Frost Mage PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / 9.0.2)

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 your Frost Novas and other roots to maximize kiting potential during matches.
• The second role a Frost Mage is to apply pressure. With relatively short major cooldowns, Frost Mages can apply a lot of pressure on a team in a short amount of time.

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.

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.

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, Frostbolt also applies a slow to enemies, same with Cone of Cold and Blizzard.

Before going into the damage rotation, understanding how to maximize your "Shatters" and generating big Icicles is a key part of playing a Frost Mage.

A crucial part of Frost Mage damage is dealing damage to targets that are Frozen. This is because of 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. Below are a few examples of how to use your Shatter passive to maximize your Icicle damage.

1. Using Frost Nova. This is an easy way to generate large Icicles, but is not very reliable because enemy healers can dispel the root and most DPS have a way to remove the Frost Nova debuff.
   • Use Frost Nova on an enemy player.
   • Cast Frostbolt on them.
2. Using Freeze. If you are not playing the Lonely Winter regular talent, you will have access to your Water Elemental. This will also give you the ability to use your pet's Freeze ability.
   • Start casting Frostbolt. Right when the cast is about to end, you want to use Freeze on the enemy you are casting Frostbolt on.
3. Using Ice Nova. If you are using the Ice Nova regular talent, you will be able to generate Icicles using it. The technique is similar to what you would do with your Water Elemental's Freeze ability.
   • Start casting Frostbolt. Right when the cast ends, use Ice Nova on the enemy you are casting Frostbolt on.
4. Using Winter's Chill. Winter's Chill gets placed on a target after you use an instant Flurry with a Brain Freeze proc. This makes it so your target takes damage as if they were Frozen, even if they are not Frozen.
   • Cast 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 Frostbolt (or Ice Lance if you do not want to spend time casting).

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 the enemy healer, Polymorph a DPS that can heal/peel for the healer).
4. Start building up Icicles. See the above section to get a better understanding of how to do that.
5. When you have 5 Icicles built up, use your burst rotation (see below). If you are playing a composition like Rogue Mage, you might not have enough time to build up 5 Icicles, if the time is correct, still use your damage cooldowns even if you do not have 5 Icicles.

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 and Flurrys against frozen targets.

• Generate as many Icicles possible by casting Frostbolts on your target. It would also be ideal to have a Brain Freeze proc ready, but is not needed.
• Use Blood Fury (if you are an Orc).
• Use Icy Veins. The unique thing about Frost Mages is that you do not need Icy Veins to be able to do your Burst Rotation. As long as you have 5 Icicles and a Polymorph on the enemy healer, you can do the below rotation.
• Use Frozen Orb.
• Use Comet Storm if the target is stunned or cannot move.
• Use Ice Nova.
• Use Ice Lance if you have Fingers of Frost until you run out.
• Use Flurry if you have Brain Freeze.
• Use Ray of Frost if the enemy team is trying to kite from your damage behind a pillar.
• 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.

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. 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.

• Use Cone of Cold, Frost Nova, and Polymorph to control the enemy team.
• Generate large Icicles with Frostbolts and Flurrys. See the Shatter Combinations section at the top of this page to see how to do this.
• Use Ray of Frost if an enemy overextends or is trying to kite your team's damage.
• If you are using Ebonbolt, use it to generate a Brain Freeze proc.
• 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.
  • 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.

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 straight forward. 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 a defensive cooldown. While the images 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.

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.