Frost Mage PvP Guide Battle for Azeroth (BfA)

Table of Contents

• +1. Spec Overview / Place in the Current Meta for Frost Mages
  • 1.1. Strengths of Frost Mages
  • 1.2. Weaknesses of Frost Mages
• +2. Regular Talents for Frost Mages
  • 2.1. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
  • 2.2. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
  • 2.3. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
  • 2.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
  • 2.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
  • 2.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
  • 2.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
• +3. PvP Talents for Frost Mage
  • 3.1. War Mode
    • 3.1.1. Bonuses of War Mode
    • 3.1.2. War Mode Bounties
    • 3.1.3. Air Drops
  • 3.2. Trinket Talent
  • 3.3. PvP Talents
  • 3.4. PvP Gear
    • 3.4.1. Conquest Points
    • 3.4.2. Obtaining Gear
• +4. Racial Bonuses for Frost Mages
  • 4.1. Horde
  • 4.2. Alliance
• +5. Playstyle for Frost Mages
  • 5.1. Before Gates Open
  • 5.2. Crowd Control
  • 5.3. Offensive Rotation
    • 5.3.1. The Opener
    • 5.3.2. Burst Damage
    • 5.3.3. Sustained damage
    • 5.3.4. Shatter Combinations
  • 5.4. Defensive Techniques
• +6. Best Team Compositions for Frost Mages
  • 6.1. 2v2 Arena
  • 6.2. 3v3 Arena
• +7. Useful Macros for Frost Mages
  • 7.1. Polymorph 123 Macro
  • 7.2. Polymorph Focus Macro
  • 7.3. Counterspell Focus Macro
  • 7.4. Ice Block Macro
• 8. Artifact Traits for Frost Mages
• 9. Relics for Frost Mages
• 10. ChangeLog

Introduction

This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to play a Frost Mage in a PvP environment. The guide will cover everything from talent choices, PvP talents, gameplay and rotation, and useful racial bonuses. It is most applicable to Arena content, but most talents and racial bonuses will work in Rated Battlegrounds and skirmishes.

About The Author

This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2500 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.

1. Spec Overview / Place in the Current Meta for Frost Mages

Frost Mages are notorious for always being one of the best PvP specs. Mages not only excel at getting crowd control and relentlessly slowing enemies, but they also have great burst damage. With short burst cooldowns and strong crowd control, Frost Mages are capable of controlling entire teams. One Polymorph can turn an entire game around.

1.1. Strengths of Frost Mages

• Great control
• Multiple defensive cooldowns
• Strong burst damage

1.2. Weaknesses of Frost Mages

• Little to no sustained damage
• Predictable burst damage
• Low mobility

2. Regular Talents for Frost Mages

Regular talents work in both PvP and PvE content (although they may sometimes work differently in the two environments, which is indicated by their tooltips). In other words, they are always active.

On the other hand, PvP talents (which we talk about later on in the guide) are inactive outside of a PvP environment, unless you have enabled War Mode.

2.1. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents

Ice Nova is the best choice in this tier. This talent provides more instant damage when using offensive cooldowns and helps with killing an enemy at low health. You also get to keep your Summon Water Elemental.

2.2. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents

Shimmer is the best choice in this tier. This is a very strong when trying to get crowd control on the enemy team. If an enemy is trying to get out of line of sight of your Polymorph, for example, you can Shimmer while casting it and avoid losing line of sight.

2.3. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents

Incanter's Flow is the best choice in the tier. It provides great damage (especially when you are at 5 stacks). Be sure to track and time how many stacks your Incanter's Flow buff has before using your offensive cooldowns.

2.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents

Frozen Touch is the best choice in this tier. This is an overall large increase to your burst and sustained damage.

2.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents

When playing against a Restoration Druid, Ring of Frost is the best choice in this tier. Druids are difficult to get crowd control on as a Frost Mage, and Ring of Frost helps with this. Assistance from a teammate (such as a Rogue stunning the Druid) will make it easier.

Against any other healer, Frigid Winds is the best choice in this tier. This will help keep your enemies from kiting away from your team's damage.

2.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents

Comet Storm is the best choice in this tier. This talent provides even more instant damage with a very short cooldown.

2.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents

If you are playing against a team with multiple Purge or Spellsteal effects, Ray of Frost is the best choice in this tier. This has a relatively long cooldown, but can be effective versus these types of teams. You can also use it against teams with melee on it. This will prevent them from kiting your damage or help you from kiting theirs.

Thermal Void is the best choice in this tier. This extends your major burst cooldown, Icy Veins, by an additional 10 seconds. This increases your overall damage output and helps you get crowd control on enemies. It is also important to note that this talent works with the Ice Form PvP talent.

3. PvP Talents for Frost Mage

PvP talents are typically only available in PvP content, but War Mode (explained below) allows you to also benefit from them in the open world.

As you will see below, the PvP talents are very flexible. Depending on what classes you are playing with and against, you can adjust your talents to better suit your team's goal. You must choose:

• 1 trinket talent out of 3 possible choices;
• 3 PvP talents out of a pool of about a dozen possible choices.

3.1. War Mode

War Mode is a new PvP system added in Battle for Azeroth. War Mode can be toggled on and off in any major city. When it is enabled, you are able to use your PvP talents in the open world, and because you will be fighting enemies of the other faction, you also get an experience bonus while leveling. Do note that this makes you vulnerable to being killed by players of the other faction.

3.1.1. Bonuses of War Mode

Enabling War Mode provides the following perks.

• The ability to use all PvP talents in the outdoor world. You do not need to be in PvP combat to use them.
• You can earn Conquest Points.
• You gain +10% experience while leveling.
• There are PvP achievements you can earn.
• At maximum level, you get a +10% World Quest reward bonus.

3.1.2. War Mode Bounties

If you kill too many players in a single zone, there will be a bounty put on you. Everyone in that zone will know your exact location. You can see the location of players with a bounty by checking your map. Killing players with a bounty on them rewards Conquest Points and is part of an achievement called Bounty Hunting. Bounty Hunting is part of a meta achievement called Conqueror of Azeroth / Conqueror of Azeroth that rewards the title Conqueror of Azeroth.

3.1.3. Air Drops

It is not yet totally clear how Air Drops will work, but we know the following about it from Blizzard.

From time to time, a flying machine will make its way across the sky. The rumble of its engine is a clear indicator that something is afoot. You'll want to keep an eagle eye on the sky and watch for a War Supply Crate to drop somewhere in the zone. Similar to the chest in Gurubashi Arena, players can fight over the crate and claim it for their faction. Once a faction has gained control of the crate, anyone of that faction who is within the area will have a short period to open it and collect a piece of personal loot.

3.2. Trinket Talent

The first PvP talent tier is will give you a choice between Gladiator's Medallion, Relentless, and Adaptation. Gladiator's Medallion is the best choice in this tier. It is great for removing crowd control on you that your healer cannot dispel.

3.3. PvP Talents

You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful, but can be replaced with other PvP talents depending on your team's goal.

Temporal Shield creates a shield around you for 6 seconds. Once it expires, you will instantly be healed for 100% of the damage you took while it was active. This is a great defensive tool and should be used when the enemy team is using their burst cooldowns.

Deep Shatter makes your Frostbolts deal 150% more damage against frozen targets. This talent works well with the Regular Talent Frozen Touch and increases your overall sustained damage.

Concentrated Coolness increases Frozen Orb's damage and is now castable at a location with a 40-yard range but no longer moves. This talent will make your sustained damage much less, but increases your burst damage significantly. It is recommended to use this talent if you are using Ray of Frost.

Ice Form increases your Frostbolt damage by 30% and makes you immune to stuns and knockbacks for 12 seconds. This talent is very strong against teams with multiple stuns that will be focusing you. However, you can replace Concentrated Coolness with this talent if you are playing Thermal Void.

Prismatic Cloak reduces magical damage you take by 50% for 2 seconds after you Blink or Shimmer. This talent is great against teams with magical spells that deal large amounts of damage. You can replace Temporal Shield with this if you are playing against a team with two spell casters on it.

Dampened Magic reduces magical damage over time effects on you by 20%. This is a great talent against classes like Shadow Priest and Affliction Warlock. You can replace Temporal Shield with this talent.

Kleptomania makes Spellsteal have a 30-second cooldown, but steals all spells from the target. This is only useful against Restoration Druids. If you want to have the option to steal all of the Restoration Druids HoTs, you can replace Concentrated Coolness with Kleptomania, but you will lose a large amount of burst damage.

Chilled to the Bone makes your Frost Nova and your Water Elemental's Freeze deal Frost damage when the effect ends. Damage is doubled if Frost Nova or Lonely Winter is dispelled. Unfortunately, the damage from this talent is not enough for it to be effective.

Burst of Cold causes your Frost Nova to instantly reset the cooldown of Cone of Cold and increases its damage by 400% for 6 seconds. This talent does not deal much damage and should not be used.

3.4. PvP Gear

Gear is what determines how strong a player is in PvP. The better gear you have, the stronger your abilities are. There are several ways to receive gear from PvP. One important way to get gear is by completing the weekly conquest point cap. You will receive gear at the end of the week based on your rating. For example, if you played and won at Rival in 3v3, you will receive a reward with an item level based on your ranking at the end of the week. It is important to note that if you are rated at a Rival level in 3v3, but only do 2v2 that week, you will not receive a piece of gear unless you won a game in the 3v3 bracket. The following are the names and ratings of all of the brackets:

• Combatant: 1400-1599;
• Challenger: 1600-1799;
• Rival: 1800-2099;
• Duelist: 2100-2399;
• Gladiator: 2400+.

3.4.1. Conquest Points

Every week there will be an empty bar in your PvP queue tab. If you earn enough Conquest Points to fill it, you will receive a piece of gear. When you complete a set, you can receive higher tiers of gear. Conquest points can be earned by doing the following:

• Rated Arenas;
• Rated Battlegrounds;
• Normal Battlegrounds;
• Epic Battlegrounds;
• World PvP.

3.4.2. Obtaining Gear

You will obtain gear by earning Conquest Points. The following are the three ways to receive loot in PvP.

• At the end of an Arena match there is a chance to receive a piece of gear. This gear is based on your Arena Rating.
• After you win a Rated Battleground or win your first Battleground of the day you will get a piece of gear and earn Conquest Points.
• Once you earned enough Conquest Points for the week, you will unlock a new weekly reward. This gear is based on your rating.

It is important to note that the gear you get from capping your conquest points is predetermined in a specific order. There are mechanics for players to get gear quicker if they have no played a character for awhile.

4. Racial Bonuses for Frost Mages

Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction.

4.1. Horde

The abilities gained from the Orc Race ( Blood Fury and Hardiness) both greatly benefit a Frost Mage. Blood Fury will help when using offensive cooldowns to get more damage output; Hardiness is great to break out of stuns faster.

4.2. Alliance

The Human racial bonus ( Every Man for Himself) is a great way to get out of stuns.

5. Playstyle for Frost Mages

The Frost Mage has two important roles in a 3v3 environment.

• The first role that Frost Mages have is crowd control. They not only have strong kiting tools for getting away from enemies, but they have strong tools to also cast and get crowd control on enemy players. Polymorph, the major Frost Mage crowd control, can be used offensively (when trying to get a kill) or defensively (when trying to keep a teammate alive).
• The second role a Frost Mage has is having strong burst cooldowns. With relatively short major cooldowns, Frost Mages can apply a lot of pressure on a team in a short amount of time.

5.1. Before Gates Open

Be prepared to be the focus of many teams. This can be frustrating and make people shy away from Frost. That said, Frost Mages have a lot of utility to get away from enemy teams, so make sure to use this to your advantage. Make sure to use Arcane Intellect on your teammates. It can be dispelled by abilities like Purge or Spellsteal, so be prepared to apply it often.

5.2. Crowd Control

This is where the Frost Mage has always shined in PvP. There is no other class/spec that can crowd control a team as well as a Frost Mage can, not to mention the large amount of utility at their disposal.

At the beginning of a match, you can use Invisibility and open with a Polymorph on the enemy healer. If they manage to get behind a pillar, you can Shimmer to their location and still get your Polymorph off.

5.3. Offensive Rotation

Before we talk about rotation, it is relevant to quickly go over how Icicles work, since this is integral to the Frost Mage offensive playstyle.

The Frost Mage Mastery ( Mastery: Icicles) causes each Frostbolt or Flurry you cast to generate an Icicle, which is effectively a buff on you. Each Icicle "stores up" a part of the damage of the Frostbolt or Flurry that created it, and you can have up to 5 Icicles at any given time.

When you use Ice Lance, all the stored up Icicles will be fired at the target, resulting in a burst of damage.

5.3.1. The Opener

The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns. If the enemy healer uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. With the amount of crowd control and damage that Mages have, you can force cooldowns (trinkets and defensives) without having to use any cooldowns.

1. Start the arena by using Invisibility.
2. Cast Polymorph on the enemy healer (if you are focusing the enemy healer, Polymorph a DPS that can heal/peel for the healer).
3. Build up Icicles by casting Frostbolt.
4. When you have 5 Icicles built up, use your burst rotation (see below).

5.3.2. Burst Damage

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you should use your burst damage.

To guarantee the most damaging Icicles, you want to make sure that the Icicles you have stored up were created by Frostbolts against frozen targets.

• Generate Icicles possible by casting Frostbolts on your target. It would also be ideal to have a Brain Freeze proc ready, but is not needed.
  1. Use Icy Veins if you are not Ice Form.
  2. Use Blood Fury (if you are an Orc).
  3. Use Comet Storm.
  4. Use your Summon Water Elemental's ability, Freeze.
  5. Place Frozen Orb.
  6. Use Ice Nova.
  7. Use Ice Lance if you have Fingers of Frost.
  8. Use Flurry if you have Brain Freeze.

5.3.3. Sustained damage

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available. When they are on cooldown, you want to be doing a combination of crowd control and generating icicles. Use Cone of Cold and Polymorphs to control the enemy team. At the same time, you want to generate icicles by casting Frostbolts. You should be using Ice Form for stronger Frostbolts while you are not using burst cooldowns. Use Ray of Frost if an enemy overextends or is trying to kite your team's damage.

5.3.4. Shatter Combinations

A crucial part of Frost Mage damage is dealing damage to targets that are Frozen. The reason you want to deal damage to targets that are Frozen is because of your passive, Shatter. Aside from Fingers of Frost, you have three abilities that can freeze a target: Freeze, Ice Nova, and Frost Nova. Additionally, Flurry can apply Winter's Chill. Below are a few examples of how to use your Shatter passive to maximize your damage.

• Cast Frostbolt to generate a Brain Freeze. Use Flurry to apply the Winter's Chill debuff and use Ice Lance.
• Use Ice Nova, Frost Nova or Freeze to freeze your target, then use Ice Lance.

5.4. Defensive Techniques

Ice Block is your main defensive ability. If you have run out of Shimmers and have no other ways to kite or survive, use this spell. This will protect you from all damage.

A Mage's crowd control is effectively a defensive technique for them. If the enemy team is using their offensive cooldowns, you can kite them by using Cone of Cold or by casting Polymorph and Shimmering away. Moreover, you can use Frost Nova to root the target, which is very effective when playing against melee.

Cold Snap is a very important defensive ability. It resets the cooldown on several Frost Mage abilities, the most important one to note being Ice Block. This means the enemy team will have to go through two of your Ice Blocks to kill you, which makes you very hard to kill.

Ice Barrier is best used when the enemy team is focusing you down. If you use it preemptively, it runs the risk of being dispelled by an enemy (such as an Enhancement Shaman), or of being the target of Spellsteal.

Temporal Shield is one of the best defensive cooldowns Mages have. Use this when you are being focused and when at high health; the reason for using it at high health is that a great part of this spell is the 6-second HoT it applies to you to heal back the damage you have sustained — if you are at low health, you will probably die before you are able to benefit from the HoT. One of the skills to this ability is knowing when to cancel it (since canceling it triggers the HoT). If you are at half-health and use Temporal Shield, there is a good chance you will die with it still active; cancel it instead, so you can get healed for a large amount and not die with it still active.

6. Best Team Compositions for Frost Mages

Now that you have the correct talents and understand your damage rotation, it is time to step into the arena with your team. With spells like Icy Veins and some of the greatest crowd control in the game, Frost Mages give their team large windows of opportunities to get a kill on an enemy team.

6.1. 2v2 Arena

In 2v2 Arena, you do not have many options. It can be quite difficult to kill a healer in 2v2 by yourself, so you will likely be focusing an enemy DPS. Before you use your burst rotation, make sure the enemy healer is in crowd control. Ideally, you will be playing with a healer that can stun. After the stun, cast Polymorph and use your burst rotation. If you get interrupted while casting Polymorph, you can still cast Frost spells. If you do want to swap to the enemy healer, make sure they do not have a trinket and you have a stun. Once your cooldowns are used, keep the enemy team slowed by using Blizzard. It is important to note that Mages have Spellsteal and can use it to steal HoTs to heal themselves. This is a great spell versus Restoration Druids and Discipline Priests that have multiple spells that you can steal.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 2v2:

• Frost Mage + Subtlety Rogue
• Frost Mage + Discipline Priest
• Frost Mage + Holy Paladin
• Frost Mage + Restoration Druid

6.2. 3v3 Arena

Your role in 3v3 is similar to 2v2 Arena. As a Frost Mage you will be focusing on controlling the enemy team with multiple slows and Polymorph. Before your team uses burst cooldowns, make sure there is crowd control on the enemy healer. If you are playing with a Rogue, remember that Polymorph shares a diminishing return with Sap and your Polymorph will be half duration in the opener. It is important to note that you are not limited to using Polymorph on the enemy healer. If an enemy DPS using their burst cooldowns, you can slow/root and Polymorph them. This will help your healer significantly.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 3v3:

• RMP (Frost Mage + Subtlety Rogue + Discipline Priest)
• Frost Mage + Elemental Shaman + Holy Priest
• Frost Mage + Destruction Warlock + Holy Paladin
• WMD (Frost Mage + Arms Warrior + Holy Paladin)

7. Useful Macros for Frost Mages

Macros are crucial to be successful in PvP. They allow players to use abilities on enemies without having to target them. This helps increase overall damage/healing and general awareness in the arena. Here are a few macros that all Frost Mages can benefit from.

7.1. Polymorph 123 Macro

• #showtooltip Polymorph
• /cast [target=arena1] Polymorph

Using this macro will cast Polymorph on arena enemy 1. This makes it easier to crowd control an enemy while staying focused on your target. If you want macros for the second and third enemies, simply change the arena1 to arena2 or arena3.

7.2. Polymorph Focus Macro

• #showtooltip Polymorph
• /cast [target=focus] Polymorph

If you find that you do not have much room on your actionbars, you can use a focus macro. This is much simpler to use than the arena123 macro. Put an enemy on focus and this macro will cast Polymorph on that player while you are still focused on your target.

7.3. Counterspell Focus Macro

• #showtooltip Counterspell
• /cast [target=focus] Counterspell

This macro will use Counterspell on whichever enemy you have on focus. Because you will be primarily using Counterspell on the enemy healer, you should only need this focus macro.

7.4. Ice Block Macro

• #showtooltip Ice Block
• /cast !Ice Block

This makes it so when you use Ice Block it will not cancel it if you click it a second time.

8. Artifact Traits for Frost Mages

With the arrival of Patch 8.0, Artifact weapons have had their power drained in order to combat the spreading corruption from the sword of Sargeras and are now nothing more than a stat stick. This means that all traits are gone, so artifact paths and trait priority list are no longer required.

9. Relics for Frost Mages

Relics are now simply a boost to your Artifact weapon's item level.

10. ChangeLog

• 21 Jul. 2018: Updated Tier 4, 6, and 7 regular talents.
  • Updated recommended PvP talents.
  • Updated Racial Bonuses section.
  • Added Shatter Combinations section.
  • Updated Burst and Sustained damage sections.
• 20 Jul. 2018: Updated Tier 5 regular talent. Changed recommended Horde race.
• 18 Jul. 2018: Updated Frost Mage PvP for Patch 8.0.1

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