1.3. Single Target Damage
Frost Mages are capable of doing huge amounts of single target damage, especially in short fights, due to the double use of Icy Veins IconIcy Veins and Summon Water Elemental IconSummon Water Elemental with Cold Snap IconCold Snap. Your main rotation will be to Icy Veins and Summon Water Elemental when possible, and casting Frostbolt IconFrostbolt. Use DPS cooldowns when it is required to deal a lot of damage (nuke) in a short period of time or when it is safe to use them without having to move a lot.
Frostbolt IconFrostbolt is your main source of single target damage. Minimize the time spent moving and maximize the time casting, to effectively increase your DPS. If you need to change positions, try Blink IconBlinking instead of walking, as this will almost always be faster than moving. While your Water Elemental is active, you can make it fire Waterbolt IconWaterbolts automatically, using the following macro:
/petattack
/cast Frostbolt
Summon Water Elemental IconSummon Water Elemental is a DPS cooldown. The Water Elemental attacks enemies with Waterbolt IconWaterbolt and Freeze IconFreeze them with a ranged, controllable Frost Nova, which is useful for doing a "Shatter Combo". Find out more about the Shatter Combo below in the Ice Lance IconIce Lance TBC spell description. If summoned before Bloodlust IconBloodlust/Heroism IconHeroism, the Water Elemental will also get and benefit from the Haste bonus. In your Key Bindings section in game, you can also bind the Water Elemental's abilities to keys. This is particularly important, for if your Water Elemental stands in AoE damage effects and needs to move out of them. The Water Elemental needs a bit of attention, so it does not die right after being summoned, or you will lose DPS. The Water Elemental uses Mana to cast it's spells and can run out of Mana. Being in a Shadow Priest group can be useful to squeeze more DPS out of your Water Elemental.
Icy Veins IconIcy Veins is also a DPS cooldown. Use it as often as possible and try to use it in a phase of a boss fight that does not interrupt your casting with movement or anti-casting mechanics. For example using it right before a 10 second stun mechanic on a boss makes this cooldown 50% worse. A good macro to use Icy Veins with is:
/use 13
/use Destruction Potion
/cast Icy Veins
/petattack
/cast Frostbolt
It will use your trinket in the upper trinket slot (13, the lower trinket slot is 14), use a Destruction Potion Icon Destruction Potion, Cast Icy Veins IconIcy Veins, will make your Water Elemental attack (if summoned) and cast Frostbolt IconFrostbolt.
Ice Lance IconIce Lance is a low damage spell against targets that are not frozen. However, it does three times normal damage against frozen targets, making this an incredibly powerful ability. This can be used to your advantage. You can Freeze IconFreeze or Frost Nova IconFrost Nova an enemy, cast a Frostbolt IconFrostbolt immediately followed by an Ice Lance. Casting an instant cast spell right after a spell with cast time, so both hit a frozen target at the same time, is commonly referred to as "Shatter Combo", as both spells will benefit from the 50% increased crit chance of the Shatter IconShatter talent. This spell can also be cast while moving to prevent Winter's Chill IconWinter's Chill from dropping from an enemy target or to stack this debuff.
Cold Snap IconCold Snap is used to reset the cooldowns of all your Frost abilities, making you able to use Icy Veins IconIcy Veins and Summon Water Elemental IconSummon Water Elemental twice in a row. If you know a boss fight will be around 5 minutes in length, you can use your cooldowns once in the start, once more after 3 minutes and a third time with Cold Snap in the end. Get a feeling for your guild's boss kill times and take advantage of your knowledge.
Fire Blast IconFire Blast will be cast when you are moving and your target is not frozen to maximize the damage while you cannot cast Frostbolt IconFrostbolt. If your target is frozen, use Ice Lance IconIce Lance.
Remove Lesser Curse IconRemove Lesser Curse — While this is no damage spell, it is of high importance to decurse on some fights and doing so is part of being a good Mage.
Molten Armor IconMolten Armor — It is important to keep this buff up on you, as it gives you a higher Critical Strike chance with spells. Therefore it is part of your rotation.
Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect/Arcane Brilliance IconArcane Brilliance — It is important to keep this buff up on you and your group for a higher Critical Strike chance with spells and more Mana. Therefore it is part of your rotation.
Offensive Potion/Gem is not an ability per se, but the act of making a macro for your Potion and Mana Gem uses. For instance when using a Mana Potion, there is always a little offset between using the potion and casting your next damage spell, just from human reaction time. You can eliminate this offset and make a macro for Mana Gems and Mana Potions like this:
/use Super Mana Potion
/petattack
/cast Frostbolt
/use Mana Emerald
/petattack
/cast Frostbolt
These macros will not only use your Mana restoring cooldowns, but also make your Water Elemental attack and instantly cast a Frostbolt IconFrostbolt afterwards.