Frost Mage Guide | Toegrinder (2024)

This guide will cover everything you need to know about playing Frost in PvE content. Frost is an extremely flexible spec providing good sustained damage on both single target, cleave, and AOE.

Mage continues to have a desirable progression spot due to a raid buff & immunity.

Strengths:

Strong Mobility, especially during micro movement.

Good cleave with Splitting Ice.

Strong defensive kit.

Time Warp, Arcane Intellect, & the class tree provide a wide range of dungeon utility.

Drawbacks:

No spread AOE or cleave.

Competes with the other mage specs for similar strengths.

Main raid utility is Arcane Intellect which does not make stacking the class appealing.

Extremely low passive tankiness. Defensive kit is all proactive which requires spec comfort or encounter knowledge.

Dragonflight

Rune of Power has been removed.
The talent tree rework changes what tools we have access to. However the tools themselves have undergone minimal change.
Icy Propulsion now only affects single target spells.
Dragon's Breath, Blast Wave, Ice Floes, Ice Nova and Greater Invisibility are available to all mage specs.

Shadowlands

Mages once again have Alter Time.
Mirror Image is now a defensive utility cooldown rather than a damage one.

Battle for Azeroth

Spell buffs such as Combustion only affect spell damage. Other sources of damage, such as trinkets, are unaffected.
Mages once again have Remove Curse and Arcane Intellect

Damage Spells:

Frostbolt - Filler ability, it does low damage and has a chance to generate Fingers of Frost and/or Brain Freeze.
IceLance - High damage instant cast ability, deals triple damage if the target is frozen.
Flurry - High damage spell that launches 3 bolts of ice at the target and applies Winter's Chill.
FrozenOrb - Launches an orb that travels forwards up to 40 yards away that slows down significantly once it hits a target. Grants Fingers of Frost when it first deals damage and has a chance to generate more each time it deals damage. This chance does not increase from hitting more targets.
Blizzard - Ground targeted AOE that does low damage, slows, and reduces the cooldown of FrozenOrb each time it deals damage.
Icy Veins - Primary DPS cooldown. It gives us 30% haste for 20 seconds.

Defensive Spells:

Ice Barrier - Small shield for 60 seconds.
Mirror Image - Creates 3 copies of your character for 40 seconds. While an image is active your damage taken is reduced by 20%, and taking direct damage causes an image to dissipate.
Alter Time - Snapshots your current location and health. The spell can be reactivated again within 10 seconds to return you to said location and health.
Ice Block - Immunity that prevents all damage.
Greater Invisibility - Turns us invisible immediately and provides a 60% damage reduction. Can be used to fizzle several targeted boss abilities.

Other Utility Spells:

Blink - Teleports you 20 yards forwards. Our main mobility tool.
Dragon's Breath - Frontal cone AOE that disorientates all targets hit.
Invisibility - Turns you invisible after a short delay. Can be used to fizzle several targeted boss abilities.
Spellsteal - Steals or purges 1 beneficial magic buff from the target.
Arcane Intellect - Increases your groups Intellect by 5% for 1 hour.
Remove Curse - Dispels all curses from a friendly target.
Blast Wave - Knocks back, slows and damages all nearby enemies.
Cone Of Cold - Slows enemies in a frontal cone by 70%.

Talent Import String: BAEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQEUSDJJRKCIJERSkEAAASJRSIRSSIJJJJJBAAAAAAAAAiA

Spec tree:

On any fight where you want to cast Blizzard, I recommend dropping Deep Shatter and Perpetual Winter for Freezing Rain and Ice Caller.
Wintertide vs Snowstorm. Snowstorm is quite powerful on big AOE. However a big benefit of Frost is being able to balance ST and AOE. I do not think Snowstorm adds enough meaningful AOE damage and it's mostly a pad talent. It takes time to stack and theres a risk of the debuff dropping off. In addition it can be hard to evaluate how useful the burst AOE is if you still end up being limited by priority damage.
Subzero can be dropped for Splintering Cold for more boss damage.

Class tree:

Shifting Power, Overflowing Energy, Incanters Flow, Ice Nova, Tome Of Rhonin and Tome Of Antonidas are all easily accessible throughput traits and should always be taken.
Ice Floes is weak for Frost, as it becomes worse the shorter your cast times are and Frost has multiple haste buffs. I always recommend Shimmer. It's not unplayable as it does help with Shifting Power and Ray of Frost.
In dungeons I prioritise more active utility such as Remove Curse, Spellsteal, Blast Wave or Ring Of Frost.
Energized Barriers is very powerful in specific situations as it can remove debuffs that slow, but also do other things, such as DOTs or healing absorbs.
In raid I de-prioritise active utility in favour of defensive and utility talents such as Tempest Barrier or Winters Protection.
I intentionally avoid Volatile Detonation. While having a real knock back can sometimes be useful, I think that it is a downgrade more often than not. Blast Wave is simply best used as an AOE stop.
Remove the point in Ice Cold if you need Ice Block to be an actual immunity to cheese a boss mechanic or to remove debuffs. I recommend also removing the points from Cryo Freeze in this situation as it's very bad with regular Ice Block.
If one of the active utility talents is not needed such as Spellsteal or Remove Curse. Move these points somewhere else such as ArcaneWarding.
Swap MassBarrier for MassInvisibility if you plan to skip specific trash mobs.

4.1 Shatter

The core mechanic of the spec is Shatter. Spells against enemies who are Frozen benefit from Shatter, and have a greater chance of being struck a critical strike. Your critical strike chance against frozen enemies is:

(Critical Strike chance * 1.5) + 50%

The main way of gaining Shatter in PvE is through Winters Chill via Flurry and Fingers Of Frost, with most rotational decisions involving maximising the number and effectiveness of both these abilities. During this guide I will refer to you causing a spell to gain the Shatter effect as ‘shattering’ that spell.

4.2 Winter's Chill and Procs

The frost mage rotation revolves around maximising the impact of your two procs, Brain Freeze and Fingers Of Frost, while maximising the number of these procs through casting Frostbolt and FrozenOrb.

Flurry applies Winters Chill to the target - causing your next 2 spells to deal damage as if the target were frozen. Each Flurry bolt refreshes the duration and stacks of Winters Chill.
Brain Freeze refunds a charge of Flurry and increases the damage of your next Flurry by 50%. Should a Frostbolt give you a Brain Freeze when you already have one, there is a small grace window that allows you to spend the old Brain Freeze and still gain the new one.
Fingers Of Frost causes your next IceLance to deal damage as if the target were frozen.

Because a target is either frozen or not frozen, there is minimal benefit to casting a Fingers Of Frost IceLance into a Winters Chill (only Wintertide). This situation should be avoided if possible. This means that should you find yourself with both Fingers Of Frost and Flurry charges, you want to get rid of your Fingers Of Frost procs before casting Frostbolt -> Flurry.

However sometimes you will find a Frostbolt gives you both procs, or a FrozenOrb gives you Fingers Of Frost while you already have Brain Freeze. In the event that you are casting a Frostbolt with both Fingers Of Frost and Brain Freeze, you should cast Flurry at the end and simply waste the Fingers Of Frost proc. This is because Brain Freeze & Flurry provide SIGNIFICANTLY more damage than Fingers Of Frost, and you don’t want to risk gaining another Brain Freeze and wasting one of them.

While the majority of our Winters Chill will be consumed using IceLance, we want to make sure our hard hitting spells such as Glacial Spike and Ray of Frost benefit from Winters Chill where possible.

4.3 Rotation Overview

Frost mage filler follows this cycle:

Cast Frostbolt as a filler.
Cast Flurry if available after Frostbolt and cast two spells (usually IceLance) into Winters Chill.
Spend any Fingers Of Frost procs.
Repeat the sequence, using any additional abilities such as and Shifting Power on cooldown.

Always try to cast Frostbolt before Flurry, as due to the travel time on Flurry it will hit first allowing the Frostbolt to benefit from Winters Chill.

After Flurry, you should consume Winters Chill stacks using your hardest hitting abilities. This is usually IceLance, but can be Glacial Spike or Ray of Frost if they are available. AOE spells such as Comet Storm and FrozenOrb benefit from Winters Chill but do not consume stacks.

We should be trying to cast Glacial Spike into Winters Chill where possible by timing our Flurry casts. It doesn't matter if Flurry is cast before or after Glacial Spike or if Glacial Spike consumes the first or second Winters Chill. It's important to understand this conceptually rather than learning set scenarios. However here are a few examples to show possible ways that you can shatter Glacial Spike:

You are at 5 icicles. Cast Glacial Spike -> Flurry -> IceLance
You are at 4 icicles with a Fingers Of Frost. Cast IceLance -> Glacial Spike -> Flurry
You are at 4 icicles without Fingers Of Frost. Cast Flurry -> Glacial Spike -> IceLance
You are at 3 icicles. Cast Frostbolt -> Flurry -> Glacial Spike -> IceLance

It's important to be aware what spells and combos give you what number of Icicles, so you can cast as many Glacial Spike into Winters Chill as possible without wasting Icicles. Remember to sneak in Comet Storm where possible.

IceLance travels faster than Glacial Spike. If you have Fingers Of Frost and cast Glacial Spike as the second spell into Winters Chill, do not IceLance immediately as it will 'steal' the Winters Chill charge.

4.4 Priority

Comet Storm

Glacial Spike

Ray of Frost

Cast Icy Veins
Cast Flurry if

Your previous spell was Frostbolt, and you have Brain Freeze
Your previous spell was Frostbolt, and you have 3+ Icicles
Your previous spell was Glacial Spike and the target does not have Winters Chill
You are at at 4 Icicles

Cast Comet Storm if the target is affected by Winters Chill

Cast Ray of Frost with one stack of Winters Chill

Cast Glacial Spike if the target is affected by Winters Chill, or if you have a Flurry available

Cast FrozenOrb if Ray of Frost is on cooldown

Cast Shifting Power if Icy Veins, FrozenOrb, Comet Storm and Ray of Frost are on cooldown.

Cast Glacial Spike at 5 Icicles

Cast IceLance with Fingers Of Frost or the target is affected by Winters Chill

Cast Blizzard at 3+ targets

Cast Frostbolt

You should try and hold Flurry until you're at 3 Icicles where possible. This allows us to cast Frostbolt -> Flurry -> Glacial Spike -> IceLance shattering every spell. This will not always be possible as you still want to prevent overcapping spend Brain Freeze.

We cast Ray of Frost into Winters Chill after consuming 1 stack already, as Winters Chill will time out during Ray of Frost cast.

2 Target Cleave

On 2 targets, if we have 2 Flurry casts available we can use them both on the same Glacial Spike.

Cast Flurry on target one
Cast IceLance on target one
Cast Glacial Spike on target two
Cast Flurry on target two

4.5 Opener

The opener can be broken into 2 deterministic sections.

Cast Mirror Image and Frostbolt prepull
Cast Flurry immediately after Frostbolt
Cast Icy Veins
Cast Comet Storm (benefits from Winters Chill)
Cast IceLance (benefits from Winters Chill)
Cast Ray of Frost (benefits from Winters Chill)

At this point, you will be between 3 and 5 Icicles depending on Splintering Cold procs. If you are not at 5 Icicles you should consume Fingers Of Frost procs until you reach 5 Icicles.

Once you are at 5 Icicles:

Cast Glacial Spike
Cast Flurry immediately after Glacial Spike
Cast FrozenOrb
Cast Shifting Power

5.1 AOE Overview

In general very little changes on AOE for Frost. This is because a large part of your AOE damage comes from spells that you already cast on single target. The main additions are shattering AOE spells and maintaining Blizzard.

5.2 AOE Priority

ColdestSnap

Comet Storm

Glacial Spike

Snowstorm

During AOE, you can shatter a spell following a freeze spell that is on the global cooldown such as Ice Nova, if you have 50% or more haste. Freeze can be used any time to shatter as it's off the GCD.

Cast Icy Veins
Cast Cone Of Cold if your previous spell was Comet Storm
Cast FrozenOrb
Cast Blizzard
Cast Comet Storm
Cast Shifting Power
Cast Flurry
Cast IceLance with Fingers Of Frost
Cast Ice Nova
Cast Arcane Explosion
Cast Frostbolt

6.1 Stats

Frost stats weights are a little closer than some other specs, and due to the large Intellect stat budget on items, item level will usually be an upgrade. Stat weights vary depending on your current gear and talents. To produce an accurate stat priority or to accurately compare items you must sim yourself.

Critical Strike increases the critical strike rate of our abilities and therefore the effectiveness of Shatter.
Haste reduces the cast time of our spells, our global cooldown, and the cooldown and duration of Blizzard.
Versatility provides a flat damage increase and damage taken reduction.
Mastery - Icicles cause our Frostbolt and Flurry to store an icicle. We can store up to 5 icicles at once and they are consumed to deal damage when we cast IceLance or Glacial Spike. Gaining an icicle at 5 stacks automatically causes the oldest icicle to deal it's damage.

Generally prioritise stats like so:

Intellect
Mastery
Critical Strike
Haste
Versatility

Shatter increases our Critical Strike chance against frozen targets:

(Critical Strike chance * 1.5) + 50%

This means that at 33.34% Critical Strike will see a significant drop in value, as our spells now have 100% chance to critically strike when they are affected by Shatter. This is referred to as the ‘shatter cap’. The shatter cap is simply a point at which critical strike value plateaus. There is no magical DPS increase at 33.34% critical strike.

Despite providing multiplicative Critical Strike, Shatter on it's own does not increase the value of Critical Strike due to the additive Critical Strike that is also provided.

6.2 Trinkets

Because active trinkets share a cooldown, we generally want to pick up one active trinket and one passive trinket. For up to date trinket data please refer to the sims page of the site.

Recommended trinkets for Raiding:

Belor'relos
Whispering Incarnate Icon

Recommended trinkets for Mythic+:

Belor'relos
Augury

6.3 Crafting & Embellishments

Recommended Embellishments:

Blue Silken Lining is currently the most powerful embellishment if you can maintain uptime, however this is not always possible. The best slots to craft in are Bracers, Belt, and Feet.
Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch is the safer option. The best slots to craft in are Bracers, Belt, and Feet.

Good dinar items (in no particular order)

Weapon - Dreambinder, Loom of the Great Cycle
Cloak - Voice of the Silent Star
Trinket - Belor'relos
Trinket - Whispering Incarnate Icon
Ring - Seal of Diurna's Chosen
Ring - Seal of Filial Duty

Phial: Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage
Rune: Hissing Rune
Potion: Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power

Chest: Waking Stats
Weapon: Sophic Devotion
Legs: Fr Spellthread
Ring: Devotion of Mastery

Bracers: Devotion of Avoidance
Cloak: Writ of Avoidance
Waist: Shadowed Belt Clasp

Gems: Sensei's Neltharite

8.1 Horde

Tauren - Brawn makes Tauren the best Horde race for Frost. It does the same DPS as Dwarf but has a worse utility racial.
Goblin - Rocket Jump is one of the few useful utility racials while Time is Money keeps the race somewhat competitive for DPS.

8.2 Alliance

Dwarf - Might of the Mountain makes Dwarf the best race for Frost. It does the same DPS as Tauren but has better utility in Stoneform.
Void Elf - Spatial Rift is one of the few useful utility racials while Entropic Embrace keeps the race somewhat competitive for DPS.

Macro all cooldowns, racials, and items into one key.

#showtooltip/cast Icy Veins/cast Blood Fury/cast Berserking/use 11/use 12/use 13/use 14/use 2

The macro below can be used to automatically cancel Ice Block if you try to cast a spell while blocked; and automatically targets something if you try to cast a spell with no target. [nochanneling] will also allow you to spam the key without cancelling Shifting Power:

#showtooltip/cancelaura Ice Block/cast [nochanneling] Frostbolt/targetenemy [noexists][dead]

Automatically cast ground targeted abilities wherever your mouse cursor is, saving you a click. Example with Blizzard, works for all other ground targeted spells:

#showtooltip/cast [@cursor] Blizzard

Utilize a single keybind for both pet freeze and Icy Veins:

#showtooltip /cast [nopet] Icy Veins; [@cursor] Freeze

Can be used to cancel Ice Block and immediately Blink. Useful when Ice Blocked in a void zone as you'll Blink out and take no damage. Also works with Shimmer:

#showtooltip/cancelaura Ice Block/cast Blink

Counterspell. Prioritizes Mouseover > Focus > Target:

#showtooltip Counterspell/cast [@mouseover,harm][@focus,harm][harm] Counterspell

Spellsteal. Prioritizes Mouseover > Focus > Target:

#showtooltip Spellsteal/cast [@mouseover,harm][@focus,harm][harm] Spellsteal

Mouseover Remove Curse:

#showtooltip Remove Curse/cast [@mouseover]Remove Curse

10.1 Ice Floes Usage

Ice Floes makes our next cast castable while moving. This effect stacks. This means we can press Ice Floes twice without casting a spell, and have our next 2 spells be castable while moving.

Ice Floes can also be cast while casting, in case you decide you need to move while in the middle of a cast. However, this effect has a small grace window. If Ice Floes is activated within the last 0.5 seconds of a cast, it will NOT consume a stack of the buff.

This means that we can abuse Ice Floes to gain multiple consecutive casts while casting without consuming any stacks of the buff, as long as we refresh the buff in the last 0.5 seconds of the cast.

For example:

You activate Ice Floes.
You cast a Frostbolt while moving, with a single stack of Ice Floes, and with 0.5 seconds left on the cast you activate Ice Floes again.
You still have 2 stacks of Ice Floes.
Optionally repeat step 2 again.

This means you can cast 3 spells while moving with 2 charges, or 5 spells while moving with 3 charges.

10.2 Cancelling Alter Time

Alter Time snapshots our current location and health. The spell can then be reactivated within 10 seconds to return us to said location and health. However if the buff expires we will be returned regardless, which sometimes we may not want to do.

If we cancel the Alter Time buff, it will not automatically be activated at the end of the duration, allowing us to stay where we are.

/cancelaura Alter Time

10.3 Glacial Spike and Winter's Chill

You are at 5 icicles. Cast Glacial Spike -> Flurry -> IceLance
You are at 4 icicles with a Fingers Of Frost. Cast IceLance -> Glacial Spike -> Flurry
You are at 4 icicles without Fingers Of Frost. Cast Flurry -> Glacial Spike -> IceLance
You are at 3 icicles. Cast Frostbolt -> Flurry -> Glacial Spike -> IceLance

Should I use Ice Lance at 5 icicles even without a proc?

No, in fact whenever you are playing without Glacial Spike talented, Icicles should not factor into a single one of your decisions. At 5 Icicles gaining a new Icicle will simply launch the oldest one. Meaning that they should be functionally ignored.

How do I sim Mythic+?

There is no single sim that will represent a Mythic+ dungeon. Looking at the results of multiple Patchwerk sims with different numbers of targets and various settings can help you understand what is good in different situations. Fight styles other than Patchwerk and short duration sims can be misleading and are not recommended.

What stat percentages should I aim for?

Nothing, you don't aim for specific percentages of stats. There are very few stat breakpoints in the game that are of utmost importance, and any that are will be reflected in sims. You equip the gear that gives you the most DPS with almost no thought on what stat percentages that leaves you at.

Should I use pawn?

No, it's an outdated addon, based on an outdated way of thinking about the game. It relies too heavily on stat weights being an accurate method of comparing gear, which they aren't. Just use top gear and never think about stat weights ever.

How do I sim <Mage Thing>?

Mage simc wiki

What should I set my Spell Queue Window to?

If you don't know why you're changing it leave it at the default (400).

Should I use Arcane Momentum?

Generally I would advise against it as it's more error prone and currently has multiple different bugs.

My sim says this thing gives X stat, but in game I get Y?

Raidbots takes it's tooltips from Wowhead. They may not necessarily lineup with the values being used by the sim. Always check the HTML report.