The game can be played solo, or up to 4 players, cooperatively. Ooh a co-op game, I need me some of them. You construct yourself a deck, based on three heroes that you choose from, and use those heroes and the deck, to win against a chosen objective, that also comes with its own pre-constructed deck.

At first I thought each game will be played like, take the Ring to Mt. Doom, win/fail. Nope, each objective is based off of little parts of the main story. Like the first beginner quest, just has you getting through a forest full of spiders and orcs. Sounds simple right? You can still fail! If you don’t have a game plan, you could find yourself being swarmed by enemies, and killed.

That’s not the only way you can lose. There is something called a threat tracker, that counts up from an initial value (which is dependent on your heroes), and once it counts up to 50, you lose. So you’re also racing against the clock.

So the game is really thematic, which is a huge plus. Also since it is the Lord of the Rings, makes it a bigger plus. Who doesn’t like the Lord of the Rings?! The game is a Living Card Game, which means every month or so, Fantasy Flight Games will release small chapter packs, which add to the game, giving you more heroes to play, more cards to add to your deck, and best of all, more objectives to play.

So… needless to say, I ended up going home with just a few packs of sleeves. I got myself a new toy, and even more sleeves. Yay! I bought myself one core set for now. That will give you just enough to play with two players. You could play with four with one core set, but there will be little to no deck building or customization. After I play a few games on my own, I will see if the game is worth investing more money into or not.

The game was released in late 2010 / early 2011, so I am a bit late to the game. The good news is, there are a few expansions and chapter packs already out, so I won’t find myself lacking any content for this game if I really like it, and want more. Expect a review for this game shortly

Storage Solution #1:

The cheapest way you can do this is with Plano Tackle Boxes. Yes, you heard me correctly, tackle boxes. Not only are they perfect for holding various fishing accessories, they are perfect for hold X-Wing Miniatures too!

You can find them at your local sporting goods stores, and online of course. For dirt cheap. At around $7 to $8, you can get yourself a decent size box that will hold all your tokens, dices, dials, and ship templates.

The actual model number of the Plano box that I use is: Plano 23705-00. I got mine at Dick’s Sporting Goods. You can also get it at their online store as well.

As you can see, you can fit all the bits and pieces of the game, perfectly into the slots. It also comes with dividers so you have different size slots if you choose to do so. I was able to fit three sets of dices (3x core sets) into an individual slot.

As for the ships themselves, you could also store them in Plano boxes as well, but personally, I don’t want them shaking around. They might not be that fragile, but I don’t want to risk it.

What I did us to just use the plastic compartments that the ships came in. Then I throw them all into the core set box, tetris style. I also throw in the maneuver templates and range template.

Last but not least, the cards. The regular sized pilot cards, and the mini sized upgrades and damage cards.

I like to have all my cards protected and sleeved. Since I am an avid card gamer, I also have a few deck boxes laying around too. So my pilot cards go into there. All the mini cards can go into a small ziplock bag, and into the core set box as well.

Storage Solution #2:

The next way to store your game pieces is a bit more expensive. It is by purchasing a Battlefoam Kit for your X-Wing Minis. The price varies depending on if you want a kit for both factions, or a kit for just one of the factions. The all-in-one kit will run you around $30, while the individual faction kits will cost you $20.

As you can see, for the person who has a few of each expansions, they can fit all their miniatures in this kit. Your miniatures will fit perfectly into each designated slot. The accessory try however, is a different story. If you read the reviews for the accessory tray, you’ll find that the card slots are too small for any of the cards if they are sleeved. Even if they aren’t sleeved, people are still having a difficult time put the cards in.

That’s not the only negative thing. These trays are pretty big, and won’t fit inside the core set box. So you are left with finding a box to hold your foam kit. You could also purchase a Battlefoam P.A.C.K., which is pretty much a carrying bag for your foam kits. This will run you around $50 for the basic version (which is all you need since you don’t need to carry paint for your X-Wing Minis). If you’re going for convenience, this is the way to go. They don’t look bad either.

For those of you casual gamers out there, don’t worry. There is cheaper alternative if you only have a core set and a few wave one expansions. It will only cost you $16, but it is able to hold 4x TIE Fighters, 3x X-Wings, 2x TIE Advance x1, and 2x Y-Wings. The best part is, that you can fit this inside your core set box.

There is also a slot where you can keep all your tokens, templates, and cards. Though I’d suggest you have them zip-locked separately, or else it’ll just big one big pile of mess.

Storage Solution #3:

Then there is the most expensive option available, the KRMulticase Storage. They are very similar to the BattleFoam Kits, a bit more on the price, but also a bit more on the quality.

The tray sets start from $35 and go up to $44, depending on what kind of ships you need storage for, and how many. Unlike the BattleFoam, the minis are stored With the stands attached to each ship. For players who want to cut down on assembly time, and want to get games going as soon as possible, this is a positive. However, for players who don’t have they’re squads made beforehand, and choose to play on the fly, well, you’ll have to reassemble them to place the corresponding ship tokens onto the stands anyways.

Another plus is that the trays actually fit all the cards whether they are sleeved or not. There are also corresponding slots for all your maneuver templates as well. So these are all pluses over the BattleFoam versions.

An expensive tray set isn’t complete without its accompanied expensive carrying case! Here you will also have various options to carry your trays, depending on how totally boss you want to look while bringing your minis to the competition.

The pricing starts at $55 for a cardboard box to hold the trays, and go up to as high as $193 for the prestige case, which is a traveling suitcase with handles and wheels. Another thing to note is that all these storage options don’t all hold the same amount of trays. For example, the cardboard box can hold only one tray, while the prestige case can hold around four to six trays (depending on the size of trays).

Final Thoughts:

As much as I want to go with option #3, I don’t think it is really worth it to spend upwards of $250 to protect less than $200 worth of miniatures. Even the cardboard box solution for option #3 can cost you around $150 if you want to store everything. You will also run into the problem of what to do when FantasyFight Games release more expansions. You’ll have to upgrade your trays and/or storage. That’s is way too much of a hassle and waste of money in my opinion.

Option #2 seems like a good investment for a more dedicated player. For about $80, you can hold all your minis AND carry them anyway you go. The problem of new releases won’t effect this option as much as with option #3. You will just have to buy and carry more bags. This is a fairly decent solution, for a more dedicated player, or someone who travels a lot with their minis.

As for me, I went with option #1. I rarely travel with my minis, and would rather spend the money on getting more minis instead of buying fancy storage units for them. But that’s just me, everyone is different. You just have to find the right solution that fits your needs.

First of all, you have to make sure you’ll like the game first. You can read my review HERE, on my thoughts on the game. I’d recommend watching some gameplay videos, to see if you’ll like this sort of style of gaming. Fantasy Flight Games did an excellent job with a tutorial video, and also shows the gameplay.

Also, if you are lucky enough to have a local gaming store near you, you can probably ask for a demonstration of the game, so you can try it for yourself. If not, I would just purchase one core set, to give it a try for myself. If you’re hooked, go on to the next step!

Now that you have the core set, what next? Like I said in my review, you will probably want at least two core sets. Just one X-Wing and two TIE Fighters is not enough to have fun in my opinion, and there is so many times you can play the scenarios before you get bored. Good things there are expansions!

Wait, if there’s an X-Wing and TIE Fighter expansion, why won’t I buy them instead of another core set? Each expansion is around $15, and the core set is around $30. So buying another core set will net you one extra TIE Fighter, an extra set of dices, an extra set of damage cards, an extra set of maneuvering templates, and extra upgrade cards! All of which will be put to good use, and not wasted.

Instead of passing templates back and forth across the table between players, now you will have a set for each player. Each player will now also draw from their own damage cards, which is required (since they set with a specific number of cards of each damage type). Also, the extra dices will be used when you have to roll more than three dices for attacking or defending; which will happen when you start fighting at close range, or when asteroids are in play.

Okay, two core sets, what’s next? Well… remember the X-Wing and TIE Fighter expansions I told you not to get earlier? Get them too. Wait, what? Why? Well that is because Fantasy Flight Games, in all their wisdom, included extra pilot cards and upgrades that are only available in the expansions.

Don’t worry though. You will want them. Not only for the cards, but for the ships as well. Buying one of each will give you a total of three X-Wings, and 4 TIE Fighters. Well now you can really put yourself together a real squadron. Plus, you’ll want Wedge Antilles, probably one of my favorite non-main character of the original trilogy.

Wait, there’s more! There is also the Y-Wing and the TIE Advance x1 expansions. Initially, I would only get one of each to give your squadrons a little bit of variety. If you like using these ships in your squad, and would to have another, go for it! I personally bought two of each.

I will stop right here because that is the last of the Wave 1 ships. There are more expansions available at the time of writing this article, but this is a good enough for just getting into the game. Now for a breakdown of what we have:

2 x Core Set
1 x X-Wing Expansion
1 x TIE Fighter Expansion
1 or 2 x Y-Wing Expansion
1 or 2 x TIE Advance x1 Expansion

So that is around $120 – $150 if you are able to find them at retail price. You can be lucky and find them even cheaper. I put some links at the bottom if you want to buy them from Amazon where you can sometimes find them cheaper than retail price. If there is a shortage (which happens quite a bit) of these products, I would recommend looking either online or at the physical Barnes and Noble store. Another good place to buy them is at MiniatureMarket.

Another way to save some money is to find a buddy to get into the game with you. You can each select a faction (Rebels or Empire), then just buy the expansions that are relevant to you. That would effectively cut the costs in half. Or if you are buying for yourself so that you can play at your local game shop, and prefer to only play with one faction, same thing. You can even get away with just one core set if you’re doing it that way.

Remember, this is all just a personal recommendation. You don’t NEED to buy everything exactly like I said. The only thing NEEDED is one core set. Everything else is up to you. If you really like Y-Wings and want to have a squadron of only them, do it! You want a squad of eight TIE Fighters? Awesome. The great thing about this game is customization.

Until next time, May the Rolls (and the Force) be with you!

As I said in my last post, I am no longer playing World of Warcraft, and will not be writing anymore Mage posts (at least for now). So I had a tough time finding out what I should blog about next. Well now I’m going to focus more on Gaming in general, and continue blogging in my own way, and we’ll see how it goes. It will take some time for me to build up my readership again, but eventually we’ll get there.

Not only did I have a hard time thinking of what to write about, I had an even tougher time finding a new layout I liked for version 4.0! I was fond of the “carousel” that I had in version 3.0, so that was a must in version 4.0. I wanted a brighter layout, and maybe some place to put videos. Then I thought that I can maybe do some reviews too! So I need to add that also. So after days (literally!) of messing around, here we have it: Spicytunas version 4.0!

I think it looks cleaner, and brighter, and even easier to read. Posts are wider and doesn’t seem as long anymore. I’ve got rid of the popup windows for WoW links, but I might put them back in for viewers reading older posts. Navigating through the site should be easier too. I will need to go through the categories again, but you should be able to find what you are looking for.

As you can see, there’s still a lot of World of Warcraft content, but eventually those will be phased out, and you’ll see other gaming news and posts. Also look forward to reviews and videos in the future too!

I am currently migrating all the videos I’ve made before, onto a single Youtube account, so hopefully I’ll have the Youtube channel up and running soon also. The layout isn’t where I would like it to be 100% yet, so there will be some minor tweaks here and there made.

Hey everyone! As you can see, my poor poor blog has been neglected for so long. With the lease on the domain running out next year, I’ve decided to give blogging one final chance. Time to brush up on my blogging skills!

First thing you may notice is, the blog design has been reverted back to version 2.0. When I updated to the newest WordPress version, it broke the theme that I was using. So instead of going through all the css code and trying to fix it up, I’ve decided to revert it back temporarily, and find a new design. This is actually one of the things I liked most about blogging- the designing the blog part!

Another thing you will notice, is that I’m not playing World of Warcraft anymore. Sadly the last expansion didn’t really keep a hold on me, and too many friends has stopped playing. When you no longer have friends to play with, the game isn’t quite as exciting anymore. I did enjoy what little time I had in Mist of Pandaria though. More on that a little later maybe.

So if this no longer a Warcraft blog, what will it be? Well… I’ve always talked about other things other than WoW. Like gaming in general, anime, manga, sports, movies, etc. So… more of the same, just less WoW. Who knows!? We’ll see.

I’ll probably start roaming around other blogs again to see how they’re doing (if they’re still blogging). Hopefully everyone hasn’t quit blogging as I had, and are still going strong.

Well that’s it for now. Hopefully my lazy ass sees this through and Spicytunas doesn’t go on being a neglected child no longer. Talk to you again soon!

Even though I stopped for awhile, I still had time for the occasional games. I was still playing World of Warcraft. Played Cataclysm when it was released, but eventually got bored of it and canceled my subscription. I do get the urge to play from time to time, but it no longer has a hold on me, for now…

After WoW, for my MMO needs, I gave Final Fantasy XIV a try. I really did enjoy Final Fantasy XI, but didn’t have people to play with. This time I did. The graphics were spectacular, and I loved the music. The job system was unique, and the combat system wasn’t too bad. The bazaar (auction house) was kind of a mess, and the way you experience and level up was pretty brutal. I put in a lot of hours into the game at first, and was pretty hooked. Then, I stopped playing, the end.

Oh yea I forgot about Star Wars: The Old Republic. I’m still playing it now. Enjoying everything about it so far. I actually have alts! Each class storyline is so good and different, it’s worth leveling up alts.

So a break from MMOs got me into another genre. Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA), also known as “DotA-type” games. I tried out Heroes of Newerth, and League of Legends. HoN was in beta at the time so I eventually stuck with LoL for a couple of reasons. 1: It was free and HoN wasn’t going to be (at that time). 2: The community to me was a bit “nicer” and was more helpful to newbies. 3: Was nicer to my old computer and didn’t require much from it.

I was completely obsessed with LoL for over a year. Me and my friends who played couldn’t stop talking about it when we went out. It was stuck in my head all day, everyday, even during work. I had to cut back on my LoL eventually because it looked to be getting unhealthy (total lack of sleep). Nowadays, I will play the occasional game or two… or three… maybe once or twice a week. If any of you would like to try the game out, it is free to play. Please use my referral link if you do. Thanks

As for console gaming, you can check out what I’ve been playing recently HERE. Most recently I’ve been playing Mass Effect 3. I’m currently on my 2nd playthrough and have been playing the multiplayer mode almost every night. Very good game. The ending… eh… we can talk about that at another time

Long time no see! Sorry that I kind of just vanished from the blogasphere all of a sudden without any notice. I guess the real world critted me pretty hard. Over 9000. Wow, it’s been almost 2 years since my last post. I wonder how many of you guys still check this site or have me on their RSS feeds.

It was strange- after not blogging for a long time, I still have frequent thoughts of, “hmmm… this would be a really good blog post”. I just didn’t have the time to sit down and blog about it. That and plus I’m still the same lazy me.

I do really want to get back into blogging again. Although it took up a lot of my time, I really enjoyed it. Is it weird that I spent an entire day fixing up the site because everything broke when I upgraded WordPress- and thought it was fun!? It’s been awhile since I’ve looked at any php or html code. Everything looked foreign to me. Time to re-educate myself again!

I haven’t done any hardcore gaming in a long time. I’m waaaay behind in any anime, and haven’t seen any of the new ones either. The only thing I’ve kept up with is One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach mangas. Also a few tv series thrown in there… some console games too. Blah maybe I’m getting old.

I’m going to roam around the web for a bit now, stalk all my old blogging buddies to see who’s still around. Hope they still remember me!

Anyways, hello world again! Hopefully I can get back to blogging again. See ya around!

Now that you have and understanding of some of the basics of Frost Mage PvP, and know what stats to aim for, you need to gear yourself for PvP. But where to start?

In Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard has given players many ways to obtain PvP gear. The obvious way is to PvP. Participate in Battlegrounds, Wintergrasp, or Arena. You can also get them with badges obtain from dailies!

This is written during Arena Season 8: April 22, 2010.

Honor Points

The basic currency for PvP is Honor Points. You receive them by killing a player of the opposing faction. The best way to get honor is by going into Battlegrounds: Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm, and Alterac Valley.

Queue into any of these Battlegrounds from your Character’s Honor tab (press H), and start farming those Honor Points. Make sure you win at least one Random Battleground a day for that extra bonus honor! Not only do you get extra Honor Points, you get Arena Points as well!

You can also get Honor Points by completing the Weekly Wintergrasp Quests that are available in this PvP zone. So make sure you do them every week also!

Remember: The max honor your character can hold is 75,000 Honor Points. If you are getting close to the cap, make sure you spend some of it before continuing to PvP so more.

Furious Gladiator Set

• Furious Gladiator’s Silk Amice – 34,700 Honor
• Furious Gladiator’s Silk Cowl – 54,500 Honor
• Furious Gladiator’s Silk Handguards – 43,300 Honor
• Furious Gladiator’s Silk Raiment – 54,500 Honor
• Furious Gladiator’s Silk Trousers – 34,700 Honor

Non-Set Wrathful Gear

• Wrathful Gladiator’s Band of Dominance – 52,200 Honor
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Cloak of Subjugation – 52,200 Honor
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Cuffs of Alacrity – 43,400 Honor
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Cord of Alacrity – 68,200 Honor, 1300 Personal Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Pendant of Subjugation – 52,200 Honor
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Treads of Alacrity – 68,200 Honor, 1400 PR

Non-set Other Gear

• Medallion of the Alliance – 68,200 Honor
• Battlemaster’s Ruination – 34,100 Honor
• Battlemaster’s Vivacity – 34,100 Honor

The Personal Rating is the rating you have in your 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 teams. This is different than your Team Rating, especially if you have many different players in your Arena Teams.

Wintergrasp Mark of Honor

These mark of honor you get from… GASP- Wintergrasp! You receive 3 Marks for winning a WG battle, 1 for losing. You have to actually reach at least Rank 2 during the battle to receive full credit for winning the match however. If you don’t, you may only receive 2 or even 1 for a winning match.

Wintergrasp isn’t a Battleground that you can queue from your Honor Tab. You have to queue directly from a Battlemaster at any of your capitals, or actually fly into the zone in Northrend.

Also, there is a 2hr 30min timer in which the faction which wins the match, will have control over the zone. At then end of that timer, the battle will begin again. So there may be a chance that your faction won’t have control of Wintergrasp for many many hours.

Wintergrasp Gear

• Flow of Knowledge – 25 Marks
• Platinum Disks of Swiftness – 25 Marks
• Platinum Disks of Sorcery – 25 Marks
• Titan-Forged Band of Ascendancy – 15 Marks
• Titan-Forged Cloak of Ascendancy – 25 Marks
• Titan-Forged Cloth Leggings of Salvation – 40 Marks
• Titan-Forged Cord of Salvation – 15 Marks
• Titan-Forged Cuffs of Salvation – 15 Marks
• Titan-Forged Hood of Salvation – 40 Marks
• Titan-Forged Pendant of Ascendancy – 25 Marks
• Titan-Forged Raiment of Salvation – 40 Marks
• Titan-Forged Rune of Alacrity – 25 Marks
• Titan-Forged Rune of Audacity – 25 Marks
• Titan-Forged Slippers of Salvation – 25 Marks
• Titan-Forged Shoulderpads of Salvation – 40 Marks

Stone Keeper’s Shard

These shards you can obtain by killing any bosses in any Northrend Heroics Dungeons while your faction has control over Wintergrasp. You can also obtain them by completing the Weekly quests that are available in Wintergrasp.

Chances are you have a ton of these shards just sitting on your character begging to be used. Now that you are PvPing, you will have many uses for them now!

Stone Keeper’s Shard Items

• Wintergrasp Commendation – 30 Shards
• Arcanum of Dominance – 40 Shards
• Inscription of Dominance – 30 Shards

Relentless Tuna!

Emblem of Triumph

An optional way to purchase Furious Gladiator gear is by doing Heroic Dungeons. So yes, you can PvE to get PvP gear this way! You have to start somewhere right? If you mainly PvE and want a way to start getting PvP gear, this is the way to go.

This way is much better than jumping straight into Battlegrounds with just whatever gear you happen to have.

Furious Gladiator Set

• Furious Gladiator’s Silk Amice – 50 Emblems
• Furious Gladiator’s Silk Cowl – 75 Emblems
• Furious Gladiator’s Silk Handguards – 50 Emblems
• Furious Gladiator’s Silk Raiment – 75 Emblems
• Furious Gladiator’s Silk Trousers – 75 Emblems

Emblem of Frost

Just like the Emblem of Truimph, the Emblem of Frost can also be used to purchase PvP gear. The PvP gear that is available with this emblem is also a step up in tier as well. You will be able to purchase Relentless Gladiator Gear!

Relentless Gladiator Set

• Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Amice – 60 Emblems
• Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Cowl – 95 Emblems
• Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Handguards – 60 Emblems
• Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Raiment – 95 Emblems
• Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Trousers – 95 Emblems

Arena Points

Arena Points are… well points you get from participating in Arena Matches. You can get 25 Arena Points by winning a Random Battleground, but you only get in once per day. So that’s more reason for you to win at least once a day.

The points you get is determined by your Arena Rating for your Arena Teams. If you are part of multiple teams, the points you receive will be based off the team rating which will give you more points. You only receive Arena Points for being on a team at the beginning of the WoW week (after server resets), based on how well you did the week before.

“1337″ Ratings!

You can calculate how much Arena Points you will get based on your Team Ratings on WoW’s armory page HERE.

If RATING = 1500 -> POINTS = [.22 x RATING + 14]
If RATING > 1500 -> POINTS = [ 1511.26 / ( 1 + 1639.28 x 2.71828 ^ -0.00412 x RATING ) ]

Penalties:
2v2 teams earn 76% of the points of a 5v5 team with the same rating.
3v3 teams earn 88% of the points of a 5v5 team with the same rating.

If your team rating is under 1500, you will receive at minimum, the amount of points you would if you were 1500 Rating. So the best practices to farm Arena Points is to be in a 5v5 team, and play at least the minimum required.

All the big boy PvP gear are purchased with Arena Points, and almost all of them will require a Personal Rating of some sort in order to purchase them. The Personal Rating required will vary between each item.

Remember: You are only eligible to receive Arena Points for a team if you participated in at LEAST 10 matches AND 30% of the total team’s matches for the week.

Relentless Gladiator Set

• Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Amice – 10,550 Honor, 600 Arena
• Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Cowl – 13,200 Honor, 770 Arena
• Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Handguards – 8,000 Honor, 440 Arena
• Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Raiment – 13,200 Honor, 770 Arena
• Relentless Gladiator’s Silk Trousers – 13,200 Honor, 770 Arena

Wrathful Gladiator Set

• Wrathful Gladiator’s Silk Amice – 1,930 Arena, 2000 Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Silk Cowl – 2,370 Arena, 1950 Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Silk Handguards – 1,430 Arena, 1400 Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Silk Raiment – 2,370 Arena, 1600 Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Silk Trousers – 2,370 Arena, 1500 Rating

Wrathful Weapons

• Wrathful Gladiator’s Piercing Touch – 1,260 Arena, 1700 Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Wand of Alacrity – 1,260 Arena, 1700 Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s War Staff – 55,000 Honor, 1,540 Arena, 1800 Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Compendium – 350 Arena, 1800 Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Grimoire – 350 Arena, 1800 Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Blade of Alacrity – 38,500 Honor, 1,300 Arena, 1800 Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Blade of Celerity – 3,950 Arena, 2200 Rating
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Combat Staff – 4,670 Arena, 2200 Rating

Any extra or left over Arena Points (like on last day of the season) you can purchase [Commendation of Bravery] for 100 Arena Points each.

Next I will cover Gemming and Enchanting for PvP.

We’ve already cover some of the basics in Frost Mage PvP: 101, now let us get into more details about what else we need to know.

The stats you need for PvP is a little bit different from PvE. Of course you will still need Spell Power, Crit, Haste, and Hit; but now you will also need two other stats: Resilience and Spell Penetration.

Spell Power: Self explanatory. The more you have, the more damage you do. Get a lot of it.

Critical Strike Rating: An important stat for doing spike damage, but as a Frost Mage, you don’t NEED it. You will rely on your many talents for your critical strike rates.

Haste: Much more important than Critical Strike Rating for a Frost Mage. The more Haste you have, the faster you cast. The faster you cast, the more damage you do.

Hit Rating: In PvP, you won’t need as much as you did for PvE since you will be fighting opponents at your own level. For PvP purposes, you will only need 4% Hit Rating total. 105 Hit Rating without talents.

Spell Penetration: Is (for the most part) a PvP only stat which will negate your opponent’s Spell Resists. Each point of Spell Penetration will negate a point of Spell Resist.

There isn’t much gear with this stat, so most of your Spell Penetration will come from your enchants and gems.

The hardest part about Spell Penetration is figuring how you need, and against some opponents, Spell Penetration is not needed, and is a wasted stat. It is still a good idea to have some Spell Penetration just in case.

For occasional PvP, having around 75 Spell Penetration is a good start. For Arena, you will want around 150 Spell Penetration.

You want to have enough Spell Penetration to effectively take your opponent’s Spell Resistance down to zero. Let’s take a look at who has Spell Resistance, and how much.

Druids: Can give themselves and their teammates Spell Resistance with a buff.

• Mark of the Wild = 54 Spell Resistance
• Improved Mark of the Wild = 75 Spell Resistance

Paladins: Can give themselves and their teammates Frost Resistance with an aura.

• Frost Resistance Aura = 130 Frost Resistance
• Aura Mastery = 260 Frost Resistance Resistance (for 6 seconds)

Shamans: Can give themselves and their teammates Frost Resistance with a totem.

• Frost Resistance Totem = 130 Frost Resistance

Death Knights: Can proc a buff on themselves and their teammates.

• Acclimation = 50 Frost Resistance (stacks 3 times)

Mages: Has self-buffs and talents which will increase their Spell Resistances.

• Magic Absorption = 80 Spell Resistance
• Mage Armor = 40 Spell Resistance
• Arcane Shielding = 60 Spell Resistance (for Mage Armor)

Remember, group/raid buffs won’t stack with each other. However, self-buffs will stack with group/raid buffs.

At most, you will need 270 Spell Penetration, and that is only against Arcane Mages partnered up with a Paladin. The minimum you will need is 54 Spell Penetration, which is against anyone with a regular Mark of the Wild.

Again, shoot for around 75 Spell Penetration for occasional PvP, and around 150 Spell Penetration for Arenas.

Resilience: A PvP only stat which will increase your survivability significantly. The more you have, the less damage you take, the longer you live.

I am just going to copy and paste what I wrote earlier about Resilience. Resilience is and even more important PvP stat than before.

Patch 3.2 gave us a new change to how Resilience works, and an addition hotfix gave us more damage reduction from Resilience, making this stat even more essential to PvP. You won’t see players with a lot of PvE gear in Arenas as much anymore.

Reduces Chance to be Critically Hit

At level 80, every 94.27 Resilience rating will net you a 1% chance reduction. For example, I have 1125 Resilience, so that will give me a 11.933% chance reduction of being critically hit.

Total Resilience / 94.27 = % Critical Hit Chance Reduction

There is currently no cap to reducing your chances of getting critically hit- so essentially you can be “uncritable” if you stack enough Resilience.

Mana Drains and Critical Strike Damage Reduction

Not only does Resilience reduces the chance of you getting hit by a critical strike, if you do get it, it will reduce the damage of the critical strike! Mana drain reduction too! Resilience is a nice stat.

[Total Resilience / 94.27] x 2.2 = % Critical Strike Damage Reduction

So I take the 11.933% Critical Hit Chance Reduction I have from my 1125 Resilience, and multiply it by 2.2 to get the % of Mana Drains and Critical Strike Damage Reduction I will have: 26.246%.

Additional Damage Reduction From All Damage Sources

On top of all that, Resilience now gives you a straight up damage reduction- and by double the amount of your % Critical Hit Chance Reduction too!

[Total Resilience / 94.27] x 2.0 = % Damage Reduction

So again I take the 11.933% Critical Hit Chance Reduction I have, then multiply it by 2.0 to get how much Damage Reduction I will have: 23.867%.

Next, I think I will get into gear, and how/where to obtain them.

Continue to Next Section:

Frost Mage PvP: 103 – Gearing for PvP

Welcome to introductory class to Frost Mage PvP! This will cover the very basics of what you need to know about PvPing as a Frost Mage. I will making additional posts to cover the different aspects of PvP. You can’t learn it all in one post!

I’ve gotten a few emails about PvPing, so this is my way of answering a few of those questions at the same time. Feel free to ask more questions, or if you want to add to anything I have, please feel free to do so.

Your Role as a Mage

As a Frost Mage, you have a lot of utility, and can do things many classes can’t do, or won’t do well. Playing a Mage isn’t just about doing damage, although damage is one of our main roles. And we can also do more than just provide food and water!

Crowd Control: Also known as “CC”, Mages have the ability to render an opponent useless for a short durations. It can be to make the opponent lose control of their character, keep an opponent from moving, or even preventing an opponent from using their abilities. And we have many ways to do it too!

• Polymorph
• Frost Nova
• Shattered Barrier
• Frostbite
• Deep Freeze
• Counterspell
• Cone of Cold
• Improved Blizzard

Buffer: We also bring buffs which will help make ourselves and our teammates stronger. We help our teammates crit more often, take less magic damage, take more healing, or just have more mana.

• Arcane Intellect
• Focus Magic
• Dampen Magic
• Amplify Magic

Debuffer: We can also debuff our enemies to make them weaker. We can make the move and attack slower; take more critical strikes; or even receive less healing.

• Ice Armor
• Winter’s Chill
• Permafrost

Tank: Yes, sometimes in PvP we are called on to just stay alive and keep the opponents occupied. When there are many players beating on you, you have many options to use to escape, and stay alive longer.

• Ice Block
• Ice Barrier
• Blink
• Invisibility
• Mage Armor
• Ice Armor
• Frost Ward
• Fire Ward
• Mana Shield

Frost Mage PvP Spec

You will need to know how to spec your talent trees. 20/0/51 is usually how most Frost Mages are spec’d, but “how” they spec each tree can be a little different.

• “Cookie Cutter Spec”
• Tuna’s More Offensive Reeeeeeeeeeeemix!!11one! Spec
• “Battleground AoE Goodness”

The Arcane Tree is pretty much straight forward. I’ve seen some players who opted to sacrifice Mana efficiency from Arcane Concentration for more defense from Arcane Fortitude. It will depend on your play style, gear, and team composition. Every other talent is pretty much a “must get”.

The Frost Tree gets a bit more complicated since there are many good talents to get, and not enough talent points. I’ve seen many Mages with different little variations in their Frost Tree. Again it is mostly preference and situational depending on your team composition.

Improved Blizzard: Mainly used for Battlegrounds, Improved Blizzard can be the nastiest movement debuff a Mage can do to a target. With all the right talents, your Blizzard can slow your target(s) to a crawling 30% movement speed, with each tick of Blizzard having a 15% chance to freeze too!

Frost Warding: A nice defensive talent with the utility of also returning you Mana too. It makes your Ice Armor stronger, and gives your Frost and Fire Wards a 30% chance to negate damage, turning that damage into Mana.

Cold as Ice: Some players have 1, 2, or no points at all invested into this talent. If you are used to long drawn out battles, you will probably be taking this talent. If you are used to matches being decided within the first 5 minutes, you might not bother with this talent.

Shattered Barrier: This is a nice talent which gives you addition protection by freezing anything around you whenever your Ice Barrier gets eaten through. The problem is, it shares the same Diminishing Return as Frostbite.

Arctic Winds: Another talent where some players will put some, none, or all points into the talent. It gives you an offensive and defensive boost at the same time. Some players don’t think it is worth all 5 points however.

Enduring Winter: The “general consensus” is that one point into this talent is enough, and I agree with that.

Chilled to the Bone: Some players won’t have all five points invested into this talent, and will use those extra points to put them into Shattered Barrier or Cold as Ice.

Major and Minor Glyphs

You can think of Glyphs like they are enchants, but for your spells! At level 80, you can have up to three Major Glyphs, and three Minor Glyphs.

Minor Glyphs:

• Frost Ward
• Fire Ward
• Slow Fall

Out of all the minor glyphs available, these three are the only ones with a useful use for them. The two wards will have a small chance to reflect back spells, and you can use Slow Fall for buff protection without wasting reagents.

Major Glyphs:

• Evocation
• Ice Barrier

These two glyphs you must have. The last glyph is open depending on your own preference. Here are some I’ve seen used:

• Blink
• Deep Freeze
• Frost Nova
• Ice Armor
• Ice Block
• Icy Veins
• Mana Gem
• Mirror Image
• Polymorph
• Remove Curse
• Water Elemental

This was just a quick basic overview of Frost Mage PvP. If you have any questions or like to add something, fee free to do so. For the next section, I will be talking about Resilience and Spell Penetration.

Continue to Next Section:

Frost Mage PvP: 102 – Spell Penetration and Resilience