Hello.
This is just a starter guide for frost mage PvP.
I wont be dealing with the basics..Just will be covering a few points, and i’ll keep on adding stuff as and when i can.
I’ll tell the basics to start off with now.
This is the talent build i use.
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...D,98UOeR,12213
GLYPHS.
Major glyphs are
Glyph of Evocation ,
Glyph of Ice barrier
Glyph of polymorph
Some people prefer to use the glyph of ice lance instead of the ice barrier. This helps with u want to deal some more damage with your icelanes when the target is frozen. People with a higher / decent gear can try it.
Another major gylph would be glyph of icy veins to help remove movement imparing effects on use of icy veins.
Minor Glyphs - Glyph of Slowfall , Fire ward and Frost ward
A explanation for those who ask why glyph of poly.
It removes the damage over time effects and helps u to keep the target in Polymorph..especially in arena when u have to keep your focused target in poly and kill the other.
Or if u have used the brainfreeze proc and have casted FFB and wish to keep the target in poly so that u can eat or evocate in battle / duel
The basic stats that u need to get in order for mage Pvp are a follows :
Hit rating of about 150-185
Spell penetration of 115-120
And u need LOTS of haste..
Socket with Hybrids, that way u can pump up 2 stats together..
Red – reckless ametrine for haste and spellpower
Green- shattered eyes for haste and spell penetration
Yellow – Quick kings amber for 20 haste
Meta- chaotic skyflare diamond for 21 sp and 3 % crit
Unlike other casters Mages need LOTS of haste..u can never have enough haste as a frost or an arcane mage.
For ur weapon, enchant it with Black Magic Enchant which procs quite nicely and has a 45 second ICD.
For chest get the 20+ resi enchant and for the cloak ,get the +35 spell penetration , so by socketing the shattered eyes u can get the spell penetration cap filled
For other items get spell power enchants.
Boots get 15 stam + minor run speed increase.
U can also get the Arcanum of dominance and Inscription of dominance for ur head and shoulder enchant so that u get sp and resilience both.
Unlike other clothies, mages can get away with a little less resilence , so don’t be scared to get some pve items to meet ur haste cap.
U need like 850-950 resi and u can survive pretty decently
And u need 700+ haste at the minimum ,its ok if ur spell power is like 2500 or 2600
I’d rather have a frostbolt cast time with 1.7 sec and 2600 spell power rather than a fb cast with 2.3 sec and 3 k spell power
I cant emphasize enuff on how much u need haste.
Haste reduces ur Gcds too , makes u evocate faster , and reduces the GCD slowing effects of spells like the curse of tongues of locks etc.
So once u meet ur Hit , spell penetration caps , get haste haste and haste
Professions wise JC and engineering are nice.
Some people get tailoring instead of eng for the lightweave embroidery.
If u happen to have JC , u can put in 3 +34 haste gems , or 2 haste and a 43 spell pene to meet ur spell pene caps.
As u keep on getting more pvp gear u will lose the pve gear which gives u hit rating by default. So make sure u have atleast one offset item to give u 60+ hit
For example get all offsets wrathful _____of subjugation for haste and get one wrathful______of ascendancy for the hit.
Trinket wise the battlemaste’rs(with haste) and medallion of the horde are all u need. Some people also get titan-forged rune of alacrity/audacity and the like, instead of medallion of the horde /alliance giving them some other stat instead of resilence and having the same 'on-use' effect as a pvp trinket.
Now about the Frost mage i’ll explain a few keybinds and macros.
First thing , yes, a frost mage uses a LOT of spells so u cant be a mouse clicker....u have to use keybinds and turn into a button masher..
That way , u can react faster , keep ur eye on the screen and see whats happening instead of keeping ur eye on the action bar most of the time.
A simple way is to set up ur key binds and use the alt+z to hide ur screen and do Bg’s for 2 days
That way u are forced to use keybinds it is tuff at the start but then you’ll grow to like it.
Then disable the Q and E keys for strafing..u can strafe with the left, right + rt mouse button if u want..
It frees up 2 buttons for spells.
DISABLE the ‘S’ button...DONT EVER back pedal..if u want to pvp u have to get the back pedalling out of the way.
I keep the Ice block on S so that i don’t back pedal and its easier to block
And KEEP moving. Don’t ever stand still.
And don’t use the Keyboard to Turn around..thats slows up ur movement.( By this I mean standing in a place and moving left and right and turning like a toy in one place)
SO to sum up , being called a Back pedaller , keyboard turner and mouse clicker is worse than being called a noob
These are the macros that are a must.
I’ll post the screenies so that u can copy the macros from there and avoid confusion when i type them
The counter spell one.
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...611_135905.jpg
So that u can insta cast counter spell in the mid of casting a frostbolt if u see the other guy casting a really harmful spell which u want to stop
U can use other similar macros like the CS one to insta cast stuff like iceblock or deepfreeze if u are in the mid of casting a Fb
This one is for the Pet and pet’s nova in one button.
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...611_135910.jpg
Pressing this macro gets out your pet , pressing it again brings up the reticle for the pets aoe freeze spell so u can cast it quickly with a button intead of clicking the spell then targeting the aoe and then using it
The remove Curse macro
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...611_135920.jpg
This one when u mouse over either urself or ur arena partner and click it , it removes curses if any.
If u are doing Arena and u need to quickly decurse ur partner u can use
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...611_135916.jpg
Focus macros
U need 2 focus macros...The focus Polymorph and the Focus Counterspell macro.
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...611_135902.jpg
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...611_135859.jpg
I’ll explain a bit about focus for those who dont know what it is.
When u are doing 2’s in arena , when the game starts, on the right side below the minimap, you will see 2 enemy icons / portraits of your opponents. You can left click one target to set it as ur target and right click the other target to set it as your focus.
When u press the focus poly macro for example , u can poly the focused target without un-selecting ur current target , if the focused target is in range, and u can use the poly and counterspell even if the target is behind u
So this is great if u have to handle multiple enemies either in a bg or arena.
U can Handle a Lot of enemies in Bg too . keep the healer on focus and poly , CS( counterspell) one , use the pet aoe on ranged targets and DF( deep freeze) one , use the cold snap and Df another , use ur frost nova , blink away..keep ur shattered barrier up...Multi Tasking FtW
This is the screen shot of my keybinds..
Most of them are self explanatory.
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/...611_135846.jpg
The pet macro is on the console / tilda key
Spellsteal is on scroll up
I have the Blizzard on mouse scroll down , and a rank one frost bolt on Shift+ mouse scroll up.
The lvl 1 frost bolt helps u to ensare a target in like 0.5 secs..good to slow someone just about to get out of your reach.
Or if u are duelling a lock who is using a felhunter, cast the level one frostbolt and then poly the lock. When he uses the devour magic spell on the felhunter it will remove the slow from the lock and will leave him polyed. That way u can kill the pet and then get the lock in peace. U can keep the lock as a focus and the pet as a target. That’s another use for the focus macros.
The blizzard at shift scroll down is good to unstealth a rogue or a feral who just went invis at a particular spot.Or if u have the rogue in deep freeze , and u don’t have a DoT on him, u are gonna cast the frostfire bolt to get a DoT on him , this takes a long time to cast.
Instead u can send away 2 FB’s (with ice lances)of 1.7 secs in the 5 sec Df , and when u send the last frost bolt , just as the deep freeze is about to end , cast the blizzard , so that the rogue will unstealth as he is sure to use vanish once he gets out.
Another tip here is when ur UI says Deep freeze , even if the deep freeze is on cooldown , spam 2 icelances..Coz that is the announcement for the Fingers of Frost Proc which makes ur lances crit for 3x damage.
Then the Mana shield is on shift down , in case u are taking dmg , ice barrier is in cd , and u have mana to spare.
Q is the macro for Counter spell so shift Q is the key for Focus Counterspell
F is the poly spell , so Shift F is the key for focus poly
a-F stands for Alt F , i have cold snap on this
I use Aoe spells on Z so arcane explosion is on z.
Then u can see the fire blast ,arcane blast and arcane missles there.They are useful when ur frost tree is silenced by another Counterspell , pummel , kick , wind-shear , spell lock etc etc , so that u don’t have to stand doing nothing there if u are silenced.
Remember to use the frost ward when u are duelling against mages and even DK’s..it might reflect a frost spell back at them apart from absorbing a bit of damage. Duelling against a warrior also is another reason for having frost ward up, in case your own spell gets reflected at you;)
Fire wards, well ofc against fire mages, destro-locks, ele shamans.
Remember to use mage armor against casters , and ice armor against melee.
Keep up the dampen magic buff and the intellect buff.
The other spells / items u see on the right side are the engineering ones bound on the numpad ,
The frag belt , nitro boost and hand rocket.
A mention about the hand rocket here , it has a LONG range , and when a rogue is just vanishing , use it, it has some travel time , and it will break his stealth if u time it well..
And ofc , the wand / shoot button..a must if u run OOM , or u need to break a shamans totem .
U can use the mage nuggets , diminishing returns or event alert addon to show u the buff procs , ur stats like sp, crit , haste , hit in a small box , and it is handy also as it shows what spells can be stolen from a target.
Well thats all i can think of to write as a starter guide.
Happy pvping ppl
Roll more mages.
Cya around..
Argfreshmeat..
