Frost Mage PvP Rotation and Playstyle — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

Frost Mages have 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). You can utilize Frost Nova and other roots to maximize kiting potential during matches.
• The second role of a Frost Mage is to apply pressure. With relatively long major cooldowns, Frost Mage can apply a lot of pressure on a team in a short amount of time.
• It is highly speculated Frost Mage will continue to have very strong casted sustained damage through Frostfire Bolts/ Frostbolts. There are many new modifiers in the talent tree that grant it large damage increases; however, with some new changes, Frost Mage will likely also focus more on Shatter and Fingers of Frost to deal some reliable damage to the enemy.

For more information about team compositions, see our Arena compositions page for Frost Mages.

Set a table for your team. Mage food actually restores health and Mana faster than normal food and water from vendors. Use Greater Invisibility to guarantee your opener without any interruptions.

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.

It is also important to note that you can use Remove Curse to remove spells like Hex or Agony.

One of the strongest utilizations of the Frost Mage toolkit is the slows and roots that it offers. Using these offensively or defensively, Frost Mages can control the battlefield, rooting enemies who are retreating in the middle of the map or using slows such as Ice Nova or Frost Nova as a strong root to escape enemies with offensive cooldowns up. It is often the goal for Frost Mages to play 30 to 40 yards in max casting range, ensuring there is significant amounts of space to LoS or kite.

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. Being able to rotate Polymorphs and your roots, Frost Mage does very well at controlling the enemy team and slowing their attacks. Frost Mages also have Dragon's Breath, allowing for Frost Mages to chain Dragon's Breath into Snowdrift, Polymorph or Ring of Frost.

At the beginning of a match, you can use Greater 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. You can use your Frost Nova and other roots to slow down the enemy team. Your main damage spell, Frostfire Bolt/ Frostbolt, also applies a slow to enemies, same with Cone of Cold, Blizzard and Frozen Orb.

Shatter is a debuff that you place on enemies when you Frostbolt/ Frostfire Bolt and Flurry. The debuff you apply is Freezing and stacks up to 20 times. Damage from you Ice Lance consumes this debuff, up to 5 stacks at a time. Your Mastery, Mastery: Freeze and Shatter increases the damage of your spells that Freeze and Shatter enemies. Here are other spells that will apply stacks of Freezing:

• Flurry applies 3 stacks of Freezing.
• Ray of Frost applies 8 stacks of Freezing of its duration.
• Glacial Spike applies 3 stacks of Freezing.
• Note: Fingers of Frost procs drastically increase your damage output, as you can use Ice Lance on a target and not consume any Freezing Stacks.

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 Greater Invisibility.
2. Use Blizzard to try to get an enemy out of stealth if they still have not opened after your Invisibility has expired.
3. Cast Polymorph on the enemy healer (if you are focusing on the enemy healer, Polymorph a DPS that can heal/peel for the healer).
4. When you have Fingers of Frost procs, use your burst rotation (see below).
5. Ensure you have built stacks of Freezing so you can Shatter during your burst rotation.

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

• It is ideal that you have Glacial Spike available during your burst rotation. This is granted after having 5 Icicles.
• Place Frozen Orb on the ground of your target.
• Use Blizzard. This is instant from Freezing Rain.
• Cast Glacial Spike at 5 stacks of Icicles.
• Use Frostbolt/ Frostfire Bolt if you are playing Frostfire.
  • Use Frostfire Bolt if you get a Frostfire Empowerment proc.
• Use Ice Lance when you get a Fingers of Frost proc.
• Use Flurry if you get a Brain Freeze proc.
• Use Ice Lance to consume Freezing stacks.
• Place Frozen Orb on the group to cleave and begin acquiring Fingers of Frost procs.
• Use Frostfire Bolt when you get a Frostfire Empowerment proc if you are playing Frostfire.
• Channel Ray of Frost
  • Ray of Frost will now turn into Comet Storm if you are playing that talent. Use Comet Storm.
• Use Flurry if you get a Brain Freeze proc.
• Use Ice Lance to consume Freezing stacks.
• Use Blizzard if the enemy team is completely behind the pillar.
• Channel Ray of Frost
  • Ray of Frost will now turn into Comet Storm if you are playing that talent. Use Comet Storm.
• It will be very important to line up windows to cast Glacial Spike, often attempt to use this ability when you are far away and the enemy cannot stop the cast.
• Use Ice Lance to consume Freezing stacks.

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 kiting. There will often be a lot of downtime during matches where you are using your CC like Polymorph and slows to stop the enemy team.

• Often utilize hard roots such as Frost Nova and Ice Nova to slow down enemy attempts at landing a kill.
• You have a lot of instant damage and slows to help yourself kite from enemies, such as:
  • Frozen Orb. This is instant and is used directly on your enemies. This will slow them and make Blizzard instant. Use Blizzard to slow multiple enemies and continue your pressure.
  • Use Frostfire Bolt when you get a Frostfire Empowerment proc. You can do the same thing if enemies are trying to kite away from you. Keep them slowed with Frozen Orb and Blizzard.
• If you want to continue the pressure after your burst rotation, it is a combination of building up Freezing stacks with your primary spells and using Ice Lance to consume them.
  • Cast Glacial Spike at 5 stacks of Icicles.
  • Use Frostfire Bolt when you get a Frostfire Empowerment proc.
  • Use Ice Lance when you get a Fingers of Frost proc.
  • Channel Ray of Frost when you cannot be interrupted and follow it up with a Comet Storm if you are using that talent.
  • Finally, use Ice Lance to consume stacks of Freezing.

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.

Alter Time may seem like a confusing ability at first, but it is really straightforward. The first time you press this ability, it remembers how much health you have and your location. The second time you press it, it will return to the same location with the exact health you had when you first pressed it. This should be used when you feel like you are about to take damage or about to be stunned.

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 Ice Nova/ Frost Nova 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. Do not forget to use Shimmer as well to kite away from enemies and LoS.

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 pre-emptively, it runs the risk of being dispelled by an enemy (such as a Shaman or Priest) or of being the target of Spellsteal. Often attempt to use this off cooldown, however, to maximize mitigating incoming damage.

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.