Blink

Oh by the way, you're making everyone else close their eyes for a second as you run forward 20 yards, contrary to the belief that the mage is actually teleporting.

On a off-topic of what it does, note how the icon is a Dwarf...

This is a novelty trick that a lot of mages already know but this is for new mages.
Every mage is familiar with the spin jump when casting fireblast and CoC etc.

Blink can benefit from the spin jump as well especially in crowded areas with trees brush buildings and alleyways and even in open fields.

Thing about blink is it takes you from Point A to Point B in the a straight line so most people can predict where your going. Trick is to use that predictability against them.
The spin jump can change your direction fast and it gets your out of their screen LOS. For example … a rogue chases you and you’re trying to kite him. When he gets close pop ice barrier of fire ward or something and jump spin and blink 180 ending up behind him (after awhile you can do this fast making the spin unoticable). By the time he stops running and turns around you got your distance whereas blinking forward would give you less. He kept running because he assumed you’re moving “away” from him.
Also running between to obstacle and turning the left corner and spin blink 180 to the right side will confuse your pursuer. So many times I did this just to watch them chase a phantom down stairs and corridors going the wrong direction.
Little novelty that I wanted to share.

As per this guy's http://209.85.48.12/9558/48/upload/p3681774.png calculations, normal 100% run speed is 7 yards per second.

Which would be 7*60 = 420 yards per minute

Blink on a 15 second cooldown could be used 4 times in a minute, and moves you forwards 20 yards, so 20*4 = 80 yards per minute. This means if you use blink every time it's off cooldown, you're moving at 420+80 = 500 yards per minute.

This is an 80/420*100 = 19.0% speed increase overall or 8.34 yards per second.

While not as much as a Hunter's Aspect of the Pack or a Druid's Travel Form a roughly 20% speed increase is still considerable and it has the added bonus of effectively stacking with run speed improvements such as a minor speed enchant.

An example of this would be a minor run speed boot enchant, which yeilds an extra 8% to normal run speed. With the above numbers, 8% of 420 yards per minute would be 33.6 yards per minute and adding to that the 80 yards per minute from Blink you would recieve 533.6 yards per minute. This is a total of 113.6/420*100 = 27.0% run speed increase. And with that you're moving just about as quick as that pesky Hunter with the Aspect of the Pack up!

Maybe not the most useful information, but interesting. (Feel free to correct my maths if I'm off, I'm an arts student ^^)

Ha! In an attempt to test out the wonders of the Arcane, this foolish mage-in-training faced off against the fearsome Undercity Elevator door in defiance of its closed, operational state. I Blinked right through said door and fell to my death. Will not disobey the elevator again.

Blink has other defensive uses.

Arcane Missile auto tracks a target, this we all know, but what Arcane Missile will not do is track a target goes from being in front to being in back. A 180 degree change in the fire arc turns Arcane Missile off. Therefore when dueling or simply PVPing Mages, Blinking "through them" is an effective way for you to stop AM. And since AM's costs is upfront, your opponent just lost a good deal of mana for their trouble.

Warriors like using charge and intercept to not only close distance but to stun you. By blinking at them then frost novaing you removed their chances of doing either. Some might call this a bad call, but I have defeated more warriors by getting close than I have at range.

Hunters have a sweet spot where they cannot melee or use ranged weapons. By blinking toward them you can stop their aimed shot (a popular opener) and cancel their auto shot. After that use Cone of Cold first and circle around them, if they wing clip you use frost nova.

Lastly I use blink to close distances with ranged mobs when farming. General speaking I fireball twice, get into fireblast range, fireblast, cast blink loot corpse move to the next mob. The move shaves a few seconds from your farming time. Since I farm a lot in a game session a few seconds per ranged mob over the course of an hour or two actually gives you a noticeable speed return.

Back in the day, Dwarves used to be able to be Mages. However, this was later changed so that Alliance would no longer have more race+class combinations than the Horde.

Just a small correction, Blink cd was reduced to 15 secs ages ago ;) PS: I know that you posted this when 2.0.1 patch was on live, but it's important to be exact

With a 15 sec cooldown, that's a passive 33.3% movement speed bonus.

With this spell, mages are the only class that can run underwater. Just swim all the way to the floor and blink with auto run on. You will keep running (and moving quickly) as long as you don't turn. Very useful for underwater quests.

If you cannot find Blink in your spellbook, you may have talented into [spell=212653], which replaces it. Check your talent tree for this spell.

It's worth remembering that this spell removes you from the frost tombs Prince Keleseth uses in Utguarde Keep.

Am i the only one wondering what the Icon actually represents ?

In a blink of an eye.

Don't forget what blink really is. (from the book "Blinking Rules & Regulations") "-Page 2- Rule #1: Never blink into space occupied by anyone else. Blink, as it has been taught, replaces the air and water from the caster's target position, to the caster's starting position. The spells success and widespread use is based on it's simple elegance: The real objective of the spell is to replace the caster's body with whatever is in front of them - the fact that the caster is moved to that area is the side-effect."

There is more use of this then just that. For instance, you can get behind the invisible wall in the AV cave, and you can also use this spell to cancel your opponents' frostbolt by teleporting behind them. Great spell, very annoying and frustrating for other classes. :P

my friend only just found out at lvl 64 that blink removes stun after i told him....so you gotta be open minded.

You're kidding me right? Tell him to read the tooltip next time he learns a new ability. It clearly reads: "Also frees the caster from stuns and bonds."

so mages cant blink till lvl 16?
how do they keep the eyes moist? O.o

Blink is right up there with Berserking for Trolls. If it's up, you should probably be using it.

I cannot count the number of times this has saved my butt, or shortened my trip. 20 yards might not SEEM like a lot, but remember. It's got a 15 second cooldown, so over an hour of travel at 4 times a minute, that's 240 Blinks (your mana pool should hold up just fine).
That's 4800 yards you've moved.

I dont think anyone would care but the Hunter spell Distracting Shot http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=20736 has the same icon as Blink

Against warriors, youre better off saving this for the intercept and frost novaing the charge, because if you blink the charge away, they've got enough rage to turn around and intercept you for 3 seconds and if your blink is on cooldown that's means a usually deadly hamstring and whatever damage they do in three seconds.

They can only intercept you if you are between 8-25 yards away. I stay around 7 ish and from there I strafe sideways, using CoC when necessary. Nothing pisses off a warrior more than having a spellcaster who is very close, but not close enough to hit with melee.

@ Bangy. Your Blink as a Slow-Fall guide is slightly off, you can blink from quite a height and still land on the ground unharmed, you do not need to risk death and blink right before impact. After a bit of practice it becomes easy. Also a few tips which i see enemy mages not doing....

- Blink behind someone if they're casting at you. Will interrupt their cast by them being now, the wrong way.
- Blink out of frost nova!!! I've dropped many enemy mages simply because they've chosen to stand in Frost Nova giving me Shatter Crits, don't let this happen to you!
- Try not to blink from charge in a 1v1, the enemy will instantly Re-Stance and Intercept, often getting most mages killed. There are alot of ways to beat this, which you should discover with experience.
- If you're Flag carrying, then don't spam blink, save it until you actually need it, like when the rogue feels heroic. Or in a BG in general, it's generally not a smart idea to burn Blink cooldown whenever you can.

Just a few tips which may have been said already (sorry if i've repeated them), which i find alot of mages don't do, but should do. You never know....my friend only just found out at lvl 64 that blink removes stun after i told him....so you gotta be open minded.

Full Field Marshal's Regalia also decreases your blink cooldown by 4 seconds, which is very useful. Remember to blink whenever you need to, the cooldown is only 15 seconds.

I just started playing my mage again after a couple years. I'm wondering where the spell "Blink" went to? I have looked at the skill trees, and I still can't find it. Can someone please enlighten me? Thank you in advance.

If you happen to run across a weeping valkyr statue, I'd recommend not using this ability.

Female trolls helped us learn how. They've managed not to blink for over six years, after all.

The figure in the icon looks like the head of an Archmage, most likely in the middle of performing the spell. http://www.wowwiki.com/Image:Antonidas.jpg Notice the features of Antonidas (an Archmage, who looks like any other from WC3), the skullcap, the beard, even the nose. Of course, it's not as noticeable with the Blink icon, but the outline features look quite similar, at least in my opinion.

not avaible to female trolls

Thanks lol I thought I was going crazy. Boosted a mage to do human heritage and was like where is my blink....

By Azalon on 12/12/2006 (Patch 2.0.1) he wrote his comment way before the few patches before when the dead zone was removed

It's manipulation of the mind; you perceive the time period to be one second, but the mage actually made and ate a sandwich in that time period, on top of walking casually 20 yards away: it was actually an hour. Why don't we just pwn during that time? That'd take the sport out of the game and it wouldn't be fair to everyone else.

I don't know why this comment is getting down rated. This is probably the most useful post on the subject of Blink.

this spell is OP as hell now, a 15 sec cd stun dispell

Hunters' "dead zone" was removed a few patches ago.

This is also good to prevent fall damage. Just blink the second before u will hit the ground.

Dwarfs are able to become mages again in the upcoming expansion, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. And strangely enough, they are becoming Warlocks too. (Dark Iron are the only dwarf warlocks.)

For me at least another aspect is very important.

When Warsong Gulch takes too long and the flag carriers get the debuff, if I'm not mistaken, a mage through blink is the only char which can have some extra speed as flag carrier.

2020: For Mages who are rebooting their old toons, don't freak out like I did when Blink no longer existed in the spellbook.

Blink is now a talent called [spell=212653].

Am i the only one wondering what the Icon actually represents ?

Blink was originally a warden spell in WC3, so it's always had more of a "magic" rather than "ninja" nature to it. Shadowstep is a lot more appropriate to the rogue class than blink, imo

Blinking into or out of an instance portal does not put blink on cd.

With the lag between you and the server, and the other player and the server, it is impossible to maintain a 3 yard window of distance for very long. Also note that the range on piercing howl (an AOE hamstring which any PVP warrior will have) will hit you from up to 10 yards away. Dancing in a warrior's "dead zone" is not an effective tactic anymore.

Why would a mage want their hearth set to Shatt after they learn how to teleport there? my 67 mage's is set it to BEM where he's questing. If all you're doing is the raid/heroic/daily grind, set it to Area 52 or Evergrove to shave major time on the SSO dailies

I think it depends heavily on the player.He may see it was better while you and those who purged the comment don't.

You can jump 4 tiles in the Ironforge Commons with this thing

Very detailed comment about blinking and imaginative uses! I've only used it for escaping. Thanks.

The icon were also in warcraft 3, so I doubt this is the cause...

I found the default Blink icon to be a little dark - making it slightly harder to watch the cooldown in peripheral vision. A simple macro: /cast Blink ...with a brighter colored icon made this a lot easier.

0.o, after playing a mage for some time only now I notice that the icon for blink is a face of a dwarf with sparkle coming out of his eye. I never knew what it was until now. The best way I use blink is when I'm being followed by an enemy I do a 180 camera turn jump press right mouse button and blink that always confuses them then I use invisible.

Same, kept looking for blink in spell book and talent trees.