Frost Mage PvP Talents and Builds (Shadowlands / 9.2)
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.
Regular Talents for Frost Mages
Level | Choices | ||
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15 |
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25 |
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30 |
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35 |
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40 |
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45 |
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50 |
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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.
Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
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.
Tier 2 (Level 25) Talents
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.
Tier 3 (Level 30) Talents
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.
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.
Tier 4 (Level 35) Talents
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.
Tier 5 (Level 40) Talents
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.
Tier 6 (Level 45) Talents
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.
Tier 7 (Level 50) Talents
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.
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 could be potentially good if the
enemy team does not have a purge ability and you are able to freecast often.
PvP Talents for Frost Mage
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.
Mandatory PvP Talents
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. It is recommended to use this talent
if you are using
Ray of Frost.
Situational PvP Talents
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.
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. You can replace
Kleptomania with this if you are playing against a team with two spell
casters on it.
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 15% less likely
to receive a critical strike.
Changelog
- 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.
Pherix is a Rank 1 Mage who has achieved over 3250 rating. He streams high end arena and coaching with viewers on Twitch and also creates guides and informational content on Youtube.
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