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Alter Time

Alter Time
1% of base mana

Instant	1.5 min cooldown

Requires Mage
Requires level 30

Alters the fabric of time, returning you to your current location and health when cast a second time, or after 10 sec. Effect negated by long distance or death.

Spell Details

Duration

20 seconds

School

Arcane

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

Magic

GCD category

n/a

Cost

1% of base mana

Range

0 yards (Self)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

1.5 minutes

GCD

0 seconds

Effect #1

Summon (Past Self)

Effect #2

Trigger Spell

	Alter Time

Flags

Guides

Mage DPS Guide

Raid and Class
cooldown list.

Warlords of Draenor
Mage Changes

[Outdated] Arcane Mage
PvE Guide 5.4

Comments

Comment by selvin

Should be very helpful for trivilizing raid damage in pve, it'll be especially interesting considering that you can't be 1 shot if you take cauterize, so for those 4 seconds, you'll always go back to your original health if cauterize doesn't kill you before Alter Time wears off.

Hopefully a high skill ability, since planning ahead will be so important.

Comment by MrWeirdGuy

When it says it returns conditions, does that include cooldowns? Double Presence of Mind could be pretty nice.

Comment by UlarnekofArygos

I am really curious about the distance this thing has..
Edit: Despite being downvoted for who knows why.. If you rocket boot away, alter time will indeed break, although I don't believe you can fall fast enough for it to break from falling in six seconds.

Comment by SAMMCKAY

I cant' wait to see the outcome of this spell in MoP. If it triggers CD resets aswell that would be awesome, but it would be QQ'd about by other classes and it doesnt say anything about CD resets in the tooltip. :(

Comment by Furydeath

Right now it does NOT reset any spells used during the 4 seconds. All it does it return you to the spot , your HP, and mana and any debuff you might have gotten in the time used.

Comment by Noobjuice

This will probably come in handy on 1 boss in MoP. There will be a debuff from a bosses spell that you will be able to dodge because of this leaving you the only one alive to kill the boss by yourself and then ninja the loot and /gquit, rinse and repeat.

Comment by nyynaeve

If it resets cooldowns on abilities, spells, or trinkets:
1. use Alter Time
2. use cooldowns
3. after 4 seconds, use cooldowns
This would be awesome but really strong

If it doesn't reset cooldowns:
1. use cooldowns
2. wait for trinket procs, then use Alter Time
3. enjoy another 4 sec of full buffs/etc
Also pretty good, gives an extra few casts at full power

Or use it for utility

Comment by Kamineko

For me, it seems like an underpowered Lay on Hands for it does not necessarily restores you to full health and it can only affect the caster, but it can be used to clear any debuffs acquired during those 4 seconds, which is a plus. However, the tooltip does not mention what defines "moves too far away".

Comment by laxu

any1 knows how long of a cooldown does this spell have?

Comment by Iesdi

This spell is the most interesting decision blizzard made in MoP, in my honest opinion. Everybody comment on it from PvE perspective, but DO NOT underrate this in PvP!

It seems like a very high skillcap spell, mainly based on fast and proper reactions, and if used right, a deadly weapon.
1. You can have 8 seconds of Temporal Shield instead of 4 and basically heal back more than a druid can?
2. It resets your debuffs, so you can double block just like in vanilla, since it will remove the hibernate debuff caused by ice block, and make much rogues mad.
3. You can fake jumps from Blade's Edge arena, just like warlocks, in the very proper moment.
4. If you activate it few seconds before a poly, fear or any other CC, Alter Time will remove it and still KEEP the DR on you.

The possibilities of this spell are endless, and as a dedicated frost mage, I truly thank Blizzard for giving us so interesting toy to play with!
p.s. You can be 101% sure that it will NOT reset cooldowns. This will just be too overpowered and stupid to do.

p.s.s. Possible exploit: Take WSG flag, Alter Time, cap, go back in time, CAP AGAIN? Remember, the flag is a BUFF!

Comment by sas148

If it works like it should it won't reset cooldowns, but since it says buffs and debuffs you can still do some crazy awesome things with it. Remember pressence of mind is a BUFF until a spell with a cast time is used. Sooo that means it will be possible to cast pyroblast instant 4 times in a row.
Here is how
proc hot streak (which should be very easy with critical mass, shatter, and inferno blast)
pop pressence of mind
use any trinkets
cast alter time to "copy" your character per say
blast 2 instant pyros with hot streak and POM
cast alter time to revert back to previous location with previous buffs
blast 2 more pyros
and you can add an inferno blast and combustion afterwards to make the biggest DOT ever if a good amount of your pyros were crits.

I'll prolly stay frost and pop alter time after I proc a brain freeze, a couple finger of frosts, and POM.
Lance - Deep freeze - instant FFB - instant FFB - alter back - instant FFB - instant FFB - lance - lance

Comment by Norrinir

The distance before the spell effect is negated is about 100 yards.

This is about what your ground mount can travel in those 6 seconds (not counting mounting up). For most of tasks this should be plenty, but keep in mind that you can easily outrun it if you try (rocket boots, flying mounts, warlock's Gateway, etc).

You can also cancel the effect by cancelling the buff Alter Time applies.

Actually, I should say about five Blinks. This information is based on extensive testing involving portal to Shattrath and Blink, if anyone's wondering.
While this might not seem very useful, consider this situation: you stand on a hill and some bloodthirsty player wants to kill you, you cast Alter Time and jump down. Your assassin has two choices: (1) follow you down the hill only to have you reappear back at the top again or (2) stand there waiting for you to reappear after those 6 seconds - but alas, you cancel the buff at the very last moment, giving you six seconds worth of distance.

Comment by Slanor

This spell is a double-edged sword, but you can game it in your favor usually.

For best use you need one one-use trinket and one proc trinket. Wait for the proc trinket go to, then hit on use, then fish for Pyroblast! procs. Hit Presence of Mind, Alter Time, Pyro, Pyro, <probably fireballs or living bomb>, Pyro, Pyro. It is especially powerful during Blood Lust/Heroism/Time Warp.

On the downside if you pop Alter Time linding up your cooldowns then someone hits Time Warp/Heroism/Blood Lust during your Alter Time you will only get a few seconds of the buff. It really forces you to track your ICD / procs on your items or else you can lose them.

Comment by Teenspirit

How I use this as a fire mage, you will need Presence of Mind in your build.

Start the fight and get the Pyroblast!(instant pyroblast) buff, dont use it yet.

Then use this macro:

#showtooltip Alter Time
/Cast Presence of Mind
/Cast Alter Time

Now, you can cast two Pyroblasts instantly, then press the macro again and you can cast two more instantly. Then ofcourse its time for Combustion.

Comment by Kamikaze28

Preface
This comment rose to the top of this page before Patch 6.0.2, when this spell functioned a little differently than it does today. Back before Warlords of Draenor its tooltip read "Alter the fabric of time, causing the caster to return to their current location, health, mana, buffs, and debuffs, when cast a second time, or after 6 sec.". While most of the information that made this comment rise to the top is now outdated, I wanted to preserve the anecdote with which it all started:

I have probably discovered the most ridiculously hilarious worst-case scenario for this spell. Ever.

I just did Kael'thas Sunstrider with a Warrior buddy of mine for Ashes of Al'ar (what else). As you might expect, my Warrior companion pulls aggro from Kael'thas Sunstrider in phase 4, so I am the only one who can be hit by Mind Control which is usually not a problem since I can escape it with Ice Block. But not this time.
This very evening, Kael'thas Sunstrider uses Mind Control on me and immediately pops Alter Time (which I didn't notice). I of course use Ice Block which removed the Mind Control from me but, sure enough, a few seconds later Alter Time kicks in and dutifully resets me back to my Mind Control-state, which of course leads to a wipe since my Warrior buddy didn't loot the Infinity Blade - why should he if we were successful all this time.

This is how bad Alter Time could screw you over. Now, this scenario is impossible since Alter Time no longer affects buffs and debuffs.

Now on to current infos about this spell. While Patch 6.0.2 is rather fresh and we haven't stepped into WoD-Raids, I still wanted to provide whatever information I could. Should I stumble upon new and clever uses for Alter Time on specific raid encounters, I will edit this comment.

It is possible to prevent the reset from Alter Time by canceling the Alter Time-buff it puts on you. This is very tricky with the default UI and is only relevant in very weird circumstances. I would therefore argue that a keybind for a /cancelaura macro is probably overkill. But you never know.
The distance limit to the reset seems to be 100 yd. With spells like Blink and Blazing Speed, you can easily travel that distance within 10 seconds so be careful.
You can use Alter Time to immediately port out of the fort after picking up the enemy flag in CTF BGs. You will not drop it.

Comment by inhighspeed

I'd like to get rid of this spell altogether. It's all to complicated and I have no idea how to use it. Outside of the dwerps who spend hours with their magnifying glasses and metronomes, no one knows what to do with this. Give us something like Big Mage Boom-Boom Blaster Gun just a powerful blast spell and let's move on with it. Thanks.

Comment by CalaelenDT

Alter Time does not remove Temporal Displacement/Sated/Insanity despite being debuffs. Most likely doesn't remove Cauterized either.

Comment by enslacked

Frost Mage burst made easy with this spell.

1. Talent into PoM
2. Cast Icy Veins, pop pvp trinket, pop PoM
3. Pet Nova / Cast frozen orb for 2 charges of fingers of frost (and hopefully a brain freeze proc)
4. Alter Time

5. Profit...?
(use the first PoM for an insta-sheep or insta-RoF on the cc target, ice lance the crap out of your burst target, then hit Alter Time again, and repeat.)

I'm roughly matching my BM hunter partner's damage in 2's right now, takes about 10s or so to completely destroy our kill target. :D

note: you should start your burst w/ a frost bomb, and deep freeze with your last charge of FoF, guaranteeing a 80-100k crit. Situationally, you can probably hard cast the frost bomb, before you use PoM, or just insta-cast with one of the two charges of PoM.. depends on how much control you need on the cc target.

Comment by Taraezor

As Arcane I setup (1) 2 Arcane Missiles procs, (2) 6 full stacks of charge (you do this by alternating Arcane Missiles and Arcane Blast right up to 2 and 6). Then I pop Arcane Power and then I pop Alter Time. Not to mention our other cooldowns :)

As Frost, your Icy Veins must precede your Alter Time and as it has the same cool down and does NOT generate a GCD then it is ideally macroed as:

#showtooltip Alter Time
/cast Icy Veins
/cast Alter Time

As you will be invoking AT only when you have 1 x Brain Freeze and 2 x Fingers of Frost procs then the first three abilities you will use will be 2 x Ice Lance and 1 x Frostfire Bolt followed perhaps by a Frostbolt if nothing needed refreshing (see the next paragraph). The order of the first three perhaps swapped around depending upon the urgency of any proc expiry. As soon as you are out of the AT then you will have 1 x Brain Freeze and 2 x Fingers of Frost ready to go again for an amazing period of burst exceeding 10 seconds.

Alter Time can be frustrating to time exactly right. It lasts just six seconds. So that is about four good attacks. The last thing you want to do is waste precious time having to refresh your Bomb (Nether Tempest, Living Bomb, Frost Bomb) or your Frozen Orb, Rune of Power, Incanter's Flow, etc while AT is live. A refreshed Bomb or Rune of Power just prior to AT would be better than expiry while AT is up.

Comment by seitori

Fun fact: apparently this will bring you back in the fight if you happen to have the Alter Time buff up when Darkmaster Gandling puts you in one of the rooms.

Probably nigh-impossible to predict that, but it's fun if it happens.

Comment by Icewave

Mage uses Alter rift! (Im so pro now i have 6 sec of extra buff from my trinket!)
6...
5...
4...
3...
2...
1...
<SHAMAN USES BLOOD LUST!>
<MAGE GETS SATTED>
0...
<Mage loses Blood lust and keeps sated>

EPIC WIN BLIZZ!

edited: mage vote kicks shammy

Comment by ewok93

Using this with a foam sword and unequipping it seems to give you a (permanent) foam sword buff (but no sword). I haven't died or logged back on yet, but I'll update this post when I do.

Comment by Sinjow

I am VERY surprised not to see this here. So surprised, in fact, I -had- to make an account.

NOTE: When you cast presence of mind, you receive a buff that states your next spell with a cast time less than 10 seconds will be instant instead of having a cast time. As long as you have this buff on, post-cast, the spell that gives the buff will NOT begin its cooldown.

HOWEVER, there is an exception to this! When you cast Presence of Mind, then follow up with Alter Time, if you use the Presence of Mind buff to cast a spell before Alter Time resets you, Presence of Mind will begin cooling down. After Alter Time resets your position, you will have the Presence of Mind buff, but it will also be cooling down.

TL;DR- Cast Presence of Mind, cast Alter Time, cast Bolt. After Alter Time, you have Presence of Mind Buff and Presence of Mind has also begun cooling down.

The Presence of Mind buff does NOT stack, so there's no point in casting it while you have the buff, but it is important to note that you could have up to two Instant-cast spells prepared ahead of time by setting up the previous situation to make sure you have PoM on while having it off cooldown.

The uses outside of World PvP are miniscule, and even then, you could always just take time to cast the first frostbolt/arcane blast/whatever.bolt, but the fact of the matter is that you -can- do this.

Comment by Arcticwind

Alter Time will NOT move you back to your start position mid air if you are falling :(

Comment by Sequince

I've not seen anyone mention this yet, but if you use a Potion of the Jade Serpent and blow all your tricks, then pop Alter Time the potion that usually lasts only 25 seconds get an extra 6 seconds added to it if you're ready for it.

Comment by onecrazykid

Pure luck here, but loved it no less. Used Alter Time during the Darkmaster fight in H Scholo. Got ported into the room with adds almost immediately after. Alter Time kicked in and ported me back out to the top of the stairs.

Comment by Grozgrr

With the WoD verion on this talent, i would like it to become undispellable, or else it will be way to unreliable to migrate damage with. To balance this, make the duration shorter.

In MoP this ability is hopeless to use defensivly as it gets dispelled right away, but at least it can still be used offensivly, so it doesn't matter that much:)

Comment by zoero

As of 6.0.2 this ability does not return your buffs/procs making it useless offensively.
It simply returns you to your original position and HP % as stated on the tooltip.

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