Introduction
This guide is updated for Season 4 by Tamir.
My name is Tamir, also known as Tam1h, Raiding with Angered on Ragnaros EU. I’ve been raiding competitively since Warlord of Draenor, and Pushing High Keys as a Mage since Legion.
You can watch me live at https://www.twitch.tv/tam1h or follow me on https://twitter.com/TamirWow.
Strengths:
- Frost as a spec is in a very competitive spot right now. It has one of the best, if not the best 2 target cleave and a very high sustained single-target damage over long fights.
- Significant funnel damage (funnel means you are utilizing multiple targets to funnel damage into a priority target or a boss).
- It has the potential to utilize double immunity due to Cold Snap which gives you essentially 2 ice blocks.
Weakness:
- Frost, as a spec, suffers a lot from heavy downtime on some fights when you have to stop DPS, such as on Painsmith, Kel’thuzad, Sylvanas, since you want to always be in combat and cast frostbolt \ flurry to keep reducing the cooldown of Icy Veins.
- Relatively weak damage on demand.
- Low Priority Target burst \ Swap targeting is pretty bad unless you are Holding Flurry \ Fingers of Frost procs in advance.
What has changed
What is new in Season 4?
With the introduction of Season 4 (patch 9.2.7), we will be gaining access to “ Fated “ Raids from Castle Nathria, to Sanctum of Domination, and all the way to the last raid of Shadowlands, Sepulcher of the first ones.
Another Season 4 Feature that will be introduced is a Vendor from the Fated Raids. This means after killing 30 Fated bosses (3 Weeks), you would be able to buy a Fated Item from the Vendor, which will contain loot from all 3 Raids at Higher Item Level.
Essentially you will be able to buy 3 Items of your choice after a couple of weeks of killing Fated bosses, and some of the loot from the Vendor is very, very appealing for Frost Mages.
Season 4 Mythic Plus Affix
Additionally, the new Season 4 Mythic+ Affix “ Shrouded ” will give frost mages a big stat buff of our choice: Critical Strike, Hate, Mastery, or Versatility.
I highly recommend picking Critical Strike since it synergies well with our Icy Veins and our Icy Propulsion Conduit. Choosing Haste can be good depending on the amount of Haste you have, but generally speaking, Crit is both a single target and a AoE stat, so I suggest picking up Critical Strike.
I will talk about the most essential Season 4 items for a Frost mage in the Gearing Section.