Cataclysm Classic Frost Mage Spell Summary

Any spell not listed here is simply not relevant for Frost Mage, or has only a very niche use.

This segment outlines the various abilities essential for a Frost Mageduring single-target engagements.

• Frostbolt — Your primary spell and the primary source of single-target damage output, used to proc Fingers of Frost.
• Molten Armor — Increases your critical strike chance by 3% while reducing the probability of being critically struck by 5%.
• Flame Orb — Your Flame Orb (now Frostfire Orb) inflicts damage per second. These ticks operate akin to standard Frost spells concerning Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze, with each tick having a chance to trigger them. Expect these activations during Flame Orb's duration and be prepared to cast Ice Lance to prevent reaching the maximum two charges of Fingers of Frost.
• Deep Freeze — Your primary heavy hitter, exclusively inflicts damage on foes resistant to stuns, such as dungeon and raid bosses, alongside certain trash mobs. Typically, it merely stuns trash mobs without causing damage, significantly reducing your damage potential outside boss encounters.
• Brain Freeze — Brain Freeze grants you an instant cast of Frostfire Bolt when triggered. It activates with a 15% chance every time you cast a Frost spell, except Frostfire Bolt itself.
• Fingers of Frost — Fingers of Frost is your most important proc ability. The concept revolves around maximizing the efficacy of your spells against frozen targets, though unfortunately, bosses cannot be frozen. However, when Fingers of Frost triggers, certain spells, most importantly Ice Lance, Deep Freeze, and Frostfire Bolt when (Brain Freeze is active), act as though cast upon a frozen target. Fingers of Frost remains active for 15 seconds and depletes upon casting any of the aforementioned spells. It can accumulate up to two charges, offering flexibility in its usage. Once two charges are attained, subsequent triggers only refresh the 15-second cooldown without granting additional charges.
• Freeze (Water Elemental) — The Freeze spell from your Water Elemental should be utilized whenever feasible. While some advise reserving it for Deep Freeze, this poses an issue due to Deep Freeze's 30-second cooldown compared to Freeze's 25-second cooldown. To optimize your DPS (yielding approximately one extra charge of Fingers of Frost every two minutes, resulting in a marginal DPS increase), Freeze should be employed whenever available. This strategy also encourages judicious charge management, ensuring a charge is always reserved for Deep Freeze's activation.
• Icy Veins — Icy Veins serves as your primary DPS cooldown. Icy Veins should be utilized whenever feasible. Together with Cold Snap it delivers intense burst damage once or twice per fight, depending on the fight's duration.
• Cold Snap — Resets the cooldown of all Frost abilities, including Icy Veins.
• Shatter — This talent multiplies your Crit chance against frozen targets ( Fingers of Frost) by 3, which means you need only 33.33% Crit chance raid buffed. Piercing Ice +3, Elemental Oath +5, Molten Armor +3, Critical Mass +5, Focus Magic +3, Viciousness +1, Base Crit, Crit from Intellect also count towards raid buffed Crit, making the 33.33% soft cap rather easy to reach. After this soft cap, only Frostbolt and Flame Orb will benefit from Crit, making Haste a better stat.

Apart from the single-target DPS abilities outlined earlier, Frost Mage wields the following arsenal:

• Arcane Explosion and Cone of Cold — Cast when enemies are not stationary. Only use Cone of Cold if your foes are in front of you.
• Flamestrike and Blizzard — On ranged AoE encounters or if mobs are standing still, these two spells are the way to go. Alternate between those two spells.

The following abilities are considered useful to Frost:

• Portals / Teleport — Used for (group) travel.
• Evocation — Restores your Mana.
• Conjure Mana Gem — If you find yourself running low on mana and Evocation is still far from being ready, consider utilizing a Mana Gem.
• Mage Armor — Only use as a last resort, if you cannot maintain mana otherwise.
• Time Warp — Equivalent to Heroism and Bloodlust.
• Ring of Frost — Root with a 10-second duration and 10-yard radius.
• Polymorph — Turns your foes into an animal for a 50-second duration (less in PvP).
• Conjure Refreshment / Ritual of Refreshment — Creates food for you / your party.
• Mage Ward — Absorbs Arcane, Fire or Frost damage.
• Slow Fall — Slows your/a friends fall, prevents damage from falling.
• Ice Block — Provides a 10-second immunity.
• Remove Curse — Decurse your friends and yourself.
• Arcane Brilliance — Increases spell power, critical strike chance and enchances the mana pool.
• Remove Curse — Interrupt spells, has a 24-second cooldown.
• Spellsteal — Steals beneficial effects from enemies.
• Invisibility — Turns you invisible, allowing you to flee from combat and reset your threat on enemies.
• Mirror Image — A minor DPS cooldown that and should only be used if you can make sure they do not die from damage. Can also be used if your tank dies and you have threat, so your enemy will attack the mirror images first, giving you time to use Invisibility, or to resurrect your tank and prevent a wipe.