Frost Mage Legion – Talent Spec and rotation

This page was published in march but has now been updated (2016-07-10).

Important Changes

Frostfire bolts are removed. Instead we have a new spell called Flurry (A flurry that strikes the target 3 times and reduces the target´s movement speed by 70%.

Brain Freeze proc, makes your Flurry instant cast AND gives a Winter´s Chill which causes the target to take damage from your spells as if it were frozen (for about a second).

Another spell to pay attention to is Blizzard. This spell is no longer a channeling spell. It’s a cast spell instead.

Talent Tree

Looking at the talent tree, there are 4 talent tree levels that are important for Frost Mages in PvE in Legion.

I will start with the lvl 100 talent since this whole spec and rotation is built on that talent.

Lvl 15

Ray of Frost
For the next 10s, you can channel a beam of Icy power at an enemy.
Ray of Frost slows the target by 50% and deals Frost damage every x second. Each time Ray of Frost deals damage, its damage is increased by 20%.

Lonely Winter (Passive)
You can no longer summon your Water Elemental, however Frostbolt, Ice Lance, Frozen Orb, and Icicles deal 20% more damage.

Bone Chilling (Passive)
Whenever you attempt to chill a target, you gain Bone Chilling, which lasts 6 sec and stacks up to 12 times. Each stack of Bone Chilling increases all Frost damage you deal by 0.5%.

For leveling/questing
Bone Chilling is the choice here since the pet is VERY handy when questing (ruling out Lonely Winter) and Ray of Frost is way too long cast time and you will probably move around a lot and casting Fingers of Frost on proc etc. You can increase the stacks very fast by using Frozen Orb or Blizzard on the targets.

AoE in raid/dungeons
Lonely Winter is very good choice since your damage will be built with Frostbolts and Ice Lance procs. Increasing that damage by 20% is awesome.

Single Boss Fights
Same here, Lonely Winter. Frost Bolts, Ice Lances, Frozen Orbs and Icicles are the main building stones of your damage and increase that by 20% will increase your overall damage and most important, the Glacial Spike (lvl 100 talent).

Ray of Frost is really good, but after trying it out, it just gave another spell on the spell bar, leading to less time points of Glacial Spike to appear. Since Lesser amounts of Frostbolts were casted. But, if you can figure out a good way to put this talent in the rotation without minimizing the use of Finger of Frost/Frozen Orb and Glacial Spike, then it may be worth looking at again.

Lvl 45

Mirror Image
Creates 3 copies of the caster nearby, which cast spells and attack the Mage´s enemies. Lasts 40 sec.

Rune of Power
Places a Rune of Power in the ground for 10 sec which increases your spell damage by 50% while you stand within 8 yards.

Incanter´s Flow (Passive)
Magical energy flows through you while in combat, building up to 20% increased damage and then diminishing down to 4% increased damage, cycling every 10 sec.

For leveling/questing
Mirror Image is the best during leveling. The biggest reason is; the mobs will attack your Images then your pet before attacking you. This is a good survival point of view and will also give you time to just stand there and nuke the targets. At the same time, the Images will do damage to the mobs as well.

AoE in raid/dungeons
It depends on how much you want to handle. The best choice is Rune of Power, and use it at certain time points to exceed our dmg with 50% for 10 seconds. The most important is to place Ring of Frost after your have placed a Frost Bomb on a target followed by Frozen Orb (gives you FoF when hitting a target) and Frozen touch (gives you 2 FoF). In this way ou maximize the use of Frost Bomb so explodes several times and does AoE damage and at the same time incrase all that dmg during the 10 seconds wondow with Rune of power.

If you want to do it more casual, choose Incanter´s Flow which will increase your damage up and down (little more random).

Single Boss Fights
Rune of Power is the go to talent here. The most important is to pop it at a good time. You have 2 charges with a 45 sec recharge each. The best time to pop it is when you proc the Brain Freeze, which gives you an instant cast of Flurry. Cast a frost Bolt and directly a Flurry after (since Flurry will hit the target before the Frostbolt, it will increase the damage of it with Winter´s Chill) followed by an Ice Lance directly after (which will hit the target as it was Frozen, Winter´s Chill again). And using this combo when having Rune of Power will increase all that damage by 50%. Boom!

The choice of talent here depends on the fight. Standing still much? Then its Rune of Power. If not, I say Mirror Image because first of all it will make you choose when you want to do more burst damage and also, these images do 10% of your total damage. Incater´s flow did less damage that Mirror Image when looking at Warcraftlogs, but just slightly.

Lvl 60

Ice Nova
Causes a whirl of Icy wind around the target enemy or ally, dealing frost damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and freezing them in place for 2 sec. A primary enemy target will take 100% increased damage.

Frozen Touch
When activated, you generate 2 charges of Fingers of Frost

Splitting Ice
Your Ice Lance and Icicles now deal 10% increased damage, and hit a second nearby target for 50% of their damage.

For leveling/questing
Ice Nova would be my choice here because when leveling you want the mobs to stay away from you will you nuke them and having an extra ability to freeze them that does good dmg at the same time is very useful.

AoE in raid/dungeons
Frozen Touch is the choice here and the main reason for that is the combo with Frost Bomb which triggers a freezing ice explosion when “Shattered” Ice Lance hits the mob with Frost Bomb. So you will do a lot of extra AoE damage with 2 extra Shattered Ice Lances.

Single Boss Fights
Splitting Ice is the choice here. The main reason is not that the Ice Lance actually splits, which will be good of course if there are extra mobs in the boss fights (and there probably will be). The main reason is that you increase your Ice Lance damage with 10% which is a lot of extra dmg.

Lvl 90

Frost Bomb (cast time now; 1.5 sec)
Places a Frost Bomb on the target for 12 seconds. Limit 1 per target.
Your Ice Lances that benefits from Shatter, will trigger the release of a wave of freezing Ice, dealing 150% of spellpower frost damage to the target and 93.75% Spell dmg to all other enemies within 10 yards.

Unstable Magic
Arcane Blast, Fireball and Frostbolt have a 20% chance to explode on impact, dealing an additional 50% damage to the target, and to all other enemies within 8 yards.

Artctic Gale
Damage dealt by Blizzard is increased by 30% and the area covered is increased by 20%.

For leveling/questing
This comes down to how many mobs you pull in average when questing.

2 or more
Before I tried one of these out, I thought that Arctic Gale would be the best one since we will have Blizzard up all the time. But it turned out that Frost Bomb is better and the main reason for this is that we will get loads of Fingers of Frost 100% from various sources; Frozen Touch, Ebonbolt (Artifact core ability which deals dmg and gives 2 charges of Fingers of Frost), Frozen Orb and even chance of Fingers of Frost from Frostbolts. All these Fingers of Frost procs leads to more damage from Ice Lance when Frost Bomb is up on the target.

1-2 mobs
If you not pulling more than 1-2 mobs a time when questing, then Unstable Magic is the go to.

AoE in raid/dungeons
Frost Bomb all the way. See rotation further down.

Single Boss Fights
Unstable Magic since you have chance to increase Frostbolts damage by 50% (which in turn increase your Ice Lance and Glacial Spike damage) without an extra button in your spell bar and rotation.

Lvl 100

Thermal Void
Casting Ice Lance extends your Icy Veins by 2 sec.

Glacial Spike
Conjure a massive spike of Ice and merge your current Icicles into it. It impales your target, dealing dmg, plus the damage stored in your icicles. Requires 5 icicles.
Also, freezes the target in place for up to 4 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect.

Comet Storm
Calls down a series of 7 Icy comets on and around the target, each of which does dmg to all enemies within 4 yards.

For leveling/questing
Comet Storm is the best choice. An extra instant damage on mobs is very handy. Glacial Spike is not that good since it takes 5 Frostbolts to build it up and mobs are probably dead by then (since they will also get hit by procs and instant spells (FoF, Frozen Orb, Ice Nova).

AoE in raid/dungeons
Comet Storm here again. However, Thermal Voice which increase Icy Veins can be good here since you will probably get loads of FoF procs with the right AoE rotation (see below). But the only reason I see why you want haste is to pop more things during the time you are standing on Rune of power.

Single Boss Fights
Glacial Spike ALL THE WAY. It stores and adds all your five Icicles into a great one that you launch away on your target. This talent does massive damage, and together with other talents in the talent tree that increase your Frostbolt damage, Ice Lance damage, overall damage, all together will increase the damage of Glacial Spike.  

Frost mage Build and rotation

Leveling/Questing- Rotation

With this build and rotation you will survive the fights much easier and at the same time do really good damage to mobs. With this build you can kill all the rare mobs much easier as well. 

  • Cast Ebonbolt
  • Immediately cast Mirror Images before the Ebonbolt hits the target so they start attacking directly, otherwise they will not attack until you hit a target.
  • Cast the 2 FoF Ice Lances
  • Cast Frozen Orb (to gain FoF)
  • Cast FoF Ice lance
  • Cast Frostbolt followed by Water Jet (Pet ability) until you get 2 FoF.
  • When you have 2 FoF, cast another Frostbolt and Ice Lance (FoF) directly after (to gain another FoF proc from Water Jet)
  • Cast Comet Storm followed by Ice Nova Immediately after.

When you get Brain Freeze Proc

If you have any FoF use them before this.

  • Cast Frostbolt
  • Immediately after, cast Flurry (instant cast from Brain Freeze Proc). The Frostbolt lands after Flurry and hits the target as if it is frozen.
  • Cast 1 Ice Lance (this will now hit the target as if it is frozen, meaning it is casted as if it was FoF).

AoE in raids/dungeons - Rotation

With this build you are focusing on attacking several targets that are tanked and do massive damage to them all. It is a good build when killing trash in raids and dungeons and can still do good damage to bosses when more casual. For a good damage build and rotation on bosses, see below.

  • Cast Icy Veins (if ready)
  • Cast Frost Bomb
  • Cast Rune of Power (if ready)
  • Cast Frozen Orb (FoF procs)
  • Cast FoF Ice Lances
  • Cast Frozen Touch to gain 2 more FoF procs
  • Cast 2 FoF Ice Lance
  • Cast Ebonbolt (2 FoF)
  • Cast the 2 FoF Ice lances
  • Cast Comet Storm
  • Cast Blizzard and Frostbolts (until Frozen Orb resets)
  • Repeat from start when Frozen Orb is ready again

Single Boss Fights – Rotation

With this build you are focusing on doing massive damage to a single boss fight. Remember that you might change some talent here and there depending on what type of boss fight it is. This is the general setup for it. 

  • Cast Icy Vein
  • Cast Ebonbolt (2 FoF)
  • Cast the 2 FoF Ice Lances
  • Cast Frozen Orb (FoF procs)
  • Cast FoF Ice Lances
  • Cast Frostbolts

When you get Glacial Spike ready

  • Pop a Rune of Power
  • Cast Glacial pike

When you get Braine Freeze Proc (Flurry instant cast)

  • Cast Frostbolt
  • Immediately after, cast Flurry (instant cast from Brain Freeze Proc). The Frostbolt lands after Flurry and hits the target as if it is frozen.
  • Cast 1 Ice Lance (this will now hit the target as if it is frozen, meaning it is casted as if it was FoF).

Repeat from start again when Frozen Orb is ready.

When do I use Blizzard

The Blizzard spell has been changed from being a channeling to a cast instead. Therefore, it can be up while casting other things. The main thing is to master the time when to actually use it.

The best way to use Blizzard is when you have all your main spells in your rotation on cooldown. Meaning, when you are only using Frostbolts, add blizzard as well.

It increases your damage this way, but decreases your damage if you are using it during your rotation with procs.

 

12 Mar 2016