On this page, we list your Frost Mage coreabilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of WarcraftMoP 5.4. We also explain whento use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtletiesthat you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a FrostMage.

The other pages of our Frost Mage guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.

1. Single Target Rotation↑top

The rotation of a Frost Mage consists in the following priority list.

1. Apply and refresh Living Bomb.
   • When you have a large damage-increasing proc (trinkets, weapon enchants, etc.), refresh it right away, otherwise refresh it right before it expires.
2. Cast Frozen Orb on cooldown (unless you want to save it for an upcoming AoE phase).
3. Cast Freeze from your Water Elemental.
   • Bosses are immune to Freeze, so only cast it if there are adds you can root. Doing so will give you 1 charge of Fingers of Frost (2 if it hits more than 1 enemy).
4. Cast Frostfire Bolt as soon as Brain Freeze procs.
5. Cast Ice Lance when you have 1 or 2 charges of Fingers of Frost.
6. Cast Frostbolt as a filler spell.

Important note: there is no need to use Ice Lancewhen you reach 5 Icicles (from your Mastery: Icicles). When you have 5 Icicles,gaining a new Icicle will simply cause one of the stored Icicles to trigger and dealits damage, making room for the new Icicle.

See our Opening Sequence for instructions onwhat to cast when the fight starts.

1.1. Tier 6 Talent

Invocation is your best Tier 6 talent and is very straightforwardto use. Cast it before the pull to get Invoker's Energy up andrecast it every time it expires.

Make sure that if you have to refresh your Bomb (Tier 5 talent), you doit before recasting Evocation.

If you chose Incanter's Ward as your Tier 6 talent,then only use it passively, which should free up a keybind.

We discuss how other choices of talents affect your play stylefurther down the page.

1.2. Cooldown Usage

Icy Veins is your main DPS cooldown. It shouldbe used whenever possible and in conjunction with on-use trinkets andpotions.

Alter Time returns you to your current location, health, mana, buffs, anddebuffs when you cast it a second time or after 6 seconds. We advise you to alwaysuse it in conjunction with Icy Veins, so as to increase the duration of theeffect to 26 seconds. There is no need to cast Alter Time immediately after castingIcy Veins. The idea is to wait for trinket procs and cast Alter Time when theyoccur, or to cast Alter Time when Icy Veins has 6 seconds remaining, if trinketsprocs do not occur. Also, it is helpful, but not required, to have 2 charges of Fingers of Frost and a proc of Brain Freeze before using Alter Time. Alternatively, you canuse it to bypass encounter mechanics, for example before receiving a large amountof damage or a dangerous debuff.

Mirror Image provides you with a small DPS boost and should therefore beused on cooldown.

2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top

For 2 and 3 targets that are spread out, use Living Bomb. For 6 or more targetsthat are stacked together, use Frost Bomb. For every other situation, use Nether Tempest.

If the enemies are spread out, then you need to keep performing your single-targetrotation on one of the enemies, all the while keeping Nether Tempest or Living Bomb (depending on the number of enemies) applied on as many enemies aspossible. When casting Freeze, try to target 2 enemies if possible, this willgrant you two charges of Fingers of Frost.

Between 2 and 4 enemies that are stacked together, continue performing your single-target rotation, allthe while using glyphed Cone of Cold on cooldown, and keeping Nether Tempest up as many targets as possible. Glyph of Splitting Icewill cause Ice Lance to strike an additional target for 50% of the damage.

For 5 or more enemies that are stacked together, cast Frost Bomb on cooldown anduse a combination of Frozen Orb and glyphed Cone of Cold. Use Blizzard whenwaiting for Frost Bomb to come off cooldown.

2.1. Tips

You can also pre-cast Flamestrike at the location where adds will appear.

For a nice burst combo against a group of enemies, cast Frost Bomb, followedby Flamestrike (timing it to finish casting just as Frost Bomb is about to explode).Before you finish your cast of Flamestrike, use Freeze (you can order your petto cast it even when you are casting something else). Freeze will boost the damage of your Frost Bomb, thanks to Shatter. Then cast glyphed Cone of Coldright after Flamestrike.

When you use Frost Bomb on a group of enemies, you can use Frost Novato boost the damage of Frost Bomb when Freeze is on cooldown.

3. Armors↑top

Your only viable choice of armor is Frost Armor.

4. Water Elemental↑top

Use Glyph of Water Elemental if you want to avoid giving orders to yourElemental during an encounter.

5. Optional Read: Mastering Your Frost Mage↑top

While the rotations we gave in the previous sections will yield very goodresults, there are many things you should be aware of, in order to playyour Frost Mage to its full potential. In particular, you need to understandprecisely how Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze work.

5.1. Fingers of Frost

Fingers of Frost is a self-buff that has a chance to proc frommost of your offensive spells, excluding Ice Lance. It can stack twice.Your Water Elemental also has an ability, Freeze, that will grant you 1charge of Fingers of Frost (2 if it hits more than 1 enemy), but it onlyworks on targets that are not immune to rooting effects (it will not workon raid bosses, for example).

If you have at least 1 charge (stack) of Fingers of Frost, then your Ice Lancespell will damage your target as if it were frozen, meaning that its damage willbe multiplied by 4 (not counting the +25% increased damage it also receives from Fingers of Frost). Also,thanks to Shatter, the critical chance of Ice Lance against frozentargets is greatly increased.

Since Ice Lance is the only spell you will use that can consumeyour charges of Fingers of Frost, you do not have many constraints regardingwhen you should be using Ice Lance. You just need to make sure that your chargesdo not go to waste.

It is important to note that Frozen Orb will rapidly generate 2 chargesof Fingers of Frost, especially if you use it with a lot of enemies around.This means that you should cast Frozen Orb when you have no charge of Fingers ofFrost. After casting Frozen Orb, you should be ready to spam Ice Lanceto consume all the charges of Fingers of Frost that you are going to receive.

5.2. Brain Freeze

Brain Freeze is a self-buff that has a chance to proc off the ticks/damage ofyour Tier 5 talents ( Nether Tempest and Frost Bomb, normally). Note thatFrost Bomb will give you a proc of Brain Freeze every time it deals damage.Brain Freeze grantsyou an instant-cast, mana-free Frostfire Bolt that will act as if itwere cast on a frozen target (greatly increasing its chance to be a critical strike,thanks to Shatter).

Try to use your procs of Brain Freeze rapidly, so that they are not overridden bya new one.

5.3. Opening Sequence

We advise you to use the following opening sequence (or opener).

• Before the pull:
  • with Nether Tempest or Living Bomb:
    1. cast Evocation for Invoker's Energy (-5 seconds);
    2. cast Mirror Image (-3 seconds);
    3. use your Potion of the Jade Serpent and start casting Frostbolt (-2 seconds);
    4. cast Frozen Orb and apply Nether Tempest or Living Bomb;
  • with Frost Bomb:
    1. cast Evocation for Invoker's Energy (-4 seconds);
    2. cast Mirror Image (-2 seconds);
    3. use your Potion of the Jade Serpent and start casting Frost Bomb (-1 seconds);
    4. cast Frozen Orb.
• After the pull:
  1. spam Frostbolt until you get 2 stacks of Fingers of Frost (your Bomb spell will give you the proc of Brain Freeze you need before you can use Alter Time);
  2. use your Icy Veins, wait for your trinkets to proc, then use Alter Time;
  3. during Alter Time, do your regular rotation, but make sure to consume Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze before Alter Time expires;
  4. when Alter Time expires, resume your regular rotation.

5.4. Kiting

A great strength of Frost Mages is their almost unrivaled ability to kitea target (or a group thereof) around. Frost Mages have a whole arsenal ofabilities to slow and freeze their targets:

• Frost Nova;
• Blizzard;
• Frostbolt (applicable to a single target);
• Cone of Cold;
• Deep Freeze (applicable to a single target);
• Ring of Frost.

When kiting, you should try to move in a circular manner. To achieve that,you should always be moving sideways (left or right) and use the camera control(by default, the mouse right button) to try and rotate around a fixed point.The idea is that it enables you to target the adds you are kiting and it makesit easier to group the adds together.

To get initial aggro on the adds, cast Ice Lance on them once or twice,that should be enough if no one else attacks them. While you are kiting them,the spells you will use should suffice to maintain aggro.

In theory, using only spells with freezing effects (Frost Nova, Deep Freeze, andRing of Frost), in combination with Blink to move away from the adds whenthey get too close, should be enough. If you are having trouble kiting the addsusing only spells with freezing effects, you can always throw in a Cone of Coldto slow them down.

5.5. Talent Cooldowns and Abilities

5.5.1. Tier 1 Talents

Blazing Speed and Ice Floes are your Tier 1 talents of choice.So, you should practice using them and master their usage, in order to minimise yourmovement and optimise your DPS.

Frostbolt and Frost Bomb are youronly spells with a cast time, so keep Blazing Speed for situations where youneed to stand still casting these spells before moving out of danger in a flash.Consider it as an extra Blink: use it to get out of a situation thatwould otherwise kill you or if your target goes out of range.

If you choose Ice Floes (encounters with short sequences of movement),then, whenever you have to move, you should use it with Frostbolt.

If you choose Presence of Mind(encounters without movement), it should be made into a macro that willserve as your primary way of casting Frostbolt(see our Presence of Mind Macro).Note that Frostbolt already has a low cast time, so the DPS gain is very small.

6. Changelog↑top

• 17 Jul. 2014: Recent theorycrafting suggests that Frostfire Bolt should be usedas soon as Brain Freeze is up, regardless of the number of Fingers of Frosts charges. Thanks toBerlinia for picking it up.
• 03 Mar. 2014: On Akraen's suggestion, more accurate explanations have been added to therotation and cooldown sections.
• 30 Sep. 2013: Kuni's review: added a mention that Frozen Orb can be saved for AoE damage, if necessary, and fixed a few inconsistencies between talents advised on the talent page and talents presented on this page.
• 13 Sep. 2013: Forgot to remove mentions of the Frostbolt buff that disappeared with 5.4.
• 10 Sep. 2013: Mastery: Icicles is your new Mastery, but it doesnot impact your rotation, as you can never waste a stored Icicle. Indeed,when you have 5 Icicles stored, gaining a new Icicle will cause one of thestored Icicles to trigger and deal its damage, making room for the new Icicle.
• 14 Aug. 2013: Improved multiple-target rotation section.
• 01 Jul. 2013: Added Evocation to opening sequence.
• 07 Jun. 2013: Updated multiple-target section after 2 weeks of Patch 5.3 raiding.
• 25 May 2013: Living Bomb is now the best option for single-target situations.Multiple-target rotation still needs to be updated, but another lockout of testing is needed.
• 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: nothing changed (may need to review AoE rotation after a few days of raiding).
• 17 Apr. 2013: Update after Blatty's review of the guide.
  • Improved AoE rotation.
  • Added opening sequence.
  • Emphasised the importance of Blazing Speed over the other two Tier 1 talentsin the talents cooldown section.
• 09 Mar. 2013: Added a mention of the fact that Freeze no longer grants charges of Fingers of Frost whencast on targets that are immune to rooting effects.
• 07 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
  • Updated multiple-target rotation to reflect the fact that Glyph of Inferno Blast (formerly Glyph of Fire Blast) now spread DoTs to an additional nearby target.
  • Updated value of Invocation's buff: was 25%, is 15% now.

Builds, Talents, and Glyphs

Buffs, Debuffs, and Useful Abilities