World of Warcraft®

4. Enchanting

Head:
(Item not found) You get this from Guardians of Hyjal reputation. Simply doing the main quest line will get you to revered which will allow you to buy this.

Shoulders:
Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone This requires the exalted status with Therazane (Deepholm). It will require the quest line plus either dailies or running dungeons with the tabard
Lesser Inscription of Charged Lodestone This requires the honored status with Therazane. The quest line alone will get you there.

Chest:
Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats This one is more costly than Mighty Stats, but with the release of ZG/ZA it has become much easier to obtain due to the increase in the supply of maelstrom crystals
Enchant Chest - Mighty Stats Easy to obtain, only 5 stat difference from Peerless

Belt:
Ebonsteel Belt Buckle Can be bought from the AH or BS's can make them.

Legs:
Powerful Enchanted Spellthread This can be slightly costly, but if you are a tailor this is easily obtainable.
Enchanted Spellthread If you are low on money and not an enchanter, get this.

Feet:
Enchant Boots - Lavawalker This is the most recommended enchant due to the movement speed increase. I believe it is 8%, correct me if i am wrong
Enchant Boots - Precision If you are having problems getting hit-capped, you can use this.

Bracer:
Enchant Bracer - Mighty Intellect Keep in mind, this is extremely hard to find (world drop) and extremely expensive, but it still is the best enchant for dps.
Enchant Bracer - Precision Again if you are having problems getting hit-capped, use this.
Enchant Bracer - Greater Critical Strike Most used enchant due to the rarity of Might Intellect. Requires maelstrom crystals
Enchant Bracer - Critical Strike 15 Less crit than Greater Critical Strike, but no maelstrom crystals required.

Gloves:
Enchant Gloves - Haste
Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery
Scroll of Enchant Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower
Since (for their respective values in the enchants) all the enchants are relatively equal here, it is personal preference

Cape:
Enchant Cloak - Greater Intellect
(Lightweave Embroidery) - http://www.wowhead.com/spell=75172#recipes - Tailors Only

Weapon:
Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent - Top dps caster enchant.
Enchant Weapon - Hurricane - Not nearly as good, but much cheaper

Off-hand:
Enchant Off-Hand - Superior Intellect - Only off-hand enchant

5. Gemming

Red:
Brilliant Inferno Ruby
Brilliant Chimera's Eye Jewelcrafter's only.

Yellow:
Potent Ember Topaz

Blue:
Veiled Demonseye

Meta:
Burning Shadowspirit Diamond


Important:
If you have bad socket bonuses such as +10 hit rating, +10 haste rating, and +10 mastery rating, it is better to just put the red gem into that slot, it will give you more dps overall. Remember, Int conquers all.

6. Professions

Here is the list of the stat bonuses of each individual profession:

Crafting

Enchanting - +80 Int (double 40 int ring enchants)
Tailoring - Lightweave (totals to around 80 int average at all times)
Alchemy - +80 int (benefit from Mixology from flask of the draconic mind)
Engineering - +80 Int
Blacksmith - +80 int (two extra gem sockets)
Jewelcrafting - (27 extra int per red socket) - 81 int (3 gem maximum)
Leatherworking - (+130 int from Embossment - intellect)
Inscription - +80 int (Felfire Inscription)

Gathering

Mining - +120 stam
Skinning - +80 crit
Herbalism - +480 haste every 2 minutes (small heal as well, but it's negligible)

On a side note: I would personally recommend tailoring for simply being a mage. In addition to lightweave: you can make your own epics, not paying nearly as much for your leg spellthreads, and create flying carpets! Plus new recipes are added every tier and are usually non-heroic BiS.

7. Single Target Rotation

In my personal opinion, frost has the most situational and complex rotations among the 3 in the mage class, and possibly in the caster section. This is due to the fact that both of our procs are damaging abilities. Not only that, they can meld together as one attack as well.

Legend for Non-Obvious Terms:
FoF = Fingers of Frost
BF = Brain Freeze
FFB = Frostfire Bolt. *Important* - Whenever i say FFB, it will always be used as frostfire bolt with Brain Freeze and FoF up.

PF = Pet Freeze

You'll want to start off the fight with this (This "first strike" rotation is unique to boss encounters only):

(Any trinkets/Volcanic potion) - Frostfire Orb - Icy Veins - PF - Deep Freeze - Cold Snap - Deep Freeze - Frostfire Orb - (begin "refrain" rotation. It's important to note that you should wait until the first FFO is gone to cast the second.) - Icy Veins (once the first's duration is over)

If any of the previously mentioned abilities are on cooldown when beginning a fight, simply take them out of that rotation (remember if Cold Snap is on cooldown, all the abilities used after it will be unusable that quickly)

Refrain Rotation

Fact/Priority List:

Use Frostfire Orb off cooldown

--- But, if the situation makes it so it would be a worthless cast, wait for the right time (I.E. Boss moves around a lot (Shannox), or removes himself from battle (Beth'tilac))

Use Deep Freeze off cooldown

Use Pet Freeze off cooldown. If PF is up and you have FoF charges, expel them then use Pet Freeze. You don't want to waste charges

Use Icy Veins off cooldown

Use Cold Snap only after Icy Veins/Frostfire Orb/Deep Freeze have been recently used for maximum dps gain.

Frostbolt is always your main filler. If you have no FoF charges up or BF procs up, you will be casting frostbolt. If you have 2 FoF charges up, expel an Ice Lance, but try to keep 1 FoF charge active until Deep Freeze comes off cooldown, or until a Brain Freeze proc surfaces..

Order of importance:
Deep Freeze > FFB > Ice Lance > Frostbolt

Specifics
Due to the 4.1 change that Frostfire Orb will now proc BF, you won't be spamming Ice Lances once the orb is out. But, when it is out (and especially when two are out in the "first strike" phase) don't save the last FoF charge. They are coming in quick enough that you can use them all on the incoming BF and FoF procs. And by the time you cast another frostbolt (if no charges are somehow up), you will 9 times out of 10 have at least 1 charge by the end of the cast, which allows you to "ghost cast" whichever proc is more important.

If you are in a situation (which happens a lot to frost mages due to the high volume of attacks hitting the target in the beginning phase) where you have a lot of your trinkets/power torrent/lightweave about to end, and you have 1 FoF charge left, use it on Ice Lance. It's important to note that this mainly only happens during "first strike". I've done testing in that specific scenario and it was better than using a non-item proc benefited FoFBFFFB. To put it simply, a 37k ice lance is better than a 27k Frostfire Bolt

For an alternate rotation that is generally the same but spreads out the use of cooldowns more, check this out:

<a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2522074557?page=11">http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2522074557?page=11</a>

8. AoE Rotation

Due to the 4.1 change, Blizzard is now a viable means of consistent AoE damage (Arcane and fire will still out damage frost in terms of AoE however). You can always simply cast blizzard, but using these methods will effectively double the dps you would gain from that.

Simple Shatter Blizzard - Before or while casting blizzard, simply use PF on the area you will/are cast(ing) on. It is a dramatic damage increase and lasts long enough to be worth the cd. Plus, blizzard procs BF and FoF (ONLY if you have 1 or more points in Ice Shards since it gives blizzard a chill factor), so by the time you are done casting you usually have charges to go right into the single target rotation without any delay (or to finish off any adds that made it through). I recommend this for moving AoE damage in frost (I.E. Beth'tilac/Rhyolith/Ragnaros)

Flamestrike + Blizzard Shatter - Due to the amount of raid damage that is being put on the adds, this requires some precise timing. Simply start casting flamestrike and right before it goes off, put down PF, then go right into casting blizzard. This ends up doing more damage than the "Simple Shatter Blizzard", but ends up doing less and wasting more mana if the adds are moving quickly.

Hope this guide proved helpful to you! If i missed anything feel free to point it out. I will answer any questions given and will be updating it constantly.

Iamesauce, Blizzard should offer you a free race change to Troll.

05/14/2011 05:46 PMPosted by Trevihn

Iamesauce, Blizzard should offer you a free race change to Troll.

No, I'm serious. By specs, several simcraft sites ranked arcane at 41,000 value points and fire at 37,000 value points.

Frost? 14000.

The second and third points in Enduring Winter are extremely optional; the amount of extra time they give you in Molten Armor makes a small fraction of a percent difference in total DPS.

Thanks Lhiv, changed accordingly.

No, I'm serious. By specs, several simcraft sites ranked arcane at 41,000 value points and fire at 37,000 value points.

Frost? 14000.

This is mainly due to the fact that for the entire duration of wow, frost has been terrible. You cannot expect people to jump on it right away. In reality, frost is doing very well in raiding right now.

No, I'm serious. By specs, several simcraft sites ranked arcane at 41,000 value points and fire at 37,000 value points.

Frost? 14000.

This is mainly due to the fact that for the entire duration of wow, frost has been terrible. You cannot expect people to jump on it right away. In reality, frost is doing very well in raiding right now.

Value points aren't based by opinion, they're based by performance numbers.

05/14/2011 07:43 PMPosted by Iamesauce

Value points aren't based by opinion, they're based by performance numbers.

And those performance numbers are based on individuals who aren't taking the spec seriously. The pros are playing arcane/fire and the casuals are playing frost. This is skewing the numbers. The pros might have good reasons for choosing to do so, but that doesn't mean a guide shouldn't be posted for frost mages interested in raiding. It is plenty fine for raiding.

Very nice read. I am leveling a mage now using Frost, and the first talent build you listed is what I am aiming for with the exception of not taking Permafrost, and putting that 1 point into Ice Shards. I have heard that in doing that, Blizzard will now proc Fingers of Frost, and that is the only reason I am taking it. If it didn't proc FoF, I would use Permafrost just for the added pet survivability. Good job.

[/quote] Value points aren't based by opinion, they're based by performance numbers. [/quote]

You can not only base your opinion on sim runs. There are several key strengths to frost that make it more desireable. Try it out for yourself.

moarz on topics- I is approve of the post. Stickied

05/14/2011 07:46 PMPosted by Switch

Value points aren't based by opinion, they're based by performance numbers.

And those performance numbers are based on individuals who aren't taking the spec seriously. The pros are playing arcane/fire and the casuals are playing frost. This is skewing the numbers. The pros might have good reasons for choosing to do so, but that doesn't mean a guide shouldn't be posted for frost mages interested in raiding. It is plenty fine for raiding.

^^

Stickied, and all those actual trolls calling switch a troll should just get out now.

Pretty nice guide. Bumped.

A few things though. First, you should really go into more detail about the pull. the hardest part of the Frost Mage rotation is the pull, and you only gave a couple sentences to it.

Also, the whole tone of your guide seems to be as if youre directing it at a semi-experienced Frost Mage. For instance:

Due to the 4.1 change that FFO will now proc BF, you won't be spamming Ice Lances once FFO is out. But, when FFO is out (and especially when two are out in the "first strike" phase) don't save the last FoF charge. They are coming in quick enough that you can use them all on the incoming BF and FoF procs. And by the time you cast another frostbolt (if no charges are up), you will 9 times out of 10 have at least 1 charge.

What I would have said:

"Whenever you have a Frostfire Orb out, you will be raking in FoF charges in quick succession, so be prepared to spam Ice Lance and FFB (on proc) whenever you have a FFO out. Of course, dont wait for a charge if you have no charges out-- just have your finger on the button and press it the moment you get a charge. I wouldn't bother saving a charge either, as it's almost inevitable that you will get at least 1 more by the time DF is off cooldown."

Also, I know you like abbreviations, but you get a bit ridiculous. It doesn't help new Mages to have to decipher everything you say. Really, whenever you're talking to new people, you want to use as simple language as possible.

And, your first sample talent tree is way off. You should never, ever take points in Piercing Chill for single target dps. there aren't going to be 2 other people there to recieve the charges. And, there is no real reason for a point in Reactive Barrier either. The only real purpose of that talent is in PvP, where you can't waste a GCD to cast it. In a realistic PvE environment, you can simply manually cast Ice Barrier (if it is necessary at all). I would take all 3 of those points and put them into Ignite. FFB Ignite crits are a much more significant part of our rotation than you make it out to be.

Other than that, decent guide. I don't know about sticky-worthy, but I'll bump it out of support for a fellow Frost PvE Mage.

P.S. and yes, you don't see Frost Mages in "top 100" parses because elitist Sinestra raiders don't take the time to master it because they think its terrible. Frost, I would say, takes at least 1-2 weeks to master. And that's if you do nothing but Frost. People may try it once for fun, think that its terrible, and go back to Arcane.

Where would you put the points if you did not put them in reactive barrier or piercing chill? Those are the only talents that actually have a direct impact on our survivability or dps. If not put into piercing chills or reactive barrier you do not have enough points to get to deep freeze.


Edit: I suppose you could take Ice Shards but i would personally rather have piercing chill. Both are situational to an extent but I think it is much more rare that Ice shards would come into play.

Really awesome thanks. Stickied.