Frost Mage PvP Talents and Builds (Dragonflight / 10.0.7)

Last updated on Mar 21, 2023 at 19:43 by Pherix 17 comments

Choosing the right PvP and PvE talents is a prerequisite to proper performance in PvP. This guide goes through the various talent choices available to you as a Frost Mage and gives you the best combinations you can take.

This page is part of our Frost Mage PvP Guide.

TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THIS PAGE
1.

Talent Choices for Frost Mages

While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.

2.

Talents Summary

2.1.

Mage Tree Talent Highlights

  • Dragon's Breath Icon Dragon's Breath. One of the strongest offensive Crowd Control abilities in the game, with all specializations of Mage being able to have access to this talent, you can easily chain Dragon's Breath Icon Dragon's Breath to Polymorph Icon Polymorph.
  • Slow Icon Slow. This talent is returning for Dragonflight, being very helpful with the mobility creep. With this talent, you can instantly apply Slow to all enemies.
  • Blast Wave Icon Blast Wave. A favorite from previous expansions, Blast Wave, returns in Dragonflight acting as it once did, giving an explosion effect around the caster and slowing enemies after. This is extremely strong to use when enemies are using heavy offensive cooldowns.
  • Mass Polymorph Icon Mass Polymorph. This talent has been highly speculated upon, and it has yet to see much value, Frost Mages often like to Crowd Control only one target with Polymorph, and there is also the ability to chain Dragon's Breath Icon Dragon's Breath into Ring of Frost Icon Ring of Frost if needed.
  • Freezing Cold Icon Freezing Cold applies a 5-second snare when enemies are hit by Cone of Cold Icon Cone of Cold allowing for more kiting potential.
  • Greater Invisibility Icon Greater Invisibility often breaks quite rapidly however provides a 60% damage reduction for 3 seconds after Invisibility; use this before heavy incoming damage to negate the effect.
  • Time Anomaly Icon Time Anomaly is another new talent, allowing for either Time Warp Icon Time Warp for 6 seconds, Icy Veins Icon Icy Veins for 8 seconds, or a Fingers of Frost Icon Fingers of Frost proc. This talent is quite strong due to how much Mage benefits from Haste.
2.2.

Frost Mage Tree Talent Highlights

2.3.

Mandatory PvP Talents

Precognition Icon Precognition is a new PvP talent introduced in Dragonflight. This allows for outplay potential from the caster when the enemy misses interrupts on you. This is especially strong for Frost Mage, as often you are only casting from one school, giving you kick and crowd control immunities for 4 seconds.

Concentrated Coolness Icon Concentrated Coolness increases Frozen Orb Icon 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.

2.4.

Situational PvP Talents

Ice Form Icon Ice Form replaces Icy Veins Icon Icy Veins, making you immune to all stuns and knockbacks while also giving you 30% increased Frostbolt Icon Frostbolt damage. This talent is great situationally against compositions that have a lot of stuns or if you are looking to find value from Deep Shatter Icon Deep Shatter Frostbolts with some additional damage modifiers. It also has a 1-minute cooldown in comparison to Icy Veins Icon Icy Veins being a 3-minute cooldown. With the change to Ice Form Icon Ice Form coming off the Global Cooldown, this talent has a lot of viability now.

Ice Wall Icon Ice Wall is a talent added in Shadowlands that allows you to place a wall of ice in a specific area for 15 seconds with 40% of your maximum health. This wall obstructs the line of sight and can be used to block enemies from running away or block a line of sight from a healer to a damage class. This could be good in arena or Rated Battlegrounds. This ability has a lot of creativity, and you can use it in many different ways.

Prismatic Cloak Icon Prismatic Cloak reduces magical damage you take by 50% for 2 seconds after you Blink Icon Blink or Shimmer Icon Shimmer. This talent is great against teams with magical spells that deal large amounts of damage.

Netherwind Armor Icon Netherwind Armor should be taken versus teams that can often critical strike, or rely on critical strikes for a majority of their damage. This talent makes you 10% less likely to receive a critical strike.

Ring of Fire Icon Ring of Fire is a new PvP Talent for all specializations of Mages. It can provide serious, sustained damage if enemies are stuck in it. Typically, pairing this ability with a stun to get maximum value is where this ability shines.

Snowdrift Icon Snowdrift is another new PvP talent come Dragonflight, which is a castable blizzard effect around you for 6 seconds, which slows enemies heavily , and if enemies are caught within the effect for 3 seconds, they are stunned for 4 seconds. This talent has yet to have been tested thoroughly and is quite volatile if it will be often used or not. With the changes to this talent becoming instant cast, it will likely be strong.

Frost Bomb Icon Frost Bomb is the last of the new PvP Talents added in Dragonflight for Frost Mages, which applies a bomb effect to a target dealing damage to the current target and AoE damage surrounding it. This applies a very significant slow and seems quite strong for burst damage and kiting potential.

3.

Changelog

  • 21 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
  • 30 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
  • 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
  • 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Pre-patch.
  • 31 Jul. 2022: Updated for Shadowlands Season 4.
  • 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
  • 28 Feb. 2022: Page updated for Patch 9.2.
  • 17 Nov. 2021: Page reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
  • 04 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1 of Shadowlands.
  • 19 Mar. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.0.5.
  • 23 Dec. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands.
  • 28 Oct. 2020: Updated PvP Talents.
  • 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
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