Frost Mage pvp guide

Wasup



I feel I'll enjoy writing this guide, mostly because frost mage combos are one of the most fun you can try. For a start lets get a decent build. Remember you must have a pvp build according to what your partner most needs, without losing the vital pvp talents your tree offers. Luckily, frost specs aren't very different between each other.

This is the standard frost spec for frost mage:



Having the 2 talents in reduce 40% threat and 30% spell dispel reduces the chance for your ice barrier to be dispelled. Having +3% hit allows you to stack more haste or crit(not to mention 4% is the necessary hit to never miss a lvl 80 target). Going deep arcane for improved counterspell, gives us the option to choose to get either clearcasting talents, or spell resistance + armor. Remember mages aren't big damage diminishers, but instead damage "absorbers", so the armor bonus isn't the best option, unless your resilience is very low. Choosing increased spell resistance might sound fine, unfortunately going high end pvp gear, most spell based dps will have at least 100 spell pen (being 130 recommended), which makes your spell resistance useless(As for cataclysm, there's no more spell pen). Putting 5 in clearcasting is the best option, since in fact will reduce overall the mana cost of your damage spells by 10%. If you play with a retri pala just don't put 1 in Enduring Winter, instead move it to +2% frost damage.

Click here for Cataclysm talent spec

As for Cataclysm, spending talents in Arcane Concentration is not a wise option, due to mana gem providing more mana, and with the introduction of great talents such as Burning Soul, which was what frost spec'ed mages were hoping to get. If you feel that your mana goes down too fast, you can remove talents in Netherwind Presence and move them to Arcane Concentration.

• Mage team comp:

In pvp, mage is very similar to rogue, both avoid damage instead of diminish it, but if caught without guard, they are downed easily. Therefore, a mage should play with a class that provides enough CC, in addition to the mage's CC. In a 2dps team, mage might provide CC and damage support, rather than be the top dps. In a heal/dps team, the mage and its healer will have to use their CC with precision in order to succeed, since frost mage's burst damage isn't that high.

 Dis priest/frost mage:

This is a very effective and popular comp. If you try this comp fights might take time unless your priest hastens it by using mana burn on healer. The damage absorption and damage mitigation is ok, due to priest's good armor and discipline talents, however you might find problems fighting druid or shaman comps, due to immunity to poly and purge. There is a variant of dis priest build, which adds a few capabilities.

Pros: Good damage absorption, high shadow resistance, good CC, average overall damage, effective against warr/pala teams.

Cons: Hard to beat druid teams, like feral/spriest, resto/warr, resto/dk. If battle prolongs too much, priest will go oom, forcing it to drink.

Ret/mage:

This comp might not seem good at first, but actually mage provides all that Retri paladin needs: slow, CC and silence. Just let your retri pop wings after you CC healer, and see your foes fall :). Make sure your paladin knows how to cover you. This team comp is good against most druid teams.

Pros: Good damage, mage supports paladin and paladin supports mage.

Cons: Hard to beat high CC teams, due to paladin's weakness towards it.

Spriest/mage:

This clothie team provides great damage and huge amounts of CC. If you poly first, you have to perform a second poly, and then your partner can fear, after fear is done make sure our partner silences, then you use Counterspell to interrupt another 8 secs, allowing your polymorph DR(diminishing return) to reset. Your Spriest wont have much problem against feral druid, and frost mage is naturally good against paladins. Both can purge, which is a +. On this comp, the spriest performs the most of dps, while the mage acts as support dps+CC.

Pros: Good damage, good CC.

Cons: Weak against warlock teams, and shamans due to tremor totem, since Spriest's fear is the only good CC it can provide.

Mage/warlock:

If your warlock is destruction, it provides great burst damage, and CC with fear. The CC mechanics are similar as for spriest/mage, but lock's fear is spammable, which is better against shaman teams, not to mention destruction warlock's spell damage mitigation. Both classes can kite very well melee foes, and have silence and stun.

Pros: Great burst and CC, the most effective against paladin teams.

Cons: If the warlock is destruction, shadowfury stun could fall in Deep freeze's DR. If the warlock is affliction, the fight will lose burst, overall damage and damage mitigation.

Nice try, but the following dont work:

1. Frost/rogue

• What spells you should use:

Well, the beginning usually depends on polymorph, then dispell whatever buffs he/she has, and then FB(frostbolt) him. If he's a melee, you'll want to kite him from far, except if he's a retri pali. Retri palas will LOS and heal or regen mana, to prevent this you should kite from ~15 yards, and keep him buffless all the fight to steal freedom or wings asap. Warrs will have spell reflect ready when you're about to throw your FB, to counter this you have to predict when will he use it. Most warrs use it when they're rooted; have the mindset to stop casting FB and cast fire blast or IL(ice lance), then FB him. As you can notice FB is your main dps spell, you should use IL only when you cant cast, and you have FoF buff (fingers of frost). Remember mages are fleshy, and a proper kiting takes you halfway to victory against melee foes. Fighting ferals is a bit harder, since they can shapeshift, they'll be in close range most of the time (~10 yds), to counter this you'll have to spamm CoC (cone of cold) plus nova and FB rank 1 everytime you can, even if he gets freed from slows by shapeshift, his mana will go down everytime, until he can no longer use it, yes its hard but you can win against ferals, they're afraid of you as much as you are of them.

To fight casters, polymorph first is a must. Most casters have buffs, so stealing those buffs its a must. Spellsteal is expensive but use your mana gems properly and you won't have issues. Once he loses buffs, apply FB and nova+stun. Casters have interrupts. As frost mage, you would think that your frost tree is the most important, however this is not always true; at the beginning of the fight your polymorph is the most important spell you can cast, and until your foe is dispelled or Polyed, your polymorph (arcane) is the most important. To prevent this you can either fake cast, or 'taunt' interrupts by casting scorch.

If you're running low health/mana, throw a  Ring of Frost and Evocate out of his LOS (Make sure his trinket is in CD).

• What buffs I should use?

The usual buffs any mage uses. Ice Armor against Rogue, feral and warrior; and Mage Armor against anything else. Your most important buff during the fight will be Ice Barrier. Keep it up everytime you can when you're not fighting purging foes.

• My Ice Barrier gets purged every time, what can I do?

Depends on the foe. One great thing about mages is the insanely high amount of haste rating you can achieve. Lets say you're playing against an elemental shaman, he purged your first barrier, and you CS (counterspell) his Lava Burst, the next spell he'll use is Chain Lightning, which hits really hard; since your haste is high you'll be able to cast Ice Barrier just when he's about to finish his cast. Your barrier will most likely break after receiving the hit, but it served its purpose and shaman didn't purge it. In case it doesn't breaks, the shaman will not purge it since the barrier will be almost depleted, and if he purges it, he'll waste a GCD and mana doing it.

• How to gear up your Frost Mage

From low gear to high end, your primary stat will always be haste. Of course you stack spell power(intellect in cataclysm), but as for yellow, stacking 20 haste works great. Remember, as Frost is an element that many classes have high resistance (auras, totems), you should have at least 100 spell pen, going for 130 as recommended spell pen. Having resilience is important as a mage, but remember that you're a damage absorber/evader, rather than damage mitigator; most mages use pve trinkets or pve rings to get more haste, since pve gear provides +haste than pvp one.

• How to use Blink

 Blink is perhaps the best spell in the mage pvp arsenal of abilities. Not only freeds you from roots and stuns, it also further increases the mage kiting capabilities. Obligated uses for blink are: After a DK's Death Grip, a paladin's Hammer of Justice, a rogue's Kidney Shot, A druid's Maim, a warrior's Charge, another mage's Deep Freeze, and... as interrupt!

Yes, in the peak of mage skills, you'll use Blink as interrupt. An experienced mage will kite Warrior from ~7 yards, to prevent getting charged and as well avoid melee damage, as for casters an experienced mage will kill from 18~19 yards, just as your foe is about to finish his cast you have to use blink and appear right behind him, wasting his cast time. This is one of the reasons mages need so much haste.

Well that's all for now, hopefully I cleared enough to make you a better pvp'er. Until next post!

Welcome:


For the first specific class guide, I'll post for Holy pala or holydin. In a previous post I mentioned the importance to have a pvp talent build. This is the very first thing you must set correctly in order to pvp properly. The following builds are variants and they're both useful, only changing depending on your arena partner.

This talent build is mostly defensive, and its oriented to be played with: Destruction warlock, feral druid.

The cataclysm version of this talent build would be:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scIbdrdzucbhZfM:aVcrfkMcV
Notice how I choose to empower defensive abilities, and I don't reduce the cooldown on hammer of justice, mostly because ferals and destro have stun abilities, therefore they wont suffer DR (diminishing returns) from my stun. This spec is good for 3s and 5s too. You might ask why I only have 4 talents in reduced pushback; the reason is that most dps with spell based damage will have ~130 spell pen, making your resistances useless, also having +1300 armor with devotion in pvp its kinda nonsense. Having concentration aura on is the best option.

This talent build is offensive, and focuses on helping your partner on dps, while producing the same amount of heals, however your defense and damage reduction skills will be affected. The version of this talent build is just remove talents in improved divine sacrifice and sacred shield, and move them to improved hammer of justice.
Cataclysm version: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scIrdrdzucbhbMZz:aVMrfkMc0

• Glyphs on WotLK:

Major: Glyph of Salvation (it reduces 20% damage on you).
            Glyph of Holy Shock (+instant heals)
            Glyph of Seal of Wisdom (if your intellect is low) or Seal of light (if your intellect is high).

Minor: Glyph of blessing of kings.
           Glyph of Seal of Wisdom.

• Team Combos:

Holy/warlock:

This comp is very dangerous because warlocks reduce a lot of dmg as long as their pet is alive. You should only get an affliction or destruction lock, not a demonology. Depending on the spec, you'll be more defensive (choosing an affliction warlock would make you more defensive, due to the low burst). You should always keep the pet alive, and your warlock immune to pushback with your concentration aura. Playing with an affliction warlock is a bit easier due to lock's selfheals and drain mana your opponent's healer, but it makes it hard if your enemies are bursting types or resistant to fears, like undead warr....oh god.

Pros: Good survival. Mage teams are easier with this comp.

Cons: Depending if your lock part is afflic, you can have problems with bursting classes, and fear resistant teams.

Holy/warrior:

This is very popular, and has subsisted since previous expansions of WoW. Effective against almost everything, except mage/priest teams. Make sure your warrior (do I have to say he/she has to be Arms spec?) knows how to use properly spell reflect, mage/priest is effective against this team, if well played.

Pros: Healing reduction. Good overall damage.

Cons: You cant avoid easily CC, your warr can only avoid fear, and he cant remove CC from you, he'll be mostly the target of DPS.

Holy/DK

Your DK partner can be either frost or UH, either way you'll have to watch out for him for almost the same stuff as if you played with a warrior partner, except that DKs are very resistant to magic damage. An unholy partner will prolong the fight, since damage is not as bursting as frost DK. If you play with UH, make sure your mana endures.

Pros: If your mana endures, the fight can prolong enough until your enemies are oom.

Cons: Both DK and you are easily CC.

Holy/feral:

This team comp is not the strongest but still if both are skilled it can take you past 2k rating in an average populated server. This comp is strong against mage teams, and provides good dispel since druids can remove curses. Still, the damage can be low if the target of your druid faces him. Your mana regen has to be really nice.

Pros: Effective against cloth teams.

Cons: Fights can last long. Warr teams are hard.

• What not to try:

The following Comp dont work, so dont even thing about it:

1. Holy/mage.
2. Holy/fury.
3. Holy/holy (lol).

• What spells you should use?

As of WotLK, you'll mostly be casting HS (holy shock) and instant FoL (flash of light). Keep one of you with beacon of light always and the target of dps with sacred shield. If DPS turns to you, apply sacred shield to yourself FIRST, then heal yourself. Try to avoid interrupts by using HS and instant FoL, you can also fake cast FoL. If a melee foe is attacking you, turn to face him, that way you'll be able to parry or block some of his attacks. In pvp most melee won't have any expertise, making your 5% parry a damage reduction of 5%.

If you see your mana is going down, use damage reduction skills such as Blessing of salvation (with 20% reduced damage glyph ofc), and pop your divine plea, unless a purging class is around, in such case you'll have to stun or any CC on him, then hide (los).

As for Cataclysm content, sacred shield is no more an absorb every 6 seconds, but a buff you get below 30% hp. Instead of FoL you'll be using Holy light, that's why you have the reduced cast time on it, and word of glory. Because of Protector of the Innocent, you'll have beacon of light on yourself, that way you'll get heals from talent and buff while healing your partner. Divine favor no longer reduces mana cost by half of all spells, its now a save-my-ass spell, so use it only when you're in trouble. If you feel overwhelmed by your foe's damage on you, go divine shield (watch out for mass dispel/shattering throw); if your partner is getting huge amount of melee damage, give him Hand of Protection, and heal him full. If the damage is spell, Hand of Protection wont reduce anything, instead use Avenging wrath, and heal.

• What buffs to use?

For you, kings. For your partner, kings too! approaching end gear, your stats will be high enough, no need to buff might to your partner. If you get purged at beginning of fight, just rebuff, if you have glyph of BOK.

• "My partner is getting buffs and damage at same time, heal or clense?"

Depending on the dps your partner is taking, you'll choose to heal, or cleanse. If you cant heal due to damage, pop defensive cooldowns, such as hand of sacrifice, and cleanse, or heal. I prefer to cleanse against certain specs such as shadow priests. Against envenom rogue, not letting him stack 5 deadly poison highly reduces its dps. The same is true for affliction warlock, you might avoid cleansing due to Unstable Affliction, who wants to get silenced 5 seconds? yea the first one is painful, but subsequent cleanses of UA will make the silence last fewer due to DR, until he either stops casting it, or you cleanse every dot he applies, which hampers affliction dps nearly totally. If your mana is going down due to so many cleanses, you can use divine plea while cleansing, since only your heals will be affected.

• How to gear up your Holy pala:

 Most holy palas stack +intellect(yellow) on yellow gems, +spell power(red) on red gems and +10int+5mp5(green) on blue gems. This works wonders, because your divine plea regens more by having +intellect. My choice is usually stacking +10int+5mp5(green) on yellow, because of purges on divine plea. The new cataclysm content replaces mp5 with spirit, and makes spell power come from intellect, the subsequent update of this would be stacking intellect, spirit and critical rating. Making the gem combination is up to your choice. Haste or crit? Crit, criting procs more stuff in your talents, in both WotLK content and cataclysm. As for stamina, its mostly dependent on your amount of resilience, and usually paladins aren't the target of DPS. In either way, neither your stamina or resilience should be low. In WotLK, the trinket that solves a lot of your survival problems is http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=50356 because it can be used when you're silenced.

So, that's all for this post. If you have any questions feel free to post them, and I'll answer them. Good luck in your arena games and see ya next post!

The basic stuff

Welcome:


Decided to practice some pvp? did you get facerolled by that full wrathful warrior and his lolstorm? its ok, you can have his gear later, and then it'd be a fair fight...or it wont?

When it comes to pvp, its never a fair fight, everything matters. Even if both have same gear, in the end experience will matter, you may have 3 years playing, but if the guy has 6 years, you'll have a hard time taking him down.

But you can counter your lack of experience with study, and training. For the first entrance on this blog, I'll teach you the basics before you start to pvp seriously, which are:

• A good talent build: Don't pvp with your pve spec, use a pvp one and you'll see real results!

• Keybind everything: I've learnt that in pvp you can use almost every spell/skill your char has, except for 1 or 2. Even if your spec is arcane, you'll end up using frost and fire spells; and yea, even shackle undead is useful. A gamer mouse comes handy here.

• Learn to gear: You heard resilience is a pvp stat, and you stacked resilience everywhere? Think it twice before enchanting or applying resilience gems. Even if you're hard to down, your opponents will most likely CC (crowd control) you and down your partner. Be balanced while gearing.

•  Pick your partner: Lets face it, some combos don't work, even if both of you are skilled and experienced. If you're new to pvp is better if you try a comb that fits your class, this will easy things for you while you learn.

•  Learn to survive: Every class has a defensive mode to avoid your foe's most dangerous abilities, in addition to be pvp geared and pvp spec'ed, you have to use your defensive abilities carefully. We'll see more of this later.

•  Make things to your partner easier: If either of you die first, you'll most likely lose the match. Protect your partner.

 That's the basic stuff you gotta keep in mind before starting to pvp. Once you have this mindset, things will come naturally.

Until next post, happy pvping!

Final's PvP Blog

Welcome



You may know me ingame or not at WoW, in either way I hope this blog helps you in the sometimes stressing activity of PvP. Being good in PvP is probably the hardest skill to develop further; requires a very high asset of talents combined, and a lot of patience.

I have played WoW for 2 years, dwelling only on private servers. In spite of having just 2 years playing and never played retail, my knowledge in WoW is considerably high. To counter my noobness (can I conjugate *noob* like this? xD) I spent days reading and studying classes, strategies and tested myself everything I'd take as a fact. My adventure in PvP started seriously when I joined instant 80 servers, after the last 2 low rate servers I was in were shut down. It was hard at first, but with patience and practice it became easier. When I became good with one class, I'd make a different class to try it out, since those servers were instant 80, I could test all the classes I had curiosity for, and see which one fits me more.

During this adventure I pvp'ed with warlock, mage, priest, rogue, paladin, shaman, death knight; never trying out a class before reading about it and strategies for it.

I write this to let you know that I didn't became good in 1 day, it took a lot of study and patience (and 12 daily hours of WoW for months), my real life was affected, and I knew I was a sick no lifer. I may not be the best, or have the highest rated team, I attribute this to the fact that I play a lot of classes in a serious way.

In either way, don't stress out if you lose a lot at first, you have to develop skills slowly, and in the end you'll see the results.

Okay, now that you know this is not an easy task, lets begin :)