Frost Mage Shadowlands Leveling Guide From 1 to 60
On this page, you will find our Level by Level Frost Mage leveling guide for Shadowlands Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Mage leveling guide.
Gear Options
When leveling up, you should always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level.
Level by Level Rotation and Talents
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
Talents to Level Up with as a Frost Mage
Your first talent row unlocks at Level 15.
Your talent set up should be as such:
- Level 15:
Lonely Winter or
Bone Chilling depending on if you want to have a pet or not
- Level 25:
Shimmer
- Level 30:
Incanter's Flow
- Level 35:
Frozen Touch
- Level 40:
Frigid Winds
- Level 45:
Splitting Ice
- Level 50:
Thermal Void
Rotation to Level Up as a Frost Mage
Starting at Level 1, you only have one main attack
ability: Frostbolt.
- Cast
Fire Blast on cooldown.
- Use your
Icy Veins cooldown when possible for more damage.
- Cast
Frozen Orb, preferably into multiple mobs.
- Cast
Flurry only when you have
Brain Freeze.
- Cast
Ice Lance any time the target is frozen, such as after a
Frost Nova if the mob gets too close.
- Cast
Ice Lance to spend your
Fingers of Frost charges.
- Cast
Ice Lance to spend your
Fingers of Frost charges, or directly after casting a
Flurry empowered by
Brain Freeze.
- Cast
Frostbolt.
Summary of Unlocked Abilities for Frost Mage
You unlock your first ability of interest at Level 3.
- At Level 10
Ice Lance is an instant cast that gains significant damage against frozen targets. It should only be cast against said frozen targets, or if you have nothing else to cast but have to move.
- Also at level 10,
Mastery: Icicles. This will generate an Icicle above your head when you cast certain spells. This can be ignored as it is entirely passive.
- At Level 11, you unlock
Ice Barrier. It provides a shield that will hold 22% of your max Health for a minute, on a 25-second cooldown.
- At Level 12, you unlock
Summon Water Elemental, which allows you to summon your Water Elemental pet. It will fire
Waterbolt at whatever you are attacking, allowing you to get a bit more damage if you have to kite.
- At Level 13, you unlock
Fingers of Frost, your first proc.
Frostbolt will now generate Fingers of Frost, which empowers your
Ice Lance, granting the triple damage bonus and benefit from
Shatter.
- At Level 14, you unlock
Blizzard. It is your primary AoE damage spell, and should be cast when you are fighting multiple enemies.
- At Level 17, you unlock
Shatter. It causes any spell that hits a target considered frozen to gain increased Critical Strike chance.
- At Level 18, you unlock
Cone of Cold, a powerful close-range AoE slow.
- At Level 19, you unlock
Flurry. It is a powerful damage spell with a 3-second cast time. It has a 50% slow attached to it, but the duration is not long enough to cover casting it again.
- At Level 23, you unlock
Freeze, granting your Water Elemental the ability to cast a ranged, damageless
Frost Nova at the target location.
- At Level 27, you gain the second rank of
Shatter, adding an extra 25% chance to Critically Strike against frozen targets.
- At Level 29, you unlock
Icy Veins, your 3-minute DPS cooldown. It increases your Haste by 30% for 20 seconds, and damage taken will not push back your cast timer.
- At Level 32, you unlock
Brain Freeze. It is your second proc, allowing
Frostbolt to make your next
Flurry instant cast and deal extra damage.
- At Level 33, you gain a second rank to
Ice Lance, increasing its damage by 10%.
- At Level 37, you gain the second rank of
Brain Freeze, which makes the instant
Flurry apply Winter's Chill to the target, letting any spells impacting while afflicted benefit from frozen status.
- At Level 38, you unlock
Frozen Orb. This is a 1-minute cooldown that deals a fair bit of damage in single target, and an absolute ton in AoE. The initial impact will generate one
Fingers of Frost, and each tick every half-second has a 10% chance for another.
- At Level 41, you gain a second rank to
Frostbolt, increasing its damage by 15%.
- At Level 42, you unlock
Cold Snap. This is a 5-minute cooldown that resets a handful of defensive and utility abilities, but is mostly utilized to reset
Ice Block so you may immune something twice in quick succession.
- At Level 43, you gain a second rank to
Cone of Cold, increasing its slowing effect by by 20%.
- At Level 46, you gain a second rank to
Frost Nova, increasing its freeze duration by 2 seconds.
- At Level 47, you gain a second rank to
Blizzard, allowing each tick on each mob to reduce the cooldown of
Frozen Orb by 0.5 seconds, making Frozen Orb and Blizzard a very powerful AoE combo.
- At Level 52, you gain a third rank to
Blizzard, increasing its damage by 15%.
- At Level 54, you gain a second rank to
Cold Snap, reducing its cooldown by 30 seconds.
- At Level 56, you gain a second rank to
Icy Veins, increasing its duration by 3 seconds.
- At Level 58, you gain
Alter Time. This is a very powerful cooldown that will let you take as much damage as you can without dying, and return that health when pressed a second time. It will also return you to the location it was activated at, making it a potential positional tool.
Frost Mage War Mode Talents for Leveling
In this section we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content.
Concentrated Coolness increases
Frozen Orb's damage by 10%, and allows it to be placed on the cursor. This allows you to place it in such a way it will tick on all mobs you are fighting, and significantly increases your AoE output.
Burst of Cold causes your
Frost Nova to increase your next
Cone of Cold's damage by 400%. Another significant AoE output increase, at the cost of playing fairly close to mobs you can likely lock down with slows from a distance.
Deep Shatter makes your
Frostbolt hit significantly harder against frozen targets.
Frostbite is a useful kiting option, causing every chill effect potentially freeze the target in place, allowing for a
Shatter off of it.
Ice Form changes your
Icy Veins into a 1-minute cooldown that only improves your
Frostbolt damage. If specced into
Rune of Power, this will significantly increase Rune of Power's uptime.
Chilled to the Bone,
Dampened Magic,
Kleptomania,
Netherwind Armor, and
Prismatic Cloak have limited use in PvE content in terms of
increasing your damage in the open world, but they can be situationally
useful if you wish for defensive bonuses.
Congratulations!
Congratulations on reaching Level 60! Now that you have hit Level 60 we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at max level.
Changelog
- 28 Dec. 2020: Fixed the level at which Brain Freeze is used in rotation, and fixed the level at which Ice Barrier is learned, now 11.
- 09 Nov. 2020: Ice Barrier level was hotfix changed to level 21.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Guide added.
This guide has been written by Kuni, one of the best Frost Mages in the world, who raids in Mortal Desire.
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