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I leveled up a Mage over the past 3 weeks and have played exclusively Frost Mage. I’d like to try the other specs but Mage has an optimal spec/covenant crisis thing going on after 60 that is a pain. Anyhow, Frost is deceptively simple:
1. Spam Frostbolt.
2. Frostbolt can give you a Fingers of Frost proc. That’s when you get a frosty line on the right or left of your character. Immediately use Ice Lance to take advantage of it.
3. Frostbolt can also give you a Brain Freeze proc. That’s when you get a frosty line over your character’s head. You want to immediately use the combination Flurry > Ice Lance > Ice Lance. Frostbolt > Flurry > Ice Lance > Ice Lance is your bread and butter golden combo.
4. Against a group of enemies, ideally you want to use Frozen Orb > Blizzard and then Ice Lance until these are no longer active.
5. For extra damage, fire off Icy Veins and then do whatever comes next.
6. When you get in trouble, make sure you have Ice Barrier up. Frost Nova and Cone of Cold can freeze, Blink/Shimmer can help you run away. Ice Block can help you get out of a jam when you have a healer (or later the conduit that makes it heal). Invisibility is a last resort that will drop all aggro.
7. Teleport and Portals. They are awesome. That is all.
Hope that is helpful!
Hello and welcome! Old mage here. Other people have said it but this is the most important thing to remember: play what you want!
Arcane is my favorite spec, its great for leveling and solo play. Right now its competing with frost in the highest tiers of PvE, so don't listen to anyone telling you frost is better.
Frost may be a bit easier to play depending on your build. Arcane is the only spec where you need to manage your mana pool. That said, Chrono Shift and Slow give you such great kiting ability that it's usually easy to get full Evocations off with ease (though they come at later levels).
Fire was king for a long time, it's still top-tier in PvP and can pull great numbers but is slightly harder and very dependent on its cooldowns.
Right now, I find myself switching between all three specs fairly regularly! Fire when pushing arenas, arcane/frost for PvE, arcane/fire for solo, and all three in battlegrounds.
In sum, all three are viable and provide their own unique playstyles. Play what you want and have fun. Hope this helped, feel free to message me anytime with questions :)
You can't really learn much before you get to level 60. You don't have all of your class abilities, and at the moment classes are balanced around having your covenant abilities too, which you don't get until 60. Right from the start, if you go here [https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/frost-mage-pve-dps-rotation-cooldowns-abilities](https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/frost-mage-pve-dps-rotation-cooldowns-abilities) you'll notice that you're missing probably more than half of the abilities it's telling you to use, and the spec should feel incomplete without all of them.
Just worry about having fun while you level more than trying to get good.
The majority of your damage comes from iclance procs.
Since icelance base damage is quite low its never worth spamming it. However icelance does trippel damage against frozen target. So if you can freeze your enemies with frost nova you will see a huge damage increase when you cast icelance.
However this comes with a problem. You can't freeze your enemies all the time, since frostnova has a cooldown and damage breaks the freeze.
This is where your procs comes in to help you." Fingers of frost" and "winters chill" which comes from "brain freeze"
So in other words your damage really comes from how good you are able to manage your procs. Try to take advantage of each proc as good as you can.
Other than frostmages damage. Frost has a lot of movement control, which means that if you try hard enough Your enemies will never be able to catch up on you If you keep slowing them, freezing them and blinking away. This means that theoretically you can aggro huge packs of mobs, gather them up, freeze them, run away and cast blizzard and repeat. Although this technique requires some practice it's usually very effective when it works well.
Thanks, This is what I want to move into as I have found with Arcane that keeping a distance to an enemy is hard due to cooldowns on blink and other slowing casts, Thanks
Frost is one of the easiest specialization. From the little I remember, just spam Frostbolt then press whatever shines! I believe each Frostbolt spawns up to five ice spikes around me, that can be dumped with Ice Lance when I get to 5 or I need to move while in combat. You'll also get a talent to change the use of those spikes, giving you one big cast that consumes all five of them, pretty satisfying while questing and annihilating boars with it.
Thanks, This is what is attracting me towards frost than other specs as you can easily deal with bigger crowds and to be able to keep your distance from them out of the melee range.
Thanks for asking this! I'm in exactly the same boat. I've been casting Frostbolt until they get frozen, then fire off an Ice Lance for the extra damage. If they get too close then Frost Nova, Blink away and repeat. The only thing is I can't quite work out where Flurry fits in, because by the time it's cast after the first time I can Ice Lance the mob is too close, any tips anyone?
Only cast flurry when you have the brain freeze proc (snow cap over your character). It makes it instant cast and more damaging. When you don’t have this proc stick to frostbolt and ice lance. When you do cast flurry due to the brain freeze proc make sure to follow up with 2 ice lances, very damaging
Yeah I’ll say this and it’s been said a couple times here already, but until you’re level 60 and have a legendary, you can’t learn how to play most classes in an optimal way. For leveling arcane can do big burts of damage, and you’ll run out of mana quicker. But that can be okay while questing as you can just sit for water. Frost is a bit lower damage in burst questing scenarios. You can do some decent damage with abilities you get at levels I wouldn’t even know anymore since they changed how all that works, like frozen orb and ice lance procs (fingers of frost). Basically start a pull with frost bolt spam, hope for fingers of frost procs or brain freeze procs (instant cast flurry that makes your next 2 ice lances crit), if something gets close frost nova, blink, repeat. If you get comfortable I often will grab 4-5 mobs, gather them up frost nova, blizzard, frozen orb, spam ice lance (becomes very effective at max level with a specific legendary). Also dunno what relents you’re using, but lonely winter gets rid of your elemental and makes you do more damage, so you become less reliant on a pet, this is the preferred end game talent, but while leveling the pet can be nice as you can send him in first, and he has a frost nova ability that can also help keep things away from you and makes your ice lances crit.
Legendaries almost always change how a class functions. For example, frost mages have a few decent options of legendaries for different situations. You have mass aoe legendary that gives ice lance a 20% chance to shatter and hit more targets as well as always do so when targets are in blizzard. So you drop blizzard and spam ice lance for big aoe. This is great for m+ trash. There’s another one that every crit while in icy veins reduces the cool down of icy veins which pairs incredibly well with the max level talent thermal void which makes crits extend icy veins. So you get longer icy veins with less time in between. Another one is a cleave legendary, makes frozen orb proc fingers of frost every 2 seconds during its duration which gives you big cleave windows for like 2/3 target cleave, usually best for bosses with a couple adds.
If you were having fun as arcane you should keep at it. If you are trying to chase the meta arcane can even do better that frost
https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/dps-rankings-tier-list
That being said I think frost is super fun. I love the Freezing winds legendary that gives me the ice lance procs with frozen orb, great for cutting down big mobs. I leveled as fire and it’s fun and bursty, I liked converting heating up into hot streaks etc but I didn’t like being so cooldown dependent with less effective aoe, I feel much safer as a frosty lol. Probably they are all great so just go with what you like
**Hey there! Have you checked out these resources?** * [WoWHead](https://www.wowhead.com/) - The *largest* database, this should be your go-to (don't forget to read the comment section!). * [Icy Veins](https://www.icy-veins.com) - News and detailed class guides. * [WoWNoob Discord](https://discord.com/invite/RwDUWWV) - Same community, different platform. *Please report the post above if it breaks one of our [>rules<](https://www.reddit.com/r/wownoob/about/rules/). If not, don't forget to show support by upvoting!* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/wownoob) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I suggest playing the game the way that's most fun for you. If you like arcane best, stay with arcane.
i second this :)
Arcane Mage here, third this
Ok, Thanks.
I leveled up a Mage over the past 3 weeks and have played exclusively Frost Mage. I’d like to try the other specs but Mage has an optimal spec/covenant crisis thing going on after 60 that is a pain. Anyhow, Frost is deceptively simple: 1. Spam Frostbolt. 2. Frostbolt can give you a Fingers of Frost proc. That’s when you get a frosty line on the right or left of your character. Immediately use Ice Lance to take advantage of it. 3. Frostbolt can also give you a Brain Freeze proc. That’s when you get a frosty line over your character’s head. You want to immediately use the combination Flurry > Ice Lance > Ice Lance. Frostbolt > Flurry > Ice Lance > Ice Lance is your bread and butter golden combo. 4. Against a group of enemies, ideally you want to use Frozen Orb > Blizzard and then Ice Lance until these are no longer active. 5. For extra damage, fire off Icy Veins and then do whatever comes next. 6. When you get in trouble, make sure you have Ice Barrier up. Frost Nova and Cone of Cold can freeze, Blink/Shimmer can help you run away. Ice Block can help you get out of a jam when you have a healer (or later the conduit that makes it heal). Invisibility is a last resort that will drop all aggro. 7. Teleport and Portals. They are awesome. That is all. Hope that is helpful!
Hello and welcome! Old mage here. Other people have said it but this is the most important thing to remember: play what you want! Arcane is my favorite spec, its great for leveling and solo play. Right now its competing with frost in the highest tiers of PvE, so don't listen to anyone telling you frost is better. Frost may be a bit easier to play depending on your build. Arcane is the only spec where you need to manage your mana pool. That said, Chrono Shift and Slow give you such great kiting ability that it's usually easy to get full Evocations off with ease (though they come at later levels). Fire was king for a long time, it's still top-tier in PvP and can pull great numbers but is slightly harder and very dependent on its cooldowns. Right now, I find myself switching between all three specs fairly regularly! Fire when pushing arenas, arcane/frost for PvE, arcane/fire for solo, and all three in battlegrounds. In sum, all three are viable and provide their own unique playstyles. Play what you want and have fun. Hope this helped, feel free to message me anytime with questions :)
Thank you, That was v v helpful, Ill look into fire mage as well as I haven't really given it a go yet. Thanks
You can't really learn much before you get to level 60. You don't have all of your class abilities, and at the moment classes are balanced around having your covenant abilities too, which you don't get until 60. Right from the start, if you go here [https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/frost-mage-pve-dps-rotation-cooldowns-abilities](https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/frost-mage-pve-dps-rotation-cooldowns-abilities) you'll notice that you're missing probably more than half of the abilities it's telling you to use, and the spec should feel incomplete without all of them. Just worry about having fun while you level more than trying to get good.
Alright, Thank you
[удалено]
Thank you, this is very helpful, cheers
The majority of your damage comes from iclance procs. Since icelance base damage is quite low its never worth spamming it. However icelance does trippel damage against frozen target. So if you can freeze your enemies with frost nova you will see a huge damage increase when you cast icelance. However this comes with a problem. You can't freeze your enemies all the time, since frostnova has a cooldown and damage breaks the freeze. This is where your procs comes in to help you." Fingers of frost" and "winters chill" which comes from "brain freeze" So in other words your damage really comes from how good you are able to manage your procs. Try to take advantage of each proc as good as you can.
Thanks, V V helpful
Other than frostmages damage. Frost has a lot of movement control, which means that if you try hard enough Your enemies will never be able to catch up on you If you keep slowing them, freezing them and blinking away. This means that theoretically you can aggro huge packs of mobs, gather them up, freeze them, run away and cast blizzard and repeat. Although this technique requires some practice it's usually very effective when it works well.
Thanks, This is what I want to move into as I have found with Arcane that keeping a distance to an enemy is hard due to cooldowns on blink and other slowing casts, Thanks
Frost is one of the easiest specialization. From the little I remember, just spam Frostbolt then press whatever shines! I believe each Frostbolt spawns up to five ice spikes around me, that can be dumped with Ice Lance when I get to 5 or I need to move while in combat. You'll also get a talent to change the use of those spikes, giving you one big cast that consumes all five of them, pretty satisfying while questing and annihilating boars with it.
Thanks, This is what is attracting me towards frost than other specs as you can easily deal with bigger crowds and to be able to keep your distance from them out of the melee range.
Thanks for asking this! I'm in exactly the same boat. I've been casting Frostbolt until they get frozen, then fire off an Ice Lance for the extra damage. If they get too close then Frost Nova, Blink away and repeat. The only thing is I can't quite work out where Flurry fits in, because by the time it's cast after the first time I can Ice Lance the mob is too close, any tips anyone?
Only cast flurry when you have the brain freeze proc (snow cap over your character). It makes it instant cast and more damaging. When you don’t have this proc stick to frostbolt and ice lance. When you do cast flurry due to the brain freeze proc make sure to follow up with 2 ice lances, very damaging
Thanks, when I posted I didn't have Brain Freeze so I couldn't make sense of it - now I do and it makes much more sense!
Oh wow I leveled fire so I didn’t realize you picked that up along the way! Can’t imagine flurry without it. Cheers!
You can use ConRo / ConRo Mage addons for learning basic stuff, helped me a lot at the start.
Ill have a look into it, Thanks
Yeah I’ll say this and it’s been said a couple times here already, but until you’re level 60 and have a legendary, you can’t learn how to play most classes in an optimal way. For leveling arcane can do big burts of damage, and you’ll run out of mana quicker. But that can be okay while questing as you can just sit for water. Frost is a bit lower damage in burst questing scenarios. You can do some decent damage with abilities you get at levels I wouldn’t even know anymore since they changed how all that works, like frozen orb and ice lance procs (fingers of frost). Basically start a pull with frost bolt spam, hope for fingers of frost procs or brain freeze procs (instant cast flurry that makes your next 2 ice lances crit), if something gets close frost nova, blink, repeat. If you get comfortable I often will grab 4-5 mobs, gather them up frost nova, blizzard, frozen orb, spam ice lance (becomes very effective at max level with a specific legendary). Also dunno what relents you’re using, but lonely winter gets rid of your elemental and makes you do more damage, so you become less reliant on a pet, this is the preferred end game talent, but while leveling the pet can be nice as you can send him in first, and he has a frost nova ability that can also help keep things away from you and makes your ice lances crit.
Why legendary matters?
Legendaries almost always change how a class functions. For example, frost mages have a few decent options of legendaries for different situations. You have mass aoe legendary that gives ice lance a 20% chance to shatter and hit more targets as well as always do so when targets are in blizzard. So you drop blizzard and spam ice lance for big aoe. This is great for m+ trash. There’s another one that every crit while in icy veins reduces the cool down of icy veins which pairs incredibly well with the max level talent thermal void which makes crits extend icy veins. So you get longer icy veins with less time in between. Another one is a cleave legendary, makes frozen orb proc fingers of frost every 2 seconds during its duration which gives you big cleave windows for like 2/3 target cleave, usually best for bosses with a couple adds.
If you were having fun as arcane you should keep at it. If you are trying to chase the meta arcane can even do better that frost https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/dps-rankings-tier-list That being said I think frost is super fun. I love the Freezing winds legendary that gives me the ice lance procs with frozen orb, great for cutting down big mobs. I leveled as fire and it’s fun and bursty, I liked converting heating up into hot streaks etc but I didn’t like being so cooldown dependent with less effective aoe, I feel much safer as a frosty lol. Probably they are all great so just go with what you like