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Blink

Blink
2% of base mana

Instant	15 sec recharge

Requires Mage
Requires level 7

Teleports the caster 20 yards forward, unless something is in the way. Also frees the caster from stuns and bonds.

Improved Blink (Level 92+)
Your movement speed is increased by 60% for 2 sec after using Blink.

Buff

Spell Details

Duration

1 second

School

Arcane

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

Normal

Cost

2% of base mana

Range

0 yards (Self)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

n/a

GCD

1.5 seconds

Effect #1

Blink
Radius: 20 yards

Effect #2

Apply Aura: Immunity - Mechanic (Stunned)

Effect #3

Apply Aura: Immunity - Mechanic (Rooted)

Flags

Guides

Comprehensive Ashran Guide

Mage DPS Guide

Ranged DPS
Overview -
Tips and Specs

[Outdated] Arcane Mage
PvE Guide 5.4

Comments

Comment by bangy

Apart from standard damage spells such as Frostbolt and Fireball, this is arguably one of the best spells for a mage, especially pre-lvl 40. Here are some of its uses.

a) Escape. Obviously, you can use this spell to run away from anyone - melee can not reach you, and spells will have a 20-yard more distance to fire. Note this also realeases you from bonds, so you can blink out of frostnovas, entangling roots. You can blink out of warriors' charges too, and other abilities. Whenever in a tricky position, just blink!

b) Transport. Being able to move 20 yards instantly every 25 seconds can shave time off your travel journey, and is like having a small speed increase. It can be the difference between a BG win or loss! Pre-lvl 40, this is a great way to speed up journeys - 20 yards is more than you think!

c) 'Slow Fall' If you're out of light feathers, this is the way to go! Blink just before you hit the ground, and you will not lose hp! - however this is harder than you think, and you need a computer with small lag. There are many uses, such as tricking enemy non-mage players to follow you off cliffs. Tactical ambushes can also be made, such as jumping off from LM, or down to GM in AB; great escapes can also be achieved!

Use this spell, it will serve you well for many levels.

Comment by hellfirezkiv

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

Comment by Vexed99

Free's you from any kind of Stun and Root.

Comment by joshka

this is definitely a must when facing all types of classes
especially rogues and warriors
without blink you will be stunned and murdered by these melee classes.
mages ftw!

Comment by Sware

I use blink a lot while fighting rogues/warriors. Frost nova then blink even if they get a hamstring off on me. Then frost bolt them to death, while he's tell trying to figure out where I went.

Without blink I would be useless against rogues and warriors.

Comment by Azalon

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.

Comment by Rigors

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.

Comment by Coxx

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

Comment by TheMuffinMan

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.

Comment by Caze

Whether this gets modded down or not, whatever.

Useless info: Blink gives you around a 500% speed bonus for 1 second.

Comment by Helkyte

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 ^^)

Comment by Broily

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

Comment by arcanum

@ 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.

Comment by Bravotango

I recently started a Mage and around lvl 20, I was running through Wetlands on my way to Ironforge. Along the way, a ?? Pally tried to gank me. He dismounted, Hammer of Justice stun, and I blinked. He chased me for a little, then mounted up, caught me, and got ahead of me, so I just turned around and ran the other way. He gave up. It's not very often that you can survive through a ganking to a ??, but this spell definitely helps and was very fun.

Comment by yobo

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.

Comment by Marcucus

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

Comment by Kobzol

DONT BLINK immediatly after casting hearthstone! u will stay at place and have cd on HS

Comment by Arcanite

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

In a blink of an eye.

Comment by murshak

There's a bug with Blink and Hearthstone.

When you're like a half second from getting teleported by the Hearthstone, cast Blink and you'll get the Hearthstone on cooldown, but you wont get teleported.

Try it out, but you'll probably get mad because your Hearthstone will get on cooldown without any teleport. It's not worth to spend a hour cooldown just for testing a bug, but if you want to know if this work you should probably do it.

Good Luck.

Comment by Tankadin

@ Murshak

if you're using blink you're probably a mage, and if your like me then your hearth is probably set to shatt if so then you could just teleport shatt i know i'm going to try it

Comment by twarden94

Just to let you know blink was once a rogue ability but they have shadow step now if you think about it, it does sound like a rogue move. you konw how ninjas just pop from one place and end up in another place? well this is kinda it. I dont know why its was changed but mages are lucky rogues not so much. :(

(No, i am not a mage or rogue).

Comment by Chartu

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.

Comment by cjp240573

If you have a lag (i.e status red) then Blink is not worth it. By the time the signal gets to the server and then it actions the spell you have already moved 20yrds and on the screen you dont even move (if much at all).

Comment by ShiroMage

I've also used this spell as a cool defence against melee classes.

I was once in the forest, doin quests that required me to be flagged, and as usual, a hordie shows up. It was a paladin in this case.

Yikes, he was 3 lvls over me, I didn't think I'd survive. Luckly, I was surrounded by trees and shrubs and all, my kind of fighting environment.

I faced behind a tree and blinked (Not physically, the spell.) behind a tree. He didn't have the slightest clue where I was XD.

I nuked him, and eventually he was dead.

Of course this won't work if there isn't anything to hide you from.

Comment by Sideways29

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

Comment by Camundongo

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

Comment by Pinguinmaster

Useful bindings for Blink:

F1, F2, F3, or any of the other F-buttons would be useful. (except F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10, F11 and F12 seeing they are too far away from your left gaming hand.)
You can also bind it to T, Y, G, J, Caps Lock, |, <, V.

If you want it to be even easier to reach we also have the mouse key bindings. Most gaming mouses are equipped with more buttons and therefore greater functionality. Middle mouse button, and Mouse button 4 and 5 could be a useful choice of binding your blink.

Of course we also have the more standard way of binding abilities. The 0-9 button set. Standard for most wow User Interfaces.

Comment by joe7dust

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.

Comment by RestoHealzAv

There goes your stun lock rogues.

Comment by treblenuts

'murshak' says

It's not worth to spend a hour cooldown just for testing a bugNote: Hearthing is no longer a 30 min cooldown so its not as bad

Here for those who are lazy/cant read(patch notes)/havnt used a hearthstone yet(okay not so likely but still)

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=6948

Comment by Fenrari

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.

Comment by Stormwrath

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

Comment by darkeye18

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.

Comment by ash1001

Pre-lvl 40, this is a great way to speed up journeys - 20 yards is more than you think!

Not really that good for transport now as mounts are now level 20+, but I know this is an old post, it still has it's uses, great spell :)

Comment by xxkarankenzxx

The Blink ability was used by the warden hero class of the Night elf race in warcraft 3.

It's just ironical that the ability is now associated with mages and night elves do not have mages.

Comment by mixter

The icon is a facepalm

Comment by Groundlord

Why hasn't this been reduced to a level 16 spell with the other "get around faster" abilities?

Comment by Bogs

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.

Comment by allghostwritten

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

Comment by fieryshadowcard

Useful macro for immediately blinking out of an Ice Block:

#showtooltip Blink
/cancelaura Ice Block
/cast Blink

You'll be at least 20 yards away before the block animation completely fades. :3

Comment by luxary

This spell takes you about 20 yards. Try to use it during the fall. If you do it properly it may happen that the move to the initial location of use.
You can also use just above the ground. Then when you land on it just a few yards away and did not suffer an injury. It is also a very useful spell in the fight against meele classes. Such a person is frozen frozenballs and when we will have to use blink and we're behind him. Frost mage with such a strategy is very difficult to beat.

Comment by StaticLgtBrngr

Something odd I noticed with this, blink through a zone / instance portal and its coldown is reset the moment you appear on the other side.

Comment by Luckypalms

The icon could also be a gnome.

Comment by Athelstane

Watch the "Blinkjump" tutorial here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvDfw-O9uoE

Comment by Woowey

This spell is awesome. It even removes stuns!

Comment by yasuhiko135

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

Comment by bjornkrage

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

Comment by Filipse

Without a doubt one of the most overpowered abilities in the history of world of warcraft
in pvp (atleast as it is now) along with the un-nerfed Colossus Smash

Comment by Serf

Can this be used to break out of Ozruk's Paralyze?

Comment by Nerobyrne

Another useful bit of information about blink is that you do not actually exist for the 20-25 yards you travel. This means that you can actually blink over landmines and enemy threat radii if you time if right.

Comment by Reapper

not avaible to female trolls

Comment by imri500

Blink is probably the core of any good mage's success. Its our bread and butter and it almost never fails us! (you have no idea how many times did I blink backwards into my death...)

Just adding my tip of the day here : If you blink right after jumping off or being knocked off a cliff, it will teleport you to the edge of said cliff! I think it does that because its looking for the only ground within 20 yards of you and puts you there.

Comment by tobindax

Even though I know it's a Dwarf, I still see Homer Simpson.

Comment by MiltiadesBooga

I remember when this used to sometimes teleport one BACKWARD. Good times.

Comment by SgtFrog

Can now be learned at level 7, down from level 20 (I think)

Comment by DrinkFloridaOJ

Troll female mages still can't blink despite having this ability.

Comment by stickshift

Very handy spell when farming your crops at Halfhill and you get four or five of those pesky "tangled" crops where you have to tug that ropy strand till it snaps. I found 99% of the time it's instant snap with Blink. Time the 15 second cool-down with tending your other crops and the time saved, while small, adds up.

Comment by DoINeedAName

Really frustrating that blink has no vertical component. So you're swimming and you aim upwards and all it does it go horizontal. Particularly annoying when questing in Vash'jir.

Comment by Frpw

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

Comment by BMHunterMain

As of now you can stand facing the carousel at the Darkmoon Faire and Blink under it, something I discovered by accident. You need to have a ticket for the carousel on you first or the buff that the carousel gives (buy a book of 5 & open the book), then just stand back a bit and blink. Don't stand too close, try and "land" about a yard or less from the outer edge of it... this might take a couple attempts to work & it seemed to work the best for me when I stood to the left of the entrance. There is a ring of ground under the ride that you can stand on, and it slopes down into a hole in the very center. There is more "safe area" at the front of the carousel, so don't try to blink under from behind it.

I fell into the hole just to see what would happen and fell through the planet, forcing two server disconnects/relogs before my mage disappeared off the bottom of my screen and died. You can easily resurrect afterwards, provided you didn't slowfall to an area that is inaccessible to your spirit in the Faire above. Worth a look, I guess... One of the main reasons I rolled a mage in the first place was because of all the old videos I had seen on YouTube showing interesting tricks & inaccessible areas that only Mages can do or see, thanks creative usage of Blink and/or Slowfall. I admit this isn't all that great and has no practical use... I was really hoping there would be something to see underneath Darkmoon Island, but it was still interesting.

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