Time Magic is a form of Arcane Magic

I see some conversations on the forums regarding Time Magic, as new expressions of it are coming in next patch with the new evoker Augmentation specialization.

Some folks are (rightly) talking about potential future support specs (e.g. time/chrono mages etc) but seem to be trying to separate the dragon aspect time magic with arcane magic.

The time magic dragon’s practice is the same type that the Titans use (as they were taught/created by the titans). Arcane is the domain of the titans and essentially encapsulates all of their ‘magic’, serving as the underlying layer to it.

As such, all the time magic practiced by Nozdromu et al. is just a subset of Arcane magic, albeit a very complex form.

9 Likes

I dunno, there’s a separate Arcane Wizard Titan, Norgannon, that gave Malygos his power.

Aman’thul, the time titan or whatever, was the one to give Nozdormu his temporal power if I recall. He’s the oldest and wisest of the Titans.

And then there’s Eonar the life titan, and so forth, there’s seemingly one for each major class of magic that’s not evil, like Fel or Decay.

It’s strange, because Mages have access to Time Warp, so they are likely tangentially related.

2 Likes

Time is a construct of Order, which is how Blizzard justified the Shadowlands and Twisting Nether both being weird where time was concerned (they were so far removed from Order, Time affected them to a lesser extent).

Elisandre used arcane magic to manipulate time as well.

7 Likes

Norgannon was more the Titan in charge of keeping magic and magical lore, among the Titans of the pantheon.

The way I understand it, arcane magic is the underlying framework upon which all ‘titan magic’ stands. All titans can use and practice it, and some are more adept than others.

Norgannon was probably one of the ones who was more adept, and as such was tasked to kind of be the party Wizard by Amanthul.

Amanthul was himself also extremely adept in its use, as shown by his mastery over time magic, which is but an advanced form of arcane magic.

Norgannon gave Malygos his power as a reflection of the shared nature of their respective charges. Norgannon to watch over the use of arcane magic throughout the cosmos, and Malygos, to do the same over Azeroth.

3 Likes

I mean literally in game rn, all bronze spells are classified under the arcane school of magic.

3 Likes

This is true.

The Nightborne, for instance, being infused with arcane energy through the Nightwell (Eye of Aman’thul) exemplify these ties.

Examples: Thalyssra, even in her withered form was able to cast a “time stop” spell on a pursuer, the Nightborne age their arcwine casks in chambers where time fluctations are isolated and accelerated, and Elisande was able to stop the armies at the gate of the Nighthold in a massive time lock spell.

3 Likes

Indeed.

Nightborne, perhaps as a race, have shown the relationship between arcane and time magic the best, as well as perhaps, the hierarchy of complexity; where its mostly the very top arcanists who have access to the really OP time spells.

This lends credibility to the idea that time magic is but a complex manipulation of arcane magic, and mirrors the idea that Amanthul, perhaps the most able out of the pantheon as far as ability to manipulate arcane magic, became the Titan of Time.

I’ve always seen what Eonar does as what arcane magic would look like if it were used to restore and rejuvenate, or if focused on preservation of ordered life.

It may share similarities to straight up life/nature magic when looked at by an unknowing observer, but its actually two different underlying forms of magic.

Similar to how both light magic and nature magic can heal things.

1 Like

I was think about that ,op, but I come up with ARCANE not actually time magic but more of an out side phenomena of phase transiency it’s most outside of time but part of it just as particular change their structure when cooled.

This explains why fire and frost came after Arcane ,the principle it is so dangerous to control.

i would assume that normal arcane time magic can only manipulate objects in real time within same timeline. Like rewind yourself a bit, or age wine quicker

While dragon time magic is all about infinite timelines and cause&effect stuff with actual time travel

1 Like

That seems about right,they see through all timelines we can’t because we have not learned the type of magic,our is limited to a few seconds.

There aren’t two different types. It’s all the same. Dragons just have more power, knowledge and practice with it.

Elisande had 10k years of studying and a nightwell, and still couldn’t do more than rewind time a bit and see some false futures

Any newborn bronze dragon can do more with just willpower

Dragons have over 10,000 years and their knowledge is passed onto whelps who are also coherent in their eggs.

I think the real question here should be is how does this all fit into the retcon about how magic works now?

You notice in game that almost no one uses the term Arcane magic anymore when dealing with the Titans, the term used now is Order magic.

Arcane is just one type of Order magic, as is Time magic. I personally would say that lore wise Time and Arcane are separate branches of Order magic, but because they are still both Order Arcane can be used to manipulate time in small ways. For in game purposes though Time magic is just listed as Arcane simply for game mechanic reasons.

What retcon?

Time is Arcane. Arcane is Order. It’s probably for future expansion stuff. But it’s all the same.

They aren’t.

don’t most things begin to age when there is presence of blood?
Not that blood is its own school of magic, but anima manifest is blood which is a function of time.

Anima isn’t blood. And there is no concept of Time in the Shadowlands.

The retcon where they changed the Titans from beings of Arcane to Beings of Order back in Shadowlands. Were you not here for that?

No Order is the Celestial level of magic. Arcane is a subset most often associated with Order. They aren’t different words for the same thing.

Just like how in Shadowlands they made Necromancy into a subset of Death magic. In fact they went even farther and said Necromancy isn’t even restricted to Death and that the other Celestial powers can use it, hence the reason why we have a Lightbound Undead in Calia Menethil.

Which would suggest that the other Celestial powers could also use their own version of Arcane and Time magics.

You have proof of that? Cause as far as I know we are all speculating here and Blizz hasn’t come out and given a definitive answer that Time magic is a subset of Arcane.

Arcane and the Titans have always been Order.

It’s in the canon lore that Time is Order and Blizz specifically told us Time doesn’t exist in the Shadowlands.

Nothing changed from the cosmic chart to the Broker rendition. Just perspective. It’s all the same as it was.

Necromancy is less an actual type of magic itself, but instead, mostly a school of magic within existing magic types.

For example, Arcane magic has a school of necromancy. You can even read a book about it in Dalaran. (School of Arcane Magic - Necromancy)

Necromancy is more about using the magic type you have access to (i.e. light, death, nature, arcane, etc) to reanimate something that has ‘died’. Some spheres of magic are more attuned to such things than others, e.g. death magic is better at this type of stuff, similar to how light magic is better at healing things.

But all magic types can have access to similar ‘effects’. Death magic can heal (undead at least), Light magic can raise dead (albeit through great effort).

It is why it took a very high level Light practitioner to bring back people from the dead, but even a low level ‘death magic’ necromancer can raise things.

With that context, the ‘order magic’ the titans use is, for the most part, just another name for “Arcane magic” as that is the ‘technical’ term for it. Mages, in WoW, are essentially ‘order magic casters’, similar to how warlocks could be considered ‘fel magic casters’, but mages are essentially just using Arcane magic.