Someone mentioned Alter Time as a key ability for Mage on the general forum and I realized I have never used this ability with my Mage when levelling.
I read what it does and I cannot make sense of how to use it usefully, so I have been ignoring it until now. A former guildmate once mentioned using it as well, but it was in passing and I didn’t think to ask.
So I thought this might be a good place to ask: What am I missing in this?
There are two components to AT that make it useful.
First you can use it to snap to the location you were standing when you first activated the ability.
Second you can use the spell as a sort of heal if you activate it at higher health, then after you take a hit that drops you low you can press the spell again to activate it and it will snap you back to the health you were at when you pressed it.
Thank you! But how would one know to use it, generally? I can see where in a dungeon one knows it could be quite useful, since some things are known factors, but in general?
There’s where I’m struggling.
Questions about Alter Time are generally not stupid. It’s a spell that I constantly struggle with using correctly, and most people I know with mage alts don’t even touch it.
Alter Time is a proactive defensive / mobility spell. I don’t use it as much in open world content, but it can be VERY useful when you’re punching above your weight. The main problem, as you mentioned, is knowing when to use it. I constantly forget that this spell exists. The easiest way to learn is trial and error, unfortunately.
Merpish hit the nail on the head with an explanation, so let me see if I can give some generic examples, both in open world and in instanced content:
In the Open World, when fighting something that’s stronger than you:
In Instanced group content:
I can’t speak for all situations, but here’s a general guidline:
If all three of those are true, it might be worth it to try Alter Time, however, it’s not cut and dry. It’s arguably one of the most powerful utilities that mages have, so it’s only natural that something like that will be a little difficult to use properly.
The biggest mistake that I’ll do is trying to use AT for mobility when my health is low. If I have 2% health when I cast it, I can be healed to full health in those 10 seconds but then immediately go back to 2% health when it expires. Thankfully, you can right click the buff to cancel it (or use a /cancelaura macro) if you accidentally activate it at the wrong time.
Thank you so much! That was incredibly helpful and I definitely will have to experiment with it now that I’ve some excellent examples of how and when it can be used.
This was one big head-scratcher for me and you folks have kindly clued me in. Thanks again.
Don’t let mistakes scare you off from using it! We’ve all altered back to 1% health or back into a puddle of death haha. Just keep trying to think of ways to make use of it and it won’t be long before you’re altering like a pro!
And remember. When the healer asks what hit you, you say “I don’t know?”
(I’m not confident that the damage / healing from alter time gets logged, so just… let them be confused)
I wanted to thank folks again. Just tried a Torghast run with my mage and used that to test out the alter time. I found it a really nice safety net when having to jump lava in Soul Forges (I fell in the lava, got timed back onto the rock.) Note to self: Don’t keep moving forward when returned to previous time or you fall in the lava again! 
Tried it on the boss fights and once I remembered counterspell (hadn’t needed it in so long) was able to get through the bosses in no time and was really impressed with my mage, who I hadn’t played for a bit.
It helped of course, that adding to the mirror image numbers Torghast bonus meant I had an army of me at the final fight. It was quite fun.
Thank you again. Definitely will be using this more to get familiar with the ability!
I’ve saved my bacon more than a few times while leveling thanks to Alter Time. If it’s something big and scary, I’ll pop it, then as I get close to death or need to reposition, hit it again. Between barriers and Fleshcrafting, mage can be real tanky with some forethought with it.
Use AT early in a fight, it is a great healer. I think 10 sec of dmg restored. However, remember you do NOT have to wait 10 sec, hit it a sec time and instant restore.
Arcane gets it early, Fire around lvl 58. Not sure about Frost.
Too me one of my favorite aspects of playing a Mage is our ability to stay alive. AT is a must tool to live.
When the future could go either way, sometimes having a reset button already cued is peace of mind.
Super good for exploring too with no flying. If you have to jump off a cliff or height to get to an object. Use it before hand so you can collect the item and snap back up to the ledge you jumped from.
I’ve used this to rescue people a few times too. There are a handful of places that you can get “stuck” in Sepulcher. As a mage, we can activate Alter Time, mount up onto a 2 person mount, jump over to where the other player is stuck, have them hop aboard, then let AT expire to bring us both back to safety. Yes, it does bring your passengers along.
It also works for the skip before the third boss in Spires (the one up the stairs). Invis past the mobs, AT, jump back, mount up, bring your friend who forgot their invis pot.
Not to mention it’s always fun to jump off a cliff and port back and listen to someone say “uhhhh… I think someone just jumped off??”
Dang that’s a good tip for mounts, gonna have to try that
Use it when your barrier ends and you start taking dmg.
Kite / blink away from the point of usage (marked by an echo of you) while taking some dmg.
When the effect ends, you’ll have the same HP from the moment you used it, and the enemy will be far from you at the location you kited it too (giving you even more dmg mitigation).
I think Alter Time is mostly just for elite raiders and PVP’ers.
Average casual players who don’t pvp or raid mythic can pretty much ignore this spell. Not even worth putting on the hotbar.
I don’t know. Given other people’s answers, it seems there were a lot of situations where it can come in handy. I’ve been playing around with it and definitely have seen some benefits, based on the recommendations in this thread. I don’t pvp, raid or do any dungeons, just normal PvE and Torghast runs.
If “Using Alter Time Correctly 1 Time” is all it takes to be a mythic raider, that bar is set pretty low.
AT is quite possibly the most powerful non-immune, non-death-passive defensive in the game. You can take 99.99% of your health in damage and get thrown off a cliff and just say “no thanks” to it.
You need a lot more than just being able to use Alter Time to raid mythic in my opinion. However, my point is that players who do NOT raid mythic or pvp can get by just fine without touching AT ever.
They don’t need to bother trying to find an empty hotbar slot to put the ability on. It isn’t needed for most game content.
well, it’s dispellable… but for sure one of the best ones