Water Elemental is a stronger talent than Ice Block, and is pretty much the sole reason mages will universally spec into the ice tree for pvp. Mage survivability is much much better that people give credit for, mostly because of blink which allows us to instantly line of sight and range opponents. If it weren't for water elemental we would all go for blazing speed as that is the real powerhouse long-term survivability talent, it's just poorly situated. Water Elemental is just way too much damage and burst to ignore.

Quite so true the issue never was solely about ice block being able to grant few heals in without ms.

All in all frost just have the talents that other trees cant match. ie. winters chill, which tree can provide debuffs after detect magic removal?

Ice barrier scaling better after patch (not much but still ).

Frost nova fbolt+lance being situational easy to repeat burst dmg for target swapping, coming from elemental making it even better.

Fire and arcane cant throw in anything to compete with frost tree. 2v2 bracket fire becomes more viable perhaps. But 3v3 and 5v5 will still be about 17/0/44.

Im just waiting eagerly what new talent will be presented in frost tree as 21-pointer. Something actually interesting?

Is better to use Polymorph rank 1 then rank 4, and Frost nova rank 1 or the best rank in Arenas?

As far as I know, there's no reason to use any rank past rank 1 for either of those spells due to the length limitation of crowd control in PvP. Lower ranked spells don't have a higher resist rate than higher ranks, they cost a whole lot less, and they last the same amount of time.

Although I don't have a high level mage (yet >_>), this is how I work with Entangling Roots and Hibernate on my Druid for mana efficiency.

I use the highest ranks, just in case there is a difference. I haven't done testing runs myself nor have I come across any well done testing runs, so I'd rather be safe than sorry. If someone can point me at some properly conducted testing runs that show there's no difference, then I'll switch.

Also, for Frost Nova, I figure every little bit of damage helps. And for Polymorph, if higher ranked spells have a lower chance of heartbeat resists, then better to use those (but I don't know if they do).

I don't know about "properly conducted" but my mage hasn't any issues with rank 1 Frostbolts (has yours?), nor has my priest ever had any difficulties with a rank 1 dot or Psychic Scream. The only reason I max rank polymorph is that I forget it's on my bar from PvE.

I have never cast a Frost Nova of any rank other than 1. Even if I did I would still keep rank 1 bound to a keypress because when I'm down to my last 100 mana, there's only one spell I really want to cast and I can't cast the rank you're using.

While using Rank 1 Poly isn't a bad idea by any means (the mana saved really adds up at the end of the match.) using Rank 1 Nova is. A frostbite can override rank 1 nova and that leaves you with a much shorter snare.

I'm having flashbacks to whatever level it was I trained rank 2 nova. I do recall getting a lot of "A more powerful spell is already active" on Frostbite procs. At the time I think my conclusion was "my almost-expired max-rank nova is not getting refreshed by a late frosbite". You're suggesting that if I'd paid more attention to frostbiting a fresh nova, I might have found a clue sometime before level 40.

So are you throwing rank 2 novas, or is frostbite designed to own me whenever I try to downrank nova?

Thanks.

As a frost mage, does anyone have any secrets to taking on a Sl/Sl warlock in an open encounter, such as you might find in a BG? I've standard 17/0/44 set up. 150 resilience/kara geared. Not much I can do about the gear too quickly.

I am improving a lot on small scale pvp against most classes. When it comes to Sl/Sl warlocks, I am at a bit of a loss--which is an understatement, they own me 95% of the time.

Assuming the warlock and I know we are about to engage, I usually pop trinket if I get feared/deathcoiled at the start. That's typical. I try to get a shatter combo off as quick as I can with pet nova, and counter spell the best I can against life tap (my elemental gets lost a lot to banish if I managed to get feared again). I try to pull off another shatter and instants. I will IB quick to drop if the dots are to much just to clear the slate. I think waiting out the IB for cool downs to come back up isn't a bad idea. Of course, another hard part is the silly Fel Hunter and the warlocks ability to counter my spells as well. With about 55 to 60 spell penetration I have some luck with frostbite giving me distance from the pet.

I admit I was a bit frustrated late last night, and figured it might not just be all my play style, after coming across this blue post:

"I'm not saying you're wrong.

There are a number of changes, adjustments, and tweaks that could be made to make warlocks less powerful in smaller scale PvP.

..but by your logic alone we can say that the strength of warlocks is diminished as the scale of the PvP increases.

I'm not saying it's right that warlocks should be so powerful as a solo class simply because the balance is aimed somewhere else, but that's the way it is and it has been said that little to no balancing will be done for 1vs1 or 2vs2 scenarios. It was even announced recently that there was almost not going to be a 2vs2 arena due to balance concerns.

The bottom line is that warlocks are a powerful solo class - but I don't remember anyone claiming that they would be anything else and it is only natural that some of that powerful solo ability would transfer across to solo PvP, even if it was originally intended to be a PvE strength. "

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....sid=1&pageNo=2

Practice dueling a lot so you can find mistakes that warlocks make and you will be able to sometimes beat the warlocks that make mistakes you can exploit. Mostly the kind of mistakes they will make is timing of their deathcoil/fears, how they go about dealing with your pet, what kind of range they stay at, etc. Depending on the situation and the warlock's and mage's style of play/gear what is a mistake on warlock's or mage's part might not be in another combination. The most efficient way in a duel is to wear PvE gear and use iceblocks to mitigate damage while trying to get off enough damage on the warlock to counter his healing.

I have never really gotten into Arena's seriously, mostly sitting in a 1600-1700 (or worse) ish 2v2 only team just to gather points for PvE related rewards (Merc Spellblade and some stam gear for raiding). I am speccing frost for 2.3 and have saved up 75k honour to go with my Merc Spellblade and 2pc S2 Armour and intend on trying to do a little better in arena's.

My questions is what class should I look for in a partner? I find 2v2 to be VERY class dependant. The choices I have (from the decently serious/geared PvPers in my guild):

Rogue
Holy/Disc Priest
Mage
*Possibly Resto Shaman*

I could probably convince a different class (who has some PvP skilled) to work with me to get better gear for it, but just curious as to the 2v2 partner of choice for Frost Mages in 2v2.

I was also thinking of a Holy/Disc Priest, Combat Mace Rogue and myself in 3v3.

It's viable to play with a rogue at very high rating focusing on control and dps. If you're not looknig to go much further then 2000 a combo with a priest can work -- you'd have to conserve mana and cooldowns while crowd controlling and allowing your priest to drain mana on their healer.

Resto shaman wouldnt fit in due heavy lack of defensive dispel not to talk about insta heals and manaburns.
so disc priest rogue fmage, also known as golden trinity quite fotm but works very well, has practically no anti-teams. Is quite nice to play once you graps the idea.

For 2on2 I just cant see fmages to go without second dps, there is no place for healer fmage before next patch, thou I reckon that still 2 dps with fmage is best possible choice. Something like UA lock.

Wl druid fmage is also quite formidable combination, I would vouch it to be one of the most annoying to play against.

You simply don't have the mana to last very long in a 2v2 match. The only 3 classes I'd try teaming with are Locks, Rogues, and Shadow Priests. I currently run with a lock at a 1930 rating and it is tough. We get run over by almost any combo with a lock and we have severe problems with rogues as well. We have gotten much better with rogues throughout the season but there are still times when they manage to instagib my partner.

Anyway, I find that my main job in 2v2 is to use counterspell PERFECTLY while still getting in burst DPS while the warlock provides far more consistent DPS. Because you lack a healing debuff such as Mortal Strike and because your class posses severe mana issues you will never be a viable partner for a healer.

Be happy though, Warriors teamed up with anything but a druid will be your stepping stones to a good rating. There are a lot of them.

Due to the removal of the improved Fireball/Frostbolt talent penalties and the queuing of spells past a certain point when mashing the button my DPS "felt" like it was quite higher. On a similar note healers will heal quicker -- but you are less likely to 'miss' a counterspell now.

The new GCD shouldnt affect cs since gcd has 0 impact on counter spell? Atleast the few bgs I've played I didnt notice any difference. Have to wait the rest of the team to stop slacking and see it on arenas where csing is more frequent.

Has anyone noticed any difference?

Question for you all- is it even worth getting impact when you are frost specced anymore? I used to like 0/7/54, but what with seemingly every class able to purge )and instantly) I don't recall ever fighting anyone and having my armor up for more than 2 seconds. It really is infuriating, especially since I know how it takes no mana for the purge classes to do this. I honestly do not remember my last impact or frostbite proc from melee dps. Should I just go with 17/0/44 from now on, since then I at least can count on frostbite procs from my nukes?

Icy Veins could also give Ice Armor the edge again. The two points in Flamethrowing could be pretty interesting now with the loss of the range bonus on pvp-gloves though. 0/7/54 will still be better when fighting melees and hunters i guess, but using Ice Armor per default - at least when IV is up - might be the way to go now.

I keep trying to make myself like 17 0 44, but I really feel it's inferior. Imp CS isn't worth that many points, as powerful as it is.

I generally start arenas with molten up, and if it's purged with any melee on me I'll use rank 1 frost armor.

Given Icy Veins can also be used as a defensive tool for it's added frostbite effect, is it perhaps more viable to use Ice Armor instead of Molten now? I can see how an impact-molten setup can be good, but I'd rather not have to respec into 7 fire each time I want a bout of arena. Thus, I'm trying to compromise but wondering if the trade-off is too great.

Will frostbitten icy veins be viable in a 3-bracket with a melee and priest and a 2-healer 5-bracket? Don't laugh, but is there a point in Frost Warding? I for one think extra armor isn't that bad, I'm rather happy our S3 has armor on it and I'm even considering that funky new LW patch for my gloves with +240~ armor since some parts of my PvP outfit will be PvE (meaning I don't particularly need the +20dmg).

So what's the consensus on the new mage changes? Nothing really been posted here.

I have a full season 2 frost mage alt who floats around 2k ratings, I wanted them to be buffed to be more viable in 2v2 besides with rogues, but the last thing I assumed they'd be doing is adding more burst to the frost build of all places. Trainable Ice Block is great for PvE, but will we honestly see a shift from frost, particularly with the addition of Icy Veins, in PvP? I suppose the PoM/Pyro build gained some annoying strength, but will anyone be going 50/11/0 or 0/40/21 or 50/0/11 beyond trying it out for a couple days?

Just curious if people are going to be sticking with the MSD as their meta, or if the Chaotic is looking superior (not really sure how the internal cooldown has hurt the MSD in pvp).