Frost Mages. . .Follow

(You can skip the story behind the question and scroll to the bottom if you like.)

My rogue alt is only for leveling with a friend so I needed something to do during the week. I decided to level a warrior. She's currently level 32 and sorta twinked out (makes leveling sooo much easier). Recently I got into an "altercation" with 3 frost mages in the shimmering flats. One was 20 or so levels higher than me, one my level, the other level 34. They decided to camp my body after mercilessly destroying me, which prompted me to bring on my main.

It took my druid 15 minutes to get all the way out there, so imagine my surprise when I find all three of them still sitting on my warrior's corpse. Yes, I'm on a PVP server so I know this sort of thing happens. It's just the first time I've ever been camped by random strangers without having done something to **** them off first. Anyway, long-*** story short; I eventually get cornered back on my alt by them again. The level 34 apparently tells his buddies to hold back so he can fight me one on one.

... I like to think I did pretty good. I got him to 34% at one point and the fight lasted long enough to pot and bandage twice (not kidding). Yeah I lost, but the fight got me thinking.

How does a warrior beat a frost mage? Can anyone give me any tips?

Frost mages fall into two categories with me:

The Very good: Cry as you smash your face against your keyboard trying to get close enough to even hit them as they shatter combo you for 7k health. Then, watch them burst through the rest of your health as they slowly kite you....forever....Intercept? Won't work, because the really good ones wait for you to use it before they blink, and they like to make sure that you're slowed with an ice lance every once in a while. NOT fun. (of course, many other things happen in this time, none of which you can avoid...well...other than death...there's no avoiding death)

Every other mage that thinks they're good (but really aren't): They miss time all of their CD's (nova, WE, shatter combo), they stay in range of intimidating shout, they don't stop their caster of anything when you go S/B and spell reflect, they nova you and then stand IN RANGE of melee swings (happens more than you would think actually), they use one spell and one spell only hoping that they can kill you with a ice lance spam when it only hits for 250 damage and before they go OOM....the list goes on. Those are just some of the things most of the mage's I've fought do. I actually personally love it when I come on a mage that doesn't know how to pvp even a little. Makes me wonder how they got to 70 on a pvp server....but I digress...

Back to the point. If they fall into the first category, there's nothing you can do. If they fall into the second, just wait until they make a mistake like blinking before you've burned intercept, or any of the other things I've mentioned in the 2nd category. They'll usually do one (if not more) and that's when you can capitalize and hit them HARD.

(Heh, wasn't overly helpful, but now that you know what to look for, you might do better)

When you consider blink is on a 15 second cooldown as well it's not really an issue with a skilled mage.

Any frost mage that has the slightest inclination of what they are doing will kill all but the most skilled warriors. They are our anti class.

This is of course for 1v1 battles. Give us a healer that can dispel as KT said then all bets are off.

Fixt

That may not be the answer for everything else, but it'll certainly solve your mage problems.

Edited, May 31st 2008 4:12am by Poldaran

All of you people giving random advice about "shatter combos", "spell reflect", "ice lance", "water elementals", "commanding shout" and "15 second intercept cooldown" and spouting anecdotes from your latest arena encounters ... did you any of you stop to notice that the OP is lvl 32 (thirty-two) and is fighting a lvl 34 (thirty-four) mage?

You may be lvl 70, but you sure as hell don't answer his question. Idiots...


So anyway, to the OP: Jimpadan is right. You can be proud of yourself for getting that frost mage to 34%. Frost mages at that level who have any grasp of their class whatsoever destroy warriors, regardless of the warrior's skill.

1) Get your hands on the standard pvp trinket to break his frost nova.
2) Hope you get the charge. If he attacks you first, you're probably dead.
3) Whenever he's in range, the first thing you should do is try to snare him. Use hamstring and/or piercing howl, if you have it, and use it as soon as possible.
4) If he blows his blink for any reason, intercept immediately. If he succesfully kites you without using blink, intercept him anyway. Make sure to interrupt one of his spells with intercept and try to land hamstring/piercing howl immediately.
5) If he's frost bolting you at long/maximum range, run away. Frostbolt has 2.5 second cast time, and you don't need to be much out of his range for it to fail. Keep running, until you leave combat, then aboutface->charge->hamstring/piercing howl.
6) Lastly, if he ice blocks, bandage immediately. Then run and try to leave combat, so you can get a charge.

Even so, I would never expect to win a 1 vs 1 against a frost mage at those levels, and vice versa when I'm playing my frost mage ;-)

Edited, May 31st 2008 2:10pm by PanicRaider

1) Pocket healer
2) Imp intercept
3) Mace spec
4) Pummel
5) Spell reflect
6) Big *** Slow Two Hander
7) Get lucky...