Frost Mage Mythic+ Guide (2024)

The core mechanic of the spec depend on the Shatter talent. Shatter makes your spells have a higher chance of gaining a critical hit if your target is frozen. The main way of triggering it is through Winter's Chill from Flurry or Fingers of Frost buff. Causing critical hits this way is called "Shattering".

Tier Set

• Frost Mage Class Set 2pc: Glacial Spike damage increased by 16% and it explodes when itShatters a frozen target, dealing 15% of its damage dealt to nearby enemies. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
• Frost Mage Class Set 4pc: CastingGlacial Spikehas a 40% chance to triggerBrain Freeze.

Single-target

ST or "Single Target" refers to focusing all damage and abilities on a single enemy. This approach is crucial for maximizing damage output against bosses or specific high-priority targets in encounters.

Opener Rotation

• Your goal is to maximize extending of your Icy Veins while not overcapping on procs like Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost. Below, you can see an example of how your opener may look like using our recommended General spec and depending if you got any Brain Freeze or Fingers of Frost procs:

• Always keep an eye on your Brain Freeze or Fingers of Frost procs and make sure to spend them. More about priority of your procs in Deep Dive.
• Use your active trinkets, Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power and racials like Blood Fury or Berserking after using Icy Veins.

Priority List

This is a general priority you aim to maintain throughout the fight.

1. Cast Icy Veins on cooldown.
2. Cast Flurry if
   • The last spell you have casted wasFrostbolt, and you haveBrain Freeze.
   • The last spell you have casted wasFrostbolt, and you have 3+Icicles.
   • The last spell you have casted wasGlacial Spikeand the target does not haveWinter's Chill.
   • You are at 4Icicles.
3. Cast Comet Storm if target is affected by Winter's Chill.
4. Cast Glacial Spike if the target is affected by Winter's Chill or if you have a Flurry available.
5. Cast Frozen Orb on cooldown.
6. Cast Shifting Power if Icy Veins, Frozen Orb and Comet Storm are on cooldown.
7. Cast Glacial Spike at 5 Icicles.
8. Cast Ice Lance with Fingers of Frost or the target is affected by Winter's Chill.
9. Cast Frostbolt.

Multi Target

AoE (Area of Effect) or "Multi Target" in World of Warcraft involves dealing damage to multiple enemies simultaneously, making it effective for clearing groups of enemies quickly.

3+ Target Opener Rotation

• Below, you can see an example of how your opener looks like using the recommended General talent spec:

• Opener may slightly vary depending on amount of targets you fight and if you have Time Warp or not. If so follow priority list and change accordingly. In general it just means that you may cast Blizzard and Frozen Orb 1 or 2 extra times in your opener.
• Use your active trinkets, Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power and racials like Blood Fury or Berserking after using Icy Veins.

3+ Target Priority List

1. Cast Icy Veins on cooldown.
2. Cast Cone of Cold if your previous spell was Comet Storm
3. Cast Frozen Orb on cooldown.
4. Cast Blizzard on cooldown.
5. Cast Frostbolt until you have 12 stacks of Death's Chill
6. Cast Comet Storm on cooldown.
7. Cast Shifting Power if Icy Veins, Frozen Orb and Comet Storm are on cooldown.
8. Cast Glacial Spike
9. Cast Flurry
10. Cast Ice Lance with Fingers of Frost
11. Cast Ice Nova
12. Cast Arcane Explosion (For max AoE on pulls if there are 7 or more targets, and you are above 30% mana)
13. Cast Frostbolt

Winter's Chill and Procs

Frost Mage's rotation is centered around optimizing two procs: Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost.

Casting ‍Ice Lance with the ‍Fingers of Frost buff into a target affected by ‍Winter's Chill is pointless and should be avoided. In situations where you have both Fingers of Frost and Flurry charges, your goal is to spend Fingers of Frost procs first and only after that cast Frostbolt into Flurry.

However, sometimes you may find yourself sitting with both Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze procs, due to Frostbolt proccing each of them at the same time or a Frozen Orb giving you Fingers of Frost while you already have Brain Freeze. In that case you should always prioritize Flurry over Ice Lance and never risk gaining another Brain Freeze proc and wasting it.

Utilizing Flurry

It's important to know that the travel time of Flurry is shorter than that of other your projectile spells like Frostbolt or Glacial Spike. Because of this, Flurry doesn't necessarily need to be cast before Frostbolt or Glacial Spike; it can be cast right afterward. Additionally, since Flurry consists of three different projectiles, each applying a stack of the Winter's Chill debuff, you can achieve a maximum of two stacks of Winter's Chill on the target while also buffing your previous cast, Frostbolt or Glacial Spike, with the Shatter effect.

Minmaxing Water Jet

One of the most important abilities related to your water elemental pet from Icy Veins is Water Jet. While it may seem negligible, if you truly want to achieve the maximum performance for your class, you should remove it from auto-casting and press it manually whenever you need it. Aside from just damage, Water Jet also generates you a Brain Freeze proc, most powerful proc you can get. So it's important to not overlap it with your actual procs and wasting the proc.

Shattering

Shattering means utilizing your Shatter talent in variety of ways. It's crucial to keep using Shatter combos since the whole Frost Mage spec depends on it. While it's easy to do on Single Target and done passively through Fingers of Frost proc and Winter's Chill debuff from Flurry, it's important to remember that you can also achieve it through spells like Frost Nova, Ice Nova and Freeze on any mob that can be frozen.

Below you can see an example of Shatter combo, where Ice Nova is being used instead of Flurry and you have no charges left of it for Glacial Spike:

During AoE you also should be aiming to Shatter your Comet Storm with Frost Nova and Ice Nova, if you have more than 50% haste, or Freeze if you don't, since it's off GCD and comes from a pet in case your Cone of Cold is on cooldown.

Below you can see an example of AoE Shatter combo, where Freeze is used instead of Cone of Cold if it's on cooldown:

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

• Pandemic
• Spell Queue Window
• Stat Diminishing Returns

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Affixes

Learn how to effectively handle various Mythic+ Affixes as a Frost Mage. Depending on the level of the Mythic+ Dungeon, you contend with up to two additional Affixes alongside Fortified and Tyrannical.

• Entangling
  • Can be removed with Ice Barrier or Mass Barrier due to Energized Barriers talent.
• Incorporeal
  • Can be handled with a Polymorph. Keep in mind that only single target CC works on that so Dragon's Breath or Ring of Frost is not going to help with it.
• Spiteful
  • Help your team with controlling it with any of your AoE CC like Ice Nova, Frost Nova or slow.
• Sanguine
  • Volatile Detonation could be picked to have an easier time dealing with sanguine pools. It's one of the worst knocks in the game though and also makes you lose one of your AoE CC stops for the rest of the dungeon so shouldn't be picked unless you really need it.
• Storming
  • Ice Floes could be picked to deal with the affix easier.
  • On AoE pulls you may soak storming and help your team with it due to multiple instant casts in your rotation.

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Mythic+ dungeons as a Frost Mage. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

Unlike other classes, Frost Mage actually has a stat cap for Critical Strike which is 33.34% due to its interaction with Shatter. Going above that amount does not benefit you much since your spells would already reach 100% with the Shatter effect and that's why it should be avoided after 33.34% cap.

All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

• Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
• Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing. The damage of your pets does not heal you thus Leech is a great tertiary for you since most of your damage is coming from your own spells.
• Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. Makes playing certain mechanics a lot easier.

Trinkets

Trinkets come in two varieties: active and passive. Active trinkets require manual activation and inherit a cooldown providing a temporary boost to your output. On the other hand, passive trinkets provide a more consistent boost to your stats and abilities without requiring any actions.

Active Trinket alternatives

• Belor'relos, the Suncaller
  • Strong upfront on-use damage.
• Spoils of Neltharus
  • Good on-use trinket with a 2 minute cd.

Passive Trinket alternatives

• Ominous Chromatic Essence
  • Strong passive trinket if at least 3 other people in the group are also using it. In the gear set above all stats are used but you can switch it to any other stat, keep in mind that you would need to adjust your gear accordingly.
• Whispering Incarnate Icon
  • Strong option if tank and healer in the group are also using it.
• Tome of Unstable Power
  • Best passive alternative from dungeons. Deals very high AoE damage.
• Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
  • Similar to Tome of Unstable Power, another very good option from dungeons, also deals good amount of damage but on ST instead of AoE this time. Has nice execute at 5% hp.
• Furious Ragefeather
  • Deals good amount of damage both on ST and AoE.
• Vessel of Searing Shadow
  • Good for pure Single Target.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

• 2x Blue Silken Lining
  • Only good if you have +90% health for most of the time and during your cooldowns.
  • On Wrists,Boots,Waist or Cloak depending on your available gear.

Remaining Sparks

• Make sure to apply Alchemical Flavor Pocket if you have an additional crafted item equipped to keep your food buff even if you died.
• Crafted items are 525 item level and regular items are 528 on max item level therefor it's not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Phials

• Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage -- For maximum DPS.
• Phial of Tepid Versatility -- For less DPS but more survivability or if you have too much crit.

Food

• Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ak
• Deviously Deviled Eggs

Combat Potion

• Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
• Residual Neural Channeling Agent -- Can be used while being dead if your potion is ready.

Health Potion

• Potion of Withering Dreams -- For a big burst of healing.
• Dreamwalker's Healing Potion -- For less healing upfront but an additional small heal over time.

Weapon Rune

• Hissing Rune -- Default.
• Howling Rune -- If you've reached 2nd Mastery DR.

Augment Rune

• Dreambound Augment Rune -- Requires Reputation.
• Draconic Augment Rune

Sockets

• Skillful Illimited Diamond -- Default. Unique, made by work order.
• Inscribed Illimited Diamond -- If you've reached 2nd Mastery DR but not the Crit cap. Unique, made by work order.
• Sensei's Neltharite -- Default.
• Crafty Alexstraszite -- If you've reached 2nd Mastery DR but not the Crit cap.

For min-maxing a Frost Mage in Mythic+, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.

• Stoneform -- Dwarf
  • One of the most potent racials in Mythic+ currently and historically.
  • Use-cases:
    • Bursting stacks.
    • Splinterbark on Overgrown Ancient (Algeth'ar Academy).
    • Deep Chill from Glacial Proto-Dragons (Halls of Infusion).
    • Withering from Fetid Rotsingers and Brackenhide Shapers (Brackenhide Hollow).
    • Earthen Shards from Sentinel Talondras (Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr).
    • Stolen Time from Infinite Timereavers (Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr).
    • Dragon Strike from Chargath (Neltharus).
    • Bold Ambush from Qalashi Hunters (Neltharus).
• Shadowmeld -- Night Elf
  • Also one of the most potent racials in Mythic+ historically.
  • Use-cases:
    • Cast Shadowmeld when Forgemaster Gorek (Neltharus) targets you with Blazing Aegis, this completely negate the mechanic for you and the rest of the group.
    • Run past basically any mob and then cast Shadowmeld to make them reset. Even works on mobs that have stealth detection if you get enough distance before you Shadowmeld.
• Blood Fury -- Orc
  • Strong racial for damage.
  • 20% reduced Stun duration on you which can be useful in some Mythic+ dungeons.
• Escape Artist -- Gnome
  • Free yourself from roots.
• Rocket Jump -- Goblin
  • Do a small jump in the direction your character is facing.
  • While you're in the Rocket Jump animation you are placed on a global cooldown until your character lands.
• Berserking -- Troll
  • Weak racial for damage.
  • Reduce the duration of movement imparing effects by 20%.

Recommendation

Dwarf is your overall best racial both for damage and due to their ability having such a big impact on your Mythic+ experience that you need to use it if you're serious about pushing keys with your Frost Mage.

Discover recommended macros for Frost Mages during Mythic+ dungeons and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

#showtooltip/cast [@cursor] Blizzard

#showtooltip /cast [nopet] Icy Veins; [@cursor] Freeze

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Frost Mage, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Mythic+ dungeons to make your life easier.

Credits

Written By: Wexi

Reviewed By: Hopeful, Rycn