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Blizzard

Blizzard

5% of base mana	35 yd range

Channeled
Requires Mage (Frost)
Requires level 52

Ice shards pelt the target area doing [(27.525% of Spell power) * 8] Frost damage over 8 sec and slowing enemies by 50%.

Improved Blizzard (Level 92+)
Each time Blizzard deals damage, it reduces the cooldown of Frozen Orb by 0.5 sec.

Buff

Spell Details

Duration

8 seconds

School

Frost

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

Normal

Cost

5% of base mana

Range

35 yards (Medium-Long)

Cast time

Channeled

Cooldown

n/a

GCD

1.5 seconds

Effect #1

Persistent Area Aura: Dummy
Radius: 8 yards
Server-side script

Effect #2

Apply Aura: Periodically trigger spell
Interval: 1 second

	Blizzard

Effect #3

Dummy
Radius: 8 yards
Server-side script

Flags

Guides

Mage DPS Guide

Warlords of Draenor
Mage Changes

[Outdated] Arcane Mage
PvE Guide 5.4

Comments

Comment by althras

Level 1 Blizzard is an excellent spell to use even when you're level 60 to flush out rogues in your surroundings in PvP. If you're good with your mouse, your character can be facing one direction while you cast this spell all over the place around you. You can also maintain casting of this spell over yourself when defending nodes in BGs. Combined with the Permafrost and Improved Blizzard talents, this spell becomes and instant slowing tool.

However, Blizzard at any rank doesn't work for stopping flag turners in AB and AV, so don't bother.

Comment by Premier

AoE Grinding and you :)

As many of you know, mages are well known for their ability to eliminate multiple enemies at once. At the Heart of most succesful AoE'ers is the Blizzard spell. With the right talen points spent in the Frost tree, the Blizzard spell (and frost spell at that) to practically stop an enemies movement completely.

So Remember, just Cone of Cold, Frost Nova, Blink and Blizzard (repeat if necessary) and stay chilly side up :)

Comment by Nectarine369

Blizzard is largely a useless spell unless used is specific PvE situations. When used in PvP, it will usually make you the immediate target of anyone that knows you're the one casting it.

In PvE, Blizzard is used in some instances to clear out large groups of mobs. For example, in Molten Core Blizzard is used by the Mages in the raid to kill the large groups of Flame Imps before the Lucifron and Magmadar bosses.

Blizzard is also the best skill to use when AoE (Area of Effect) grinding your mage. A Mage will train a number of mobs behind him, usually 5-10, though this number is not set in stone, frost nova, blink away, and cast Blizzard so that the edge of the AoE circle barely touches the mob furthest from the Mage.

This form of AoE grinding is only possible when you put talent points into certain talents in the Frost tree, which give Blizzard additional effects, including the Chill effect, which will slow any enemies that Blizzard damages.

Comment by Hadorne

Perhaps one of the best AoE spells WoW has to offer. This and many other AoE spells are useful in many situations. For example, when in Arathi Basin, have a mage stand back and if too many of the opposing faction try to cap a flag, have the mage use Blizzard to keep them from capturing it. This is a very useful technique and can be used to bide time for reinforcements. It is also a powerful spell for when you need to take down large groups of mobs quickly.

Comment by wisper

in WSG just hide behind a rock and cast blizzard around the flag bearer, you would be suprised what suddenly appears :P

Comment by oversmoelf

For those interested in AoE grinding or leveling, I just made a little guide for aoe leveling your mage with blizzard, AoE Leveling. Feel free to stop by and give feed back, share experience or even just read and try it :)

I think a sequence starting with CoC might be mana ineffective, take a look at the guide and see if you agree. CoC might hit some targets, but I think the key is predictability.

Im glad you guys posted a little about my favorite sport, aoe grinding. Im not that good at it yet, but its so fun.

Comment by yobo

Permafrost and Improved blizz can place a 75% speed debuff on anyone
that is caught in the blizzard.

Also blizz is effected by haste effects. I got this down to 3.6 cast.

Comment by thepopelol

Blizzard

Because naming a spell after your companies name is AWESOME

Comment by Grekk

in WotLK, this spell can crit.

Critzzard

Comment by Mike250

Or:

A weather condition characterized by low temperatures and strong winds (greater than 35mph) bearing a great amount of either falling or blowing snow.

Smart guy...

Comment by tpap

isnt 74%base mana 2 much? after that u cant cast dragons breath or cone of cold till u regenerate

Comment by Muffin

Blizzard seems to have been buffed in the new patch by quite a bit, almost 50% infact.. quite nice for aoe grinding.

Comment by periwinklepixie

Does anyone know how this scales with spellpower? Does each tick get added spellpower or is the spell power added to the lump sum damage of the spell?

Comment by karbonii

This used to be a great spell in BG's, especially AV. I used to spam Rank1 Blizzard whenever enemy groups were bunched up. I could do this for minutes at a time without going OOM.

With 3/3 Imp. Blizzard and 3/3 Permafrost, the enemy groups would move at a snails pace, while our DPS would nuke them. On top of that I still got HK's for all the enemy players affected.

Now unfortunately, this spell has a base mana cost, and it's actually cheaper to use Rank 9 as opposed to Rank1. No more Blizzard spamming :(

Comment by eeee

it can crit now..

Comment by Senko

I'd just like to add, that Blizzard has become extremely powerful for AoE grind in instances, full frost spec with high haste keeps the mobs almost perma frozen, and due to fingers of frost, you have around 60-70% crit rate per hit on each target. Í've reached upto 9'000 DPS on a few Old Kingdom pulls, while ending at 2'800 DPS at the end of the run. I love Blizzard <3.

Comment by ufo8mycow

I'm wondering if this spell is affected by Impact

Comment by steve360

In patch 3.0.8, a new graphic is added to show a visible area of effect which is essentially a blue Death and Decay.

Comment by coyote72

This spell can perform Critical Strikes as of Wrath of the Lich King. I believe you can Crit with this spell without installing the expansion, as it happened with the new Patches.

Comment by chaolan

if you want to see something spetacular, use this spell combined with the warlock spell "rain of fire". AWESOME

Comment by Darkrainin

Blizzard is now an epic slower. It can slow your enemies to 15% of movement speed (85% slow with http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=11185, http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=11175 and the newest one http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=44566) which in my opinion is pretty fantastic.

Comment by Mike

As of patch 3.0.8 this now make a nice blue circle on the ground with some rnadom pattern when channeling the spell where u choose.

ill try and get a screenshot

Comment by Carimm

in 3.0.8 the graphic for this awesome spell was severely updated to even more win.

Comment by RestoHealzAv

Awesome ? Starfall and Blizzard. Instant death. Instant cast Starfall = death. 36 yard radius = no charge, intervene, intercept.

Comment by RestoHealzAv

Anyone know if 3480 is base damage without spell power or if it just does 3480 damage then fades. It would be a rip off then, because it's channeled and doesn't do much.

Comment by luigix

Is it just me or did Blizz remove the Blue DnD rune circle animation on the floor since 3.1.0?

i can no longer see em, even if i had my video settings set to max everything and the 4 options checked below.

Comment by mage1094

Blizzard is just plain annoying all around. Though it is useful sometimes.

Comment by Amrun

Probably the ultimate mage AoE. Fire mages can use Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath and what not, but this one available to all specs, it is also the only ranged AoE spell besides Flamestrike. Plus, for all nonfire mages, Blizzard does more than 2k more damage.

When points are put in ice talents, Blizzard also gains the ability to drastically slow your oponents.

Uses in PvE:
- Great for quickly burning down huge masses of nonelites in instances.
- Generally useful against elites in groups of 3 or more.
- Watch your threat though, because like all AoEs, this can pull some massive aggro if your tank is too preoccupied.

Uses in PvP:
- Great for attacking large, clustered groups of players. In addition, it usually gets your a bit of honor when the affected players die. You might even put in a killing blow.
- Great for slowing advancing enemies. I like to hop on a demolisher in Strand of the Ancients and cast Blizzard at the enemies following the tank that are attempting to destroy it. If you're specced right, there's a small chance that a hit from Blizzard will freeze enemies, slowing them further.
- Good for attacking enemies that are out of your line of sight for frostbolt/etc. For example, there's many places in Fort Wintergrasp that enemies can see and attack you, but you have a problem with doing the same. Blizzard, however, has a looser line of sight. While it won't necesarilly annihilate enemies attacking you from the Fortress walls or towers, it may freeze them or scare them into backing off.

Every mage should try to use this at least once per an instance. I'm an arcane mage and I still get a load of damage points from it.

Comment by Giulls

Fitting that the lowest numbered actual spell in Blizzard's game is Blizzard, huh?

Comment by Arniespizza

Dont know if this was meant to happen or not, but if you have the talent in the arcane tree, (arcane potency I think) that raises your crit % by 30 after using peace of mind, the buff will last the full duration of blizzard.

The reason why I think this is a bug is because fingers of frost only last for 2 individual hits of a blizzard. Arcane mages are the only ones to make full use of this effect, but it helps ALOT with aoe damage combined with trinkets, etc. Watch your aggro though, let the tank have 5 seconds or so before doing this.

Comment by zingmars

74% of base mana
this can't be right...

Comment by blainicus

This spell has the lowest spell id (1, 2, 3...46, 47) of any player-usable spell in the game. Below this (1-9) are only script and dev spells. It will probably remain this way.

Comment by svirve

Obviously a reference to Blizzard Entertainment.

Comment by OtakuFox

Blizzard not trainable until level 52 in Cataclysm...?

Comment by singe101

I live in Minnesota year-round and have played all of the Warcraft (and mages), Starcraft, and Diablo games. I am unfamiliar with the word "blizzard" and would like further explanation. Thank you.

Comment by Kanariya

The chill effect (-50% speed) is now included in Blizzard by default across all specs.

Comment by ShadowQueen95

When i first started playing a mage this was my fav spell, cuz of the aoe snowstorm effect

Comment by seahen

An entertaining spell.

Comment by Untamable

Fellow players
I've put 3 points in Improved Blizzard but the company still sucks. Wat do?

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