Mage PVP

[isvein]

Hi
I got an mage at L85 now that I pvp with.
Right now, Im arcane, but wonder if I should change to frost.
I see a lot of the mages in BGs are frost.
The problem is, I dont know anything about frost pvp talents and rotations.
I try to search for it, but I find a lot of different answers and nothing good for people like me new to frost.

Anyone got any tips to share?

[chaos5061]

There are only really a few differences of why to play Frost than Arcane or Fire. Frost is a control spec through and through in PvP. Arcane and Fire are pure burst damage. You will burn down the other players faster than Frost with Arcane or Fire. Give a example. My Level 85 Tauren Pally was in a BG and was facing a Arcane Mage. They basically almost one shoted me with a critical hit from Arcane Blast of 95k. Now I wasn't in full PvP gear so that also played a part but when I faced a Frost Mage they were able to kill me by Frost Bolt slowing Ring of Frost freeze and throwing in a proc from Arcane Missiles every now and then. And here is another thing. You'll want to be Frost or Arcane or Fire depending on what type of BG you are in and what your part is in the whole thing. You'll want to be Arcane or Fire if in a BG like Strand of the Ancients where you need to burn down the enemy quickly if you are on the offensive on defense use Frost to slow the enemy down to keep them from reaching the keep. In Warsong Gulch use Frost if you are on the defending team of having the enemy flag or protecting your flag from them. Use Arcane or Fire if you are on the offense to get your Flag back from them. It's very situational what you want to spec not just everyone else is this so I need to be this. It's what do I need to do to help win that BG.

[isvein]

I see.
I got fire as my pve spec, and fire in low level pvp is an mess because lots of the damage there is based on crits, and you dont get that mutch crit before high level gear and stuff.

Since I got fire (that is burst damage spec) already, maybe its good to choose frost as 2nd?
But I still cant figure out any goodies for frost, fire I kinda got covered now.

[Kamchak]

Frost owns in PvP. There is one class I do not go after in a BG, and that is a frost mage. OP is an understatement.

[isvein]

Hehe, thats what everyone is saying, but no one can tell my WHY they are OP.
Anyway, thanks to another post on this site, I came accross http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/185019-mage-basics/
Thanks to that and some UI setups, I now do better in pvp.

Still problems if Im alone with 5+ people, but thats seems to be hard for everyone.

Looks to me alsa that frost dont win on raw power, but the ability to keep enemies at an distance.

[chaos5061]

Hehe, thats what everyone is saying, but no one can tell my WHY they are OP.

^

Looks to me alsa that frost dont win on raw power, but the ability to keep enemies at an distance.

Answered your own question.

[Kamchak]

Alright. Without going into great detail, frost mages have 2 defensive abilities, frost shield and mana shield. This makes a mage very hard to kill, just on their own merits. Frost Nova CC added in with the ability to polymorph another player (if more than 1 is attacking) is a high level of control. All that is fine and well, and there are abilities in most classes to combat these.
What makes mages OP are high probability crit to ice lance, which is an instant cast with no CD.
Add in blink, and you have a toon class that owns in a BG. Very, very hard to deal with a frost mage that understands what they are doing.

[Skippyninja]

I need more resil in order to be effective in a BG (I started PvPing more regularly over the past few days ) I only have a couple slots filled with PvP gear. I chose to specc Frost and I'm loving it, I highly recommend Frost for PvP more than any other spec.