Mage Spell rotation help.

Post by soupladel

First up I need to explain that I have only ever played as a warrior before, therefore I am a complete noob to mages, let alone the different skill routes of Arcane, Fire and Frost.

After getting my warrior to 85, i got bored and decided to go mage and have therefore been levelling her and so far got to 69. Up until now I had been going down the arcane route but without giving too much thought to the talents, therefore the primary talents are a bit of a mess which I will have to sort at a later date.

After some research I have decided to go Frost from 69 upwards (although there seems to be some split ideas on whether Frost or Fire are now the best route to go)

My mage is Sgiandubh

Please ignore the gear and lack of enchants because i am not spening too much gold or time at the moment getting the gear perfected until i hit 85 with her.

As my title suggests, I am a little unsure of what rotation to use for my spells, in the brief time I have been frost, I have been using Frostbolt & Ice Lance the most but not sure how and when I should bring the likes of cone of cold, blizzard & deep freeze etc... into play.

Anyone have any pointers they are willing to share on what the ideal rotation should be to obtain maximum DPS? I should also add that I am looking to go onto random dungeons and then eventually raiding so PvE all the way.

Cheers.

Post by saethone

basically, spam frostbolt
whenever your pets freeze is up, use it so you can get your shatter bonus
this will also give you 2 stacks of fingers of frost
always keep the 1 fingers of frost in reserve for "brain freeze" - when your frostfire bolt lights up and is free
if you have 2 FOF you can use one for an ice lance
i recommend disabling blizards proc frames, and use power auras so its easier to see how many FOF you have (it will either be 1 or 2)
you'll also get deep freeze soon - use it on big stuff thats not stunnable, and you'll get HUGE damage (like instance bosses and such)
don't be afraid to use your cooldowns. they are all short times and you have cold snap if you need one back for emergency

edit: also, for AOEs - drop a flamestrike before you start your blizzard, so the mobs are taking dot damage too. this is assuming they are being tanked of course

Post by nickseng

Just note that at 85, Flamestrike is not worth the damage for a Frost mage.

Post by greywolfsage

I think I read this on EJ:

Priority (At least for Boss/stun immune mobs)

Deep Freeze
Frostfire Orb (its in here somewhere, great FoF proccer)
FFB Brain Freeze+Fingers of Frost
Ice Lance + Fingers of Frost
Frostbolt

Cone of Cold is situational since it requires you to be so close. I've noticed that is pretty reliable for a FoF, but that was using it on at least more than 1 target as I'm running around in an instance.
I hardly ever use Blizzard, its like 1/5 of my current mana pool for lackluster damage and really needs to be channeled all the way to be worth it, and if you are in an instance to use it, you can almost always single target the mobs down faster. (there are a couple fights, like H Coroborus, that it has proven helpful)

And Frost is imo the better way to go for the "Live through Boss Overthetop Kill Mechanics", and once again, as with ICC raiding days, Fire is very gear dependent and current common access gear its very hard to make it work. It's doable, but mostly in very top raiding gear, as far as I've seen.

Post by Nathanyal

What works for me as frost is to first use my Pet's Frost Nova to get the to FoF procs. Next I cast Deep Freeze then Frostfore Orb. After that I do Cold Snap and do another DF and FFO. You can throw in Icy Veins before the CS so you can use it again. After that I usually have tons of FoF proc from my 2 FFOs. Between Ice Lances I'll cast Frostbolt or Frostfire Bolt if Brain Freeze procs. Cast Icy Veins again when you want, I usually do it towards the end of the boss. Until you get Fire Orb and am able to use Frostfire Orb, just leaves those out and cast more Frostbolt to get the FoF/BF procs.

For trash pulls or questing I just cast Frostbolt until FoF procs. Depends on the health of the mob I either Ice Lance it or DF it and IL it more. If the mob comes at me I Frost Nova or Cone of Cold to get some space and IL it before it breaks.

Mage Spell rotation help.

Post Reply