Frost Mage Class Guide - MoP Classic

Welcome to our Mists of Pandaria Classic (MoP Classic) Frost Mage Class Guide for Phase 1, it focuses on getting you up to speed with the Spec for PvE content, Dungeons and Raiding. The guide includes key information for what has changed going into MoP, the best Talent builds, Major Glyphs, your Rotation, Gearing and Consumables for Frost Mage.

Table of Content:

• Changes from Cataclysm to MoP
• Talents
• Rotation & Abilities
• Gearing & Consumables

What’s New for Frost Mages in Mists of Pandaria

Mage is another class that got a lot of changes from Cataclysm to MoP. Frost Mages in particular had a lot of issues with their talent tree, as it was more focused on control, tankiness or utility but wasn’t great when it came to dealing damage. With the next talent tree system, Frost mages have a lot more damage baked into the specialization, and have better DPS choices. They also gained a few new spells to help with their rotation, here are the key changes:

• No more reagents needed for Slowfall and Tables.
• The different Armors now give better offensive stats and stay through death.
• Remove Curse removes all the curses on the target.
• Deep Freeze and Shatter are available to all specs.
• Alter Time is a new offensive & defensive Cooldown.
• Burning Soul is a new passive.
• Flame orb has been deleted.
• Nether Attunement is a new passive, giving more mana.
• Cold Snap only works on Ice block, Frost Nova and Cone of cold.
• Frozen Orb is a new spell, replacing Frostfire Orb.

Is Frost Mage Good?

Mage is and will always be one of the best caster in World of Warcraft. What will change however, is specialization strength. Regarding Frost, it will most likely be your preferred leveling specialization and should carry itself pretty well into the first tier. Arcane and Fire tend to scale better than Frost, but with Mists of Pandaria Frost is a viable and strong DPS option for the first time in a very long time.

Best Talents & Glyphs for Frost Mage in MoP Classic

With the new revamped talents, we will provide you with 2 talent builds, one for Dungeons and one for Raiding. Don’t forget that, with the new talents, a lot of utility options can be changed depending on the fight or dungeon you are doing.

Frost Mage Raiding Talent Build

Mage’s talent tree is pretty interesting, with a lot of utility options that can be changed depending on the fight. As Fire, you can play Presence of Mind for a DPS increase, but as Frost, you have a lot of instant cast and Presence of Mind is a DPS upgrade only if you never have to move in a fight. As those fights don’t exist, Ice Floes is better.

Ring of Frost is a situational pick. If you need more interrupts, you can choose Frostjaw. Cauterize is a cheat death, which is always an easy and safe pick, but Greater Invisibility can help mitigate a lot of dangerous raid mechanics and clear some debuffs by getting out of combat.

The last choice you have to make is Nether Tempest vs Living Bomb vs Frost Bomb, which is easier than it seems. Living Bomb for Single target, Nether Tempest to cleave 2 to 4 targets, and Frost Bomb for big AoE.

Best Frost Mage Raid Glyphs

Regarding Major Glyphs, you will want to obtain Glyph of Icy Veins, Glyph of Splitting Ice and Glyph of Water Elemental. Other Glyphs you might want to find are Glyph of Cone of Cold for AoE, Glyph of Rapid Displacement and Glyph of Remove Curse.

For Minor Glyphs, the only one worth getting above all the others is Glyph of Momentum.

Frost Mage Dungeons & Challenge Mode Talent Build

The Dungeon Talent Build follows the same logic as the raid talent build. Greater Invisibility can be even better if you find some skips to do with it. And again, the choice between Nether Tempest and Frost Bomb comes down to how much you will pull in the dungeon, do you do only big pull (Frost Bomb) or not (Nether Tempest).

Best Frost Mage Dungeon Glyphs

Regarding Major Glyphs, you will want to obtain Glyph of Icy Veins, Glyph of Splitting Ice and Glyph of Cone of Cold for AoE. Other Glyphs you might want to find are Glyph of Water Elemental, Glyph of Rapid Displacement and Glyph of Remove Curse.

For Minor Glyphs, the only one worth getting above all the others is Glyph of Momentum.

Rotation for Frost Mage in MoP Classic

Single Target Rotation & Priority

1. Maintain Frost Armor.
2. Maintain Living Bomb.
3. Maintain Invocation with Evocation.
4. Use Mirror Image on Cooldown, with Icy veins.
5. Use Icy veins on Cooldown. Use Alter Time during Icy veins to extend its duration.
6. Use Ice Lance with 2 Fingers of Frost.
7. Use Frozen Orb on cooldown.
8. Use Frostfire Bolt when you have Brain Freeze.
9. Use Ice Lance with Fingers of Frost.
10. Use Frostbolt.

Frost Mage Opener

Regarding the Opener, you want to Evocation before the fight to get Invocation running, Mirror Image, Frostbolt 2 seconds before pull, use Frozen Orb, Living Bomb, get Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost by casting Frostbolt, use Icy veins, Alter-time, and proceed with single target priority (Ice lance, Frostfire bolt, Ice lance to consume Brain freeze / Fingers of frost).

AoE Rotation & Priority

1. Maintain Nether Tempest, Living Bomb or cast Frost Bomb on Cooldown.
2. Follow with single target Priority.
3. If there are more than 4 targets, cast Frozen Orbs and Cone of Cold, and then spam Arcane Explosion.

Best Gear & Stats for Frost Mage in MoP Classic

Best in Slot (BiS Gear) aren’t as big in Mists of Pandaria Classic. Reforging is the new hype, so you can tailor your gear better than before.

The gear you should aim for are: Trinkets, Tier Sets and Weapons.

The best weapons you can find pre-raid in the first phase are:

• Inscribed Crane Staff, from Inscription.
• Je’lyu, Spirit of the Serpent, from Sha of Doubt, Temple of the Jade Serpent.
• Headmaster’s Will, Darkmaster Gandling, Scholomance.

The best off-hands you can find pre-raid in the first phase are:

• Inscribed Red Fan, from Inscription.
• Bottle of potent potables, from Hoptallus in Stormstout Brewery.
• Scroll of Whispered Secrets, a BoE.

The best pre-raid trinkets are:

• Relic of Yu’lon, from Inscription.
• Vision of the Predator, from Striker Gad’ok, Gate of the Setting Sun.
• Ghost Iron Dragonling, from Engineering.
• Flashfrozen Resin Globule, from Vizier Jin’bak, Siege of Niuzao Temple.

MoP Classic Frost Mage Stat Priority

Your best stat is Intellect which should be your first priority. Then, Hit Rating and Expertise to reach a 15% chance to hit.

After that, you want a lot of Haste. Don’t overcap your Haste, but it’s the best statistic you can get as Frost and your target is 14242 total Haste. After Haste, you should get a bit of Mastery, but Crit isn’t really valuable.

Best Consumables, Enchants & Gems for Frost Mage in MoP Classic

The following tables outline the recommended Consumables, Enchants and Gems for Frost Mage in Raiding and Dungeon content.

Consumables

Enchants

Gems

We hope this guide helped you improve your Frost Mage Gameplay and better understand the spec. To check out all of our MoP Classic content, such as Class Guides, Tier Lists and more, you can browse our full library of MoP Classic Guides.