1. About me
I'm currently playing on Sargeras, mainly as a Frost Mage. I've hit as high as 2.5k in arenas and I've always been interested in PvP.
This guide is intended to help newcomers to frost mages as it cover basic frost mages stuff.
I also pretend to cover the new 4.3 stuff (including the one which does still have to be released), which no other guides on Warmane have covered yet.
2. Stats
4% Hit
240 Spell Penetration
Intellect
Crit 17-20% [1]
Mastery
If you have covered all the Stats above, reforge to Mastery.
As a frost mage Haste is not a good stat to equip, and you should always equip as much Mastery as possible.
Critical is important. With Shatter talent and 17% critic you will have 51% change to do a critic while enemy is frozen.
Mastery is really important for frost Mages. It increases the damage done to frozen targets and also the damage done when having fingers of frost.
Each Mastery point increases 2.5% damage to Frozen targets.
Critical and Mastery [1]
When it comes to a certain point, sacrificing Critical for Mastery or the other way round becomes quite personal.
There has always been this endless debate in finding the perfect amount of Critical; some people say that 17% is fine while others say that 20% is the right amount.
The truth is:
Increasing critical increases the chances any spell has to do critical damage.
But the more mastery you have the more damage you will deal to frozen enemies.
Also, having less Critical makes you more dependance on luck to do Criticals, meanwhile having more Critical makes your damage more consistent.
At the end of the day, choosing the right amount of Critical (between 17% and 20-21%) will depend on your preferences, your arena partner (ex: rogues give +5% critical) or other PvP activity you do.
3. Races
Human and Undead are the best race choices for PVP.
Human for Alliance and Undead for Hordes.
The most relevant features are:
Human can:
- Remove CC (without the PVP trinket)
Undead can:
- Remove fear/sleep/charm
- More Resistance to shadow damage
Undead racial to remove fear/sleep/charm has 30sec cooldown to other removing effects though.
4.Talents
Your talents should look more or less like this.
Shattered barrier talent is not that good as we can use frost nova or cone of cold.
Reactive barrier is not useful at all, as it is doing nothing else but clicking Ice Barrier when you have low life.
From the fire branch, Burning Soul, Blazing speed and Impact are very important.
Burning Soul reduces the casting time lost when hit, Blazing Speed will sometimes grant you a +50% running speed when melee hit and Impact will grant sometimes grant you an extra 2sec CC.
5. Glyphs
Prime Glyphs: Frostfire Bolt, Ice lance, Cone of Cold / Frostbolt.
Frostfire glyph gives you an extra dot to the target and also deals more damage.
Ice lance increases its damage by 5%.
Cone of Cold. Depending on how much you use it, you may want to use Frostbolt glyph instead.
Major Glyphs: Polymorph, Frost Armor, Evocation
Polymorph is very important for arenas as it will remove any dot on the target when doing Polymorph.
Frost Armor is really useful to regenerate a good amount of mana per second, as you will run out of mana very fast without it.
At the moment Frost Armor glyph is not available on Molten, I use Ice Barrier instead.
Evocation glyph will regenerate you life as well as mana.
Minor Glyphs: Slow fall, Arcane Brilliance, and the third glyph is your choice. I use Penguin.
6. Professions
The best professions for frost mage are Jewelcrafting, Tailoring, Enchanting and Engineering.
Jewelcrafting: +81 Intellect - x3 Brilliant Chimera's Eye .
Tailoring: random +580 Intellect during 15sec - Lightweave Embroidery.
Enchanting: +80 Intellect - x2 Enchanting Ring - Intellect.
Engineering: +480 Intellect 10sec (1min CD) - Synapse Springs.
All of them give you more or less the same bonus stats. But if you have enough time and money I would personally go for Jewelcrafting and Tailoring.
7. Gear
The following list is a sample list of gear you should get as a Frost Mage in PvP, it applies to 4.3 patch.
As some of you may have experienced already, having some PvE gear along with the PvP one it does now help to do some extra DPS. Above all, it is very recommended if you are playing with a double DPS combo, on which a high burst is crucial to beat the opponents.
Most of the gear must be still PvP though, which gives as resilience.
PvE legs are the best replacement, Cataclysmic ones will give you haste which is completely useless compared to the Mastery that the PvE ones can give one.
Then if you are human, a PvE trinket to complement the on-use PvP one is recommended.
I wrote all these PvE gear next to the PvP one in the following list.
Gear list
Head: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Silk Cowl
Neck: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Pendant of Diffusion
Shoulders: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Silk Amice
Back: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Drape of Prowess
Chest: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Silk Robe
Wrist: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Cuffs of Prowess
Hands: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Silk Handguards
Waist: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Cord of Cruelty / Tentacular Belt
Legs: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Silk Trousers / Time Lord's Leggings
Feet: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Treads of Cruelty
Ring 1: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Band of Cruelty
Ring 2: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Band of Accuracy / Ring of the Riven
Trinket 1: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Badge of Dominance
Trinket 2: (human) [1] / (non-human): Cataclysmic Gladiator's Medallion of Cruelty
PvE trinket [1]
Once you have got a damaging PvP trinket already, it is always a good choice to get a PvE one to get some extra bits of DPS.
These are the viable PvE trinkets for Frost Mages:
Soulshifter Vortex (410 iLevel) is the one which can do the most burst damage. It has around 3k mastery, which means a great deal of damage per shatter.
Good side of this trinket is that you will be able to lower / kill and enemy fast when it procs, but the bad side of it is that Stamina will not give you any extra benefits and the internal trinket cooldown is about 1.5-2 min.
Foul Gift of the Demon Lord (378 iLevel) does a decent burst damage and you can benefit from all its stats (Intellect & Mastery).
You will not do as much burst damage as Soulshifter Vortex but you will still be able to press the enemy hard when it procs, and also its intellect will benefit you all the time. Another important part to have in mind is that the proc time is around 30 sec compared to 1.5-2 min of Soulshifter.
Will of the unbinding (416 iLevel) it gives you Intellect per Stack up to 10 stacks.
It will not take you too much time to get those 10 stacks, so you will almost always be playing with full stacks (+990 intellect).
This trinket will increase your average damage done during all the fight, not just the burst time so do not expect a super-high burst as the previous two ones. Also, I would not consider it an arena choice if you are playing a 2-dps combo as what you need the most a powerful burst.
Darkmoon Card: Volcano. (359 iLevel) This trinket is worth mentioning as some mages still consider it a good choice for their frost mages even though I do not think it is still 'that good' anymore compared to the new trinkets you can get this Cataclysmic season. So, if you are planning to get any new PvE trinket I would consider the other choices first.
If you choose to get a PvE trinket, I would go for either Foul Gift of the Demon Lord or Soulshifter Vortex. They are the ones who can benefit you most a frost mage due to the need of a consistent burst and high-damage per shatter.
Weapons
Two-handed: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest
Main hand: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Spellblade
Off-hand: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Endgame
Wand: Cataclysmic Gladiator's Touch of Defeat / Hungermouth Wand
Cataclysmic Main hand + Off-hand or Two-handed?
If you do comparison between one and the other, you will see that if both enchanted, Staff will give you more Stamina (survival) and the One-hand + Off-hand more DPS attributes (damage).
For that reason, you will see that most good mages wear a dagger instead of a staff.
What you should not get:
-Cunning of the Cruel
-Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind
Even though they look pretty cool, and they are the ones which do the best damage in their slot, you should not get them for your Frost Mage.
They are intended for PvE use and they fit perfectly for fires mages, but they are not good at all for frost ones.
This is because they break CCs of your targets (like Polymorph) due to their more-than-one-target damage.
The first one (the trinket) spreads balls of about 10k damage to all enemies near to your target, and it is the same for the Dagger. The only difference is that the first one throws balls and the second one infects the enemies with a damaging dot.
8. Enchants
Head - Arcanum of Hyjal
you can also pick Arcanum of Vicious Intellect but Hyjal is worthier once you have a decent amount of resilience
Shoulder - Greater Inscription of Vicious Intellect except Inscriptors ( Felfire Inscription)
Back - Greater Intellect except Tailorers (Lightweave Embroidery)
Chest - Peerless Stats
Wrists - Mighty Intellect except Leatherworkers (Draconic Embossment - Intellect)
Gloves - Greater Mastery except Engineers (Synapse Springs)
Waist - Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Legs - Powerful Enchanted Spellthread
Feet - Lavawalker
Rings - If Enchanter Intellect
Main hand - Power Torrent
Off hand - Superior Intellect
9. Gems
Red - Brilliant Inferno Ruby except Jewelcrafters (Brilliant Chimera's Eye )
Orange - Artful Ember Topaz
Blue - Veiled Demonseye
Extra belt socket - Brilliant Inferno Ruby except Jewelcrafters (Brilliant Chimera's Eye )
Meta - Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond
10. Rotation
The rotation as frost mage is very simple.
The most difficult part comes when doing PvP, where you need to know how to counter enemies spells avoiding their spells and doing as much damage as possible.
Basic rotation:
Ice lance [2] > Frostfire (if it procs) > Frostbolt
How does Ice Lance works? [2]
Ice Lance is a very powerful instant spell. It can hit as hard or even more than a Frostbolt.
There is a catch though, target must be freezed or you must be having fingers of frost.
Ice lance is your most powerful source of damage.
In order to achieve this, you can use Frost Nova, Con of Cold, Pet Freeze (which gives you 2 fingers of frost) and the best one Deep Freeze (which is a 5sec freezing)
You should not cast Frostfire while having fingers of frost. Frostfire consumes one finger of frost so it is better casting Ice Lance first and then Frostfire bolt.
Pet freeze
As I mentioned some lines above, a pet freeze will grant you 2 fingers of frost but also it will freeze the target if not immune to "movement imparing effects".
That means that if freeze is successful and you have not done any other freeze which shares DR with it, you will have your target freezed around 8 seconds.
You should always try to Frostwolf + Ice Lance at that moment.
This is the best way to use efficiently the Freeze and Fingers of Frost.
Using Ice Lance x2 would be wasting your freeze, and then your DPS would be lower.
Starter
The best starter, which you will not always be able to do, is:
Frostbolt+Icelance and cast pet freeze before the Frostbolt hits the target.
Depending on the targets, and whether he/she is fast enough to trinket it, you should be able to remove him about 30-40% of health.
In addition to this, be careful when doing such thing, above all when playing against a mage or a warlock, they can easily interrupt you from casting any frost spell during 6 seconds.
If you ever see high risk when doing this, you should consider casting skipping Frostbolt, and starting with Ice Lance instead.
11. AddOns
Interesting addOns to have with you when playing:
Battlegrounds:
BG Spy. /bgspy sends you a report about how many melee, ranged and healers you and the other team has in a BG.
Deadly Boss. Counters (capturing base, arena's eye...)
PvP:
Interrupt Bar. Tracks interrups.
OmniCC. Cooldown counters above every spell.
RangeDisplay. Estimated range between you and the target
Power Auras. You can set cool effects to track any proc.
Arenas:
Gladius. Enemy unit frames on arenas.
Other:
Simple iLevel. Shows you other players iLevel.
12. Macros
Write #showtooltip <spell> above the macro text to show the spell description when doing mouseover.
Pet freeze
Ice Block#showtooltip Frost Nova
/cast [nopet] Summon Water Elemental
/click PetActionButton5
/petfollow
Frostbolt + Waterbolt (pet)#showtooltip Ice block
/stopcasting
/cast Ice block
/cancelaura Ice block
Counterspell#showtooltip Frostbolt
/cast [nomodifier,target=target] Frostbolt
/click PetActionButton4
Fire Blast/stopcasting
/cast [nomodifier] Counterspell
/cast [target=focus, modifier:alt] Counterspell
Deep Freeze/cast [nomodifier] Deep Freeze
/cast [modifier:alt,target=focus] Deep Freeze
Polymorph/cast [nomodifier] Deep Freeze
/cast [modifier:alt,target=focus] Deep Freeze
Due to the high use of Polymorph focus in arenas, I also use another key for it./cast [nomodifier] Polymorph
/cast [modifier:alt,target=focus] Polymorph
My main modifier is alt. I use alt to CC focus (shown in the macros above) and to cast some spells (mentioned in the Keybindings section).
You should use the modifier which best fits you (Ctrl, Shift, Alt)
12. Keybindings
I do not pretend anyone to use the following keybindings. Actually, keybindings is a personal matter. You should use the ones you find the most appropriate and the ones you find easiest to use.
This applies to modifier(s) as well.
Keybinding starting with N mean Numeric keypad key.
1 Frost Nova.........................................S Move Backward
2 Fire Blast...........................................T Silence
3 Frostfire Bolt......................................V PvP Trinket
4 Frostbolt...........................................W Move Forward
5 Ice Lance..........................................X Frostfire Orb
6 Polymorph.........................................Y Damage Trinket
A Turn Left..........................................Z Mirror Image
B Ice Block...........................................F4 Pet Move To
C Invisibility...........................................F5 Evocation
D Turn Right.........................................F6 Cold Snap
E Strafe Right.......................................Alt+3 Blizzard
F Freeze (pet).......................................Alt+4 Arcane Explosion
G Ice Barrier.........................................Alt+5 Remove Curse
H Icy Veins............................................Middle Mouse Deep Freeze
Q Strafe Left.........................................Mouse Wheel Up Blink
R Ring of Frost......................................Mouse Wheel Down Cone of Cold
Caps lock Invisibility...............................?? Polymorph focus
Alt+R Summon Water Elemental.............Alt+F Mana Gem
Alt+G Levitate.......................................Alt+C Bandage
N5 Time Wrap......................................N7 Arcane Brilliance
F11 Mage Armor...................................F12 Frost Armor
N8 Ritual of Refreshment.......................N9 Mount
Constructive criticism is allowed. I am up to improving whatever in this guide as long as what you are saying is reasonable and correct.
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Member
[Guide] Frost Mage PvP
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Member
Nice guide, easy to read/understand.
Item links/tooltips nice addition.
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Member
k you speak of should rely mastery and critical, not haste but your casting are long enough without a good haste, your guide is good for a spammer to ice lance, Mastery to increase the damage in freezing and critical to always double the damage with spam ice lance given that finger of frost has changed since WotLK.
this is a good guide but for spammers ice lance and frankly I do not like
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