A little bit or history
At the beginning of cataclysm I leveled my mage to 85 and made this my main. Towards the end however I leveled 3 more characters to 85 and kept swapping mains. Evenguallg deciding my shaman would become my main for MoP.
Once she got to 90 I started leveling some other characters. Changing from alt to alt. Eventually ending up on my mage again.
I pvped through most of cataclysm. Started of as fire. To learn to kite. Personally I found it a great way to learn.
Kiting as fire is harder then kiting is frost since you dong have your slows etc. But when you know how to kite properly as fire you will look like a god in frost.
After a while I started to do some pve aswell. Since that became the thing I spent all my time with I got rid of my frost spec and turned fire/arcane.
Then MoP was launched. When I got to my mage I was arcane and started leveling.
In one word. DAMN. Awefull.. As you have 0 mobility youre dead in no time.
So I rolled fire. Was a bit better. At some point I was playing my dk and went in a dungeon. Here was a frost mage with INSANE dps. So after the dungeon I went to my mage and rolled frost again.
Man. Let me tell you. That is one kickass spec.
Im level 89 now and as AoE situations I sometimes get up to 135k dps. Its awesome.
Im happy to see that blizzard finally made frost mages viable for PvE.
I think frost is the second coolest spec there is. Fire comes first. Because… Well… You know… FIRE!
Talents and glyphs
A short part about talents and glyphs.
Im only level 89 so I cant speak from experience about everything but this is my opinion on just reading talents and skills.
My decisions are pvp based. I will only give details on the new talents.
Level 15
Ice Floes, This is a nice talents that allows you to cast 2 mage spells with a base cast time or channel time less than 4 seconds while moving.This ability may be cast while casting other spells and is not on the global cooldown.
Level 30
Temporal Shield, This is like a nice talent, but its not as attractive as Ice Barrier in my opinion. Envelops you in a temporal shield for 4 seconds, all damage taken during that 4 seconds will be healed back over 6 seconds after the shield expires.
Level 45
I will do all the talents here since they are new, some not really but they have changes.
Ring of Frost, Does exactly the same, identical duration but blizzard gave it a cast time of 2 seconds. Bah.
Ice Ward, Does anyone remember what Ice Barrier used to do when the full amount was absorbed? It exploded and froze the targets, like a frost nova. Thats basicly what this talent does. Places a ward on a friendly target. When the target is hit by an enemy all enemies in 10 yards will be frozen for 5 seconds.
Frostjaw, This is like the deepfreeze you use against mages.
Its exactly the same but with a silence. Plus it lasts longer, it should last 4 seconds, thats 1 second longer than Deep Freeze. Also great when someone trinkets out of deepfreeze. You can throw them back in it right away.
Level 60
Greater invisibility, Its just invisibility with some tweaks. 1. Its instant, much like vanish. 2. You take 90% less damage while invisible and 3 seconds after.
Cold Snap, okay this is not new but it has a new effect. It will now also heal you for 30% of your total HP.
Level 75
Not giving much info on this. All 3 talents are bombs, one for every spec. The arcane bomb also does damage to another random target each tick. The frost bomb will give you Brainfreeze when it explodes, it says that it has a chance but so far I had it every time. Besides that when it explodes it also slows the target by 70%.
Level 90
Invocation, This will modify your evocation. It will only have a 10 second cooldown but you passive mana regen is reduced by 50%. Plus, you deal 25% bonus damage for 40 seconds after completing evocation.
Rune of Power, Places a Rune of Power on the ground, While you stand in your Rune your mana regen is increased by 100% and you deal spell damage is increased by 15%.
This spell has a 6 second cooldown, the rune lasts 1 minute, and you can have only 2 Runes active at all times. Note, the runes dont stack, so placing them on each other will NOT double the effect
Incanter’s ward, This is litterally mana shield, just improved a bit.
It has a passive effect that increases your spell damage by 6% and your mana regen by 65%. This effect is deactivated if Incanter’s ward is on cooldown. On use, Absorbs 1228 damage(talent calculator tooltip doesnt scale so not correct number). Absorbed damage will restore up to 18% of your mana. When the shield expires you gain up to 30% increased spell damage. Based on the amount of damage absorbed.
My choices for talents will be Presence of mind, Ice Barrier, Ring of Frost, Cold Snap, Frost bomb and Incanter’s Ward.
Some people might go for more mobility by using Scorch or Ice Flows, but if you play properly you dont need your mobility, kiting is usually more than enough.
Glyphs
Of all glyphs, I think for pvp 2 are really usefull to have, and the third is just go ahead and pick one by throwing a dart.
Glyph or Armors is one you must have, decreases the cast time and increases the defensive effect on all shields by 10%.
Glyph of Water Elemental This allows your elemental to cast his waterbolt while moving. This way targets can never get out of range. Meaning they will be in range of his freeze ability aswell.
Like I said, the third glyph is whatever you want. I didnt see anything that made me think, I really need that! But I picked Glyph of Cone of Cold Increases the damage by cone of cold by 200%
Stats
I think when I ding 90 I will not look things up on the internet for now and try to decide on my own stat priority. I will still do some research for myself. But I think it will look like this.
Int > haste/mastery > crit
I think haste is more important to frost mage then it has ever been.
Ive put haste and mastery on the same level now because im not sure which one will be more important.
The reason I think haste is important is because of frostbomb.
Frostbombs tooltip says the cooldown AND the time it takes to detonate will decrease by haste.
Needless to say haste also lowers your GCD till a certain extend and quickens your spellcasting.
You might wonder why I pick haste based on 1 skill. Its because of the effect frostbomb gives. Instant frostfirebolt. These things are balls of ice and fire but they hit like freaking trains. And lets be honest. Everyone loves a hard hitting train especially when its instant.
About the stat priority. I am aware its not complete. I didnt add hit rating in there since you know thats basicly the stat you top off to begin with.
If you dont, you better start doing so. If you wont hit youll lose. Unless you have the best arena buddies ever. But still hit should be sorted right away.
Unlike shamans, druids and spriests we dont gain hit by spirit. In fact. We dont get hit by anything. Maybe a little from int but not even close to a good amount to be worth mentioning, and im not even sure we get that thats just something that came to mind as a maybe.
Like int also increases our spell crit. But its barely notable.
If you are new to playing mage, I suggest you dont follow my stat priority yet. Im not a theorycrafter so im just wildly guessing here. You will be better off listening to the guys that know for sure what is best for you. As soon as you get more experience you can try tweaking your mage yourself, make it so it will suit your needs and playstyle.
If youre having problems kiting, take my tip from the top of this post.
Sort your fire spec out, go do some arena or battle grounds and start kiting. Once you got that mastered you will see how easy it goes as a frost mage after a bit more practicing.
Dont expect that everything comes to you by itself. Mage isnt like the beginning of cata anymore. With that I mean, by just spamming ice lance you wont win your arena matches.
You will have to put some effort in at first, not even a lot. I still think mage is one of the coolest classes in WoW. Dont get frustrated when you lose, every class has a counter class. One you are weak against. For mages that always been rogues, and ferals.
Right now some more are added, but I think many will be resolved by 5.1.
As it is now, if you go in arena, watch out for Warriors, Rogues, Dks and druids.
If you end up fighting a destruction warlock, dont bother interrupting him. Only interrupt him on chaosbolt because that hits way to hard.
Hope you guys enjoyed this post. Turned out to be a little bit longer than expected but hey, I dont want to give you guys only a half story right.
Have fun in game, and when you kill one of those warriors, make sure to think of me ;)
See you next time.
If you have any question about this post, shamans or mages in general, perhaps even suggestions for future posts. Follow me on twitter @TeunPronk or send me an email at twpronk@gmail.com.
