Battle Mage and Comprehension: the Coldflame Saber and all 25 scrolls

1. 1

   Step 1: Learn Comprehend Scroll at 6

   Any Mage trainer will teach you Comprehend Scroll once you hit 6. Treat Comprehension like a profession: every scroll you decipher pushes it towards the 300 cap.

2. 2

   Step 2: Decipher until the Scroll of the Saber drops

   Read every untranslated scroll you loot. The Scroll of the Saber most likely comes from the second kind of scroll (readable from Comprehension 15). It is rare: one player got it on his 119th scroll.

3. 3

   Step 3: Kill Baron Silverlaine until the blade drops

   Baron Silverlaine in Shadowfang Keep drops Blade of Silverlaine. One group needed twelve runs. Settle the loot before you pull: whoever reads the scroll needs the blade, and both are bind on pickup.

4. 4

   Step 4: Use the scroll on the blade

   The blade becomes the Coldflame Saber. Both need level 21 to equip.

The Saber's trick: swing at something that is frozen and each hit carries extra Fire damage. Lock targets in place with Frost Nova or the Frostbite talent, then walk in and start hitting. Fingers of Frost lets your spells treat a target as frozen, but nobody has shown yet that the Saber's bonus counts it.

The Saber is a sword, so Scroll of Imbue Spark works on it: being hit in melee can reset Fire Blast. Scroll of Imbue Iceknife does not: it goes on a dagger.

There are four kinds of untranslated scroll, each readable from a higher skill. A grey kind gives no more points, so start reading the next kind before your skill gets to the value in the middle column.

You need not farm the first kind: some 200 creatures carry it, each at 0.2 to 4%, so it piles up as you level. A Scroll of Comprehension, which can come out of a bundle, adds 15 to the skill for an hour.

Once an hour, standing in a library, Study converts one Light Feather into a Bundle of Scrolls. The Undercity has one inside the Magic Quarter, on its inner ring. To learn Study, hand a book to Garion Wendell (Stormwind) or Owen Thadd (Undercity). The books are in our library books guide.

Garion Wendell also opens Research for Mages at 20 with the quest Research Access.

In 17 bundles opened by players, the Scroll of Minor Evocation (300 mana over 4 seconds) was in 88%, Scroll of Imbue Lesser Flame in 53%, Scroll of Imbue Chillknife in 47%, Scroll of Rat Familiar in 35% and a Scroll of Comprehension in 29%.

Which untranslated scroll gives which scroll is decided by the server, but each scroll belongs to one of the four levels. Since October 1 you have to stand still to use them. Tick the ones you have.

Witchblade, the level 57 dagger Darkmaster Gandling drops in Scholomance, has a scroll of its own: Scroll of Wit. What it turns the dagger into is not in the game yet, and the current level cap keeps both out of reach anyway.

Scroll balance passChanged

October 1: all Comprehension scrolls got new numbers, and you now have to stand still to use any of them.

Rebuke ElementalChanged

October 1: only works on elementals up to level 50.

ResearchChanged

A known issue since October 1: some Mages who learn Research cannot open it.