Frost Mage PvP Guide for Cataclysm Classic

Frost Mage does strong burst damage, offers the best crowd-control toolkit of all Mage specs and has powerful survivability spells and talents. Sheeping in PVP is now harder, as the cast time has been increased, so you need to be careful when sheeping enemies, not to trigger any spell locks during the long cast time.

Strengths

• Powerful cooldowns that can serve both defensive and offensive purposes.
• Best crowd-control of all Mage specs.
• Huge burst-on-demand damage potential.
• Viable in most PVP situations.
• Strong survivability toolkit.
• A diverse range of spells, usually offering a useful option for any scenario.

Weaknesses

• If you are out of mana, you are out of mana.
• Vulnerable to interrupts, as all of your damage is in the Frost spell school.
• You have to micro manage your Water Elemental, which has very useful abilities.

• Glyph of Frostbolt — A straight 5% crit chance increase for your Frostbolt.
• Glyph of Mage Armor — Enhances the mana regeneration of your Mage Armor.
• Glyph of Pyroblast — A straight 5% damage increase to your Ice Lance.

• Glyph of Frost Armor — Allows your Frost Armor to regenerate 2% of your maximum mana every 5 seconds. If you use Glyph of Mage Armor as a Prime Glyph, you may also use Glyph of Dragon's Breath here, but that is completely optional.
• Glyph of Ice Barrier — 30% more damage absorption for your Ice Barrier.
• Glyph of Polymorph — Polymorph now removes all damage over time effects from the target, so the sheep does not break instantly.

• Glyph of Slow Fall — Removes the reagent cost from Slow Fall.
• Glyph of Conjuring — Reduces the Mana cost of conjuring by 50%.
• Glyph of Arcane Brilliance — Reduces the Mana cost of Arcane Brilliance by 50%.

If you have not already, we recommend taking a look at the Spells Summary page first. The better you know your abilities, the better and more versatile you are at playing your Mage. The rotation always depends on what your enemies do and if they are frozen or not. For a better understanding of when your spells deal most damage, we highly recommend reading the Rotations page from the PvE section. The following spells are considered most important for Frost Mages:

• Frostbolt — Cast when not at risk of being interrupted. Works like a charm with Early Frost
• Deep Freeze — stuns enemies for 5 seconds. Only usable on Frozen targets. Instant cast.
• 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.
• 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. Instant cast.
• 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.
• Ice Lance — Does double damage on frozen targets (works with Fingers of Frost). Instant cast.
• Frostfire Bolt — Brain Freeze can be used when Brain Freeze is active.
• Fire Blast — Use to dps and to stun, if Impact procs. Instant cast.
• Cone of Cold — AoE damage and 4-seconds freeze CC. Works well together with Shatter, which triples your critical strike chance versus frozen targets.
• Frost Nova — Freeze CC. Has the same Shatter interaction as Cone of Cold above.
• Ring of Frost — Freeze CC that works with Shatter and can be used to create distance between you and enemies or to set a trap.
• Flame Orb — A high damage ability, useful if you seek to nuke one target to oblivion.

In addition to your main damaging and CC spells, you also have important utility spells:

• Invisibility — Used to flee from combat.
• Time Warp — Alternative to Bloodlust/ Heroism, offers 30% increased attack/casting speed for you and your group for 40 secons.
• Spellsteal — Steal beneficial magic effects from your enemies.
• Polymorph — Transforms your enemies into a pet, removing all dots on them, thanks to Glyph of Polymorph.
• Mirror Image — Minor DPS increase.
• Mana Shield — Absorbs Damage at the cost of mana.
• Mage Ward — Absorbs Frost, Frost or Arcane damage, gives you Blazing Speed, after dissipating from absorbing damage.
• Ice Block — Makes you immune to all attacks for 10 seconds, but can be cleansed by spells like Mass Dispel
• Remove Curse — Cleanse 1 curse from a friendly target. Especially useful when dealing with Warlocks.
• Slow Fall — This ability can be key to ambush attacks, or surviving jumps from high above.
• Blink — Teleports you 20 yards forward, even out of most stuns/snares.
• Counterspell — Interrupts enemy casts and can spell lock the cast spell scool for 7 seconds. With the talent, it also silences enemies for 4 seconds. Off global cooldown.
• Frost Armor — The armor you want to use versus melee enemies. It slows melee attackers and provides additional armor, while also regenerating mana through the Glyph of Frost Armor.
• Mage Armor — Used against casters. Provides resistance versus all spell schools and regenerates mana, whilst also reducing the duration of harmful Magic effects against you.

If you are looking to maximize the potential of your Frost Mage in Cataclysm PvP, these are the recommended professions:

1. Tailoring — is great for the Lightweave Embroidery cloak enchant.
2. Jewelcrafting — Gives you three powerful from Chimera's Eye, giving you a 3x stat boost, compared to normal gems.

While Engineering was a very strong profession in the past expansions, in Cataclysm we prefer Jewelcrafting and Tailoring.

The list linked below provides you with the Best-in-Slot gear setup for a Frost Mage in PvP.

To learn in which setups Frost Mages are typically strongest, please read the guides we have prepared below: