TBC Classic Frost Mage Guide

Mages have three very well balanced PvE talent trees, Arcane, Fire, and of course Frost. Each spec shines with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Frost Mages got a significant buff compared to Classic. The newly added talents, such as Icy Veins, Summon Water Elemental or Empowered Frostbolt make Frost a very competitive PvE spec in the start of TBC, especially with the ability to use Icy Veins and Water Elemental twice in a row. Further, the controlling abilities of Frost have been enhanced with the Freeze ability of your Water Elemental, which allows to freeze enemies anywhere around you with a ranged Frost Nova. If all that was not enough already, Frost Mages still have their immensely powerful slowing tool Blizzard.

If you are looking to level your Mage, you will find our leveling guides below. Leveling can be done for either Arcane and Fire Mage, or you can simply go with one of the two Frost leveling specs.

If you would like to see where Frost Mages fall in the overall rankings among DPS specs for both PvE and PvP in TBC Classic, we have created pages dedicated to explaining what classes and specializations are the best of the best through multiple factors. However, ultimately, you should not let these lists dissuade you from playing what you enjoy.

Strengths

• Best controlling, slowing, CCing abilities of all Mage specs.
• High burst damage for solo and group play.
• High survivability.
• Viable in PvE and PvP.
• Easier to gear than Fire Mages.

Weaknesses

• Not as good PvE damage as other Mage specs.
• Needs more Hit rating as Arcane spec.

The Burning Crusade lets Mages choose between the races BloodElf, Troll, and Undead if Horde. The Alliance offers you Draenei, Gnome, and Human.

Blood Elf is the new Horde race choice, players can choose. Their racials are still quite good. Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent restore Mana and also grant the Mage a 2 seconds AoE silence effect, which can be used as an emergency Counterspell. The additional magic resistances decrease magic damage taken slightly and as arcane beings, Blood Elves have an increased Enchanting skill.

• Magic Resistance — Increases all resistances by 5.
• Arcane Affinity — Enchanting skill increased by 10.
• Arcane Torrent — Silences all mobs within 8 yards of you for 2 seconds and granting scaling Mana return based on your stacks of Mana Tap.
• Mana Tap — Steals Mana from a target granting you a buff that upon casting Arcane Torrent will grant you Mana based on the amount of Mana Tap stacks you have (stacks up to 3).

Trolls are the best PvE Horde race for Mages. The passive damage increase to beasts is nice to have while leveling and for farming beasts, but the real deal is the increased cast speed from Berserking. The more Health you have lost, the faster this ability lets you cast, up to a maximum of 30% faster casting. Further, troll Mages are able to generate small amounts of Health during combat, an ability no other race has.

• Berserking — Increases your casting and attack speed by 10% to 30%. At full health the speed increase is 10% with a greater effect up to 30% if you are badly hurt when you activate Berserking. Lasts 10 seconds.
• Beast Slaying — Damage dealt versus Beasts increased by 5%.
• Regeneration — Health regeneration rate increased by 10%. 10% of total Health regeneration may continue during combat.

The racial traits of Undead are most the powerful in PvP combat, but also have niche uses in PvE. They can cancel Charm, Fear and Sleep effects or become immune to them, before these effects even apply. Together with Ice Block, this is a very strong ability. The typical Undead hunger for fresh bodies lets them feast on their enemies' corpses, restoring Health very quickly. Being able to breathe 3 times longer underwater than any other race, the Undead Mage does not need to fear from drowning while doing underwater farming or questing, and Undead are more resistant to Shadow damage.

• Will of the Forsaken — Provides immunity to Charm, Fear and Sleep while active. May also be used while already afflicted by Charm, Fear or Sleep. Lasts 5 seconds.
• Cannibalize — When activated, regenerates 7% of total health every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. Only works on Humanoid or Undead corpses within 5 yards. Any movement, action, or damage taken while Cannibalizing will cancel the effect.
• Underwater Breathing — Underwater breath lasts 300% longer than normal.
• Shadow Resistance — Shadow Resistance increased by 10.

Just as Undead, Draenei have a slightly higher resistance to Shadow spells. Their Gemcutting ability increases their Jewelcrafting skill. The two most important racial traits are Inspiring Presence and Gift of the Naaru. Inspiring Presence increases the Spell Hit chance of players grouped with you and Gift of the Naaru is a heal over time, that scales with your level, usually used in niche situations, such as healing while running away from enemies.

• Shadow Resistance — Shadow Resistance increased by 10.
• Gemcutting — Jewelcrafting skill increased by 5.
• Inspiring Presence — Increases chance to hit with spells by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards.
• Gift of the Naaru — Gift of the Naaru is a heal that scales with your level and will heal your target over the course of 15 seconds.

Perception is a very strong cooldown to detect any stealth class around you, giving you a massive advantage in PvP. The Human Spirit is very good for Arcane Mages and can, in some situations, make Human the better choice for Arcane Mages than Gnome (more about that in the Arcane Mage guide). Diplomacy is useful any time you do a reputation grind.

• Perception — Dramatically increases stealth detection for 20 seconds.
• The Human Spirit — Spirit increased by 10%.
• Diplomacy — Reputation gains increased by 10%.

Just as they were in Classic, Gnomes are considered overall to be the best race for Alliance. Their Intellect boost from Expansive Mind is good for all three Mage specs, especially for Arcane, and the Escape Artist is the best Mage racial trait for PvP, as it is instant in TBC on a low 1.75-minute cooldown. The extra Arcane Resistance trait helps in a few PvE situations, where Arcane damage is coming in, such as tanking the Mage boss on the Illidari Council. The bonus to Engineering is just as handy as the other races' profession bonuses.

• Escape Artist — Escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed reduction effect.
• Arcane Resistance — Arcane Resistance increased by 10.
• Engineering Specialization — Engineering skill increased by 15.
• Expansive Mind — Intellect increased by 5%.

For the Horde, Troll is clearly the best PvE Mage race, due to Berserking being the only viable racial trait. In PvP, Undead are king with Will of the Forsaken and Cannibalize.

For the Alliance, in PvP, Gnomes are the best choice with Escape Artist. For PvE, the decision making is not as easy. Draeneis come with the 1% Spell Hit racial for the whole group, which by itself is absolutely phenomenal, however, it goes down to no value as soon as there is a Shaman in your group, and generally most classes will be Hit capped on trash mobs. So this racial basically is only useful on bosses, if you do not have a Shaman in your group. As Intellect also increases the Critical Strike chance, Gnomes are viable for all Mage specs. Arcane Mages, which will be on top of the food chain when it comes to Mage specs in TBC, benefit even more from the additional Expansive Mind Intellect, as it is their main stat. However, if you play in a guild that chain pulls, not allowing you to drink, a bigger Mana pool will only mean you have to drink longer, thus making The Human Spirit the better option, especially paired with Innervates and Improved Divine Spirit.

TLDR: For speedrunning as Arcane Mage with support, Human is the better PvE race, otherwise Gnome is.

Engineering is a very potent profession. Explosives, such as Dense Dynamite and Super Sapper Charge, are not subject to the AoE cap and can be woven into your rotation. Engineering also offers access to various versions of the Destruction Holo-gogs throughout the expansion and the Zapthrottle Mote Extractor, used for farming motes.

Enchanting offers Enchant Ring - Spellpower enchants for your rings, which is considered to be very strong. These enchants stop working if you drop Enchanting and can only be applied to your own rings. Another benefit from Enchanting is, that you can Disenchant most green, blue and epic quality gear items, which can be used for other enchants or can be sold. This, however, requires your Enchanting skill to be leveled. Follow our TBC Enchanting guide if you want to learn more about the Enchanting profession.

Tailoring gives access to several very strong Tailoring items and set bonuses. At Tailoring level 350, wearing both Spellstrike Hood and Spellstrike Pants will give your spells a 5% chance to increase your Spell Damage by 92 for 10 seconds, which is a very strong set bonus.

Specializing in Shadoweave Tailoring is possible at Tailoring 300. Shadoweave Tailoring is required to wear the Shadoweave set that consists of Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders, Frozen Shadoweave Robe and Frozen Shadoweave Boots. The 3-set bonus of the Shadoweave set will give you 2% of your Frost damage dealt back as Health. This is not the best PvE set bonus available, but it is nice for farming and the little bit of healing adds up with time.

Another bonus of Shadoweave Tailoring is that, whenever crafting a Shadowcloth, Shadoweave specialized tailors will get two instead of one Shadowcloth. Shadowcloth is used to the Shadoweave set.

At Tailoring level 375, players with exalted reputation with Aldor, can create the best legs enchant for healers, Golden Spellthread. Players exalted with Scryers can make the best caster legs enchant Runic Spellthread. Three other, very sought after Tailoring crafts are Girdle of Ruination, Cloak of the Black Void and Bracers of Havok. These items can be worn but also be sold to other players, making Tailoring a very convenient profession not only for PvE purposes, but also for gold making.

Leatherworking needs to be mentioned, as Leatherworkers can make different drums with beneficial effects for 30 seconds. However, in TBC Classic, players receive a Tinnitus debuff whenever they benefit from a drum effect. This is a 2-minute duration effect, that prevents you from getting another drum effect. This debuff was not in the game originally, and was recently added by Blizzard. It greatly decreases the value of drums and therefore Leatherworking.

If you would like to learn more about how your profession of choice can be used to supplement your goldmaking, along with a variety of other means to bolster your income, see our full goldmaking guide linked below: