In this article, we list your Frost Mage (WoW MoP 5.3) core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation). We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that playing a Frost Mage will face you with.

The other articles of our Frost Mage guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Blatty, one of the best Mages in the world, who raids in Method, the currently ranked #1 guild on WoWProgress. He has been contributing a lot to the community through his streams on Twitch and now works for Millenium, his new streaming platform.

1. Single Target Rotation↑top

The rotation of a Frost Mage consists in the following priority list.

1. Apply and refresh Living Bomb.
   • When you have a large damage-increasing proc (trinkets, weapon enchants, etc.), refresh it right away, otherwise refresh it after it explodes.
2. Cast Frozen Orb on cooldown.
3. Cast Frostbolt until the debuff it applies reaches 3 stacks.
4. Cast Freeze from your Water Elemental.
   • Only do so if there are adds that are not immune to rooting effects, it will give you 1 charge of Fingers of Frost (2 if it hits more than 1 enemy). Do not cast Freeze on raid bosses, as they are immune to rooting effects.
5. Cast Frostfire Bolt as soon as Brain Freeze procs.
6. Cast Ice Lance when you have charges of Fingers of Frost.
7. Cast Frostbolt as a filler spell.

See our Opening Sequence for instructions on what to cast when the fight starts.

1.1. Tier 6 Talent

Invocation is your best Tier 6 talent and is very straightforward to use. Cast it before the pull to get Invoker's Energy up and recast it every time it expires.

Make sure that, during Evocation, you do not have to refresh Nether Tempest.

If you chose Rune of Power as your Tier 6 talent, then make sure that your Rune of Power is always active and that you stand in it at all times.

If you chose Incanter's Ward as your Tier 6 talent, then use it every time it comes off cooldown.

We discuss how other choices of talents affect your play style further down the page.

1.2. Cooldown Usage

Icy Veins is your main DPS cooldown. It should be used whenever possible and in conjunction with on-use trinkets and potions.

Alter Time returns you to your current location, health, mana, buffs, and debuffs when you cast it a second time or after 6 seconds. We advise you to always use it in conjunction with Icy Veins, so as to increase the duration of the effect to 26 seconds. Make sure to have 2 charges of Fingers of Frost and to have a proc of Brain Freeze before using Alter Time. Alternatively, you can use it to bypass encounter mechanics, for example before receiving a large amount of damage or a dangerous debuff.

Mirror Image provides you with a small DPS boost and should therefore be used on cooldown.

2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top

Note that the advice below does not account yet for the Living Bomb changes in Patch 5.3. We will update this section after the second week of raiding with Patch 5.3 is finished.

If the enemies are spread out, then you need to keep performing your single-target rotation on one of the enemies, all the while keeping Nether Tempest (which you should have chosen as your Tier 5 talent) applied on as many enemies as possible. When casting Freeze, try to target 2 enemies if possible, this will grant you two charges of Fingers of Frost.

If the enemies stacked together, then your spell usage will depend on how many enemies you are fighting.

Between 2 and 4 enemies, continue performing your single-target rotation, all the while using Flamestrike and glyphed Cone of Cold on cooldown, and keeping Nether Tempest (which you should have chosen as your Tier 5 talent) applied on as many targets as possible. Glyph of Ice Lance will cause Ice Lance to strike an additional target for 50% of the damage.

For 5 enemies and more, use a combination of Frozen Orb, Flamestrike, Arcane Explosion, glyphed Cone of Cold, and Frost Bomb (which you need to choose as your Tier 5 talent). A very neat trick here is to use Ice Ward (on the tank), Frost Nova, or Freeze right before Frost Bomb explodes (because of Shatter). You need to time the freezing spell well, so that the damage from other players in your group does not break it before Frost Bomb explodes.

3. Armors↑top

Your only viable choice of armor is Frost Armor.

4. Water Elemental↑top

Use Glyph of Water Elemental if you want to avoid giving orders to your Elemental during an encounter.

5. Optional Read: Mastering Your Frost Mage↑top

While the rotations we gave in the previous sections will yield very good results, there are many things you should be aware of, in order to play your Frost Mage to its full potential. In particular, you need to understand precisely how Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze work.

5.1. Fingers of Frost

Fingers of Frost is a self-buff that has a chance to proc from most of your offensive spells, excluding Ice Lance. It can stack twice. Your Water Elemental also has an ability, Freeze, that will grant you 1 charge of Fingers of Frost (2 if it hits more than 1 enemy).

If you have at least 1 charge (stack) of Fingers of Frost, then your Ice Lance spell will damage your target as if it were frozen, meaning that its damage will be multiplied by 4 (not counting the +25% increased damage it also receives from Fingers of Frost and Mastery: Frostburn, your Mastery). Also, thanks to Shatter, the critical chance of Ice Lance against frozen targets is greatly increased.

Since Ice Lance is the only spell you will use that can consume your charges of Fingers of Frost, you do not have many constraints regarding when you should be using Ice Lance. You just need to make sure that your charges do not go to waste.

It is important to note that Frozen Orb will rapidly generate 2 charges of Fingers of Frost, especially if you use it with a lot of enemies around. This means that you should cast Frozen Orb when you have no charge of Fingers of Frost. After casting Frozen Orb, you should be ready to spam Ice Lance to consume all the charges of Fingers of Frost that you are going to receive.

5.2. Brain Freeze

Brain Freeze is a self-buff that has a chance to proc off the ticks/damage of your Tier 5 talents ( Nether Tempest and Frost Bomb, normally). Note that Frost Bomb will give you a proc of Brain Freeze every time it deals damage. Brain Freeze grants you an instant-cast, mana-free Frostfire Bolt that will act as if it were cast on a frozen target (greatly increasing its chance to be a critical strike, thanks to Shatter).

Try to use your procs of Brain Freeze rapidly, so that they are not overridden by a new one.

5.3. Opening Sequence

We advise you to use the following opening sequence (or opener).

• Before the pull:
  • with Nether Tempest:
    1. cast Mirror Image (-3 seconds);
    2. use your Potion of the Jade Serpent and start casting Frostbolt (-2 seconds);
    3. cast Frozen Orb and apply Nether Tempest;
  • with Frost Bomb:
    1. cast Mirror Image (-2 seconds);
    2. use your Potion of the Jade Serpent and start casting Frost Bomb (-1 seconds);
    3. cast Frozen Orb.
• After the pull:
  1. spam Frostbolt until you get 2 stacks of Fingers of Frost ( Frost Bomb or Nether Tempest will give you the proc of Brain Freeze you need before you can use Alter Time);
  2. use your Icy Veins+ Alter Time macro;
  3. during Alter Time, do your regular rotation, but make sure to consume Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze before Alter Time expires;
  4. when Alter Time expires, resume your regular rotation.

5.4. Kiting

A great strength of Frost Mages is their almost unrivaled ability to kite a target (or a group thereof) around. Frost Mages have a whole arsenal of abilities to slow and freeze their targets:

• Frost Nova;
• Blizzard;
• Frostbolt (applicable to a single target);
• Cone of Cold;
• Deep Freeze (applicable to a single target);
• Ring of Frost.

When kiting, you should try to move in a circular manner. To achieve that, you should always be moving sideways (left or right) and use the camera control (by default, the mouse right button) to try and rotate around a fixed point. The idea is that it enables you to target the adds you are kiting and it makes it easier to group the adds together.

To get initial aggro on the adds, cast Ice Lance on them once or twice, that should be enough if no one else attacks them. While you are kiting them, the spells you will use should suffice to maintain aggro.

In theory, using only spells with freezing effects (Frost Nova, Deep Freeze, and Ring of Frost), in combination with Blink to move away from the adds when they get too close, should be enough. If you are having trouble kiting the adds using only spells with freezing effects, you can always throw in a Cone of Cold to slow them down.

5.5. Talent Cooldowns and Abilities

5.5.1. Tier 1 Talents

Blazing Speed currently is the most important Tier 1 talent, and you should practice and master its usage, in order to minimise your movement and optimise your DPS. Frostbolt and Frost Bomb are your only spells with a cast time, so keep Blazing Speed for situations where you need to stand still casting these spells before moving out of danger in a flash. Consider it as an extra Blink: use it to get out of a situation that would otherwise kill you or if your target goes out of range.

Presence of Mind and Ice Floes are the other two cooldowns that you can choose as your Tier 1 talent. If you choose Presence of Mind (encounters without movement), it should be made into a macro that will serve as your primary way of casting Frostbolt (see our Presence of Mind Macro). If you choose Ice Floes (encounters with short sequences of movement), then, whenever you have to move, you should use it with Frostbolt.

6. Changelog↑top

• 25 May 2013: Living Bomb is now the best option for single-target situations. Multiple-target rotation still needs to be updated, but another lockout of testing is needed.
• 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: nothing changed (may need to review AoE rotation after a few days of raiding).
• 17 Apr. 2013: Update after Blatty's review of the guide.
  • Improved AoE rotation.
  • Added opening sequence.
  • Emphasised the importance of Blazing Speed over the other two Tier 1 talents in the talents cooldown section.
• 09 Mar. 2013: Added a mention of the fact that Freeze no longer grants charges of Fingers of Frost when cast on targets that are immune to rooting effects.
• 07 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
  • Updated multiple-target rotation to reflect the fact that Glyph of Inferno Blast (formerly Glyph of Fire Blast) now spread DoTs to an additional nearby target.
  • Updated value of Invocation's buff: was 25%, is 15% now.