Frost Mage Guide for The War Within - Dragonflight 10.2.7 (2024)

Last updated on Jun 17, 2024 at 10:00by Dutchmagoz113 comments

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for FrostMage.Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about theFrost Mage spec in the forthcoming The War Withinexpansion,including changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions on the stateof the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regularchanges expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This is not meant to bea launch guide for Frost Mage, but instead serves as aresource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, andwhat you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

Frost Mage has gotten minimal changes. Ring of Frost and Ice Nova are now a choice node, which isslightly annoying for the times you wished to have Ring. Dragon's Breathhas been moved to a more accessible location. Temporal Warp has finallybeen removed, with a passive 3% Intellect replacing it as the choice nodeagainst Time Anomaly.

On the Frost side of the tree, we have a few talents that are supposed toalign with a non- Glacial Spike style of gameplay, but in practice tryand force a Frostbolt-centric playstyle. While the new tier set triesto prevent Frostbolt spam specifically, tuning will dictate if that ispossible. Otherwise, the gameplay is the same as it is on live.

While very little has changed for Frost Mage's corefeatures,The War Within still has major implications for all specs thanks to the HeroTalent Tree system.

Frost Mage gets to choose between the Frostfireand Spellslinger Hero Talent Trees. In sections below, we will talk moredeeply about the implications of these Hero Talent Trees for the spec.

Frostfire Bolt returns after having been removed in Legion, as areplacementfor Frostbolt. The spec itself revolves around 12-second windows, inwhich you need to have 8 frost spells, and 8 fire spells cast within them tobuff Ice Lance and Flurry. The fire spells are primarilyhandled by both Frostfire Bolt itself, which counts as both elements, and asmall damage proc on a high RPPM that also counts as both elements.

Gameplay-wise, expect a mostly passive kit. This is a very flashy tree, butthe gameplay is very similar to how Frost has played in the past. Mostcomponents of it do not need to be reacted to, and the procs that are attachedto it are primarily passive improvements to your procs. There is likely someoptimization to be had in specific cast orders during the opener, but that is asimulation question, and sims are not ready to go yet.

Power-wise, Frostfire has a fair bit of burst in the opener due to Comet Storm dropping a Meteor, and significant Comet Storm cooldown reduction on the Excess Frost proc.

Defensively, you get the option of either another 5% health on your Ice Barrier,or to cast a full strength Blazing Barrier at the end of your Ice Block/ Ice Cold. There is also a 30% cooldown reduction to Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath, which is a minor buff to our M+kit.

Spellslinger, while passive seeming, adds an extra proc to the rotation. Theentire tree revolves around Frost Splinters that are procced primarilyfrom consumingWinter's Chill on any target. Once 8 are active, across all targets, theyrecall and fire at your current target, and apply Winter's Chill again.

Gameplay-wise, there are a lot more Winter's Chill windows. Additionally,each Frost Splinter from both the primary impact and the Splinterstorm effecthave a 2% chance to reset Frozen Orb. While this proc rate seems tiny,you haveto consider that we fire an absurd number of Splinters. The effective proc rateof an Orb reset during Icy Veins is approximately 28% from every singleFrozen Orb cast by itself.

Power-wise, this spec is going to depend greatly on future tuning. Thecurrent iteration seems to have been over-nerfed slightly due to a number ofbugs involved with the current implementation, resulting in significantly more Frost Splinters and Winter's Chill procs than should be expected ifworking properly.However, the Frozen Orb reset is coupled with a Frozen Orb damage buff,that applies to all Orb ticks that happen while it is active. This is lookingto be an amazing funnel tree.

Defensively, Spellslinger has a choice of either 5% more damage reductionattached to Mirror Image, which is significant for how long a durationthe spell lasts. It additionally adds a fourth image spawn, which in the raresituations where Reduplication actually works, adds another 10-secondcooldown reduction to Mirror Image. The alternative is linear scaling on Ice Barrier, increasing in power another 50%, based on your healthlost, with the most benefit when you are sub-50%. For any multi-hit or extendeddamage events, this is a fantastic boon that takes Ice Barrier up to 36% ofyour max health.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Frost Mage in The WarWithin. After the wording of the bonus, you will find a brief note/commentarythat is italicized.

• Mage Frost 11.0 Class Set 2pc — Ice Lance damage increased by5% and Fingers of Frost increases the damage of your next Frozen Orb by 10%, stacking up to 10 times. This is a nice passivebuff that keeps Ice Lance in play for the current season. Based on how Cryopathy works, expect Frostfire to see max stacks before a use inalmost all situations. Spellslinger will obviously consume this much sooner,but will usually get 2-4 during Icy Veins, and depending on luck 7-10outside of.
• Mage Frost 11.0 Class Set 4pc — Frozen Orb increases Ice Lance's damage by 15% for 15 sec. I mean, this speaks foritself. Spellslinger will see nearly 100% uptime on this, as will Frostfire inan AoE situation.

Both set bonuses are completely passive and will not have any gameplayimpact.

How Good is the Frost Mage Tier Bonus in The WarWithin?

Hard to say. Currently the 2p is only benefiting in single target, choosingone random Orb target to gain the damage boost. If this is a bug or design iscurrently impossible to tell. The 4p benefits Spellslinger significantly morethan Frostfire, which pairs with how Spellslinger plays. This could very welllean the balance of the two towards Spellslinger in all situations, but this isa guess at best. Until sims are ready to go, this is all a guess at best.