TBC Classic Frost Mage Guide

Mages have three very unique PvE talent trees; Arcane, Fire, and of course Frost. Each spec shines with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Frost Mages received a significant buff compared to Classic. The newly added talents, such as Icy Veins, Summon Water Elemental or Empowered Frostbolt make Frost a very competitive PvE spec in the start of TBC, especially with the ability to use Icy Veins and Water Elemental twice in a row. Further, the controlling abilities of Frost have been enhanced with the Freeze ability of your Water Elemental, which allows to freeze enemies anywhere around you with a ranged Frost Nova. If all that was not enough already, Frost Mages still have their immensely powerful slowing tool Blizzard. You will learn more about all these abilities in much greater detail in the Frost Mage PvE Spells and Frost Mage PvE Talents sections.

Frost Mages can be viable early on, but they need Shaman totems, a Moonkin and probably a Shadow Priest or Innervates to perform the same way as the Arcane Mages do with less support. There's simply no way to beat around the bush: If you want to play competitively in raids, play Arcane. However, if you enjoy the Frost playstyle and being competetive is not your biggest of concerns, Frost is a very enjoyable spec and it is far from bad, it just requires more support and gear to shine. Furthermore, Frost is the best Mage PvP spec, an excellent spec for farming, and with it's AoE slowing ability from Improved Blizzard you will be a very welcome guest to any heroic 5-man dungeon.

If you would like to see where Frost Mage falls in the overall rankings among DPS specs for both PvE and PvP in TBC Classic, we have created pages dedicated to explaining what classes and specializations are the best of the best through multiple factors. However, ultimately, you should not let these lists dissuade you from playing what you enjoy.

Strengths

• Best controlling, slowing, CCing abilities of all Mage specs.
• High burst damage for solo and group play.
• High survivability.
• Best PvP spec.
• Easier to gear than Fire Mages.

Weaknesses

• Needs more Hit rating than Arcane spec.
• Harder to gear than Arcane spec.
• Weakest PvE spec of all three mage specs.

If you would like to see where Frost Mages fall in the overall rankings among DPS specs for both PvE and PvP in TBC Classic, we have created pages dedicated to explaining what classes and specializations are the best of the best through multiple factors. However, ultimately, you should not let these lists dissuade you from playing what you enjoy.

Strengths

• Best controlling, slowing, CCing abilities of all Mage specs.
• High burst damage for solo and group play.
• High survivability.
• Best PvP spec.
• Easier to gear than Fire Mages.

Weaknesses

• Needs more Hit rating than Arcane spec.
• Harder to gear than Arcane spec.
• Weakest PvE spec of all three mage specs.

Just as they were in Classic, Gnomes are considered overall to be the best race for Alliance. Their 5% Intellect boost from Expansive Mind is good for all three Mage specs. If you plan to respec to Arcane at some point: Since Intellect is such a strong stat for Arcane Mages, this racial is especially good for the Arcane spec. Escape Artist is the best Mage racial trait for PvP, as it is instant in TBC on a low 1.75-minute cooldown and sometimes even useful in PvE. The extra Arcane Resistance has little to no use for PvP and PvE content. The bonus to Engineering from Engineering Specialization is handy for leveling Engineering but serves no further purpose. Draenei is not considered a worthwile race for Mages, as the Inspiring Presence talent is the only relevant racial ability, but you usually get it from a Shaman in your group.

Trolls are the best PvE Horde race for Mages. The passive damage increase to beasts from Beast Slaying is nice to have while leveling and for fighting beasts, but the real deal is the increased cast speed from Berserking. The more Health you have lost, the more Haste you will gain from this ability for 10 seconds. Further, with Regeneration, Troll Mages are able to generate small amounts of Health during combat, an ability no other race has.

Blood Elves and Undead are not considered especially strong in PvE, but they can be strong in PvP. Blood Elves can silence with Arcane Torrent, and Undead can make themselves immune to Fear, Charm and Sleep effects for 5 seconds with Will of the Forsaken. Cannibalize is the other relevant PvP ability for Undead Mages, restoring 35% of your total health over 10 seconds, eating from a nearby undead or humanoid corpse. The 10 Shadow Resistance for Undead and 5 Magic Resistance also helps slightly versus other casters in PvP.

The best professions for Frost Mages are Enchanting and Engineering. Early on Tailoring is a very good profession and beats Engineering, because the Tailoring items have a lot of Spell Hit rating. Later, around the end of Tier 5, start of T6, your items from raids will have enough hit to make Tailoring redundant.

Enchanting offers Enchant Ring - Spellpower enchants for your rings, which are considered to be very strong. These enchants stop working if you drop Enchanting and can only be applied to your own rings. Another benefit from Enchanting is, that you can Disenchant most green, blue and epic quality gear items, which can be used for other enchants or can be sold. This, however, requires your Enchanting skill to be leveled. Follow our TBC Enchanting guide if you want to learn more about the Enchanting profession. In the original TBC expansion, it was possible to enchant your rings with Enchant Ring - Spellpower and then respec into another profession. However, this was nerfed by Blizzard, making the ring enchant require Enchanting to be active.

Engineering is a very potent profession. Explosives, such as Dense Dynamite and Super Sapper Charge, are not subject to the AoE cap and can be woven into your rotation. Engineering also offers access to various versions of the Destruction Holo-gogs throughout the expansion, Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite for movement speed bursts, and the Zapthrottle Mote Extractor, used for farming motes. One of the biggest gains of Engineering are the Teleporters in TBC, such as Dimensional Ripper - Area 52. These can give you a character model and size-increasing effect, effectively increasing the range of your Arcane Explosion.

Leatherworking needs to be mentioned, as Leatherworkers can make different Drums with beneficial effects for 30 seconds. However, since TBC Classic, players receive a Tinnitus debuff whenever they benefit from a drum effect. This is a 2-minute duration effect, that prevents you from getting another drum effect. This debuff was not in the game originally, and was added by Blizzard. Without this debuff, Leatherworking is better than Enchanting.

Tailoring is a controversal profession. While it gives access to Tailoring gear that is very strong early on, such as the Shadoweave set ( Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders, Frozen Shadoweave Robe and Frozen Shadoweave Boots), or the Spellstrike set ( Spellstrike Hood and Spellstrike Pants), it's strength diminishes over the content phases, as available gear will become better and better. So for the first few content phases (T4 and T5) it might sense to pick Tailoring, then drop it for Engineering, and later in Sunwell, if you are still willing to play Frost over Arcane, pick up Tailoring again for the Sunfire Robe in Sunwell Plateau. If you are rich, willing farm a lot, do want to rely less on raid drops, or want to sell some of the items on the Auction House, Tailoring is for you. Otherwise, go with Enchanting/Engineering.

At Tailoring level 375, players with Exalted reputation with Aldor, can create the best leg enchant for healers, Golden Spellthread. Players Exalted with Scryers can make the best caster leg enchant Runic Spellthread. Three, very sought-after Tailoring crafts early on are Girdle of Ruination, Cloak of the Black Void, and Bracers of Havok, later on Belt of Blasting/ Belt of the Long Road (healers) and Bracers of Nimble Thought/ Swiftheal Wraps (healers). However, those are all just gold makers and give you no added benefit in PvE, since all of those items can be crafted by other Tailors.

If you would like to learn more about how your profession of choice can be used to supplement your goldmaking, along with a variety of other means to bolster your income, see our full goldmaking guide linked below:

If you are looking to level your Mage, you will find our leveling guides below. Leveling can be done for either Arcane and Fire Mage, or you can simply go with one of the two Frost leveling specs.

Addons and macros are beneficial to Mages in The Burning Crusade, because they enhance gameplay efficiency by automating complex sequences of actions and providing crucial real-time information, such as cooldown timers and enemy debuffs. This allows Mages to maximize their damage output and responsiveness in both PvE and PvP scenarios.