Frost mage PvP begginers guide

[mpetar]

Talent build: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft


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So first off, I want to say that I am not an gladiator (yet) and this is my first season ( playing a mage at level 80...This is just a beginners guide, I know I am not covering all situations (What if retridin humps the pillar ???) I am not writing about this kind of stuff cause it would be impossible to write down all the possibilities. Also I skipped dueling with holy palas and resto shamans cause they are very long/frustrating/complicated fights.

Read first: This is my first guide so please don't flame. I tried really hard to make this guide a good one. Expect a lot of bad English.
Leave comments with your opinion (if you think something is bad just say it so i can try and fix it, don't go in nerd-rage mode)


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This guide will be divided in 2 sections:

1. Dueling
2. Arena guide for mages new to PvP with little or no PvP gear.

Table of contents:

1. Dueling
1.1 Warriors
1.2 Rogues
1.3 Paladins
1.4 Death knights
1.5 Hunters
1.6 Warlocks
1.7 Druids
1.8 Priests
1.9 Shamans

2. Arena

2.1 2v2
2.2 3v3
2.3 5v5

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So lets get started

1. Dueling:

I hope that you already know that you need some skill to get arena rating.
So no guide will bring you to 2k+ if you don't go to Durotar and duel for a few days (10 or something ). I am giving you a breakdown of fights against all classes to help you start out.

1.1 Warriors:

Positioning: As far as you can

Start: Start of with a poly... It will probably get interrupted by a charge, frost nova and run away for 4-5 sec then poly (it is important to not panic
and blink away because you will need it later). Watch out for Spell Reflect and get ready to stop casting poly and cast ice lance if you see him using it, then continue with poly.


Fight: So you got him polyed... Use you mirror images and elemental. Move away (20 yards is enough), start casting Frostbolt, use your elemental's freeze to, well, freeze him in place ( don't worry it wont break sheep).

Then, as soon as you finish casting frostbolt start spamming Deep Freeze button so he is frozen before your frostbolt brakes the nova. Now start casting a new frostbolt and do the same thing you did with deep freeze but use Ice Lance this time. Use it twice. You want frostbolt+2x Ice lance hitting your target while in Deep Freeze.

As soon as he brakes out of deep freeze he will most likely intercept you. When he does, blink away and cast another frostbolt followed by Fire Blast. Use cone of cold if he gets too close. Just kite him around until deep freeze and frost nova are back up. When they are use nova and repeat the process from the beginning.

On one point he will use Uberstorm... When he gets close to you just chill out in your Ice Block... When Bladestorm is off he will most likely cast shattering throw. Nova + run away and shatter combo... keep doing this and its a victory. When you Get some practice warriors will be easy mode for you...


1.2 Rogues:

Positioning: Doesn't matter... He will end up behind your back.

Start: He opens with a cheap shot, wait until barrier is broken (most likely to happen in Kidney shot) so he is locked in place then blink away + sheep.

Then open with Frostfire bolt, not frost one. The reason for this is that he can just vanish anytime he wants when you are using frostbolt. But the DoT part of Frostfire will remove him from stealth. He will most likely use Cloak of Shadows (CoS) as soon as he gets out of sheep and vanish (if he doesn't just keep spamming frostbolt).

Fight: So you forced CoS but he gets another opener. No worries. He will open exactly the same way again, cheap shot into a kidney. When you see kidney Ice Block but get out of it fast (after 2-3 sec) so he doesn't go back to stealth. Nova him + stun + cone of cold and spam ice lance as you run away from him.

Pop elemental and mirror images now, freeze with pet + shatter combo = dead rogue... Also easy when you get used to it...


1.3 Paladins:

Positioning: As far as you can

Start: Start with poly, he will most likely repentance you. Next he will run in and stun. Just blink away instantly... You want your barrier taking as little damage as possible. Turn around and sheep him... Now the most important part. Start spellstealing like crazy!!! Steal every buff he has.
If sheep is about to run off and he still has some buffs, re-sheep and keep stealing until he has no buffs on him.

Fight: Pop up elemental and mirror images. Open with frosbolt (don't use pets freeze yet). As soon as he gets out from sheep he will probably use Blessing of Freedom (it looks like orange circle under him). Run away and spellsteal. If you stole all his buffs before that you should need only a try or 2 to get what you need... when you have freedom on yourself, freeze him with pet, stun and use you frostbolt+ 2x Ice Lance combo.



1.4 Death Knights:

Positioning: As far as you can

Start: Silence, then poly him...

Fight: Open same way you opened on warrior(refer to 1.1). He will use his Anti Magic Shell ASAP. Run from him until he is near you. If you don't think that your barrier will outlast his shell (it should) then Ice block. When his Anti magic bubble is out, nova him, shatter combo, run away (if he death grips you anytime in between just blink away, but good ones won't).

As soon as you have your Deep Freeze up again, pop up elemental, freeze him, stun shatter while you run away, cold snap and when he is close to you
nova him and deep freeze again. When he gets out of second deep freeze (watch out it will be shorter then normal one) blink+Ice Block... most DKs will try to grip you when they see you blinked but wont be able too cause you are in block. When you see grip, cancel IB and spam Frostbolt on him, he should be dead by now.

DKs are hard to beat and you will need a lot of practice until you start beating good ones...


1.5 Hunters:

Positioning: As close as you can

Start: Poly him

Fight: Get in his range and pop your mirror images and elemental. Open like you open on warrior(refer to 1.1) but be in his melee range now. Just try to stay in his range and keep using Fire blast and Cone of cold whenever they are up.

When you have pets freeze or frost nova use it and shatter combo him. Repeat and win... If in any moment you find yourself far away from him with no barrier and no means of stopping incoming damage, Ice Block.

I kept this simple because it is hard and it depends a lot on how the hunter plays.


1.6 Warlocks:

a) Affliction

Positioning: As far away as you can so he can't instantly fear you. Keeping the distance shouldn't be hard since he will be slowed all the time and you will be free to run.

Start: Start with rank 1 Frostbolt followed by a sheep. Why rank 1? It has a 0.7 sec casting time with some haste, so chances that he will silence you are smaller and you only need this FB for debuff anyway. Sheep him after first Frost bolt(Rank 1), he will most likely try to dispel with pet... Usually it wont work, but be ready to re-sheep if needed.

Fight: Open the same way like you did on warrior(refer to 1.1) but watch out, he will silence you with the pet in mid of deep freeze so you wont do too much damage there. If you can, silence his fear. If you don't succeed at silencing fear, silence his next haunt or unstable affliction. When you are out of shield and full DoTed (Corruption, UA, Haunt, etc) Ice Block. When you get out just keep spamming Frostbolt, keep decursing yourself and its an easy win.

b) Destruction

Sorry but I still don't have a nice tactic for this fight... Nether protection is just sick. If anyone has a nice tactic post it or PM and I will include it in guide and give credits to him.



1.7 Druids:

I am including only feral guide cause resto is boring to duel and if druid is good at kiting it can last forever....

Positioning: Doesn't matter he will open on you anyway

Start: Wait until your barrier is broken then blink fast and stun (don't give him time to change form and remove freeze from himself). Frostbolt+ 2x Ice Lance, he will jump to you as soon as he is out of stun.

Fight: Pop mirror images and elemental while you are running away from him. Pet freeze and ice lance right away. Don't try to get shatter combo cause he will just reform and remove ice from himself. Just force him to reform all the time so his damage is reduced and keep killing him with instants. When Deep Freeze is up nova him, stun to shatter combo and just keep running.


1.8 Priests:

Positioning: As far away to avoid fear

Start: Fake cast sheep(move to interrupt cast), he will most likely use Shadow Word: Death, then sheep him if he does. Spellsteal everything you can, resheep, open like you did on warrior(refer to 1.1).

Fight: You want to silence his holy fire/smite. This is basically a mana fight. So if you don't have barrier/silence and he starts casting holy fire/smite just sheep him. Keep doing as much damage as possible until he pops his Shadow-fiend. When he does, nova/slow him and kite it, you don't want it hitting you, cause it will fill the priests mana. Use your mana gem at 70% mana so you get it again at around 20%. When you are out of mana sheep him, blink away, then use evocation.

1.9 Shamans:

This is guide for elemental as resto duels are long/boring and enhancement is a rare spec these days (and easy to beat anyway. Sheep him through wolf sprint and you won)

Positioning: Not important

Start: Ice lance to remove grounding totem, fake cast sheep for his interrupt(wind shear), sheep him. Steal Blood Lust if he was a fool and popped it at the beginning.

Fight: Open same way like you did on warrior(refer to 1.1). Silence his Lava bursts. Don't use your Barrier for nothing (it will get purged), wait for his lava burst cast then pop barrier while its flying to you. If you don't have silence/barrier and you see lava burst coming Ice Block. This might be hard at the beginning until you learn to predict his interrupts/grounding totems so just practice.


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Notice: On melee and hunters use Ice Armor. Mage Armor on everything else. Fire ward on shamans, frost wards on warriors and Death Knights.

Notice 2: This is not a free way to victory. You need to practice a lot.
I never mentioned trinkets because if I did, it would take 50 pages and a few months to write down all possibilities.



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2. Guide for mages new to PvP with little or no PvP gear




2.1 2v2

So you go to Sk-gaming/arenajunkies/armory and you see all those 2800 rated mage/priest teams. You want to be like them so you find yourself a priest and you get a 5-50 score... So don't go with whatever you see on those sites. You see, top players are on a high mmr. They are all multi-season gladiators so they are skill capped.

So I recommend to start off with a few easier setups. Mage/Priest is probably what you will end up running in the end, but first you need to get some achievements (1750 at least) some gear, and then you want a good priest. If someone wants to play with you even if you don't have any gear/achievements etc, chances are that he is not more experienced then you. So for your first team you want something easy.

2.1.1 Mage/Rogue

Don't get me wrong, this is not an easy setup to play at high ratings. There is no such setup. But I am sure that this is a lot better option for new mage
then mage priest. It should get you to 1800 in no time if you find a rogue with a brain. Basically there is no formula for arena similar to the dueling one... Too many things can go wrong.

With this team, you want to focus on one target and Crowd Control the other one (Sap, Sheep, Blind, Silence). You usually don't want to make switches in this setup cause you cant go for long. Once your rogue is out of Cool-downs, he is dead. So go for one dude (the one with less defensive CDs) and rape him while you keep other guy CCed.

One thing about CC by the way, CC is not only fear/sheep/sap/blind/hex. Frost nova on warrior in warrior/druid team is also a CC. He will sit there for 8 sec without being able to do anything (SNARES FTW).

2.1.2 Mage/Shadow priest

Also not an easy comp, just the one that will get you to 1800 faster then mage/disc priest. This comp is my favorite. The amount of resets you can do is sick for a dual DPS team.

With rogue you open and thats it... If you fail on your first try you will hardly kill something on second try. With a priest you are unkillable. The amounts
of peeling you can do for each other are great.

So tactics are just the same as with rogue. Go for one while controlling the other. If you cant control the other guy any more and first target is still alive, tell your priest to DoT up the second target, sheep first one and make a hard switch on second target. Keep switching until something dies.

The only real problem will be rogue/disc priest comps. Rogue will go for the shadowpriest and your job is to keep the disc priest CCed and to keep the rogue off your priest. If you did your homework and dueled disc priests you will know that he can brake your sheep with Shadow Word: Death
so be aware of this and try fake casting first sheep.

Even if you lose every rogue/disc priest you will still get to 1800 in no time.
Once you get you weapon, offhand, and wand, you can try mage/disc priest. This is a hard comp to play, but if you master it, you will be unstoppable. It will take a lot of practice and patience, but it has more potential, in my opinion, then the teams I mentioned above.



2.2 3v3

2.2.1 Mage/Elemental Shaman/Disc priest

Face-roll comp. Pop Blood Lust and rape something... Will get you to 1800 in no time.

2.2.2 RMP

Hard comp demanding extreme coordination, skill and control. I do not recommend this comp for new players. If you are a control freak, this is the way to go. However this comp can beat anything if it is played by very skilled people.


2.3 5v5

Pal/Priest/War/EleSham/FrostMage (AKA 2345)

Try to prevent CC on your team, clear your target of buffs without attacking it (shaman purge, priest dispels = target is out of buffs in 3 global CDs).

CC one healer (one is more then enough), pop all CDs and make a hard switch on your main target. That's the basic tactic, the more you play, the better you will get... Its all about making a good, hard switch.


(PS: It got bigger then I thought it would be)
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Special thanks to Linkn for doing the formating

[rdr1994]

1.2 Rogues:

Positioning: Doesn't matter... He will end up behind your back.

Start: He opens with a cheap shot, w8 until barrier is broken (most likely to happen in Kidney shot) so he is locked in place then blink away + sheep.

Then open with Frosfire bolt, not frost one. The reason for this is that he can just vanish anytime he wants when you are useing frostbolt, but the DoT part of Frostfire

will remove him from stealth. He will most likely use Cloak of Shadows (CoS) as soon as he gets out of sheep and vanish (if he doesn't just keep spamming

frostbolt).

Fight: So you forced CoS but he gets another opener. No worries. He will open exactly the same way again, cheap shot into a kidney. When you see kidney

Ice Block but get out of it fast (after 2-3 sec) so he doesn't go back to stealth. Nova him + stun + cone of cold and spam ice lance as you run away from him. Pop

elemental and mirror images now, freeze with pet + shatter combo = rogue dead... Also easy when you get used to it...

personally I don't really like this tactic,
what I usually do is:
1. buffs: Ice armor, Arcane intellect, dampen magic for against the poisions, Ice barrier(obvious), Mana shield( I know you lose mana so only use it at opener, if done properly he won't reach you for the rest of the fight anyways) and fire ward incase he's an engineer

2. THE FIGHT: The rogue garotte's or cheapshot, if garotte instant jump to the left(you should be pre pressing these buttons while being sapped)at CS do this after the stun or blink if he does a KS instant after, don't blink out of CS. You'll most likley either get a shatterd barier, Fingers of Frost or a Frostbite after, what you do now is (if he doesn't have cloak ofc but if he does you already won) Deepfreeze, COLDSNAP(this is important) and spam the living hell out of deepfreeze again, this will as soon as he trinkets put him in another stun, if you have mind numbel at this point, IV to lose slows+mind numbel, sheep him Frostfire bolt summon water elemental, DO NOT USE FREEZE, and just kite him around, at vanished instantly use your water elemental freeze on where he was so he'll get out of stealth again. now just contiue kiting and you've won

this is just one of the fights I don't really agree on, and also post some good pvp macros like summonpet put him on passive petattack and freeze ;P
ill post some mine aswell to give you an example


water elemental summon+freeze: what this does at first press summon water elemental at second press it casts it's auto attack puts your pet on passive and uses his freeze ability

#showtooltip Summon Water Elemental
/cast [nopet] Summon Water Elemental
/stop macro [nopet]
/click PetActionButton5
/petpassive
/petattack

Iceblock, first press of button uses ice block second press removes iceblock:P
#showtooltip Ice Block
/stopcasting
/cancelaura Ice Block
/cast Ice Block

Decurse, if you play with few arena partners use a macro like this to dispell them and your self(make seperate ones:P)
/cast [target=YOU/ARENA PARTNER HERE, NOT BOTH] Remove Curse



EDIT: give tactics for the comps you've given for arena, I don't really get why you've even included this part if it's like this tbh that's just my opinion though
EDIT2: I prefer glyph of IV over glyph of polymorph due to the extra mobility etc and I prefer to take 1 point out of Winter's chill and put it into Enduring winter, it seems it's low mana but evry little bit helps and it also gives it to your arena partners;P

[Chronic1337]

Mage/shadowpriest and mage/rogue are hard comps to play with though, i don't recommend it for starters.

Maybe you could include a gear-guide wich parts to get first as a fresh level 80.

Kind regards,

Chronic1337

[Unholyshaman]

Nice contribution, if I may make a suggestion; big guides like this usually go down a lot better with good readable formatting. Take a look at the section on "How to create a good guide" in http://www.mmowned.com/forums/wow-gu...s-section.html . I'm just trying to offer some suggestions as to how you can format your guide so that your readers get the most out of it

[mpetar]

Ty for replies guys.

@rdr1994
Ty for macros idea and for improved rogue tact
I disagree with IV glyph tbh... It might be better in duels, but in arena its almost useless... No1 will go for you what ever comp you play, so you will use IV mostly for offensive... Also without poly glyph it will be very hard to make fast effective switches. I just can't imagine playing mage/spriest without poly glyph I agree with you on talent changes, though i move a point from Piercieng Ice (i want to know that i will get 2 debuffs with that rank 1 FB ). Will edit it tonight...

I will try to include some more detailed arena tacts tonight when i get some time...
Also i will add macros tonight...

@Chronic1337

Those comps are hard to play at high rating, but they are easyer to play on low ratings imo... If i had to choose between mage/priest and mage/shadow priest/rogue i would never choose mage/dpriest as easyer one...
About gear guide... It can never be precise. From offsets, just get the one that would be the best improvement for you (if your belt is blue ilvl200 and everything else epic ilvl232, do you rly need help with choosing what to change ). It depends on your current gear... But the gear you should be aiming for is 2/5 T10 and 3/5 Wrathfull... Its best to take t10 head and shoulders couse those are the hardest parts of pvp set to get.

@ Unholy[S]haman

I will try to format it better tonight. I Was typing in notepad and formated text there so it didn't turn out right when i copy/pasted it here
Ty for suggestion..

[rdr1994]

yeah the IV glyph is just a mather of flavor, with SP/mage I wouldn't do it but if I get focused in arena by some nasty rogue(I play disc/mage;P) it's helpfull though, and np just trying to help gl with the rest of this guide

[Linkn]

Cleaned it up for you, fixed some words (added just little comments too) and made it easier to read. Overall a great guide and I agree with most of the stuff you have written. Just one thing though, I wouldn't recommend you using the triple dot all the time(...). It makes you seem less sure of yourself or uninterested. May just be me, but just a suggestion

+Rep




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