Frost Mage Level 58 Boost Guide

The character boost offered by Blizzard allows you to boost one class of your choice to Level 58. If you have never played that class before, it can be very hard to find your place in this new environment.

This guide is tailored towards giving you a base understanding of playing a Frost Mage through completing the final few levels to 60, as well as at 60 in the pre-patch.

To increase your kill speed, control over enemy mobs, and survivability, the Deep Frost spec has turned out to be the best for leveling versus single-target mobs. It is also very useful to burst high health enemies down with double Icy Veins and Summon Water Elemental, combined with Shatter.

You may use this spec up until Level 70 and add more points into Improved Cone of Cold, Winter's Chill, and Arcane Subtlety or Improved Blizzard. There are also AoE builds, with which you can kill multiple mobs at a time, however, this is more for experienced players and if you are new to the Mage class, you should master the single-target build first.

The rotation shown below is in a priority list format.

• If the target will live long enough to use cooldowns, use Icy Veins and Summon Water Elemental.
• If your target is frozen by Frostbite, cast the following sequence:
  • Frostbolt
  • Ice Lance (you learn this spell at Level 66)
  • Frostbolt
• Cast Frostbolt.

Given your ability to control enemies as a Frost Mage, you can use your Frost Nova or Freeze from your Water Elemental to root them in place whenever an enemy comes too close to you.

Enemies that are frozen will have a 50% higher chance to receive a critical strike from you.

If you are fighting enemies on your own level or one level above you, the best offensive stats are:

• Spell Damage and Healing
• Spell Crit Rating
• Spell Haste Rating
• Spell Hit Rating*

*Note that you want to have 1% hit vs mobs 1 level higher than you, 2% for mobs 2 levels higher than you, and 13% hit for mobs 3 levels higher than you for your Frost spells.

While leveling, hit rating is basically irrelevant, but for bosses, you will want to be hit capped.

For Mana regeneration and general utility, you can look at the following stats:

• Spirit
• Mana per 5
• Intellect
• Stamina

For leveling, you will mostly want to stack offensive stats that increase your damage output, to ensure you maintain a steady pace while leveling.

If you are new to playing Mage, here is a list of core abilities and how to use them.

• Frostbolt will be your main source of damage.
• Frostbite, which has a 15% chance per frost spell to freeze your enemies in place for 5 seconds, which increases your chance to get a critical strike by another 50%! Critical strikes with Frost spells do double damage!
• Frost Nova can also be used to freeze your enemies in place for 8 seconds, for the increased chance to crit with Frost spells. Use rank 1 of this ability, as it does the same as the higher ranks, but costs more Mana.
• Ice Lance is a spell you will learn at Level 66 from your Mage trainer and can be used right after Frostbolt on a frozen target, so both spells will benefit from the bonus crit chance. Ice Lance can also be used while moving, so you can Frost Nova a low health enemy and Ice Lance it to finish it off.
• Summon Water Elemental summons a Water Elemental. He will fight for you and has two abilities.
  • Waterbolt, which fires a bolt of water at your enemy and which you can automate by making a macro, adding it to your Frostbolt ability.
  • Freeze is another ability your Water Elemental offers. It acts the same way as Frost Nova, with one significant difference: you can place it on enemies in range. So if an enemy is closing in to you, you use this "Pocket Frost Nova" and freeze him while casting your next Frostbolt. You can also make a macro for Freeze by opening the macro menu and just write /cast Freeze in the macro.
• Icy Veins will increase your casting speed by 20% for 20 seconds. It is great in conjunction with Frostbolt and you can also make a macro like for Waterbolt, just replace the /petattack with /cast Icy Veins. This also works for Arcane Explosion and Blizzard and will make you basically do 20% more damage from casting faster. However, you will use up more Mana as well!
• Cone of Cold is your first Frost AoE spell and it will deal damage to all mobs in a cone in front of you. If mobs are frozen by Frost Nova or Freeze, this spell also has a 50% higher chance to do double damage.
• Blizzard is your secondary AoE damage spell. It does less damage, but with the Improved Blizzard talent, it will slow down enemy mobs hugely and allow for a lot of control.
• Cold Snap is a spell that resets the cooldown of all your Frost abilities. However, this ability has a cooldown, which is modified by talents.
• Arcane Explosion is a very good AoE damage spell. If you choose the 2 talent points in Arcane Subtlety in the Arcane talent tree, it generates less threat and you can cast it more safely without having to worry about pulling aggro from a tank in dungeons.
• Flamestrike is the Fire AoE spell every Mage can cast. It does direct damage to enemies in an area and leaves a DoT (damage over time) on the ground that burns enemies as well.
• Fire Blast is your instant cast Fire spell, which you can use while moving. It is typically used to finish off a mob or use while running away until the next Frost Nova is ready.
• Fireball is used in two cases. Some mobs have the ability to put a cooldown on all your Frost abilities while you are casting them and others are simply immune to Frost damage. You can use this spell to deal Fire damage.
• Scorch works the same way as Fireball, but is more Mana efficient. Further, you will not fire a projectile-type Fireball, but the damage will be dealt instantly.
• Arcane Missiles serves the same purpose as Fireball and Scorch, but it is a channelled spell of the Arcane school.
• Spellsteal can be learned on your way to Level 70 and steals one magical buff from enemies with magical buffs.
• Mage Armor is your preferred armor before the Burning Crusade launches. It allows 30% of your Mana regeneration to continue while you are casting. That does not sound like much, but is pretty decent over a long time.
• Molten Armor is introduced while leveling in TBC and adds 3% crit chance to your abilities. If mobs hit you, they will get damaged slightly as well.

• Frost Nova can also be used defensively if you want to get away from enemy mobs.
• Blink teleports you 20 yards away from enemies. However, Blink can also be used to move faster or to move towards enemies.
• Cold Snap can be used defensively if you need to reset the cooldown of Frost Nova, Cone of Cold or Ice Barrier, which allows you to absorb damage.
• Mana Shield also absorbs incoming damage, but drains Mana per damage absorbed.
• Polymorph can be used to turn Critters, Beasts, and Humanoids into sheep, causing them to wander around for 50 seconds. Be aware that these mobs might not be sheeped for the full 50 seconds, as it can break at any time, with a higher chance towards the end of the duration.
• Counterspell will interrupt enemies casting spells either on you or your friends. You can use a macro with "/stopcasting" followed by "/cast Counterspell" (on a new line) to stop your current cast and instantly interrupt enemy casts.
• Ice Block will freeze you in a block of ice and make you immune to almost all damage in the game. Furthermore, it removes almost all negative effects, also called debuffs, on you. Be aware that Priests in TBC can dispel your Ice Block with their Mass Dispel ability.
• Frost Ward absorbs a certain amount of Frost damage. It is best used against mobs that deal Frost damage.
• Fire Ward absorbs a certain amount of Fire damage. It is best used against mobs that deal Fire damage.
• Ice Armor gives you additional armor points, which is useful against Physical hits from enemies; it also slows attackers.
• Cone of Cold can be used defensively to slow mobs in front of you for 8 seconds, before you run away from them. Rank 1 of this ability costs less Mana and serves the same purpose!
• Mage Armor is your preferred armor before the Burning Crusade launches. It allows 30% of your Mana regeneration to continue while you are casting. That does not sound like much, but is pretty decent over a long time.
• Molten Armor also increases the chance you will be critically hit by 5%. However, this is usually not considered, since Ice Armor just adds more survivability.
• Invisibility is also a spell introduced in TBC and can be used to get out of combat and run away from enemies, or to just sneak by enemies. It takes 5 seconds to become invisible and each second your threat level versus mobs is being decreased. After those 5 seconds, you will become invisible for 20 seconds and leave combat.
• Remove Lesser Curse is important if mobs curse you with deadly curses. You can decurse yourself or friendly targets.

• Evocation is your most loved Mana-restoring spell. It can be used every 8 minutes and restores 60% of your whole Mana over a 8 seconds channeling time. Use this as often as you can when you need Mana, as it will save you time!
• Amplify Magic increases the spell damage and healing taken by the friendly target you cast this on. This can be used when you want to increase healing on your tank who is tanking mobs that do not cast any damaging spells and do only physical damage.
• Dampen Magic is the opposite of Amplify Magic. It can be used to reduce spell damage taken from spells, but it also reduces healing taken. This can be useful if you are solo leveling or farming and mobs do a lot of magic damage.
• Slow Fall requires a Light Feather and can be cast on yourself to reduce your falling speed. If you fall from a high ledge and would die otherwise, this spell can save your life! But be aware that any damage taken by you will cancel the effect!
• Portals are made by Mages for their group members to teleport players to all your faction's major cities. They are taught by the Mage trainers and are very sought after! Creating a portal requires Rune of Portals to be cast, which you can buy from reagent vendors.
• Teleport works like Portals, but simply only teleports the casting Mage to one of their faction's major cities. Casting this requires Rune of Teleportation, which you can buy from reagent vendors.
• Conjure Mana Gem is also a spell used to create an item that restores Mana to you. You can conjure several different Mana gems in advance to restore Mana when needed. At Level 68 you will learn to conjure a Mana Gem that has three charges, which restores more Mana than it takes to conjure. Use it often and wisely! Conjured items disappear after 15 minutes of being logged out.
• Conjure Water conjures water for yourself and your party and there are different ranks of this spell. The highest rank is learned from a book that drops in high level TBC dungeons. Conjured items disappear after 15 minutes of being logged out.
• Conjure Food conjures water for yourself and your party and there are different ranks of this spell. The highest rank is learned from a book that drops in high level TBC dungeons. Conjured items disappear after 15 minutes of being logged out.
• Ritual of Refreshment is a spell you can learn at Level 70 from the Mage trainers, after you have learned your highest rank of Conjure Water and Conjure Food, which are both rare drop books from Outland dungeons. Conjured items disappear after 15 minutes of being logged out. This requires Arcane Powder to be cast, which you can buy from reagent vendors.