Frost Mage PvP Rotation and Playstyle — The War Within (11.1.7)

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 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 Cone of Cold 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 Polymorph or Ring of Frost. Note: When you are playing Ring of Fire, it will replace Ring of Frost.

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. 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.

Before going into the damage rotation, understanding how to maximize your "Shatters" and how to create space and pressure for your team.

A crucial part of Frost Mage gameplay is dealing damage to targets that are Frozen. This is due to your passive, Shatter, which makes it so your Frost spells will critically strike versus frozen targets. 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. Frostbite can also randomly root enemies, making them susceptible to being shattered. With new talents such as Freezing Cold, Cone of Cold also becomes a shatter effect that you can use offensively or defensively.

1. Using Frost Nova: Frost Nova is an easy way to secure early shatters on enemies.
   • Cast Frostfire Bolt/ Frostbolt on them if you are far from their range.
2. Using Freeze: This ability is from your Water Elemental that gets summoned when Icy Veins is active.
   • Start casting Frostfire Bolt/ Frostbolt. Right when the cast is about to end, you want to use Freeze on the enemy you are casting Frostfire Bolt/Frostbolt on.
3. Using Ice Nova: If you are using the Ice Nova regular talent, the technique is similar to what you would do with your Water Elemental's Freeze ability during Icy Veins.
   • Start casting Frostfire Bolt/ Frostbolt: Right when the cast ends, use Ice Nova on the enemy you are casting Frostfire Bolt/Frostbolt on.
4. Using Winter's Chill: Winter's Chill gets placed on a target after you use Flurry on them. This makes it so your target takes damage as if they were Frozen, even if they are not actually Frozen.
   • Cast Frostfire Bolt/ Frostbolts until you get a Brain Freeze proc.
   • Use Flurry: This will place Winter's Chill on your target. Winter's Chill puts 2 charges of it on the enemy.
   • Cast Frostfire Bolt/ Frostbolt (or Ice Lance if you do not want to spend time casting).
   • Use Fingers of Frost procs often for instant-cast Ice Lances to combo damage quickly.

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. Use Arcane Explosion 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).

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

• Use Flurry.
• Cast Frostfire Bolt to deal damage and generate icicles.
• Place Frozen Orb on the group to cleave and begin acquiring Fingers of Frost procs.
• Place Blizzard over it to reset the cooldown of your Orb.
• Use Icy Veins
• Use the procs from Freezing Cold to chain Ice Lance to deal heavy sustained instant cast damage.
• Outside of your Frozen Orb damage every minute, weave in Ring of Fire if you are playing this PvP talent. It also disorients enemies that run into it, giving you an additional way to control the enemy team.
• If running Ray of Frost, you can shatter this via Freeze, or Flurry, to ensure the ticks of Ray of Frost critical strike and deal significant damage.
• Use Flurry if you get a Brain Freeze proc.
• Combo Glacial Spike with Ice Nova, cast directly after the Glacial is in the air to shatter a large portion of damage
• Use Blizzard if the enemy team is completely behind the pillar. Every time Blizzard deals damage, it reduces the cooldown of Frozen Orb.
• Use Fire Blast if you get locked out on Frost and want to deal instant damage.
• 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. Combine this cast with one of the Mage's Shatters such as Ice Nova or applying a Flurry.

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, Freeze, Cone of Cold when talented into Freezing Cold to get quick shatters on the enemy. If you are at range and can shatter a Frostfire Bolt/ Frostbolt it will deal more damage than a shattered Ice Lance, but Ice Lance is very nice for instant strong damage.
• Use Cone of Cold, Frost Nova, and Polymorph to control the enemy team.
• Use Blizzard if the enemy team is completely behind the pillar, especially if you have Freezing Rain buff. Every time Blizzard deals damage, it reduces the cooldown of Frozen Orb.
• Use Ring of Fire/ Fire Blast if you get locked out on Frost and want to continue doing damage. It also disorients enemies that run into it, giving you an additional way to control the enemy team.
  • Something to note is that Fire Blast can be used to "Totem Stomp." What this means is that you can use it to kill Shaman totems that are placed down. For example, if you see a Skyfury Totem, you can instantly kill it with Fire Blast.
  • Note: When you are playing Ring of Fire, it will replace Ring of Frost.

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.

Although Mirror Image deals damage and slows enemies, it should primarily be used as a defensive cooldown. While the images are active, you take 20% less damage. Taking direct damage will break 1 of the 3 mirrors. If the images stay alive for the entire duration, you will get this damage reduction for 40 seconds! Use this when you do not have Alter Time, and you see the enemy using their burst cooldowns.

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. 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 preemptively, 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.

Blast Wave is a knockback that gives Mages an additional way to get away from melee players. Use this when melee have connected you with heavy damage cooldowns or you need to kite and run. Talented into the Volatile Detonation talent allows Blast Wave to send enemies extremely far away and can even be used to knock off maps like Blade's Edge or Mugambala.

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.