Frost Mage PvP Talents and Builds (Shadowlands / 9.2.5)

Level	Choices
15	✘ Bone Chilling	✔ Lonely Winter	✔ Ice Nova
25	✘ Glacial Insulation	✔ Shimmer	✔ Ice Floes
30	✔ Incanter's Flow	✘ Focus Magic	✔ Rune of Power
35	✔ Frozen Touch	✘ Chain Reaction	✘ Ebonbolt
40	✔ Frigid Winds	✘ Ice Ward	✔ Ring of Frost
45	✔ Freezing Rain	✘ Splitting Ice	✔ Comet Storm
50	✔ Thermal Void	✘ Ray of Frost	✘ Glacial Spike

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. Currently, there are two different strong Frost Mage Builds that will be outlined here.

Ice Nova is the best choice in this tier if you are looking to control the enemy team with roots more often. 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.

If you would prefer to have less instant damage and more sustained damage, Lonely Winter will be the best choice. Although you will not be able to summon a Water Elemental, the damage of your Frostbolt, Ice Lance, and Flurry is increased heavily. At the current state of this guide, Lonely Winter is the strongest talent, and empowering your Frostbolts is likely the most optimal build.

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.

Ice Floes is a strong option to have the Blink option available during stuns. You will lose a large amount of mobility without Shimmer, however you are significantly more durable and Ice Floes is very nice to cast CC or even damage when enemies are running around line of sight.

Incanter's Flow is the strong 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. With the recent buffs to Incanter's Flow, this talent is likely the most optimal in this row.

Rune of Power normally is not the greatest pick with Icy Veins, due to the cooldown of Icy Veins. You can have access to one Rune of Power once Icy Veins is used, and can store and use another Rune once the first one ends. When using Ice Form as a PvP Talent, getting an instant Rune every minute with Ice Form. You are able to deal significant damage every minute. With Ice Form, Rune of Power is the best pick in this tier. If using Icy Veins, be sure to focus on Rune management and positioning when using Deathborne paired with Icy Veins.

If you will not be able to cast often, Frozen Touch is the best choice in this tier. This is an overall large increase to your burst and sustained damage. Casting Frostbolts when you get the chance will make it easier to get Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost procs.

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.

Comet Storm is a subpar choice in this tier, however the damage-to-cooldown ratio is quite low, making it not super valuable unless the ability is Shattered.

If you often find yourself playing a composition that requires a lot of kiting or running the enemy team around, Freezing Rain is the best choice in this tier. Blizzard can be used instantly to gain distance from enemies.

Ray of Frost is a decent choice in this tier. This has a relatively long cooldown, but can be effective against teams with melee. This will prevent them from kiting your damage or help you from kiting theirs. If you have a Brain Freeze proc, be sure to use that proc before casting Ray of Frost, because the ticks of Ray of Frost will crit and hit significantly harder. Currently, Ray of Frost does significantly low damage, and is therefore not worth taking in this tier.

The secondary Frost build utilizes Thermal Void, which allows Icy Veins to have a longer duration. It also works with the PvP Talent Ice Form as well as Icy Veins, giving you some additional time to be immune to stuns and cast some large Frostbolts. This talent is extremely strong when paired with Deathborne, Lonely Winter, and Icy Veins.

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.

Deep Shatter makes your Frostbolts deal 75% more damage against frozen targets. This talent works well with the regular Talent Frozen Touch and increases your overall sustained damage. With this talent, Shattered Frostbolts will do significantly larger 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.

Frostbite is a very strong PvP Talent that allows your Chill effects to have a chance to root the enemy. This talent is great for getting free Shatters and also having roots to kite from the enemy. This talent is typically taken most games, unless you do not want to put the enemy on DR with roots.

Ice Form replaces Icy Veins, making you immune to all stuns and knockbacks while also giving you 30% increased 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 Frostbolts with some additional damage modifiers. It also has a 1-minute cooldown in comparison to Icy Veins being a 3-minute cooldown. With the recent changes to Ice Form coming off the Global Cooldown, this talent has a lot of viability now. With many Mages opting to play Necrolord though, as of Patch 9.2, Icy Veins is typically taken over Ice Form to pair with the 3-minute cooldown of Deathborne.

Ice Wall is a new talent added in Patch 9.1 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 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 situationally good in arena or Rated Battlegrounds. There is a lot of creativity with this ability, and you can use it in many different ways.

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.

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 it so you are 10% less likely to receive a critical strike.