Frost Mage DPS Stat Priority — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

Stat weights are very personal, especially for Frost Mages. They will fluctuate with every piece of gear you change, and no one can give a good global set of weights that is actually accurate. It is highly recommended you simulate yourself, as shown on our page on Simulations, found here:

Additionally, here is a simplified priority to work from for players just getting started:

1. Intellect;
2. Mastery;
3. Critical Strike;
4. Versatility;
5. Haste;

No stat should really ever be hard stacked. Everything works off each other. As an example: Haste may be great, but there comes a point where slower yet effectively higher damage per cast time spells would be better, through stacking Mastery to improve Frostbolt's damage. Yet if you were to do the opposite, stacking Mastery to the exclusion of Haste, you would see the opposite show up. Faster, slightly weaker, casts would be better than heavily stacked Mastery casting very slowly. This is the primary reason stat weights are not static, and in fact, change with every piece of gear.

As a primary example, here is are the stat weights of a given character for whatever talent set they logged out in:

And here is what happens if all Haste is removed and turned into Mastery:

Stacking even a small portion of stats has skewed the weights so hard that Haste is now valued above Critical Strike, and very nearly above Intellect.

This very basic stat priority has been obtained by combining common sense, years of experience, and simulations using SimulationCraft. It has not been tested at all gear levels, has not been tested at all possible target numbers, and has not been tested with all talent configurations.

For more information on how to simulate, and for insight into where to start searching for better gear, please refer to these pages:

Intellect is your "primary" stat, meaning that you use it rather than Agility or Strength, not that it is the best in all situations. It provides you with Spell Power, which increases the damage of your spells.

Versatility is a flat-out damage done increase and damage taken reduction.

Critical Strike increases your chance to Critically Strike.

Mastery: Freeze and Shatter is a flat increase to spells that Freeze, or Shatter respectively. A notable exception as of writing is Blizzard and Frozen Orb are included in the Freezing side of the Mastery.

Haste decreases the cast time of your spells. In particular, decreasing the cast time of Frostbolt is very beneficial because it means that you can cast Frostbolt more often, increasing your chances to get procs, and the rate at which you generate Icicles. Haste also lowers your base Global Cooldown. Haste also increases the cast speed of your Water Elemental and Mirror Images.