Frost Mage DPS Guide — Shadowlands 9.0.2

Frost has always excelled at limiting enemy movement while dealing reliable and predictable damage. Frost has always been a very potent choice for leveling and world content given you can endlessly kite enemies, with a multitude of snares and roots combined with damage on the move. Frost is great at quickly bursting down priority adds, either by holding onto Mastery: Icicles for Glacial Spike or by holding procs for a quick burst. Like all Mage specializations, Frost has high mobility and is fantastic at doing encounter-specific jobs and baiting mechanics. Between Ice Floes, Shimmer, and a variety of instant cast spells, high movement encounters have minimal impact on Frost's overall output.

Strengths

• Strong single target and cleave damage
• Great mobility and kiting ability
• Good at killing fragile targets quickly
• Fairly steady damage output
• Incredible defensive utility

Weaknesses

• Overly reliant on procs
• Relatively weak burst single target
• Cleave has to be talented for, although the dominant talent option on the line
• No way to deal with spread target damage
• Incredibly locked-in talent selections

We are maintaining a list of changes for Mages, so you can see what changed between Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands. The new expansion also introduces new character customization options with Covenants and Legendary Powers, for which we have Mage-specific pages that you can access below.

Frost, while receiving just one spec-specific change in Shadowlands, has changed how the spec plays to nearly the complete opposite of BfA's predominant playstyle almost entirely because of that single change.

Winter's Chill now instead of being a small window of opportunity, generates 2 charges of Winter's Chill, each consumed upon spell impact. While this does not sound like much, it increased the amount of Ice Lances cast into each window by double, meaning that Thermal Void gained significantly over Glacial Spike. Combined with the removal of Corruption, this means Frost has pivoted entirely towards an Ice Lance-centric playstyle.

Shadowlands itself has brought many new systems to all players. Torghast is a randomly generated dungeon that can be attempted with 1-5 people, and will have a variety of powers available to earn and play with. It rewards the currency to craft legendary items. Legendary Powers are the newly craftable legendary items. Covenants are a new expansion-level system that allows you to improve your character's power outside of the constraints of your spec.

If Frost Mage is something that interests you, but you do not yet have one, you should check out the leveling guide for tips and information on spells gained on a per-level basis:

As you level, you will gain procs and cooldowns you will have to keep track of. Our Macros and Addon section has some suggestions that do not completely change the game UI, but will allow you to keep track of things easier. In addition, there are macros listed that will aid in certain things, such as casting Blizzard at your mouse cursor location without having to click.

Frost is all about generating and using procs. The gameplay is incredibly simple to get a basic understanding of.

Everything you do revolves around Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze. If you are not currently spending the procs, you need to be generating them. Frostbolt generates both, as your filler spell.

If you are brand new to the spec, and do not wish to delve into the details right away, the Easy Mode page is a helpful starting guide that should be fairly easy to understand and execute:

If you are looking for a more in-depth explaination or simply wish to dive into the spec right away, the Talent and Rotation pages are where you should go:

Due to how Frost works, there is no hard rule for determining which piece of gear is better. The best option is to simulate your character and the accompanying gear options. That said, there are some helpful, generalized simulations on the Gear page:

End-game looks somewhat different than leveling and casual content. Our Raiding, Mythic+, PvP, and Torghast guides can aid you further once you are ready for end-game content:

If you find yourself behind your similarly-geared peers, but unsure as to why, there may be some information to glean from our pages on mistakes, tips, or how to simulate your character to optimize your character: