • Chain Lightning

• Shadow magic is often amplified by Chaos Brand assuming you have a Demon Hunter in your group.
• Common spells:
  • Shadow Bolt
  • Mind Flay

Multi-school spells in World of Warcraft are spells that involve more than one Magic school, combining the properties, mechanics, and effects of the involved schools. These spells offer unique benefits that normal Magic schools don't.

Below you can see a complete list of all Multi-schools currently in the game.

• Every ability in World of Warcraft belongs to a Magic school and there's 7 base schools in total.
• Magic schools dictate how the damage of abilities is calculated.
• Multi-school abilities have another layer of complexity to them and they are flexible depending on the scenario you are in.

Credits

Written By: Wolfdisco

Reviewed By: Xerwo, Rycn