Nykz Frost PvP guide 4.2-4.3

[hendu24]

NYKZ PVP FROST MAGE GUIDE 4.2


First thing first, as soon as 4.3 is available, I will be updating this.


FRESH 85 MAGES:


First thing to do is set-up your keybindings and macros. You just hit 85, and your going to need to gear up, so why not memorize your newkeybindings and macros that are needed for PvP. Most of you willprobably already have many of your spells keybinded, but for those who don't, I will touch quickly on it.


KEYBINDING:


Important spells (i.e. Counterspell, Polymorph, Ice Block, Trinket,etc.) go to the quickest reaction time fingers. Mainly the keys around your movement keys WASD (or for me ESDF <--- The reason Iuse ESDF is because it opens up more keybindings to the left side ofmy fingers).


Everything should be keybound. Use Shift modifiers such as shift+Q orcontrol+Q, for when u run out of regular keybinds.


Practice these whenever possible, you can never become too quick whenit comes to reacting.


MACROS:


I recommend having Macros for multiple uses, examples would be,Target Focus Polymorph or Counterspell.


Here are some macros I recommend:


Counterspell:
Counterspellsyour target, if you click on shift modifier Counterspells your focustarget.

#showtooltip Counterspell
/stopcasting
/cast[modifier:shift, target=focus] Counterspell
/cast[nomodifier:shift] Counterspell

You can also do thiswith any other spell, I recommend one with Polymorph and Deepfreeze.


Spamable Ring ofFrost:
#showtooltip Ring ofFrost
/cast !Ring of Frost


Great for when yourin a stun or a cc and need to get it down quickly after you get out.


Arena Target w/Shift Modifier:
/target[nomodifier] arena1
/focus [modifier:shift] arena1


This is a greatmacro for when your in an arena, you can make one for each arenaplayer such as for 3v3, you can have arena2 and arena3 for eachplayer. Comes in handy often.


ADD-ONS:


Add-ons are something that are completely optional, I myself only useone add-on and its only for arena, but its something I think everyoneshould have regardless of rating and that is Gladius. Ill add thelinks below to the add-ons that are popular and why.


Gladius:http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/gladiusShowsyou everything from their health and mana bars, too when they usetheir trinket and how long they are CC'd for. I consider this add-onthe most important for arena players. Useless for RBG's.


InterruptBar:http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/interruptbar A small add-on that shows you when your targets interrupts are on CDand how long till they come back up. Great for knowing when to burstand CC without having to juke randomly.


LoseControl:http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/losecontrol Gives you a small icon in the middle of your screen when your CC'dand gives you a countdown till its gone.


Thoseare the main 3 I recommend for PvP, I used all 3 for a very long.




GEARINGUP QUICKLY:


Now that you have your everything on your UI set-up, its time to getgear and practice your keybinds and macros in BG's. It's definitelynot the most fun thing to do when your still in crappy gear, but itdoesn't take long before your noticing a huge difference in damageand survivability.


First things to get as a mage when gearing up is set pieces and a PvPtrinket (unless human race) obviously. The set bonuses and the gearupgrade make it more then worth it to farm these pieces first. Afteryou have all of your set pieces, start farming for off-set piecesgoing by the biggest upgrade first. What a lot of players don'tnotice is that there are multiple choices when selecting boots,bracers, belts, back pieces, neck, rings, etc... Now is a good timeto learn what stats are most important. I'm just going to touch on itnow and explain later, take my word for it.


INT>CRIT>MASTERY>HASTE


You will see on different pieces that there are ones with more crit,more haste, or some with more mastery. Based on what you know fromabove, crit pieces are your best choice for right now.


You will see that there are spell pen cloaks, and spell pen necks,you don't need both, one is plenty enough. Most people prefer theneck spell pen cloak and I recommend that as well. Why? They have thesame amount of spell pen, you might ask? This is because you'llnotice that the non-spell pen cloak has mastery on it, while thenon-spell pen neck has haste on it. We now know that mastery isbetter then haste, so we want the mastery cloak and the spell pencloak.


Also keep an eye on your resilience as a mage we don't need an insaneamount like healers and melee do, we have shields that prevent damageand we are kiting machines thats don't get hit too often. Thereforewe don't need as much resilience. Id say anywhere from 3.5k – 3.8kwill be perfect depending on what arena team setup you run with oryour playstyle.


List of stats you want to aim for in order of most important toleast.

1. 4% hit chance, you need hit chance in order to hit spells, or your damage will suffer greatly.
2. 212-240 Spell Penetration. Most classes will always have a resistance to magic on them, anywhere from 150-240. The closer to 240 you get, the better off you will be.
3. 18%-20% Crit chance, This is extremely important for your shatter combos. It will be your bread and butter for damage. Reforge all haste and mastery to crit until you are around this.
4. Mastery, once you get your crit high enough, reforge everyhing left to mastery, this will increase your damage done by a ton, and will make your shatter combos powerful. You will never have enough mastery. Please remember that it doesn't matter how much mastery you have, if you don't crit, you wont do nearly as much damage, thats why crit is more important right now.
5. Haste, only because gear has it, reforge out of it all to get to the the %'s needed on the other stats.

Once you start getting gear your gonna need enchants and gems toupgrade your gear. This is a must, but at the same time since you'llbe upgrading gear again eventually with conquest point gear, youdon't need to go all out and get the best enchants right now, it wontplay that big of a factor. Here is a list of enchants and gems yourgonna need for each slot piece.


Slot:Enchant, Gems


Head: Arcanum of Hyjal, Meta Gem + Red Gem
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of Vicious Intellect, + YellowGem
Cloak: Lightweave Embroidery (Tailors ONLY) or GreaterIntellect
Chest: Greater Resilience or Powerful Stats, Red Gem + YellowGem
Bracer: Critical Strike
Hands: Mastery + Blue Gem
Belt: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle, Blue Gem + Any Color Gem
Legs: Powerful Enchanted Spellthread, Red Gem + Blue Gem
Feet: Mastery, Yellow Gem
Main Hand: Hurricane or Power Torrent
Off Hand: Superior Intellect


Remember, most of these are the lower end enchants until you getbetter gear, it wont make that much of a difference for now.


TRINKETS:
There are multiple combination of trinkets available for use.Depending on what class you are and how much resilience


HOW TO SPEC FOR MAGES:


A lot of these talents are necessary, to be honest there isn't muchcustomization when it comes to a frost PvP spec. All the points infrost will normally stay the same in all the specs except one pointthats moveable, however I'll show you the spec that is considered tobe the best, and other specs that are also viable. Sometime your specwill depend on the comp you are running or if your running solo inBG's.


“Best” Spec 2/8/31
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#oMZcbzbZffbhsuszMo


The reason why people love this spec so much is you get ImprovedCounterspell, Along with Improved Impact. Improved Impact gives youthat extra stun when you need to kill a healer and you have no moreinterrupts, Its extremely useful in many situations. One point intoBlazing Speed also gives you the chance of surviving and kitinglonger then usual. Sometimes you will see players swap a point fromImproved Impact into Blazing Speed for that extra survivability.


Frost/Arcane 7/3/31
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#oMh0bZcZffbhsuszMo


This spec includes more talents of arcane, I used to use this specuntil I found out haste is our worst stat so it kind of makes the 3%useless, plus the 70% extra speed is only after blink and it doesn'tdispel any of the effects that reduce movement speed, like BlazingSpeed does.


Frost/Fire 2/8/31
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#oMZcbzbZffbhshsdzo


This is almost the exact spec as the top one, except points are movedaround in frost. The reason people do that is to get ShatteredBarrier. I feel that Shattered Barrier is not worth getting becausewhen your shield breaks, if sends out a nova thats freezes people inplace, which is good. Except that fact that it goes against your DRwhich hurts you badly when your need another nova to burst damage.Plus you lose a point from somewhere else which is a negative thing.


Glyphs:


Prime:
Glyph of Frostbolt: Increases the crit chance of frostbolt by 5%
Glyph of Frostfire: Increases the damage done by Frostfire Bolt by15%, and your Frostfire Bolt does an additional 3% damage over 12seconds, but no longer slows the enemy.
Glyphof Icelance: Increases the damage done by icelance by 5%.


Others people tend to use


Glyph of Deepfreeze: Increases damage done by Deepfreeze by 20%.


I do not recommend this because in PvP because Deepfreeze doesn't dodamage to players, it only does damage to vehicles, so why increasethe damage of Deepfreeze by 20%?


Major:
Glyph of Evocation: Your evocation ability causes you to regain 40%of your health of the duration.
Glyph of Ice Barrier: Now increases the damaged absorbed by your IceBarrier by 30%.
Glyph of Polymorph: Your Polymorph also removes all damage over timeeffects on the target.


Others people tend to use


Glyph of Icy Veins: Your Icy Veins ability also removes any movementslowing and cast time slowing effects.
Glyph of Frost Armor: Frost Armor also causes you to regenerate 2% ofyour maximum mana every 5 seconds.


Minor:
Glyph of Slowfall: Your Slowfall no longer requires a reagent.
Glyph of Conjuring: Reduces mana cost by 50% of all conjuring spells.
Glyph of Armors: Increases the duration of all armors by 30 minutes.


Minor glyphs don't really matter much, any combination will workfine.


ARENA SETUPS FOR SUCCESS:


Theseare a few of the most popular setups available to get into. Irecommend any of these depending on your play style.


RMP:Rogue Mage Priest
Thisis a top tier arena setup, Is has an insane amount of control, withan insane amount of burst. I would recommend this to anyone with acontrolled playstyle.


MLS:Mage Lock Shaman
Anothersetup with an insane amount of control, difference here is that youhave more healing and spells. Will most likely out live most compsout there.


FMP:Feral Mage Priest
Similarto RMP but more burst and pressure off the start, plus the extrahealing/tank-y-ness of the druid comes in handy.


MageRogue 2's:
Youwant to so this with someone you have played a lot with, or want toplay a lot with. Extremely good setup as long as your timing is spoton.


MagePriest 2's:
Magesare hard enough to kill as it is, but when you add a disc priest inthe mix, you get an insanely good setup as long as the mage can CCand burst effectively.


Pleasenote that as with any class, a lot of this stuff is a personalpreference, I prefer everything that I linked in here, some willagree some will disagree. This guide was to help people out in needand for people to refer too if they ever needed help or a question.This wasn't meant to prove a point or show right from wrong. I hopeyou find something new and informational, I will update as needed, ifyou feels something should be added please let me know.

[Nitrak]

INT>CRIT>MASTERY>HASTE

Is in imo heavily based on setup. Be mindful that if you play with a rogue/druid/warrior you get 5% additional crit, making the setup of stats INT>MASTERY>CRIT>HASTE.

Main thing i spotted .

Possibly toss in this macro for sheeps:

Polymorph (With focus)
Polymorphs focus target - If no focus target is avaliable, Polymorphing current target and setting current target focus.
Mod:Shift - Polymorph current target and set focus

#showtooltip [target=focus,harm] [] Polymorph
/stopcasting
/clearfocus [modifier:shift][target=focus,dead][target=focus,noexists]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/cast [target=focus] Polymorph

[hendu24]

Is in imo heavily based on setup. Be mindful that if you play with a rogue/druid/warrior you get 5% additional crit, making the setup of stats INT>MASTERY>CRIT>HASTE.

Main thing i spotted .

Possibly toss in this macro for sheeps:

Polymorph (With focus)
Polymorphs focus target - If no focus target is avaliable, Polymorphing current target and setting current target focus.
Mod:Shift - Polymorph current target and set focus

If you look under my counterspell macro, it will say u can replace the spell with poly of deep freeze as well. I use all three.


and again, the stats are all personal preference, but you will see a lot more top tier mages with crit > mastery. even at 15% crit with 5% buff and more mastery, thast only 60% crit chance shattering. Id rather still have 20% crit with 5% buff to make it 75% chance. that chance of critting makes up for the mastery damage of not critting. plus part of the frost specialization is only when the targets are frozen, when crit chance is on every spell cast.

[Xiun]

but you will see a lot more top tier mages with crit > mastery.

No, you won't.

[Ace192]

NYKZ PVP FROST MAGE GUIDE 4.2
Frost/Fire 2/8/31
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#oMZcbzbZffbhshsdzo


This is almost the exact spec as the top one, except points are movedaround in frost. The reason people do that is to get ShatteredBarrier. I feel that Shattered Barrier is not worth getting becausewhen your shield breaks, if sends out a nova thats freezes people inplace, which is good. Except that fact that it goes against your DRwhich hurts you badly when your need another nova to burst damage.Plus you lose a point from somewhere else which is a negative thing.

[/I]

I'm confused as to why you would include this spec. You shouldn't EVER take 1/2 into Frostfire Orb. If you're going to take Frostfire orb its either 0/2 or 2/2. 1/2 Frostfire Orb does nothing from my knowledge. It allows it to benefit from your Frost Specialization, but it does not add the chill, which is the only reason you would ever want Frostfire Orb. I would suggest removing that point and putting it into something more useful like 1/3 Enduring Winter or 1/2 Piercing Chill.

[Whisperawr]

I mean not to be insulting when I ask these questions, and I'm sorry if you interpret them that way, just questioning like an interview.

What do you think seperates your guide from other top frost mage guides?
What do you think qualifies you to make this guide?

Your guide contains most of the essentials that are easily found on ArenaJunkies such as stats/glyphs/talents. It would be nice if you could add more insight to things and give tips, considering it is a guide.