Frost Mage

Is Frost worth levelling?

Yes — it is the levelling spec. The published verdict: "Frost Mages are going to have a comfortable time leveling… slowing and chilling everything they fight keeps them safe. With Frostbite, melee enemies will often not even reach you before killing them."

The honest drawback, in the same source's words, is "the constant need to stop for mana." You will drink often. Frost's trade is safety for speed, and if you have never played a caster, that is the right trade.

Its damage ceiling is lower than Fire's: "Frost Mage won't top the damage meters, but few specs are as safe or as consistent."

Your talent points

Level 20 — 0/0/11. Two published builds, both legal, differing on the first five points.

Build A — hit and consistency:

1. Elemental Precision, 5 points (Forever gave this 5 ranks; Classic had 3)
2. Frostbite, 3 points
3. Ice Shards, 2 points
4. Ice Lance at 20

Build B — faster casts:

1. Elemental Precision, 2 points
2. Improved Frostbolt, 5 points
3. Frostbite, 3 points
4. Ice Lance at 20

Level 30 — 0/0/21, with the per-level order published: Improved Frostbolt 1→3 (levels 10–12), Elemental Precision 1→4 (13–16), Frostbite 1→3 (17–19), Ice Lance at 20, Ice Shards 1→4 (21–24), Ice Block at 25, Shatter 1→3 (26–28), Ice Shards 5/5 (29), Fingers of Frost at 30.

A third source publishes a dungeon variant that takes Piercing Ice over Frostbite, on the grounds that in a group the tank is holding the enemy anyway.

Rotation

1. Frost Armor and Arcane Intellect up. Frost Armor itself procs Frostbite when you are hit
2. Frostbolt until Frostbite freezes the target
3. Ice Lance into the freeze. The critical detail: "Do not cancel Frostbolt to cast Ice Lance. Finish your current cast, then queue up Ice Lance next" — one source reports that Ice Lance snapshots the target's frozen status, so a queued cast still lands as if frozen. No tooltip states it — but the advice holds either way, because cancelling a Frostbolt costs you more than a late Ice Lance
4. Melee on you → Frost Nova, back away, Ice Lance as you retreat
5. Wand to finish low-health enemies rather than spending mana
6. From 30, spend Fingers of Frost stacks on Ice Lance

Multi-target: Flamestrike while you hold no threat, then Arcane Explosion once you do — "Arcane Explosion… has higher DPS than Blizzard until we get more talent points." Note that only one Flamestrike can be active per Mage at a time in Forever, which is new.

Stat priority

Spell Power and Frost spell power, then Hit, spell Haste, critical strike, Intellect, Spirit, MP5.

Sources disagree on the top of the list in a way worth knowing: one ranks Hit first ("capping your Hit Chance is a high priority") and pushes crit harder ("Frost Mage is a crit-based spec"). Nobody publishes the actual hit cap — one guide says so outright: "There will be a cap where you can stop investing in this, but we don't know what it is yet." Take Intellect for a mana bar that lasts a whole pull.

What defines Frost

What Forever changed for Frost

• Ice Lance and Fingers of Frost are both brand new, and together they are the spec.
• The slows were cut hard. Improved Blizzard maxes at 40% (Classic: 65%; rank 1 is 15% where Classic gave 30%). Cone of Cold is 40% over 6 seconds, down from 50% over 8. Permafrost was rewritten to +33% Chill duration and +10% extra slow at 3/3.
• Winter's Chill now applies only to your own Frostbolt and Ice Lance, where Classic let any Frost spell apply it.
• Frostbite moved columns; Frost Channeling moved up a tier; Ice Block moved to tier 4; Ice Barrier now requires Cold Snap rather than Ice Block.
• Frostfire Bolt is a new trained Fire spell checked against the lower of the target's Frost and Fire resistance — but rank 1 is level 40, so it is not in the beta.

At level 60

Unknown. The open question is whether Ice Lance, Fingers of Frost and a personalised Winter's Chill make Frost a real raid specialisation, or leave it the kiting spec it was in Classic.