Frost Mage PvP Guide — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

Frost Mages are typically one of the strongest caster specs in PvP. Mages not only excel at getting crowd control and relentlessly slowing enemies, but they also have great burst damage. With short burst cooldowns and strong crowd control, Frost Mages are capable of controlling entire teams. One Polymorph can turn an entire game around. With the recent talent changes to Mages, the specialization has much more control and utility than in previous expansions.

Strengths

• Great control over enemies
• Multiple defensive cooldowns
• Strong burst damage
• Countless ways to root and slow enemy players

Weaknesses

• Have to rotate mobility well versus high mobility enemies
• Predictable burst damage
• Low Durability when out of cooldowns

• New talents/spells: Time Walk, Temporal Realignment, Improved Ice Barrier, Shatter, and Glacial Bulwark. The most interesting new talents are Shatter and Glacial Bulwark. Shatter gives you more damage and Glacial Bulwark will be great for your survivability.
• Removed talents/spells: Icy Veins, Shifting Power and Incanter's Flow have been removed and will be a noticeable change in your playstyle.
• Changed talent/spells:
  • Mastery has been changed, Mastery: Freeze and Shatter now increases the damage of spells that Freeze your enemies and increase the damage of spells that Shatter.
  • Fingers of Frost - No longer procs from Frozen Orb baseline. Now causes Ice Lances Shatter effect to Shatter without consuming Freezing stacks.
  • Icicles - now generated every 6 seconds. At 5 Icicles, Frostbolt updated to Glacial Spike.
  • Comet Storm - temporarily replaces Blizzard after casting Ray of Frost.
• PvP Talent Changes: No notable PvP talent changes.