Ice Lance

Ice Lance
Ice Lance 40 yd  range 1.0% of base mana Instant cast Deals x Frost damage to an enemy target. Ice Lance damage is doubled against frozen targets. Replaces Fire Blast.
Usable by
Class	Mage
Properties
Type	Offensive
School	Frost
Casting time	Instant cast
Cooldown	(GCD 1.5 sec)
Talents
Specialization	Frost
Level required	22
TCG image

• Ice Lance
• 40 yd  range
• 1.0% of base mana
• Instant cast
• Deals x Frost damage to an enemy target.
  
  Ice Lance damage is doubled against frozen targets.
  
  Replaces Fire Blast.

“

It's hard to nail a moving target. An immobile one, though... now that's a different story. - Velindra Sepulchre TCG Drums of War

”

Ice Lance is a mage ability learned at level 22 for those with the frost specialization. It deals Frost direct damage. The spell can be powerful due to the fact that it deals double damage to targets that are frozen.

Modified by

• Glyph of Splitting Ice

Frost specialization talent

• Thermal Void

Frost specialization ability

• Shatter
• Fingers of Frost
• Mastery: Icicles

Tips

Ice Lance is a great source of burst DPS in solo, PvP, and some group situations. It is useful in any situation where an enemy can be frozen, which makes it less useful on most dungeon bosses. Since the damage bonus is applied after all other flat modifiers such as spell damage effects, the burst damage can get high.

Ice Lance is one of the offensive mage abilities that can be used while moving, and the fact that it has no cooldown other than the global cooldown means that it can be spammed repeatedly. Interestingly, it is possible to use Ice Lance to make a "fighting retreat" so to speak and use it on foes directly behind the mage's path of movement. The trick is to face perpendicular to the target that you wish to flee from and side-step out of the way. Thus, if you face left with the target to your left, move to your right, and if you face right with the target to your right, move to your left. The actual targeting arc for spells and abilities is 180 degrees in front of a character, so by "torso twisting" in this manner a mage can run away at full speed while still showering the foe with Ice Lance attacks.

On non-frozen targets, the spell is a useful instant that costs very little mana. Unlike wanding, Ice Lance can be cast while running. In PvP, use it to take down shaman totems or to interrupt flag captures in battlegrounds.

Shatter combo

Summon your minion. From a decent range(~20y), target your enemy and begin casting your [Frostbolt]. While Frostbolt is casting, use the minion's Freeze on your enemy, and immediately when Frostbolt is done casting start spamming Ice Lance. Because of the distance and travel time, Frostbolt and Ice Lance should hit at the same time and both crit, leading to burst damage.

Patch changes

• Patch 6.0.2 (14-October-2014): Ice Lance replaces Fire Blast and is now only available to Frost Mages.; Ice Lance’s base damage has been increased by 100%, but its damage multiplier against frozen targets has been reduced by 50%.
  
• Patch 5.4.0 (10-Sep-2013): Ice Lance damage has been increased by 43%.
  
• Patch 4.1.0 (26-Apr-2011): Fingers of Frost bonus damage applied to Ice Lance has been increased to 25%, up from 15%.
  
• Patch 3.3.0 (08-Dec-2009): The tooltip on this ability will now update properly from all talents which increase its damage by a percentage.
  
• Patch 3.2.0 (04-Aug-2009): The mana has been reduced by approximately 15%.
  
• Patch 3.0.3 (04-Nov-2008): Molten Fury: This talent no longer prevents Ice Lance ranks 2 and 3 from dealing triple damage against frozen targets.
  
• / Patch 3.0.2 (14-Oct-2008): Arcane Impact renamed to Spell Impact and now affects Blast Wave, Fire Blast, Cone of Cold, and Ice Lance.
  
• / Patch 3.0.2 (14-Oct-2008): Two ranks added for the 71-80 character level range.
  
• Patch 2.1.0 (22-May-2007): A data error was fixed that was causing Ice Lance to cause more threat than intended.
  
• Patch 2.0.3 (09-Jan-2007): "Ice Lance" is now correctly affected by "Elemental Precision".; Casting "Ice Lance" will no longer consume the mage’s talent "Presence of Mind" buff.
  
• / Patch 2.0.1 (05-Dec-2006): Introduced with one rank.
  

External links

• Wowhead
• Thottbot
• WoWDB