Frost Mage leveling guide

Level as Frost: Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frost Nova, step back, Frostbolt, and the mob dies slowed and frozen without ever reaching you. Mages level on control rather than damage, and Frost is the tree with the control: Icy Veins at 20, Cold Snap at 30, Ice Barrier at 40 and the Water Elemental at 50 are the levels where it gets safer again. Fire kills a little faster and dies a lot more often; Arcane is a raid tree with Arcane Blast at 64 and nothing before it. The leveling tree ends on the Frost raid build exactly, so there is nothing to respec at 70.

Your endgame is Frost, the raid Mage who never dies and brings Winter's Chill: your frost spells stack a crit debuff on the boss that every other Frost Mage shares, Ice Barrier and Ice Block make you the Mage the healers forget about, and your damage is a little below Fire's in the same gear. Frost is also the only Mage spec that does not care what the raid buffs are. You are leveling in the spec you will raid in; the gear section is about hit and spell damage, and the build section about the Water Elemental and Cold Snap.

Frost, 1 to 70. Frostbolt slows the target; Frost Nova freezes it; you step back and cast again. The real priorities in the tree are Icy Veins at 20, Cold Snap at 30, Ice Barrier at 40 and the Water Elemental at 50, with Improved Frostbolt from the first point because Frostbolt is the only spell you cast for sixty levels. Fire levels faster on paper and worse in practice: no slow, no shield, and every fight that goes wrong goes wrong at melee range. Arcane has nothing until 64.

1 to 10. Fireball until Frostbolt arrives at 4, then Frostbolt. Arcane Intellect and Frost Armor on yourself, Conjure Water at 4 and Food at 6, and from here you never buy either. Fire Blast at 6 finishes anything that reached you. Mages die a lot before 10; wand when you are out of mana, and buy a wand at 5.

10 to 20. Frost Nova at 10 is the spec. Frostbolt from maximum range, Frostbolt again as the slowed mob walks, Frost Nova when it is in your face, walk back ten yards, Frostbolt, Fire Blast. One mob dies to that every time; two die to it with Polymorph on the second; three is Frost Nova, Arcane Explosion (14) three times, Blink when it is over. Drink after every second fight; Evocation at 20 fixes that.

20 to 40. Icy Veins at 20 (+20% casting speed) turns an elite into a mob. Blink at 20 is out of any stun, root or bad position. Cone of Cold at 26 finishes anything that reached you and slows what did not die. Cold Snap at 30 means two Frost Novas and two Icy Veins when a pull goes wrong, and Ice Block at 30 means a pull that went wrong is ten seconds of thinking time. Mana gems from 28 replace potions. Ice Barrier at 40 is the end of pushback: a shield that absorbs damage and lets you cast through hits, every 30 seconds, and from here the fights that reached you are no longer dangerous.

40 to 60. Portals at 40 pay for your mount. The loop is unchanged: Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Nova, Frostbolt, Cone of Cold. Winter's Chill stacking on the target makes your later Frostbolts crit, and Ice Shards makes the crits double. The Water Elemental at 50 adds a second caster for 45 seconds every three minutes; send it first and the mob goes to it, not you.

60 to 70. Outland mobs have more health and hit harder, so the shield and the slow matter more and the loop stays the same. Molten Armor at 62 for the crit, Ice Lance at 66 as an instant that triples against a frozen target (Nova, Ice Lance, Ice Lance is a finisher), Invisibility at 68 as the escape when Ice Block is down. By 70 your tree is the Frost raid build, and the only thing between you and a raid is hit rating.

Weapons: whatever has spell damage on it. A staff, or a dagger and an off-hand, with spell damage or frost damage first and Intellect second; a wand always, for the mob at 5% when you are out of mana. Weapon damage means nothing to you.

Why not Fire to level? Fireball hits harder than Frostbolt and that is the whole case. Fire has no slow, no shield and no Ice Block, and a Fire Mage who gets a two-pull wrong at 35 is dead where a Frost Mage is bored. Fire is the right 70 spec for most raids, and the respec plan below prices the switch; nothing about leveling Frost makes it harder.

The rule that governs the order below: a talent row is locked until you have spent 5 × (row - 1) points in that tree, and you have level - 9 points to spend. Row 2 opens at 5 points, row 3 at 10, row 9 at 40. The consequence is that you will buy talents you don't especially want purely to open the next row. That isn't a mistake; it's how the tree works. The order below has been checked against the real tree: every point is buyable at the level it is listed.

Where it ends: 18/0/43, the "Deep Frost" build WoWSims ships as its Frost raid preset, point for point. The Frost tree is complete at 52 and the eighteen Arcane points after it are the same eighteen the raid build has.

No Shatter and no Frostbite is on purpose. The classic leveling Frost build takes Frostbite (frost spells have a chance to freeze) and Shatter (+50% crit against frozen targets), and it is more fun: Frost Nova, Frostbolt, crit. The raid build has neither, because bosses cannot be frozen, so taking them costs a respec at 70. The order above trades a little leveling flash for a tree you never pay to undo. If you want the shatter version anyway, take Frostbite, Improved Frost Nova (Shatter needs it) and Shatter, give up Elemental Precision, Arctic Reach, Improved Cone of Cold and the spare ranks of Winter's Chill, and budget the respec at 70; the engine validates any order that fits the tree.

Frost Channeling before the rest of Piercing Ice is on purpose. It is 15% cheaper Frostbolts from 27, and between 20 and 50 your limit is mana, not damage.

The solo loop

Frostbolt from maximum range. Frostbolt again while the slowed mob walks. Frost Nova when it is in your face, walk back ten yards, Frostbolt, and Fire Blast or Cone of Cold to finish. From 40, Ice Barrier before the pull and you can stand still and cast through whatever reaches you; from 50, send the Water Elemental first and the mob goes to it. Ice Lance at 66 triples its damage on a frozen target, so Frost Nova then Ice Lance is the late finisher. Drink when you are under half mana and nothing is in range; Evocation at 20 is a full bar every eight minutes and a mana gem is a free potion every fight.

Two mobs: Polymorph the one with the most health before the fight starts, kill the other, then the sheep. Polymorph heals the target, so never sheep the one you have already damaged. Three or more: Frost Nova, Arcane Explosion until they break, Blink away, Cone of Cold, and Frostbolt whatever is left; Blizzard works on groups that are already rooted. A caster: Counterspell at 24 on the first cast, then the normal loop; casters do not need to be slowed.

When it goes wrong: Ice Block (30) makes you immune for ten seconds and drops nothing; use the time to let the Water Elemental or Frost Nova's cooldown come back. Cold Snap resets Nova, Icy Veins, Ice Block and the Elemental at once. Blink breaks stuns and roots. Invisibility at 68 is the last resort: five seconds and you are gone. A Mage with all four up should not die to anything that is not an elite.

Crowd control

Polymorph is the crowd control every dungeon group wants from a Mage, and the rules are simple. Sheep before the tank pulls, on the target the leader marks for you; it lasts up to 50 seconds at the top rank and breaks on any damage, so nobody should hit it, and that includes your own Blizzard and Arcane Explosion. Re-sheep when the warning in your UI says so, not when it breaks. Polymorph does not work on undead, demons, elementals or dragonkin; Frost Nova and Counterspell are what you have for those. A macro so you never lose your kill target:

#showtooltip Polymorph
/cast [target=focus,exists,harm] Polymorph; Polymorph

Set the sheep as your focus before the pull, and the key re-sheeps it whatever you are targeting.

Threat

Mages generate threat faster than any other class and have no threat reset until Invisibility at 68. The rule in a dungeon is to let the tank hit the mob twice before your first Frostbolt lands, open with Frostbolt rather than Arcane Explosion, and watch the meter. Frost Channeling cuts frost threat by 30% and Arcane Subtlety cuts arcane threat by 40%; both are in the order for this reason. Ice Block drops nothing but it does stop the hits.

Food, water, portals and buffs

Conjure Water and Food at the start of every session, a stack of each for everyone in the group, and Ritual of Refreshment at 70 for the raid. Arcane Intellect on everyone, Arcane Brilliance from 56 with an Arcane Powder. Teleport at 20 is your hearthstone that is always ready; Portals at 40 are a service other players will pay for. Mage Armor in groups (mana regeneration), Ice Armor alone (armor and a chill on attackers), Molten Armor from 62 whenever your mana is not the problem.

Macros

#showtooltip Frost Nova
/cast Frost Nova
/petattack

Freeze and send the Elemental in one press.

#showtooltip Ice Block
/stopcasting
/cast Ice Block

Ice Block does not fire while you are casting; the stopcasting line is the difference between a save and a death.

Train every new spell rank the moment you can afford it; an old rank of your main nuke is the most common reason a level feels slow. Keep your bags clear of vendor trash before leaving town, and pick up every flight path you pass; the map is the biggest time-saver in the game.

Leveling set: spell damage first wherever it appears (frost damage counts in full), then Intellect, then Stamina, then spell crit, then Spirit last. "Of Frozen Wrath" greens are made for you and cheap because few others want them; a +frost damage green at 30 is a bigger upgrade than any dungeon blue without it. A wand every ten levels. Cloth with Spirit and no damage is healer cloth; let the Priest have it.

Frost at 70, in order:

1. Spell hit to 16%. 202 hit rating from gear, less with Elemental Precision (3 ranks is 3%, so 13% from gear, 164 rating) and less again with a Draenei in the group. A missed Frostbolt is a lost Winter's Chill stack as well as lost damage.
2. Spell damage. Frost damage or general spell damage; Frostbolt and the Water Elemental both scale with it.
3. Spell crit. Ice Shards makes every frost crit double, and Winter's Chill stacks are your own crit on the boss.
4. Spell haste. Later tiers only; Icy Veins is your haste until then.
5. Intellect. Mana and a little crit; Frost Channeling and Evocation carry most of your mana.
6. Stamina. Enough to live through raid-wide damage; Ice Barrier covers the rest.

Share gear with Warlocks and the other Mages; Frost loses a little damage to Fire in the same gear and makes it up by being alive at the end of the fight.

Quest levels by zone, Horde side. A zone is comfortable when your level sits inside its range; move on when the quests turn green.

Dungeon ranges are the levels the quests and drops are tuned for; you can enter earlier with a group that knows the place. In Outland, every dungeon has a heroic mode at 70 that needs a key from the matching reputation at Honored.

You have not picked professions yet, so this section is the advice on which to take; pick them in the character card and it becomes the route.

The two questions. Do you want the profession to make you stronger at 70, or to make gold on the way? The crafting professions with a bind-on-pickup payoff (Tailoring's cloth sets for casters, Leatherworking's sets for mail and leather wearers, Blacksmithing's Armorsmith and Weaponsmith lines for plate, Jewelcrafting's trinkets, Engineering's goggles, Alchemy's flask that lasts through death) make you stronger and cost gold to level. The gathering professions (Mining, Herbalism, Skinning) make gold and cost nothing but detours. The usual answer is one of each: the crafter your damage gear wants, and the gatherer that feeds it.

For damage: the crafting profession that makes your armor class's set (Tailoring for cloth, Leatherworking for leather and mail, Blacksmithing for plate), paired with the gatherer that feeds it (Tailoring with Enchanting or a gatherer for gold, Leatherworking with Skinning, Blacksmithing with Mining). Engineering with Mining is the universal second choice for the goggles and the gadgets.

Leveling a profession costs the least when you do it while you level the character; every zone's nodes and drops are the ones the route wants at that skill. Pick early.

18/0/43. The "Deep Frost" build WoWSims ships as its Frost raid preset, and the build you leveled into: your tree at 70 is this one, point for point.

The core is the whole Frostbolt line: Improved Frostbolt, Ice Shards, Piercing Ice, Icy Veins, Cold Snap, Winter's Chill, Arctic Winds, Empowered Frostbolt and the Water Elemental, with Clearcasting, Arcane Meditation and Arcane Impact from the Arcane tree. The flexible points are Improved Cone of Cold (two ranks for trash; move them to the fifth Winter's Chill or Frost Warding on single-target progression), Ice Barrier (one point, and a Mage who does not take it is a Mage the healers resent), and the Arcane row 1 split between Arcane Subtlety and Arcane Focus.

Raid job description: Frostbolt. That is the rotation, and the skill is in what you wrap around it. Water Elemental and Icy Veins on the pull with a trinket; Cold Snap when both have ended and cast them again; Winter's Chill to five stacks as fast as possible, and if there are two Frost Mages, you share the stacks and the second one's Frostbolts crit from the first cast. Ice Barrier before every raid-wide hit so the healers skip you. Ice Block on the mechanic that would kill you; it also clears most debuffs. Arcane Blast or Scorch when the boss is immune to frost, which in TBC is rare and announced. Evocation and a mana gem every fight, Mage Armor unless you are drowning in mana, in which case Molten Armor.

Why Frost in a raid: Fire does more damage in the same gear, and Frost is still a raid spec for three reasons. It needs the least from the raid (no Improved Scorch to maintain, no Shadow Priest for mana, no crit threshold before it works), it dies the least, and Winter's Chill is a raid debuff when there are two of you. The honest ranking is Fire first once your crit is there, Frost close behind and never behind on a fight where the Mages keep dying. If your raid has four Mages, one of them being Frost costs nothing.

When to respec: never, unless your raid leader asks for Fire for the damage and you have the crit for it. You leveled in this build; the respec plan below covers the Fire case.

Pre-raid gearing, the short version.

1. Spell hit first, from the Shadowmoon Valley and Netherstorm quest rewards and the normal dungeon blues with hit on them. Nothing else matters until you are at the cap; a Mage below it is a Mage whose Polymorph misses too.
2. Heroic dungeon blues with spell damage and Intellect. Honor Hold or Thrallmar to Honored for the first heroic key; Lower City, the Sha'tar, Cenarion Expedition and Keepers of Time for theirs, and the Sha'tar and Lower City reputations sell caster pieces along the way.
3. Spellstrike Hood and Pants from a Tailor; Spellfire itself is bind-on-pickup to the Tailor who makes it, so that set is not an option without the profession.
4. A spell damage wand from a heroic, and a main hand and off-hand with spell damage from Shadow Labyrinth, Black Morass or the Sha'tar.
5. The Karazhan attunement chain runs through every dungeon on this list; do it as you gear.

Expect to be compared to the Warlocks, and expect to be a little behind them in the first tier; they scale with the Shadow Priest and you scale with gear. Your raid spot is Polymorph, Counterspell, the table of food and the Arcane Brilliance, and the damage is what you do between them.

The heroic keys are reputations from the dungeons themselves: Honor Hold or Thrallmar, Cenarion Expedition, Lower City, the Sha'tar and Keepers of Time, each to Honored. A Mage with Polymorph and a table gets groups.

Karazhan attunement starts in Deadwind Pass and runs through Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvault and Arcatraz to Black Morass. Do it as you gear; every one of those dungeons drops something you want.

Start reputations before 70. Every Outland dungeon reputation reaches Honored from normal runs on the way up, and Honored is what buys the heroic key. Cenarion Expedition (Coilfang), Honor Hold or Thrallmar (Hellfire Citadel), Lower City (Auchindoun), the Sha'tar (Tempest Keep) and Keepers of Time (Caverns of Time) each gate a heroic; run the normal versions while they are your level and the keys are waiting when you arrive.

Pre-raid gear is dungeon blues, reputation rewards and crafted pieces. Heroics drop the best of it and pay Badges of Justice for the rest. Quest blues from Nagrand, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley fill the gaps; do not skip the last three zones' quest lines on the way to 70, they are the fastest gearing there is.

The Karazhan attunement (the Master's Key chain through Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvault and Old Hillsbrad, ending in the Black Morass) is the first raid gate on the Anniversary realms; start it the week you hit 70 because it takes a group for every step.

Anniversary realms have Dual Talent Specialization, so the cleanest plan is two trees: Frost for everything you do alone and for the fights where dying is the problem, and Fire or Arcane in the second slot for the raid when its damage is wanted. Check the trainer for the price in game; sources disagree on what TBC Anniversary charges.

Reading an order from any level. Every talent order on this page is a list of which point to buy at which level, and the trees in the talent section have a level slider that can show any of them. To respec into a build at level 70, pick that build above the trees and drag the slider to 70: the highlighted cells are the 61 points to buy, in the order the table lists them. Every order has been checked so that each row is open by the time you reach it.

You are already there. The Frost leveling order is the raid build. The only respec a Frost Mage pays is the one into Fire when the gear and the raid both ask for it.

The number to budget: 50g per respec on original rules, the dual-spec price once on Anniversary. A Mage who respecs once at 70 pays well under 60g; nobody should be flipping specs per raid night.

A Mage watches a sheep timer, a threat meter and a row of cooldowns at once.

• WeakAuras: Polymorph remaining on your focus, Frost Nova and Counterspell ready, Icy Veins, Cold Snap and Ice Block ready, Ice Barrier missing, armor missing, Winter's Chill stacks on the target.
• A focus frame for the sheep, so the Polymorph macro in the basics section has something to target. Most unit frame addons show one; set the sheep as focus before every pull.
• A threat meter (Omen) in every group. You are the one it is for.
• A cast bar with latency (Quartz) so you can start the next Frostbolt before the last one lands.
• One boss-mod addon, DBM or BigWigs, not both.

The addons that pay for themselves on any class: a quest helper (Questie) so you stop reading quest text for coordinates; a bag addon (Bagnon or similar) so you can see what you are carrying; a boss mod (Deadly Boss Mods or BigWigs, never both) the day you start dungeons; and WeakAuras once you have a cooldown or buff you keep forgetting. Bind every ability you use in a fight to a key before you hit 20; clicking is the single biggest thing that makes a character feel weak.

Ticks are remembered in this browser for this class and spec.

Now

• Improved Frostbolt 5/5 first; Icy Veins the moment row 3 opens at 20
• A wand at 5 and a new one every ten levels; Conjure Water and Food before every session
• Frostbolt, Frostbolt, Frost Nova, step back: the loop from 10 to 70
• Arcane Intellect on everyone you meet; Frost Armor (Ice Armor from 30) always up
• The Polymorph focus macro from the basics section on a key before your first dungeon

40 to 70

• Level 40: Portals, Ice Barrier before every pull, mount; the Water Elemental at 50
• 56: Arcane Brilliance with a stack of Arcane Powder
• 60: epic riding; 62: Molten Armor; 66: Ice Lance after every Frost Nova; 68: Invisibility on a key
• No respec at 70; you are already in the raid build

At 70

• Spell hit to 16% before anything else
• Ritual of Refreshment and a stack of its reagent before every raid; Arcane Brilliance on every group
• Water Elemental and Icy Veins on the pull, Cold Snap after they end, Winter's Chill to five stacks
• Spellsteal at 70; Honor Hold or Thrallmar Honored for the first heroic key