Frost Mage guide
Caster DPS. Frost is the safe, mana-efficient spec with Frostbolt spam, shields and control. Forever's Ice Lance, a tier 3 Frost talent, deals 300% more damage to frozen targets and gains crit from Shatter, and Fingers of Frost lets it hit as if the target were frozen, so the shatter combo (freeze, then Ice Lance) is now a big part of both PvE trash and PvP. Winter's Chill now builds up your next Cone of Cold instead. Cold Snap resets your defensive and freeze cooldowns.
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Stat priority
- Hit (to cap)
- Spell Power
- Frost Damage
- Critical Strike
- Intellect
- Spirit
Opener
- Ice Barrier: Shield before engaging
- Frostbolt: Pre-cast before the pull
Single target
- Frostbolt: Main nuke; with Winter's Chill it also builds up your next Cone of Cold
- Ice Lance: On frozen targets (Frost Nova, Frostbite procs) for 300% more damage
- Cone of Cold: In melee range, and to spend Winter's Chill stacks on the target
- Fire Blast: Instant while moving
Several targets
- Frost Nova: Freeze the pack
- Ice Lance: Shatter frozen targets
- Blizzard: Main AoE channel
- Cone of Cold: Burst on grouped mobs
Cooldowns
- Cold Snap: Reset Frost Nova, Ice Barrier, Ice Block and Cone of Cold
- Ice Block: Immunity
- Ice Barrier: Absorb shield, prevents pushback
- Evocation: Mana recovery
Key talents
- Ice Lance
- Shatter
- Fingers of Frost
- Ice Shards
- Winter's Chill
- Ice Barrier
- Cold Snap
- Improved Frostbolt
- Frost Channeling
- Frostbite
- Precision
What Forever changed
Ice Lance is a new instant, taught by a tier 3 Frost talent with higher ranks from the trainer, that deals 300% extra damage to frozen targets and benefits from Shatter (3 ranks, up to 50% more crit on frozen targets). Fingers of Frost (tier 5) gives your Chill effects a 15% chance to make your next 1 or 2 spells, by rank, treat the target as frozen. Winter's Chill is reworked: Frostbolt and Fingers of Frost Ice Lances stack up a bonus for your next Cone of Cold instead of raising crit chance. Frost Blast, a cheap trainer slow in earlier builds, was removed in a late October build. Frost Nova into Ice Lance is now a real damage combo instead of only a control tool.
Tips
- Only hit frozen targets with Ice Lance; unfrozen it is weak.
- Frostbite freezes from chill effects, giving free Ice Lance windows.
- After a Fingers of Frost proc, your next spell treats the target as frozen: throw Ice Lance.
- Precision (it replaced Elemental Precision) gives up to 6% hit with all spells, lowering how much gear hit you need.
Other Mage specs: Arcane, Fire
Data from the WoW Forever client, build 1.60.1.70938, extracted .