Frost and Mini PVE Guide

[Sadlo]

As a preface, I have been playing mage only since MoP and I've been raiding/pvping since BC averaging 1800-2k so by no means am I a pro. However, it seems as it is near impossible to find a decent frost mage guide so as a frost mage consistently dealing 250K + without time warp or a legendary here are some quick tips:

My talents are this for PVE--Mainly Mythics:

Ray
Shimmer
Incanter's -- although Rune is better I always mess up the cycle so I just stay with Incanter's unless I'm raiding
Ice Nova -- the AOE nuke if you shatter this with your pet nova is legit.
Ice Floes
Arctic Gale
Thermal Void--If you combo this correctly with orb, ebonbolt, and waterjet from your pet (take off the damn auto cast) then you can keep this going for a VERY long time if you get a couple procs from frost bolt or your artifact/pet passive. I choose this over glacial because it seems that my DPS is more random with glacial than it is with Thermal. I have used SimC and I understand that glacial is better on simc, however in my experience, thermal seems to benefit me more since I am pretty good with the extending icy veins

Im 7/7 EN normal and 4/7 EN Heroic, Ive found for EN it helps to swap Ice Nova for Frozen Touch to keep up Icy Veins even longer since Ice Nova doesn't effect bosses!

I'm iLvL 860 and my stats are: 29,565 int, 11% crit, 33% haste (i wish i had more), 60% mastery (i wish it was haste), and 7% vers.


In dungeons on trash, I open with blizzard pre cast, pet nova into Ice nova, use my fingers of frost procs, orb, FoF procs, blizzard again, cast frostbolt/ebonbolt on CD depending on how low targets health is.

On Mythic + pulls I'll pop icy veins first (when tanks are pulling a shit ton of mobs)

On boss pulls I'll precast Ebonbolt, then time warp, icy veins, use FoF procs, Orb, use FoF procs and Ray of Frost/Frost Bolt until orb is done, cast Frostbolt and THEN waterjet (pet) to get 2 more FoF procs, use those and them spam Frost Bolt/use FoF procs as they come up until either ebon/orb/jet is off CD and rinse repeat. I try to link ray with the icy veigns 20% increase in dmg, it seems to ensure your dps is consistant without procs.

Let me know if you have found better ways without more micro managing as the frost mage kit is already pretty large...


Thanks,
Hope this helps you!

[Blinkblink]

Thanks for the guide!

I have a quick question, which artifact relic is ideal?

If I were to drop Frost Bomb for Arctic gale, should I then not also swap my relics to the +5% Blizzard crit chance one?

I'm noticing if I am trying to add blizzards into my rotation I have less and less room to cast Frostbolts to lower the CD on Icy Veins.

I know I have no where near enough haste but relics are not something you can swap around just to test.

[Rainingblue]

Best ones are Let it Flow and Icy Veins cd Reduction

[Blinkblink]

Ok thanks, I figured as much but is it still the case if I want to exclusively do mythic+ dungeons?

Most of the timer is spent on trash right? So it would make more sense to focus on AoE.

That said those two are still good for AoE, I will do some more mythics and check where most of my damage is coming from with Arctic Gale.

[Bogeye]

Why do you use ray? what are the numbers behind this?

[jabarri1]

Why do you use ray? what are the numbers behind this?

The Ray of Frost build is easily the highest damage build there is, but it requires you to channel RoF consistently for the 10secs while in your Rune of Power. I've successfully used it on H Nyth, H Renferal, and H Ursoc, but have found 0 use for it in Mythics due to the amount of movement. Super fun to play though, and if you're not trying to push mythic content I definitely insist trying it for the fun factor.

[Sadlo]

Thanks for the guide!

I have a quick question, which artifact relic is ideal?

If I were to drop Frost Bomb for Arctic gale, should I then not also swap my relics to the +5% Blizzard crit chance one?

I'm noticing if I am trying to add blizzards into my rotation I have less and less room to cast Frostbolts to lower the CD on Icy Veins.

I know I have no where near enough haste but relics are not something you can swap around just to test.

I do use the blizzard crit, but not intentionally. As I primarily PVP I use highest ilvl in my ebonchill.. my current relics are ice age, jouster, and icy caress (flurry +20%, Ice lance reduced damage (Usless but ilvl855), and frosttblt by 13%)

[Sadlo]

Why do you use ray? what are the numbers behind this?

The Ray of Frost build is easily the highest damage build there is, but it requires you to channel RoF consistently for the 10secs while in your Rune of Power. I've successfully used it on H Nyth, H Renferal, and H Ursoc, but have found 0 use for it in Mythics due to the amount of movement. Super fun to play though, and if you're not trying to push mythic content I definitely insist trying it for the fun factor.

I stay on Ray due to the fact that our DPS SUCKS on single target without it (in my experience). I rarely use ray on aoe pulls in mythic+ unless there is a priority target and our tank is undergeared! I do find that the boss fights aren't that difficult with ray unless you have a volcanic... in which case you stand close to cast then run I find SHIMMER to be essential because it doesn't break the ray cast!

[jabarri1]

Why do you use ray? what are the numbers behind this?

The Ray of Frost build is easily the highest damage build there is, but it requires you to channel RoF consistently for the 10secs while in your Rune of Power. I've successfully used it on H Nyth, H Renferal, and H Ursoc, but have found 0 use for it in Mythics due to the amount of movement. Super fun to play though, and if you're not trying to push mythic content I definitely insist trying it for the fun factor.

I stay on Ray due to the fact that our DPS SUCKS on single target without it (in my experience). I rarely use ray on aoe pulls in mythic+ unless there is a priority target and our tank is undergeared! I do find that the boss fights aren't that difficult with ray unless you have a volcanic... in which case you stand close to cast then run I find SHIMMER to be essential because it doesn't break the ray cast!

I meant Mythic raiding mythic dungeons are a whole different ball game which I could go a lot more into detail about but I need to sleep lol. Also I've never experienced shimmer to not break ray cast. It breaks everytime I've attempted it.

[Sadlo]

I meant Mythic raiding mythic dungeons are a whole different ball game which I could go a lot more into detail about but I need to sleep lol. Also I've never experienced shimmer to not break ray cast. It breaks everytime I've attempted it.

Shimmer does not break ray cast as long as you make sure you continue to face the enemy target of Ray (the more you know ;D), and I'm not experience with Mythic raiding, so you could be right on that one sir!

[Saróx]

RoF is cool, and i love it, but like i've said in other treads on here, it's not gonna stay good forever. As an "intro" build, it's really fucking awesome, since it doessent need much micromanagement to stay high on dps with it. If you can press RoP and RoF your garuanteed 300k+ dps in ilvl 840+ gear which is nice.

But as you progress into gear with more haste, more crit and more mastery, you will realize that even tho RoF is good, the dmg of it is not exponential, and this hurts mages alot, espcially if your gear aint go haste>crit=vers, since mastery with RoF is pretty much useless, as your dmg wont come from ice lances anyway. (the elemental dmg of the mastery is still good, but far from desireable)
So when you start reaching ilvl 855+ in 99% of the cases (and in mythic if you raid that) you will see that FoF with Chill, is just pulling so much farther ahead, especially due to the fact that once you cross 30-35% haste you can go for the splitting ice talent, which further increases your main dmg on FoF procs by 5% and the cleave by 50%, adding bomb, thermal and 31 traits to this makes RoF, a talent without desire, unless you take it for the fun of it.