Frost Mage DPS Battle of Dazar'alor Raid Guide — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.3

This page will be a talent cheatsheet and Frost Mage-specific tips page for Battle of Dazar'alor. For actual strategy on encounters, see the the raid page.

This page will be updated over the first few weeks of the raid as strategies emerge and any tips are found. All recommendations at this time are based on PTR testing and other preliminary information, and are subject to change.

As most of the encounters seem to favour multi-DoT specs, Frost Mage will not look great in terms of log performance, mostly due to lack of ability to pad. That said, our priority target burn capabilities remain, and we will be very useful in terms of actual progression, despite meters being skewed against us.

Splitting Ice should be used if your raid's strategy involves killing the adds. Otherwise, this fight is a mostly single target fight (with a short 3 target AoE burn on Normal).

Try and position yourself so that you are not facing the adds, not between the adds and the boss, yet still in range of the adds for when the phase change happens.

Ice Block can be used to ignore Judgment: Reckoning to help your healers out, or if the boss has high stacks.

Despite their teleporting and jumping around, the bosses are in range of each other long enough that Splitting Ice is the optimal talent.

Magma Trap's knockback can be avoided entirely with Blink, and the damage from falling ignored with both Slow Fall and Ice Block. You may also clear a second trap while debuffed if you are specced into Shimmer. Make sure you will Shimmer into the trap itself, and press this macro:

• #showtooltip
• /cast Shimmer
• /cast Ice Block

Blink is very useful in getting past the maze during the second intermission.

As the add has to be kept 15 yards away from Grong, Splitting Ice is useless here.

However Frozen Orb can, in theory, be placed in such a way to tick on both the boss and the add, although this will require careful placement and being away from the ranged group. Given there is a fear that requires you to stack with other people to evade, this seems like it will be a poor decision without help from the rest of your raid.

Use Ice Block if Grong hits 100 energy. Ice Barrier should be used for a 50 or 75 energy Tantrum/ Death Knell.

Try and take the left side, as there is less movement involved. The right side construct regularly casts Flames of Punishment, which will very quickly make you run out of Shimmer or Ice Floes charges.

Unless you are assigned another gem, you should grab Opal of Unleashed Rage. This will provide the most DPS in most scenarios.

Spirits of Gold spawn close enough that a Comet Storm+ Freeze combo will hit them, and deal a heavy amount of damage to all of them. In addition, if you currently have Opal of Unleashed Rage, this combo will instantly grant you a bunch of stacks. Be wary if you have a Blood Death Knight or Vengeance Demon Hunter, as they will likely attempt to AoE grip the adds as they spawn, which your Freeze would ruin. Do it immediately after if you have those tank classes present.

Bosses will heal to full on the death of another, so cleave is useless here. The Ravenous Stalkers also gain a buff by being close to each other, and should be killed as soon as possible.

Spellsteal Gift of Wind, which is cast by Pa'ku's Aspect for a Haste buff. If you have multiple Mages in your group, coordinate which targets you Spellsteal so that you both maintain the buff for as much time as possible.

You can use Remove Curse on Crawling Hex, but be careful that you do not do it on top of a bunch of people. In most cases, it is probably best to leave it to expire naturally.

Ice Block can remove the DoT from Kimbul's Wrath.

Comet Storm is the safe choice. Most of the fight is single target, and the minor damage gained on the Phase One adds will not be worth the possibility of accidentally cleaving someone down while they are mind controlled by Zombie Dust Totem.

Be mindful of when Zombie Dust Totem is spawning. Try and have a Glacial Spike ready to dump into it when it spawns.

Attempt to have at least Frozen Orb, if not Icy Veins, ready to go if you are one of the people going into the death realm to fight Bwonsamdi. That phase is the DPS check of the encounter.

The adds cannot take meaningful damage, and should be ignored as cleave targets. In the same vein, you should be careful to not throw Frozen Orb from a distance that might clip an add, wasting the damage.

Be mindful of Blink, to ensure that you do not accidentally land on a player who is under the effects of Shrunk.

Blink can be used to safely cross Voltaic Flash.

Keep an eye on boss timers, and try and have at least a Glacial Spike ready to burst down the Tidal Shroud/ Electric Shroud shields.

Your slows will be very useful in keeping the Energized Storm under control. You should swap to it as soon as possible to get it under control quickly.

Ice Block allows you to solo soak Ire of the Deep. Cold Snap will allow you to do this twice.

Try and have Frozen Orb off cooldown, and a Glacial Spike ready, as Intermission Two comes up. Bursting the ice wall down is the only way your raid will survive.

Ice Block can be used to break Frozen Solid. Cold Snap allows you to do this twice, meaning you are unlikely to get frozen for any meaningful time during Phase Three, when there are no more sources of heat in the fight.