Frost Mage DPS Spell List and Glossary — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

If you are new to Frost, it is recommended you read this before proceeding! In this section, we will discuss what abilities you have, what they are used for within the specialization, and how they interact with important cooldowns. For extra tips on utilizing certain spells, particularly ground-target effects, check our Macro section:

Frost Mage does not rely on a primary resource. Like the other Mage specs, you have a Mana bar. However, Frost relies more on generating procs through your basic spells to fuel damage output. A notable exception to this is Arcane Explosion. It has a very high Mana cost, and you should take care not to drop too low while utilizing it for AoE, lest you be unable to DPS.

Fingers of Frost is your main source of burst damage output. Fingers of Frost has a 15% chance to proc off of Frostbolt and 3% chance off of Frozen Orb. Fingers of Frost cause your next Ice Lance to Shatter maximum stacks it can currently do, without consuming the Freezing on the target.

Brain Freeze has a 25% chance to proc off of a Frostbolt cast causes your next Flurry to deal 50% extra damage and reset the cooldown of Flurry. Flurry is one of our hardest hitting spells, and it applies stacks of Freezing per bolt to the target.

Ray of Frost deals damage over the channel, and stacking Freezing on the target.

Time Warp increases Haste by 30% for 40 seconds for all party and raid members within 100 yards. This ability debuffs everyone with a debuff that prevents the possibility of benefiting from Time Warp, Shaman's Heroism and Bloodlust, Hunter's Primal Rage, or Evoker's Fury of the Aspects for the next 10 minutes.

Ice Barrier is a shield that is worth 25% of your maximum Health, increased by Versatility. This is a very low cooldown when compared to other classes that have a functional Health boost and a very good button to hit if you are moving without procs available.

Ice Block will freeze you solid, making you immune to just about everything. This will also clear most debuffs. Ice Block is best served to either soak a mechanic that would otherwise kill someone or use it as a last-ditch effort to prevent your death.

Alter Time is a hybrid defensive/mobility ability. When activated, your current location and Health amount are snapshotted. For the next 10 seconds, or until you activate the ability again, you can move anywhere within 100 yards, and take as much damage as you can before dying. When it expires, or you reactivate it, you are instantly transported to the state you were in when you started. This allows for some powerful positional gameplay when you have to take a debuff out of the raid and is also useful in keeping you alive through large hits that you know are coming. Alter Time is one of the most powerful utility cooldowns in the entire game, so you should find new and interesting ways to abuse it.

A note on abbreviations. A good number of spells share abbreviations and knowing which one is which will depend on the context of the conversation at hand. Many are legacy, whereas the other that shares the abbreviation did not exist yet, or only existed for a certain expansion and was then gone, only to have been brought back.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description
Frostbolt	FB, FrB	Main filler spell, deals damage, generates procs, and applies a slow to the target.
Frost Nova	FN, Nova	An AoE around you that freezes anything in range. It will break on damage taken, although there is a small grace period. This is considered "frozen" and "rooted" for purposes of spells that interact with those statuses.
Blink		Teleports you in the direction you are facing. This will break stuns and roots. It can save you from fall damage if cast within 20 yards of the ground.
Conjure Refreshment	Table	Summons a consumable for you or your allies to consume to regenerate Health and Mana outside of combat. I will produce a table at higher levels while in a group, where group members can click the table to receive stacks of food.
Blizzard		A basic AoE filler spell. Duration always equals cooldown; both scale with Haste. Can be either cast on cursor, or on target.
Arcane Explosion	AE	Basic AoE spell that causes an explosion around you.
Counterspell	CS, kick	Basic spell interrupt.
Arcane Intellect	Int, AI, buff	Mage raid buff. Keep this active at all times in combat. Casting it in a group will buff everybody in range.
Slow Fall		Slows your fall speed to non-fatal damage. This can be cast on party members. It can also be cast on mounted targets or cast on yourself and then mount up to allow you speed for your jump.
Polymorph	Sheep	Single target crowd control. This will take a target out of commission for a minute, as long as no damage strikes it, including DoTs already on target. Polymorphed targets will only aggro on the the first target in their range, and everyone else may pass by without being put in combat.
Cone of Cold	CoC, Cone	AoE slow and a burst of damage. This spell is extremely important to higher level Frost Mage AoE, so learning how it is angled and behaves at fairly close range is a good skill to have.
Teleport: Location	Tele, Port	Teleport to all major cities and a few other select locations.
Portal: Location	Tele, Port	Same as above, but spawns a clickable object for group members to follow you through.
Mastery: Freeze and Shatter		The effect the stat Mastery grants us. More information about it may be found on the stats page.
Winter's End		Causes mobs that die with Freezing stacks to cause Shatter's AoE damage, so as to not waste the stacks.
Time Warp	TW, Warp, Hero, Lust	Standard Heroism effect. Raid-wide 30% Haste cooldown.

Ability	Abbeviation	Description
Ice Barrier	IB, Barrier	A simple shield to prevent you from taking damage on a short cooldown. The shield is equivalent to 22% of your maximum Health, increased further by Versatility.
Ice Block	Block, Immune	Makes you immune to almost everything, removing debuffs and ignoring damage for the duration.
Spellsteal	SS	Dispels enemy magic and usually grants it to yourself for up to 2 minutes. Offensive dispels are somewhat rare, and usually, if a target's ability can be Spellstolen; it will be glowing on the target frame.
Remove Curse	Decurse	Removes curses from friendly targets. Curses have a purple debuff icon border.
Mirror Image	MI	A threat drop. They also deal an extremely minor amount of damage themselves, but they should not be used for such a purpose, given how low it is. Any mob you are in combat with will have a temporary -90 million threat modifier towards you, so this is great if you pull aggro off your tank. Direct damage events will kill one off with an internal cooldown of 2 seconds. Most instanced damage is not coded as direct damage, however, and you will generally get the full 15 seconds' worth of threat reduction.
Alter Time	AT	On activation, snapshot your location and Health percent. On either the 10 seconds ending or you reactivating the spell, return to that position and Health percentage. This can be used as a second Blink to return from running a mechanic out of the group, a heal, or even if talented properly, a sprint. It has a roughly 100-yard range before you cannot return to it. Also, it will not save you from death.
Mass Polymorph		Polymorphs all targets around you. Does not appear to have a target limit. It has one potentially interesting use as a trash pack skip in dungeons, as sheep will only aggro on the first target in range. This will allow you to sheep an entire pack and have them all aggroed on you, let your group run by them, and then Invisibility out of combat, skipping the trash pack entirely.
Ring of Frost	RoP, Ring	Incapacitates the first 10 targets that cross the ring border along the edge of the cast reticle. Particularly powerful when combined with Mass Polymorph, as it can be cast at range where Mass Polymorph cannot. Ring, pull mobs through it, and Mass Polymorph the frozen mobs.
Ice Nova	IN	Hits all targets for full damage, despite the tooltip, and freezes them for 2 seconds. Replaces Cone of Cold.
Shimmer		Replaces Blink with a Blink that can Blink while casting in exchange for a significantly longer cooldown and the loss of the stun break utility. Generally considered easier to use the two choices.
Greater Invisibility	GI, GInv	An instant Invisibility spell. Generally used as a defensive cooldown by dropping target.
Dragon's Breath	DB	The same cone size as Cone of Cold, deals mediocre damage and disorients for 4 seconds instead of slowing. Useful as a pseudo-interrupt for things that cannot be interrupted.
Supernova	DB	A ranged knock-up, centered on your current target, that deals minor damage. Useful as a pseudo-interrupt and can be cast from further away than our other abilities in this class.
Mass Invisibility		Casts a 12-second Invisibility on your group.
Ice Lance	IL, Lance	A spammable low-damage spell, or heavy hitter when used with procs or on a frozen target.
Frozen Orb	FO, Orb	An extremely powerful AoE spell that also generates procs. Used in single target due to sheer strength.
Cold Snap	CS, Snap	Resets a few defensive cooldowns for Frost, notably, Ice Block.
Flurry	Fl	An extremely important core ability. Hits extremely hard and stacks Freezing.
Comet Storm	CmS	Ray of Frost turns into this after cast. A hard-hitting AoE ability. Drops 7 comets in a small circle around the target. Consumes 2 Freezing per comet, on every target hit.
Ray of Frost	RoF, Ray	A hard-hitting ability that generates 8 Freezing stacks.
Glacial Spike	GS	Replaces Frostbolt occasionally with a harder hitting variant.

Ability	Abbeviation	Description
Time Walk		Refunds a Blink charge when Alter Time ends.
Temporal Realignment	TR	Heals you when low health, if Alter Time is off cooldown. Uses said cooldown.
Master of Time		Cooldown reduction on Alter Time.
Winter's Protection		Makes Ice Block a 3:00 minute cooldown at max rank.
Frost Conditioning		Reduces Hypothermia's duration.
Arcane Warding		If it is not physical or any mixed element damage that contains physical, like chaos, this will reduce it.
Inspired Intellect		Grants you, and only you, 2% more Intellect from Arcane Intellect.
Quick Witted		Gives you a 20-second cooldown instead of 25 on Counterspell.
Improved Conjuration		Reduces the cooldown of Mirror Image.
Improved Spellsteal		Causes Spellsteal to be cast twice, in exchange for a short cooldown.
Improved Blink		Reduces the cooldown of Blink.
Improved Counterspell		Increases the spell lock of Counterspell.
Overflowing Energy		Increases the Critical Strike chance of Frostbolt and Glacial Spike when you fail to do so.
Improved Remove Curse		Decursing someone else also decurses yourself, although at a greatly increased cooldown.
Improved Frost Nova		Brings Frost Nova to an 8-second freeze.
Ice Ward		Provides your Frost Nova with 2 charges.
Captured Thoughts		Increases the duration of Brain Freeze. Nobody knows why this exists.
Tome of Rhonin		Provides 2% Critical Strike chance, and you should get it.
Tome of Antonidas		Provides 2% Haste, and you should get it.
Incantation of Swiftness		Turns Greater Invisibility into a 40% sprint.
Master of Escape		Reduces the cooldown of Greater Invisibility.
Charm of Aegwynn		Increases Crit damage.
Brainstorm		Proccing Brain Freeze grants 1% Intellect. Stacks, but each stack has its own timer.
Flow of Time		Reduces the cooldown of Blink and Shimmer.
Mana Confluence		Reduces Mana costs. Primarily an Arcane talent.
Charm of Medivh		Flat Mastery bonus.
Permafrost Bauble		Reduces the cooldown of Ice Block.
Freezing Cold	FC	Makes Cone of Cold lose its slow for a root that has a quick decay slowly after it breaks. Until this gets the Mage root break protection, this is a bad talent that breaks instantly on damage.
Time Manipulation		Flat cooldown reduction on your CC effects.
Energized Barriers		Removes any form of movement-slowing effect currently on you when you cast Ice Barrier.
Barrier Diffusion		Any time Ice Barrier fades from you, reduce the cooldown of Ice Barrier by 5 seconds.
Ice Cold	IC	Trades Ice Block for a damage reduction, but lets you continue casting and moving. Inherits talents that benefit Ice Block but does nothing if you are not talented in Ice Block initially.
Spatial Manipulation		Adds a second charge to Blink/ Shimmer.
Reflection		Return back to where you Blinked from when used.
Improved Ice Barrier		Makes Ice Barrier better.
Fingers of Frost	FoF	Your first proc, which lets Ice Lance Shatter without consuming stacks. Stacks to 2.
Frostbite		Causes Frostbolt to stack extra Freezing on Crit, and allows Shatter to AoE.
Icicles	GS	On a timer, replaces Frostbolt with a hard hitting spell.
Glacial Bulwark		Adds a second charge to Ice Barrier and Ice Block.
Brain Freeze	BF	Your second proc. Resets the cooldown of Flurry, and increases the damage of your next Flurry while it is present.
Piercing Cold		Increases the Critical Strike damage modifier of Frostbolt and Flurry by 20%.
Everlasting Frost		Gives Frozen Orb the ability to proc Fingers of Frost.
Permafrost Lances		Passive Shatter damage after Frozen Orb is cast.
Frozen Touch	FT	Increases Brain Freeze from 25% proc chance to 30%, and Fingers of Frost from 15% to 18.75%.
Splitting Ice	SI	Frostbolt and Flurry cleave one additional target.
Flash Freeze		Glacial Spike grants Fingers of Frost.
Splintering Ray		Ray of Frost hits the nearest 5 targets to the primary target.
Frigid Focus		Ray of Frost single target damage increase.
Winter's Blessing		Increases Haste and all Haste effects and stats from gear.
Freezing Rain	FR	Blizzard is instant cast after a Frozen Orb.
Cone of Frost		Adds Freezing generation to Cone of Cold.
Fractured Frost		Ice Lance hits a second target, consuming Freezing from it as well.
Improved Shatter		Increases Shatter's Crit rate.
Deep Shatter		Increases Crit damage on Shatter.
Wintertide		Frozen Orb procs a Brain Freeze on cast.
White Out		Ice Lance reduces the cooldown of Frozen Orb
Glacial Attunement		Flurry and Blizzard damage increase.
Heart of Ice		Increases the Freezing stacks that Ice Lance consumes.
Rimecaster		Frostbolt damage increase.
Freezing Winds		Increases Shatter damage when targets are in Blizzard.
Improved Flurry		Adds extra bolts to Flurry.
Glacial Assault		Adds a chance for Flurry bolts to drop a comet, dealing damage and adding Freezing to everything hit.
Crystalline Refraction		Ray of Frost generates Fingers of Frost.
Lonely Winter	LW	Global 3% damage buff.
Glacial Chill		Glacial Spike does more damage and adds more Freezing to the target.
Glacial Shatter		Glacial Spike Shatters Freezing on the target.
Hailstones		Glacial Spike's interval decreases.
Thermal Void	TV	An Ice Lance after a Brain Freeze empowered Flurry consumes double the Freezing.
Glaciate		Ray of Frost cooldown reduction when Ice Lance hits Frozen targets.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description
Frostfire Bolt	FFB	Frostbolt replacement spell.
Imbued Warding		6.25% more maximum health for your Ice Barrier.
Meltdown		Cast a Blazing Barrier after Ice Block or Ice Cold end. Also ability to move while Blocked, or sprint during Ice Cold.
Heat Sink		Flurry becomes Frostfire, and deals more damage.
Frostfire Infusion		Brain Freeze proc chance increase. Increase all our spells damage.
Frostfire Empowerment	FFE	Chance to make your next Frostfire Bolt instant cast, do more damage, and explode.
Severe Temperatures		15+haste RPPM buff to one Frostfire Bolt.
Thermal Conditioning		Simple cast time reduction to your filler spell.
Flash Freezeburn		Glacial Spike explodes, and grants Frostfire Empowerment.
Elemental Affinity	EA	Reduces the cooldown of Dragon's Breath.
Flame and Frost		A waste of a talent. There is no planet you Ice Block for Dragon's Breath.
Dualcasting Adept		Frostfire and Fire spells gain Crit damage, along with Shatter and Blizzard buffs.
Blast Radius		Comet Storm and Meteor damage increases.
Duality		Glacial Spike casts a Pyroblast as well.
Molten Chill		Frostfire spells apply Ignite, which is a portion of their damage done repeated over time.
Elemental Conduit		Meteor and Pyroblast also apply the same Ignite from Molten Chill.
Isothermic Core		Drops Meteor when you Comet Storm, centered on the target.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description
Splintering Sorcery	Splinters	Extra spell that flies out of you when you cast Frostbolt or Flurry.
Augury Abounds		Any Splinter can proc 8 additional Splinters.
Slippery Slinging		Alter Time gains a run speed buff while it is active.
Look Again		A waste of a talent. Procs a Mirror Image without the threat reduction on Blink.
Archmage's Wrath		Ray of Frost buff. Brain Freeze proc rate increase.
Force of Will		Ice Lance procs Splinters based on how many stacks of Freezing are Shattered.
Controlled Instincts	CI	Splinters AoE around the target hit.
Signature Spell		Glacial Spike procs more Splinters. Frostbolt and Blizzard damage buff.
Splintering Orbs		Frozen Orb deals more damage and fires Frost Splinters at random targets hit.
Reactive Barrier		Ice Barrier gains increased absorb if you are hurt.
Phantasmal Image		Mirror Image generates more copies.
Spellfrost Teachings	SFT	Splinters cause cooldown reduction on Frozen Orb.
Attuned Familiar		Summon Water Elemental's Waterbolt has a chance to proc Splinters.
Shifting Shards		Generating a Brain Freeze causes 2 Splinters to proc.
Infused Splinters		Splinters have a chance to add Freezing to their target.
Polished Focus		Ice Lance Shatters one more Freezing stack. Shatter also deals more damage.
Splinterstorm		Ray of Frost generates Splinters on each tick, and doubles the generation of Splinters for 10 seconds, starting at the beginning of Ray's cast.