Updated for Patch 4.3

Of the three mage specs, Frost possess the greatest survivability along with greater control due to its numerous roots that allow it to escape melee and to put out pressure and CC when it needs to.   Defensively frost has Cold Snap which will allow you to get another Water Elemental up or use Ice Block again, both immensely important tools for your survivability and damage.

Your primary damage as frost comes in the form of burst during a shatter, and it suffers for this by having sustained DPS lower than that of other specs.  Deep Freeze can be used offensively to set up damage or as additional CC to give you another escape opportunity or simply as a control mechanism.

Frost excels in arena combat where its greater survivability and control make it ideal for dealing with offensive pressure while still putting out deadly burst. Fire and Arcane have their uses in Battleground PvP, but in arena? Frost is the way to go.

The build(s) and info on this page apply mainly to level 85 PvP. If you’re not yet 85 then use what you can. If you want to get to 85 ASAP then check out this in-game leveling guide.

Table of Contents

• Frost PvP Build, some options are after the build.
• Stats
• Gems and Enchants
• Professions
• Macros
• Races

Frost PvP Build

View this build on WoWhead (See below for stats, gems, etc.)

This build emphasizes a bit more control than damage and is a popular arena build.
See the section below the glyphs for some options.

Frost talents (32 Points)

1. Early Frost – Rank 2/2 – Reduces the cast time of your Frostbolt spell by 0.6 secs. This effect becomes inactive for 15 sec after use.
2. Piercing Ice – Rank 3/3 – Increases the critical strike chance of your spells by 3%.
3. Shatter – Rank 2/2 – Multiplies the critical strike chance of all your spells against frozen targets by 3, and increases the damage done by Frostbolt against frozen targets by 20%.
4. Ice Floes – Rank 3/3 – Reduces the cooldown of your Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Block, Cold Snap, Ice Barrier, and Icy Veins spells by 20%.
5. Improved Cone of Cold – Rank 2/2 – Your Cone of Cold also freezes targets for 4 sec.
6. Piercing Chill – Rank 1/2 – Your Frostbolt criticals apply the chill effect to 1 additional nearby targets.
7. Permafrost – Rank 3/3 – Your Chill effects reduce the target’s speed by an additional 10%, and the target’s healing received. In addition, whenever you deal spell damage, your Water Elemental is healed for 15% of the amount dealt.
8. Icy Veins – Rank 1/1 – Hastens your spellcasting, increasing spell casting speed by 20% and reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting by 100%. Lasts 20 sec.
9. Fingers of Frost – Rank 3/3 – Gives your offensive Chill effects a 20% chance to grant you the Fingers of Frost effect, which causes your next Ice Lance or Deep Freeze spell to act as if your target were frozen and increases Ice Lance damage by 25%. Fingers of Frost can accumulate up to 2 charges and lasts 15 sec.
10. Improved Freeze – Rank 3/3 – Gives your Water Elemental’s Freeze spell a 100% chance to grant 2 charges of Fingers of Frost when it strikes enemy targets.
11. Enduring Winter – Rank 1/3 – Reduces the mana cost of all spells by 3%. In addition, your Frostbolt spell has a 33% chance to grant up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 1% of their maximum mana over 10 sec.
12. Cold Snap – Rank 1/1 – When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown on all Frost spells you recently cast.
13. Brain Freeze – Rank 3/3 – Your spells no longer trigger Arcane Missiles. Instead, your Frost damage spells with chilling effects have a 15% chance to cause your next Fireball or Frostfire Bolt spell to be instant cast and cost no mana. When Frostfire Bolt is instant, it can benefit from Fingers of Frost. Brain Freeze cannot be triggered by Frostfire Bolt.
14. Ice Barrier – Rank 1/1 – Instantly shields you, absorbing ((8069 + $SPFR * 0.87)) damage. Lasts 1 min. While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be delayed by damage.
15. Shattered Barrier – Rank 2/2 – Gives your Ice Barrier spell a 100% chance to freeze all enemies within 10 yds for 4 sec when it is destroyed.
16. Deep Freeze – Rank 1/1 – Stuns the target for 5 sec. Only usable on Frozen targets. Deals damage to targets that are permanently immune to stuns.

Arcane (2 Points)

1. Improved Counterspell – Rank 2/2 – Your Counterspell also silences the target for 4 sec.

Fire (7 Points)

1. Burning Soul – Rank 3/3 – Reduces the casting time lost from taking damaging attacks by 70%.
2. Improved Fire Blast – Rank 2/2 – Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire Blast spell by 8% and increases its range by 10 yards.
3. Impact – Rank 2/2 – Gives your damaging spells a 10% chance to reset the cooldown on Fire Blast and to cause the next Fire Blast you cast to stun the target for 2 sec and spread any Fire damage over time effects to nearby enemy targets within 12 yards.

Glyphs

• Prime:
  • Glyph of Frostbolt – Increases the critical strike chance of your Frostbolt spell by 5%.
  • Glyph of Ice Lance – Increases the damage of your Ice Lance spell by 5%.
  • Glyph of Frostfire – Increases the damage done by your Frostfire Bolt by 15% and your Frostfire Bolt now deals 3% additional damage over 12 sec, stacking up to 3 times, but no longer reduces the victim’s movement speed.
• Major:
  • Glyph of Frost Armor – Your Frost Armor also causes you to regenerate 2% of your maximum mana every 5 sec.
  • Glyph of Ice Barrier – Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your Ice Barrier by 30%.
  • Glyph of Polymorph – Your Polymorph spell also removes all damage over time effects from the target.
• Minor:
  • Glyph of Armors – Increases the duration of your Armor spells by 30 min.
  • Glyph of Slow Fall – Your Slow Fall spell no longer requires a reagent.
  • Glyph of Conjuring – Reduces the mana cost of your Conjuring spells by 50%.

Build Options

• For a little more offense, drop 2/2 in Shattered Barrier in favor of 2/2 Frostfire Orb
• Mana issues? Put a couple of points into 2/2 Master of Elements.
• Drop the 1 pt in Piercing Chill in favor of 1pt in Blazing Speed (which gives small chance for a burst of speed and escape from roots and such.)

A more offensive build uses the same core Frost talents as above and adds in more Arcane.

• Drop all the Fire talents
• Add 3/3 Netherwind Presence for more haste.
• Add 2/2 Invocation for a damage bonus after silencing someone. Note that you need to be actively silencing people for this to be useful.
• Add 2/2 Improved Blink. for some runspeed after blinking.
• This build looks like this

For a more in-depth and highly detailed resource on everything Mage related, from leveling to PvP to Raiding to earning gold, check out the Killer Guides’ Mage guide.

 Stats and Gear

4% hit > 195 Spell Penetration > Intellect > 25% Critical > Mastery/Haste > hit over 4%

• Resilience: Clearly a very important stat. If you’re not getting focused all the time then you might be able to afford to drop a piece or two of PvP gear in favor of PvE gear, if you have access to better PvE items. Your call.
• You can get your Spell Pen. from gems and the cl0ak enchant (see below)
• Int improves everything you need as a Mage and it is, by far, your most important stat.
• Your Shatter talent triples your crit chance against frozen targets so there comes a point (25-30% or so) where each point of Crit over that amount is worth less than points of crit below that amount. Not that more crit isn’t good, just not quite as good.
• Mastery & Haste are hardly bad stats, it’s just that up to 25% or so the Crit is better.
• Reforge excess Hit to Crit, then Mastery or Haste.

Just a note: Some high ranking players choose Mastery over Crit for the overall DPS increase. It’s a bit more consistent damage as opposed to the randomness of the Crit. Your call. I like Crit.

Frost Mage Gems

• Red:
  • Brilliant Chimera’s Eye: +67 Int, requires Jewelcrafting 500
  • Brilliant Queen’s Garnet: +50 Int
  • Brilliant Inferno Ruby: +40 Int
• Yellow:
  • Mystic Cogwheel: +208 Resilience, requires Engineering 525 and Engineering helm
  • Mystic Chimera’s Eye: +50 Resilience
  • Mystic Lightstone: +40 Resilience
• Blue:
  • Stormy Chimera’s Eye: +84 Spell Penetration, self-ony Jewelcrafting gem
  • Stormy Deepholm Iolite: +63 Spell Penetration
  • Stormy Ocean Sapphire: +50 Spell Penetration
• Meta:
• Burning Shadowspirit Diamond: +54 Int & +3% Crit damage. Requires 3 red gems

Unless a socket bonus offers intellect, it’s more effective to gem for pure intellect and ignore the bonus.

Frost Mage Enchantments

• Main Hand/Two-Handed:
  • Power Torrent: Sometimes increase Int by 500 for 12 seconds
  • Enchant Weapon – Hurricane: Sometimes increase Haste by 540 for 12 seconds
• Off-Hand:
  • Superior Intellect: +40 Int
  • Pyrium Weapon Chain: +40 Hit and reduces disarm duration
• Helm:
  • Arcanum of Hyjal
  • Arcanum of Vicious Intellect: +60 Int and 35 resilience
• Shoulders:
  • Greater Inscription of Charged lodestone: +50 Int and 25 Haste
  • Greater Inscription of Vicious Intellect: +50 Int and 25 Resilience
• Cloak:
  • Enchant Cloak – Greater Intellect: +50 Int
  • Enchant Cloak – Greater Spell Piercing: +50 Spell Penetration
• Chest:
  • Enchant Chest – Peerless Stats: +20 to all stats
  • Enchant Chest – Mighty Stats: +15 to all stats
  • Enchant Chest – Exceptional Resilience: +40 Resilience
• Bracers:
  • Enchant Bracer – Mighty Intellect: +50 Int
• Gloves:
  • Enchant Gloves – Haste: +50 Haste
• Belt:
  • Ebonsteel Belt Buckle: Gem slot for +50 or +40 Int gem
• Leggings:
  • Powerful Ghostly Spellthread: +95 Int & 55 Spirit
• Boots:
  • Enchant Boots – Haste: +50 Haste
  • Enchant Boots – Lavawalker: +35 Mastery, Slight run speed increase.
• Rings:
  • Enchant Ring – Intellect: +40 Int, requires Enchanting 475

Professions for the Frost Mage

All of the professions provide some benefit for Mages, though clearly some are better than others. Even the gathering professions have some value, though you might be better served by building a larger gold stash through other means.

If you’re just talking about pure efficiency then Engineering, for the Synapse Sprints and other gadgets, and Blacksmithing, for the +100 Int gain, might be the best professions to take.

• Engineering has lots of interesting toys, some of which have situational use, and Synapse Springs, which increases Int by 480 for 10 seconds. If you take this use a macro to activate it, along with other short term buffs, before you cast your favorite nuke.
• Blacksmithing gives two extra gems slots for +40 (or +50 epic) Int gems, 80 (or 100) Int total. If you can afford it, then slot the two +50 Int gems.
• Tailoring – Lightweave Embroidery sometimes increases Int by 580 for 15 seconds. The problem is that you can’t  activate it on call, so it has less PvP value than PvE value. You will also be able to make your own starter Vicious gear for PvP, perhaps saving some gold over Auction House prices.
• Leatherworking provides a 130 Int wrist enchant compared to the next best, which is 65 Haste
• Jewelcrafting allows creating three +67 Int, self-only, gems. Since you can now buy (or make) +50 Int gems, this skill is less valuable than before.
• Enchanting will allow you to enchant both rings, for a total +80 Int gain.
• Inscription has a +130 Int shoulder enchant which is an 80 Int gain over the next best item.
• Alchemy has a variety of useful potions and the Mixology bonus is worth 80 Int.
• Skinning provides 80 crit rating, which is far below 80 Int in value. If you have to take skinning for the cash flow then work it hard and do a lot of it.
• Herbalism provides a small self heal and 240 Haste rating for 20 seconds.
• Mining provides 80 Stam and so has little benefit for Mages since Int is so much superior.

Macros

• This one removes the curse from your mouseover target, otherwise it removes it from you.
  /cast [target=mouseover,help,exists] [target=target,exists] [target=player] Remove Curse

• Cancels your current cast and casts Counterspell on your focus target if SHIFT is held, otherwise on your regular target.
  #showtooltip Counterspell
  /stopcasting
  /cast [mod:shift, target=focus] Counterspell; Counterspell

• Mash your Ice Block key without worrying about instantly canceling your IB once it pops.
  #showtooltip Ice block
  /stopcasting
  /cast !Ice block

 Pwn in the Arenas – Click here and get better!

Races for the PvP Frost Mage

Not that race is a replacement for skill, but some have certain advantages.

• Humans: Escape ability allows use of two DPS trinkets.
• Gnome: Decent escape, bigger mana pool, small size helps (really.)
• Night Elves: A bit harder to hit.
• Dwarves: Ability washes away bleeds and take less damage.
• Draenei: +1 Hit and a small heal.
• Worgen: +1% crit, Sprint-like ability.
• Orcs: Blood Fury for increased burst, stun resistance, pet damage
• Undead: Remove Fear, Sleep, and Charm. Hold breath longer.
• Trolls: Berserk increases casting speed, less affected by roots & slows
• Goblins: 1% Haste, Rocket Jump.
• Blood Elves: Arcane Torrent restores some mana.
• Tauren don’t believe in Magery.

End notes

• Thanks to ArenaJunkies for their info and their Arena Ranking data.

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